365 Days of Twins

I said bye-bye blog! Don't you listen?!?

2010-03-15T23:35:00.002-05:00

We've moved! Please join us for the girls' third year at

http://365daysoftwins.wordpress.com/

There shan't be any more postings hereabouts. Be gone with ya'.

Bye bye, blog.

2010-02-17T22:29:00.008-06:00

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all around the sun
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly
From the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

What a curious life
We have found here tonight
There is music that sounds from the street
There are lights in the clouds
Anna's ghost all around
Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me
Soft and sweet
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees

Now, how I remember you
How I would push my fingers through your mouth
To make those muscles move
That made your voice so smooth and sweet
And now we keep where we don't know
All secrets sleep in winter clothes
With one you loved so long ago
Now he don't even know his name

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all around the sun
And when we meet on a cloud
I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe
How strange it is to be anything at all

-"In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", Neutral Milk hotel

Click here for the Matt Pond version, which I'm a fan of.

(apologies for the rather crummy video quality)

I need at least a month off. It's a lot to ask, but if you'd like to, please check back here on March 15th, and by then I'll have decided what continued form the Gels News and Herald will take.

A zillion thanks to all of you that read this, twice as many thanks to those that comment and give feedback, and infinite more to Jen, without whom none of this would be either possible or enjoyable.

False stop.

2010-02-16T21:08:00.003-06:00

Okay, this is not going to be the last post. I had a very clear idea in my head about what the last post would be, but many circumstances have conspired against me, and rather than bash my head against the keys in futility, I'm going to defer until tomorrow. My time at the computer started with the shocking (re: out of the blue, for us) news that some friends of ours are to be divorcing...so my head was already not in a great spot. Then I was thwarted time and time again by technology in my pursuit of doing some video, and before long I came to realize that my jaw was aching because I was so tense, and that is one of the worst states of mind to be in. I'd rather not have the last post be something I cranked out while miserable. Recall the old adage: never blog angry.

In the interim, while you wait for tomorrow's post (possibly the last, but at this point who really knows?), please enjoy some leftover pictures from our time in Duluth. Just because they're leftovers doesn't mean they're not quality, though.

Day three hundred and sixty something.

She locomoted pretty well in that bulbous getup.

Wheeee!!! Lily looks miserable, but wouldn't stop asking for more. Abby looked like she was enjoying it immensely, but quickly opted to walk. Kids = no sense

Look at that sled-pulling form. Loose knees...taught buttocks...arched back...quite striking.

Birthdays for serial killers.

2010-02-15T21:35:00.005-06:00

And with a mix of both apprehension and earnest buffoonery, our girls plunge headfirst into their third year of life.

Happy birthday, wee little munchkins! Oh what a year it has been. I indulged myself with a reread of the first few bloggity posts, and I'm amazed at what has transpired during this spin around the sun. This time last year, neither of you were walking (though Lily was seriously considering it), barely any English was crossing your lips, and there was certainly nothing resembling the spontaneously-dancing, number-reciting, song-singing, potty-searching girls that I've come to know and love these more recent months.

I almost decided to do a step-by-step comparison of you guys right now with a year ago today, but it seems rather unproductive, and misses the point of all that this blog is about. I don't want to tinker with the beautiful linearity, the common daily thread we've laid out that leads you from then to now. It's been too amazing a process to cheapen it with tricks. Suffice it to say, you guys bear almost no resemblance to yourselves of a year ago, in so many fascinating and irascible ways.

Despite the groaning and grumbling I may have injected into my posts about this accursed blog - and despite the verbal denouncements you might have been unfortunately subjected to while around my person - I consider myself lucky to have started it, for one clear and immitagable reason: every night I am forced to spend a good chunk of time concentrating on the two most ridiculous parts of my life. Surely there are worse sentences in the world.

I hate feeling that today, their actual birthday, was a bit anti-climactic, because I feel wholly responsible, and am pretty sure this will lead invariably to some serial killer tendencies later in life. But we'd made the decision a while ago that it was a busy weekend, it's only their 2nd birthday, they'll never remember it, so we just had some more cake tonight after dinner, tried to get them to say, "I'm two!" (didn't work), and that was about the extent of it. Jen let them watch a little extra Curious George during the day. When they wanted to be held upside down for a long time, we did it a lot longer than we normally would have. The small extra things. I hope they won't judge us too harshly in the years to come ("My 2nd birthday was terrible! I hate you guys!")

Or, if we play it just right, we can instill in them a very important life lesson, which is this: sometimes two day old cake with your parents is going to be your best option. Learn to like it.

Day three hundred and sixty four/five (don't miss tomorrow's exciting cliffhanger!) (crap, now i have to think of an exciting cliffhanger)

ps. I can't let a really cute moment of Lily's go unmentioned. She wanted to go up to the potty tonight, so she climbed the three steps onto the landing, looked back at me and kept yelling, "Potty! Stairs! Daddy!"

"Yeah we'll go to the potty in just a second. Hold on, " I told her. Apparently she wasn't in the mood to wait. She craned her neck to peer upstairs and yelled, "Pootttty! C'mere!"

Both kids blew the candle out. They're getting the hang of this birthday thing.

Mick Jagger loves cake.

Abby eats her cake like a squirrel. That pastry is squeezed in between her paws.

The play doh must die!

2010-02-14T22:20:00.002-06:00

The girls got some play-doh for their birthday (in the little tub she' s holding). I fashioned a little anthorpomorphic person out of it; Lily's response was to stab it repeatedly with a fork. Most people save up for kids' college; we're saving for psychotherapy.

This morning I tore into the Sunday paper, eager to do what damage I could to the NYT crossword while the girls were up taking a rare midmorning nap. I opened up to the engagements/weddings notification page, and took a moment to stare at the couple dozen toothy faces. I pondered on how I used to like perusing the nuptials page while in Duluth, since I almost always recognized somebody on there, even if it was just the hint of knowing a name, or seeing a friend of a cousin that I barely knew at all. I thought about the fact that I'm too old now, that I won't ever recognize any smiling faces from that page anymore. Of course this thought had only just taken hold of me when I recognized a guy from high school that I knew pretty well (Mitch King, for those that from DLH wracked with curiosity). Duluth never fails to surprise me.

Today we had two parties for the girls' birthdays, and since there's two of them, this technically equates to 4 birthday celebrations. There was a whole lotta "happy birthday"s sung. First was in Duluth with the Stalker side, where we had some delicious breakfasty-brunch and cupcakes. The cupcakes were a smash.

We then headed down south on I35, unscathed through some very snowy bits, to see the Gels side and sing H.B. again, and eat some cupcakes, which turned out to be a hit. Again. There is not a welcome that cupcakes can wear out, it seems.

So after many miles, hordes of family, cupcakes a-plenty, and more gifts than our house can even hope to hold, we are back home and the girls are safely tucked into bed. It was a whirlwind weekend, I would hope they sleep in tomorrow for Jenny's sake, even though deep down I know they won't.

Day three hundred and fifty three. (two days left. I should mention that I did the math a couple weeks ago and came to find that my counting is off. Tomorrow (their birthday) should technically be the last day. But since the math mistake was mine, I'll go until Tuesday, making this unofficially 366 Days of Twins)

Abs and Moms.

A crystal blue day in Duluth. Yesterday.

Kyla taught Lily how to jump off the single step at the Stalker's place. It turned out to be an hours-long activity of amazing happiness. Cousins are great like that.

Happy Birthday, Nana!

2010-02-13T22:23:00.003-06:00

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

2010-02-12T22:48:00.003-06:00

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.

2010-02-11T21:39:00.005-06:00

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!

2010-02-10T23:02:00.004-06:00

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!

2010-02-09T22:11:00.006-06:00

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.

2010-02-08T22:04:00.004-06:00

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

2010-02-07T22:24:00.005-06:00

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.

This post not approved for use on your spleen.

2010-02-06T23:48:00.003-06:00

Beat the cold this February...hold an Abigail to your face! It works!

As it's creeping in on midnight, I'm going to relinquish any ambition I have for a pulitzer prize winning post and simply devolve into a summation of our day.

Jen went to the mall this morning to go shopping with Grandma, but the girls and I managed to get ready and stowaway with them so we could spend some time at the Ridgedale play area. Being the weekend, it was jam packed with the sticky fingered youth of Minnetonka. I pointed out to Lily that another girl was wearing the same shirt she was, but in a different color. Lily said, "Shirt!" and poked the girl, who looked at both of us like we were morons and walked away without a word.

I knew it was time to leave when Abby ran straight out of the play area and I ran to get her, and Lily said, "Walk!" which is code for that she wants to go take a stroll. So walk around the mall we did. I spent at least 10 minutes trying to mentally put together a civil suit against Abercrombe and Fitch for being so absurdly, ostentatiously offensive in the olefactory sense. I actually get a little light headed just walking by the place, and I'm not sure if it's the smell or just the overtly douchebaggy vibe that seeps out of it. How do people bear to shop inside?

In the afternoon, we went on a wee walk around the block. Lily slipped on ice and bonked her head a bit, but otherwise it was uneventful. A hat would have softened the blow but, of course, she steadfastly refuses one at every offering and insistence.

I'm going to end there, since Abby is now crying, and that's not good. Not at 12:06.

Day three hundred and fifty five. (Ten days! Pele's number was 10. 10 is an exciting number.)

Walking!

Still....walking.

...and this one hurts my spleen to even look at.

ouchie

2010-02-05T22:31:00.002-06:00

Thanks to some head-scratching strangeness on the part of our computer, this post will be photo free, and you have my apologies for being stranded alone with my sub-par prose. At least my sub-par prose and sub-par photography made a smashing marriage of mediocrity.

Tonight something awesome happened that hasn't ever happened before. We were all playing in the girls room post-bath-time - Abby bouncing around Lily's crib, Lily running around like a lunatic. I'd actually been annoying Lily, because I kept crawling in her direction to tickle her, and she kept telling me, "Nooo..ooooo!" Fair enough.

While rolling away from her, I rolled over one of their toys, which dug into my back and smarted a lot. "Oww!" I said. Lily ran over and said, "Ouchie? Ouchie??" She leaned in, face painted in utter concern, and laid her head on me, totally snuggled, gave me a few kisses. It was really interesting and very protractive; it lasted a long time, she just kept laying on me and trying to drive her head into my chest.

It's fascinating that we've known these kids for a couple years, and we are only now starting to see displays of emotion, where they show that they seem to actually care about us. Tonight's episode was a really sudden and touching show of something, I can't say what. It was a singularly defining moment for me, really one of those things that make me astoundingly happy to be a dad.

I must make an effort to hurt myself again.

Day three hundred and fifty four. (11 days left. 11! 11 is a palindrome. Crazy!)

Peeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccchh!!

2010-02-04T21:25:00.005-06:00

Dancing! This is the dancing area. This is where the dancing takes place. Dancing outside said area will be met with stiff resistance by management. Management can be seen in this photo.

Lily has a new favorite book (thanks, Reicherts!) called "Each Peach Pear Plum". It's a fun book filled with fun things to spot, and Lily does not seem to tire of it. In a relatively short time, we've gone from her enjoying it casually (it's a casual read) to not being able to go down for a nap or night-night without it (which means if I ever have to get her down without it in my possession and it goes badly, I will curse the Reichert family severely). We always plan ahead; it's usually in the crib from the get go. But it's now certain that Lily will, halfway up the stairs, take out her pacifier and scrunch up her face really tight and say, "Peeeeaaach Pluummm?" with all the emotion of a gut-shot policeman. I can't really do her voice justice on the page, maybe I'll try to capture a video of it, but she sounds mortally wounded, and she just keeps saying it over and over again, "Peeeeeeeaaaaaachhhh? Pluuuuumm?"

I need to take a moment to toss out some accolades to the kids for some notable achievements lately.

First, Jen noticed today that Abby, when doing one of her puzzles, is correctly identifying the circle, oval, rectangle, and triangle. I think she noticed her saying, "Oval" repeatedly (but poorly...the blonde one is way-bad at enunciating) before she figured it out. So we quizzed her later, and she got them almost all right. A budding mathlete, maybe.

In addition to her obvious Euclidean predispositions, the kid is getting really good at singing along to songs. Scary good. I wish I could accurately quantify how many songs she can pretty much sing along to...maybe 10 at least? It's ridiculously cute to watch her climb the steps while singing "Twinkle Twinkle" on the way to bed time (we sing that song every time we bring them to bed. We don't have many traditions, but that is one). She loves to sing. Which is fine, as her sister seems to have gotten the dancing gene. Our kids do nothing if not dovetail nicely, vis a vis their abilities. If they ever form a band, Abby could sing lead and Lily could be the designated dancer, just like Paul Rutherford in Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

As for the brown one, she is ever braving the murky waters of English sentence construction. She is in the nascent beginnings of the stage in which any number of strange word combinations can come out of her. Here are some examples:

Jen: "Abby, do you want a cookie?"
Lily: "Cookie!?! Abby, come here!"

