Sunday, December 9, 2012

Helping Out Little Brother


Tonight is the first night of Zeke and Ben in the same room at bedtime. It was a rough bedtime, and Ben was very sad that he wasn't in his normal crib in the back bedroom.

That's why we were pleased when, after a few minutes, we heard them being very happy together and laughing in their room.

"Great," we thought, "Zeke is showing Ben all the games and play ideas he normally goes through after lights out, and he sure loves an audience."

After about 45 minutes, we thought we would see why they were still being so loud and to help them calm down a little to fall asleep.

That's when we saw this:

Where do I sleep?
In the words of Zeke, "Ben was sad so I gave him some toys."

Just to clarify, Zeke didn't give Ben some toys. Zeke gave Ben all of the toys in the set of 9 toy tubs in his organizer, the tubs themselves, all of the books in the bookshelf, a few larger toys from the closet, a collection of Ben, Zeke and Dad shoes from down the hall, some pillows, and a ruler.

Ben was visibly tired and looking a little concerned that he couldn't lie down in his crib. Zeke was very pleased with himself and certain that he had done an excellent job getting Ben happy.

We clearly need to work out better rules for bedtime.  And maybe next time we should wait to die of laughter until after we clean up and put them back to bed.

Here are some more picture of the aftermath.

The empty shelves to the left



Sunday, December 2, 2012

Caroling

It's Christmas time!
We put up the tree (and then had a lighting issue and took everything down and put it all back up again).  The boys are interested in the tree, but they also believe in experimentation.  Zeke managed to break an ornament that was made of baked play dough by licking it to pieces, and Ben is determined to electrocute himself with the lights.
I made two batches of fudge last week (one terrible, one quite good) and they've been waiting in the freezer for a good purpose.  So, tonight we attempted a little Christmas caroling at a neighbor's house.  Mike suggested that we do something that would include the boys, so the jingle bells came out.  Of course, I insisted on a little costuming, which Zeke loved.  (He's pretty handy with scissors and a glue stick.)
Zeke pouted through the song, but at least Ben shook his bells energetically.  It was a bit of a let down to our neighbor, who really enjoyed the brass last year.  We might just save the rest of the fudge for our own bellies.