Because he makes me laugh.

So lately Cole has been more humorous than usual, and I wonder if he's just going to be that kid that I always wanted to be: witty and naturally funny. Jeff told me the other day that as he was taking Cole to school, he was having problems buckling his seat belt. Cole and I always have rounds with this issue, because sometimes instead of actually clasping his seat belt together, he'll just clank the pieces to make the sound, and leave it at that. It's apparently too much work to actually complete the entire task. Anyway, Jeff asked him if he had it put on the right way, as that's information he won't volunteer, and Cole said "no." Jeff told him to put it on, and Cole gave a couple of tries, whined, and said, "I can't". Jeff then told him to hurry up and put it on or he'll be late for school--which he hates. So Cole gave it a serious try and then got frustrated and yelled, "WHY DOES MY SEAT BELT HATE ME?" After that, Jeff just helped him. I guess some things are more vexing than you'd think.
Last week he lost a tooth and I was surprised at the difference between Riley and Cole as far as the pain tolerance of getting the actual tooth out goes. (Moriah, I'm with you on the girls totally trumping guys when it comes to facing pain/sickness/stress--you name it). He'd known that it was ready to be out for a while now, but he wouldn't let Jeff or me wiggle it. Riley was always overly eager to endure a little pain for a visit from the Tooth Fairy and the dollar that she brings. However, Cole wasn't sure that a dollar was worth the impending pain that Riley had filled him in on. So he just went through each day ignoring that tooth, and telling me that it wasn't ready to come out yet. Finally Riley convinced him that it wasn't that bad...and that he could do it, and blah, blah, blah. As usual, Cole decided that Riley was the one with the utmost experience, and that despite that I'd been saying the same thing for the last two weeks, that if he'd just let Jeff or I push on it a couple of times, he'd be a dollar richer. (For those of you that know Cole, he will usually do painfully embarrassing things for a single quarter--another thing he gets from me--and so the fact that he couldn't bring himself to do this for a dollar, well, I knew he was pretty scared). Anyway, I'm from the "old school" of removing teeth. When I was a kid, I seriously did do it all...My dad used the pliers, the doorknob, and the crunch inducing push methods to rid me of those little pearly baby chompers. However, because my teeth were so jacked anyway, and I had had more than my share of tooth removal using the "happy gas" at the dentist, I was pretty okay with it. I've always been more afraid of unhealthy teeth, than the pain you go through in order to keep them healthy. So Riley took the reigns on this one, as when it comes to her siblings, she usually does. It has to say something about having her as a big sister, I think. Cole trusts her implicitly. And with that trust, he listened to her advice, let Jeff push on his tooth a couple of times, and out it came. He was thrilled. When he found his dollar the next morning, he didn't even say anything about it. I waited a half hour and then asked him if the Tooth Fairy had come. He said, "Yeah, I got a dollar. That's what I get, right?" Like it was just commonplace, and he needed to make sure he wasn't ripped of some of his hard earned cash. Then he told me that he put his dollar in my purse, and not to spend it, because he was going to use it with his allowance money to get more Legos. I just needed to make sure it didn't get lost. As you can see, I have a lot of purpose in this house.
My final story about Cole occurred a few days ago. I was in the bathroom, trying to get my business done, and because I was wanting private time, Cole chose to converse with me via the gap between the closed door and the carpet. Finally I told him that I needed some time to myself and if he'd go downstairs, I would talk to him when I was finished. I heard him go and bounce on my bed and talk to Syd in her crib for a while and then all was quiet for a blissful maybe five minutes. Suddenly, there he was again, at the bottom of the door asking me if I was going to come out soon. I rolled my eyes and said, "in a minute" and gave a little thought to the fact that I didn't even hear him come up the stairs--an anomaly, for sure. He's a loud kid. But I heard him go down them and figured he was watching his movie to pass the time. Before I went into the bathroom, as I often do, I looked at my shelf of toys..because I can. I console myself with thinking that it's my version of the useless crap-knick-knacks that you see in other people's homes and it makes me happy. This is what I saw before entering the bathroom:
If you'll notice in the right hand corner, and for those of you that don't read Kelli's blog, she knitted a little "corporate zombie" that Jeff was the proud recipient of. It's by no means alarming, just a little weird and cute. Anyway, if you can remember how Cole feels about ANY kind of zombie, I shouldn't have been surprised when I finished up in the bathroom, came out, picked up Syd, and noticed this:I had to do a little rearranging because he had hidden the offensive (to him), zombie so far behind Doc Ock that the top of his head juuust barely showed. Putting two and two together, while I was in the bathroom thinking that finally I had some privacy and Cole was downstairs letting his sister sleep, he was actually trying to hide Jeff's little zombie...because as you can tell, it's terrifying. :) Cole didn't say anything about it afterwards. And each day I look to see if he's been changed around. It's happened once since, but I guess he's trying to keep it as low key as possible. Maybe the little zombie is just scary when mom and dad aren't in the room? Perhaps he's protecting Sydney? I don't know for sure. Either way, this kid makes me laugh.
I'm hoping that all you guys have a good week. I can't believe how quickly this year is going already. I'll leave you with pictures of my beautiful girls, because this is my blog and I can. And because we've been housebound so often lately, you may have forgotten what they look like.