A few notes

I'm posting with a babe snoozing in my sling and three brudders playing beautifully together by my side (knock on wood!).  Loudly, with lots of screeching and bombing noises, but playing together nicely nonetheless.

I divert to a list-post:

• Eliah is the sweetest thing ever.
• He loves his big brudders.  He watches them and is extremely entertained by their activity, whether they are specifically paying attention to him or not.
• Diego has become extremely re-interested in Eliah in the past couple of weeks, probably due to his increased interaction and interest in his surroundings.  He loves to hold him and play with him and would cart him all over the house if I allowed it.
• I was definitely calling Jamie "Schtinky" by 4 months due to my inability to keep the funk out of his neck rolls.  I couldn't keep up with it.  But Baby Eliah?  No problem at all.  Every time I check his little neck rolls, they are as dry and sweet-smelling as ever.  I wonder what the difference is?
• Diego's current obsessions include Legos, ancient Egyptian history, and the 1991 cartoon series of Tintin.
• Truen's new favorite "snee-ack" is eggnog.  He makes it himself with my loose supervision and assistance, eyeballing the ingredients.  The other brothers are big fans too.
• Blaine has been on a reading binge the last few years.  Recent titles include The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, and The Undiscovered Self: With Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams.  He's reading 'em cover-to-cover.
• I get book reports every night, which is extra super-duper wonderful given the fact that I have very little time to read at this point in life.  It is so nice to have some fresh ideas to ponder.
• I've been very moved by poetry of late.  The snippets of time I do get to read are very far and few between and poetry is the perfect remedy for a starved soul.  It packs a literary punch, with big ideas and emotion in such a small and beautifully composed package.  I am savoring it.
• Annnnnnnnnnd . . . . Jamie got a haircut.  Surprise!

Truby made a magnet monster

and Jamie got a haircut.

I know he's an aside in this picture, but it will just have to do.  I haven't any time to take anything off my camera, if I even had something adequate.

 At 3 months shy of 3 years old, this is the latest "first haircut" we've ever given.  Even so, I was very sad as I lopped off that pony-tail, much more mournful than either of the other first haircuts, and realized it was because of the blonde.  It still shines light in the sun, but it is nothing like that that blonde shaggy mane.

I cut it a couple of weeks ago now and I must say, he was downright tame compared to Truen even last year.  He did very well.  My tactics?  Plop them down in front of the television and offer sweet treats for sitting still.  I've also learned to do an overview of the clippers to familiarize them with their benign-but-scary loud buzz.