the sign of four (boys)

When you walk into our home, it's no mystery that it is host to four little boys. Here are a few of the clues that make that fact a dead giveaway.

- There are paper airplanes lodged in unusual places -- behind and underneath the couch, atop the books on the shelves, underneath the piano's sustain pedal -- as if was easier to make a new one than to retrieve the one that got away.

- The unmistakable smell around the toilet indicating that someone's aim missed the mark.

- And in a similar vein, any unpleasant bodily function is immediately followed by hysterical laughter. Even the 2-year-old thinks it's hilarious to let one rip.

- You will be hard-pressed to find a single pink or purple toy.

- And speaking of toys, the collection consists mainly of several variations of Legos, train sets, cars, blocks, and plastic dinosaurs.

- A peek into any one of the dresser drawers will reveal a streamlined wardrobe of mainly t-shirts and denim, with a few polos interspersed to dress things up a bit.

- Even the baby's drawer is overwhelmingly blue.

- Baseball paraphernalia.

(And these are only a fraction of the wide variety of balls forever bouncing and rolling underfoot.)

- We never make it home from a trip to the library without a pile of comic-themed books.

- Our home is loud, always loud. If it's not the constant drone of voiced sound effects -- the vrooming of cars and the roaring of imaginary creatures -- it's the yelping and yarooing as they run through the apartment and jump from the furniture, landing on the hardwood floors with a raucous thud. (It's a good thing that our downstairs neighbors are absolute saints.)


So there you have it, Watson. This is a house full of boys. Wild, crazy, and completely adorable little boys.