Ah,Life: Soren Update: July 2013

Ear-splitting screams come tearing through the house. "MOMMY! MOMMMMMMYYYYYY!" The boys have been playing outside and I was sure that Liam had fallen off the swing and had stopped breathing. I run up the stairs to see Soren standing at the top of the stairs, bright red blood dripping over his lips and chin. He is catching it in his hands while the neighbor girl looks on in what appears to be confusion, mingled with horror. "MY NOSE IS BLEEDING! Soren shrieks. "MY! NOSE! IS! BLEEDING!" He is shaking his head back and forth, sending blood splattering all over the walls and floor. This is a typical nosebleed at our house and I've learned how to handle it. Mostly it involves avoiding carpets. Speaking in a soothing voice, I hurry and shuffle him off to the bathtub, where blood can be washed down the drain. I help him get his clothes off and sit on the edge of the tub. Gently, I try to assure him that it will be okay but that he just....needs...to calm....down. But nothing I say matters. (Once, though tears and tripping blood, he croaked out "Mommmmmmmyyyyyyy" like he was dying and actually blew a blood bubble.) In the bathtub it takes about a minute to get the bleeding to stop and he calms down. "I just hate bleeding," he tells me emphatically. "Me too," I say, as I get out a rag and a bottle of bleach.
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We are in the park. He is holding the handle of his brand new kite. It is a perfectly windy day. He lets out the string and runs, little legs kicking out at angles. His face is lifted to the sky. The wind blows against his face. He is smiling. Laughing. Aglow.
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Soren is playing in the yard while I weed our flower beds. He follows me around while I work, as he often does, chattering away. He is imagining creatures that might exist that no one in the world knows about yet. He tells me about a whale that lives deep in the ocean and is so big that "a blue whale would look tiny next to it." He says it's covered in lights like an angler fish and that it has scoops on the bottom of its body.
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We are taking a walk as a family. Soren has brought his tricycle but remembers, after we've crossed the street, that he's not wearing a helmet. "You'll be fine," I tell him, but a half a block later he stops his trike, folds his arms, and bows his head. He is praying that he will tricycle around the neighborhood in safety.
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Soren and I are in the bathroom at my office. It is a Saturday, but I'm on a payroll deadline, so following a free breakfast of pancakes and ice cream (courtesy of Reed's Dairy), the boys and I have come to work. Soren has pulled me away from my laptop to help him with a mess. "I accidentally got some soap on the floor," he had told me. And, indeed, lo, there in front of us was a little pile of foamy soap. "Well, just wipe it up with a paper towel," I tell him. "I can't," he says. I roll my eyes. "Oh, sure you can." "See?" I say, and I rip off a paper towel and clean up the pile of bubbles with a single swipe. But just as I wipe it up, the soap dispenser sensor picks up on the motion and immediately ejects another squirt of soap, right into the spot where the previous pile had been. "See?" said Soren, giggling a little. I giggle a little too. "Maybe if I do it faster," I say, grabbing another paper towel and going for a quick swipe. Squirt. More giggling. "Maybe if I do it from this side." Squirt. "Or in super stealth mode from above!" Squirt. "What if I cover up the sensor?" Squirt. By now Soren and I are laughing hysterically, sitting side by side on the bathroom floor.
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In the past couple of months, Soren has:
-Told me that a lady we were talking to did, indeed, look like a grandma "because she has wrinkles."
-Loudly remarked on the odd shape of a co-worker's head (for the record, in my opinion, said co-worker has a perfectly normal shaped head).
-Asked his auntie why she has red dots on her face.
-Asked me if the person standing next to us in the produce department was a boy or a girl. Multiple times, as I tried to quickly shepherd him out of hearing range.
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Two sets of words that Soren gets mixed up:
-Blister and Splinter
-Modest and Honest
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Soren runs inside and slams the door behind him. He runs a few steps into the kitchen and then stops, looking at Briar in horror. "What have I done? What have I done?" He runs back and opens the door again. "I'm so so sorry, Liam. I'm so sorry I closed the door!"
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If he is not the source of Liam's suffering, Soren often cries alongside his brother when he gets hurt. Abraham's mother was watching them one morning when Liam was stung by a wasp. She reported that at the end of the affair, it was Liam comforting Soren, hugging his upset brother and reassuring him, "I okay, Soren. I okay."
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Abraham, Soren, and Liam are watching a youtube video of a monster truck rally, at Soren's request.
"When are they going to start fighting?" he asks.
"Monster trucks don't fight," Abe tells him.
They watch for another minute.
"When are they going to start fighting?" Soren asks.
"Monster trucks don't fight!" Abe says.
Another minute.
"When are they going to start fighting?"
"MONSTER TRUCKS DON'T FIGHT!"

Even after a ten minute long video of monster trucks who didn't fight, I'm pretty sure Soren still believes that, in another time and another place, there are monster trucks fighting.

We all had a nasty stomach bug a while ago. Poor Soren got it the worst. He couldn't even hold down water for a couple of days.

Soren and I made some homemade slime.

Soren's end-of-the-year Kindergarten concert. It was a Sesame Street theme. His nose was itchy through the whole thing, so he spent a lot of time scratching it, but he was otherwise delightful.