Saturday, June 20, 2009

The girl of constant wakefulness

The house is hot. Borderline/approaching/flirting with fairly miserable. We've got window units in the bedrooms, but not in the main area, and every year around this time I wonder why I choose to live so very sweatfully.

As bad as it is, opening the computer armoire to do the blog felt like opening the doors to a blast oven. (because if there's one action I'm constantly doing, it's opening doors to random blast ovens. I'm not sure I even know what a blast oven is...) We're trying to do better about turning the computer off all the time, but it's been running for a bit, and throwing wide the doors unleashed a tsunami of hot air. And then to make it worse I went to foxnews.com...zing! (In the interest of bipartisanship, that punchline could just have well been michaelmoore.com)

Abby's official bedtime tonight was 10:19. This was the time that I put her down the third, and up until now final, time. The previous two did not end successfully. The second time was annoying, as I'd really only had the time to clean the house and nothing else, so I did the lazy thing and plopped her and myself in front of the tv. "O Brother Where Art Thou?" was on, and that movie tops a lot of my lists, so we watched it for a while. Even while she played nicely and watched tv nicely and babbled cutely to me, I clung to that anger of having an insomniatic kid. What finally broke me was when she laughed at the movie, during that part at the end when George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Turturro are singing while wearing fake beards.

I think it was the fake beards that did it.

Today, for chronicling's sake, we went to our friends' Maia and Justin's baby shower, which was a lot of fun, then over to Steve's graduation party, also fun, but by the end we were sick of being outside (both were). This was followed by some mediocre naps, and now Jen is out watching A Chorus Line while I'm sweating to the bloggy.

Day one hundred and twenty five.

Every muscle in her face is screaming, "Pick me up!! Now!"

Blondie


Again.


And Abby's back paw.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Stay-at-Home Mom Duty, Week 1--Check


This was pretty much the look on Abby's face most of the week.


Today marks the end of week one of my summer staying at home with the girls. I'm making a note of it because I am not working or in school and I have a feeling that the days and weeks are going to start blending together with little indication of it being a new week other than Dave going to work on Mondays. I believe this blending will only result in a much-too-short summer feeling even shorter, so I'm going to do my best to make each day interesting. The problem with this plan, however, is that the tiniest activity with these kids requires forethought and coordination--so what might seem interesting to me and serves to break the monotony of the days might not make for good blog-fodder. Unless you want to hear about our visit to Walgreens, or the grocery store, or the walk we took--but I doubt that.

Fortunately for you readers, this is not my blog, it's Dave's. He can make such mundane visits seem interesting--so I will pass along our daily activities to him, and he will make them sound as entertaining as they feel to the girls and me. He won't be doing that tonight though--he is out playing drums somewhere and hopefully having a well-deserved good time--so you get my thoughts on the day.


Abby woke up crying bloody-murder this morning and was nearly impossible to calm down. She remained in an intermittently crabby mood all day. Sometimes this could be fixed with food (she is constantly hungry lately, you'd think she'd finally be 16 lbs already, but she's not), other times I could not figure out how to help her. I can't blame her for her mood though--I'd be crabby too if it were hot and I had a nasty, itchy rash under my diaper. I'd probably refrain from biting everything and everyone in sight to show my frustration, but that's just me. Abby has chosen not to refrain from such behavior.


Lily was clingy all day, adding to the difficulty of comforting her sister, which I believe might have been her plan. She's devious.


Week one of being on my own all day with the kids is done. I not only survived, I rather enjoyed it. And I'm exhausted.

Day one hundred and twenty four

Such tiny tiny legs, I don't know how they can possibly support her.

I think the girls are just about ready to start their guitar lessons.

I love the look on Lily's face--so sweet.

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Quite the busy day.

Tobler and Abby. Reunited.

Busy day. Not for me, of course, but rather for the girls. Jen's day consisted of a visit with Jess and Avery in St. Paul, then due to a strange nap-time-quirk-drive-issue-thing, she decided to bring the girls by my work. Pandemonium ensued! Kids A and B were on their A-game, despite a sharp lack of sleepy-time. Lots of hanging with coworkers, lots of smiling, that sort of nonsense. We had a nice group of Aerosimians (sounds like monkeys with pilot licenses...) gathered around, and it was nice to think that we single handedly brought the world of simulation to a screeching halt.

