Saturday, July 25, 2009

Everything I need to know I learned on the swings

My mom, or Grandma as she is known to the girls, and I took the kids to the park today. We've brought the girls to swing before with inconsistent success. I think it is safe to say that they have become full-fledged fans of the swings. They had a great time (see pictures below for proof if you don't believe me).

Three important lessons were learned on the swing set today. 1) Lily learned that when you push the swing with your sister in it, it comes back at you and you need to look out. 2) Lily also learned that if she sits back in the seat and holds onto the chains instead of the seat, she doesn't feel like she's falling forward and she can swing higher. 3) When two kids are thoroughly enjoying the swings, you will pay when you try to make them leave...mostly with your eardrums.

All in all, it was a good trip. I think we will do it again. And again. And again.

Day one hundred and sixty.

Abby. Loves. Swings.

Lily. Loves. Sticks.

Weeeeeee!!!!

Remember what it was like to enjoy swinging this much?

Friday, July 24, 2009

The wonder of noses

Lily is fascinated with Olly's nose--poor dog has little fingers gunning for his nostrils whenever he's sleeping.

Dave left for a weekend away bachelor party today. Lucky for me, my mom was kind enough to come down to Minneapolis for the weekend to help me with the girls. I should point out that I didn't even ask her to--she just decided to come out of the goodness of her heart. I am very grateful--help is always welcome here. I never used to ask for any before I had the twins, now I feel like I'm requesting help too often. We are fortunate in that we have amazing family that have given us more support and help than we can ever repay them for, at least not in this lifetime.

Although I am not solo this weekend, I am exhausted just the same. Seems to be a trend.

So goodnight to you all and thank you to my mom for sensing that you were needed and coming here. And thank you to my dad for sharing her.

Day one hundred and fifty nine.

No caption, just cute.

Two creatures, both with big blue eyes.

Lily enjoying a game of "hat swap" with her daddy.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

A wee and worthless posting

Jen amongst the leaves and the hedges.

Lily is hugging Abby now. It started yesterday....it happened again today. This is the culmination of all we've been hoping for in parenthood. We've hit the peak. It's all downhill now. The girls are just the right level of fun and spunky and huggy and snuggly and they are hilarious to be around. It can only get worse.

Lovely outlook, huh?

Well, it's late. Jen and I just returned from a picture party (that sounds vaguely dirty, doesn't it?) with Jen's Scandanavia group, a friendly lot. Much thanks to Jen (different Jen) for babysitting and doing a bang-up job with the girls.

Off to sleep. Tomorrow I'm off for a bachelor party weekend, so Jen's taking the helm for a couple days, the trooper. She's also agreed to take my Saturday photo for www.powderhorn365.com, so feel free to check that out and comment on how awesome she is.

Day one hundred and fifty eight.

Always share your giraffe. Words to live by.

Lily in motion

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I figured out where Abby's food intake goes...

Dave is out readying himself to play guitar in an upcoming wedding, so I thought I'd do him a favor and write a good blog entry. Abby had other thoughts though and decided to stay up late. So I'll tell you one quick, cute twin thing from the day and then I'm going to bed.

I took the girls to Minnehaha Park today to sit in the shade and play. We were all sitting on a blanket. Lily sat behind her sister and spent a couple minutes calling her sister's name "Abb....ee" and leaning over to see Abby's face and saying hi--making Abs smile every time. She then attempted to hug her (I think) from behind--she kept putting her hands on Abby's shoulders and pulling her closer to her. At one point I thought Lily was pushing Abby, so I told her to be gentle. She then petted Abby's back as though she was the dog--very gently. It's so fun to see them interacting more and more each day.

Also, Abby eats constantly. She's insatiable. Where does it go? Well, she pooped 4 times today--three times before lunch. That's some digestive system. That's it, I'm going to bed now.


Day one hundred and fifty seven


Like many toddlers, Lily doesn't take the word "no" lightly. It's simultaneously heartbreaking, frustrating, and funny--like so many moments in parenthood.



Fortunately, when not being told no, Lily generally has this goof-ball look on her face. I love it.



Abby eating. Go Figure.


Abby, looking like she doesn't fully trust the photographer.





Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Damn you, thunderstorms.

