Happy Birthday, Nana!

Aunts Linda and Betsy (Marj's sisters) watch on as Abby flees the scene.

Busy day. Tiring day. Here's how tiring: when we came home after dinner, I called out to Lily to see if she wanted to put on some sleepwear, and it came out, "Do you want some jammies, Phil?" It was supposed to be Lil. Instead it was Phil. What a great nickname, I hope it sticks.

This morning we braved the cold air and brought the girls out for some frivolity. Cold as it was, were you to turn your face to the sun you could easily discern the tingly warmth radiating from it. Spring is on the way, a fact impossible to ignore even when the temp is 7 degrees.

Girls had a good time, thanks mostly to the fact that we played sleddog to their musher/sledder inclinations. There was a fair bit of walking too, which is quite calm and peaceful on the winding slickness of Parson's Point Road. Very Minnesotan. I taught Lily how to kick a chunk of ice down the road as you walk (I am a veteran kicker of things while I walk, a fun yet annoying habit I employ mostly in the pursuit of scattering pine cones willy-nilly around the globe).

After a brief nap that was either truncated or non-existent, depending on how you interpret 45 minutes of mostly silence punctuated with a sharp and diabolical laugh from Lily, we got the girls gussied up and brought them into Duluth proper for Nana's 90th birthday bash. I would hope I get half as many people out for my birthday if I'm lucky enough to see 9 decades; it was a good showing. Nana was in fine form, cane slung from her hip and a tasty beverage in her hand.

We did a quick trip back to the house for a "real" nap, then piled back into the car for dinner at Blackwoods. Somewhere on Rice Lake Road we turned to the south, and Lily said, "Wooooowww!" very loudly. We looked, and she was obviously taking in the sunset to the west, a sunset that was certainly not unpleasant, but was nothing remarkable. "Is it pretty?" we asked. "Yeah! Pretty!" This is a strange milestone, her remarking on something that is almost subjective in it's observation. What makes a sunset such that a kid would notice and verbalize their excitement about it? It drives one to ponder questions like this, questions about how kids visualize their world and what they think of it. So much is taken for granted (I've spoken about this on numerous occasions, I know) about the world they live in; the fact that we're rocketing down a road at 60 miles an hour in an object that has no visible source of locomotion does not appear to ignite any curiosity or awe in them. Which makes the acknowledgement of a sunset that much nicer, I suppose.

Day three hundred and sixty two. (3 days! I would certainly hope you've found another blog to follow by now...)

Jen looks 7 feet tall here. The girls were ambivalent to our foray into the out-of-doors, but the day was quickly salvaged with the timely use of the sled. As happens so often, the cure was worse than the disease, as they (Lily especially) wanted that sled to be pulled forever. Our lungs could only take so much.

Now Abby looks really tall! Is something wrong with my camera? I feel like it's the credits reel of bad 80's movies, when the aspect ratio would suddenly be completely strange.

Grandpa was showing Lily some nifty movies on the computer, when I turned the light on for a better picture. Thus, the distraction.

Slackers and stats

I hate to make one of the last posts a subpar effort, yet here I am, about to sling a few lines of crap into the great ether and hope nobody sends any hate mail. This is all the fault of the olympics, who made me watch their opening ceremonies, and now I'm tired.

We're in Duluth, up here to celebrate Jen's grandma's 90th birthday. It was a whirlwind day for both of us: I for a work day that started a little after 6am followed by the drive up here right after, and Jen for a day of crazy kids and their 2nd year doctor appointment.

Uneventful drive, the girls were good and I am ashamed to admit that it is due in large part to the playing and enjoyment of two DVDs. We barely heard a peep from them, except when the Wiggles finally ended a mere 3 minutes from Grandma and Grandpa's house. Of course I had to fill that 3 minutes with random singing and showmanship, because god forbid they could simply look out the windows for a spell.

Jen, intrepid and thoughtful person that she is, took statistical notes at the doctor's for the explicit purpose of publishing here on the bloggity blog. So for your consideration:

Abby

Weight: 19 pounds 3 oz. (0.03%) She has still not - and may never, if she has her way - broken the 20 pound mark.
Height: 29 1/2 inches (0.11%) (shorty!)
Head Circ.: 47 cm (37%) (shoddy, compared to her Dad's healthy 1,047 cm noggin)

Lily

Weight: 28 pounds 6 oz. (73%) She's getting up there...
Height: 34 3/4 inch (77%) Despite these stats, she will never be tall, the genetics are just not in her favor.
Head Circ.: 49 cm (87%) Amazing that the 2 cm difference between the two equates to a 50% difference on the scale. Small bell curve.

