And summer begins…

This is Maximus.
He’s two and a little bit.
Wildly beautiful. Remarkably infuriating.
He bites, he claws, he screams.
Even the cousins distinguish him as the crazy one.
As in, “Watch out for crazy Max.”
He cries “Hug, hug,” each time he gets in trouble.
He repeats the last two words of every sentence he hears.
He says “Wake up” to Dan and me at 5 am.
He consumes 40 sippy cups a day.
He’s the only boy we actually planned on conceiving.
He has a special blue blanket, and a special stuffed doggie.

He likes to do this to his little brother, Ethan.

It won’t be long before my littlest man knows what’s what.
And shuts down his abuser.
Oh Max. Just a sensitive surfer-dude in the making,
already planning his first trip out West
where everyone is all chillax.

The boys are 15 months apart.
They exhaust me. Good thing they love me.
Soon enough they will be cohorts plotting against me.
Sneaking out in the night.
Meeting girls, chugging beers.

And then I will be sad that it has all ended.
This time of onesies and diapered butts.
Buckets of water and a bottle cap.