There are few things I take more delight in than sitting through a really awesome thunderstorm. Every spring, I get a little giddy with the thought of all the boomers just waiting to lumber over my house during the summer. I've been blanked this entire season so far...not a single one.

I was thrilled to see skies as black as night over Rainbow when I stopped for a few groceries after work. Eagerly did I run through the aisles, hurriedly trying to get home in time to watch the deluge. To come back out of the store 15 minutes later to clearing skies was the cruellest of teases. It's trivial, in the great big grand picture of life, but I'm starting to almost physically ache for the need of a thunderstorm. Where are they? Why are we constantly being passed over for being passed over? Bah. It's ridiculous that the news is now reporting all the storms in the metro that took place. Ppttthht.

Okay, now I feel rather bad because they just said a girl died from a lightning strike. I'll just be quiet now.

Girls are great. More words are starting to come out of Lily. Abby is, as always, on her normal glacial pace, but she is getting pretty good at getting around, and we're hopeful some walking might be around the corner. It's funny, we've been trying to do sign language with the girls for a long time, with a rather low level of success, likely because we're not consistent enough (two signs a day...how can they not pick this stuff up?). Abby's gotten a couple signs, but Lily has never shown much inclination. I sign and sign and sign, and it's never more interesting than a grey dust bunny under the chair. Today I said "ball" and showed her the sign for it, and Lily stared at me with this strange, burning intensity. She already knows "ball" and uses it correctly, so maybe that made it relevant for her. But she just watched me like a predator for a bit, then promptly did the sign. I have no idea what was different about this word. I've shown her "more" until I'm blue in the hands, and she couldn't care less. Huh. Kids are weird.

From today's "Jenner Files: why twins are hard and stuff"

During a trip to the dermatologist today (feel free to add that to your running list of doctors that Abby sees, because I assume everyone is keeping track, right?? Right.), Jen had to park the stroller outside the exam room. This is because it's illegal in Minnesota to manufacture doors that allow easy passage of a double stroller. Look it up, it's in there. To get them in the room, it was manual time.

She pulled out Abby (the slower one. Jen's no dummy) and put her in the exam room. She ran back out to get Lily, and turned around just in time to see Abby crawling down the hall. "Drat!" she cursed, lugging Lily into the room now. Down went Lily, out went Jen, up went Abby. Jen turned back to see Lily sprinting away from the room with glee. "Curses!" she dratted. (Fun fact! Jen actually does use the exclamation "Curses!" Now you know!) This might have gone on indefinitely - with the aides and nurses laughing merrily to see such fun and not help at all - had Jen not finally managed to snatch them both up at the same time and drag them in once and for all.

These little battles happen so many times when alone with the girls.

Day one hundred and fifty six I think. I'm starting to lose track since I've missed a couple days. We'll go with 156 for now.

I'm clearing out some strange photos. Enjoy.

Jen had bought a can of chicken from Trader Joe's a while back. It sat on the shelf, taunting me, beckoning me to open it and gaze upon the mysteries within. It's canned chicken...how can you not marvel at it?

We finally got to open it recently. I'm not sure I've ever seen something quite so unappetizing as a can of Trader Joe's chicken. It was like a hockey puck had fallen into a vat of boiling lard. It tasted pretty much okay, although I couldn't stop tasting tuna because it looked like tuna.



Stoic little girl.


Little pouter.


This is one of my favorite signs in Minneapolis. It stands tall over a chicken place called "El Pollo Loco", a name that was hilarious the first 15,034 times I heard it.
It depicts a bodybuilding rooster of Herculean strength, holding over the flames of Hades a crispy and delicious whole chicken, skewered on his godly trident.
That is one amazingly loco pollo.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Never take a right at Tofte.


I'm writing this while listening to the Jayhawks in-studio gig at the Current. It's a nice and fuzzy nostalgia to hear this band playing with Mark Olson in the lineup; it calls to mind my listening to "Tomorrow the Green Grass", reading the cd insert, and wondering what roadsite burger joint they took the band photo in. I don't think having any knowledge of or history with the band is required for nostalgia: the first listen is like smelling an old textbook.


