`That's Just How It Be's'

Little boys are worlds unto themselves. Perhaps the circuitry in their minds is still being connected, or they are overloaded by all the stimulus that bombards them on an average day. Who knows. They do and say the darndest, head scratchingest things. Eli, for example, wouldn't change into his pajamas in front of me the other night. He got his pj's out of his dresser drawer and ducked into the closet and shut the door so I wouldn't see him in his underwear. Yet if I draw the bath water he has no problem getting buck naked and jumping in the tub. With me right there in front of him. I haven't figured that one out yet.

Ezra has a funny saying that his older brothers and sisters get a kick out of. He'll walk into a room and announce that Mama said it was OK for him to watch a movie. Then someone will ask if she really said that. "Yes," Ezra says, "and that's just how it be's." Or say you'll be playing "Star Wars" with him, which entails battling him in light sabers. Say he pulls a certain move, like a whirl-around-and-raise-the-light-saber-above-his-head-then-charge-you, but you do a nice little sidestep and tag him with your light saber anyway -- yet he doesn't die. If you ask him what was up with that he'll say, "That's just the way it be's." How do you argue with that?

It's the dead of winter and chilly in the house but Eli and Ezra insist on sleeping without shirts on. They get their pajamas on and then once they are in bed take their tops off. I guess they're manning up or something. At bedtime tonight Eli asked for a snack. "Didn't you just have a snack?" I said. "Yeah," Eli replies. "But I only had two after dinner." Obviously it was a three-snack night. Don't know where I've been all these years. So I get him a snack. I get back upstairs to the room, get the prayers said and the lights out when Ezra announces he's thirsty. Who needs a Stairmaster when I have Eli and Ezra to serve?