Daddy's night off

Lily, checking to see if the contents of the diaper bag meet her approval.

Dave has been doing double parent duty for the past week, so he's taking the night off. He doesn't know that yet, but since he passed out on the couch at only 9PM, I think it's the least I can do to fill in for him. After all, he has been filling in for me without complaint while I've been busy with school stuff.

Abby stayed home today thanks to her random fever at daycare yesterday. She didn't have one today and she seemed like her usual happy self, but she couldn't go in, so it was one of our mommy-Abby days. I love having quality time with just one child once in awhile. But is it weird that I wish it was with Lily for once? Poor girl, she's too healthy. I guess I should be happy about that though. It's just that it's going to be tougher to give them one-on-one time this summer when I'm home with them each day.

It's possible my brain shut off on Wednesday night after I finished for the semester and that's why I'm drawing a blank for material tonight. But since the day was pretty mundane, the girls are asleep, Dave is asleep, and I'm incredibly jealous of all of them for that right now, this is it for tonight. (Although the picture above is from tonight, the others are not new).

Day 89

The smile, the wild hair, the snotty nose. Love her.

I think it is a rare thing for a photograph to capture the essence of a person. But the first word I use to describe Abby is "sweet", and isn't that captured here so perfectly by the photographer (aka Daddy)?

beep beep beep beep beep beep beep (gah!) beep beep

Our little walker. Sometimes, when I chase her down, she comes close to actually running, kinda.

I'm having a bowl of Vitamin D cereal right now. Its deliciousness is astounding.

Jen's first day off for summer break went exactly as you'd expect: day care called at 1pm and demanded that we take Abby and her 102 degree temperature home for the day. So really Jenner got a good 5 hours off.

My day was fine. I spent a bit of time reading the CVR from the Colgan crash in Buffalo. I'm amazed that pulling the nose up and retracting the flaps is the wrong response to a shaker/pusher event. Ah, but I digress, this blog is about parenting, right? Right-o.

Jen had a thingity thing tonight, so I was outnumbered by the morons again. They were kind to me; I'm even starting to think that I might be prepared for Jen's Europe trip which is fast approaching.

Later on I met up with my fellow Powderhorn 365 photographers; it's cool to recap after 6 months of the project. We all have had some interesting experiences in the pursuit of our daily photos. It's fun to hear the anecdotes and thoughts from my cohorts.

Funny story: Lily loves to play with my keys, which includes a car key fob. At some point yesterday, she's giving my keys the business (which I was only dimly aware of), and in the meantime I'm so annoyed because some jerk won't turn off his car alarm. How obnoxious. Odd that the horn sounds just like mine...Yeah, I totally forgot my car has a panic thing. Push the lock button for 4 seconds, and it shall beep like crazy. Lily has decided that the most fun part of my keys is to do exactly that, because she's done it 3 times since.

I think I'll sell my car.

Day eighty eight.

Self portrait.

This was taken right after Jen left, she was so upset. Jen should never leave.

Another self portrait, tongues and all.

Double duty.

This picture shall explain itself in mere moments.

Jen finished her semester today after one big whirlwind of a final and presentation. We had a right mind to order some Thai, drink a beer, and get festive. The girls were tired and destined for an early bedtime, so things seemed to be going our way; we just had to give them a bath and a bottle and send them to bed.

The bath went south when I heard Jen say something you never, ever want to hear from your spouse in this situation:

"Ew. What's that?"

It was a doodie. A few of them, actually, bobbing toxically along on the waves. From our best guess, it was almost certainly Abby. The girls were ripped from the water with the utmost haste. Thanks to some very poor timing, the poop dropped before we'd even begun to wash them; the bath would need to be resumed. So we put the girls in some towels and set about refilling the tub.

This took the better part of 6 minutes, which actually passed rather pleasantly. The girls were kinda goofy about the change in routine.

The kids went back in the bath. I'd managed to wet Abby's hair and had just started to get a good lather going when I saw Round 2 shoot from her tooshie. Sploosh. "Rip," went the girls from the water. "Bob," went the wee little Abby nuggets. "Dammit," went the parents.

Poopie in the bath. How could we have avoided it until now? How could fate have caught up with us in such a doubly manner?

Confident that the worst was behind us (foreshadowing! ooooh....can you feel it?), we brought the kids downstairs and let them play while we pored over the Kinhdo menu. Jen went down to where Abby was playing and grabbed a toy she'd just had. It was all wet. Suspiciously wet. After a cursory evaluation, we found that the dog had peed all over the floor and all over the toys that the girls were just then playing with. Damn dog.

It seemed like an uphill night. But in the end the food was had, the beer was drunk, and we finally got to relax. And now Jen is passed out with the dog on her lap.

Day eighty seven.

Bad hair day, good day.

Bad hair day...not such a good day.

Jennifer.

Our kids are dangerously filthy

"Parenthood" had a lot going for it when I first saw it in junior high. A few funny jokes, some very quotable lines, Mary Steenburgen, and what turned out to be my first glimpse at a female-oriented "accessory". It all seemed very mature to me at the time, and of course was so far off from my life, in a temporal sense, that it was almost completely foreign.

When it came on tonight, I had to watch it because it is one of those grating movies that must be watched when it comes on. Very early on in the movie, it is established that Steve Martin's character is 35 years old. 35. I'm 33. I immediately had to lie down and do my special breathing that keeps my brain from exploding. How could it be possible that I'd gotten to the point in life where I could be Gil Buckman? He wore a suit to work and was working at being a partner (whatever that means) and had an adult-looking house and could improvise an entire cowboy/balloon man routine at the drop of a hat. I'm feeling stiflingly inadequate. Just imagine when I'm Jason Robards's age.

