I have a perfect new place for Abigail storage.

We tried and failed last night to camp out in the family room with the girls. It seemed like a foolproof idea: we'd get home, lay down on the futon mattress I'd thrown in front of the tv, and sleep all over one another in cozy comfort. Abby, however, found this new environment irksome, and Lily deemed it utterly unacceptable. She bawled like mad, and we gave in after just a few minutes of trying. You can tell sometimes when it's not going to get better.

Of course, it would've been a shame to waste a perfectly placed futon mattress, so we watched crappy tv and fell asleep in a room that wasn't our bedroom, and that for us is monumental excitement.

The real benefit of the mattress came this morning; the kids love playing on it, and I can't help but enjoy having my floor turned into a large pillow. It's a delightful obstacle, and Abby seemed to quite enjoy rolling around on it.

At one point Abs was briefly unsupervised and I heard the loud thud that can only be a baby's head hitting something hard. I paused, waiting the 5 seconds for a shrieking cry (not sure what it says about me as a father that I, when faced with this, opted to wait to see how bad it was instead of simply walking over to see what's happened). Hearing nothing, I investigated to find this:

I'm not sure if the picture does it justice (by the way, I should note that these pictures can be clicked on for full size), but she was snugly wedged between the mattress and the coffee table. She thought it was awesome. I do love that kid.

A few more random pictures from our evening:

Our house at night with a bright star and moon. I had to use the car to stablize the camera for the long exposure, figuring I'd crop it out later, but now I think I like the reflection.

Jen acting goofy over at Steve and Joy's house.

Minh made lavender creme brule. Delicious goodness.

Day thirteen

the best bowl of cereal ever

My time constraints for writing this evening's post are tighter than ever. It's 12:37, the kids are still (kinda) up, and I might be drooling on the keyboard as I type. Our busy day today included the girly girls, aka the munchkins, at their first year doctor appointment today. Here's some random thoughts:

I'm convinced that the comfort and pleasurability of a waiting room is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent there. Our pediatrician's office is brand new, comfy, and has huge a salt water aquarium. The longest I've ever waited there is 37 seconds.

This is also amusing as they require a lengthy developmental questionaire to be completed during that time. Today we literally had enough time to sit, take off our coats, pull Abby out of the car seat, click the pen and our names were called.

The guy that took blood from the girls is amazing at putting a fingertip bandaid on those little sausages. And he had the same shoes as me.

After work we babysat Maya and Oliver, Steve and Joy's kids, which was a painless and entertaining affair. It's amazing to care for our kids then witness the glorious autonomy that older kids possess. I would not have fathomed, were I not to have tonight's reminder, that kids will eventually be able to dress themselves in jammies.

I'm also convinced now that the best food ever invented is a bowl half full of golden grahams, half full of cinnamon toast crunch, eaten at 11:30 after babysitting 4 kids (is it babysitting 4 kids if two are ours?). That bowl was delicious. And late. Now it's time for bed. Here's a shot I snapped of Oliver during teeth brushing time tonight:

Day twelve.

I'm too tired to title this thing.

It's 12:20...this will not be a notable entry, I think.

Good day, for the most part. Abby is definitely sick-ish. She's not terribly ill, no high fever or vomity repeats of last night. Yet her tiny little face would go from smile to wailing so fast, it was obvious something was wrong. Her tiny little appetite was even tinier than usual. If there's anything positive about it all, it's that she hasn't been waking up at night, which is just really cool of her; I'm making a mental note to take her out for ice cream in a few years as thanks.

We made ourselves busy with stir fry after the kids retired, then dishes (does this thrill anyone yet?), then I braved the roads to go help Bryan and Tracy move a washer/dryer set to their basement. I rule like that; I should say, though, that I really like driving in crappy conditions, so it's all good. I did come rather close to sideswiping someone, which was alarming, but the deft moves of the Subaru prevailed once more.

So now, I just got back home, and that's the day. Woo hoo. In honor of the 6 or 7 inch snowfall outside, here's an old (duh) shot from warmer days. I always thought this shot was strange and surreal. Maybe it's Olly's pose..

From a little photo shoot last fall.

Day eleven.

Someone please tell me the difference between vomit and spit-up.

Abby threw up for the first time tonight, possibly. We're not sure exactly. Well, we're definitely certain that she did hurl a fair amount of matter out her mouth, but what's fuzzy is our differing definition of "spit-up" vs. "vomit". Jen thinks this was her first official vomit, which begs the question what the hell the difference is between that and a spit-up? I'm confused.

And now - I apologize for the digression here - I find out that we have unique ideas as to what a good time frame for getting laid off is...I say two weeks is the norm, and she is of the mind that anything over 2 minutes is gravy. This is an in-joke from about 15 minutes ago, but I'm tired and she'll like it.

