The youngest...

No good mother will ever admit that she loves one child more than another, and since I like to think I am a good mother, I don't love one of my children more than another. I love whichever child with whom I can get some alone time. I love one child for theological reasons, another for the humor, and then there is Boo. Boo has been known as many things - the mistake, the extra gift, the love baby, the Valium baby, the child that has created pregnancies in others. He is all of those. He is also the child about whom I am the most emotionally fragile. He is the child who has been to the hospital twice and actually been scary sick. He is the child who I can not ever see any bad in anything he does and can love his way out of anything with me. After he was born, I literally felt like the final piece of my heart was in place. His sole flaw is he does not want to wipe his butt, and it is not like you can let him "cry it out" on the toilet because he will sit there for 45 minutes waiting for you, and I have decided that I would rather wipe his butt than deal with a child with hemorrhoids. He also does not like anyone to see him naked. A friend recently recounted a story where she walked in on him and her daughter, and the daughter was naked, and Boo announced, "I don't like to be naked around other people." Even on German beaches where there is not a covered butt on a child for 100 yards, he would be fully dressed and completely happy. I am banking on that because with his ferocious skills at manipulating women, we would have a difficult life after puberty set in.

Last night, he announced, "I am tired" and went to bed by himself at 8:15. This is sort of the equivalent of Newt Gingrinch showing up somewhere in a tiara and high heels. It doesn't happen. So, he sleeps until 6:18 a.m. when he wakes up just like he does ever day of his life. To the minute. He lies in bed beside me (Husband is out of town) and tells me he is thirsty, hungry, sick, unhappy, etc., until finally I concede defeat and we get up at 7:30. I carry him downstairs and lay him on the couch and he immediately falls right back asleep and sleeps for three more hours. He has never once in his entire life from infancy on gone back to sleep immediately after waking up. He surfaces for around 2 hours and consumes a slice of bread and tells me he wants to go back to sleep. I have by this point called the doctor and asked "Is it possible for a child to sleep too much?" The short answer is no, but in my mind he has already had cancer, diabetes, and a brain tumor today. I think it is the flu, though, and I am not digging the thought of that one, except he doesn't have fever, and I didn't get the shot for him because I have never actually known a child to get the flu.

That is all. I am going to go and watch him sleep.