It is a quintessentially Minnesotan thing, listening to the Jayhawks. I can't go driving up through the northern part of the state without some catchy song of theirs squirming its way into my consciousness. This weekend, "Miss William's Guitar" kept time in my head while rumbling over washboarded gravel roads, spraying rocks into the forest. "What Led Me to this Town" might have been an apropos choice for Saturday, considering its lyric, "...eight shades of grey and I can taste the rain."

So, here are some tales from the camping trip. It's all rather anti-climactic and droll, but there is a good part about pies.

Despite the obvious fact that the girls will not have the slightest recollection of this trip to the great outdoors, it's a nice feeling to be exposing them to experiences that are simply very Minnesotan. It was kinda painful, though, to pass by Split Rock and Gooseberry and not have the time to stop to see the things that Jen and I, although familiar with, always like to see again.


Our trip began dubiously, but it all worked out in the end. After hitting 35 outta town, it became clear that we wouldn't get to our campground on Sawbill, just north of Tofte, until 9:30 at the earliest. The Man in me was excited by the challenge of setting up a tent as quickly as possible. Just north of Sandstone, Neil called to tell us the temps were hovering just under 0 (roughly), and there was some rain. I hadn't even thought of this contingency plan, but he suggested we just stay at their place for the night in D-town and head up Saturday morning. The idea of setting up camp late at night with two crabby kids in the rain was too much to bear. We exited on Midway road and headed north to Island Lake.


We put the girls to bed almost right away, and got lazy on the couch. I turned in with a Lake Superior magazine that I read for 20 minutes before I realized it was from September 1994.


The upside of this little detour is that we got to see Jen's Uncle Rick who was visiting from San Francisco. I'd never met Rick, so that was fun to meet some new-old family.


Back in the car, we headed up the north shore, past all the old familiar landmarks. So many places to buy pies, yet we managed to stay strong and resist their flaky roadside come-ons.


Sometime around Beaver Bay, Jen informed me that we would be taking a left at Tofte. A left. If you can't picture why this is funny, taking a right at Tofte would set the Subaru to floating in Lake Superior. This turned out to be my favorite line of the trip. Jen sometimes says really, really funny things in the car.


After nearly running over a flock of highschoolers crossing the highway, we made it up to Sawbill and met up with the Stalkers. We camped like champs. The girls seemed to enjoy it. Lily saw a chipmunk and chased it around a bit, which turned out to be unnecessary because if she'd have just stood still, the chipmunk would have climbed her and eaten the goldfish out of her fists (chipmunks up there are surprisingly bold and conditioned to tourists).


Jon and I, despite the briskest of temperatures and a lake that was downright numbing, did the manly thing and went swimming for a bit. It wasn't bad after a few minutes, but it wasn't one of those "not bad after a few minutes" where you get accustomed to it as much as it was the kind where you get ridiculously numb and can't feel the water anymore.


I made the best smores in the universe. Neil made some really impressive mojitos, especially considering that we were camping.


The night passed amazingly well, which is just over-the-moon fortunate for us becase we really had no backup plan if the girls woke up scared or cranky or heeby-jeebied. We figured we would pull them in with us in our tiny little 2 person tent and let them sleep with us if we had to, but that would have been a crap shoot since they don't really ever sleep with us. It's a moot point, because those little tykes slept solidly through the night. Maybe they're born to be outdoors; little explorers, portaging 120 rods with a pack 'n play on their backs.


Next morning, had a lovely breakfast, packed it all up, and came back down. It's far too short a trip, but pretty soon we'll be going up for weeklong trips and I'll want to kill the kids by day 3. Soon enough. For now, I'm just glad this one went smoothly all had a good time.


One hundred and fifty three.



Abs putting a hex on the lawn. Because my grass doesn't have enough going wrong for it.





Hee hee! (props to Jen for this shot)




I wanted to include a couple non-flattering pictures of the girls. Here's Lily, looking just awful.




And Abby, this is just so very awkward, how can you not love it? I dare you to not love it.


Sunday, July 19, 2009

Not one kid lost to bears. Success.

Photos from the weekend up at Sawbill Lake north of Tofte.

I'll write words n' stuff tomorrow.

Day one hundred and fiftyish?

ed. - Sorry, here's a better link that doesn't require a sign in. Stupid Google.


Camping trip with the Stalkers, July 2009