This happened between Crappy Boy and Crappy Baby. They are brothers, you know. They fight and argue like brothers. They play too rough until someone gets hurt. They slam doors. They throw toys.
Just last week I wrote about them fighting over red versus blue water bottle caps.
Sigh. Brothers.
So they are in the backyard. Crappy Boy finds a red ball that has small nibbles out of it.
(We have many balls scattered in the grass at all times. Clearly, some animal thought he had found the jackpot when he happened upon our yard. I bet he was disappointed with the fallen fruit mirage.)
Crappy Boy poses the question about the nibbles.
Then he suggests a couple of possibilities:
Squirrel or bunny. Those would be my picks. Or maybe a rat or mouse. Something small for sure.
Crappy Baby has a different idea though:
He suggests giraffe. I can see that Crappy Boy is amused. He knows it couldn’t be a giraffe.
I brace myself and expect Crappy Boy to make fun of his younger brother. To laugh at him. To tell him that giraffes don’t come in our yard. Duh.
Instead he smiles, shrugs his shoulders and says:
And together they run off looking for rabbits, squirrels and giraffes.
Yep. Brothers.
—————
Just remembered that I have many readers who live in South Africa. Africa is where they keep the extra giraffes, don’t cha know. Maybe they really do go in yards? If I had a giraffe in my yard I’d give it an ice cream cone. Probably vanilla but maybe strawberry. I haven’t decided on the flavor yet.
Totally awesome!
Isn’t that the greatest? I love this post.
I love the innocence and imagination in Crappy Baby! Giraffes!
Oh! What sweet boys.
I love you and your boys!
I think you should scatter some dried plums or something as giraffe poo now!
I vote YES! to this idea!
That is an awesome idea!
something tells me giraffe poo is bigger than a dried plum (aka prune)
No, that’s about the right size. They are a lot like deer… (we don’t live in Africa & don’t have giraffes, but we do have a completely awesome wildlife park just over an hour away from us – it’s my daughter’s favorite place so we go at least once a year on her birthday, sometimes more often)
Such an awesome big brother…
And then for more shock and awe someone needs to eat the “giraffe poo”…
LOLOL!!
That’s so sweet! I have a 4.5 year old girl and a 17 month old girl and they too fight like sisters lol. One isn’t talking yet though, but when they play it’s amazing the things they come up with to do together. Hunting for rabbits, squirrels and Giraffes sounds like fun to me!
As a mother of two boys (4 yrs and 9 mos), this makes me so happy. The South African postscript is fabulous too.
The flavor text about flavors…lol
You always manage to capture so much with just one story. The last one about them fighting and now this one about them playing together. It encompasses exactly what having kids is like. Thank you!
lol @ the giraffes and ice cream cone flavors. I really hope one of your South African readers chime in with giraffe stories!
I love it. I have 2 boys too (4 years apart) and while they fight a good amount they occasionally don’t and it is those times where everything just fits together that are the most fun to watch!
I wonder what my two little girls will be arguing about?
If they are like my 2 and 3 yr old girls, they will fight about, well, everything.
I have two girls (5 and 3.5) and let me assure you, they will fight about anything and everything. But they will also love each other with a perfect love unlike anything else you have ever seen. Mine spent half an hour once arguing over whether the hills in the road were like a slide or a waterfall.
lol, oh no! What have I gotten myself into? At least I’ve heard that sisters often have close relationships as adults
They do Misty. There is 4.5 years between my sister and I and we fought terribly as kids. Now we both have kids of our own (2 girls for her, 2 girls, 1 boy for me) and we are best friends and laugh at our girls fighting over, well, everything!!
Yay, I’m so excited (well, not for the fighting part…lol) I’m due in October with my 2nd girl
I love the postscript at the bottom! I’d choose pistachio.
… if I was a giraffe I’d come to your house!
Since we started getting toys and books and decorations for our son, I’ve been intrigued by the huge number of exotic animals represented… we were much more likely to find a elephants and lions on bedding than frogs, and I have yet to find a decent stuffed kitty toy, but my son has a wonderful orangutan. And Giraffes are EVERYWHERE….
…. I keep thinking, outside of the zoo when is he ever going to see these? Where are the pigeons and squirrels? The dogs and slugs? (Sorry, I’m from Seattle…)
Maybe the exotic animals will intrigue him enough that oneday he travels the world? My son loves giraffes and lions and even squirrels (no squirrels in New Zealand) and I can totally see him on safari… or somewhere with squirrels…
Wait, you don’t have squirrels in New Zealand? Learn something new every day.
