Bruiser the StrongMan

Though still cuter than a bug’s ear, Olie is now working on his 2nd black eye of the month. He gave himself his first black eye by crashing against the corner of the coffee table about a week ago. The gash on his cheek quickly spread to become a fine yellow shiner under his left eye. The 2nd shiner is still in the works, but was a self-inflicted poke in the other eye this weekend. Not content with that, he also head-butted a display sign in the Human Development Exhibit (note the irony) at the Museum of Natural History this weekend and thus has a fine goose egg on his noggin as well. Further down his body, his shins are covered in fine bruises from running into who knows what objects. We’re starting to worry that we’ll be accused of child abuse given his terrible outward state. "No, Officer, he really does do all this to himself.” Neither free-flowing tears, nor repeat soft tissue injuries seem to phase him and certainly don’t deter him in the least from launching into his next death defying stunt the moment it occurs to him.

Olie also has a new trick, perhaps not unrelated to the above. When you ask him how strong he is, he’ll clench his fists in front of him and grunt. If you were to guess, I'm certain you would bet that his mother taught him this fine trick. Now, assuming we can keep him from beating himself to a pulp, we can begin looking forward to catching his circus act some day. Come one, come all to witness The Unbelievable, The Infamous, The Notorious Bruiser the StrongMan!

On other fronts, we had a lovely visit from Justine's dad & Lisa this weekend to help J celebrate another fine b-day...Happy Birthday to Justine today!