More tomorrow, with pictures and extra love.

Day three hundred and sixty one (4 days! I like the number 4. There should have been 4 pillars of fire during the torch lighting ceremony tonight, but there were only 3. I'm sad for Canada.)

Insert your title here.

Abby monkey!

Once in a while I like to play a fun mental game where I imagine that I have just time travelled to the current day from a couple years ago, and I'm meeting my kids for the very first time. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that I'm not the only person who plays that game. It's probably an amusing ruse because it makes you try and see someone (or 2 someones) in a new way, with a blank slate.

Sometimes this game forces itself on me, uninvited. This turns into an impromptu game of, "Oh crap, I forgot I have kids. When did this happen?" Nothing particularly sets this off - not tonight at least - except for the general spectacle of both kids running around like neanderthals, pants off, bouncing in the cribs, swinging from the chandeliers, dunking things in the toilet, and then my head gets fuzzy and I have a very sharp realization of self. It's fun. And it makes me dizzy. There's really no point to this anecdote.

News from the day, courtesy of Jen who is on the couch having herself a sharp realization of self:


Today the girls had juice, and it was good. Lily ran out of juice, and this turned very very bad when Jen informed her that there was to be no more juice. A little tantrum was begun, and things went south. At this moment Abby wandered over, tapped Lily on the shoulder, and handed her the rest of her juice.

(when Jen told me this I spontaneously threw up in my mouth out of pure love for my kids)

Jen went to the rec center today for open playtime with Chris and Ella. One of the highpoints was Lily learning to kick. I've seen her kinda run at things and kinda kick stuff, and it works out hunky dory and she enjoys it, but Jen said today's feats were of a different ilk. She has worked out the skill of standing still, raising her leg, and letting it fall through the right arc for kickery. This is good news. I've notified the appropriate D-1 colleges that field quality women's soccer teams. Lily was all too cogniscent of her achievements, and the room would echo with random, "Mommy loookit!"s every few seconds.

Day three hundred and sixty. (5 days! Or as they say in aviation lingo: fife.)

Quality time. Just ask Elmo.

Stylin'

Splashdown!

Lily loves water (unless it gets on her face chest neck or head; then it is the liquid essence of Satan hisself)
Laughter is very good. We practice it when able.

Our philosophy on toilet training is that we have no philosophy yet. We need to get a philosophy. If you have a philosophy to sell/rent/barter, please let us know. I imagine it will involve some sort of schedule and stickers and a chart for progress-keeping and reward-giving, but we still have yet to hammer out the details. For the time being, it is a scattershot approach of generally saying positive things about the potty ("Daddy loves every minute of being on the potty!"), encouraging them to sit on the potty when the spirit moves them, and gently stroking the potty to show that it is indeed a friendly beast.

Tonight Lily and I were in the bathroom. I asked if she wanted to go potty, and she said yes. So I took off her pants ("Pantss!") and her diaper ("Poooopy!") and plopped her on the crazy seat. She was on for a couple minutes - we made some idle chit chat - when out of nowhere she actually peed. First. Time. Ever. How sweet it was to hear that tinkle. We praised her appropriately, and she seemed to understand that this was indeed a happy occassion. So, I think that's it, right? Should we buy some underwear and call it good? Or is there more to it?

On the Abby front, her teacher came over today and it was decided that she's doing awesome enough (my words) that she is going to be done with her individual education plan. She's meeting all her developmental goals and milestones like a champ, and so now they just do observations every so often instead of class once a week. That's fantastically cool news, and it's nice to have outside objective opinions on her progression.

Now to get her into some music and vocal lessons.

Day three hundred and fifty nine. (6 days. 6 days is very short. I hope you've found other blogs to follow by now....)

Notice they are wearing matching coats. Notice it!!! These come courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa, always looking for an opportunity to spoil the kids (they're grandparents, it's what they do)

Nadia! Pablo!

The real purpose here was to illustrate what Abby has done with her peanut butter and jelly. Both she and Lily waste no time in peeling the bread layers apart, but Abby alone prefers to then poke holes in the bread before craming it in her tiny mouth. Amazing!

Jen met Nadia and Pablo, both friends from school, for lunch today. While I'm terrified these days of bringing the kids to restaurants even with the both of us, Jen has no qualms about braving a city draped in snow to go have lunch with the kids as a solo parent. She's a rock star.

According to our daily post-day recapitulation, the kids behaved quite well. For their part, I know they enjoyed themselves, because all night long, at totally random moments, we could catch them quietly saying, "Naaajia. Paaaablo." It was really funny, because it was usually totally unprompted. And both of them can say 'Pablo' remarkably well, leading us to the inevitable conclusion that we might have to consider it if/when we have a third Gels.

