Wherein I am once again set up by a preschooler and my eldest wears the pants in the family

Two stories for the day. First, on the way home from school, Timothy was babbling on, as usual. He does this so much that I can answer mechanically, as I may have mentioned before. I find that I follow his orders very well. So, when he told me, "Laugh, Mama!", I laughed. This laugh was apparently too fake for him, so he came back with, "No, not like that, like Hahahahaha!". I tried again, and again he wasn't thrilled with my efforts. Finally, since the situation was actually starting to amuse me, I laughed long and hard. Without missing a beat, he piped up from the backseat, "What are you laughing at, Mama?"

Second, a case of not putting two and two together. These days, I find myself lucky to be able to put one and one together, so clearly, two and two is beyond me. I vaguely recall Gabe telling me a few weeks back that he put on some jeans to wear to school and they were too big and too long. I had just bought him some new ones that I found on clearance so I thought nothing of it. I just told him to stick them in the back of his closet to save for next winter. At about the same time, my favorite Levis had disappeared after laundry day. If you've seen my closet, and I sincerely hope you haven't, you'll know that this house does not contain walk-ins. They're more "wedge-ins". Chris and I share one. And I like clothes, too well, if not too wisely. In my poor vague brain, I kind of assumed my jeans were shoved to the back of the closet, and that's why I hadn't seen them lately. It was only today, as I did the winter to summer clothing switch in Gabe's closet that I discovered my jeans, rumpled and crammed on a hanger, in the very back of his closet. Looking back, I can only assume that this was a laundry day when I had to work in the evening and had asked Chris to help by putting the jeans away when they were dry. He has often complained that it's getting harder to tell my clothes from Gabe's. Truly, Gabe and I have matching t-shirts from last season's soccer, and if they aren't both in the laundry together, even I have to think hard about whether I'm folding mine or his. I guess it's time to get out the sharpie and start labeling everything!