riding in cars with m'boy

like some cruel game of tetris, because of the size of our car, layla's big carseat and base HAS to go in the middle of the backseat unless the front seat passenger wants his gut stowed in the glove compartment. that means judah is sitting within arms reach of his little sister.

we've tried to tell him not to touch her while we're in the car since his favorite activity is pointing our her "eeeeeeyes" by sticking his finger straight into her pupil. poor little thing's slow newborn reflexes never see it coming and just keep her eye wide open as he parks his dirty toddler fingertip right on in there. he is also obsessed with taking her hats off while manically saying "hat, hat, hat, hat," stealing her blanket and flipping her canopy up and down up and down.

when i am alone with both of them in the car, i am helpless to stop him. luckily his arms are too short to do anything really bad, his fingertip barely reaches her face, and mostly he just wants to stick is hand inside the carseat in her lap or try to hold her hand. i would rather him accidentally hurt her a few times but feel like we encourage his love for his sister than to have him never make her cry but also have him be afraid to touch her. she'll be tough. the better for digging 50 mph volleyballs later in life.

hereare two classic shots of car behavior that i snapped this morning on my phone:

yeah judah, we've pretty much let you coast these first 18 months, but it's time to pull your own weight around here and contribute, buddy. feed the baby!

ha! not. we all had to leave the house super early today to go pick up the other car and so i had to give her a pumped bottle on the road cause there was no time to breastfeed at home. um, judah would NOT let me hold it by myself and had to support the back end of the bottle with his freakishly strong grip. when i let go to grab my phone, he actually held it just right for almost a minute all by himself before deciding to tip it completely vertically which jerked it right out of her mouth with a satisfying "POP" that he then tried to recreate. she was not amused since my boobs don't usually exhibit this behavior.

and then the cutest thing i have ever seen occurred:

100% unprompted. swearsies. this is what i catch him at most of the time when he's being "bad" and messing with her. love explosion.