Mr. Personality

This is Brice. He may be our most free-spirited child. Certianally he's the most entertaining child we have. He is an incredible mixture of traits and charecteristics. He's amazingly sweet, loving, sensitive, affectionate, and is always willing to cuddle. On the other hand, he's also insanely rambunctious, impatient, impulsive and probably clinically hyper-active. Okay, so hopefully not...but I wouldn't be shocked. He has a very short attention span and much like certain breeds of dog, he needs copious amounts of activity, direction and excercize.

His bubbly personality shines through everything he does. His siblings are alternately frustrated by him (if he is playing trains with Jackson- he may or may not want to play the way Jackson would like him to play) and highly entertained by him (the things that come out of his mouth are often very funny). I can't even count the number of times he has made me so darn mad and yet all I could do was laugh because of his sweet little smile and quirky behavior.

There are tons of things we love about that quirky-ness. For one, he is not a wimp. Not a whiner, not a crier (unless he's overly tired) and not afraid to tell it like it is. He's oddly perceptive and honest for a four year old, and his observations are usually dead-on correct. The perceptiveness, he gets from me...the toughness he gets from his father.

He can be a bit of a bully and does sometimes have trouble playing with more sensitive children (like, say, Jackson.) Let's just say that if Jackson (who is three years older) and Brice have an, um...skirmish- Brice almost always comes out on top. Often literally.

We struggle as parents to walk that fine line between encouraging and nurturing his incredible spirit, his assertiveness, ability to stick up for his needs and wants and one of my favorite traits- his ability to simply ignore those who are irritated with him, while at the same time, keeping him calm and toned down enough that we are able to make it through the day without needing migraine medications. Eventually I fear that one of us will indeed need to be medicated- either him, or us. He sure is a lot of fun though, and my favorite source of entertainment.