One of the nifty tricks our boys play is that they take turns being a bugger.  In general, whatever phase Nic is going through, Dex will probably hit about 3 months later.  But even over smaller timescales, when one of them seems really out of sorts and is making us miserable, the other boy tends to be a paragon of virtue.  This week it appears to be Nic’s turn to be the bugger, and Dex’s turn to be awesome.

When we drove home from St. Edward’s Park, Nic fell asleep after about 2 minutes in the car.  When we first got in he was very animated and asking lots of questions, and I told him that he should just relax for a few minutes, lean his head back and close his eyes, just for a minute.  Dex apparently thought this meant both of them, even though he wasn’t particularly tired and didn’t want a nap, so he decided to close his eyes anyway.  He kept his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, but the fact that he was singing about bananas hinted that perhaps he hadn’t entirely drifted off yet.  After a few minutes he stopped playing and we tried to talk quietly on the way home.  I finally lost him around 4 minutes from our house.  It was one of those things where I looked back in the mirror once and he smiled at me, and the second time I glanced back he was asleep.  Figures.  Then I got to our house, and carried him inside and laid him down on the couch.  I went and got Nic, who now had had his 30 minute nap, and tossed him on the other couch.  I kept trying to wake Dex up (Nic was just laying there, staring at the ceiling).  Eventually Nic got up and ran off to the family room to grab the Playmobil catalogue (a gift from Malina’s mother, which the boys very much enjoy looking through, and which has me concerned that their Christmas list is going to be very long and detailed).  I told the seemingly sleeping Dexter this, reminding him that we’d only looked through one of the cataloge’s earlier and still had one to go, and with his eyes closed he promptly started talking (in a perfectly awake voice) – “Daddy, I’m gonna show you something.  You’ll see.  It’s really interesting.”  He rolled over, got up, and started running.  I think he opened his eyes about the time he got around the other couch.

When Katie got home, and realized we’d skipped snack (in my defense, lunch was a bit late, and Nic was being such a bugger that it was all I could do to stay right next to him and keep him from melting down), she went to start dinner.  Nic lost it, and I was tired, and we *almost* decided to give in to the babysitter (i.e., and episode of Thomas), but knowing what happens when the episodes are over, I rallied.  We got out Hungry Hungry Hippos, and proceeded to have a grand time.  Well, for about 2 minutes.  Then Dex had 5 marbles, I had 1, and Nic had 14, and Nic wouldn’t let us play any more – he just wanted to talk about how many marbles his Hippo had eaten.  <sigh>  I was starting to lose them again, and didn’t have much I could do (Nic had taken my last marble by now), so I decided to let the Hippo start singing.  We got a few lines into “American Pie”, just finishing the first Chorus, when Dex interrupted that he wanted to sing “Old McDonald”.  So we changed songs.  We went through a couple of normal animals, but the boys get so absurdly worked up over the chickens (the last squawk comes out like a chocked scream, and the boys go a bit nuts), that I was desperate for a diversion.  So, I started singing, “and on his farm he had a..  Rock.  E-Eye E-Eye, Oh…   With a ….  here, and a …. there, here a …, there a …., everywhere a …. ….”  And on and on, picking one inanimate object after another, all of which make no noise at all, and Dexter nearly peed himself laughing so hard.  That kids laugh, I really wish I had that as my ringtone.

After dinner, Dexter decided to shoot me.  It doesn’t matter how many times I pick him off, he just whips out the 6-shooters and lets me have it, and won’t move on until I fall to the ground and die.  This time, though, I decided to grab a grenade and blow him up.  So then he’d hold out his hands and yell, “Give me another one!”  So I’d pretend to pull the pin, set it in his hands, count to 4, and then bounce him and his brother up high and shake them with the explosion.  Over, and over again.  ”Do it again, Daddy”.  I tried frag grenades, poison gas grenades, flash grenades, tear gas grenades, laughing gas grenades – over and over again.  That kids insatiable.  I really hope he realizes that sitting on a grenade in real life wouldn’t be as funny…

Then he was going to go give Katie a hug, after she said, “I bet you can’t knock me over”.  Most of Dexter’s hugs end with this, these days, much to his delight.  He tried once, and it didn’t work.  So he backed up, and started wiggling his but and pumping his arms like he was running, and then he ran forward to tackle her.  She was laughing so hard watching him wiggle that I don’t even think he had to run into her to knock her over.

Eventually we headed up to bath time, where one of the boys pooped (a tiny one) in the bath tub.  I have my guess as to who it was, but regardless, it was out of the bath and into the shower for their second wash down.  Nic was screaming, but Dex had fun with the removable shower head.  After story time, Nic was way past needing to go down, but Dex was no where near ready.  After a few minutes I went back in and got him, to let Nic to fall asleep without all the commotion.  The next day Kyla was coming to clean, so we had picked some stuff up off the floor (Dex was sleeping in his “nest” next to his bed), and that included the huge stuffed animal dog that Grandma Marilyn bought him a couple of years ago.  Dex hadn’t noticed Katie toss it on his bed, so when we were talking out he said, “Hmm, there’s a doggy on my bed.  That’s just silly.  Why did Nicky put it there?  Oh, goodness.”

Our room had the AC blasting to cool it off, so we headed to the now-empty Au Pair room and hopped up on the bed to read a story.  Dexter stopped at the foot of the bed, and said, “This is a good bed.  It’s super easy to climb up on.  I like this bed the most.”    We then started negotiating which book, and he rejected the one we’d brought upstairs, and so I offered to head downstairs to get another book, but I’d sure move a lot faster if I had a kiss, so Dex grabs my head and starts kissing really quickly, and then says, “I gave you FOUR kisses!”  So I ran out to get his book.

We all hung out on the bed while we read the stories.  When we were done, Dex thought we should stay a bit longer.  Then he leaned over and put his face right next to Katie’s, and started looking out of one eye with the other closed, and then the other, back and forth, with Katie saying, “Can you see me?  Can you see me now?  Are you there?  I can’t see you!  Oh, there you are.”  And it just kept going on, and it’s typical Dexter absurdity, so I couldn’t help but laugh at him.  Eventually he went into his bedroom, and Katie tucked him back into his nest.  He wasn’t *quite* ready to go down yet, but almost.  I heard some noises from the room, but figured he must have just gotten up to get a drink of water.  After we cleaned up downstairs we headed up to bed, and stopped to check on the boys.  I headed over to Nic, but as Katie was starting to walk around Dex’s bed to get to where he was sleeping on the floor, the dog on his bed moved causing both of us to jump.  Apparently Dex had decided that 4 nights on the floor was enough and gotten himself back into his bed, tucking himself in underneath the dog.  And predictably, scaring the crap out of us in the process.  Seriously, this kid is awesome.

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