"I beat you!"

The above is a phrase we hear more times in a day than we can count.  "Addi, I beat you."  "I beat you, Livi."  Everything they do is now a race to see who can do it the quickest.  Not that they necessarily hustle through their daily activities such as eating breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc.  But if they happen to notice that they finished first, then they apparently win.  And it doesn't matter if they get a several minute headstart!!  Just this morning, one of them proclaimed that they beat the other one in brushing their teeth...I hadn't even given the second child their toothbrush yet!!!

It seems like everything is a competition these days.  However, we've now used that to our advantage!  Come bed time, all I say is "I'm gonna beat you" and they both make a mad dash to their room, hop in bed and cover up before I really even take two steps.  It's kinda nice.  I'm sure they'll eventually catch on to the fact that I'm not running (or even walking!) all that fast.  But until then, we'll continue to make a game out of it to expedite the bedtime routine.