Today was a typical day for us.  Dawn cracked loudly when I woke to the sound of my youngest singing "Mama, Mama,Mama"  with the self accompaniment of him smacking his head against the crib.  By singing I mean screaming.  Happy, shrill high pitched toddler screams-but screams none-the-less.  The head smacking baffles me.  Why does he do that?  It has to hurt.  I go in and swoop him up showering him with kisses and good mornings while simultaneously mommy-checking for injury.  He's good.  He screams "No, no no!" Wants down.  I put him down. "No, no, no!"  Wants up.   I pick him up.  "No, no, no! NO!"  Really wants down.  I really put him down.  "No, no, no!"  Wants up.  I pick him up.  Now that we have that delimma figured out, we're on to coffee.
The baby "helps" make the coffee by standing on my feet and  smacking his head into the back of my legs.  Yes, we've had the head banging checked out and he is perfectly normal.  Which means there are lots of other toddlers smacking their heads into things, too.  I tried it once to see if it helped my frustration.  Not really.  People just looked at me more strangely than usual.  It did help me forget about what was so frustrating, so maybe there is something to it after all.  Anyway, he's fine.  A healthy, happy boy who likes to bang his head on things.  Back to the coffee.  I pour a cup for me and we get breakfast ready.  I am informed the coffee is "hot!" and I should "no touch."  Good advice for a toddler, bad for a mommy.  Every attempted sip is greeted with the reminders.  I try distracting him with fruit.  Usually works.  I swear he's part fruit fly.  It works.  I can drink my coffee while he enjoys a banana.  Kind of.  The banana dissection was very thorough.  I am told texture is important at this age.  The squishing, smearing and crushing of the fruit was extremely fun until he realized it was on his hands. "Hand, hand hand!!" is joined by the necessary two inch distance of his hand to my eyes in order to be sure I see that there is banana on his hands and he wants it OFF.  NOW.
Phase two.  Caffienated (juice for the tot), fed and cleaned up we go to play.  I adore playing.  If I could, I would sit and play all day with the boys.  No cleaning, no laundry, no work.  I try to play as much as I can and when the obnoxious world creeps in telling me to get back to work, I only comply if I have to.  And then very begrudgingly.  Today- no work.  The best kind of day.  We are joined awhile later when my 5 year old wakes up and joins the fun.  Morning hugs and kisses interrupt an intense Thomas the Tank Engine run, but no one minds.  Especially not me.
Phase three.  So I have two boys.  Two very active, very physical, very smart boys.  They also have very large heads.  Most likely they will be newscasters with heads that size, but only if they survive the challenges of gravitational pull on those heads.  The emergency room nurses are extremely nice, but I hate visiting them with head wounds.  I would much rather see them without an injured child.  They seem like such nice people.  Alas, today is an ER visit day as the toddler tries to cheat the system of universal physics.  So you know, he's fine.  But he has learned recently to climb up on the couch and try to jump off.  Not sure which 5 year old taught him that one, but I am guessing its the one he's related to.  Problem is, the 5 year old can jump, and the toddler can't. So the jump becomes a face plant and today an ER trip.  I swear I watched the whole thing in slow motion, too.  I AM RIGHT THERE.  He miraculously slides through the safety zone of my arm's reach and conk.  Maybe I am too scared of head wounds.  Every day he bangs it on something on purpose- but I saw it, heard it and felt it.  Off we go.  Clean bill of health and a four hour nap later, he's trying to jump off our friends couch.  I am pretty sure he's testing me.
We survived another day.  No small task, but we did it.