It's Okay To Say `Thunder'

When we moved back to Gloucester last June and were welcomed home by rounds of thunderstorms, Ezra was a very troubled lad. You could not open the door during a thunderstorm, for fear of letting the thunder in the house. He even forbid me from saying the word, "Thunder." As if not saying it meant it didn't exist. We're happy to report Ezra seems to be on the rebound. Or maybe he's maturing. The other day we had our first official thunderstorm. You could hear the rumblings in the sky very clearly. Several times we paused when we heard a roll of thunder. One time I went over to open the door to make sure I was hearing correctly. Ezra was standing right there. Someone mentioned that we shouldn't open the door or else the thunder would come in. I asked Ezra if it was okay to open the door. He just shrugged, as if to say, "Why you askin' me? Thunder doesn't bother me."

He's at a funny stage. He has no problem taking a bath with his brothers and even Olivia and being buck naked, but ask him to change into his pajamas at night or change his clothes and he demands you leave his bedroom so he can have some privacy. In no way, shape or form is it he down with people seeing him in his underwear. He even gets really upset if his brothers walk in on him. I don't quite know how to explain that. On the other hand, he loves to snuggle with Evie and Claire and the other night I understand he got scared and walked into the girls' room in the middle of the night, sat down on the floor and started whimpering. He ended up in Evie's bed. Kids are funny and say and do the darndest things. This morning Olivia was scooting up the stairs and Madeline walked by and gave her a drive-by peck on the cheek. Olivia didn't care for that. "Madwin," she growled, "you say sowwy to me!" Madeline heard that and couldn't help but laugh. Later in the morning Eli asked someone to make him chocolate milk. "And make it really, really good," he said. As if someone makes him really, really bad chocolate milk. Is there even such a thing as really, really bad chocolate milk?