Roby and Eli are 2.5

The boys are 2.5 (as of mid-November); here are some of the highlights and things I love best about 2.5....

Eli almost always eats his veggies and doesn't like sweets.  Roby never eats vegetables.  (As an aside, they have the same DNA.)

Eli almost always says "Thank you for this dinner Mommy" after dinner, of which he is nearly always the only child who has eaten anything.

Roby says "Peas xcuse" and clears his cup while I clear his plate. 

The boys both love to wear their sister's ballet outfits, almost as much as they love to play with trains.  They are old enough to put the tracks together (mostly) and move the trains around and around.  If the train magnets are the wrong way, they know to flip the train around to make it work.  As their mother, I am impressed.

 They love art and their sisters.

 They went through a cape phase for a while, Roby was always "SUPER ROBY" and Eli was "SUPER ELI" (predictably.)  Now Roby is Mikey Mouse and Eli is Eli.  Less predictable.  I'm not sure where Mikey Mouse came from but it's sticking.

They love each other.  When they fight, they get a time out and then the one in the wrong has to find the one in the right and give him a hug and a kiss.  It is nearly always graciously accepted and they move on.

The boys are fairly popular with the big girls.  Here they are post soccer.

Roby is amazing his mother with his ability to hold his pen like a big kid and color between (mostly) the lines.  I know a six year old who just started doing that last year.  Not pictured but Eli's most recent feat was to write his name!  (Vicky is my witness.)  He wrote an "E" (a line with lots of other lines.)  Then he wrote his "line" (and "l") and then he made his "dot" a lot of dots representing his "i".  This was not a random occurrence as he narrated for us and did it over and over again using his sister's erase board.  Vicky and I were impressed.  They both know "R" and "E" which are very important for labeling non Red and Blue things.  Red and Blue things don't need to be labeled.  Roby knows that everything Red in the universe belongs to him and vice versa for Eli.  They also know "D" for Daddy, "S" for Sarah Jane and "A" for Anna.  M has not yet sunk in. 

The boys are fun at the park, no longer requiring 100% hands on.  Dave and I enjoy the occasional sit and chat we get out of park visits these days.

Speaking of park visits, we tend to arrive at the park looking like this.  Yes, total ridiculousness.  But it works! The boys climb in themselves and put their clicks on (sort of.)  They LOVE sitting next to Sarah Jane.  So does Anna.  It can be a bit of a struggle. 

 Speaking of park and bikes and love.  The boys LOVE riding their bikes.  Roby especially.  No serious injuries yet.  YET.  They are fearless. 

We've lately (re)discovered going to restaurants, something we haven't been able to enjoy since 2007.  Restaurants are amazing - they do the dishes for you!  We like to go to Saul's on Sundays before tennis.  The boys and Anna get pancakes and fruit.  Sarah Jane gets French Toast.  Everyone eats the pancakes and french toast.  Eli eats the fruit.  Three of them get hot chocolate.  Eli refuses to drink hot chocolate, he prefers plain milk thank you very much.

The first ballet and trains picture was from this summer.  This was is from tonight.  Still a theme.

Other themes include almost being potty trained (diapers only at nap and bedtime) and lots of love in the morning with my morning snuggles.  They love Teacher Bari's and singing songs.  They particularly love Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Teacher Bari loves the boys.  She says they are very easy. That is high praise coming from Teacher Bari.

 

Where they are not easy: Bedtime.  We broke them sometime around March and it's been terrible since.  It takes nearly an hour every night to get them to go to sleep unless Dave is here and then it's 10 minutes.  Highly irksome.  They also don't stay in their beds - we had nighttime snugglers for nearly six months until Dave put his foot down while I was traveling and they stopped coming in. When I came home I discovered their solution - they were just heading the other way down the hall to snuggle with Sarah Jane.  We put an end to that and the crawling into our bed resumed.  Then we bought sleeping bags.  Now we lay the blue and red sleeping bags out on our floor every night before bed and in the morning they are occupied by our little men.  Eli goes in without waking me up.  Roby is not so considerate.   

 

2.5 is full of energy (they never stand still but are constantly jumping with their knees straight), sweet, caring, starting to pretend (they like to be cats) and almost easy.  Life is good.