Brother Love

Our routine has been thrown off significantly by my job. And for the most part it's just fine.

But the bedtime thing (which has historically been my favorite part of the day) is kicking my butt. We've been teased often about our ridiculously early bedtime before, but we do it anyway because it is what works best for our kids. Dinner around 5, baths, scriptures, prayers, stories, songs, bed. By the time 7pm rolls around my kids are usually out like a light.

Except when they aren't. And lately, that's every day.

In reality it doesn't matter one bit what the clock says when my kids go to sleep; but when they go to sleep before 7, they sleep in until 7. When they go to sleep after 7, they usually wake up before 6. So I've always just stuck to the early bedtime.

In theory I leave work at 5. In practice I get home around 5:30 or 5:45. I make dinner, feed the boys, rush them through their baths, skip all of the fun parts of bedtime and close their bedroom door behind me feeling like I've just wrestled alligators and look at the clock to find it closer to 8 than 7.

Now when they go to bed it's such a whirlwind of craziness and hurrying that they're still wound up when I turn out the light and leave the room. I love listening to them laugh and giggle and play with each other. Tommy starts out in bed, but by the time I reach the kitchen he is sticking his arms through the crib slats and making faces at John and they're both in a fit of giggles.

Last night John was laugh-crying so I went in to remind Tommy that snatching animals out of John's crib and playing with them in front of him isn't nice. When Tommy heard me coming he raced back across the room and jumped in his bed, so I don't really know what he was doing. But John had all 4 limbs sticking through the crib slats and seemed to be stuck in a position only a contortionist or baby can manage.

As I untangled him he started laughing again and I turned around to see Tommy behind me pulling funny faces and reaching for John's toes to tickle them.

These two are ridiculously fond of each other lately. The play and wrestle and laugh all day long. From the second Tommy wakes up and sticks his face in John's crib to say "Goooood MORneen Little John!" to the moment he collapses on the floor by his bed tickling his toes after dark.

Post Edit: I wrote this 3 days ago, and have spent 3 days trying to get a picture of them being adorable and loving and funny together. Instead one of them is constantly stealing the other one's books, balloons, animals, balls, blankets, rugs, you get it. Everything.

Sometimes John wins:

And sometimes Tommy wins:

But for 3 days they haven't been close enough to each other to be in the same photo without needing my immediate intervention to save them from each other.

So instead you get these lovelies. Because this week the sun started to shine and my babies both ran out of the house and into the middle of the road faster than I could take off my ridiculous work shoes and chase them.