The youngest child is always the funniest one. It’s a rule. While I was gone for Liturgical Composers Forum, the two women who had morning duty both sent me messages to tell me things about my youngest child.

Exhibit A: 

Uh-huh. Star Wars. Avengers. Hark the Herald Angels. Oddwalk’s Gorilla song. Frosty. Rudolph. Songs of his own making. And every one of them sung

AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS.

(Why yes, in fact, I am shouting. Actually, that’s not true, because currently I have no voice at all and my head feels woozy like I have a fever. I’m shouting internally.)

Exhibit B:

(An email received mid-week):

I know you keep track of funny things the kids say so I thought I’d share one I got from Michael this morning. 🙂  He was a little impatient about how long it took us to get back to my house (10 minutes) and asked a few times how many miles we had left.  A mile out from the house we came up behind a school bus that was driving pretty slowly.  He asked again how much farther.  I told him we were less than a mile from the house but we were going to have to go as slow as the school bus in front of us.  He suggested passing it but I pointed out that it wasn’t really a safe place to pass and we were only a mile out so we would just be patient.  He told me that sometimes school buses were driven by girls and he was pretty sure this one was being driven by a girl.  Presumably because they were going slowly. 🙂

Oh, Michael, Michael. Where, oh where did I go wrong?

Michael’s life philosophy seems to be threefold:

1. Why walk when you can run?
2. Why run when you can jump?
3. Why hug when you can tackle?

Hence, I generally open my arms and not only brace, but wince in advance. I’m telling you, this child is going to grow up to be a stunt man in Hollywood.

To round out this week’s portrait of a preschooler who reeeeeeeaaaaallly needs to be in kindergarten, I give you: Michael’s brand new collection of superhero characters:

First there is Mr. Strong-y Smash Man (hard G. Very important.):

This is the best picture I can give you, because by the time he finished drawing all of Mr. Strong-y Smash Man’s elevators (he seems to be mostly comprised of elevators, as best I could tell), you could no longer see anything but scribbles.

Then there was Mr. Magic, who he never drew.

Mr. Magic’s friends, however, I can share with you. The explanatory writing is faithfully transcribed from Michael’s own words:

There are times when I simply can’t help grabbing up this child and trying to chew him to pieces.