Ha, good point!
So sweet <3
I love Crappy Boy’s complete willingness to accept even the most outrageous explanation if it could involve some fun. So sweet!
I’d guess that giraffes are not picky about their ice cream. I mean, who is, right? LOL, loved this!
Yes, I’d like to think that my giraffe will appreciate any flavor I decide on.
If you give a giraffe a cookie…
LOL!
For the win!
CUTE!!!
I lol’d at the “maybe a giraffe?” suggestion. Toddlers are so stinkin cute.
aww, love this. Hope my crappy boy does this for his crappy baby brother and I witness it someday…
The animal nibbling on our ball would have been our 3 year old! He will take a bite out of anything… and has!!!
Yes! I totally thought the post was going to be about the balls having been nibbled by one of the kids. Because, at our house… they are!
Same here. I can never tell if it’s the dogs or my son taking little bites out of the toy balls…
That’s totally what I thought! My 3.5 yr old daughter has always and still does eat anything! Yet, the drs say she doesn’t have pica! I have bites – BIG bites, out of my candles, the walls, books….sigh…and she actually eats them…erasers, sand, dirt, bark, you name it! I must say she does also eat ALL kinds of food.
I have 2 younger brothers, twins doncha know? This reminds me soooo much of them
Sounds exactly like my boys. I love it when that happens!
I love it! My 4 year old son swears that a dinosaur has been getting in to our garbage. We have been playing along because I love his imagination and, besides, I don’t know what got in to the garbage. ;
I’m from SA, did you know that lions and elephants also walk around in our gardens lol. And they are quite fond of amarula fruit flavour! My 4 year old girly princess tells her 16 month brother that sharks will get him and please not to eat bugs!
Ack, lions and elephants in the garden! That is amazing!
haha! you do know she is joking right? (just checking here….)
I love the no bug eating advice!
whats amarula??
lions and elephants….but no sharks in ur backyard?! lol
Amarula is delIciousness in a bottle, liqeur made from marula fruit. I’m also from
South Africa and yes, she was joking
We did get a nice up close and personal experience with a giraffe on Sunday, sadly it was at the Johannesburg Zoo but the kids still loved it!
gosh, i still find it hilarious that some ppl believe we have lions and other wild animals roaming our backyards! Makes for great entertainment when we hear stories like this! I could totally do with a shot of Amarula right about now! We have a place here called Giraffe house in Cape Town, South Africa, that is awesome for the kids to meet giraffes and other animals. A great experience! I LOVE Crappy Pictures! Always laugh so hard!
I love this! I could see mine doing this too.
LOL We colored coded our boys to make things easier. Boy 1 is Blue and Boy 2 is red. When we buy school supplies.. Its pretty much going to be in those colors so that they can tell them apart when piled on a table. Bins to hold their own items are in their colors. Cups, plates… It made life a lot easier lol. Only bad thing.. Now they are getting older. They want all different colors lol!!
Same in my house (2 boys: 5 & 8) Thing 1 is Blue and Thing 2 is green. We’re about to add a 3rd boy … So it’ll probably end up red. We also buy just about everything the same. Even tho one likes Star Wars, the other Transformers if you buy each what they like they’ll cry over not getting the other!
As an African, chances are that your South African readers live in the cities, so sorry to burst the bubble but probably no giraffe stories
I can, however, offer my great-uncle’s pet lion story in exchange. Maybe a reader from Zambia or Kenya might have insight on giraffes.
You are probably right about that. Out of curiosity, I just checked analytics to see if I have any readers from Zambia or Kenya. I do! Amazing! Only a handful so nothing compared to South Africa, but still.
But where’s the pet lion story? Please please!
Thanks for the giggle!!
It’s always so surprising when they behave the opposite way from what you’re expecting. Mine are 4.5 and 1.5 and my mouth pretty much hangs open when the little one grabs something his big sister’s in the middle of and for once, she says “Yeeees! That’s right! You can build the farm part of it! Goooood joooooob!” instead of shoving/squeezing/mashing him.
So sweet that they can play together nicely:) Had to laugh that you were surprised tho
Guess you never know!