"Mommy, take that please."

"Thank you, Daddy." (that one hurts so good)

"More fruit, please."

"Olly, watch this." (she said this while trying to show the dog a mechanical swimming butterfly. He was not impressed, but we found it hi-lar-i-ous)

Now, I know it might seem as if I'm painting a Flanders-like image of my daughter, like she's some measure of saint. Trust me, this is not the case. But when she's calm and happy, she makes better sentences. When she's really angry, there's rarely more than a grunt or, if we're lucky, and actual English word.

Lily is also getting fantastic at answering the phone, a fact that our families are becoming exhaustively familiar with. When the phone rings, she shrieks and runs to get it. Of course, we oblige every time; it doesn't matter if it's a friend, family member, or telemarketer. Honestly, I have given many telemarketers to her, which I find a delicious bit of schedenfraude. I'm clueless to the reaction she gets though, since the line is always dead when I finally get the phone.

If I get a bill saying that I donated any money to UND, I will be furious.

Day three hundred and fifty three (on the 12th day of blogmas, my morons said to me...)

Every day I resist the urge to leap into bed with these two.

"Peeeeaaaach!"

Welcome to purgatory. Here's your pillow.

2010-02-03T22:11:00.002-06:00

Not pictured: two "very special" sensors

It's weird that I can sleep all day and still want nothing more at 10:30 than to forsake this cursed blog and dive into the sheets. You think I would be well rested. The fact remains, I'm tired, and this post will be a bit rough.

Last night and all of today I subjected myself to a sleep study, the primary reason being that I'm under suspicion of having sleep apnea (a felony in MN). Being in a sleep study is not unlike being in a zoo: I have a very finite space and a seemingly infinite amount of time, people who I can't see stare at me, and if I'm a good boy they bring me jello.

Last night I checked in around 10 and had myself wired up by a jovial guy named Max, a former pro indoor soccer player for the Milwaulkee Wave. We bonded over the fact that I was a Cleveland Force fan back in my youth, and over the fact that soccer players score all the cute chicks. It takes about 30 minutes to completely wire me up (see photo above...sorry about the orientation, I'm too tired to care to figure out why it's not righting itself), so we covered Brett Favre, the super bowl, international politics, the grammies, papparazi, and just about most every other topic.

Then they leave you alone and tell you to go to sleep, which is the perfect way to ensure I will not sleep. Many other factors conspire to thwart my slumber - the wires, the pillows, the strange hospitally bangs and bumps in the night (I try not to think of Jamie Lee Curtis in 'Halloween') - but none moreso than the fact that I KNOW THEY'RE WATCHING ME! I can't see it because it's dark, but up by the ceiling is a night vision camera with an unblinking lens pointed right at me, and there's a control room where a former pro soccer player with huge thighs is drumming his fingers on a desk, wondering when I will finally just sleep already. It's stressing stuff.

I must have succeeded at some point, sleep had to have happened, because the thigh man is suddenly waking me up. Then begins the next phase of the study: nappy time.

The nap study is five consecutive cycles of an hour and a half awake followed by a 30 minute nap. I'm not a napper by nature, so I was really worried about being able to nap on command. What if I couldn't come through for them?

As it turns out, you don't really have to nap if you can't; you just lie there with your eyes closed, which is what I did the majority of the time. Since there's not much to do in such a situation, my mind lazily began to wonder what exactly all those sensors on my head were reading. How sensitive were they? Can they know what I'm thinking right now?? I was suddenly pretty sure that they were reading my thoughts. Just to test it, I decided to think really hard about something bad and see if they came in to arrest me. Nothing terrible. I opt for a bank robbery. I spend the next 5 minutes concentrating on robbing a bank, trying to visualize me in the lobby with a ski mask on, telling people to lie down, the whole cliched procedure.

After I wait a while, my door does not open and they do not arrest me.

Still, those things have to sense something, right? I'm not dismayed. This time I decide to think about sex once a minute for the entire duration of the nap. This is not a stretch for me or any guy. My logic is that there has to be some sort of strange blip on a graph that occurs if I think of something naughty, and I could blow their minds by making it happen at precisely regular intervals. Brilliant!

I'm not sure if I got past 2 times. Counting to 60 is hard to do three times in a row, so I lost track and got bored and just laid there, thinking about neither sex nor bank robberies.

In my wakeful times, I could do pretty much whatever, including roam the hospital. I tried this early on, but was amazed at a) how busy the hospital was, b) how many cute doctors work there, c) how ridiculous I looked with all that crap pasted to my head (people were literally staring at me. I guess I would too if I saw something like that picture above), and d) how boring a hospital is when you've got no agenda other than just wandering.

So leisurely constitutionals around the halls were effectively out, meaning I was confined to my quarters. I read a bit. I watched the news 4 times. The night before, I had searched the house in vain for any viable reading material that I could bring with me, and came up empty. Jen called around midday to tell me that two National Geographics AND a Discover magazine had come today. Super timing.

Having done one, I can't say that I'd recommend a sleep study. Maybe you need one, and in that case I say it's up to you. But be warned, they're not a lot of fun; certainly less fun than robbing banks.

Day three hundred and fifty two. (13....13 days, aaaahh ah ah ah ahhhhh) (that was The Count)

Random girly girl shots

Dispatches from us

2010-02-02T20:33:00.003-06:00

Abby was on the couch. Then she started to try for even greater heights. I couldn't help but let her try, and dammit if I wasn't very proud of her when she made it. Yay! Now get off there, monkey, before you hurt yourself.

Jen abandoned me for a bit of the night to pay a visit to friends Jess and Miles who had twin boys recently. Twins! They're crazy. That left me home alone with these two, who are also twins, yet differ in height by almost 8 inches.

Some highlights from the day include:

- According to Jen, she was changing Lily when Abby walked by, lost her footing (or toeing, since she primarily walks on her toes like an ungulate) and fell flat across Lily's midsection. Lily's response? "You okay Abby?"

How insane is that!?

- After an absurdly pleasant night with the girls, they were dressed and ready for bed. Abby was playing in their "kitchen" and babbling quietly, while I was in the other room, around the corner. "Okay girls, two minutes until night-night," I bellowed. Abby fell dead silent; her talking ceased and the clatter of dishes was muted. Then I heard, "Pat pat pat pat pat pat pat pat..." and saw her tear around the corner, beeline straight into my crotch, look up at me and say, "Night night?" I bent down, gave her a big hug, and asked, "Are you ready for night night?"

"Yah!" she said.

Cuteness to the brink of insanity.

When I brought them up, everything was kosher, until Lily became suddenly agitated. "Peach plum? Peach plum?? Peach plummm!?!?" she kept repeating.

Her current favorite book is called, 'Each Peach Pear Plum'. Luckily it was in her crib, and I gave it to her, and she said, "Peeaaach plummmmmm..." in this luxurious 'Aahhhh' type of voice.

Earlier (I'm all chronologically akimbo) I asked if the girls wanted to get in their jammies. Lily started screaming, "Jammies!? Jammies!" I said, "Yup, that's right. The moon is up, it's getting late, let's get ready to celebrate, it's pajama time!", which every parent knows is the first line to 'Pajama Time'. In the time it took me to then walk the 13 feet to the living room, Abby had sprinted to the book basket and procured our copy of said book, and ran it over to me. "Jamma time!" she said.

Monkeys.

Day three hundred and fifty one (14 more! 14 bloggity nights!)

Jen showing off her stuff.

Lily dancing like a fool.

Squeaky kid.

wabbit

2010-02-01T21:49:00.006-06:00

Abs at the ready.

Typical result of some ill-fated art attack. (art attack...get it? It's a pun)

The anguish

15 more days of blog left to go! Let the countdown begin. Picasa has decided it would love a hand in making these last two weeks as difficult as possible, and has stopped recognizing my hard drive in its database. In theory, this change should only amount to a slightly different way to upload pictures, a non-event; instead, it makes the posts twice as annoying to format because of some idiosynchrasies of this website. Don't ask me why...just promise me to never ever start a blog on Blogger if you can help it.

When I returned home this afternoon, Jen was weary and ready for relief. It didn't take long to figure out why: the kids were little neanderthals. They weren't totally unpleasant from one moment to the next (this is a survival technique passed down by children all over the world - annoy and pester, but always do so pleasantly), but when their behavior was taken as a whole, it was rather rambunctious and trying.

As an example, Lily refused dinner. She wanted to dance instead. Fair enough, we're not quite to the point where forced dinnertimes are a standard (although that is going to be around the corner pretty soon). So she danced. When there was a pause between songs she would scream angrily at the space heater (which, adoringly, she thought to be the source of music) until the next song came on, then begin dancing again.

After a long while, she waddled over and indicated that she was hungry. She went up into the high chair and proceeded to ignore her pizza, thumb her nose at the beans, and use the cottage cheese to fingerpaint her tray a solid, nauseating white. I don't actually recall her eating anything, and would be surprised if she didn't wake us around 3 with a Chinese takeout menu in her crib.

Abby's misery came from its usual source: she has the patience of a gnat. She got really upset tonight, tantrum-level, and somewhere in between the sobs I heard her say, "Eeeaat!" "Oh, do you want to eat?" I asked her. She stopped crying, made the correct sign (good monkey), so I put her in the high chair while Jen started to get her dinner ready, where she lost it again. Another huge fit of crying and thrashing. She just cannot wait for anything.

Around the same time, she wanted my cell phone so badly her head exploded. Very gross. I couldn't even get it to her fast enough...this kid waits for nothing.

There were good times as well. Lily, in the process of throwing a stuffed otter at Jen (in play, not fury) yelled, "You take it!", a phrase absolutely impossible to not laugh at when coming from a 2 year old. Abby sat in Lily's crib and read me a story about a rabbit for almost 20 minutes. The book was truly about a rabbit, so all I heard from her was, "wuzzlle wwahhh dat dat wabbbit dug bump baaaah bunny sheeeeshgah glorp ...etc"

Day three hundred and fifty. (15 craaazy days left.)

Whatssat?

2010-01-31T21:22:00.003-06:00

Abs providing a nice obstacle for the throngs.

Yesterday I was doing an animal puzzle with Abby. She picked up the cow piece and said, "What'ssssaaat?"

"That's a cow, little buddy. Moo!"

"Mooooooo!" she replied, putting the cow in his rightful place. Her fingers flitted over the board again and she picked up the cat.

"What'sssdat?"

I gave her a dubious sidelong look, wondering why she was asking me when she's known the word cat for many months, can practically spell the word, knows how to look up cat on Wikipedia, and has many cat friends.

"That is a cat. A kitty cat, if you will."

"Meow!"

"Yup!"

She returned to the board, this time pulling out a sheep.

Once again: "Whats daat?"

"Buddy, you know damn well that's a sheep! A sheep! This is so below you!!!"

"Baaaah!"

(sigh) "Yes, baah."

After a few minutes of thinking that our kid had taken a strange and illogical step backwards, I realized that she has learned to now quiz us on what she already knows. So the theme now is for her to point to things and ask us, "Whatsdat?" in an effort to test our knowledge.

I've decided to call her bluff and show her a picture of the DC9 hydraulic system and ask her "whatsssat?" She may surprise me.

Kids were cute today. Abby got up at 7:20, but Lily slept in until 9, so Abby and I got some quality time this morning. We had breakfast and watched Sunday Morning....quality.

Tonight we were getting ready to leave Aunt Tracey's house. I told the girls we were about to go. Lily walked by Steve and Tracey and quietly muttered, "Thaaank yooou". I can claim no credit for teaching her that.

Day three hundred and forty nine.

Lily keeping her lips warm at the art sled rally.

Bundlekin.

Oh, you saw this coming, didn't you? Fresh from our trip to Ikea and the startlingly breezy walk from the car.

No pictures? Dave is lame.

2010-01-30T22:51:00.003-06:00

Due to difficulties of a technical nature, there shall be no photos tonight. Sorry. Our computer was acting up, and like so many problems in my life I've decided to simply shut it down, go to bed, and assume things will magically fix themselves whilst I slumber.

We went to IKEA this morning, which is about as dull an anecdote as you can possibly drum up, except for the part where I bent down to pick up Abby and split a 12 inch gash in the back of my jeans. It was a great day to wear dark underwear and be carrying a diaper bag.

The girls were big fans of the toddler beds while we were there, and it makes me wonder if the cribs' days are numbered.

After a quick lunch and a truncated nap, we headed to the Art Sled Rally with Chris and Emily and Ella. It was fun, but we got there late and left a little early because it was rather chilly for the girls. By pure luck, we happened to stand right next to the green mouse sled that I'd taken a picture of last year for Poho365 (I put that photo up on last Saturday), so I got to meet the guy in the photo for the first time. It was a nice moment.

Kids were cute today, by and large. Lots of laughs and good times, up until the end when they turned evil. I'm not sure if I can blame them, as they were probably tired since we did wake them early from their nap; they get a freebie for that.

Day three hundred and forty eight.

