Mischievous

Little brother is very good at being mischievous, he practically owns the word. I mean to the point of doing something, getting caught and melting your heart with a smile and hug. The latest technique is using his eyes. He gives you this loving look and you can almost hear the serenading music playing. That is what he’s begun to pull out of his sleeve when the hug and his million-dollar smile don’t cut it. He wrecked his Brother’s little Lego town and before Big brother could tell on him he was helping him rebuild. I walked into big Brother’s room and found a week of big Brother’s hard engineering labor in pieces all over his room. When I looked at little brother and said, “come on, get out of his room you’re destroying his stuff.” big brother immediately jumped to his defense. “He didn’t mean it mom, look he’s helping me!” There was little brother with that defiant smirk on his cute little face. 

A few weeks ago we had to spend the day at the hospital. Little brother was being so sneaky and testy. He had to stop at every single one of the hand sanitizer stations. After the fifth one I told him that was enough and to leave them alone. Doesn’t he just do it as fast as he can and then rub his hands together behind his back like I won’t catch on. He wouldn’t stay away and one of the last times he did it a nurse saw him and said, “aww that’s right little boy. Good job!” he looks up at me and bats his eyelashes. I was thinking thanks a lot lady. To him he just got a pass to keep up the constant hand sanitizing. When we finally left I’m sure that little brother probably had the most sterile hands in the building. As we walked out to the front door he let go of my hand and took off to the sanitizer stationed at the exit. As he globbed the clear gel on to his little hands he held them up above his head and said, “Look mama, I clean hands!” the people in the waiting room said ‘ oh what a good boy you have’ I just smiled because I wanted to reply with - you bunch of suckers, his hands were clean twelve applications ago!

Every week I make sure the boys see both my grandmother and my husband’s. I only grew up with one living so I remember her being the nicest with the best stashes of candy. Now my sons get to experience that. One Tota has the unlimited supply of m&ms and skittles, while the other has a freezer full of Popsicles and ice cream. One Tota has a cat and little brother and the cat have always shared a love-hate relationship. When he was smaller it would attack him and scratch him up, even getting him in the face once. Instead of becoming more afraid of the cat he plotted revenge against it. When it gets quiet you know little brother is up to something or fallen down asleep playing. He got a little too quiet so I went to check on him. He had stuffed the cat into a laundry basket and was sitting on top of it. He said, “bad cat, time out cat.” To my surprise since that imprisonment the cat and little brother have been getting along well. Now when we go visit I only have to worry about him sneaking out her back door to play. When we go to my grandma’s he finds every morsel of candy she has in her house like some kind of candy hound dog. Then before we are finished our conversation it kicks in and he is running around making her nervous. He thinks it is particularly funny to show her his ninja moves and watch her reaction. 

Lately at home little brother is all about getting into Big Brother’s room and messing up his things. He hides his Xbox controller. He will take cars and bring them into his own room. He dumps legos right in his path. He also started this thing where he casually strolls into Big Brother’s room while he’s playing a game on the TV or watching a cartoon and will hit the power button and run away. He gets away because Big Brother has a high loft bed and can’t get down before little brother has made a clean getaway. Yes, that little brother is a little ball of mischief.