After work, we went straight over to The Downingseses house to socialize, and socialize we did. For a group comprised of 10 kids and 6.5 adults (that's right, Steve is a half because he showed up late. But that's not fair since he finished his residency today, so we should be celebrating his truency. Good job Steve!), the whole thing was startlingly without hassle. This is an egregiously easy thing for me to say when I'm not doing the hosting or the cooking, but I just wanted to point out that all the kids played peacefully for the duration, and that's saying something.

Lily impressed everyone with her ability to yell at planes like a time-travelling caveman would, stopping just short of chucking a spear at these magical metal birds. As I've already noted, she's a fan of planes...stops too look at them constantly. Tonight she would thrust her fist into the great blue sky and yell, "Oooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!! OOOoooaaaahhh!!". We laughed, so she did it a half dozen more times.

The planes were lower and louder than at our house, so maybe that was whipping her into an aviation frenzy. Funny, though. I'm glad she doesn't do the same to cars, so I don't have to worry about having a possible NASCAR fan in the house. Sorry Grandpa.

Day one hundred and twenty three.

Lily inspected Andy and Sam and considered going in for a closer look. Sam tried to lure my kid with a security keycard.


The Downings' back yard. Max or Theo (more twins! but identical so I can't tell them apart!) drives into a bush, while Sarah and Erin discuss something awesome.


Jen surrounded by twins. In addition to ours and Max and Theo here, there was one more set of twins in attendance. 6 out of 10 kids were a twin. 1 out of 7 adults was a urologist.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Balls falling on the head = Genius.

We put Lily's pants on her head. It was a winning move by us.
This is not exactly a flattering angle, is it?

There's a tidy new steel-grey case by my computer, and inside that case is 1 terabyte of blankness. No more storage issues with me. No more deleting photos willy-nilly. As would befit the occasion of such a purchase, we barely let up on the shutter button today.

These freaking kids. They decided to get up early this morning for no good reason at all, because who really knows why little people like them do what they do. I'm a firm believer in chaos theory, and this belief holds enormous sway in my interpretation of the girls' sleep habits. Maybe it was a tiny change in barometric pressure. Maybe a bird sang outside their window. Who knows.

They were up, so I got up. Jen had been up twice during the night (once for Abby, once for Olly. He gets a bottle now), so it was my turn in the morning.

It was one of those really annoying times, when it's not too much before your alarm, but enough to be disheartening. I was super tired, so down we went and on came Baby Einstein. Lazy, I know. But the girls started watching peacefully, and I kinda almost nodded off on the couch. This ended when a part of the video made Abby absolutely burst into laughter; it actually woke me up, that's how sudden and loud it was.

So I put the part on again. It's a little puppet show where some animal-type thing pulls a rope and some balls fall on his head. This magical scene made Abby laugh about as hard as I think I've ever heard. She loved it. I played it 2 more times.

Hearing her laugh just kills any lingering angst I have over having to get up early. Totally dissolves it. Not a bad way to start the day.

10:46pm. Jen and I just went outside and watched a huge cloud going by just to the south of us, almost right over the house, and it's averaging about 2 visible lightning bolts per second (honestly) with absolutely no thunder. Very strange.

Day one hundred and twenty two.


Habby Appy.

Olly the Dastardly Face-licking Beagle. That's right: I took this shot.

Abby via Lego-bin.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

I don't walk 3.1 miles in a week.


This picture probably captures the parenting experience the best of any I've taken. Constant motion. Random actions. Lunacy.

I'm tuckered tonight, so the pictures are doing the talking. I take solace - and may use this excuse to thwart my detractors - in the fact that the pictures are, amazingly, from today this time.


Quick props to Jen for taking the girls 'round Calhoun's 3.1 miles today. Of course, it was vital to her success that the dog be left behind, for he is the putziest of beagles. Attagirl, JJ.


Day one hundred and twenty one.



I love her hair and that whispy little pixie flair at the end that just happens naturally.



Self-portraits were the rule of the night. They both liked looking at the photos on the camera.



