Obvious and Not-Obvious

Here are some cute pictures (obvious):

And here are the facts about these pictures that make them interesting (not-obvious):

1.  Two little boys in my house LOVE to wear a white t-shirt and jeans because that is what their Daddy wears when he is home...takes off his work shirt, puts on a pair of jeans, and that is his civvy uniform, unless he's going out somewhere.  You know they are loving their Daddy when they go up to their room together and change out of mom-selected shirts into their white t-shirts.

2.  The papers around the neck were created by Owen all on his own (complete with cut paper hanging strip secured by tape) because "Me and Asher are going to have a race."

3.  Owen's understanding of numbers as they pertain to racing is that the lower the number you wear, the faster you go.  (I think this is because of the idea of  1st, 2nd, 3rd places in a race)   Asher was designated as #1.  Owen's number was more complicated.  "Mom, I made up a new number.  The number is 'Zoh-roh' [as opposed to 'Zero', ed. note]  Asher is 1, but I'm a lot faster, so I am zoh-roh, which is lower than zero.  Zoh-roh is a big circle with these lines in the middle of it [see first picture]."

He then proceeded to create 'Loh-roh', which was lower than Zoh-roh, and was a circle with a cross, with the addition of a cross/plus-sign in each of the four quadrants.  Following Loh-roh is 'Roh-loh', which was symbolized by cutting the interior space of a zero into 8 pie slices and putting a plus sign into each slice.  This number system was quite an occupying task.  Was he merely suggesting an alternate naming of negative numbers?  Or has he discovered an previously unassigned space between zero and the start of negative space?  What is the sound of one hand clapping?  In any case, I was impressed with his grasp of numbers, sequence and pattern.  Whose kid is this??  My favorite thing to do at 5 was gluing elbow macaroni onto a piece of construction paper.

4.  Asher is super-cute on a scooter.  He has no chance of keeping up with Owen on a bike, but he is getting really good at sailing down the hill.

5.  There is a car parked at the bottom of our driveway because Asher finally did the deed...wandered into the street without permission while I was in the house.  Talk about moments in which you realize a complete failure of parenting.  Imagine a car had come by.  So now I am being way more attentive about his every move outside until he proves that he is old enough to abide by the rules.  (He hadn't tried this in the entirety of their times outside so I had gotten too trusting of him, but a couple days ago we walked to the neighbor's house together and I think he then got the idea of going in the street in his head.)  Asher is not one to leave a boundary untested :}