Aw! This post made this pregnant girl all teary eyed. I have two boys and sweet moments like this are ones that always make me think, “Yup, all the work of two kids so close together is totally worth it.”
aww that is so sweet
cute and sweet =)
That’s so awesome. My boys are the same (they’re 3 1/2 and 1 1/2) except it’s usually robots that have crept into our yard and my boys must defend the yard at all costs. My 3 1/2 does most of the “fighting”, the 1 1/2 year old basically just tries to eat sand and grass..lol
let me just add my “awwwwwwwwwww” to the pile
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Please refer back to this post next time they try to kill each other as a reminder…
after a weekend of my two endlessly fighting, I am going to pretend that this was them!
Loved the innocent and imagination of this post! You truly captured what brothers and siblings are really about. Though you kind of made me wistfully want to try and have another baby… lol
That’s so sweet! Amazing how they surprise you every now and then.
I too kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it’s such a delight, when it doesn’t!
But I was sure it would turn out that the nibble marks were left by Crappy Baby himself. My 3 boys all whent through the shredding phase, where all things foamy or in any way chewable would forever carry teeth marks in them. We have (had) rubber foam floor puzzle pieces with nibble marks, balls with almost half bitten off, a fancy, smart and Lets Move!ish outdoor game thingy that was a three dimentional rubbery foam star and you’d throw it and play the sports game pictured in the point that stood highest up and within the first day all the points had nibble marks on them. Soon it was totally chewd to bits. Not very funny at the time ;/.
heartwarming
Oh I LOVE this post! What sweet boys!
What a sweet moment between your two boys. I cherish those moments.
I LOVE this post! That is just like something my oldest would do/say to my youngest.
I love that he can surprise me (and his little brother), by being so amazingly supportive and wonderful sometimes …. I just wish it happened enough to be LESS of a surprise.
Just can’t get enough of your blog, Amber! Through your comedy & wit, all of your posts show how very “in the moment” you are with your family. How you stop to appreciate these little things.
It’s awesome. And while I can only aspire to be as funny & witty as you, the lesson I can always take from your posts is how to live in the moment with my own family. Thank you! <3
I love those moments. Listening to my kids play together sweetly is my favorite thing in the world.
I agree with Christi! Moments like that must make you happy the boys are close in age, and make all the fighting a bit more tolerable
Awe! Too cute!
We have a giraffe in our back yard. He is invisible. He likes to fart and burp, apparently, because he gets blamed for it all the time.
I’m South African by marriage. As I think at least one commenter may have mentioned, many South Africans, despite American perceptions, live in large urban areas and there is nary a giraffe to be seen.
But my sister-in-law and her family live in South Africa’s eastern province, Mpumulanga, about five minutes from the Paul Kruger gate of Kruger Park. Bear in mind that Kruger Park isn’t some dog park, surrounded by a fence. My husband’s teenage nephew took me exploring in the backyard and pointed out a large stream where hippos sometimes meander. He explained that the lions and zebras don’t understand the concept of park borders, either. Meanwhile, a very large lizard skittered in the brush. Fairly giant snakes are also quite common. It’s great.
How does my sister-in-law feel about it all? We beg her to come with us for our drives through the park. She says no – she’d rather go to the mall.
Anyone who wants to read more adventures from this lovely country can check out the South Africa category of my blog:
http://alainamabaso.wordpress.com/category/south-africa/
Amber, your stories are wonderful! Thanks for sharing so much with us when life must keep you so busy!
How cool, thanks for the link to your blog!
I live in Johannesburg, South Africa.
My middle son is 3 and his favourite animals are giraffes. We go to our local zoo to see them – they had a baby earlier this year and we got to see him just shortly thereafter – he couldn’t even reach the hay that they put up in the feeding basket. We went back the other day and he was nibbling away with his parents. My son was so thrilled to see how his giraffe has “grown up so much!”
The only wildlife in our garden is the ants, lizards and occasional large bird (hadeedah) scurrying away from my 3 boys as they yell and try to capture everything for their own live “wildlife zoo”
that’s just adorable!! don’t you love being a mom when you witness something like that??
I totally thought that this was going to end with crappy baby being the nibbling culprit. thats how it would happen at our house anyway.
I have two boys too. The youngest just turned one and they’re just starting to grow into their brother relationship. I’m loving it!
I have two boys (3 and 5)….best enemies, best friends! Love it!
My son (2.5) has a half sister who, despite many efforts, he doesn’t get to see often. It is so sad because when they are together they are so cute – there is about 16 months between them and they go everywhere holding hands
My husband, as a child, was once confronted with a “nibbled book”. When asked if he had nibbled said book, his response was, “Bugs did it!”
