Poor Daniel. He gets tired and hungry the fastest. He also gets bored the fastest. Daniel has such an interesting personality, and this is one of his biggest characteristics: when he's bored, he makes noise. Lots of it. It's overwhelming how loud he can be, singing songs he's making up on the spot and making animal noises at the top of his lungs while he dances in circles.
That just reminded me of a story of him. We're going to take a detour from the story I was GOING to share, to this one. It's better.
We were doing a home improvement project: installing lighting in our front room (honestly, who builds a home without ANY lighting in the main room?). I've been trying to learn how to home projects myself, so we went to the local hardware store to buy wall-mounted lighting that I could install. I had no idea what I was doing, so I needed to talk with a store clerk so he could explain how to do this project. We were there for over an hour trying to special order the fixtures I liked. Daniel was a ball of pure energy. Here is a snippet of the his conversation (imagine the speech occurring so fast that he doesn't seem to pause for breath, then you'll have a good replica of his voice in your head):
"Mom, look at those boxes! There's a lot of them. If I push the shopping cart into them, they move! Look at them go! Tim-ber! Look, they all fell. Wasn't that so fun? Mom, look at those lights, they're pretty. Can we buy those lights for our house? I want this one in my room, and Sarah can have this one, and HEY, you're not looking. Look over here. Look at this light right here, the one I'm pointing to. Can we buy this one? Please,please,please? Why not? Can I push these buttons? What will they do? Mom, look at these buttons. What do they do? Stop talking to that man and look at this! I'm going to push it. Wow! Look at all the lights turning on and off, this is so cool! What happens if I flicker it faster? Hey! How come I can't touch the button any more? I don't want to sit in the shopping cart. Don't put me in the cart! Can I play with your purse?" (and on and on....he didn't stop talking for over 30 minutes. Literally.) The clerk was trying really hard not to laugh.
I was frustrated and really needed to focus on the information the clerk was telling me, so in desperation I gave Daniel a piece of gum. (As a family rule, gum isn't allowed in our house until the children are 8 years old....so this is a big deal) I told Daniel he could only have gum if he could chew it quietly and keep his mouth shut. This is the monologue he had while I was pushing him through the store, trying to follow the clerk to a new section of hardware:
"Thanks for the gum Mom, but I don't have to keep my mouth shut. Look! I can chew my gum and talk at the same time! Just like you! You chew gum and talk at the same time, and I'm big like you! I'm growing so fast that I'm not like a baby any more at all. I'm so good at it that the gum won't fall out of my mouth like you thought. I'm really good at chewing my gum and talking just like a grown up! I could do this all day! Thanks so much for the gum! *gasp* Mom, STOP! Where's my gum?! My special gum is GONE! It fell out somewhere, and it's not in my mouth and I can't see it anywhere on my lap. *Bigger gasp* It must be on THE FLOOR! Oh no! Now my gum is dirty! Mom, we have to go back and look for my gum! Someone will step on it and get it all messed up! Let's go find my gum!"
As we passed all the other customers, I noticed them all stepping lightly and looking at the floor, trying to avoid smearing gum on their shoes. They were chuckling while Daniel panicked over his precious gum.
What an entertaining boy he can be.
I'm so happy to have him brightening my life. On days like this I am particularly happy to enjoy him when he's sleeping and cuddling with me. He adds so much intense flavor to our family. Even though I often feel overwhelmed by him, I can't imagine life without him. Our house would be so boring if he was gone.
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