Boy Updates. Pardon my tardiness.

Hey!  Did you guys remember that I had a blog?!  It seems my last post was about nine months ago, which is long enough that I could have had a 3rd child that you didn't know about.  I didn't.  I actually don't have any good excuses (or anything extra-special that prompted my return, for that matter), so let's just pretend I haven't been pathetically truant around here, okay?  Okay.  

Now on to the important stuff -- updates and pictures!! 

Isaac:

• is currently 16 months old.
• always says "aye" instead of "yes."
• loves LOVES his big brother. When I go get him in the morning or after a nap, he doesn't even acknowledge me - he just asks for Ben.  He also loves Justin the Cat, whom he calls Jay.  All other cats are also named Jay.
• was very mobile and physical early on, and I suspected he would be an early walker.  Wrong.  Oh, so wrong.  He has only recently committed to walking, and he chooses that as his mode of transportation maybe 50% of the time.
• is a clown.  He loves to laugh and make other people laugh.
• has excellent manners.  He says "pwsss" (please) when he asks for something, and he has his own made-up sign-language version of "thank you."  He touches his fingers to his chest and says "ehhh," and he repeats it until you make eye contact with him while he says/does it.
• often rehearses his family's names in the car.  "Dada, Mama, Ben.... Dada, Mama, Ben." Over and over.
• is weirdly obsessed with looking at family pictures, and he's getting pretty good at naming grandparents and cousins.

Ben:   
 

• is currently 3 years old.
• Mispronounces "hamburger" (hambugger) and "acorn" (egghorn). Aside from that, he is still super verbal and good at articulating what he's thinking. 
• wakes up in the morning and plays on his bed until I come in.  He usually wads up his covers to resemble (at least in his mind) various construction machines and invents scenarios for them to act out.
• loves Richard Scarry books -- we've read Cars and Trucks and Things that Go and What Do People Do All Day? more times than I'd care to count -- and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. 
• had his first swimming lesson yesterday. He really wanted to enjoy it, but he couldn't quite give himself permission to stop being nervous.  In what might have been my most heartless parenting move to date, I laughed uncontrollably when I heard him say to his teacher, "Don't let me sink!"  (He couldn't see me laughing -- I'm not that heartless!) This picture captures his feelings pretty well:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
• thinks teenagers are really, really cool.  Should I be scared?
• has made me realize how often I say "sure!" and "apparently" and "I was thinking..." and "well,..." because they have become standards in his daily conversations.
• gets totally confused by naptime -- he thinks it's a new day and time to eat breakfast when he wakes up.  He's sort of getting two days for the price of one. By his calculations, he should be about 7 years old by now.
  

Attempt #15 to get a picture of them together.  The flash was a little too bright for Ben.