I’m from South Africa. Sorry no giraffe in our back garden, but we do have 2 horses. We stay in Jonkershoek in Stellenbosch in the mountain/forest so we do have all kinds of animals that come into our yard at night. Mongoose, porcupine and spotted genet’s are some of the smaller ones that come in, The Caracal, leopards and baboons keep to the forest and is rarely if ever seen, but cats do disappear every now and then but it could be the eagles as well that’s to blame.
Thanks for a great story, I have a girl of 21 months old and she has no one to fight or play with other than the dog,cats and chickens.
lol i love it. There is nothing more that I enjoy than watching my two kids together. Especially at 5 and 2 years old, the age gap is big enough where I am just constantly amused and entertained.
I would give a giraffe and ice cream cone too.
I too have seen and love those once in a while flashes of compassion and maturity that occur between brothers amidst the bickering about more, biggest, loudest…
It’s moment like this that make putting up with all the sibling fighting almost worth it:)
Was I the only one who thought it was going to be that the baby had been chewing on the ball? OK, so it was just me… my kids are younger than yours, apparently!
Love this story! There’s a 3 year gap between my two kids, and it is so desperately sweet when he is amused at something she says and smiles or humours her like an adult would instead of laughing or correcting. That’s next only to when he spontaneously decides to read to her and they sit together behind the book with her in rapt silence – we hold our breath and watch in rapt silence ourselves.
Sorry to disappoint but I’m from South Africa and you’re only likely to find giraffes in our game reserves or zoos.
We do have beautiful game reserves, coastlines, mountain ranges and cities though, so do come visit
adorable!
http://www.petitelapgiraffe.com/ LOL, be careful what you do with this information around such small kiddos!
They will want one! I want one!
First, that is SO sweet! I wish my big brother had been that nice when I said (fine, say) outlandish things. Fortunately, my husband does.
Anyway… My favorite part is the ice cream cone. “I haven’t decided on the flavor yet.” is classic. I laughed, I am still laughing! Last, I took my husband and (then) five year old nephew to a wildlife center in Texas called Fossil Rim (www.fossilrim.org), a place that I had visited several times in my childhood. A giraffe that was standing on the driver’s side of the truck ate from my hand that was sticking out of the passenger side window!!! It was awesome! Also, that was almost ten years ago and it is still awesome. (woohoo!)
My cousin lives in Kenya, and the first Christmas email after his first daughter was born was her sitting beside a feeding bowl with 2 giraffes. I think it was taken in their back yard. We spent ages trying to work out if it was photoshopped, but no – she (only about 10 months) really had one hand in the bowl at the same time as one giraffe had its mouth in the bowl, and the long giraffe head is bigger than she is…
PS loving your blog, my boys are 4 1/2 and 13 months, so v similar.
Love moments like this
I’d give it mint chocolate chip because it’s green like leaves and has spots like a giraffe.
Now that is some smart thinking there. Or maybe vanilla with chocolate bits in it? Cookies and cream?
Love this! Of course it could be a giraffe. Perfectly reasonable! Love how his brother is fostering his imagination!
At the zoo in my hometown in Brevard County, Florida, you can actually hand feed the giraffes cracker type things. My three year old loved it! They were very sweet.
So sweet! Don’t you just love these little moments?! My two little guys surprise me all the time.
There is a 100% chance my 4.5-year-old boy, in response to such a guess by his 22-month-old sister, would respond like so: Angry face. Clenched fists. Screaming, psychotic voice, “GIRAFFES DO NO LIVE IN OUR YARD!” Then he’d rip the ball from her hands and stomp away. Which would, of course, induce 22-month-old screaming.
If he were to respond the way you just described … I think I would crumble to the ground, numb in limbo somewhere between laughing and crying. Then I’d wake up.
We live in South Africa, but we too are in a city so no giraffe nibbles in our yards either. Although when we visit my sister we do see them as she is near a preserve.
so many of us in love with you and your family..We share you with others,talk about you,remembering your posts we
laugh quietly throughout the day,think your funny little drawings are so perfectly expressive..you are often on our minds.
and all you other commenting mom’s..we are part of the same tribe..all over the globe we are connected.