Perro Agua

2010-01-29T22:29:00.001-06:00

I just spent a couple minutes looking at old blog posts, which leaves me astounded at how long their hair is now. So long!

Today Jen and the girls were talking to Aunt Christy on the phone. At the very end, Jen implored them to say goodbye, and Lily replied with, "Aunt Tooshie." Jen asked for a clarification, and she repeated, "Aunt Tooshie!!" So that's Aunt Christy's new name. (and if she doesn't remember this, Jen says she had probably just hung up and might not have caught it)

Another fun Lily moment - and by fun I mean "shocking" and "disturbing" and "call-social-services-worthy" - came this evening, when she, for reasons known only to her, plopped in front of the dog's water dish and dunked her face in the water to drink. I have to be honest, I didn't really react as quickly as I could have, because it was really, really funny, and what harm could come of letting your kid drink dog water?

For the record, both kids have some bizarre and illogical eating habits these days. I feel terrible about all the food we waste, but seriously, they and their hunger cannot be predicted. When I got home today, they were having a snack of green beans, because who doesn't like to much on green beans while dancing to the Wiggles? Abby wasn't eating much. When asked a few times, her answers were, "No", "Noooo", and "For the love of god, no!" My attention was then diverted for a minute or so. When I turned back she had the whole bowl of beans in her mouth and was making a move for Lily's bowl, which she did dispatch with great authority. She asked for more, we gave them to her, she ate 'em. She must have eaten almost a half a pound of beans. Strange that she was so gassy later.

Day three hundred and forty seven.

Lily crawled all the way under the crib for the first time. She thought it was hilarious.

Abby loves hanging in Liy's crib and reading stories.

Yup.

Perspective

2010-01-28T21:29:00.004-06:00

Maybe not the best picture of either of them, but it's one of those rare moments these days when we can get both of them in the same shot.

Dave is out, sampling some beer and tasting some food at a friend's house, so I thought I'd do him a favor and blog tonight. I'm not feeling very bloggy though because I'm quite tired. This is partly because I got up at the crack of dawn in order to go to my soon-to-be work to meet some people and discuss what I'll be doing there. It might also be partly due to the fact that it is exhausting trying to keep up with two toddlers every day. But I think it is mainly due to the fact that I followed up my morning meeting by going to a funeral for my childhood friend's infant son, an event that is quite draining.

Attending a funeral for a baby is one of those times in life in which you just can't come up with the right things to say, no matter how much you want to. What I think I've learned from our past experience with this (when we lost a niece about two and a half years ago) is that it is important just to be there and to acknowledge that it has happened. Not just when it happened, but through the passing of time as well. So I'll take this opportunity to tell you (you know who you are), that I think of Elizabeth often and I always will. I think if it were me, I think I'd want to know her memory lived on. But then again, I can't imagine what I'd want.

What I will say is that these events help me to put things into perspective and to remember that we are so lucky to have Abby and Lily. Just thinking about it makes me want to go wake them up and hug them. I won't though. I'm not crazy.

As for the girls (they are why you read this blog, right?), they had a lovely time playing with Uncle Steve and their cousin Oliver (and Maya for a short time before she had to go to school). They were so exhausted afterward that I had to wake them from their nap later so that they didn't sleep all the way to bedtime. Thanks for taking good care of them Steve!

Day three hundred and forty six

I love that face.

Olly making sure Lily is alright. Or checking to find out if she is edible.

Lily attempting a somersault. She has some work to do.

A non-post

2010-01-27T22:02:00.001-06:00

Do not look directly at her face, lest you turn to stone. That is a heinous glare.

Tonight was hockey night. Hockey night is itself not a notable event; however, it should go down on public record that my father in law Neil strapped on the skates and came out to show us a thing or two. He has some pretty mad skills with the stick.

That's going to be it for today. I'm sorry, but I'm exhausted and tired and sleepy and my tummy hurts. That's right, my tummy.

I will add a story from Jen. She was out with some friends last week when a couple guys got up to go to the bathroom. Wanting to make light of the fact that two guys were going together, she said, "You guys are going potty together!" I don't think 'potty' was her first choice of words, yet there it was. You can take the parent away from the kids, but you can't take the kids away of the parents...or something.

Day three hundred and forty five.

Dancing! Her method her was to crouch....crouch...then STAND UP REAL FAST!

Sporting the lid.

She kept saying, "Daaaaddddyyyyy!"

Candid camera

2010-01-26T22:28:00.004-06:00

Monkey face.

Happy monkey

I can't believe how little I wanted a video camera in the girls' room before they were born, and how badly I want one now. In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, they make cameras that you can mount in your kid's room and wire to (or make wireless magic with) your television. A click of the remote, and WHAMMO...there's your kid. Jen's sister and husband have this for their kids, and at the time I thought it was cool, but it didn't make the cut when we were (quite frugally) preparing for parenthood.

For almost two years, I've stood by that decision, because infants are criminally boring. Now, things are different. Now our kids stay up, on average, about an hour after we put them down for both naps and night-night, and we can hear the most magical and mysterious and confounding sounds from those monitors. It drives me batty with wonder to think about what is happening up there.

Jen reports that the girls were making strange kissy noises, followed closely by riotous laughter, today during naptime. She could only laugh and smile and leave the rest to her imagination, because opening that door and trying to get the most cursory of peeks would break the spell. When they're awake and giggling at each other in their cribs, it is truly magical, but like the proverbial apple from the naughty tree, you're not allowed to look in, or else all is ruined.

I have to revisit the camera thing. It just might be worth it now.

Day three hundred and forty four.

Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!! Count yourself lucky, because you are looking at the very moment of me coming home from work. Anarchy! Lily ran at me initially, then ran away because the excitement was simply too much.

Abby ran at me as well at first, then stepped back to play air guitar??

Jen is cool.

2010-01-25T21:52:00.001-06:00

Ever wonder how muffins get made? This ain't it.

How awesome is Jen? Spends all day with the kids, makes muffins with the kids, AND gets pictures of the kids. She's a superwoman. I'm not sure, but I think somewhere in here she definitely cleaned the kids, too; when I came home their hair was slightly damp and smelled like flowers instead of the usual peanut butter and pasta sauce.

In further praise of my raven-haired spouse, those muffins turned out really good.

Tonight Lily was playing golf with Jen (this ought to make both her grandfathers quite proud). Jen said, "Okay, it's time for night night." Lily's response to this was to push Jen out of the golfing area, then turn to me and say, "Daddy! Daddy play!" Clever girl. You know the old saying...if your eye is your problem then cut it out. And if Mommy is making you go night night, banish her to the couch and bring Daddy in. Didn't work, of course, since I informed her that I will be siding with Mommy almost all the time.

Thanks to all of you who wrote a few days ago about the "monster" episode; I know it's not easy to craft a response to a downer story like that. We're very grateful. So is Abby.

Day three hundred and forty three.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh...muffin!

Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share.

A good cook always samples.

Go Vikings!! Oh....er.....Go USA in the world cup!

2010-01-24T21:39:00.003-06:00

NOT a recent photo.

I'm not sure if there's an unwritten rule of blogging that excuses me from writing after the heartbreaking Vikings' loss I just bore witness to. Sigh. Of course, it's only sports, but c'mon, really...sigh. That super bowl was within a tantalizingly close reach.

So I'm now eagerly anticipating the first US match of the world cup, a match which will pit us against our former oppressors, the hated English Empire. This is going to put me in a bit of a quandry, because if you follow the org chart of my company from me to my boss, all the way to the top, it's British all the way (if you're curious what would happen if you were to follow it downward, you would just find the bottom of the page). The question, then, is this: do I wear my Demarcus Beasly jersey the day of the match and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous demotions? I've to June to work it out.

Today's photos feature some kids that are markedly younger than the ones you may have come to know. These were taken last February the 7th, a mere week before their first birthday (ahh, what a careless and blog-free existence I enjoyed...), and I'm including them today for two reasons:

1. I am way short on recent pictures, and
2. The Powderhorn Art Sled Rally is just 6 days away, and you should go!

I took these shots at the rally last year for Powderhorn365, and it was a lot of fun. Basically anyone can build a crazy sled and send it sailing down the hill at our local park. Many of these sleds are of dubious construction, yet use surprising and dangerously dense materials, ensuring no shortage of exciting moments when sleds go careening into the crowd. 'Tis at Powderhorn, next Saturday, 2pm. http://www.artsledrally.com/ We will be in attendance, despite it taking place PRECISELY at nap time. Who schedules these things?

This morning we made a stop at Sovereign Grounds coffee shop, which I can't say enough good things about. If you happened to read about the MSP cop that was just busted robbing a bunch of places around the metro area, this was one of the places he hit, which begs the question: what moron thinks there's good money in robbing a coffee shop? Anyway, they had monkey bread for sale today and it was disastrously good. As always, the other parents and kids were a source of good socializin'.

Afterwards, Rainbow Foods was privvy to our gracious presence for a bit. Exciting, as it was the first time we had them running loose around the grocer's instead of strapped into the carts. Jen had a funny (in hindsight) moment when she was trying to teach Abby a lesson on walking around without watching where she was going. I'm not sure if I'm getting the exact quote right, but she said something like, "Abby, you're going to get hit." This happened right as a woman was turning the corner, and only after she gave Jen a rather angry look did she realize that it sounded like she was threatening to actually strike Abby. Feels kinda like a Curb Your Enthusiasm moment. If she were Larry David, she would have followed the woman home to explain and made things, somehow, a thousand times worse..

We pushed the nap schedule a bit, so when we got home, it was going to be a quick snack and into bed. Moments away from heading up, Lily got a random and sourceless nosebleed that was literally pouring out of her. We couldn't really pull the kleenex away without having instant blood on the carpet, furniture, cat, whatever happened to be under her. This shouldn't have been a huge deal - she has a certain proclivity for nosebleeds, maybe it's thin capillaries - since all we had to do was sit there and hold a kleenex under her schnoz. In theory. However, she is a toddler, and she does not bend to the will of her parents. She fought us tooth and nail. In retrospect, it was kinda funny because it should have been simple to sit with her on our lap, but she was thrashing around, spraying blood everywhere (I'm going to exaggerate this right into a Tarantino movie), and we could barely contain her. Good lord, it was a nightmare for all of us.

She eventually lost enough blood that she just got light headed and sleepy, so we just put her down with gauze on her face.

Kidding.

It stopped, as all nosebleeds do, but it took a while, and it was messy; in the end, she napped like a rockstar. Still, I do NOT recommend this method of putting your kid down.

Day three hundred and forty two.

Look at all my hair!

This may likely remain one of the better pictures I'll ever take.

The official sled launcher/guider of the rally.

An awful, pedantic point-by-point list of what we did - or didn't - do today. Enjoy!

2010-01-23T22:43:00.002-06:00

More photos of the dancing queens. Who wouldn't be compelled to dance on that floor?

Another Saturday...another day held prisoners in the house by bad luck and our own lack of fortitude. Since the morning was s'posed to be warm and all, we'd figured a stroll around the block with our criminally underexercised dog would be nice way to throw an angry fist at the grey and somber day. As it turned out, that grey and somber day held no shortage of rain, so every time we considered striking out of doors, we were turned back by the wetness.

This might be where a lack of fortitude comes in. Could we have stepped up to a higher level of parenting, equipped our kids with waterproof digs, and headed out? Maybe. Who knows. Saturday mornings do not make for fruitful forums on how to better ourselves...they're more about taking the easiest possible route from morning to naptime and getting the most laughs in the process. Rain is not on our agenda, especially when it's of the freezing variety.

So this morning we moved around the house, playing in and destroying each room as we went. Naptime was almost a total bust, thanks to an ill-timed loss of a 'fire (or "pacifier", for you newcomers) which woke up Lily, who woke up Abby, etc. After some serious negotiations - our kids make amazing arguments - we put them down to sleep at last, which barely lasted an hour. Kids are tiring.

During the afternoon we'd scheduled some random errands to run; trip to Ikea, Target, the sort of things that make me yearn for the weekend. Since the kids slept so little during their naps, they woke up at a 8.2 on the cranky scale, and we - once again administering the philosophy of Saturday - decided that it wasn't worth the headache. So inside the Gels family did remain, enjoying each other's company, for the most part.

Amazingly, unbelievably, Abby did not go down during bedtime. She was whimpering a lot, then she started shrieking. After at least 20 minutes, we decided to go up and fetch her, since she's had some strong gas pains lately and this was probably more of the same. Nope. I picked her up and brought her down, and she was a beautiful, happy little peach, hamming it up for us for the better part of an hour. Monkey. While I hate those moments because they make the mechanics of life so much harder, they are also sweet and tender and are easily the best moods that Abby is in. I also feel rather guilty because Lily rarely ever is up at inappropriate times, being the rock solid sleeper she is, so we never really get to enjoy moments like these with her. One of these days we'll just wake her up randomly and make her watch bad tv with us for the quality time of it.

Day three hundred and forty one.

She was much happier than this picture implies.

She was exactly this happy.

