Lag screws will keep your kids quiet at home depot.

She looks so old here.

Today was certainly a Lily day. Again, I should stress that there is no scorekeeping with my kids. Unless of course it is a total blowout like today was, where you just can't close your eyes to the obviousness of who wins. Abby's had her share of these days.

Here's some of the reasons Lily ruled today:

She put a duck puppet on her hand and adopted a gravelly alter-ego voice and tried to make him talk. It was jibberishy hilariousness.

When we were at Sovereign Grounds this morning, she played by herself nicely. When I told the girls, "We get to go to Home Depot after this," she lifted up her shirt, pointed to her belly button, and said, "Bee bo?" Depot. Bee bo. Same thing. Cute as all get out.

She said "God bless you," today after someone sneezed, with absolutely no prompting from anyone, just the sneeze.

She did a fair bit of sharing, also. Sure she filled her normal quota of taking things away, but she shared too. When I gave the girls a couple cookies for a snack, Abby inhaled hers and started whining for more. Lily walked over and gently thrust her cookie into Abby's hand. Astounding. I was so taken aback by this gesture, my appendix immediately burst and I had to go the hospital. That's not true at all, but still...very lovely moment.

As a whole, in general, she was just a card. Very easy to be around.

Today should be remarked upon for it being their very first trip to Home Beebo. Our stay was brief; long enough only to peruse the masonry bits, hardware, and the gutter section before heading off again. Not even time enough to let them out for a run around the aisles and into the cutting station in the lumber section. Next time!

Day two hundred and twenty nine.

A dandelion goes along for the ride on our walk today.

One of my Poho365 leftovers. This is in a little church park across the street from us.

A rambling post of 93% truthiness.

Everything about this kid screams "Jen"...except that she dances like I do.

Ugghhh...you know what's coming, right? I wish I could help myself. I'm sorry, it's another counting anecdote. But this one is really cute! And it's Lily instead of Abby!!!

On the way back from the Midtown Global Market:

Lily: "fiiiive.....seeeesss....twoooooo....coooowww..."
Us: "Um, was that a cow in there Lily?"
Lily: "niiinnnneee...coooowwwwww...mooo...cooowww...mooooooo"

It's clear to me that this shows an improvisational skill that is well above average. She dropped a 'cow' in the middle of her counting, but rather than ignore it or try to backpedal, she added the flourishing 'moooo'. That shows on the ball thinking. She's awesome.

Friday night is family night at the midtown global market. All other nights of the week they run families out with pitchforks and torches flaming (kidding), but Friday we are welcomed with open arms. At 5:30, kids and parents alike descend upon the main commons, where tonight we danced like savages to three women singing goofy kid-friendly tunes.

Lily's dancing is absurd and it's vital that it is caught on tape. I kept a keen eye out tonight, watching the other kids, and came to this conclusion: nobody dances like her. Nobody. This is either very thrilling or very dismaying. Her signature move is to just stomp (or stamp?) her right foot (always the right) very arhythmically and ogre-like. She looks strikingly like the town drunk at a hoe-down, from the foot stamping up to the goofball guffawing.

Despite what the photos may insinuate, Abby quite enjoyed the festivities. She was kinda entranced by these women singing harmonies with lovely vocals and through amplification equipment. She looked like she was watching intensely most of the time; then, at the end, she did loosen up and get out and even dance a bit.

After at least an hour of this, interrupted only by dinner, they were right tuckered when we got home. We sang them "Twinkle twinkle little star" in their room once; when finished, Lily said, "Mooore?" We sang it again. At the end of the second time, she basically threw herself backward...a clear indication she wanted bed. I laid her down, she curled her legs up under her, grabbed her froggy, and had all but closed her eyes by the time we left.

Abby on the other hand sat up reading a book in her crib, which she's started doing almost nightly now. I love that she reads a book before falling asleep. My favorite part is that we hear her babbling on the monitor, but she never cries or complains. Good monkey.

Day two hundred and twenty eight.

More dancing fool.

Abby: timid but interested.

They gave out balloons. She loved her balloon.

Another post about counting. Thrilling!

Glamour shot! Work it, girlfriend!

I think she was barking here, which she does very cutely out the side of her mouth.

Me: "One."
Abby: "twoo"
Me: "No, I want you to repeat it. Say, 'one'."
Abby: "twoooo. freeee....foouuuur"
Me: "One"
Abby: "Sixxxxx, niine, BEN!"
Me: "Good job! Let's start back at the beginning. One?"
Abby: "Two, free, sissss, BEN!"
Me: "Abby, say, 'one'. Just say, 'one'."
Abby: "Twoooooo. Fiiiiiifffee. Blooooorg."
Me: "One one one one oneoneoneoneone!"
Abby: (long pause) "....twooo...free...fuuuuur."

(not much later at all)

Jen: (talking to me or the girls, I can't recall) "Excuse me"
Abby: (pitch perfect; first time she's ever heard the words) "Scuse me."

Are you for real, little Blondie?

Day two hundred and twenty seven.

Powdered monkey legs.

Sprinkle monkey gingerly with oatmeal. Enjoy.

The Count.

Jen. The Master Puppeteer.

Abby's started to take a keen interest in counting. I've caught her a couple times now, daintily grabbing my fingers and muttering, "..twwoooo. freee.." I'm not sure what happened to 1; maybe this is a common thing with twins, they never learn the number 1 because it doesn't compute.

