My oldest

If you look real closely at this picture, you'll see that Marcus is actually both loving and restraining his brothers so that I could take this shot while we were at the fair a few weeks ago. Marcus has actually become quite good at "lovingly restraining" his brothers since they've become mobile and he's become bossier :) If an adult tries to grab their hand to help them along more quickly, Owen and Eli will immediately screech and go all limp, making it nearly impossible to move them along without having to pick them up. Not so with Marcus. If he grabs their hands to help them along, they just submit and allow themselves to be led along quite docilely. Why? I think because they are thinking This is normal for my older brother to pull me along. Why put up a fight? If I do, he might sit on me. Better just to go along with him.

The other day, Marcus came home from kindergarten and noticed that Eli was getting into some mischief. Across the room I heard him say, "Eli, that's your first warning." I'd never heard him use the word warning in this way before so I asked him, "Marcus, where have you heard about warnings?" "School," he replied. It turns out his teacher gives kids three warnings before they have to have a timeout--and no, Marcus hasn't (yet) received any warnings, but he's heard them doled out to other kids. So now, not only does my oldest child gladly "lovingly restrain" his younger brothers, but he is only too happy to give them verbal warnings, too. He's definitely the oldest.