Okay, so it seems that we are always in the car. Maybe too many cool people live too far away or we live too far away from too many cool people. It is hard to pass up a chance to see them even with gas prices the way they are. And, now to top it off......we have a gas consuming beast. Sorry to my eco-terrorist friends out there. We needed the extra space and this opportunity kind of just fell into our laps and was too good to pass up. We still have the Trailblazer to use for short trips here and there around town (as if that is much more ecofriendly), but the Suburban has the room for the stroller and booster seats and when we go on long trips, the dogs and our luggage. And hey, I was afraid that I was going to end up with a minivan.......I prefer this option to that.
So, it seems that every picture I have taken in recent history is in the car seats. And for most of those, even when awake the boys don't have their eyes open. In the new car we have their seats next to eachother. With no buffer zone.....we have frequent sibling skirmishes. It can be caused by the taking of a favorite toy or Seb wanting to hold hands and Ben wanting his space. Here we are on our way to Little Ethiopia for our monthly lunch gathering/play date at an Ethiopian restaurant. It is a good thing the boys have a couple of hours to recharge their batteries so that they are in a good mood and ready to go. I have come to the conclusion that the boys need to be socialized more though. Of course, when a friend came up to Sebastian, first he slunk away......not knowing what to expect of the little stranger. He adjusted well though and was playing in a few seconds time. Ben on the other hand wanted nothing to do with playing. He stayed securely standing between my legs.....his safety net I suppose. When taking out his "zools" (pretzels), of course, they were a big hit with the group. As to be expected though, Ben did not want to share. He tried to guard his bag of snacks to no avail. He did allow his brother to get his hand in said bag. Seb then in turn, passed out the pretzels to the rest of the group. We look forward to next month's gathering, especially since there were some very noticable absentees this month. Namely, two of our favorite families.
So, it has really been more of the same here. Michael has been tormenting me to agree that we can drive the distance again the next two weeks to go to car shows with the boys. Arghhh...not my idea of fun. At first I tried to thwart his attempts by saying it was too much gas, especially after all of our friendly jaunts down the hill. But, he may get his way afterall since one of my favorite people in the world will try to meet us at one of these horrid car shows with her beautiful family. I can't imagine passing that up.
Sebastian continues to love his cows and still brings that plastic thing everywhere we go. It still shares his food and in this picture has found love with a dinosaur. At night, he has taken to a new hobby. He has always loved brushing his teeth and will remind me when I tell the boys at night that it is time to get ready for bed. He always says,"Teeth, teeth." As if I would forget.....maybe Daddy would, not mommy. This is always to Ben's chagrin because he hates to get his teeth brushed. Anyhow, in the past, Seb always would brush and brush and it would be hard to actually get him to relinquish the brush in a timely manner. I figured, this was a good problem to have as teeth can never be too clean. But, now, it is not his teeth he is obsessed with. It is the teeth belonging to his cow flashlight. It is one of those that moos when the handle is pressed to open the mouth and shine the light. Well, now it is a half hour hobby of Seb's to brush the cows teeth. Not only does this take time without the benefit of getting his teeth super clean.....but the mooing is atrocious for that period of time. Why couldn't he have taken up the hobby of brushing his brother's teeth?......That would have been a win - win!
I continue to be impressed at the progress the boys are making in their behavior while dining out. True, they have whatever coloring activity the eatery has to offer and we bring a bag of their toys, but they do a great job whether it be Chinese, Pho, Italian or fast food. Here we are at Oggi's.....a great brewery/pizza/Italian type place. The boys got popcorn chicken, but I love their Italian Stallion pizza. The best!
Now for the newest of exploits. New ways to drive mommy crazy, I think. They have taken to going to their drawers and throwing every article of clothing out. This makes me very angry as I hate organizing and reorganizing, folding and refolding daily. Of course, I can get them to put the clothes back in the drawers and Seb does it with a smile......but that doesn't mean that it is neat or not just a pile of clothes willy nilly in a drawer. The blankets also come off of the shelf from time to time. The boys love playing ghost. It is too bad they can't see through the blankets as running around with a bed spread over your head (and entire body depending on size of spread and body) can be quite dangerous. The same holds true for pillow cases which are a little more restrictive. The other day, I even found Seb hiding between the matress and fitted sheet. How he fit, I do not know......but these kids come up with the darndest things.
The boys have also taken to removing the matress from one of their beds. They either place it so that it is a supreme bouncer to jump on while they scream and giggle,"Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!" or they fashion it into a slide from bed to floor. They are very excited when they move the matress to find lost cheerios and zools that are, who knows how old. They don't care.....it is still a tasty extra treat to them.
Ben has also discovered the joys of the doggy door. Our doggy door leads into the kitchen which is sectioned off from the house by a gate that keeps both the dogs out of the rest of the house and the boys out of the kitchen. As the boys are always running in different directions, one day I was chasing down Seb in the backyard and returned to find Ben missing. I called and looked and didn't see him. I was panicked until I heard giggling. He had climbed into the kitchen via doggy door and was looking through the window jumping up and down in excitement as I searched for him. I should have known he would figure out the doggy door. The previous week, he would push the flap open and peer in at the less social of our dogs (the one that makes himself scarce when the babies are wildly playing outside). Ben spent much time that week peering in and waving his hand as he said,"Heelllllooooooooooo, Heelllloooooooooooo!"