Okilee Dokilee

2010-01-22T21:46:00.001-06:00

Slack jawed gawker.

It's Friday, which you may have heard already. These are interesting times...it's mid January and the temps are 35 with rain, which makes me sad for all the ice-loving pond monkeys playing at Nokomis this weekend. I still have yet to go to the pond hockey championship, and I briefly considered trying to bring the kids this year, but just couldn't imagine having them out in freezing rain watching something that, to be honest, would likely be fairly boring since I don't know anyone playing.

Also interesting times since it's Conan's last show tonight. Jen and I are planning on staying up for it. How could we miss the last day of his historic 7 month run??

Friday also means family night at the midtown global market, so the kids took us over there for some hijinks. Tonight the Okee Dokee Brothers were playing (www.okeedokee.org if you're interested), which proved to be a highly entertaining act. They sang a whole song about boogers; the adolescents were thrilled.

I find it amusing that we are absolutely in the minority - if not the sole population - of parents who sort of dance along to the music. I say "sort of" because we were sitting, which means it's a half-assed dance, but still...we bounce around, mostly to get the kids into it, but also because the music is rather catchy. I look around, and nobody is doing what we are. Maybe their kids are just older and can dance with little to no prodding or baiting. But I can't shake the feeling that our fellow parents in attendance simply think they are too cool for school.

Kids had a great time dancing. When they quietly and rather placidly led us away from the music, we knew they were done.

Off we went to the playground area for more frivolity. There were kids a-plenty; there was craziness. At some point Jen gave me a weird look. I should know this look by now, because it's a knowing, important look that a spouse should pick up on instantly, and it's very recognizable. Something was bothering her; I could tell she needed to tell me something.

"Did you hear what that kid said?"

"No," I replied. My attention had been elsewhere.

"He called Abby a monster. He said she looked weird and her eyes were too far apart."

Amazing that words from the mouth of a child can be so absurdly powerful, strong enough to cause me actual physical pain, strong enough to deflate us so devastatingly and so quickly. Just a few syllables can paint a lifetime of hardships (possibly? who knows.) that lie in wait for Abby.

I feel like I'm able to shrug these events off now. Jen seems to always, always be the one that actually hears it, thus she gets to bear the emotional load of it, but even she seems like they are starting to bother her less. As for Abby, she kept dancing around the play area, babbling random nonsense to herself, enjoying herself unreservedly. Oh how I love that little monster.

Day three hundred and forty.

She's doing the puppet dance!

Smiles and banjo-pickin'.

Lily stomps a lot less when she dances. This is a good thing.

Random bits of lame news.

2010-01-21T22:26:00.001-06:00

Here is an excerpt from an alphabet book that has always irked me. We see here a lion snuggling with a sleepy lamb. Fair enough. But wait...the lion is winking at us, the audience. It's a sly, knowing wink. When you think about it, what possible reason could there be for that wink, except to convey the message that the lion is absolutely going to devour that lamb in the near future? Sick.

News from the front:

While Lily is still cultivating a crazy-fanatical possessive streak, she has at least begun to be more civil about it. Today Abby took her shirt, and instead of the tried-and-true screaming of, "Mine!", she instead said, "Abby, Lily shirt" in a tone almost approaching calm and collected. How about that?!? Reason to celebrate.

Jen took the morons to the community center for freeplay time, the existence of which I think is pretty rad. Kudos to the government giving our kids a chance to run around. For the second time in a week, some little kid decided Abby was her new best friend and tried to make off with her. Something about the blonde one makes her an irresistable target for friend-making. Maybe she's approachable because she's only a foot tall. Give or take.

Tonight, while Jen was out socializin' with some school people, Abby decided to not-sleep. This was odd, since it was Lily who I heard consistently for an hour over the monitor counting quietly to ten over and over again. They'd been upstairs for an hour and a half before Abby let out some rather abrupt cries. Seemed like the kind that don't go away, and they were loud - making them possible Lily-wakers - so I bounded up and snatched her away. She was adorable, laying on my chest, giving me smiles and flirts, until Jen came home and she shared it with her, too. It was one of those wakeful times that kinda makes you not want to take her back up.

Day three hundred and thirty nine.

From the same book, here is a yak with a yo-yo. For some reason I find that blankly terrified look on his face to be strangely funny.

An oldie from way back in December.

Another oldie. Jen playing with the kids.

2010-01-20T22:38:00.002-06:00

Jumping in the cribs

Jen chucked the kids in the car today and dragged them down to my work. yay! That's the good news...the bad is that they were a little shy. Those little monkeys are in a leg/crotch burrowing phase; new places and people send them into us like little ostriches. Which I think is fantastic, and is a piece of their playbook that I'll be borrowing for future unsavory situations. Let's see my dentist work on that cavity with my arms wrapped around his legs and my face buried in his crotch.

To nobody's surprise, the kids lightened up and turned on the charm right as they were leaving.

Tonight was hockey night, where I go out and play hockey, hence the name. Fast becoming my favorite part of hockey night is the post-hockey shower. There is a magical something about a piping hot shower after a cold-weather sport. Lovely.

Day three hundred and thirty eight.

Bounce bounce bounce!

Never steal another girl's sister.

2010-01-19T21:37:00.004-06:00

A paparazzo shot of Abby, trying in vain to hide behind her big blue tickle monster hands.

Some highlights of the day, in non-narrative form:

- Jen took the kids to Ridgedale, where the girls totally owned the play area. The slide was no match for them. During the visit, something happened that heretofore has never ever happened: Abby used Lily's name, on her own, to get her sister's attention. Amazing! An awesome first that I feel negligent for not witnessing.

- Also during this trip, a wee stranger took a liking to Abby and tried to befriend her. At some point this befriending involved leading her by the hand to another part of the play area. It was quite innocent; however, Lily saw this happening, and BOLTED over to forcibly take Abby back. How cute is that?! Very.

- Tonight the girls wanted to climb the stairs, so we did. This led us upstairs, where we then were. It was only natural for them to take the first left into the bathroom, which is what happened. Once we were all there, they proceeded to play like giggling idiots in the shower curtain for about 20 minutes. See the pictures below to get an idea of all of this. They were laughing so, so hard in that curtain, it makes me wish we'd installed one in the family room months ago.

Day three hundred and thirty seven.

Climb every mountain...

Lily through the bars.

Curtain call.

Soooo so so tired.

2010-01-18T22:25:00.001-06:00

We were awoken last night around 1am to a very upset Abigail. No good cause for this was ever given by her or deduced by us, but it was a rather unusual episode. Jen got up with her, changed her diaper, gave her some milk, sat with her, until she started to doze again. Jen brought her back over to the crib, and she jolted awake and clung to Jen for dear life.

Around this time I came in to see what I could do. Abby was steadfastly not going to fall asleep; in fact, she would bawl whenever Jen stopped touching her. Strange. Jen began to postulate that she might have had a bad dream, which remains our only and best guess at what made this all happen. After a while of us standing there stroking her, we decided to bring her back to bed with us.

Lying between us with the dog at our feet only seemed to energize her more. Funny, we still have not yet really slept with the girls, which seems odd since it seems like so many other parents do it. Ours just get too excited at the different scenery.

We gave in, and I brought her down to the family room, where she played quite rambunctiously while I watched old Cosby Show reruns. I should state for the record: I never realized it as a kid, but the Cosby Show is a hunk of crap. In the episode I saw, Dr. Huxtable (aka Heathcliffe) was taking the family to Washington DC, but Vanessa didn't want to because the most important party of the year was that same weekend. It was made abundantly clear that this party was amazingly important to her. She pleaded her case, but the Coz was hilariously unmoved. Some tension arose between the two. I was excited to see how Cosby would deal with the situation, thinking I could glean some valuable parenting techniques. Instead, Vanessa happily bounds into the kitchen a couple scenes later, smilingly proclaims that her dad is right and she will go to DC and have a great time, and I think she might have even thanked her dad. Are you @#$%!!ing me? I feel like a worse parent for having witnessed it.

But that's okay, because in my disgust I changed the channel and found Die Hard 2, a laughably bad and infinitely watchable flick. I'm amazed at the bounty on tv at 2 in the am with only the most basic of cable packages.

Jen came down a bit later and we sat with the blondie munchkin before deciding to bring her back up around 3ish. She showed zero signs of fatigue. She was bouncing off the walls. But there was nothing else for us to do, so we brought her up, and she whined a tiny bit and was quiet.

I think I got a total of about 4.5 restless hours of sleep. I'm tired tonight. Plus I played hockey, so that's a killer. I thought I'd go to bed early, but it's almost 11 and here I am, typing away. Damn this blog.

Day three hundred and thirty six.

These might be repeat pictures, I have no idea. This one is of Lily and me. We seem happy. We seem not tired.

Wasabi makes for good chili

2010-01-17T21:58:00.002-06:00

Scenes from a birthday.

Lazy Sunday today, at least for the first part. I got up with the kids and poured two bowls of cereal and watched Abby eat both of them while Lily turned her nose up at food in general. We watched Sunday Morning on tv until Mommy came down a short while later, then kept doing the same. That's the lovely part about Sundays...they're pretty formless.

Before complete apathy was able to settle in, though, we packed up and headed to Chaska, where Mark and Tracey were hosting a slight shindig for little Lucy's first birthday. We coached the kids on how to say, 'Happy birthday' on the drive out; they didn't say it once in the car, and I didn't hear them say it once in the house. Funny how they manage to parrot everything we say back to us, only not when we care. Maybe birthday wishes are just not their forte.

My contribution for the day included a pot of chili, and I have to say: I think I'm starting to really like my chili recipe. It's got a bit of wasabi paste in it, and it does make it a bit spicy, but it's not too bad and it goes away almost instantly, quite unlike the cumulative hell of jalapeno spicy (although there was a couple of those in there, too).

I have to apologize to my niece Grace; I told her I'd get a picture of her today and put it on the blog, but I was really spotty about using my camera today. Sorry buddy! I'll make it up to you.

Day three hundred and thirty five.

"Think it's gonna be a long long time."

Cousin Lucy and her cousin (on the Reicherty side of things) Katie

Happiness is a warm pacifier

No more guy time for me.

2010-01-16T22:14:00.002-06:00

The Duluth crew went for a little stroll today. Abby was sporting the new high-tech uniform that the 2012 US Olympic Track team will be wearing. Pure speed!

I'm officially back on blog duty. (this is Dave). Jen steered the Soobaru back to the house around 8:30 tonight, and I got to reunite with the kids. Yaaaaaaayythey couldn't have cared less. Lily seemed pretty interested in me for a second, then clamored to be back with Mommy. So I took Abby, who promptly tore open with some horrendous screaming.

To be honest, I don't think it was me. She is still suffering from the occasional bout of gassiness, so she was a little tooty and fussy for a bit. After a while, she felt better, and just before we brought them up for night-night, she buried her head into my shoulder, let me stroke her cheek, and quickly closed her eyes and fell asleep. So that's pretty much the best way for them to come home.

I'd like to publicly thank Jen for being the coolest person ever by giving me a couple kid-less days to do nothing at all. It was lovely, and I can't wait to return the favor, as soon as I find someone to take the kids for a couple days.

I made some chili tonight to bring over to Tracey and Mark's tomorrow. I must, after at least 10 handwashings, still have some residual pepper on my fingers, because I just rubbed my eye and apparently put raw capsaicin right on my iris. It does not feel good.

Day three hundred and thirty four.

Mush, grandpa!

Abs getting a lice check from Elly

4 mittens. None on her hands.

Watch me please

2010-01-15T23:18:00.005-06:00

I just got back from having a drink with Sara, my friend/freshman year college roommate, and I'm tired. So tonight's blog will rely mainly on providing a few of today's tidbits and a few photos.

My mom and I packed up the girls and brought them to visit my grandmother, Nana. The kids generally enjoy these visits because Nana has a great collection of stuffed animals, many of which move and talk. Today was no exception. The girls had a great time and were well-behaved. The highlight was definitely when Lily was practicing her zipping skills by zipping my mom's vest up and down. In mid-zip she turned around yelling "Nana", to make sure that Nana was watching her. It was the first time she'd referred to Nana by name and it was really sweet. I think they sometimes get confused about Nana's name, because that is what they call bananas as well--but so far they haven't tried to eat her, so that's good.

That was the big outing for the day. The rest involved napping, eating, reading, playing, eating, etc. You get the gist. It was a good day but we all miss Dave/daddy.

Day three hundred thirty three.

Abby wearing her new apron--I love the dollar section at Target!

Lily explaining how to read a receipt.Abby with Grandpa, playing peek-a-boo.
Grandma let Lily play on her computer. PBS/ Sesame Street have some great games for kids to play if you're willing to let them slam their hands repeatedly on your keyboard and occasionally press the right keys for the game.

Hello, we're the Wiggles, we'd like to say hello to you...

2010-01-14T22:11:00.006-06:00

Greetings from Duluth. All Dave wanted for Christmas was some free time--as I think any parent at one time or another can relate to. Fortunately, Grandma and Grandpa were more than willing to take in their grandchildren (and me) for a few days, so I packed up the car and here we are.

