Can You Handle Me?

The other day, Jen and I were trying to get ready to leave the house and we were dividing up the child rounding duties. Ryan needed socks, a shirt, a bag of Apple Jacks, and his left shoe which apparently had migrated from the closet where his right shoe was located all the way downstairs under the couch. Ethan needed socks, his penguin (an ever present little buddy), a container of juice, and more pressingly, a diaper change. Jen peeked around the corner and said, "I've got Ryan, can you handle Ethan?"

Without missing a beat, Ethan, who had until that very moment been hiding undiscovered under his blankets ripped off the blankets and said, "Yeah, Dad. Can you handle me?" He then jumped out of bed and attempted to run away. I could, as it turned out, "handle him," as he found out when I grabbed him and tossed him onto the bed to begin the diaper changing process.

I think he got this phrase, or at least this version of it, from his uncle David. While playing with the boys on his visits to the area, David drops phrases like this that are always amusing and almost always come back again out of 6 and 3 year old mouths due to their fondness for their uncle. While playing baseball, soccer, Wii sports, or any competitive game, phrases like "You can't stop me, you can only try and contain me!", or "I smoked that fool!", or "Can you handle this?" pop out of David's mouth from time to time and, like little parrots the boys spit them back out.

While playing soccer with Ethan and I the other day, Ryan took a shot that went into the goal. Seeing what he had just done he said, "You can't stop this cuz I smoked that fool!" A second later, Ethan piped up, "Yeah! Smoked that fool!" A short while later after running past me he said, "You simply can't handle me! Can you handle me? I don't think so!" Apparently Ethan saw his window of opportunity to repeat this phrase when Jen asked her question.

These guys have gotten to be parrots of other things as well. Quotes from movies pop out of Ryan's mouth with seeming ease, and Ethan has taken to mangling quotes from his favorite TV show, "Back to the Barnyard". While playing football yesterday I watched Ethan score what he claimed was a touchdown but was really him throwing the ball onto the couch and falling onto the floor in celebration. He looked at Ryan and yelled, "Cows win! Moooo! Taste the milk!"

It was at this point that I think the boys developed into real brothers since Ryan took this insult hard and began wrestling with Ethan. "Cows don't win," he yelled as he shoved Ethan to the floor and crawled on top of him. "I'm the Cows, you are the Spider-Monkeys, and I WON'T TASTE THE MILK!" Ethan giggled the whole time and eventually the two ended up laughing. The whole thing ended after a few seconds and they got up and did it again, only this time Ryan was the winner and Ethan started the wrestling match. It was all going just fine until the fourth or fifth round when the action abruptly stopped and Ryan rolled over into the fetal position.

"Ow," was all he'd say.

Like a trained detective, I jumped on the case. I looked at Ryan first. "What happened?"

"Ow."

"Did you get hit?"

"Ow." Pause. "Ow." Pause. "Oh, man this hurts," came the surprisingly calm reply. Normally when he gets hit anywhere by anything he wails and cries and basically does whatever it takes to get attention. He is like a soccer player trying to win a free kick.

"Where does it hurt," I asked.

"In his testicles," yelled Ethan.

I looked at Ryan. "Really?"

"Yep." Pause. "Ow." Again, relative calm. "Make him never do that again."

Ethan, meanwhile, was sitting a few feet away with a big smile on his face. "I kicked Ryan in the testicles!"

"Yes," I said looking at him sternly, "Apparently you did. Don't do it again. It isn't nice." Then, I turned to Ryan. "Is it getting any better?"

"Yeah, but is still doesn't feel good."

"He couldn't handle me," said Ethan, still relatively proud of himself.

Suppressing a laugh, I said, "No, Ethan, he couldn't, but that is a mean thing to do to your brother. Testicles are not targets. You should not hit them."

"Ow," said Ryan, sitting up. "He better watch his little testicles because I'm gonna kick him."

"Let's not make disparaging remarks about the size of other people's testicles," I said, "and let's focus on the 'not hitting them' part, ok?"

"Moo," said Ethan. "Taste the Milk!"

I turned to Ethan. "Stop it! No more milk tasting and no more testicle kicking, ok?"

Chastened, Ethan said, "Ok. No more hitting testicles."

"Ryan? Are you going to hit your brothers testicles?"

"Yes," he said, smiling.

"Don't you mean, 'no daddy, of course not'?"

"Sure," he said, sighing. "I won't hit him in the testicles."

"Good," I said.

"Moo!" said Ethan.

I worry for both of them as they begin to wrestle with each other, but given the way the two of them eat, I worry for Ryan more. It probably won't be long before his little brother is bigger than he is. Then we'll really get to see who tastes the milk.