Lil' Rascals.

Dangs x Miles = ay yay yay! When the two are together, it's both cute and sometimes wild & out of control. Cute because, they are just so happy to be together, smiling, making up their own games, following each other around and sometimes if you're lucky, you will catch them being sweet to each other, sharing toys or food--a pretty mature and rare thing for them to do w/o fussing at this age. Wild because they totally feed off of each other's energy and keep buildin' on the momentum, getting into things, screaming to the tops of their lungs, running wild--you name it! So many funny memories of the two boys getting into trouble all ready--and they are only 3 years old (well, Dangs is goin on 3 on Sunday!).

Last year, around Halloween, everyone was just lounging around on a Sunday night, while the boys played. A few minutes later, we noticed that it got real quiet up stairs so Eric went to check up on the boys. He found a candy wrapper trail, leading into nanay's closet, finding Dangs & Miles going to town on the Halloween candy nanay had tried to hide from them. All they could do was chew as fast as they could and scream! Another time, the boys were playing and again, it grew very quiet. It was a telling sign of t-r-o-u-b-l-e. We ran to see what they were up to this time and found that the boys got into some tiger balm. Yes, tiger balm. Omg, I was freaked out--yelling for Jen to call poison control for advice when I saw Miles had rubbed it all over his face, saying, "it's only lotion mommy!" He was smiling so big and squinting his eyes cause I'm sure the vapors were stinging. He learned a big lesson that day--never rub anything on your face--even lotion--as he cried cause he hated that I had to flush his eyes out with water in the shower for a good 15 minutes= torture. Poor kid. We sure did learn our lesson: Never leave them unattended for even a minute.

Well, I thought we learned our lesson. It's so easy to forget! Fast forward to this evening, Justin and I had dropped Miles off to nanay's & papo's while we went back home to finish up on our spring-annual-inspection-cleaning. When we were finished, we went back to nanay's house and as we stood outside the front door, we already had the hunch that something had happened. Uncle Bob, aunty Jen, and nanay were on all fours, wiping away. Justin noticed a big green bucket and was like, "what's going on?" And I'm naively thinking, "oh, guess they're just cleaning the floor...." But as soon as we entered, we found out that the boys were playing with their most favorite thing at the Elacio residence--the Arrowhead watter bottles. And I'm not talking about the ones you get for $1 at the gas station. I'm talking the big, ___gallon one for the water dispenser. Usually, the rascals are happy playing with the empty ones, pushing them around the downstairs like madmen, breaking a sweat and laughing. They could go on for at least an hour. But for some reason, this evening, they decided to try to roll one filled with water down the step together and into the living room. So, it pretty much cracked open, and gushed out--spread throughout the floor, under the piano, under the ottoman, everywhere!!

I heard from aunty Jen, that she heard Miles' feet running (another clear sign of trouble) and Dangs call out "Mommy!" Nanay laughed about it and told me later, what she said to the boys, "I'm mad, I have to clean all of this!" And Miles said, "My mommy and daddy are gonna be mad too!"

These two boys are really off the hook when together. I don't anticipate what they will get into, growing up together. Eric joked around, reminiscing about the trouble he got into during his own rascal years, imitating papo in his thick Filipino accent, "Why did you do dat?" Eric, replying, "I don't know." Then imitating papo again, "you don't know!? you neber know! how come you always say you dat--you neber know?!"

I love Dangs & Miles. They are a handful and then some together--but I couldn't imagine the two existing without each other.

Last night, as I was just in one of those reflective & appreciative moments--feeling so blessed for being a mother--especially to a kid like Miles, I tell him, "Thank you for picking your dad and I as your parents Miles." I didn't expect Miles to understand what I meant by that. But he intuitively replied, "Oh you're welcome. Me and Dang Dang were waiting so long for you, daddy, aunty Jen, and uncle Ewick in heaven."