During bath time tonight, she actually counted to three all by herself for the first time. How this will segue into a career in astrophysics, I'm not sure exactly; but at the very least it is clear to me now that this is the inevitable outcome.

Also during the bath, Lily learned what we've been trying to keep secret for nigh on these 19 months: if you stand in the bath, then plop down again, this unleashes a veritable tsunami on those of us in attendance. This is another in a string of moments that has made me desperately wish I could make the girls unlearn things.

During playtime this afternoon, we took the girls outside and emptied a box of dry oatmeal flakes into a tub for them to play with. "Attagirl Jen" for coming up with this clever way of using old baby food for a funtime activity. Plus 91 points. But minus 34 for thinking adding water to it would be a good way to ratchet up the happiness. Things got a little messy there. And we learned that the dog will devour baby oatmeal, which tastes something akin to lightly salted cardboard. Olly does not have the most refined of palates.

Another nice night for a bike ride. If for any reason you're extraordinarily bored and curious as to where I headed on tonight's little voyage, here is tonight's route on walkjogrun.

Day two hundred and twenty six.

Take that, oatmeal!

Oh yeah, Abby also learned the word 'icky' during this event.

Spider doing pushups on a mirror.

Abby is really bonkers for giving out 'kishes'.

Video time..

I've already fallen asleep once. I was waiting for YouTube to process my video, but now it's done and now I can do this infernal post and head to the sleep that I so sorely deserved.

Kids are good. Went for a 14 mile ride tonight; it started off very cold, but ended up okay. Biked past a huge house fire on my way home.

Enjoy some video. Curse YouTube for me for taking so long to upload things. Be sure to try and catch the snot bubbles, which are easily the most exciting part of this blog post.

Day two hundred and twenty five.

Lucy in the sky with doorknobs.

"Museum of Modern Art, curator's office."

"How fast can you send someone to Minneapolis? I have something you sorely need. Bring a frame. And some nilla wafers."

J.J. Stalkerpants toiled (and continues to toil) into the night for school this evening, so I was flying solo today. Despite a rather inauspicious beginning, it went well. "Inauspicious," you ask? Oh yes, say I.

After picking up the kids from their daytime family, I drove them home and leaned in to unbuckle Lily. Something brown lodged in the brambles of her hair caught my eye, so I reached up to grab it out. I assumed it was a piece of dirt, a booger, a hunk of fudge, a small meteorite, or any one of the other 10,000 things my kids get stuck in their hair once every 9 seconds. I reached up, and when I pinched it, it gave way in a very distinct way. I didn't even have to smell it (though I did right away): it was a little tiny piece of poop.

I'm at a loss to explain the circumstances that might allow my kid to come home from daycare with a small piece of poop in her hair. I feel like this is one of those galvanizing moments of parenthood, as if my reaction to fecal matter might foretell the kind of father I'm going to be. So I say with the utmost gravity, after positing on the situation for the entire night, that I'm okay with it.

I can be fairly certain that the people at day care did not plant poop in her hair. This would be a strange and borderline psychotic way to act. And none of them ever have poop in their hair, so I think they're safe.

A more likely explanation is that Lily, during the 1 minute that I let her play in the dirt while I loaded Abby into the car, somehow let her fingers drift over some wayward doodie. While I certainly cleaned that crap out instantly, I'm going to pretty much just be okay with it.

This is usually how I live my life. I am the type of person who, if I come across a piece of hair in a restaurant dish, would more than likely toss it aside and keep eating, because, c'mon, life isn't perfect, hair happens, let's move on. This philosophy is already tainting my parenting.

For our activity tonight, we did a little art project. You might have noticed already. A big piece of white paper and some markers can go a long way to entertaining the kids. They both liked it a lot, though they (Abby mostly) became quite interested in devouring the markers once the art-making had lost its zeal.

Later on in the night, while shaking an inverted shampoo bottle over Lily's head in a frantic effort to get the much-needed cleaning goop down to the bottom (er, top, as it were), I accidentally whapped her right on the head. Bip! Rough night for Lils.

Day two hundred and twenty four.

The instructions were clear: draw a triangle, square and circle as demonstrated. They chose to disregard these instructions.

How can one concentrate so hard on the simple act of moving it back and forth and back and forth?

Purple is not grape flavored.

Lifting kids up can be dangerous to their hairline.

While changing Abby today, Lily wandered into the general area. I didn't really think she was that close, until I pulled Abby up from her lying position and heard her cry, and realized that Lily was actually standing on her hair. Oddly, there was zero resistence when I pulled her up. Still: how bad do I feel? Lots.

We headed to Target today. This isn't really interesting in itself, but something funny did happen in the bathroom. We were about to check out and head home, but with 2 cups of coffee coursing through my veins, I decided to head to the bathroom. Leaving Jen to check out, I brought the girls with me. Fun things always result from this arrangement.

We headed into the family bathroom. Considering the looming task of potty training, I figured this would be a great intro. I wheeled them into a good viewing position. I went potty, narrating the whole thing as it happened ("This is how to put the seat up and down", "This is the toilet bowl," etc.). As soon as I started going, they burst out laughing.

After I was done, there was a moment of quiet. Lily looked up at me.

"More?"

"No honey, it doesn't work like that."

That I could stretch this story into a full blog post speaks volumes about how exciting our day was. Sundays can be lazy like that.

Day two hundred and twenty three.

Pout monkey.

Sprint monkey.