An angel of destruction

  Not to be outdone by his brother, or anyone else for that matter, Orion is a force of nature. His dark eyes, fair complexion and disarming smile, tell little about the depth and complexity of my littlest guy. He is sheer joy and adventure all wrapped up with stubbornness, determination, and zero fear. He is clever, quick, observant, and ready to take on the world. Orion keeps us all on our toes and requires constant supervision to keep him from hurting himself. Our only break is while he is sleeping, or if we are in the car driving and he is restrained by his car seat. It is pretty exhausting really.

  I love the energy that Orion brings to our lives. He brightens the whole room with his smile. He laughs, giggles, and bosses everyone around with his unintelligible babble. He loves to hug, kiss, and be held, but will throw a fit if you stop moving or even attempt to sit down while holding him. If you keep moving, he will stay content.

  The problem lies in how do you protect someone with zero fear, that is constantly moving and climbing on things. Once he gets hurt and after a breif recovery, he immediately wants to repeat what he just did that got him hurt in the first firstplace; not because he lacks any kind of common sense that says, "Hey, you got hurt last time you did that, you might want to stay away."  but because he is so mad that he fell or messed up the last time thru, and because he knows he can do it, has too much pride to stop himself, and has the need to prove that he can do it right. What a terrific, but dangerous combination. The downside is that Orion bumps his head at least every other day. He gives himself a fat lip or bloody mouth about once a week, and always has a bump, scratch or bruise on him somewhere. We call him Havoc or Destructo Baby because nothing is safe. He climbs on everything and gets into everything.Orion loves to play and rough house and wants to be a part of everything that is going on around him.

  Orion babbles non-stop now. Umongst the babble we have been able to discern a few words and phrase; "All done", "hello", "shoes" (he loves his shoes), "t.v.", and "No!" (while he shakes his finger at you) are among his most used words, not to mention "mama" and "dada".
  Orion is a survivor and is fiercly independant. He wants to do everything by himself including eating and drinking. He is a forager, and feeds himself from the ground, plant and trees. What the chickens can't reach, Orion can. He picks his own tomatoes, figs and plums and eats them. If there is anything left, he will feed it to the four chickens eagerly waiting at his feet.

   Apollo runs hot or cold with his little brother. Sometimes he is very sweet and caring towards him, yet other times, he simply likes to be mean to him. Apollo's favorite passive aggressive behavior, is to mimick Orion when he is crying. It turns out that not only does Orion have a sense of humor, he has learned some tricks from his big brother. Imagine Apollo's horror when he himself got hurt and started to cry; Orion started mimicking Apollo crying; "Whah, whah, whah!" and then burst into laughter.