Last night was probably the worst Jerry and I have had with Anthony since his first weeks of life, when we were introduced to that lovely condition known as colic. After battling a cold for the past several days, Ant woke up just after 11 p.m. yesterday with pressure in his ears – and then proceeded to scream LOUDLY for an hour straight. Maybe he was trying to get Mommy and Daddy to literally feel his pain – because my ears (and head, as well) were certainly throbbing after his tremendous display of lung power.

Although he wasn’t running a fever, we gave Ant some Tylenol for the pain, and eventually got him to calm down with a nice, warm bath. As he and I cuddled on the couch into the early hours of the morning, he tried to explain to me precisely where his pain was centered.

“It hurts here,” Ant said, sticking his finger in his ear, “but not here,” he added, touching the small flap on the outside of his ear. “Not my ear lid.”

“Your ear lid?” I asked, stifling a giggle. “Who told you that’s what it’s called?”

“Nobody,” he said matter-of-factly. “I made it up. It’s my ear lid.”

And then I did laugh. Loudly and heartily. Which is exactly what I needed. I hugged my sick baby tight and gave him a kiss. And eventually, he drifted off to sleep, waking this morning with no ear pain, in his lids or otherwise.

Just in case you’re wondering, as I was, the “ear lid”  is technically called the tragus (guess who just added a word to her Scrabble game?).

Did you know that seahorses are the only animals where the male carries the female’s fertilized eggs until they hatch?

I wonder if Anthony knows that.

Because this afternoon, when he was sitting on the couch with a ball up his shirt and I looked at him with raised eyebrows, he said matter-of-factly, “I’m a daddy seahorse. And I’m going to have a baby.”

Please be sure to phrase your response in the form of a question. And the answer is:

A wooden craft stick

A toy hand grenade

A stuffed Pikachu doll

Anthony’s shoe

A plastic army man

A pine cone

A cat turd

The cat’s head

The cat’s tail

A blue crayon

A drumstick (the kind you play a drum with, not the kind you eat)

A pink feather boa

A cork

A sock

The snow has been falling steadily for a few hours here in central North Carolina, and it was all Anthony could talk about as I put him to bed tonight. He already has plans to eat snow flavored with orange juice for breakfast tomorrow morning, and he told me he hopes to build an igloo, as well as a “snow fork.”

“Don’t you mean ’snow fort’?” I asked.

“No, Mommy,” he replied. “I want to build a giant fork out of snow. And maybe a spoon, too.”

Patiently he waits

For the door to burst open.

He misses his girl.

It’s conversations like these that sometimes make me forget Anthony just turned 4.

Anthony (clearly proud of himself after answering a call on my cell phone): That was impressive.

Me: You’ve been saying “impressive” a lot lately. Is that your new word?

Anthony: No, Mommy. “Adjective” is my new word.

Have you ever wished that an inanimate object could have feelings just so you could hurt it?

You haven’t.

Um, me neither …

OK, so that’s a total lie. Right now, more than anything, I want to stab my vacuum cleaner. Repeatedly. Until it begs for mercy and then flat out dies. (Yeah, I have some aggression issues today.)

I’m talking about this vacuum right here.

This vacuum is evil. It is useless. It has become the bane of my existence.

The belt falls off constantly. The intake tubes are always clogged. And now, the bottom of the vacuum, which needs to be removed to replace the belt, which this afternoon fell off for the 89th time, is stuck.

Which left me trying to clean up for Cera’s playdate today with no vacuum. Thank goodness the puppy had already gobbled up all bits of edible dirt (and I’m sure a few inedible ones, as well).

So, I’m taking suggestions for new vacuums. Because as soon as our tax return arrives, this one’s going in the trash.

Perhaps with a few stab wounds.

… that we got a puppy?

And he’s pretty darn cute. Which is lucky for him.

I will never know why, every time we go to Target, we make it all the way to the toy department, which is about as far from the bathrooms as you can get, before Anthony decides he has to poop. This leads to a mommy-son sprint through the store, with me constantly reassuring, “It’s only a little bit further. You can make it,” and Anthony replying, “I don’t know …” (One time he didn’t make it, and we left Target short one pair of underpants.)

What I do know is this – if Anthony ever gets constipated, I’m taking him to Target – and headed straight for the toys.

Jerry pulled up my blog tonight to show Anthony that his artwork’s online (and – let’s not kid ourselves – to pad my blog stats ), and, after my earlier post, I had to share what the little man had to say.

As the site came up, Ant pointed to Cera’s photo in my blog header and said, “There’s Cera being dramatic again.”

Classic.