We had a couple of surprises last weekend!

Alex is the (surprise!) owner of 2 new teeth. That’s a full 2 months before Evelyn’s first tooth, and 4 months before Oliver. It was just so much not on our radar, that we couldn’t believe it. We kept saying, “Wait, was he teething?” (That boy never goes more than a few minutes without his hands in his mouth, so I don’t even know how we’d know.)

He has been *extremely* interested in food for quite some time now. It’s impossible to eat or drink anything with him around because he will dive straight out of your arms to get at it. We have been letting him suck on a piece of melon or lettuce here and there, but now that he has teeth we decided we better get some cereal. So far he’s not very keen on the cereal, but he sure loves the idea of eating. Boy howdy.

It’s amazing what a difference a week or two makes at that age, though. All of a sudden he’s sitting up in his highchair at the table, eating with us, switching from the bassinet to the regular stroller, having teeth…suddenly he’s like a real boy!

We have taken a couple of minor car trips lately, and I can say that Alex is not a big fan. Part of it is probably that he very, very rarely has to ride in the car, certain far less than any of the other kids (or anybody not living in Chicago). Mostly he howls the whole time he’s strapped in the car seat.

The good news is, nobody can cheer him up like Ollie and Evelyn (particularly Evelyn). This is double good news, because they CAN NOT STAND IT if he’s crying. If he shows even the faintest hint of being unhappy about something, they’re on it like white on rice. We keep trying to tell them it’s okay if he doesn’t get what he wants the exact second he wants it, but they’re not having it. And if he’s just too frustrated to stop crying, then Evelyn is so upset that she starts crying as well, unable to bear it that he is so unhappy.

Baby of the family indeed.

The most annoying part (to the grownups) is that they mostly cheer him up by quickly repeating certain phrases, almost like an incantation or something. Evelyn says, “honk honk rattle rattle toot crash beep beep” over and over and over again as fast as she can, or else just saying “A gooo! A goooo!” Ollie’s go to is “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” but he also invented a song that goes, “Alex, oh Alex, deep down in your grave.” (???) But I mean, any time Alex makes even a hint of a worried noise, they just spontaneously start spouting these noises so fast that they don’t even sound like words.

All of these things are maddeningly effective, which only encourages them to do it even more.

Better than the alternative I guess.