The drive was uneventful and much easier than the last few drives have been--even though the last few have been tag-teamed between Dave and I. What made the difference? I caved in and bought a portable DVD player for car trips. I should be note that this was something Dave had every intention of avoiding forever. It was one thing to borrow one for the road trip to Cincinnati this past summer, as well as for our recent plane trip, but to actually own one and admit that this is a tactic that will be used again in the future was something that I think pained him a little. But out of love for me and the realization that stopping me from making this purchase could result in unpleasantness for him or perhaps the forfeit of his free time, Dave gave me his blessing to cave and get our own player. And let me tell you, it was worth it. WORTH IT!

I appreciate Dave's argument against the car DVD player. He has fond memories of car trips as a kid--reading, playing games, singing and whatnot. I have those memories too. One of my favorite car trips had my sister and I in the way back of the station wagon and my little brother in a sleeping bag lying across the back seat. If we were behaved for a certain length of time, we'd get a present or special treat. It was great fun. But there are three important things to note about that scenario which explain why I am so willing to throw away those potential child memories: 1) I was old enough to remember that trip. I have no recollection of any trips when I was only 23 months old, 2) where were the car seats and seat belts in my car trip memories? I'll tell you where--nonexistent. It was a different world and I wasn't forced to sit in one position for three hours straight, 3) the technology for a portable DVD player didn't exist then (even VHS was only just blossoming and I don't think it had made its way to cars yet) but I can guarantee that if it did exist and if it was affordable, my parents would have had one. Who wants to ride in a car for three days with three kids and sing the whole time? Ugh.

Some of you are thinking, 'yeah, but there's a big difference between a three-day car trip and a three-hour one'. You're right. But I don't care. Still worth it. They were quiet and smiling for two of the three hours. And there was still singing--I just wasn't the one leading it (gotta love the Wiggles, they love to sing!) And even though the magic only lasted two hours, the last hour was tolerable, even with Lily testing her pipes to see whether or not she could break the window with her voice alone, because I still had my patience left. And I had crackers. Always have crackers is something I learned with Abby along time ago. It never ceases to amaze me how much such a little person can eat.

Sorry about the lack of pictures. I forgot to pull out the camera today. I'll make up for it tomorrow.

Day three hundred and thirty two.

The dastardly peek.

2010-01-13T23:24:00.001-06:00

A couple leftover shots from the Conservatory last weekend. I had to use a really fast shutter speed to get the sloth...he's speedy.

Last night, our little peek in on the girls went horribly awry. It was a bizarre sequence of events.

We opened the door and crept in, like we have so many times with no hiccups. Jen was in about three steps, and I'd just started to cross the threshold, when Lily SPRUNG HER TRAP! (exciting, no?) She leapt to her feet and yelled, "Mommy! Daddy!" I think there might have been an, "Olly!" in there too, maybe; I forget.

We both knew it was only a matter of time until the peek would backfire tragically on us. I can only guess that Lily was already up, and completely silent...waiting...waiting. Her little ambush was so sudden and lucid, she had to already have been up.

Knowing better than to even flirt with the idea of holding her and putting her back to bed - she was wiiide awake - we dragged her onto our bed and gave her some milk. It was nice, but she was fidgety and hyper, and we were preoccupied trying to process why this was happening to us.

Before long, Abby started a little whining and chattering over the monitor. After a few minutes, it had gotten worse, and worse, and then she suddenly burst out in a wailful, soulful, painful cry. Admitting defeat, we went and got her and brought both of the morons downstairs.

Not to spoil the ending, but it must have been gas. Abby was miserable, she would writh and scream in pain, tears streaming, for a good few minutes, inconsolable, then she'd be okay. After a couple of these, I started to notice that she would emit a barely-audible toot right before she returned to normal, and we had an "a-ha" moment.

Oddly, Lily was just as, if not more, gassy. She had some memorable toots. But in contrast to her sister, she thought it was hilarious. Maybe the gassy bug doesn't make her tummy hurt. Abby was in serious pain.

After 40 minutes or so, they both settled down and we brought them back to bed, vowing to never again peek in on the kids.

Day three hundred and thirty one.

Leftover photos...enjoy!

Speaking for Jen: oy

2010-01-12T19:57:00.003-06:00

Abs sporting a hat. Indoors. Which is crazy! Except that our house is 39 degrees, so it's really not that crazy.

I called Jen at 1:30 today to ask how the day was. She told me. I considered not coming home.

To sum up, the girlies were little hellions for most of the day. This makes me twinge with guilt at having spent my day at work - a veritable vacation, by comparison - while Jen spent her Tuesday doling out time-outs, out-lasting tantrums, force-clothing kids, and having a rough time in general. Poor Jen.

There is a jocular, daddly part of me that thinks their moods will change instantly when I come home, that they'll run to me and give me hugs and be stand-up, law-abiding kids because we're a whole family again. That didn't quite happen; for a second day now, they considered my entrance with guarded apathy. And while they didn't really reach the crescendo of madness that they had during the day, they were hardly daisies during the nighttime. Cranky and edgy. Bipolar might be a good way to put it, as I had them belly laughing one second, then bawling the next.

In unrelated news, Abby is trying her best to drown herself, or at least concuss herself smartly. This is because she has taken a strong liking to lying on her back in the bath. For most of the bath, she sits and is fine, but then we lie her back to rinse her hair off. No biggie; she loves it and thinks it's hilarious and splashes all of us with her legs. However, we've found that when we pull her back up into a sitting position, she just throws herself backwards, thinking our hands are still present to guide her safely back to prone. 'Downright frightening' is a good way to describe this. Jen caught her at it last bathtime, and tonight I caught her a couple times, then she did it again and I missed and she bonked on the side of the bath. Hopefully it taught her a lesson, but probably not.

Day three hundred and thirty.

Hat time for both the chipmunks.

"From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered;
we few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother;
be he ne'er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition and gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think
themselves accurs'd they were not here,
and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

(It just has a Henry V feel to it, does it not?)

Mommy and the girls made cookies today. They were both tasty and lickable.

Mommy at home.

2010-01-11T22:02:00.002-06:00

Run away, wee Lily.

Today = Jenner's first day of stay-at-homeytude with the The Dynamic Duo. As she's in for several weeks of this, she was hoping to get it all off to a rousing good start. I came home to find her with her wits still about her - or, at the very least, accessible in a pinch - and am thus under the impression that she just MIGHT survive the duration.

Her time at home will come to an end in March, when she starts work at EcoLab. I don't think I've written about her new job on the blog yet; I was under strict orders not to peep a word until she had officially accepted, and it took her just shy of 109 days to accept because she was so busy with finals. Yup, so Jen has a jobby job to look forward to come March, which I can say with no humor at all is a very, very fortunate thing for us, considering the state of the world. It should come as no surprise, also, that I am bonkers with pride for her and her job getting acumen; she truly is a remarkable person. Hooray for Jen! And for me, who gets to benefit from her job by default!

It seems strange to contribute here, since Jen spent all day at home with the kids, making her barometer that much more keen than mine. However, since this little venture was my idea at the outset, I feel like, if I were to suggest that she start writing the entries for the next month, I will undoubtedly find myself with twin girls coming to work with me. So I won't do that.

I will say how ecstatically nice it is to leave for work, then just go to work. No strapping kids into the car, no getting punched in the face for stealing 'fires, no screaming or ridiculousness, no drama for passing by day car for a better spot down the block, no any of it. I just get in the car and...drive. Which is saying alot, since I hate driving.

Coming home is super, as well. I skip all the same stuff, but played out in reverse. Now I get to walk in the house empty handed and bask in the glow of the kids coming to meet me. They didn't do that today, of course - Lily was instantly distracted and angered because I was carrying a gallon of milk, and Abby seemed intent on only playing Ring Around the Rosies - but I imagine they'll get the hang of a proper greeting soon.

Day three hundred and twenty nine.

Spoonball!

Craziness!

Abby grabbing herself right where I stuck her with a tranquilizer.

OCD time.

2010-01-10T21:22:00.003-06:00

Teaching your kid to rock. Lesson 1: How to properly drool on a guitar.

Another successful day of not leaving the house! This was by design, particularly in the morning, which we'd carved out as "jammie and free play time". The afternoon I was going to go running, but I left some things - notably, my long underwear - out in the car, and I couldn't swallow putting on 0 degree long underwear to go run in 0 degree weather. However, I do still have to go out and switch some car seats around, which will mark my first time stepping out of our drafty little cottage.

A day devoid of leaving the house is going to make for a predictably dull blog post.

I can proudly report that the kids were a lot more chilled out and normal today. No epic struggles between us and them; just the usual minute-by-minute tiny tugs-of-war between us on who, exactly, runs the show.

Lily has begun a new and exciting Routine Phase. Rather than explain it, I'll paint it for you with an example: Last week, Jen wore her brown coat four mornings in a row when she helped bring the girls out to the car before day care. On the fifth day, she put on her blue coat. This was unacceptable to Lily, who shrieked and howled until the appropriate coat was donned.

I'm not sure, but I have a feeling this part of her psyche is one and the same with the one that cries foul when Jen and I have physical contact (which happened again tonight, this time just because I was touching the chair Jen was in. "Nooooo!" cried Lily, while we amusingly tried to figure out what she was unhappy with).

This is an interesting phase, at least it is for her, since her approach to it is so scattershot. We were slightly concerned that we would be changing cribs on her, thinking she might not be totally on board with it and would dole us out a measured and furious response...something along the lines of two or three sleepless nights. But she didn't miss a beat, no problems, smooth sailing. It's bizarre that she would get so wound up about the jacket Jen throws on in the heat of our helter skelter morning routine, yet a bed change goes unnoticed completely by her. At least, I think it was unnoticed. She didn't say anything, like, "Hey, new bed!"

Abby could care less about any of it. Jen could put on a tube top and zubas with a turban on her head, and she would carry on like a clam.

Day three hundred and twenty eight.

Closeups of dinner time!!! GAAAHH!

Yuuuuuuuuuck!

Lily at the conservatory, conserving.

The politest of cranks

2010-01-09T22:29:00.003-06:00

She's enormous!

We never should have even gotten the kids out of bed today. I love them very much, but they might very well have been happier simply languishing in their cribs, left to their own devices, passing the time with various leisures such as books, blankets, and not us.

Everything we did was an uphill battle today, it seemed like, with the kids kicking and screaming from one activity to the next. Maybe the day wasn't that bad, and it's taking on a luster of negativity as I'm distancing myself from it. What's amazing - and amazing at how awesome we are, as parents - is that it didn't dissuade us from having, in the end, a pretty good day. But the kids...wow, they were just on edge all day. I think Lily had her first time out about 5 minutes after they'd been up in the morning. Abby refused to use any words to express her needs, choosing instead to whine and cry nearly constantly.

In absolute fairness, although the kids cornered the market on unhappiness for the day, they were strangely polite all day. Through tears and yelling, we would catch the ocassional, "please" or, "more please" or even a, "sorry", which makes us feel like jerks for being annoyed at their annoyances. At least we appear to be raising them with a modicum of genteelness.

Despite their miseries, and despite Lily's insistence that she not get dressed, put on hats, put on mittens, don her coat, leave the house, allow herself to be carried, get in the car, have us singing, have us not singing, be looked at or talked to or in any way be approached or acknowledged, we trekked out to St. Paul and visited the Como Conservatory. I love the conservatory. Despite the fact that we now have a MN zoo pass and will use it generously, I just can't get over how cool it is at Como, where mice run all over the place, the ant colony is awesome, the python is enormous, and even the sloth moves pretty quick.

I would certainly recommend going to the Como Conservatory before going to Hockey Giant.

On the way home around 12:20, Abby started to nod off. We were so close to home, so we screamed at her for the last mile and brought her in for some lunch and nap. We brought her up at 1pm...she didn't go down until 2:30. She's getting to be a much more finickey napper these days.

While she was up there, though, she provided an amusing moment. Jen checked the blog from yesterday, and was playing the video at what we both thought was a normal, reasonable level. It should be noted that we have a noise machine in the kids' room. She got to the part in the video where Lily counts from one to nine, and right then, clear as a bell, we heard Abby say, "Ten!" over the monitor. I cannot believe that she heard the video from all the way downstairs on Jen's crappy laptop speakers...but then, she said it, it did happen. Crazy.

Day two thousand and a jillion.

Full speed!

Abs in the conservatory. She refused to cross that grate for a while, until I came over and held her hand. Cute.

The kids by the sloth tree.

Video time.

2010-01-08T23:17:00.002-06:00

Tonight, we're going with a video post. Enjoy a few minutes of random weekend action with the Gels clan.

A little pre-explanation: when we ask Abby "What does the giraffe say?", her answer is, "Hey shorty". Thanks Aunt Christy for that one.

Enjoy.

Day two hundred and thirty six.

Yah.

