This fairly accurately captures a typical night in our house. I race in the door at 6pm, and am greeted by an enthusiastic "MOMMY!" from Hank and considerably calmer greetings from B&O. Naturally, they both promptly decide to start working on their new Lego sets, so I spend the next thirty minutes trying to keep H away from the tempting tiny pieces by playing with his Duplo Legos instead. We attach every animal we can find to every wheeled vehicle we can find and drive them around the room until it's time for stories. He is not pleased to put our game aside and protests mightily, accompanied by an impressive display of jutting-lower-lip pouting. Hank and I typically read bedtime stories alone in his room but tonight the bigs decide to join us. Hank is not keen on this disruption in routine, and refuses to accept that I'm lying on the floor so everyone can see the book instead of sitting in my customary chair ("MOOOOVE!! Sit down here!"), nor is he happy to be reading a book not of his choosing ("Noooo! Night moon!").
So we finish our stories and Henry mauls/kisses his brothers good night before they go on their merry way. Then Hank and I do our classic bit where he turns off all the bedroom lights and we both exclaim "Eeek! Eeeek! It's so dark!" while he grabs my face and we pretend quake in terror. We sing a few songs and I deposit him into his crib, throwing in a few quick rounds of the "where's Henry?" game (spoiler: under the blanket) just for kicks. Back in the living room, I'm immediately set upon by the Lego fiends, pressed into service to locate missing pieces and interpret unclear instructions.
Lego work ceases for the night and we head off to my room for the final, thrilling conclusion of Book 3 of How to Train Your Dragon. Then comes teethbrushing and insistent "how much longer?" questioning that literally begins the second the brushes enter their mouths, followed by carries to bed. Naturally Hank is still wide awake and starts clamoring "MY BED!" as soon as Owen enters the room (Hank is somewhat territorially inclined in general, and specifically regarding the coveted top bunk).
Once in bed, we talk about our days and they ask for stories about my "fake day" (alas, a lawyer's life is so dull that only fake tales will suffice). Brendan tells me about acting out Greek myths in Drama, and goes into great detail about a scene where M____ was a king racing a chariot pulled by his horse Brendan. The competition's chariot wheels were apparently held together with wax, so they melted and "all those horses died." So on B's final lap, he was dancing and singing "I'm running through dead horses, I'm running through dead horses," after which the king had to talk to the princess and "he was like 'noooooo, i don't want to go up to a GIRL' and it was sooooo hilarious." B laughs so hard in the retelling of the scene that he can barely breathe.
After we say goodnight, I overhear them chatting away and naturally lurk at the door to eavesdrop. At first, they discuss the time - "well, if we left mommy's room at 8:04 it's probably 8:9 ("um, 8 OH 9," corrected B) or actually 8:10." This prompts a digression - "if you say eight ten people might think you mean eight HUNDRED ten so you better be careful." Then comes the good stuff. Owen asks Brendan, "so if you had to marry someone from your class, who would it be?" hastening to clarify, "it has to be a GIRL." Brendan ponders this for a bit before answering, "umm, probably P____," followed shortly by something along the lines of "all the girls in my class like me....well, except R___, she totally forgets about me (the clear subtext was "can you believe it?!") but she has heard about you many times. MANY."
The topic of ladies exhausted, they move onto their favorite sports. Without hesitation, B picks skiing. This clearly causes O to rethink matters (he hates to be left out of anything), so he ruminates for a bit on "what do you think I should like better - skiing or basketball?" before adding, "do they even make such a thing as skiing trading cards? It's SO frustrating, I really wish they made skiing cards." A brief pause, before Owen continues, "Does R know your favorite sport? Does she know mine?" to which B responds, "Ummm, probably she knows basketball" (my understanding is that Owen's love of basketball is widely known throughout all three kindergarten classes).
Then they devote some time to guessing each other's favorite and "not favorite" boys in their class (this last one made me a little panicky that my kids are either the cool mean kids or are being picked on, although I doubt it). In trying to guess O's "not favorite" boys, B literally says, "think, think, THINK, give me a hint here! Give me the letter of his first name." Owen happens to cough at that exact moment, and B asks, "his name is cough?" Hee. They finally fall silent so I leave my listening post to go pour myself a glass of wine and call it a night on the parenting front.
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