Deep Thinker: “I want a brother, not a sister. Then we can have a boy’s club. With a sister, we definitely cannot have THAT.”

Rowdy Rebel: “I want a girl or a boy. I will hold her.” (He calls every child “her,” girl or boy.

Then I asked the boys if they would feel jealous of losing Mom and Dad’s attention.

Rowdy Rebel: “Yes, I will feel bad if I don’t get attention. I will feel NERVOUS if she SCREAMS while I’m TALKING.” (As he said this, his eyes were open very widely, and he was nodding.)

Deep Thinker: “It’s okay. You can take care of Rowdy Rebel and give him attention. I’ll take care of the baby.”

I LOVE it. What you ask is what you get–no filters, no “making it pretty” for the person their talking to. And so cute to look at too. I feel really lucky.

So I sat with him and hugged him for a long time, as I tried to explain that he can’t bother his older brother like that. But that his brother also should be patient, and so on, and so forth.

My little guy seemed to be feeling better after several minutes, so I asked him if he felt better.

His response: “No. My skin and my feelings still hurting.”

First, I asked him if he’d like to have a baby brother or sister. He said he’d like to have a baby brother. He added, “I don’t want to be the baby. I want to be big boy. I want other brother be baby.”

Then he explained how babies cry: “They say ‘aaaa haaaa.’ Sometimes they say ‘AAAA!’” That was very helpful:)

So, I said, “That’s true. Babies cry a lot. You know Mommy would need to do a lot of things for a baby brother. Would you help Mommy with your baby brother or sister? Would you help Mommy get a new diaper for the baby, or get his bottle in the refrigerator and bring it to me?”

His response: “Yes! I will get the baby’s diaper Mommy! His diaper will be TINY. And he can’t close it, so I will close it. And I will get his milk bottle in the ‘frigiator,’ and I will feed it to him.”

And my favorite: I asked, “Would you help me give the baby a toy if he cries?”

His answer: “Yes. I will get the baby’s toy. First, I will play with it. Then I will share it with baby to play with.” To make sure I understood, he repeated this answer three times.

We were talking about a show with dragons and heroes. Rowdy Rebel said that he is a dragon and then acted like one, blowing out pretend fire and stuff like that.

My husband asked, “Is Daddy a dragon?” Rowdy Rebel said yes.

Then we asked, “Is Mommy a dragon?” He repeated yes.

Next we asked, “Is your big brother a dragon?”

Rowdy Rebel shook his head and said, “No. He is a mouse.” Poor big brother.

I am always nervous while I fumble with the door as I lock it, because I am afraid Rowdy Rebel will fall down the stairs. (Deep Thinker or I hold his hand most of the time, but we had all of our walking gear today–water, diaper bag, toys, etc, and no free hands.) So, after I locked the door, I looked over and Rowdy Rebel had gotten down the stairs without an issue BUT had picked up a huge nasty snail.

He was eying it intensely, eyebrows wrinkled and all. I screamed, took it out of his hand, and threw it on the ground. What did Rowdy Rebel do? He immediately stomped on it.

Gosh, just when you think things can’t get any grosser! Just like that, didn’t think about it twice, just squished poor little snail.