5 illnesses and counting

Wistfully Abby

I don't know what to say here tonight; one of those days where nothing fantastic or monumental occurred. Just a random day at work and with the family...why do I feel terrible for saying that?

Jen is busy. Fresh from the frantic world of MBAhood, she's now frantically getting us ready for our trip to Ft. Myers. She never gets a break.

I'm busy fighting off my 5th illness of the year. Hooray for parenthood! I couldn't help it, I need to try and comfort those kids when they start hacking up a lung...is it my fault I probably give them some careless kisses that just very well might mean I get some of their icky snot on my lips? It'd be ridiculous for me to think I won't get sick when they are. I can't really act surprised. But really....5 times? I feel miserable. When does this end?

I'll have no respite this weekend, as it's the last push of commercialism and lunacy before Christmas. What we have to do, it must get done in the next couple days. Somewhere in there must be a Powderhorn 365 photo and my company Christmas party and probably something else I've forgotten.

Day three hundred and five.

Goofily Lily

Sentences and subterfuge

My vanity shot for the month. Playing hockey with the Aerosim peeps over lunch.

Not pictured: the puck, which I'm about to stick right in the net.

Photo credit to Andy Moon - photographer extraordinaire

Lily had another milestone today: her first complete sentence. She has already paired up a bunch of words to convey some complex thoughts, such as:

"All done milk" - This means she's all done with her milk
"Bye bye pooch" - Said when wishing the dog adieu
and "Help poopy" - Means we should flee the area

...but these are hardly grammatically correct sentences. Okay, that's a lie; "Bye bye pooch" is technically a complete sentence (I think), but she presents it in a very neanderthalic way, so as to give the impression of it being a fragment.

Tonight we were playing underneath our Minnesota Wild blanket, which is well known to feature a few holes. Lily was peeping out of just such a hole when she said, "I see Abby." Is that a miracle or what!? Who's got two thumbs and is a genius? Lily. I know that didn't make sense, but it's true - she does have two thumbs.

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You never know sometimes what is going to get kids to be happy, or what desperate, panic-led flailings will haul your kid from the precipice that is "the cranky mood". Towards the end of dinner tonight, we told them it was bath time. Jen took Abby's socks off, and she was okay with it. I took Lily's socks off, and it was instant pandemonium. Thinking quickly, we both started waving the socks above our heads frantically and danced around.

This actually worked. It's amazing, the power of redirection on these kids. It's a fundamental skill to parenting. It is utterly necessary when trying to wrest something from the girls clutches (tube of ointment, cell phone, live grenade). And it never needs to be anything more sophisticated than us yelling, "Hey, hey Abby, LOOK OVER THERE! WOW! IS THAT A FRAMED PICTURE ON THE WALL???" during which we snatch away the contraband item. Normally, it works and they don't notice. Sometimes they do notice, and we pay the price. But it's better than not trying.

A side benefit of this is the feeling of sleazy pride when it works, like you're a little happy that you were just able to fool your kid. I notice this the most when I managed to get Lily's pacifier. She always notices its absence, but if I'm deft enough and nimble enough to abscond the thing into a hidden location, I get to watch her search for it for a few panicky moments. Then she always gets distracted, and learns to live without it.

Tricking kids...necessary AND fun.

Day three hundred and four.

Oh, my, gawd, this is totally my towel, can you believe it?

"Back back back back" (She had put the stool back in it's "normal" spot)

Invert-O-Abby

Cough hack.

Lily the plumber.

Reason #109 that I'm glad this blog is going to expire soon: I've already fallen asleep on the couch, and Jen's had to roust me in order for me to drag my bleary self to the computer so I can write this.

I think I'm suffering a sleep deficit.

Despite the nagging persistence of a cough and general phlegminess, we packed up both kids today and hauled them in to day care ("Naaay caaaaare!" -Lily). I felt okay with it, since I got a pretty accurate temp from Abby of 98 degrees. You might be tempted to ask how I know it's accurate; I would be tempted to tell you that you really don't want to know.

It's brutal hearing those kids cough. Abby sounds startlingly like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, and it makes the hairs on my neck leap to attention. It's especially bad when she gets worked up, starts crying, that leads to coughing, and in just a few seconds it seems like she can barely breath with how hard she's hacking and bawling. She did this the other morning, and it took us a good 5 minutes of ineffectual soothing before we realized that she just wanted water. She is so hard headed about not using words, it's maddening.

Lily's cough seems to have less bite to it, yet it's no less pleasant to hear. I'm going to be forbidding these kids from getting sick from now on.

Esther, I will try and give you some kid head measurements. Can I just throw open the window shade and hold up my hands in an approximation of their head size and you can look over? No, no...I'll measure. They haven't been to the doctor in a while, so their stats are out of date.

Day three hundred and three.

I think I already posted this one. Lily snuggling with book.

Abs drawing.

Abs pretending to eat peas. Trust me, she's not eating them.

One more day...

Never again.

Tonight is Jen's last of being a student. By tomorrow afternoon, it will be all sewn up and done with. After 2.5 years, she will be an MBA graduate. In honor of that, I'd like to point out exactly what she has accomplished.

