the middles

Ollie is my little puppy dog.

He frequently comes up behind me and starts scratching and pawing at my back, trying to get up to where I am. He constantly wants to be with me.

And I just love every minute of it. Which is why I do not get much done these days.

I always scoop him right up and he just melts in my arms. When I whisper "love you, love you", in his ear, he whispers it right back at me.

His little personality is really starting to develop.

I don't understand how someone can be such a tornado and a calm quiet soul at the same time. But he is.

On the one hand, he can play so quietly and nicely with his little cars, trucks and trains for hours(ok, maybe not hours, but extended periods of time).

And he is just sweet as pie to his mama.

He is so gentle with cats and dogs it is surprising.

And I often find him softly patting Twain's peach fuzz hair. Twain and Ollie somehow know they were meant for each other. After I feed Twain at night, Ollie crawls into bed with us...Twain leans his head back to gaze half drunk into Ollie's eyes. The 2 then quietly stare at each other and grab each other's hands. It's just amazing to see them so in love.

But on the other hand, Ollie can be such a storm cloud.

He gets easily frustrated when his trains fall apart.

And right now we are having a fit of devastation because his green helium balloon from last night went flat.

He keeps handing me the balloon saying "up", but the balloon is DONE. It is down on the ground, not up in the air. Such a cruel fate for the balloon. And Ollie just does not understand why I can't fix it.

And he also gets upset when he can't communicate what he wants. He has a 70-word vocabulary(roughly)and some 2 or 3 word sentences-- we all clap wildy for him when he uses sentences. And he is steadily improving his talking skills every day.

And his nonverbal skills are hilarious. He definitely knows what he wants. He will come up behind John or me and shove us toward the fridge. The he grabs a sippy cup and then shoves the cup in our hands...and stands at the fridge, half laughing, half crying.

I find that I have an enormous amount of patience when trying to teach Ollie. I know he is trying...he intently studies our mouths and tries to get the words out perfectly. And sometimes, he just does not have the confidence and so he just whispers the word. I think it is precious. He is making a lot of progress and I feel honored to be the mom for the job. Even when I have to repeat the same word 10 times before he is bold enough to try it himself.

Ollie and Finn get along really well. Calvin and Ollie are still easily threatened by each other. Ollie wants to do whatever his older brothers are doing.

In this case, he wants to stand on the step ladder. And grab Calvin's stick.

Which he succeeded in doing.

Which did not go over too well with Calvin.

Drama

Drama

And more drama.

All this over a stick.

There was one day though, when I caught them happily playing trains together in their room for an hour. It was everything I had ever hoped and dreamed for the two of them together.

I just know that one day, they will stop being so threatened by each other and will learn to love each other unconditionally. Regardless of who gets the stick.

Oh how I love these middle children of mine! I have much to learn from them.