Back to the Abbygator's health issues. Yet again, Jen and I disagree here: she thinks she's sick and has had a cough for weeks, while I think she's fine and believe her cough to be barely perceptible and infrequent. I don't think I'd be understating to say that the vomit episode tonight did a whole lot for Jen's case. Poor little monkey. It was an impressive sight, actually; Jen had just fed her a nighttime bottle around 7:15, and out of nowhere she just let loose all over Jen's chest. Sploosh. Quicker than I could, she had her down on the carpet, but not before Abby threw up a bit again, which was alright because our beagley little carpet cleaner went to work on it straight away.

It was a lot of excitement, but it ended quickly and happily. Jen took her up to the bathroom for some cleansing, and from downstairs I could hear her cries turn abruptly to laughter - I found later that this is when Jen hoisted her in front of the mirror. That kid just loves herself. We fretted that it might be a long night, but haven't heard from her yet, and I'll hate myself later for jinxing it.

I didn't get the camera out until after bedtime, so here are some random photos from tonight:

This speaks volumes on our own current philosophies on time management. It's not like we live in squalor; yet, some things fall through the cracks. I found these guys in dry storage, and that onion, oh dear...I'm actually really impressed with it. I swear, we haven't had it for that long.

I never took a shot of us fixing the nightly phalanx of bottles, so here is a representation of just that. 3 for each kid for day care the next day, plus 1 extra, plus 2 for each overnight. At times we'd still need to make another ad hoc bottle deep into the night.

Jen typing away on something. I'm intrigued because she earlier asked me, "If Chipotle was an animal, what animal would it be?" The mysteries of MBA school abound!

I have to geek out here and mention that I took that last shot hand-held at a 1/3" shutter speed, 200 ISO, and 62 mm focal length, but with a VR lens. I'm a big fat proponent those things now. Not to say it's a good shot - or even a passably interesting one - but it's nice to not worry as much about camera shake. Joy.

Day ten.

Baaaaath Tiiiiiiiiiime!!!....snore.

If you read yesterday's post, you'll know how I feel about bath time. It exhausts me. Tonight was bath night. Hence, I'm exhausted.

The lure of idleness is just too great, so I'm going to cop out and rely on a few photos to speak for me this evening.

One quick note: I've heard from a few people that had trouble posting a comment here. Let me say for the record that I now, after having made myself familiar with it, quite loathe this website. It's painfully unintuitive. Anyway...if you want to post a comment, you can list yourself as "anonymous" in the drop down menu, or use "name/url" and leave the url part blank. Good luck...comment away on my lameness.

I practiced this on yesterday's post, then found out that I can't delete comments; now there's a comment that says "blah blah blah". I'm learning to hate blogger.

Day nine.

Lily listens as I explain Ed Grimly.

Abs and a ducky.

The Lily-pad.

Mommy and Abigail are squeaky clean. Abby loves the mirror.

Sun comes up and we start again...

Jen concentrates on broccoli.

If you wonder what a daily dose of twin-rearing is like, allow me to break it down chronologically. Here's what went down today, on an average Monday:

630 : Wake up after a rather short night of sleep, which was my fault, since we did stay up a bit late Sunday night to watch the Oscars (and let me include here a belated thanks to Chris and Emily for bringing over both food and beer that night, in your typical magnanimous and superlatively generous manner. You rule a thousand times over.)

645 - 700 : Shower. This can take longer on the days after we've given the girls a bath, as it is precluded with 8 minutes of cursing and bath-toy picking up.

700 - 730 : Jen has settled into the role of morning parent; if she does this begrudgingly, she surely never shows it. Today, as mostly every day, she gets the munchkins de-pooped and sparklingly ready for a day of day care action. During this time I'm dressing, eschewing the 5 clean shirts in favor of the really comfortable sweatshirt that's on its 8th wear since a wash and has a glaring spit-up stain on the shoulder. I make a mental note to remark on it at work; act surprised, say something like, "Oh, man, I can't believe this..." Then I spend a few minutes trying to figure out if I've already done that the last time I wore this shirt.

730 : First trip to the car - my bag, their food, start the car and scrape the windows. I choke on every bad thing I've ever muttered about suburbs when the notion of a connected garage enters my mind.

735 : Second trip. Lily is in the next-gen car seat, the kind that stays in the car, so I'm carrying her a la mode, but Abby is still in the original car seat. She'll make the leap soon, though, and I'm still not sure how that will work, logistically. We pause at the front door and, in what has become a favorite tradition, I bounce them around while yelling, "Bye bye Mommy!" They love it every time.