Jen has been working on project/homework/finals stuff for the past 92 hours straight. Care of the kids fell solely to me tonight, but I did it happily and joyfully because I adore my kids and I am achingly happy that I'm not Jen right now. My envy of her going back to school ends at this time every semester.

There's some quirks to single-parenting that we haven't overcome yet, and bathtime is the big one. The girls were overdue tonight, those filthy little rugrats (that we spent the afternoon in the yard eating dirt didn't help), but I couldn't work out how it would work. I can't do them both in the bath at the same time, I don't think. Maybe I could. That's probably the only way to go; there's no way I could leave one downstairs while I give the other a bath, that just seems overly risky. Hmmmm.... I opted for the half-assery of just wiping their face and hair down after dinner, followed by a hasty comb job. Perfect.

Day eighty six

Blondie.

Blondie II: the return of Squinty McGee

Brownie.

Twins by list

There is much gratitude I owe the children, but none moreso than my deep thanks for their introducing whole milk into the household.

Have you had a bowl of cereal with whole milk? It is like eating spoonfuls of happiness.

I can also thank the kids for bringing Nilla wafers back into my life.

I would be remiss in my duties as father and blogger (flogger? blather?) if I didn't do a periodic, comprehensive update of the girls in general. I don't want to be remiss. Have you been remiss? It's a horrible thing. Since tonight is ECFE night and I don't have much by way of conventional material, it's a perfect time to take stock, list-style. A-way we go:

Takes pleasure in:

LILY
Walking
Yelling "ya ya ya ya!" at the top of her voice
Ripping kleenexes into thousands of pieces
Being chased
Laughing like a broken saxophone
Pounding on the computer keyboard
Throwing a wet towel on her face after meals

ABBY
Blowing in her face
Climbing up and standing at the furniture
Crawling
Stealing her sister's pacimafier
Drinking from adult glasses
Eating her feet

Toys that ellicit smiles aplenty:

LILY
Little hammer and peg wood toy
Books (see also: favorite foods)
The computer mouse
Telephone
Mostly everything in the house that she shouldn't have

ABBY
Anything by LeapFrog
Board books, preferably something by Sandra Boynton
Her own bellybutton
Toy piano
My cell phone

Delectably delicious items:

LILY
Peas (squashed with her fingers)
Pasta
Avocado
Strawberries
Beagle
Rocks, preferably sedimentary

ABBY
Grilled cheese is easily the tops of this list
Yogurt
Avocado
Crackers
Bananas

These make them angry:

LILY
Being laid down in the bath (this is a recent and inexplicable development)
Not a huge fan of being thrown in the air a great deal
Having her face licked by the dog
Television
Being deprived of anything in the previous categories

ABBY
Lily sitting on her
Being startled
Any standing tower of stacked items (they must be destroyed)
Being hungry (she gets cranky scary-fast)

That's not really even close to a comprehensive list, or enough to even give a passing glimpse of what the girls are like, but it's a start.

Day eighty five.

repeat pictures to-day.

The hair gets me on this one. So cute.

Olly the beagle thrashing in the grass.

"Saxamophoooone"

Mother's Day for MBA students

Considering the feedback I got from Jen's dad regarding yesterday's post (I was roundly berated for taking the night off), I am severely tempted to just take the night off again and see what happens. Invitations to Duluth might quickly dry up, or at the very least I'd be sleeping with Ellie in the kennel.

I wish today could have been a great Mother's Day for Jen, but apparently this holiday was scheduled long before MBAs - and the dastardly finals they finish with - existed. I just did a quick look at Facebook for the day, and seeing all the "had a relaxing mom's day"-esque status updates caused me a harsh stab of pity for my little bookworm. No pedicure. No relaxing with a book. Just her, a laptop, a pinch of wi-fi, and heaps of bidness school. In what has become a regular proclamation for many such holidays lately, I've vowed to make it up to her someday soon.

Thanks to some help from Neil, Jen's dad, we got a new tree today, an Accolade Elm from the friendly folks at Tree Trust. $25 for a tree isn't bad, but there's every reason to believe that it will never add value to the house because we'll be long gone before it throws any shade on the Gels abode. When you think about it, I just donated $25 to the next-next people to own the place, and they'll likely cut it down to pave the front yard. I can rest knowing I'm doing my part to make the world shadier and more greeny.

Twins were good today, those little troopers. The schedule was way out of whack, but they always seem to roll with it all in a good natured way. We had a good time at Christy and Steve's for some rolls and coffee with the Stalker side, then a nap, then over to Papa's for dinner with the Gels people. Lots of family. It's fun to trot out the kids now that they've got new tricks in the bag; walking, crawling, laughing, spilling coffee all over themselves, etc. All the typical cliche toddler things.

That's about it. It's 10:42, and Jen is still at it. I think she's working a bit too hard. I hadn't heard from her in a while, so I just turned around to find that she's turned into a cucumber. I mean, really. Thanks a lot, Carlson...now I'm married to a cucumber. You happy?

Day eighty four.

With amazing and humble respect to Jenny, a fantastic Mommy through and through, I thought I'd throw up a few of my favorites of my Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Out of respect and love for my mother in law, I wanted to put a couple photos up of Marj, but I don't have any good photos of her. Not one. You hear me Marj?!? You're going to have to sit still for a photo one of these days!

Mom and me just a few moments after Abby and Lily were born.

Me and the 'rents, waaaay back during my senior year of high school I think?

Ahh, the hair. Mimi and Grace, Tracey and Mark's munchkin.

An older one, one of my favorites.