2010-01-07T22:03:00.002-06:00

Thanks to Jen (not my Jen; co-student Jen) for both cooking us dinner AND grabbing a nice shot of Lils.

In the car, on the way home from daycare:

Me: "Lily, are you in the car?"
Lily: "Yah."
M: "Is Abby in the car?"
L: "Yah."
M: "Is Mommy in the car?"
L: "Yah."
M: "No, Mommy is at home."
L: "Mommy?"
M: "Yes, Mommy is at home. Is Olly in the car?"
L: "Yah!"
M: "No he isn't. Is Mommy in the car?"
L: "Yeah!"
M: "Can you say anything but 'yeah'?"
L: "Yah."
M: "Raymond, does a candy bar cost about a hundred dollars?"
L: "Yah."
M: "Do you want to see Mommy at home?"
L: "Yah."
M: "Do you want to eat poop for dinner?"
L: Yah."
M: "Are you just giving me material for the blog tonight?"
L: "Yah."

Her positivity lasts only so long as she agrees with whatever is transpiring. When pushed or pressed, her "yah"s will switch to "NO!"s faster than you can say "diaper change".

I'm amazed that we were successful putting the girls down tonight. Lily shrieked her way up the stairs because she wanted more milk - she'd already had two sippy cups worth, which is excessive in itself - and Abby seemed about as hyper as ever. Despite a racketous put down, they stayed up there, even though I didn't stick around to witness the fallout.

As I had broken my stick at last night's hockey game, and was scheduled to play again tomorrow during lunch, I needed to get a stick. I really didn't feel like heading out in the sloppy cold of Minneapolis, but I'm not going to let lunchtime hockey pass me by, either. I was considering going to Play it Again or Hockey Giant, but I only had time for one since they both closed at 8. Opting for Hockey Giant - thinking their selection would be, ahem, "giant" - I sped and fishtailed my way down a mushy I35. I got there in time to find out that this store - a superstore with just under a million square feet of retail space - does not stock wooden sticks, or for that matter any stick under the $65 mark. The people working were pretty much total d-bags, as well, and did their best to make me feel like I was the jerk for even asking. If you are looking for hockey gear, feel free to avoid this place.

Back to the kids for a moment...I'm skipping around a lot...

We couldn't seem to feed the girls enough tonight. They were little black holes of hunger. Lily is especially infuriating, as she succumbs frequently to passing whims of being, in her words, "ALL DONE!" There is a 'cry wolf' effect taking place now, and we both know better to not really react when she says she's all done. Usually by the time I get to her, she's happily cramming more yogurt (or "gogurt") in her piehole, despite her all-done-edness from mere seconds ago.

Abby throws no feints. She simply gets cranky and annoyed when we don't feed her more, becoming increasingly whiny until we finally feed her the line: "Do you want more?" She stops crying on a dime, looks at us with moist eyes, and says, "More?" while doing the sign.

Anyway, the kids ate an NFL linebacker's dinner tonight. It was mostly in yogurt, though. The kids love yogurt.

Day three hundred and twenty five.

Squeaky clean monkey for sale.

Jen and the Moores at the snow monkey habitat.

Monkeys looking at monkeys...crazy.

Things not to do with water.

2010-01-06T22:51:00.002-06:00

Niece Grace about to set off into the Gulf of Mexico to catch a living.

Tonight was hockey night, and hockey night leads to going out for a beer afterwards night, and now it's late. I'd like to leave you, then, with just one event from the day.

Out kids' have completely different trajectories in their enjoyment of water. It's not water in general, I guess, but water during bathtime - water in a lake or ocean seems to be a different animal altogether. But when they were little, Abby hated it and Lily was a little tadpole. As the time is passing, Abby is enjoying it much more, while Lily considers it liquid death. Baths are starting to become difficult with her; she likes it when she sits in it and it's mostly inert, but if you try and clean her face or get her hair wet, she gets rapidly agitated. A few passes of the washcloth are enough to send her scurrying to the far side of the tub for cover. She just hates it, and no more so than when we lay her down to rinse her hair off. It's bloody murder.

It was business as usual for tonight's splash-a-thon, and Lily was in no mood for any of it. I decided to try and show her that water was really no big deal - and was actually quite a hoot to play with - so I leaned my head over the tub, scooped a scoop of water and poured it over my head.

The reaction was swift and deafening. Lily screamed in utter fear and horror, as if I'd peeled back my face to reveal the head of a velociraptor. She was terrified. Abby's reaction was pretty much the same, but sometimes it's really hard to interpret whether she's really upset or just reacting to Lily, which is pretty common.

I quickly leaned in and gave Lily a big hug to show her I was okay - we werelaughing hysterically the whole time, of course - and gave her some soapy kisses. She was truly pretty shaken up by it, and took a few minutes to calm them both down.

This marks the end of my trying to make things better. Ever. They backfire on me.

Day three hundred and twenty four.

Okay, last day to recycle FL pictures...

Brother Steve.

Goofy Jen.

The smile of the crocodile. (okay, it's an alligator...whatever)

The singing and the bumping.

2010-01-05T22:08:00.001-06:00

Every year, I think, "We won't do a Christmas card. Who would want to get a Christmas card?"

And then we get the first Christmas card, and I'm all like, "Sweet! A Christmas card!"

This makes me a hypocrite.

I think of this every time I walk past our buffet. If you sent us one of these...I'm sorry for not reciprocating!

I tried to put my arm around Jen in the car again tonight. Lily said no. We're still on chaperone lock-down.

Tonight we had dinner with Jen and Scott, Jen being a Carlsonian matriculate with Jen. They made awesome food and Lily and Abby got their very first taste of foie gras. And polenta, which is actually bad of me that I haven't made them polenta yet. After the now-ubiquitous 15 minute warm up time where the kids don't want to let go of our legs, they were social and mischievous.

Lily was showing off her dance moves later on, and managed to loser her step and crack the back of her head on a table. Ouchie. It was very wince-inducing, and she actually cut her scalp (barely) and bled (a lot; she's a world class bleeder). Poor monkey. She cried for a few minutes and was dancing again in five; nothing can keep that kid from the dance floor.

That's about it for the day. Business as usual.

As for what the girls can do lately, it's all about the music. They are now able to sing along to the "Wheels on the Bus" refrains on cue.

Me: "The horn on the bus goes..."
Them: "Beep beep beep!"

It's a hoot; they can do almost all the verses. Abby seems a little more adept at picking up the tunes, as she usually sings along to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with increasing accuracy. She gets pretty much the whole melody, and you can hear her getting sporadic words correct. Our favorite, though, is "Shoo Fly". When we get to this part, "....I feel like the morning star," she yells out "Sooooooo!", which is the lead in to the next verse. It's something that is probably much cuter in person and I'm describing it really poorly.

Please just take away the fact that my kids are starting to sing along with us and it's so cute it would make you puke. How's that? Succinct!

Day three hundred and twenty three.

Still cleaning out FL pictures....

Jen and some guy.

Me explaining to Abby that certain death awaits her in the surf.

Soggy bottom girl.

No Touching! (37 blog points for whoever gets that TV reference)

2010-01-04T21:34:00.002-06:00

There is a temperature differential of nearly 30 degrees between the first and second stories of our house. It's quite possible that the first floor is comprised of primarily porous wall structures; since this is where the thermostat is, our furnace is working 24/7 to try and keep up with heating the southern quadrant of Powderhorn Park. The upstairs seems to be tighter than a drum, so walking up feels like taking a magical carpet ride to the deepest and hottest parts of Saharan Africa. I've tried tweaking the radiator controls on the upper units, but since that hasn't been tried since the Nixon administration, they are steadfastly reluctant to budge. I coaxed the bathroom register into moving clockwise, but that only seemed to make it hotter.

There's no scientific reason for a major stationary front not to exist on my staircase.

I had wanted to write a little more about the Count last night, but it slipped my mind, hasty as I was to try and procure cribby sleeping arrangements for Lily...thanks Kayt for stepping up, we appreciate it! Anyway: I have found myself becoming deeply envious of the Count. His whole existence, the very fiber of his being and the source of his blissful happiness, is the simple act of counting. What great simplicity are his motives. This is a man whose job/hobby/reason for living are all one in the same: he just wants to count. If you've seen any segments with the Count, you know that nothing gives him greater pleasure than this. In one recent bit, he was counting the grains of sand on the beach, and he was GIDDY with the thrill of it. For most people of sound mind, this would equate to some sort of private hell; to the Count, it is an average Tuesday in an average week during his life of living his greatest fantasy. Counting. You have to admire his singularity of purpose. Would we trade spots with the Count if we could, knowing eternal happiness is only a string of integers away?

I only bring this up because I, for whatever reason, always had a hard time keeping count of bags when I loaded them onto airplanes. There were certainly a few times when this would lead to me making an educated guess to give to the flight crew, from which they derived the weight and balance for the aircraft. Gives you a warm/fuzzy feeling about flying, huh?

Okay, I'm also bringing it up to point out that Sesame Street has an unabashed member of the occult on their payroll. Does this seem okay? Why does he do it?...he doesn't need the money, he lives in a castle for the love of pete.

In case you didn't notice yet, it's going to be one of THOSE blog posts. Tangential. Derivative. Wandering.

---

Here's an interesting development in the development of our kids: Jen and I are not allowed to touch one another anymore. I haven't noticed that Abby cares too much, but Lily screams like an 8th grade dance chaperone when I even approach Jen. This was first noticed a few nights ago while we danced in front of the girls. She started urging us, "No..no ...noooo...NO...NOO!" when I put my hand around Jen's waist. We parted, then repeated it a few more times just to make sure that was it. It was. A couple days later, I put my arm around Jen's shoulder in the car, and from the backseat came a chorus of disapproval.

This is very reminiscent of when Jen and I were first dating, and her family had two long-haired dachshunds that would stare at us when we were close to one another (mostly in the kitchen). I can still picture those guys, long noses and black eyes peering up at us, silent and still. As soon as I laid a finger on Jen, they would bark bloody murder.

So our kids have officially reached the intelligence level of dachshunds. Sweet.

Day three hundred and twenty two. (34 days and counting...)

ps. I'm clearing out all the unposted photos from Florida. It's not this warm in MN.

Caption!

A little beach on a little island we visited.

Me vs. The Sea. I totally won.

Putting pants on before 3 pm is for suckers and chumps.

2010-01-03T20:55:00.004-06:00

You bastard!

I can do a passable impression of the Count from Sesame Street, and have been known to brandish it from time to time. I would not say that my usage of it has been frivolous or reckless. Despite this fact, the kids cannot, at this point, do any bit of counting without ending it with: "Aaah, aah ahhhhh."

It makes no difference what number they count to - could be three, ten, seben, whatever. Abby has been especially consistent with it, and in her cuter moments she actually will make herself laugh when she does it; maybe when she is fond of that particular rendition of the Count?

This is a non-exaggeration of our drive home tonight from Ridgedale Mall:

"woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh.....woooone.. twoooo ... freeee .... aaah ahh ahhhhhh....."

You get the idea. We've heard Abby doing this over the monitor in the wee moments before she gives up the ghost and slips into sleep. She does it over and OVER again.

---

Before I forget, I have to ask our readers for a question/favor: does anyone out there have a crib that we can borrow for a bit? One of ours is on loan - both, actually, are on loan - but one is needed back at its rightful place since its owner is prepping for twins. Twins! If they were only having one kid, we would refuse to return it, but since it's twins...well, we're suckers for multiples. We're just a wee bit shy of going to toddler beds, so we'll need another crib for a bit. Anyone have something not on recall collecting dust in the attic? We'd love to clean it for you.

---

This morning we cozied in for a day of laziness and frivolity, and ended up with one of those mellifluous, spontaneous days of doing the kind of nothing that feels like something. Played. Danced. Sang. Watched the Vikings game.

We assuaged our sense of apathy in the afternoon with a trek out to Ridgedale Mall, for the sole purpose of their public play area just outside the Sears. I grew worried when we got close and saw no less than 392 kids frolicking in the playground, which is roughly the size of 1992 Dodge Dynasty. And in an elegant display of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, not one kid ever stopped moving, giving the illusion of just an amorphous electron cloud of youth.

I want desperately to not be one of those overprotective parents, but it is hard to let my kids run free into play areas of utter chaos. In my defense, our kids were some of the youngest and smallest there, and my GOD Abby is the tiniest kid. She would wander out into the fray - kids sprinting everywhere - and become like a little dandelion spore on the winds. Of course she loved it all, and would come running back laughing and smiling and latch onto our legs before doing it all again. Lily, in a very out-of-character move for her, was being quite shy and reserved. She still had a good time playing, but held back whenever there was other people around.

At one point, though, I was playing with Lily, swinging her around. I put her down; she said, "More, More!" quite insistently. I replied, "No, you go out and play." She said, "Okay," and toddled off into the crowds of kids. I was pretty amazed at that one, actually.

