El Manana

Driving home from a little Christmas shopping on Sunday, I was listening to a program on NPR. I tend not to think a lot about listening to news shows in front of my kids. I grew up watching the news. Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor were my first heroes. I knew more about world politics and current events when I was four than most adults do now. As a result, I've always been a news junkie and that has only lessened since I've had children and don't enjoy the luxury of watching news programs obsessively, reading several newspapers and magazines each day, and talking politics and/or current events with everyone I know. Since I don't often get to watch the news at home, I listen in the car whenever I can.

Anyway, I'm driving along with Brendan in the backseat, listening to All Things Considered and they're talking about Ingrid Betancourt, a hostage held by Marxist geurillas in Colombia since 2002. The first thing Brendan hears is guerillas, only to him it's gorillas. Now, it is important to note at this point that Brendan mispronounces gorilla so that it comes out as badrilla.Badrillas!, he exclaims. Badrillas kidnap humans! AAAAAHHHHHHH!

I control my laughter so I can actually hear the rest of the story and we continue on. A little way into the story, the reporter says that in a letter to her mother, Bettancourt said that the only people in the camp where she is being held beside herself are the male guerillas. The next thing I hear is What?! The mail man is a badrilla! I knew it!

I laughed so hard I a had to pull over for a second. I was just imagining a gorilla putting on a human mail carrier costume and stealthily sneaking around delivering mail, ripping open certain packages.

In other cuteness, Brendan told his dad the other day that all smart kids wear glasses which oddly coincides with his affection for Simon the Chipmunk and Brainy Smurf, although, he told me today that Smurfette is actually his favorite.

Beckett, too, is doing his best to be the cutest baby ever. He's walking and actually trying to run in order to keep up with big brother. He has five teeth now and loves to bite me wherever he can. Shoulder. Thigh. A couple of nights ago while I was kneeling on the floor looking for some shoes under the bed, he came up behind me and bit me on the bottom. Of course, when I jump and say No biting! he bursts into tears. He's also gotten very clingy and is in the separation anxiety phase. But he's just so cute. My goodness. He said bye-bye for the first time yesterday and is trying to say his own name, I think, and our Cooper's name, too, it sounds like.

It's all so sweet and I'm glad. Especially since I'm a little under the weather. It makes it all easier when they're being cute.