Every night, Noah goes to bed in his normal looking jammies and every morning he wakes up wearing torn rags like the Hulk. If you stare at him long enough, you can actually see the boy grow. I blinked one day last week and now he’s the same height as his older sister. I never know if the clothes that fit yesterday are going to fit tomorrow. People must think we put him in the Pit of Despair at night. For the most part, his brain is still anchored in childhood, but I can see the gears in his brain starting to shift in a new direction. It began with his request that everyone notice his new “stache” which looks to me like chocolate milk that needs to be washed off. Wait. It is chocolate milk. But, it’s chocolate milk attached to a slightly more noticeable fuzz. When Tommy went through this phase, his reaction was limited to shaving off his new hair and seeking out Internet pRon. Sarah reacted to adolescence by locking herself in the bathroom for hours and hours at a time. We have one functioning bathroom for seven people. This phase was not indulged. Noah, who has never been a child known for modesty, can’t seem to focus on anything other than himself for more than a few minutes. He’ll be walking somewhere and stop to stare at himself in the mirror and forget his original destination. Then he wanders about aimlessly until he gets drawn back in by the hair on his arms or the smell of his armpits or, you know, other things. Evan is royally ticked that we won’t let him get in the bathtub with Noah anymore, but with such a large amount of Noah’s bath time spent staring at himself, Noah clearly needed some privacy. Unfortunately, we are going to need a timer in the bathroom, because as I mentioned before, this just isn’t the place in our house for privacy. I will be so happy when Noah’s brain catches up with his body. In the meantime, he’ll be the child at Tommy’s graduation wearing high water pants and the shoes with toes busting through the seams. Noah won’t care though. He’ll be too busy staring at himself and daydreaming.