It was a damp 50 degrees the other morning when Boots got dressed in a basketball uniform. It’s silky and red and one of his favorite outfits.
It also is a hand-me-down from Big Guy, who …

We’ve made posters just like Boots’ teacher helped him with at school, and we’ve created a living room salute out of old boots, an extra beret and Dad’s favorite mug.
They’ve adopted new Bear Force bears, …

It wasn’t quite as big a deal for Boots as it was when Big Guy got his first non-cousin party invitation a year and a half ago – but, then, Boots already has been to …

I’ll admit it: I was a bossy kid. A pushy oldest sibling who told little brother and sister where to sit and how long to sit there as she lectured at the chalkboard.
I don’t think …

It was their best imbroglio since the Pizza Man Melee almost a year ago, when they came to blows over imaginary food.
The BaseBrawl began when Big Guy decided to play in the backyard. He can’t …

One guy bolted out of bed, strapped on his backpack and bounced out the door, eager to get started at his new school.
The other trudged, stoop-shouldered, to his classroom.
It was exactly what I expected – …

One set is fire-engine red and silky-soft enough to sleep in. The other is gold and blue and could pass for a soccer uniform.
And both set off a pout so prominent Big Guy was in …

Somehow, probably because of food allergies, the guys had managed to make it to the ripe old ages of 5 and 3 without discovering the joys of the bulk-candy bin.
That changed Sunday, and they now …

Good thing I left accidental wiggle room when I vowed – or maybe I ranted – recently that not another toy would come into the house until the guys cleaned up the pile of junk …

The problem is bellies.
Boots’ is – how shall I put this tactfully? – a bit prominent. Big Guy could slide under a door unimpeded.
All of which is creating an uproar as we go through the …

If I play my cards right, I won’t have to lift a single flash card to get Boots ready for kindergarten.
He and his brother will take care of it. And they’ll even think it’s fun. …

So I was fixing lunch at 2 yesterday afternoon when Boots tugged at my shirt . “Mommy! Somebody sent us balloons.”
“That’s nice, babes,” I said absently, figuring I was entitled to answer absently if it …

She came to Big Guy’s school Tuesday with an agenda, and he fell hard for the sales pitch.
“Mom, the lady talked to our class today, and you have to fill this out. We have to …

I have a back-up plan should the job market worsen: selling used furniture. I already have an impressive inventory of unnecessary beds.
And should things really get bad  – say, Bank of America flounders after buying …

Pawpaw thought he was being sly, but I figured him out.
That didn’t diminish my love for the gift the day my burly grandfather showed up with a three-ring blue canvas binder filled with notebook paper …

We tried to make the guys’ Christmas haul as parallel as possible this year without buying identical gifts, because matching sets trigger an entirely different set of disputes when one guy breaks his toy but …

The thump and the wail were loud enough that they brought Dad and me running from opposite directions. We arrived in the living room at the same time to see Boots red-faced and crying.
“What happened …

There’s an 8×12 spot over my fireplace that taunts me. I know I should do something about it, especially with Christmas approaching. I don’t think I can take the trauma, though.
The hole’s not empty: It’s …

I remember laughing uproariously a couple years ago at a blurb in Parents magazine from a mom whose kids fought over imaginary chocolate-chip cookies.
How incredibly stupid — yet, hilarious — I thought. How could sibling …

A Halloween that starts under threatening skies — outdoors and in — wouldn’t seem to have much potential.
But it ended with Little Guy moaning on the floor that his tummy hurt and Big Guy weeping …

At first they were happy to make mud-pie “coppee” in the back yard. Then they turned to brewing it in the bathtube in old bubble bath bottles — come to think of it, that might …

There’s a reason no one in my mother’s family ever throws away anything — 35 years down the road, someone might need it.

OK, so that’s not the real reason. The brutal truth: We’re all obsessive-compulsive pack rats who are going to die surround by cats and 1986 editions of Ladies Home Journal, recipes carefully paper clipped so we can make them some day. Or maybe that’s just me.

Today, though, my — and my mother’s — pack-rat OCD came in handy when I was starting dinner and Big Guy remembered the stack of six-inch pizza pans I’d wrested from Mom a couple years ago.

“”Hey, I want to make my own pizza! Where are those little pans?”" he asked.

Ordinarily, a request from

“We hadn’t been in the car five minutes this evening when Big Guy made a pained pronouncement: “”Mommy, I gotta go!”"

