20 fingers, 20 toes, 4 knees, 4 elbows, the hits keep on coming

Busy little bees. I know I write about Aidan a ton. I don't mean to be unfair. I love little Hen, too- you know I do! Aidan's just been a super charged baby lately. He explores constantly. He takes everything apart- and does crazy ocd things- for example, he loves handing out car keys or shoes to their rightful owners. (The boys have learned, through repitition, we are going out if we put on shoes which leads to the car-keys chant and then he gets them out of the box and opens the door and takes Henry's hand and we're off! He loves to help. He likes to wash up and cleans with some kind of tenacity unknown to my gene pool. He likes to help bring in the groceries, dry cleaning, and hands out suckies like a champ. He wants to know words and names, names, names. Once he knows a name or any new word, really- he practices them. (!) We're driving around the 'hood doing our chores the other day and he is having a full on conversation with himself. Listing people, neighbor's pets, random items he sees, modes of transportation, animal names, Elmo... the list goes on and on. Yesterday he was asking himself questions. Cooking? Washing? Running? Funny man.
A's latest trick is that he's stopped stripping at nap time and now just removes himself from his crib. And climbs in with Henry. And starts jumping! And laughs JUMPING! JUMPING! JUMPING! Good god. Tonight he got up and came out into the living room. Dear me. I think we're in for a fun ride.
Henry has had a number of really good days. He says truck, hammer, cracker, dinner, diaper but refuses to say airplane. Once he learned helicopter- (well, his version of helicopter) which is hel- ca-ca- thats all he'll say. He can be right under a plane and will watch me say air... plane. He'll say hel-ca-ca. Often times we see both fIying machines within minutes of each other- he can see the difference- but he won't do it! I can just hear the neighbors.... WHY DOESN'T SHE JUST GIVE UP?? I must say airplane 5000 times a day. But- by gum- I know he can do it! It must be in there.
Hen's been taking things a little slower. Or something. He takes a look at things, lets say. If he has a stick in his hand, he'll poke at things. He draws in the gravel of the driveway with sticks. He follows Aidan on jungle safari with a stick- but take it away and he's stuck (or done). He still likes to hit, scream, yell. He regularly throws things and tips over the coffee table. The most AWESOME thing with Hen is that he's taken to doling out HUGE hugs. Repeatedly. He spreads his arms, grabs you and SQUEEZES! Yum.
One silly thing is both boys are in love with the garbage and recycling bins. They push them all over the driveway, run into each other like they're prepping for destruction derby or race them like nascar. WHY? you ask. Don't know!
The other thing Aidan's been doing is ABC's and 123's! He is so insistent with it. At meal time we sing ABC's and he'll beg to do it again and again. "More ABC's?" "More ABC's?" (Henry asks for ABC's too. "cuh-ca-caz"?) Sure thing buddy!
I'm in constant amazement. These are little people. Not babies. Not little lumps of wiggling, burpy, flesh. Like, seriously, little people. Miniature. Not like toys. Like people.