Day three hundred and fifty eight. (seven days...essentially a week, really. Half a fortnight.)

See the PB+J has been pulled apart? Classic toddler strategy.

She looks so old here.


She looks so choking here.

Hop. In.

Easily one of my favorite lines from the Simpsons is from the casino episode in season 5. In the episode, Mr. Burns descends into a Howard Hughes-esque madness, during which he designs the Spruce Moose, an absurdly small aircraft that he believes is able to carry 200 people. In the end he orders Smithers to get in; when Smithers predictably hesitates, he pulls a gun and says, "I said, 'Hop. In.'"

It's absurdly funny, partly from the delivery of the line and partly due to the fantastic juxtaposition of being told at gunpoint to do something that is physically impossible.

This is relevant. I swear.

Lily is starting the phase where she's making us do things. Not really making in a bad way, but in pretty much a bad way. For example: the other day she brought me her baby and one of Abby's diapers and told me, "Diaper. Change."

The diaper is easily as big as the doll, if not a bit bigger. Still, I make do. "Okay, buddy," I tell her, and start to fashion a way to lash the thing to the baby. I've done this before and it's always been accepted by her.

"Nooo!" she tells me.

"...what?"

She pulls at the doll's onesie. "Off!"

"Oookay." Off comes the onesie, which is pretty tight and hard to get off. After a minute of wrangling under the extraordinarily close and frankly quite uncomfortably scrutinous gaze of my daughter, the baby is finally naked. I then wrap the comically large diaper around the doll, wrapping and sticking and taping where possible, until I'm holding a large wad of mangled diaper with a doll's head sticking out the top.

"Here you go. One baby with a fresh, non-poopy diaper."

"On! On!"

She's thrusting the doll's onesie in my face. There's no possible way I or anyone operating within the bounds of conventional physics could get that onesie back on.

"Sorry Lils, but that's not going back on."

"[whine], [grunt] Ooooooooon!"

"Lily, I can't do it. I can't!"

"Daddy!.....OOOONNNNN!" (she's almost still smiling here, but is starting to get really upset with me)

"Lily!!!!! Gaah! I CAN'T DO IT! (that comes out as Scotty from star trek in a weak attempt at getting a laugh, but it only enrages her more)"

"AAAAaaaaaaarrgghghhhhh!!! ON!"

"HOLY CRAP, LOOK THERE'S ELMO!"



...


...


..


"...Elmo?"

"Yup, right there in the toy box."

"Elmo!" (laughs and runs over to get him)

Disaster averted.

Day three hundred and fifty seven (8 days. The ocho!)

Playing with the water. Loves the water.

A good time with the light toy. According to Abby, touching it to our faces is a healing thing.

More water.

I like this one.

O'er the land of the free, and the home from sea to shining sea

Look what we got in the mail!! I haven't told Jen yet, but I let the kids color it. Yay! Totally worth the $80k so they could enjoy it for 29 seconds.

Tonight was excitement aplenty, what with the Super Bowl being telemavized. The Dockters and the Moores came over, which ran the kid census up to 6. Our wee house was bursting with lunacy.

Being incredibly smart (see picture above for proof), we decided to remove the dining room table and make that area a large play spot. Genius. So while there was a whirling mass of boys and girls running around and creating havoc, we were able to keep it mostly localized. Plus, it's always fun to change the house layout around a bit to shake things up.

I'm sad to say that I don't think I watched one commercial. How unAmerican. I managed to watch Queen Latifah (good) and Carrie Underwood (hooooorible) sing the anthems (we have two now?), and I think I saw some actual football too. Abby LOVED The Who. Seriously, loved it. She was entranced. I know I'm projecting my own ambitions here, but she does seem really intrigued by the drums...who knows, she may someday become a queen of rockdom.

So today is the official start of winter by the yardstick of "when I finally bring my air conditioners downstairs". We have two window units for the bedrooms, and today was the day - I may be premature here, we might still have a warm snap - I finally brought them downstairs. I was hoping to push it and try to make it all year, but Jen might have killed me. She still might kill me, but probably for something totally unrelated.

Day three hundred and fifty six. (9 days! Did you know that if you multiply 9 by any number, then add the digits of the answer, it will always come out to 9. True stuff! If you add it up and the result is double digits, add the digits again, fyi.)

It's always a good idea to wash your fruit. Especially when the cat jumps on the dining room table and yaks all over it. Mmmmmm.

Lily's always up for showing off some dance moves.

Abby. Always trying to reach something.