THE DEVIOUS DUO

The little guys are getting older and smarter, and that's causing some problems.

Take Will, seen here dressed as a character from the Sound of Music. Will is learning words quite fast. Just the other day, he broke a safety lock on one of our cupboards... for the second time. Upon seeing the damage, I muttered under my breath, "crap."

"crap," said Will. He didn't yell it, he just whispered it, "crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap..." And on and on it went. I don't know that I've ever seen him take to a word like that, "crap, crap, crap, crap, crap." Several minutes later he was still saying it.

The next day at the mall, he started saying it again, only this time, he started shouting it, really loudly Unfortunately, our kids are pretty good about pronouncing their words, so it was pretty clear what Will was yelling.

But that's the least of our problems. Nate is getting sneaky. He's learning strategy. And it scares me.

In the above photo, Nate is doing his best Bigfoot impersonation, but he's found other ways to distract people.

Last week Nate was at a play center what had a giant checkers set. Workers had stacked the checkers to help clear the area for a coming visit from Santa. But when Nate sees anything stacked, he takes it as a challenge. After Nate knocked the checkers over a few times, our nanny put her foot down and physically blocked the little guys from getting anywhere near the chess pieces. This worked, for a moment...

Nate busied himself playing with a lemonade set for about 4 minutes, until he had a terrible "accident." The plastic tray and cups fell to the ground, scattering over a large area. Our nanny went out to help clean up the mess. By the time she looked up, Nate was already at the stacks of giant checkers and was moments from knocking them over again.

That's right, our two year old son has figured out how to create a diversion to distract from what he really wants to do. A part of me is impressed. Another part of me is terrified. To make matters worse, they're starting to cooperate.

Not always. The guys still fight a lot over stupid little things. But every now and then, they'll help each other find food or toys or other prizes.Just last week they worked together to stand on their mini-basketballs in order to reach items on our kitchen counters. I think they may also be hatching a joint plan to finally escape their cribs. This is not good news.Indeed, this is extremely bad news. If they team up, then they're at even strength with Julie and me. And they've got that secret language thing going, so they've got an even bigger advantage.

So if you see my guys in your neighborhood, keep a close eye on them.

And keep a close eye on your lawn ornaments. I've got a feeling these guys are up to something.