The littlest Doyle speaks!

Finally, the littlest Doyle does something worth writing about. After a little over a year of basically just eating, pooping, and sleeping, he is now starting to walk and talk a bit. He has been crawling for quite a while and, believe me, while this starts out being kinda cool it quickly loses its luster when he gets it into his little laser-focused brain that he wants to knock over all the DVD’s, eat his brother’s crayons, or play in the toilet. No amount of picking him up and moving him to another part of the room deters him from his mission. Typically, as soon as you put him down he laughs and turns immediately to head back to continue where he left off. I half expect him to flip me the bird as he crawls away.

Recently he started heading right for the stairs whenever he was given the opportunity. He loved the thrill of the chase, apparently, because he would begin by playing quietly until we became distracted by something else. As soon as our back were turned, he would bolt for the stairs, laughing his little head off and crawling as far up them as he could in the time it would take Jen or I to catch him. Having a four year old in the house makes for fairly distracted parents, so he got plenty of practice. It got to the point where he could make almost to the top of the stairs before we could catch him. The little sucker is quick.

Now he is talking a bit and says things like “Dada”, “Mama”, “Non-non”, and “peaches”. These are all great, and it is wonderful to hear “DADA!” when I come home, but my favorite word of his is “Ake!”

He was sitting in his seat after dinner and Jen and Ryan were having a little cake for dessert. Jen, being a good mom, didn’t want her littlest son to miss out on the experience of chocolate cake, so she gave him a little forkful of the stuff. He seemed to dig it, because after finishing his little bite, he began pounding on the table with his little fists, shouting “Ake! Ake!” and pointing at the rest of the piece on Ryan’s plate.

Thankfully he was satisfied with a few more bites from Jen's piece because, as you are all probably aware, 4 year olds do not share cake well.

I was right!

I was chatting with my brother the other day when the topic of conversation switched, as it inevitably does, to sports. We were both bemoaning the terrible status of our schools respective football teams, both of which are having a difficult time this season. My school is having such a tough time that we joked about the idea that the soccer team has scored more goals this season than the football team has points. I even went so far as to say that I thought that this was actually the case, but I’d have to look into it.

I did, and unfortunately I was right. The football team has scored a total of 24 points this season after 5 games, while the soccer team has scored 27 goals in 15 games.

I was right, and I rule.