740 : I take them to day care. We sing, " This is the way we go to daycare, go to daycare, go to daycare, this is the way we go to daycare, every freaking morning." a la "Here we go round the mulberry bush." It's another tradition, although with this they've never even remotely cared. I enjoy it.

800 - 430 : Work. My job is enjoyable and the people are delightful to be around. I consider this my time off during the day.

430 - 515 : Drive to day care, pick up kids. Today I found out that Lily had bitten another kid in some random act of mastication that was more curiousness than mean-spirited act. I laugh, of course, because my kid biting another kid...well, it's just kinda funny I guess. Assuming I'm not the other kid. They assure me it's not an issue; I take no chances and keep my digits clear of her mouth when I pick her up.

515 - 600 : Playtime. General anarchy. This continues in various ways until both kids achieve a critical mass of crankyness, known in physics as Ck(max). This is when they are swiftly scooped up and plopped into their high chairs, where Ritz crackers are thrust into their palms. Crunch.

600 - 630 : Dinnertime. This used to be a lot more enjoyable, but we're going through a slightly difficult phase as of late. Tonight Jen steamed broccoli, the smell of which I mistook for an exorbitantly poopy diaper. Seriously. Suffice it to say, I hate cooked broccoli. The morons liked it, though, and I have to admit it was fun to watch them eat the little sprigs of neon-green evilness.

630 - 715 : On a bath night (roughly every other) this is when that goes down. I dread bath night for no reason at all; they love it, I love it, Jen loves it, the dog is a fan, yet it's a level of effort that I can't help but abhor. Tonight was not bath night, so it was free time, play with some toys, read a few books. Gripping stuff. I was thrilled when I saw Abby bring her knees up and underneath her a couple times, effectively going to all fours. It was a first. She's progressing, glacially, on an epoch scale, but it's progress nonetheless and I will embrace it with joy and relief at every turn.

715 : Lily has her bottle and excuses herself for bed.

730 : Abby catches a second wind, rolls herself off my lap, and spends about 20 minutes standing at the coffee table laughing, pounding, and giggling. Quality time.

745ish : Abby finishes her bottle, and I take her wide-eyed self up to bed. She never makes a peep.

800 : Start cooking dinner. Grilled cheese and soup. I've finally converted Jen to the flock of "cheddar makes a better grilled cheese than American" believers.

830 - 930 : Jen's got a big paper due, so I clean up for the most part.

930 - 1000 : Unable to resist the lure of my work's camera, I take a few pictures of random objects around the house.

1000 - 1100 : Do some random tasks, play scrabble on Facebook.

1100 - now : Remember that I've got this damn blog to do an entry for, so now here I am, writing this and wondering why the Current has Jill Riley on air during a membership drive.

I'd like to point out - in case you weren't doing the running tally - that, of the roughly 16 hours I'm awake during a day, I spend only about 3 of those hours with my kids. Sometimes I pick them up at daycare and it is like they have this secret daytime life that I know nothing about, which makes me kinda sad. Which is a terrible place to end this entry, but I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open, so there it is...

Day eight

Abby was doing great with her crawling progress; then Daddy pushed her too far. "You're a winner, dammit!" "Waaah!" Yup, that's how I parent.

All was forgotten moments later, however, because it was moments later and that's how kids' minds work. It's lovely.

Lily likes to hang here while the gate is closed. She's never very upset about having access denied to her, she just patiently waits for an opportune moment to make a move.

Don't read this, Kate Winslet, I implore you.

Some would say - and I would be inclined to agree - that it can be tricky at times to recognize that you've arrived at a favorable situation in life. So I've heard it is with children, having had other parents speak at great lengths on their eagerness for the next developmental stage. There is usually a fair amount of sighing that then takes place, and an awkward silence lowers as I try and settle on a pithy response that doesn't come across as smarmy. (I love the word smarmy, by the way, and it never fails to make me hungry for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; I imagine smarm can be spread with a knife, if need be.)

As for us: I like now. I know I like now. We've found a familial rhythm that suits mostly everyone's needs (cat included), kids are happy, we're busy but happy. Our approval rating is quite high. So of course I can't help but have that positivity usurped by the tingly feeling that it is not going to last. I recognize this halcyon mindset as the same I would get while in the doctor's waiting room as a child, where there were Highlights magazines, a killer fish tank, a toy chest, coloring books, comfy chairs, and the stench of unavoidable catastrophe around the corner.

The now is so fleeting.

We celebrated their cousin Andrew Lukasewycz's third birthday today. I noticed that the two best shots of the girls both featured a background object coming from their head. Super.

ps. Kate Winslet's hair was so terrible I almost woke the girls up to tell them about it.

Freshly caked.

Abby and Grandpa; I rather like this one.