---

I mentioned a long, long time ago about how we would sometimes mine YouTube for cheesy 80's music to play for the girls during dinnertime. A couple nights ago we revisited this tradition, and I thought I would include our playlist here. I can't say why we chose these songs, it just sort of happens organically with no real thought put into it. But please feel free to enjoy.

Day three hundred and twenty one.

A hockey-related bruise that is way more vivid and impressive in person.

The future's so bright.

Good shot by Mommy.

Sh..shsh.ssshshhhark!

2010-01-02T23:18:00.001-06:00

Lily in front of the snow monkey habitat. She found them delightful.

No less than three times during the day, we've noted something awesome about the kids and commented that it would be blog-worthy, only to then completely forget what the thing was later on. This is the fundamental flaw in blogging: I'm an idiot and I should write stuff down for later. I'm not sure that's a blogging flaw, rather than just a statement on my shortcomings as a person. Either way, it doesnt' make for any better reading here.

Today we met with the Moores at the zoo and looked at the animals. I say this seriously, because I'm quite proud that the kids actually did recognize and seem to appreciate the fact that animals were on the other side of the glass. As a plus, Abby was not prowled upon by any bloodlusting cats. Lily was particularly fond of both the shark and getting to respond, "Shaaaaark!" whenever it swam into view. I, too, love that shark tank...those things get quite close and the teeth are infinitely terrorizing. I still can't understand how they have all those other fish in the same tank; one has to wonder if they're not just bucking for a promotion to the dolphin tank, the veritable "stoner hangout pad" of the zoo. The dolphins were playing hacky sack, for god's sake. But their tank is always a solo gig, and that's always surprising, since you'd think the dolphin's would be the coolest about not bogarting their digs. The sharks, on the other hand, looked like they were about to snap.

Sometime during our visit, we passed a significant milestone when Abby stated, "Hi Lily." This marks the first time either of our kids has recognized the name Lily in any cognitive, vocal manner. I've gotten them to say it, but only via repetition. What a fun new stage! Next up will be statements like "More milk, Lily" and "Get the hell out of my room, Lily!"

Another fun Abby moment that serves as a sort of antidote the one above came later. I was reading a picture book with Abs, and we were on a page of flowers. Here's an excerpt:

Me: "Tulip"
Abs: "Tooowip"

M: "Daisy"
A: "Maaizzee"

M: "Rose"
A: "Wose"

M: "Lily"
A: "Abby!"

She was so excited about her answer, because somehow a connection was made in her mind between the flower, the name, the word, and herself. It was cute.

Later on the girls put blankets on their heads and wandered around bonking into things, which was really cute and a lot like the scene from "ET".

Day three hundred and twenty.

Here they are in front of the shark tank.

Abby pointing out one of the more terrified denizens of the shark tank.

Abs writing on the girls' new art easel. Thanks, Reicherts!

2010, I'm just going to stay in the house if that's alright with you.

2010-01-01T22:01:00.002-06:00

Lily...our little climber

2010. It feels so different...it's like living in the future.

Jen went out tonight at 8pm to meet some people from school, which is unfortunate because she broke the streak of the Gels family not leaving the house for the entirety of the new year. Up until her departure, we'd spent the whole year in the house. The whole year!

We considered going sledding today, but it was just wicked cold. Seeing that you're flirting with disaster sledding with 22 month olds anyway, we thought we'd pass on that, which is depressingly unadventurous of us. Instead we played with toys, sang some songs, danced a lot. I enjoyed listening to the Current's top 89 countdown again. I can't say I was surprised that "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magentic Zeroes was number one, but that doesn't mean I won't be disappointed in the twin cities for voting it so. C'mon, people...it's just not that good of a song. And Pete Yorn/Scarlett Johanson making the list (up at 59, I might add) is rather unforgivable. Other than that, not a bad list, for the most part.

Also with the new year comes the end of my tenure with Powderhorn365, which is both sad and ultimately relieving. Like the relief that will come at the end of this blog (which will be so sweet), it is nice to know that I won't have to try and spend part of every Saturday prowling for unwitting citizens to photograph. On the other hand, I will sorely miss having a valid excuse to approach strangers, meet them, shoot them, and spend some time getting to know them. It's been a very enriching experience in every way; even the frustrating days when I was short on inspiration and irritable at the chore of drumming something up, those were fine learning experiences. They taught me how annoying it is to be irritable and creative at the same time, so I should just cheer up already before going out shooting.

I think tomorrow we're going to leave the house. The girls are starting to look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Even I take the hint when Lily puts on her jacket and mittens and hat and says, "Car?" So we're thinking the zoo might be a good destination. It's warm, there are animals, and it already smells like poop, so we'll blend right in.

Day three hundred and nineteen.

Abbitigail

Liliathon

Carson Daly, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

2010-01-01T00:39:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year! Welcome, 2010! A brand new year of possibilities. Who knows what craziness shall befall the Powderhorn Gelseses?

My resolution for this year: to start writing better blog posts.

Starting tomorrow.

Day three hundred and eighteen.

The straight poop on kids and planes.

2009-12-30T23:17:00.002-06:00

We got a visit today from Grandma Marj and Jen's Aunt Nancy from Seattle. Yay! Too bad Abby got something in her contact lens.

Here are a few thing about last night's plane ride:

A plane ride with toddlers is shitty. At the very best, in the most opportune and spectacular circumstances, it can only be crappy. At best. You start at shitty, and go downhill from there. The first half of last night's flight, girls A and B were in pretty high spirits and it was all mostly okay. But even then, as we sat there and did whatever while the girls fidgeted and played with their toys, I couldn't help but constantly dwell on the fact that I'd rather be pretty much anywhere else with my kids than vacuum-packed into a 3 square foot area 38,000 feet over Tennessee. There is no real joy in air travel with kids....you can only hope to survive it, and count your lucky stars that your kids don't dump a glass of cranberry juice on the people in front of you (that didn't happen to us, I'm just sayin').

Around the midway point, things started to unravel. Lily showed crystal clear signs that she was exhausted, but refused at every step to just lay her head on our shoulders and sleep. She chose, instead, to thrash around in a well thought out plan to tell the world her level of discomfort. Abby wasn't quite so bad at first, but she had a major meltdown just prior to descent. After a good five minutes of screeching, I bounced her on my arm up and down the aisle, and finally she rammed her head into my neck and fell graciously asleep.

Lily spent the last third of the flight kicking the seat ahead of her (little tip: don't put your seat back when you sit in front of lap children. I know it's your right as a passenger and all, but really, it does no one any favors, including yourself), she yelled at the window, she wiggled and writhed, and was alternately furious and giddy at the whole state of affairs.

When the beastly 737 finally touched down at 1130, we were ready to be done. I hate that last part of the trip, though, when you only want to collapse into bed, but there's the unpacking of necessities and milk and jammies and all those mechanics of life that need tending to. It is infinitely tiring, this living business.

One cool part of the flight: Lily became slightly interested in the seat reclining button on the armrest before we even left the gate. She barely gave it much of a passing glance, really. From then on, though, whenever there was a chime over the speakers, she would stop what she was doing, turn to the armrest, and push the button. How freaking strange is that!? It made no sense; I still can't figure out what logic there is behind it. There must have been a dozen chimes that made her turn and push the button. Random and cute.

In one of my finer moments, I was standing for a bit during the flight, stretching my legs and leaning my head on the overhead bin. I was half asleep, glassy and groggy. I wasn't really paying attention to anything, enjoying my zoning out, when I realized that I was essentially staring at the woman one row behind us who was breastfeeding her baby. Who's the jerk? Me.

Day three hundred and seventeen.

Chris, this toy is awesome and cool and our kids seriously love it. They've been fighting over it. And to be honest, I rather enjoy it as well...it's like a Zen rock garden, very soothing to just sit and twirl. So, thanks!

Also, I liked your Bobcat embryo joke, and I'm not just saying that because you're giving us sausage tomorrow.

Lucky us, we didn't even BRING Pringles.

2009-12-29T13:30:00.003-06:00

Tracey and Lucy (doing jazz hands?? A-cha cha!)

Tonight, we wing our way back northward to the much-snowed-upon land of Minnesota, so I'm doing a mid-day pre-departure bloggity entry.

Papa, Tracey and Mark, in a fit of extreme graciousness, stuck home today to watch our girls while Jen and I had some alone time. We spent our time prowling the mean streets of Sanibel, eager for a cup of coffee (we found one), then went to the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Preserve, which is the best name for a preserve EVER. It was a nice if not markedly uneventful stroll through the island estuary. We had a good time, and talked like adults for a bit. We saw a very lovely blue heron. And a big spider. Nothing larger than that, save some other tourists.

Then lunch, and now I feel like a nap. I might need my energy later, so a nap might be something I acquiesce to. Tonight we'll be back home to find out if we've been ticketed for not shovelling our walk, for not shovelling out our trash can, or for our car sticking out into the alley. Or the cat might be dead. Despite all this, I'm excited to be back in the cold and the snow. How silly is that?

Day three hundred and sixteen.

ps. to Lori's comment from a couple days ago: whatever! You guys are going to be down here in a few weeks, so I hardly feel bad for you. Jen and I scoped out Captiva, including where you guys are staying, and I am definitely the one who's bitter. It's a very cool spot.

A red mangrove (I think it's red) sprouting out of the estuary.

Jen reading the Great Ding Darling Map of Useless Information

First rule of Florida nature: Never feed Pringles to an alligator while trapped in the belly of an even larger alligator. This will cost you $502 ($500 fine, plus they confiscate your Pringles)

My kid = meow mix

2009-12-28T22:54:00.003-06:00

Enthusiastic credit to my niece Maya for this photo.

Today's family activity: Florida Wildlife Zoo Place! (not the real name...I actually forgot the real name of the place) A couple steps above your normal roadside attraction, they had a hodgepodge of alligators and crocodiles (or Abbygators and Crocolilies), with a variety of snakes and panthers and other wildlife to boot. It was a fun little trip. Untrue to my form, I won't bore you with all the details, save one.

Our group had just passed the panther pen, where we all had looked in on the large cats napping in various positions of leisure. Abby and I were bringing up the rear, and when we came by the pen, a hellish cat creature appeared out of nowhere, utterly silent, and started pacing the enclosure, eyes steely, fixed, unblinking on my blonde hors d'oeuvre of a daughter. There was no doubt that this animal was stalking my kid...it might as well have had a bib around its neck and a spork in its paw. It was like seeikng an old person in front of an Old Country Buffet at 4 pm. Scary hungry.

In hilarious and very chilling juxtaposition, Abby continued toddling around the walk, picking up dead leaves and babbling contentedly to herself while this instrument of certain death paced just a few feet from her. It was truly kind of unsettling and really, really funny at the same time. Odd combo. As far as I know, Abby never even saw the panther.

Sorry I didn't get a photo, my camera was ungettable at the time; it would have been a fantastic shot.

Day three hundred and fifteen.

What's a roadside wildlife attraction without some Embryos of Bobcat? I think I've got the name of my rock band.

Jen, Grace, Mark, Tracey, Lucy, and Steve. Not pictured: our kids, who we'd already tossed into the pen for "croc petting time".

Papa watching the kids.

Abby stole Mommy's hat. Forgivable, given the cuteness factor.

Our girls have met the ocean.

2009-12-27T21:26:00.004-06:00

Today, we tackled the ocean, quite literally. After dipping Abby in the breaking waves, she started running towards the water and quite literally tried to throw herself into the surf. She seemed very taken with the sea, despite the cold and despite the fact that a loud sneeze will startle her to tears. This largest and most impressive of Earth's wonders somehow made her want to run into it with open arms. Good monkey. Maybe we have a surfer girl on our hands. Jen and I both had that thought as we looked at her, all blonde hair and salty face.

I honestly had a hard time keeping her safe in the water, because I would put her down standing in the shallow surf, and she would sprint out into the breaking waves, and her tiny little chicken legs are just not strong enough to resist the push and pull of the sea. She lost her balance more than a few times, but I managed to catch her at every chance.

Lily did okay in the water, but was a little more recalcitrant to the Atlantic's briny call. On the whole, the trip went smoothly with no major meltdowns or too much sand in the crotch areas (although there was some chaffing. I'm talking about the girls here).

Day three hundred and fourteen.

Lily finding something of vast importance.

Jen and Lily.

There she goes! Notice I've positioned myself strategically between her and 41 million square miles of saltwater.

I heart tonguefish.

2009-12-26T22:00:00.004-06:00

Tracey and Lucy, aka The Luce. Jen took this photo...I liked it.

Dad/Papa fearlessly offered to stay home with the twins today while the rest of us went on a little 3 hour boat tour. It was a fun event, and nice to get away from the girls for just a bit. The tour let us off on Picnic Island, and all us tourists piled out and set about catching small marine life with nets. There wasn't much to be found, but I was still fairly excited to come up with the occasional tonguefish, a mini-flounder type waif of a fish. They're very flappy, although they don't taste very much like tongue at all. Way too salty.