Abby especially liked looking at the playback. When we got to this, it was all, "Da da. Daaa daaa." I pointed out, "Abby too!". No. "Daaa daa!"

Monday, June 15, 2009

The girls abide...

Good job Ruben for getting the Big Lebowski quote! You win the prize which I have yet to think of but which may in fact be an ice cream sandwich. And to further the theme, I will be accusing my kids of being Nihilists since they obviously believe in nothing.

Here are the movies I quoted from yesterday, in case anyone is searching desperately for closure:

- Sixteen Candles
- Dirty Dancing
- Ghostbusters
- Return of the Jedi
- Goodfellas (again, that's a tough one)
- O Brother Where Art Thou? (one of my favorite movies ever)
- Big Lebowski (two Coen films in a row!)
- Major League
- And Garbage Day is from "Silent Night, Deadly Night"

Good job everyone. I did get some angry emails and calls, so that was fun. For me.

A few weeks ago, I and a few others made quite the ballyhoo about my being alone with the girls for a couple weeks while Jen drank her way across Europe (I'm joking, of course. It was only Scandanavia). I want to break those two weeks down:

- 3 days in Duluth, constant help from family
- Left girls in Duluth 5 more days, total vacation for me
- Stalkers here for a couple days
- After that, girls were at day care all day, I just had mornings and nights
- Dad came over two nights
- Tobler and Klocker one night.
- Etc....

When you break it down, I had, in total, about 4 hours of child rearing that I had to do by my self. And yet I whined about it interminably, people sympathized, Jen mourned my toil.

By comparison, today was the first day of Jen's Summer of Kids! (Copyright) No more daycare for the tykes; today we all woke up and got dressed, and I just left. It felt bizarre, not having the two babbling offspring in the back. So she gets them, all day/every day, from now until August. See the comparison between her and what I had to do? See my weaknesses?

Day one for her went as smoothly as expected...she had to take them to the doctor, mostly for Abby and the ridiculously prolific bumpy rash that is spreading outward from her crotch, that crazy place where rashes spring forth with alarming speed and ouchiness. So, yeah, fun times for Jen. And Abby.

Luckily, she's a chipper little devil, so it's not really getting her down too much. Her crabwalking is improving, and she loves to walk around (assisted quite solidly), and she's actually doing lots of great movements with her legs. Promising things that lead us to think that she might walk just in time for her high school graduation.

Lily's had a spurt of firsty events.

- First log roll around a room. She was lying on the floor, and I gave her a nudge with my head, and off she went.
- Dancing. She's starting to get her many, many grooves on. She even danced today while I played guitar, but since I only know mopey alt-rock songs, she kind of moshed instead.
- And she made up her first word for an object. She's started calling her pacimafier "baba" or "baby" or sometimes it actually sounds like "Abby", which is frightening in that she might want to start sucking on Abby's head. But this was cool; she's known words for a bit, but this is something she totally made up - we've never used anything close to that word for it. So the fun part now is having that realization, when she's whispering 'ba ba, baba...baaa baaaa", that we actually know what she wants. Exciting! And then we, jerk parents that we are, don't give it to her.

That's the news.

Oh, yeah, one more thing: Jen has a good grasp on how the season is going to play out - she is no dope, of course - but if anyone has some spectacular activity ideas for 16 month olds that they'd like to share, have at it; we'd love some ideas. Thanks!

Day one hundred and twenty.

ps. I'm slacking with the camera lately. These are from way back on memorial day...


Crouching tiger, hidden moron.




Another one of Abby's lip. The sheer power of that lip....staggering.



She lives her life in this shadow.



Food time.


Sunday, June 14, 2009

Put away your books...time for a quiz.

Typical Sunday. Got a visit from Admiral Ackbar.

(public service announcement)...Every day, hundreds of much-needed pop culture references are wasted in the Gels household. Movie quotes go unused. Music references are turned aside. They are squandered as they fall on the ears of two youngsters who have A) not seen the movies being referenced, and B) not the capacity for verbal speech.

Of the 10,000-some-odd words that escape my lips every day, I'd say 12% of those represent clear, concise, lucid thoughts that are completely original in source. 86% is pure recycled (I am environmentally friendly, after all) movie quotes. The last 2% is total jibberish.