Aw dang it, I responded, more sharply than I should have. In my defense, it was the end of a long day — at least, the end of the office portion of it. Plus, he’d made the same plea roughly 15 minutes earlier, as we were leaving day care.

No matter. When you gotta go, you gotta go. I pulled off at a McDonald’s where the restrooms usually are clean, put on my Stern Mommy face and lectured. “”Guys, we’re not getting food.”"

It took 15 minutes to get back on the road. He really did have to go.

And that’s been a pattern with Big Guy this week. Every day, during our noontime kindergarten-to-day-care shuttle, he’s started moaning. “”Mommy, I gotta go!”

I didn’t think much of it — eating lunch can sometimes, well, force these issues — until I mentioned what I thought was just an odd coincidence to a teacher at day care.

Happens all the time, she said.

I feel so retro I’m ready to hitch up the horses.

Last week, the guys mailed Halloween cards to family back east. That’s right – envelopes, stamps, addresses and everything. Signed them even – sort of. Big Guy can manage only the first two letters of his name. Makes me wish I’d named him Al or Ed – he’d think he was a genius because he could spell the whole thing.

And today, we went to the bank. A real honest-to-gosh bank. Not one in a grocery store, not an ATM.

Remember those? I’d almost forgotten. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in one in the past two years.

Seems these days, I have an arm’s length relationship with my money, and it’s not just because, since the guys came along, it goes out almost as soon as it comes in.

I’ve direct deposited my paychecks since 1990. My main savings account is through a credit union payroll deduction, while deposits into my “emergency” savings account are electronic transfers from my checking account. I also have automatic transfers set up for the guys’ college funds. I pay all but two bills online.

It’s a highly efficient system. Click-pay is far quicker than writing checks, and the labyrinth of electronic transactions saves a lot of running around and waiting in line.

But what do the guys see? Nothing.

With the guys, getting there is way more than half the battle.

I dread lengthy trips of any type – even the novelty of a plane wears off after about an hour – and make sure we have plenty of “fun” to keep them occupied. Snacks, crayons, books, Hot Wheels and tiny Thomas trains, anything to give them something to do besides whine “are we there yet?”

Little did I know that we’d embark on the longest road trip of their lives with no diversions and only leftovers for snacks.

A friend who knew I was heading south this afternoon tried to warn me: Stay off Highway 99, there’s a huge wreck, read an email that arrived at 4:11. “It’s probably too late,” the email added.

It was.

Don’t get me wrong: I love men. I really do.

It’s just that at times I cannot understand them. The gap is deeper than the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” thing, and it’s a handicap when you’re a Venutian trying to raise two little Martians.

Lately, I’ve given up trying to understand and accepted that some things simply are.

I don’t understand why Little Guy has to dismantle every toy in his grasp. “Of course James doesn’t run anymore,” I said after his millionth time tearing apart his train. “He’s not going to work if you take out the battery.”

I don’t grasp why washing cars is fun, though I realize that it this age the appeal has more to do with playing in water. They won’t outgrow it, though. My brother’s bedroom was a health hazard when he was a teen, but you’d never see a speck on his truck.

And I don’t get why garbage-truck day is such a thrill

“I’m swinging higher!” Big Guy chirped.

“No, I’m swinging higher!” his 10-year-old cousin countered, pumping her legs harder.

“No, I’m swinging higher!” Big Guy insisted, his face contorted and red with effort.

“I’m swinging higher!” she returned.

Big Guy jumped off his swing and turned toward her. “Lookit, this is an argument about nothing. Can we just stop?”

If I were the fainting type, I would have swooned on the spot.

It’s not unusual to hear your 4-year-old echo your words, but they’re usually the four-letter ones you shouldn’t have said. Rare are the times when they repeat something that you’ve been harping about for weeks and thought they never would get.

Almost from the beginning, the guys and I have followed the same nightly ritual: stories, songs, cuddles and lights out.

Except lately, we’ve added a step: Big Guy’s long trudge down the hall to his own room.

The great bed-sharing experiment – if you can call something an “experiment” that’s gone on for 10 months – started last spring when Big Guy decided Little Guy’s new bed was far superior to his own.

A month later, I conceded that they were roommates and moved Big Guy’s dresser down the hall. I had an ulterior motive — I’d love to reclaim one of the bedrooms for my computer, which I’m tired of tripping over in my own room.

