Patrick Needs a Sponge, Bob

The runt of the litter has a couple of things in common with Patrick, the starfish character in SpongeBob SquarePants, one of the Terrific Trio’s favorite cartoons.
Well, perhaps “runt” sounds severe. Maybe "caboose" would be better (and to think we thought LUKE was the caboose, WINK).
First of all, the infant born Aug. 12 is named Patrick.
Secondly, he couldn’t get much wetter than the cartoon character. Patrick the starfish is wet because he lives in Bikini Bottom; Patrick the human is wet because Luke’s kisses are slobbier than a St. Bernard’s drool.
And that proves we didn’t need to worry about how 2-year-old Luke would accept the sibling arrival.
And thirdly, the human Patrick is as big a rock star to his brothers as the starfish when he crawls out from under his rock.
You always wonder how the first in line will treat the successors to the throne.
I remember back in the day when Vincent was a possessive tot of 2. After all, he had had a pretty solid niche as the little man of the house.
Evidence of his attachment to Mommy arose frequently, whenever he heard a child cry. His standard comment: “That baby needs his Mommy.” Obviously mommies are the solution to any problem.
So, would the baby be a problem child for Vincent? Melissa and Skip prepared him for the new arrival, even making him part of the preparation process.
But we were nervous about how Vincent would react. After all, when adults discussed the upcoming blessed event, he seemed to react as if it would be more of a curse. He would become somber, perhaps retreating into his inner child.
And every once in awhile, a little animosity surfaced, such when they batted around name ideas. I think Vincent's suggestion of Frankenstein Dumbo for a girl reflected his conflicted feelings: He envisioned a monster invading his domain, but he loved “Dumbo.”
As it turned out, the baby wasn’t a girl anyway. But THAT’s OK, especially if you like the original FAB FOUR, and one of my favorites of The Beatles:



Now, back to THIS boy: They named boy No. 2 Jack Thomas, with the Thomas acknowledging Vincent's love of Thomas the Train. Although Vincent showed signs of skepticism about where Jack put him on the food chain, we (Mom, Dad, GiGi, his name for grandma, my wife, Jeanne, and I) took pains to assure him that he is a vital limb on the family tree.
Just the same, Vincent was stand-offish during his first encounter in the hospital room shortly after Jack was born. That’s putting it mildly, as he outright ignored the bundled baby, as if that would make him disappear.
Then Jack started crying. Vincent’s knee-jerk comment: “That baby needs his mommy!”
Then he did a darling double-take, when he realized that that baby’s mommy and his were the same. His panicked look transformed to one of resigned acceptance as he sighed, “He’s hungry, you better feed him, Mommy.”
And so it has gone, with Jack weathering a similar dilemma when Luke arrived. He beheld the baby and said, “He’s ME!” I guess that was his way of coping, and it worked.
Still, despite those successes, I was concerned about Luke when Mom started looking like the Poppin’ Fresh Doughgirl again.
Melissa took some comfort from Luke’s comment one day, before the baby was born, that he would NOT let the new arrival go out into the street. (That obviously stemmed from the fact that was the admonition du jour for him.)
Perhaps I’m skeptical, but I couldn’t help but wonder, “Hmmmmmmm, that might ease HER mind, but the flip side is that could sound like a PLAN,” that Luke was setting up an alibi in case — well, no, that’s ridiculous that I would even THINK that.
As it turned out, my suspicions were for naught, and Luke is more likely to smother Patrick with those slobbery kisses than let him stray into traffic.
Of course, we do hope and pray that Patrick the human is smarter than Patrick the starfish, whose pointy head obviously doesn’t have much room for gray matter.
For example, check out this clip, which is hilarious in the way it inserts Patrick into the movie “300”:



Suffice it to say that the human Patrick doesn’t face the same frustration as the cartoon one. Our boy doesn’t have any trouble distinguishing who might be giving him a little peck in his sleep. The wetter it is, the more likely he is to know: “That’s LUKE!”