There's something oddly amusing, I find, when I slip a movie line into conversation with the girls and I think it's so funny I start laughing, then they start laughing, and it's all a riot because they have no idea. It makes me wonder: did my parents do this? Was I subjected to lines like Casablanca's, "Here's looking at you, kid," when they peeled back my diaper? Maybe. I haven't asked, to be honest. But I know my parents...they have excellent original material, so I think they would have stuck with that.

Here are some of my favorite lines that I've spoken recently. I'll leave the movie names out...see if you can figure out what they are! (I tend to skew into the 80's, fyi)

-Lily always likes to do the, "Who!" sound. When she does it two in a row - "Who, who!" - I invariably respond, "Helen, I think we have an owl in here!" She never gets it.

- If I have to fetch a kid from a far-flung part of the room, it sometimes comes with, "Nobody puts baby in the corner" (which is from a movie I haven't seen 1 minute of, yet I still know the damn line)

- When I'm changing diapers: "Shhh! Do you smell something?"

- If Jen is trying to coax a kid to come to her for a changing: "It's a trap!" (see above. Geek alert!....hint: it's not "Terms of Endearment".)

- When I'm stepping out on Sunday morning to get the newspaper, and I don't want them to get upset with me: "I'm going to go get the papers, get the papers..." (that's a tough one...maybe..)

- During feeding time when I'm trying to cram some food in their mouths: "Care for some gopher, Everett?"

- Anytime a kid attacks me while I'm holding a hot cup of coffee: "Careful, man! There's a beverage here!"

- (This one is ridiculously lame) When I put hats on the kids in the wintertime: "Hats for bats. Keep bats warm. Gracias."

- And finally: when the diaper pail goes outside::: "Garbage day!" (Click here for a clip of this classic scene of classic cinema)

Acht, I forgot to talk about the kids.

They're fine.

Day one hundred and eighteen.

She kinda poses like the Pope sometimes.

I hate that I didn't get a good shot of this moment - it's blurry - but oh well.

Monkeys.

Picnic tables should come with straps.

I'm pretty sure I read in Parenting magazine that the top of a picnic table is a really bad place to leave your kid. Look at her: she's fiiiiiine.

Yesterday we were out walking Lillabbolly (new shorthand for the girls and Olly) when out of the blue, we get honked at. This happens frequently, as we're off-the-charts attractive as a family; it's like we're torn from an American Apparel catalogue (I'm not sure that's the right reference...I'm talking about the one where polo-style shirts flow like water, all the pictures are taken on Martha's Vineyard, and everyone looks like a Kennedy). So, we get honked and hooted at a lot, I'm sure you can understand.

This was quite different when the car stopped and out came Katie Austin who I haven't seen in years. She is a fellow UND alumni-type, which makes her awesome by default, and then on top of that she's additionally cool. I love bumping into people I haven't bumped into in a while. I bumped into a guy I used to play soccer with on 36th Street, which is oddly where we saw Katie. Something about 36th Street makes it very bump-int0-able. Maybe it's all the people driving to Matt's, but are just one block too far south.

Today, the girls slept in, we slept in, and we almost ended up screwing ourselves on time to get out to Chanhassen for Lucy Reichert's baptism. Little Luce. Her little mohawk smelled like patchouli the rest of the day.

We then headed out to Chaska for some socializin', where we spent a good stretch of time cramming our daughters with food. These kids can put away food in astounding quantities, Abby especially, which is especially astounding because she still weighs a little less than her birth weight. .01% of the weight scale, and it's just unbelievable to watch her snack.

At one point I was biting off pieces of strawberry and giving them to her, but she was vaguely upset with me. I was at a loss as to what her deal was, until she just reached up and plucked that berry out of my hand and proceeded to destroy it. So her problem was: I wasn't feeding her fast enough. And it was all I was doing, my entire concentration was spent on giving her food, yet it just wasn't fast enough. Kid can eat. Kid has thighs the size of chopsticks.

Day one hundred and seventeen.

Outside at the Reichert's, enjoying the pleasant day, watching all the kids run around.

Lily.

Uhh...Lily again. Flattering.
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