The boys have also grown fond of drawing with chalk. The cement in the backyard is one big canvass of scribbles. Of course to them they are pictures of either snakes, Tow Mater or helicopters. They have graduated from their fascination of making me draw moons. I just wish they weren't into the graffiti aspect of drawing their "nakes" on everything else......windows, their slide, the chair etc. etc. Something to work on.
So, as this is not a happy household with things unraveling politically all around us.....we have to find things to do to keep us busy. Distract us from our impending doom. Fantasy football wasn't going well for me this last Sunday, so I let Michael convince me that we could drive down to the Orange County Auto Show. He had been working on me for quite sometime and I had come up with plenty of excuses why not....the expensive gas......need to catch up on housework......its too draining for the boys....I would rather be run over by said cars then be trapped in a crowded building with them for hours on end. Can you tell it is really not my idea of fun? Still undecided, we were giving the boys a bath and discussing back and forth for the upteenth time why we should/shouldn't go. Then Michael plays dirty. He asks Sebby who is enjoying his bath to the fullest,"Do you want Mommy to let you go to the car show to see all the cool cars?" Sebby gets the biggest smile on his face and jumps up with an enthusiastic,"Yaaaaaaa!" That was the clincher. How could I deny that sweet face? And, so the boys enjoyed themselves. Inspecting and touching and climbing in and out of cars all afternoon. They had a really great time.
And I suppose that Michael works really hard and should be able to do something he wants to do now and again, hehe. I usually say what we can do and what movies/TV shows we watch. I pick the restaurants and he never complains (except for Queer as Folk.....I had to watch that series all by my lonesome.) He didn't even bring up the fact that he babysat that Saturday so that I could go to the movies with some of the girls. It was really great to get away from my house o' penis for a couple of hours. Of course, the girls were seeing a total chicky flick that I probably could have waited for on video. The new Nicolas Sparks movie, the one with Diane Lane and Richard Gere was adequate. Usually I am a water fountain of tears, but not so much for this one. The others were sobbing away. Perhaps after such a movie going drought, I was missing my horror and suspense. I like the Romance too, but I guess this one just had something missing for me. Don't get me wrong....I had a great time.....being out and about and being me, not just mommy. I must say I have a date with the girls again for the opening of Twilight. We are so stoked for that one. And, having read the series......I know it is right up my alley. Okay....is it just me or is that saying just really nasty sounding. Anyway, the boys survived an afternoon with Daddy. Sometimes I have my doubts, but even when Ben cried for 40 minutes after I left......Michael was able to fix the problem. A trip to McDonald's for lunch and I was all but forgotten.
I will come up with some interesting twin happenings so as not to bore you with myself.....Let us see. The bath is a favorite activity in our house still. The boys love baths and will beg for one anytime of day if they are reminded by a cartoon bath on Blue's Clues or whatever program they happen to be watching. They splish and splash, read their books, play with their toys and wash eachother's backs. I still easily wash their hair with a cup by saying,"Waterfall! Waterfall!" and deluging them. They laugh and think it is the greatest. The other night, Michael went to set up the bath as the boys were finishing dinner. Seb was done and ran into the bathroom to get daddy to put him immediately in the tub. Ben was then in a hurry. He did not want to be robbed of those extra minutes of fun that his brother would get. He had half of an Oreo left on his plate. He looks at the Oreo, he looks down the hall, he looks at the Oreo and says,"Done! Down! Down!" The cookie did not rate up there with the bath. That is pretty surprising, but a good sign I think.
So, Oreos are the new favorite cookie in this house. It was once the Teddy Grahams, then the Sugar Wafers and now good old fashioned Oreos. At first we would get those mini oreos, but with the way prices at the grocery store are skyrocketing, I decided to try the Costco size box of the one's that I had grown up on. The boys loved them. Not because of mere size, but because they could twist them open and lick out the filling. This style of eating an Oreo must be innate to our being as I haven't eaten Oreos that way since I was young and I don't think that they were copying the Manning brothers.....all though twin NFL quarterbacks would not be too shabby of a future.
Another cute thing was Sebastian's desire to help me change Ben's diaper. The first time it happened, I was quite surprised although Seb is the caretaker and sensitive dude of the duo. I was even more surprised that Ben allowed such an invasion because although he is quite the flasher, he only likes mommy to mess with such things as diaper changes. But, Seb came over and grabbed a wipe and cleaned the said area pretty thoroughly without a complaint from Ben. If we ever decide to add to our family, Seb will make a very good big brother and helper. Also, the tickling over here is out of control! The boys love to tickle and they will chase me around tickling and saying,"ickle, ickle, ickle!"with giggles of delight. This has made it increasingly hard to get things done as they know the right time to launch an attack....like when it is time to clean up their room and get ready for bed. The tickling buys them at least an extra half hour of awake time as I could never ignore the swarm of little fingers. I think it has become a big thing because at home I make a big laughing deal out of the whole thing. I run around in circles and throw back my head in a fake laughter that they don't identify as fake yet. This is usually pretty fun although Seb got perturbed at me when I didn't respond as such in the middle of Costco. His tickle fingers under my chin with his "ickle, ickle" prompt was not enough for me to wrecklessly drive the cart around the store in a fit of laughing hysterics. 