A month after that, we went through our first bout of Death

Some days you just want to preserve as the “Groundhog Day” of parenting, not because you want to repeat them until you get them right, but because they were right.

Days like today: 45 minutes, two haircuts, not even a whimper, a smiling stylist and two faces sticky from lollipops.

Life is good.

I was unreasonably nervous heading out for the guys’ semiannual shearing today. The fact that their haircuts are designed to last almost six months tells you how bad the experience can be. Plus, I’d never taken both guys by myself, without a second in case one or the other broke bad.

Big Guy broke me in – and almost broke me down – when he was about 10 months old. I was too chicken to brave a

The second we found out Little Guy was a guy, I steeled myself for sibling rivalry of epic proportions.

In this corner, Big Guy: As the oldest son of an only son and the oldest grandson, he holds a hallowed position in the paternal side’s pecking order. The world had been his for almost two years, until along came …

Little Guy: Despite his early laid-back attitude, he’d have to be robotic not to start giving it back to his brother.

And so it devolved to this:

Big Guy developing an immediate and intense interest in any toy Little Guy had and grabbing it, just because he had the size advantage and could.

Little Guy sauntering up and thumping Big Guy on the back, just because he was occupying space.

Mom

Little Guy’s a daredevil who’s going to wind up in traction before he’s old enough to drive. But he hates crowds, which he defines as a gathering of more than three people.

Big Guy’s so social that a trip to the grocery store could take hours by the time he gabs with other shoppers, checkout clerks, plants in the floral department. But his knees still knock a bit as he stands at the top of tall slides.

Seems I have two riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas. And I can’t figure out how on earth it happened.

Little Guy’s going through a particularly wild stage now.

He tries his dangedest to ride Big Guy’s tricycle, even though his feet can’t reach the pedals and he has no prayer of

When we left our heroes, Little Guy’s big-boy bed had just arrived.  He hated it.  Big Guy, on the other hand, loved it. They’ve been sleeping together since. Most nights, that is – except for three, including last night. 

When it comes to discipline, I’m a steel-coated marshmallow. So the first week of the bed-share experiment, I let a nightly gabfest go because I wanted this to work. There are so many advantages to being roommates – learning to share, more brotherly closeness.

 All right, I’m lying. I wanted this to work because I lost my computer room when Little Guy moved in, and I want it back.

  Honestly, it isn’t Big Guy’s fault he can’t shut up. He’s a blabbermouth by nature. He’ll yak

I am all about encouraging diversity of options with my boys. Just as I would tell a daughter she can be anything she wants to be, so I tell my sons.

I don’t even blink when Big Guy twirls around the living room singing, “I’m a ballerina! I’m a ballerina!” His dad does, however, raise an eyebrow. The other day, when Big Guy announced he wanted to be a nurse, I was fine with that, though I suspect the new career path had more to do with a sadistic pleasure in the possibility of giving people shots than it did a desire to heal the sick.

I have to draw the line for the time being at hair dresser. As Lost My Place so accurately pointed out a few weeks ago in her blog, “people actually go to school to learn how to correctly use scissors to cut hair.”

Guess Big Guy thought he knew all he needed to know. A cousin on his father’s side is a hair dresser, and Big Guy’s seen him give many a cut in our kitchen.

So today, Big Guy opened up shop. One second he’s sitting at the table cutting paper into confetti – annoying to clean up, but acceptable. The next he’s leaving Little Guy a few ringlets short of Goldilocks.

For me, the most exciting stage of development is speech.

Sure, walking is a big thing, but a toddler still seems like a baby, strolling around with that chubby little diaper-butted waddle.

Once they’re talking, though, they stop being your baby and turn into a tiny person. A person who can clearly communicate wants, needs and moods, which can be good and bad.

Little Guy has been a pretty good communicator all along. He was only about eight months old when he started pointing and grunting at the fruit bowl on the kitchen table. Primitive, but he made his point.

But now he’s turning into quite a blabbermouth.

No surprise there. My grandfather was a blabbermouth, my dad is a blabbermouth, my brother is a blabbermouth, Big Guy is a blabbermouth and, while not in their league, I can hold my own.

With that gene pool, no wonder Little Guy chatters incessantly. Problem is, I have no clue what he’s saying 90 percent of the time. When he starts his excited mile-a-minute blabbing, I just nod and reply with an enthusiastic “I know,” praying I haven’t just agreed to buy him a pony.