If you greet my little ones with a “How are you” you will more than likely see Henry pat himself on the chest with the reply, “I Ehn-wee!”

If you try to correct him and say, “No… not WHO are you…HOW are you,” he will just pat himself more emphatically and tell you his name louder, often adding a sweep of his arm toward his sister, exclaiming, “Dat ‘Wranda!” (He no longer calls her “Henry.” It is the end of an era.)

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I’ve been going through the Starbucks drive-thru pretty often lately, as my mother very sweetly sent me a gift card as a you’ll-get-through-these-two-weeks-of-Jack-working-late pick-me-up (thanks, Mommy!). Every time we go through, Henry, who sits behind the driver’s seat, asks me to open his window so he can say “hi.” The last time we went through, I asked, “Do you guys want to say hi to the coffee people?”

“YES!” was the dual-reply from the backseat. They sat patiently in the long drive-thru line, yelling, “ICE CREAM!” at the cake pop pictures along the way (Miranda says, “ice cream” almost perfectly. Henry says it the way Ethan used to: “i-bean.”)

We got to the window and Henry yelled at the top of his lungs, “EYE, ‘OFFEE ‘EAOPLE!” (“Hi, coffee people” — he tends to drop the beginning consonants off his words). He followed it up with, “I Ehn-wee!!”

Miranda demurely chirped, “I M’randa!” And batted her eyelashes. No joke.

Two Starbucks employees hung out the window and said, “Hi! How are you??” You can guess the reply they got. As we drove away, they both yelled, “BYE BYE!!” For five minutes. Better than crying and screaming at each other, I guess!

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Yesterday morning I woke up in the midst of a migraine. Not at all a good thing, I can tell you. Jack didn’t have to go in to work until later in the day, so he and I had worked out the evening before that I would drive Ethan to school while he stayed home and played with Miranda and Henry. I kept my end of the deal and drove Ethan, figuring that with my sunglasses on, driving wouldn’t be half as hard on my head as corralling two two-year-olds. I don’t know if that was the right choice, as I spent the bulk of the drive praying my migraine medication would kick in, and wondering where I was going to toss my cookies, as my little trash bin was full. I got home and immediately went upstairs to lie down. When Christine arrived, Jack came upstairs to get ready for his morning meeting. I drifted in and out of my nauseated stupor, waking up finally to the sounds of the kids greeting Jack as he went back downstairs.

“EYE, DADDY!!!” I heard Henry yell. “I Ehn-wee!!”

“I know!” Jack replied. “I named you!”

Despite my state of yuk-ness, I couldn’t help but giggle.