Differences

Eli is 8 and has yet to ever care even in the least on how he physically presents himself to the world. He will wear anything I put in front of him- as long as it is comfortable. And we have yet to find a single pair of pants that will stay up on his 'hips' and not show 2 inches of his bum. But he does not care. I do- I just can not find a solution for senior no hips.
Theo- well I've always had this feeling that things would be different with him once he got tall enough to open his own drawers. Since we have placed his clothes in the top two drawers of the dresser, we are still in charge of his clothing options...but our days as Theo's style consultants are numbered. This is how I know:
Last night after the boys got out of the tub Eli decided to style Theo's hair. (Has Eli ever cared to 'style' his own hair? No.) He brushed it real nicely all kind of swept to the side- as much as Theo's short, thick hair can be swept. Then a little later the three of us piled into Theo's bed for books. After a page or two I noticed that Theo was kind of doing an extended tummy crunch and not putting his head on the pillow. I told him to relax and lay back. He protested and moved awkwardly onto one arm. Then he suddenly sat up, felt his hair, apparently decided that the whole effect had already been ruined, moaned "Darnit!" with more angst than 5 year olds should be able to muster, and then fell heavily onto his pillow.

Eli's Sardonic Worldview

The other night I was reading to the two boys before bed. It was one of the early cool and rainy nights in August after intense heat and I was cherishing actually snuggling with the boys- rather than trying to preserve my cool and my personal space like I had been doing through that heat wave. Anyway, we had a lovely read, then we were just chatting. I mentioned that the weather reminded me of October, which reminded Eli of Halloween, which got him started on talking about all of the candy that piles up over Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's day, and Easter. His actually piles up because his sweet tooth is severaly UNDERdeveloped. I never had this piling issue as a kid.
As we were all three snuggled in Theo's bed I started making up this song about candy and me and how I planned to hog it all...it went something like this (Please, no attempts to pirate this song- I am working on copywriting as we speak) "I'm going to take the candy and put it in my pocket, put it in my pocket, and NEVER share it with anyone!" Eli was silent for a second or two, then said, "Geez Mom, I think you might have just written the theme song for America."

Tick Poop Revisited

Earlier this week Theo was really suffering from growing pains. After a few days of watching him limp around, I mentioned to Jon: "Do you think it's possible that he has Lyme's Disease?" And immediately Theo piped up from the other room: "But Mom, I never saw any tick hairs or tick poops!!" For an explanation- see 'Tick Poop' below.