Do we have to call DCFS now?

Yesterday, Jen and I got out of school a bit late and consequently we were a bit late to pick up the boys from Nonnie's house. Normally this isn't really a problem but yesterday I had a massive headache and wanted nothing more than to simply lie down on the couch, or any horizontal surface for that matter, and sleep for about 2 to 3 weeks. We got to the house and were basically assaulted by a wall of noise - Ethan was squeeling with delight that mom and dad had returned and Ryan was jumping out from behind the door in full superhero mode complete with his own theme music. He likes to hum the theme from The Incredibles as he sprints from one room to another.

After wading through this onslaught, I made it to the couch where I sat down and relaxed for a few minutes. Surprisingly, this helped the headache quite a bit and I was actually able to concentrate on what was going on in the room without wincing. What I noticed as I opened my eyes was that Ryan and Ethan had both attacked their uncle Justin. Ryan jumped onto his stomach while Ethan repeated head-butted him.

This is Ethan's new attack move. He learned it the other day when we were playing our newest game called, surprisingly, "The Incredibles," which involves listening to the Incredibles soundtrack while I pretend to be the Omnidroid and Ryan pretends to be Mr. Incredible. This game could just as easily be entitled "Jump on dad Until the Music is Over," but he likes to pretend and I'm happy to indulge him. Now that Ethan is big enough, he gets to play the part of Jack-Jack, the little baby from the movie. In the movie, Jack-Jack has all kinds of cool little powers but Ethan's version is somewhat less powerful. The game now involves Ryan jumping on me while pretending to be Mr. Incredible, and Ethan as Jack-Jack climbing onto my chest where he either laughs until he drools, or laughs until he farts.

The other day Ryan had me "pinned down" and I was pretending to struggle to escape. Ethan then ran up, seemingly out of nowhere, fell to his knees, and head-butted me right in the side of the head. Hard. He then sat back and laughed while I clutched the side of my head where his cranium had met mine. I figured that this was a one-off thing and was an accident, but then he did it again a few minutes later with very similar results. This was now not an accident but a carefully planned maneuver. And it was this carefully planned maneuver which he used against his Uncle yesterday.

Eventually Justin got up and called it quits, but Ryan wasn't ready to be done so he asked me to join in on the fun. Since I was feeling better I figured I'd jump in and we'd have some fun and Ryan could blow off a little of that excess energy which he always seems to have. I got on the floor and Ryan charged at me. I reached out to grab him and accidentally bopped him on the nose. Immediately his nose began to gush blood and he started to cry. I scooped him up and we ran to the kitchen where Nonnie provided us with some Kleenex to mop up his face. This whole thing - from me agreeing to get in on the fun to using Kleenex to wipe blood off his nose - took approximately 7 seconds.

I didn't mention that I had to teach my night class the day before and that I hadn't seen the boys since the previous morning. Given this fact, along with the fact that I was not feeling well when we got to Nonnie's house and that I subsequently moved immediately to the couch to rest unpon entry into said house, essentially my first real interaction with my son in almost 2 days involved me bonking him in the face and giving him a bloody nose.

It didn't seem to phase him too much. Once the bleeding stopped his first action was to start humming his theme music and he jump on me again. Very resilient, that kid.