Stepping Up

Where things with Charlie are starting to calm down a bit, Gregory is picking up the slack, attempting to find his place in the family hierarchy. We're not sure if his role will be one of more comic relief, or following in his brother's footsteps of devil's spawn.

Charlie was sitting on the couch watching TV and all Gregory wanted was his big brother's attention. Most days a goofy face and his sumo wrestler dance works, Charlie looks at him, smiles, and says, "Silly Gregory, are you riding on the crazy train again?"

But his usual tactics weren't working. Gregory tried piling all of his trucks onto the couch leaving Charlie barely an inch of room to move. Then he took the trucks, one at a time, and hit Charlie with each to gauge it's effectiveness as a weapon. Charlie was really good and just kept saying, "Ow, Gregory, stop it." Then would go back into his Caillou induced trance.

Being further ignored by his brother only forced Gregory to step up his game. We have only one doll in our entire house. We bought it for Charlie when we found out I was pregnant. It's a nameless, genderless baby that is basically ignored unless we have a little girl visiting, then my boys fight over it like it poops M&M's and is the last damn toy on earth.

Gregory took the baby in his mouth similar to a mother cat with her kitten, then shook it back and forth like it was his prey. Brian and I were in hysterics, but no reaction from Charlie. Gregory grabbed the doll by it's foot and started whacking it onto the keys of his toy piano, the noise was so loud you could no longer hear the TV. Still, not even a side glance from Charlie. Next unisex baby had it's head slammed into the window, after each hit, Gregory would throw the doll over his shoulder, caveman style, and walk over to the couch to see if Charlie was looking yet. No reaction equaled more banging. If it had not been a toy, there would have been baby brains splattered everywhere.

Things were getting out of control as Gregory looked like he was enjoying himself a little too much. I finally had to rescue the poor doll from the hands of it's torturer. Gregory sat there, panting from the all of the energy he exerted, smiling, like Jack Nicholson in the Shining - 'Heeeeere's Johnny.'

We're not sure if his actions were simply to get his brother's attention or if he was trying to send us a message - Have a 3rd kid and I'll make Jekyll and Hyde on the couch over there look like the Dalai Lama. He certainly got our attention.