Quick Takes: My crazy boys.

1. Lately, Son #1 (age 3) has been practicing start-and-stop sleeping. Check on him at 9 and he's passed out cold, cherubic face resting atop neatly folded hands. An hour later, you'll hear his barely muffled footfalls in the hallway: Hallway light on, run back to room! Then turn hallway light off! No, go turn it on again!

Tonight, I went to check on him after hearing some persistent, whiny crying seeping out from beneath his door. Obviously, I found a distressed little person... with no underwear in sight. "Where are your undies?" I asked. He looked at me with confusion. "You know, the fresh undies I just put you in a half hour ago?" Still perplexed. We scoured his entire room, from under the bed to each drawer, and the pair he started the slumber session with were nowhere to be found. Another half hour later, my husband found them- in our bathroom sink. Apparently soon after we bid him good night, he decided underwear is overrated, snuck across the hall to our room, and deposited them in the most logical place for overrated underwear. Makes sense, right?

2. That's just how we ended the night! This morning, he found my stash of Jolly Ranchers I used to ward off my morning sickness in the first trimester, unwrapped a few for himself and his brother (hey, at least he's generous), and settled in to enjoy a movie with his candy. I discovered them with blue and pink teeth, covered in colorful, sticky drool. This all occurred while I was retrieving outfits for them so we could go out and run errands. Convenient!

3. After the extra 20 minutes to clean them both up and wrestle Eli into his clothes (clothes are overrated too, you know), we finally made it out the door. They were magnificently behaved, although Gabriel was rather talkative and refuses to speak any quieter than super-sonic loud. But I'm sure the rest of the store wanted to hear about every object we were cruising by too.

4. This afternoon we took them to the park. They are ridiculously, squishably cute at parks. Their cheeks flush pink from playing, their dark hair sticks to their foreheads, and they gleefully glance back to make sure we're tracking every, amazing thing they're doing. Gabriel is a swingaholic, and Eli is fond of random wandering and attempting to go down slides backwards, on his tummy.

5. I devised a sneaky way to get Gabriel to eat veggies! I'll just throw them in muffins! See, he thinks muffins are CAKE. Baby cakes! It's really a win-win situation- He thinks he's eating cake (which means it's someone's birthday in his universe), and I don't need to negotiate just one more spoonful of green beans. Problem solved. Every meal will be served in muffin form.

6. When I'm driving, G is fond of asking me what I'm doing ("What doin', Mama?") "I'm driving, baby," I usually respond. Then he asks again, every 5 minutes until we get where we're going. I think he's convinced I'm actually doing something spectacularly exciting up where I sit, so far away from the boring middle section of the van.

7. 9 more weeks and I'll have another son to add to my adventures! :)