It's amazing how much a little boy, who barely speaks, can convey using only his eyes and facial expressions. For the last couple of weeks, he has gotten even more animated when trying to get us to play with him. No, he doesn't flap his arms like an injured bird trying to take flight. His excitement is expressed more with his eyes lighting up, excitedly yelling at what he must believe to be coherent speech to tell us to get up and moving, and then when all else fails, he gets a running start and tackles us and falls over laughing at our pain. Except for his five days of fever and chills, he has been a very happy and funny kid, which made for a peaceful (albeit a little bruised) existence for all of us.
So, you'd think we'd have enough sense to do whatever we can to avoid situations that aggravate him, but it's not so easy. There are days where he wakes up, mad at the world and ready to duke it out with whomever or whatever crosses his path. And it's exponentially worse if he's been sick and thus, sleep-deprived. Sometimes, it's poor Ally who is on the receiving end of his wrath. Fortunately, she is an exceptionally kind and patient sister, and is able to defuse the Ethan-bomb rather quickly. When that happens, Sam and I stand in the corner, chewing our fingers (we have one functional knuckle remaining on each finger) and hope and pray she can work her magic. Most of the time, she is successful and we are able to resume breathing right before one of us collapses from lack of oxygen. Unfortunately, some days, she refuses to cater to his psychotic rages and simply avoids him. On those days, we live in abject fear.
One of those days, we decided we were no longer going to be held hostage by a non-speaking, still poops in his pants two year-old, no matter how cute he is. We were going to stand our ground and let this boy know, once and for all, that WE are the bosses. And furthermore, we are NOT afraid of HIM. Yeah, that's right. We drugged him up (he had a fever), took him out, and strapped him into his car seat, tightening the belt just a little more than usual to make sure he would not fly out of it and shred us to pieces.
Not even out of our subdivision, I apprehensively peeked in the backseat to make sure both kids were still okay (more concerned for Ally than Ethan, to be honest). The look I got from Ethan expressed so much disgust with us, my immediate reaction was "Sam, you'd better sleep with one eye open tonight. He is going to crawl out of his crib, grab his noise-making car, and run your face over and over until you are no longer recognizable. He is furious." I could tell he was desperately searching for a half-eaten bag of cheezits to crush and flail all over the car to watch his mother twitch uncontrollably and progress to a full grand mal seizure. Then he was going to rip off one of his shoes and beat his father into oblivion in the back of the head. He'd spare his sister, because she'd at least have the sense to hide in the third row of seats. Yes. I got all that from the expression on his face.
Needless to say, we turned around and fetched all the basketballs, baseballs, footballs and bouncy balls we could find to appease The Little Man. And completely chewed off one finger from each hand.
