If you’re new here, you’re probably wondering what “quick takes” are exactly. So, let me explain. I like to jot down things that are making me laugh or smile about each boy every once in awhile and commemorate them in a blog post. Truthfully, I adore these posts for very selfish reasons (and I think our extended family probably agrees). They are little windows into the personalities of each boy, and going back to read them from years past just brings me endless joy.

It’s so easy in the slog of day in and day out of parenting littles to forget the little things they say constantly, the games they are into for the moment because you’re so tired of playing the same thing over and over, and then, one day, you realize they haven’t said that phrase they said a million times a day anymore and you can’t remember the last time they said it. Ok, let’s get to what Harrison has been like lately…

-1- At the cabin this past summer, and over the past few months, he’s been learning how to play the card game “Go Fish.” While he doesn’t recognize all of the numbers yet, he loves to tell his opponent to “Goldfish!” And I’m just not correcting that, because I laugh every time he says it.

-2- If you want to know what you sound like to other people, have a kid. They will start to mimic your style and way of speaking that has you thinking, “that sounds oddly familiar.” Harrison follows up nearly every affirmative statement with, “Right? Right Mommy? Right Daddy?” As in, “We don’t play with Mommy’s iPad, RIIIIIGHT?”

-3- He tells me every couple of hours, “Mommy, you look beautiful.” (In background, Mom is in four day old unwashed hair, leggings, and a baggy sweatshirt that has snot smeared on it.) God love him.

-4- Now whenever he scores in soccer or football with us, he wants to “do the replay.” By essentially re-enacting the exact way that he just scored so he can re-live his glory.

-5- At nighttime lately when I’m tucking him in, he’s wanted to play a game where I ask him if he likes each NFL team. I’ll say, “Do you like the Bengals?” “No!” “The Patriots?” “No!” Then when the game is over, he wants to ask me the questions. And he refers to the Carolina Panthers as “the Pantries.” For the record, I do not like the Pantries.

-6- If there is a package to open, he will run it to his craft table and use his scissors to cut if open faster than you can tell him no. No package is safe from the power he now has with his scissors!

-7- I shared it on my Instagram stories awhile back, but he now lines up his cars in a row…a VERY long row, because there are so many cars in this house…and when I asked him the first time what they were doing, he replied, “It’s the Chick-fil-a line.” He’s not wrong.

And one bonus because it’s still Harrison birthday month…

-8- He calls short sleeved shirts “hot sleeves.” He always wants to wear hot sleeves.