Having the two oldest boys gone for so long has been agonizing, yet a gift. A gift since it's given me time to get to know Levi a little better. He is the middle child, and can be easily overlooked. Not everything I have discovered this week has been grand, we have some character training to work on for sure. However, I must say though that overall we have had a great time listening to him jabber on about all sorts of stuff. It's been a blessing.

One of the things I have noticed the most is that he is going through the most clumsy stage right now. It's miraculous that the boy survives each and every day. He is eleven now, and like his brothers, this is one of the most awkward stages of their lives. Right after this they shoot up like bamboo. So maybe it's been going on for months, but I haven't noticed it with all the other hooligans around, but as of late there has been a bright glaring light on this subject.

Here is how bad it's been. He is breaking EVERYTHING! He can walk by a glass on the countertop and it will topple over and explode on the ground. I feel like I should have a recording that says, "Clean up on aisle 9 please."  He was unloading the dishwasher the other day, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and as he grabbed the plates the clanging that was coming from that direction made me whence, and I almost fell to my knees begging him to pllllleeeeeeease be careful.

He was emptying the kitchen trash and a picture from my wall came crashing to the ground and the glass shattered into a million pieces. I thought he was going to pass out from disbelief, and I was doing all I could to not look like I may join him on the floor.

We stopped by a pop machine on our way home from the pool today. He jumped out of the rig to extract them from the vending machine. Simple enough task right? Well on his way back to the vehicle he drops one, big shocker, and it now has a hole in it with pop squirting out the side. I just had to laugh. Of course, I take it from him, wrap a beach towel around it, and hand it back to the boy who will be doing the chug-a-lugging. Good grief, right?

Here is the icing on the cake though. I was filling up the wading pool out on the deck yesterday. All the boys were outside waiting for me, and the heat was excruciating. Levi was in the pool, Abram was standing by the edge, and Roman was in his Bumbo seat watching all the activity. The boys were whining about how long it was taking to fill it up, when this vicious, yet exciting thought came to me to just squirt them. Good, clean, innocent fun, or was it? So I took the hose and began briefly spraying the boys with it. Abram screamed like I had just poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire, which in turn made Roman cry like I had taken a piece of candy from him, and all of a sudden Levi (who had been taking it like a man) decided to jump up and run out of the pool. While his delayed reaction startled me, I was even more dumbfounded when he misjudged the edge of the plastic pool and landed face first on the deck, which in turn made him cry. So now I had three boys all bawling like I had just told them some horrible news, like their Dad just died or something.

I tried not to giggle as I lifted Levi up, picked Roman up from his Bumbo, and walked all three boys back into the house. Now that was a June Cleaver moment wasn't it? I felt like my "Mom Of The Year" Plaque had just been put on hold indefinitely. Oh my.....it still gives me the giggles!

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