Completed your first and hardest semester of school work with a constantly changing body chemistry. Not to mention a rash all over your feet. Plus, you had to abstain from joining your fellow metriculants during any post-school soirees; that shows a lot of willpower.

Interviewed for and got an internship less than a week before giving birth.

Had twins. Took time off. Understandable.

Continued your education while always finding time to spend with your family.

Had chance to, but did not sleep with Tiger Woods.

Never saying no to a challenge, crammed your schedule with every conceivable extracurricular activity. I know you did all this just to try and get a job so you could support me. Thank you.

You never once told me I couldn't go play hockey or go for a bike ride.

Went to Scandanavia and learned a lot about corporate responsibility and went to an ice bar.

Learned a lot of crazy business jargon and esoteric acronyms that I don't understand.

Worked tirelessly on your CBE project. See, more acronyms! Argh!

And tomorrow, you'll be all done. I'm very very proud of you. You couldn't have done it without me...I'm not an idiot, I know how enormous I factor into your success...but for now, let's keep the focus on you. You rule. Honestly, not many people can do what you did. I couldn't.

Congratulations!

Day three hundred and two.

Gels household, how may I direct your call?

We have our first employee. To our great pleasure and inconveninence, Lily has taken the position of household receptionist. When the phone rings and I answer it, she will run over and silently, and quite firmly, reach her hand out for the phone. She doesn't plead or beg or whine about it, just sticks her hand out in silent command.

So we invariably give it to her. "Hello? Hi?" she starts. I can only imagine what the person on the line is saying, but she then launches into a minutes-long babblefest, her head nodding and weaving along to the cadence of her nonsense. I usually let it go for a little bit, for as long as I can gauge the person on the line has the patience for. Then I, as she did, silently reach out for the phone. To my astonishment, she gives it right up, every time, and continues her coloring.

She's a true helper. I don't know why I haven't accomplished more in my life since she's entered it.

So Abby stayed home with Grandma today, while Lily went to day care. Lily again was in tears over leaving Abby, once more breaking my heart with her plaintive, "Abbbbbyyyyy!"s. Sad. She talked about her the whole way to day care.

According to Grandma, Abs was snuggly and lovable and in fine spirits the whole day through, despite her 100ish temperature and elephant-seal-in-distress cough.

Knock on wood, she may coast through this illness without getting her usual bout of the big P.

Day three hundred and one.

Some old photos today. Obviously. I did not magically regrow my beard.

Me and kid #1.

Never has a graham cracker been eaten so mournfully.

Sunday blaaahdy Sunday

This is the sort of stuff you find laying around a house with two toddlers and an MBA student.

Another "ugh" day for both of us. Abby has started cultivating a very nasty sounding cough over the past couple days, and this morning it was a bit worse. Being cautious parents who have twice had to tangle with pneumonia, we decided to haul the Abster to urgent care. I actually went, Jen hung out with Lils at home. Abby was a trooper, and apparently does not have strep, flu, or pneumonia, but just a cold/brachial infection.

This was all it took for Grandma Marj to pack up and come down to stay with us for a couple days. That sort of reaction should speak for itself as to what kind of family we have. Because of her, I will get to go to work tomorrow instead of staying home with Abby, which would probably send me clear over the edge of insanity. I spent almost the entire weekend in the house; one more day would have seen me snap like a twig.

I'm tired. I'm tired of the girls - night night time could not come soon enough tonight - and yet I still want to go upstairs and see them right now. Parenting is weird like that. Here are some high points from the day, bullet style because that's easy and I'm tuckered, gall darnit.

- The very end of the story "Three Singing Pigs" goes like this: "'Quack' says the duck, the horse says 'neigh'; it's quiet now...what do YOU say?" I read this tonight to Lily, and she answered, "Please!" Which I thought was really smart of her.

- Abby loves to knock things over when I stack them, like cups. Every time she does it I yell, "Noooo! WHY?!?" Today she knocked over a column of blocks, and for some reason I didn't say anything. After a second she yelled, "Whyyyy?" That was hilarious.

- Abby kept running around in circles tonight, which was slightly out of character for her, but she was enjoying it. I joined in. Before long I realized she was saying something every few seconds. Then I noted that she kept stopping and starting every few seconds. When I put this all together, I realized that she was playing "stop/go" by herself. She would run around, then say "Stop!" and stop, then "Go!" and go. Might be the cutest thing I've seen her do to date.

- Abby was in her high chair, Lily was not in hers. Abby started crying, like a really huge cry (likely because she was exhausted from not taking a nap and being sick and all the sweatshop work we make her do); Lily ran over and started patting her side, then started saying, "Sshhhhhh....shhhhhh....shhhhhh." They were big long shushes, the same kind I do for Abby when I'm trying to get her to calm down.

- I was in the kids room getting jammies and I sneezed. From downstairs I heard a tiny little Lily say, "bleeesss you."

Day three hundred. Whoo hoo, three hundred!!

She was poking the lens here.

She was trying to steal the camera here.