Hail To The Chief

Foreshadowing doesn't happen only in stories.

When I was pregnant with Soren and J and I were on the hunt for the perfect name for our last child, J tried very hard to get me to agree to a middle name I would have no part of. He insisted that this child needed a strong, MANLY middle name, something that would speak of authority, respect, and strike fear into the hearts of his school mates. Something like "THE BEAR FIGHTER".

Oh hell no.


Fast forward to present day.

Soren is now 13 months old. He is his own little person. He's almost always so happy, mischevous in a delightful way, and very curious.He knows how to walk now, but would rather crawl to his destination if he loses his balance instead of trying again. He's impatient, vocal, and lets you know what he wants when he wants it, even with the limited vocabulary of "Book"  "Hello" (pronounced huoo?), and "Mama" when he is distressed. He loooves to bug his brothers (on purpose) just for their reaction, but he will ferociously put up a fight if his brothers do the same to him. He has even been known to come to me and "tattle" on his brothers if they take a toy away that he was playing with first.

But on top of this, he is under the impression that he is utterly in charge of the household, and we are just his little minions to do his every bidding. If he wants something he will look you in the eye, point his hand in the direction and grunt "UNH"! then wait for you to get his desire. If he feels lazy and wants to go from point A to point B and you are conveniently nearby, he will hold out his arms to be picked up grunting "UNH!" and then once in your arms he will point the direction he wishes to go and grunt again. "This way minion."

I admit, it amuses me, for now. If only because I know how very short of a time period each child feels that they ARE the center of the world, and it won't be long before he has that rude awakening that he can't do anything he likes. Already he is learning that there are limits to things he can get away with, which he keeps pushing to see if I forget. For instance, I put my foot down if he tries to play in the toilet. He knows if I catch him in the bathroom after one of the older boys forgot to shut the door, Mommy is going to be ticked off. He's already learning to scuffle out of there ASAP if he hears me coming. He knows I refuse to let him play with his favorite toy, the electric sockets. All are safety plugged, but still I will tell him firmly "No" if I see his hand stretch to one. He's none too happy when I refuse his majestys pleasure, but some things even his Majesty cannot do.

Even with these restrictions, his motions and communication has been that of a little lord directing his small folk to do his bidding. So much so that I jokingly nicknamed him "Chief". When I told J my new nickname for him he agreed it was very fitting.

Adding to this nickname, Soren loves food. And he loves to mimic his older family and eat like they do. One thing Ashe, our 3 yr old, loves to do is to toast with our cups. So each night we raise our glasses and sippy cups, yell "CHEERS!" and drink up. Soren has taken this to a whole new level. Anytime he takes a drink he raises his cup and waits for us all to do the same, before he drinks after gurgling with laughter.

The other night we sat down to a chicken dinner. Soren loves chicken, and most especially loves drum sticks when he is allowed them. As we enjoyed our meal, toasting every 2 minutes, Soren picked up his drum stick and held it up high. In that moment, he was the exact representation of our little Chief. Of course we all laughed, which made him do it again and again, with little grunts of pleasure when he raised his meat high.

At the end of the night he had his blankie thrown around his shoulders like a cloak. Combined with the image of him raising his drum stick in the air, and a blankie cloak, J turned to me and said "You know, you should have given in and named him "THE BEAR FIGHTER". Because it totally fits him."

Sigh.