Check this out: A giraffe based hotel! Apparently this hotel in Nairobi has a resident herd of giraffes that poke their heads in the windows and wander the grounds…Crappy boy and baby have to check this out!
http://www.giraffemanor.com/
I live in South Africa
Where’s my giraffe? I want one too!!!! *sulks*
Hi, I am from South Africa, and I have actually had a run-inn with a giraffe once. We have Naval Hill, a Wild Live Reserve in the middle of the city. We used to live around the corner and went jogging up and down (I was still a teenager with lots of energy!) the hill every evening. One time, when we got to the top, there was a giraffe in the middle of the road in front of us and he wouldn’t let us pass! We told my mother to walk ahead, as she isn’t scared of anything! LOL! We still laugh about how we hid behind her, scared to be kicked by a giraffe!
I love the story about your boys, mine are at the same stage and it warms my heart every time!
I live in SA, sorry no giraffes in my backyard, just monkeys, hadeda’s and guinea fowl, oh and 2 cheeky boys. We do however, live near a couple of wildlife parks that have resident giraffes who love to nuzzle visitors. Also check out the link for a giraffe in a pool: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=342447152491578&set=a.342447065824920.71994.120578284678467&type=1
Also, please help us save our rhino’s: http://awf.org/section/save_rhino?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=2012_rhino
I’m in Cape Town, South Africa. No giraffes! Would be awesome to see though…
Love those moments. Makes it all worth it.
I used to work with kids in South Africa.
The school I was in was “twinned” with a school in England, and one of the projects we did was to draw animals from south Africa and send them to the English kids, and the English kids drew Enlish pictures and sent them to us (I’m talking about 4-6 year olds).
One day I was comparing some pictures and discussing them with a little south African girl, when we got to a picture of a ladybird, which i was explaining it was a flying insect. and she said she would never go to England, because they have insects the size of elephants!!!! Perspective obviously not a strong point of 5 year old drawings!
So sweet!
I’m thinking it was a giraffe too
When I visited My sister in Rwanda ice cream cones were no where to be seen 
so you better pack one in your carry-on 
Love this post!!
This made me cry because my 2 sons are just like yours, except the older one is now 17, just graduated, and away at beach week, while the younger one (nearly 15 years old) does miss him a lot now. Reminds me again that the days are long but the years are short.
HAHAHA! Too cute! I love your blog it def makes me smile! xoxo A-
Love this! My four year old and 17 month old have only recently started to play well with each other. As it so happens, my four year old gets to go on a field trip to the giraffe center and feed the giraffes tomorrow! We live in Kenya and have plenty of monkeys in our garden but no giraffes as we live in the big city of Nairobi. Driving just minutes outside of town you can see plenty of zebra and other plains game.
I love you.
That is all.
Well, that and also that this post makes me happy and excitited for when my two little boys start playing together. : )
Yesterday my older boy (age 4) declared that he and his brother (age 14 mos) were “The Nonsense Boys”. Then they made up a song that lasted about 30 minutes and finally stopped when I asked them to please stop yammering. The little one mostly babbled. The older one made up lyrics. Both danced.
Yup. Brothers.
your stories always remind me of my crappy boy and crappy baby, but even your animations are similar to their appearance. are you sure you are not talking about my boys?
This *almost makes me want to have another kid so my daughter could have a sibling.
My 2 – 5 year old boy and nearly 2 year old girl are equally rough and tumble and have their fair share of disputes but it’s lovely to see my son sit down with his sister sometimes and teach her about the world or show her how to do something and lovely when we pick him up from school and she screams his name and runs into him arms outstretched
Makes up for at least 10 arguments about whose turn it is to push the elevator button.
I think it’s totally possible that it was a giraffe.
Meanwhile, I can totally remember these days. Even when our two brothers insisted that we get a bunk bed so they could sleep in the same room. Now, at 17 and 19, I’m not so sure that they ever even say hi to each other.
awww i really hope my boys are like this. I really do. Great mama action!
That is so adorable. As a mother of 3, I know how much those little moments when they look out for each other mean. Sweet.
Hehe
glad there was a happy ending.
And HI from South Africa, love your blog!
Oh, and love how a South African HAD to play the “we have wildlife in our gardens” joke. Hehe. Sadly, most of us who’ve been to the states have had Americans actually ASK us if we have elephants or lions in our gardens… Sigh. Seems globalisation= Americanisation
hahahaha,
True, we don’t have squirrels in Aotearoa/New Zealand, so think they’re incredibly cute, but we do have penguins and seals in the backyard (it’s actually a beach on the Otago Peninsula, but it’s also our backyard)
What a sweet story
awwwww. love it!
What a great, sweet brother moment.