It was right chilly during the ride out there, and I wasn't exactly tearing off my shirt to get into the water, but it was surprising how quickly 68 degree water and I decided to get along. I was struck by the oddity of being in nothing but sandals and swim trunks, rather comfortable in the water, while the non-swimming contingency of the tour were bundled up on the beach like a patagonian expedition.

The rest of the day passed as all the others have, simply doing nothing specific while being with family. In other words...a holiday.

Day three hundred and thirteen.

Pelican thinking thoughts only a pelican could understand. Photo credits to Steve on this one.

Jen and I. This was all me.

Tracey and Jen on Picnic Island.

Oliver and I discussing boat horsepower. We agreed that more is better.

Merry Christmas, all!

2009-12-25T23:35:00.002-06:00

Stone crabs and Corona...Christmastime indeed!

Pint sized snacker

Aunt Joy showing the morons how to work a toy cell phone, which they loved.

She's taking calls!

Looking for some quiet for an important call.

'Twas the night before Christmas...

2009-12-24T22:19:00.003-06:00

It's Christmastime! Cram your hole full of happiness and frosting, why dontcha?

What sort of tropical hijinks transpire on a Floridian Christmas Eve, my Minnesotan brothers and sisters might be wondering? Let me tell you.

- Instead of sledding, you and the family take the kids to the pool. There's no snow anywhere! And people wear bathing suits! The girls loved the swimming, as they always do. Abby even went in the hot tub - it wasn't really that hot - although Lily wasn't a huge fan.

- You see salamanders! Very rare in MN this time of year. We saw a few outside my Dad's house. They thought they were pretty funny, but when I tried to catch one, I think they were a little confused. So were the salamanders.

- We did crafts! Thanks to Aunt Tracey being on the ball (she is so far on she's off again), we made reindeer food. You may not be aware, but a reindeer's primary diet consists of Quaker oats and glitter, mixed in a paper bowl, and strewn across the lawn.

After that, we made some Christmas cookies. Lily didn't seem to grasp the idea, and spent a goodly portion of the time eating the frosting, one fingertip's worth at a time. Abby did a bit better (probably because Jen was helping her and I was helping Lily), and mixed up some really noxious looking frosting mix. She dug it, though.

- We ran around the neighborhood in bare feet. Again, not normally something to attempt in Minnesota.

And after all that, you eat a crapload of food and stay up too late, then play a game of Sorry where you find out that your brother is a vengeful bastard with a large, seething pit of spite in his soul. Just kidding. Not really. Listen, I play Sorry to win. I lost of course, but Jen won, and she won gracefully.

In Minnesota, a crapload of Grater's ice cream certainly wouldn't be as awesome, but luckily we're in Florida, and our Aunt Betty and Uncle Jerry rule so much that they sent us about a hundred pints of said ice cream. Thanks, Cincinnati relatives!

Santa is on his way, as I write this. Exciting! Tomorrow, the anarchy of Christmas is on.

Day three hundred and Christmas Eve

Grace throws out fistfulls of reindeer food for Donner, Vixen, Blitzen...and all those other yahoos.

Lily doles out reindeer food sparingly. Give it up, L...those guys are hungry.

There ya go.

Aaaaairrplane!!!

2009-12-23T22:57:00.003-06:00

Hello, Florida! We've navigated the various torments that were laid out for us today, and we can now bask in the glow of Fort Myers's awesome moonlight. It'll be much more worth it tomorrow when the sun is out.

All in all, the day went fairly well. Let's just pick up right about where we were showing up at the airport....

Sun Country does offer curbside check-in, and we decided this was a service we wanted to pounce on. After trying to pull to the curb (a lovely woman decided not to pull up and allow me access, despite having plenty of room), we got all the bags out, all the kids out, all the everything out, and I left Jen in line to cast our lot with those mysterious skycap folk to go park the car. By the time I made it back, Jen had checked in (she's speedy), but they couldn't get us three seats together...two were together, and the other one was across the aisle. I was pretty livid, since they don't let you check in online when you have kids. So, for those of us (parents) that desperately need (nay, REQUIRE) our seats to be together, we're the ones that can't take advantage of the online check in and seat selection. Bravo, airlines.

The security line was brutal, especially by Humphrey standards. Almost 45 minutes to navigate the snakey line of people, who seemed to be largely cheerful and in the proper holiday spirit. Comments were exchanged...people told us the girls were cute (and they were, sitting placidly in their stroller, content to only view the spectacle of air travel). Even the two people who tried to cut in front of us were rather happy, if not uber-ditzy. I've passed much worse lengths of time.

When the moment was upon us and it was our turn to pass through the steely jaws of homeland security, the girls remained in good spirit, but it is anarchy with all that stuff and the kids. Anarchy, I say and repeat for effect. We had a total of 4 bags, 2 kids, and a stroller, plus the ubiquitous bin of shoes and wallets and assorted castaway items not befitting a proper tour through the metal detector. It's a whirlwind, getting the kids out, taking their shoes off (oh yes, for those non-parental types and those not in the know, 22 month olds must have their shoes removed). This proved to be a near disaster, because Lily, freshly arrived in a phase where she likes to be in charge of her own destiny (it's called free will, I believe), does not like anyone removing and/or adding footwear without her consent. She almost lost it there, but didn't. In the end, the whole transit was relatively minor and easy. The girls suffered it well.

Inside the secure area, we headed for the playground right across from our gate. Yay, Humphrey has playgrounds! Hooray! It's a beautiful thing! Except when your flight is leaving and you have to tear one of your kids away from it! Boo for playgrounds! It was Lily, and she freaking LOST IT. She was in an outright panic, and so the trip onto the jetway, down the jetway, onto the airplane, and into the carry on baggage space under the seat in front of me where she eventually collapsed, it was all a nightmare. She was thrashing and biting and hitting and fighting me every single second, and with every part of her being. I think I had an out of body experience at some point during it all.

I left her on the floor of the aircraft, where doubtless numbers of passengers have vomited in flights past, and she thrashed about in abject anger. After about 10 minutes, while those passengers walking aftward eyed us with suspicion and relief that they were seated away from us, she began to only cry normally. Then barely at all. Then she recognized that her shoe was off. I asked her if she wanted a lollipop and for me to put her shoe back on. She happily replied in the affirmative, and she was totally fine for the rest of the flight.

I had Lily on my lap by the window when we got deiced. That was fun. She was a little scared because the truck was right next to our window, and it's a little scary, but when they started shooting out the Type 1, she thought it was all a hoot.

Abby was mostly good as well, the coy little monkey. Her biggest flaw was a constant fidgetiness that could not be assuaged at times. She would usually be okay, or we could entertain her for the most part, but a couple times she just really would not be happy. Also, she does not like turbulence, and is not a fan of anything abrupt or noisy. When they threw the first notch of flaps in during the arrival, she just about pooped her pants. Actually, she might have, since I smelled something terrible not long after that. She cried, and everything after that kinda freaked her out a bit. They used the speedbrakes once, and that makes the plane kinda drop a bit - especially if you throw them all in quickly - and I think she thought that was the end. Poor monkey.

Reunited with the Gels side once more, they seem to be quite happy. As are we. It's nice to be here, and we're hoping for a lovely holiday. No more playgrounds.

No pictures today, sorry. I'll be better tomorrow.

Day three hundred and ten.

ps. Lori, you did win, it was Abby's finger in the outlet that I was talking about. Although many other interesting points were raised. While I'd like to award you some credit for that, you've also tried to blackmail me recently with the withholding of treats, which is pretty harsh. That was made public at work, so now I'm getting a lot of pressure from coworkers to continue. Thanks! Now I'm the bad guy!

Packing is hard.

2009-12-22T22:49:00.003-06:00

A right presidential picture of El Gato.

It's almost 11. There is still so very much to do for the trip tomorrow, but I have faith it will all just happen. By "faith", I mean "Jen". The right tactical move, spousally speaking, is for me to draw this blog entry out as long as feasible, minimizing my packing efforts.

Tactics might also suggest that I not publicize these tactics, as I've already done. Bah. I'll just be quick, then.

Tomorrow, 3:50 we shall depart for Fort Myers (or RSW for those of the aviation ilk). I'm still stressed about it, but my Dad gave me some good advice. He pointed out that the kids will pick up on our moods and act appropriately, so I should really just relax and remember that it's a vacation and it's their first flight - a momentous event! - so I should simply let it all unfold as it will, and the morons will hopefully be positive as well. Words to live by.

Jon and Suze had us all over tonight for the Stalker-side Christmas, which was fun but far too brief, as it always tends to be. Suze made an enormous amount of food, which was all the more impressive when we found out that Jon had actually stopped her from making more. Brevitous as the visit turned out to be, it was still nice to see them and the Lukasewyczes, in town from Seattle.

Off to pack. And shovel my driveway. And 1,000 things we need to do.

Day three hundred and nine.

Uncle Steve taking a shot of Kyla.

85 BlogPoints for the first person to notice what is horribly wrong (and frankly quite funny) about this photo.

Uncle Jon doing dishes with flair

Coyness.

2009-12-21T22:21:00.001-06:00

I pass this tree every day on my way home. I like it.

This photo is explained below.

For the first time in a while, the girls had a flawless morning ritual. I don't think there was a raised voice or unhappy eye in the house, except for one brief moment where Lily unintentionally roundhouse kicked Abby in the face. And to be honest, I don't entirely believe it was unintentional, but my life is going to be a lot easier believing it was, so that's what I'm going with.

No tantrums today; no irrational needs or demands; nothing unsettling. It was idyllic. This stands in stark contrast to the past couple weeks. Abby especially has been rather crankified while dealing with her cold, but she's just about done with it. Hurrah! Just in time to stick them on an airplane.

Our neighbors Jeff and Esther came over post-work to hang out and deliver two absurdly cute handknit winter hats for the girls. They caught the Lily in a weird mood - I'd just had to defuse her from a little snit - and in an unprecedented move, she would not leave the kitchen to see them. I've never seen her so shy before. She was pretty much rooted to that spot in the photo above, looking sternly our way. She is starting to hit that stage, though, where she digs her heels in on any issue, so when we started trying to coax her into the dining room, it only fortified her anti-social stance. Abby was her typical self: she buried her face into Jen's neck and peeked out coyly, which is pretty normal for her.

Later on, I found myself in Richfield for the first night of pick up hockey for the year. I skated around a lot and now I am very sore.

Thank you again Jeff and Esther for the hats, they are fantastic!

Day three hundred and eight.

Abs in high def!

Lily in high def as well!

Leaving the house...overrated.

2009-12-20T22:16:00.002-06:00

Coloring and spitting like a camel.

So I'm Facebook friends with one of the people that works at our daycare. She's great, I like her a lot. Her last status, however, mentioned something about "Mondays are rotten at work". I'm not sure how to feel about that. Is it my kids? Are my kids rotten on Mondays? I have to wonder.

We almost spent the entire day indoors today, it was very close, but at the last minute Lily seemed to get it in her head that we should go for a car ride, so go for a ride we did. Our reasoning for avoiding the out of doors was completely pragmatic: we were absolutely not going to the malls, there's no where else to take our kids, and we didn't want to risk exacerbating their illnesses (both are clinging to a nasty cough) by heading out for snow-based frivolity. Getting them sick two days before their first plane trip would be the pinnacle of dunderheadedness on our part.

But that's okay, because there is great fun to having a day inside. We could have kept them in their jammies all day, if not for the 2 cups of milk and half a banana Abby smeared on herself. The new kitchen set from Grandma and Grandpa got a whole lot of mileage.

Sometime around 5:15, Lily pointed at the door and said, "Car." This was repeated often and in ever increasing urgencies, until finally we got the point that the kid must have a little cabin fever. So we got them dressed and drove around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights. "OOoohh!!" we said. They responded in kind. I think they had a good time.

Three days left before their very first plane ride! We're both nervous. Abby is in this interesting phase right now where she has a tantrum for nothing at all, and she is inconsolable during them. There is a collective, familial holding of the breath right now. We'll see what Wednesday brings.

Day three hundred and seven.

Abby still likes to draw on her hands.

Late night.

2009-12-20T00:44:00.002-06:00

Grandpa came by today to drop off the girls' Christmas gift....a brand new kitchen playset!! It's pretty awesome, actually; it makes boiling/sizzling noises when you put pans on it.

It's quarter to one, and we've just returned from my company's holiday party. I consider it an amazing perk to be in a position that I get to have a holiday party. We did a bit of bowling, had some drinks, and played laser tag...laser tag! How awesome is that? I think it's important for the girls to know that their parents ditched them tonight so that we could play laser tag. For the record, when we were starting the game I asked Jen if we should be on opposite teams or the same team. She said, "Same team!" Aww. She likes me. She could never shoot me.

We definitely had a good time, it was a fun night. I, however, bowled my worst game ever; it was somewhere in the 80's. Just miserable.

The girls were left in the fantastically generous hands of Jen, a fellow MBAite from the Carlson School, who is awesome with our kids. Thanks Jen!

That's it. We're off to bed, so I can get up in 5 hours and chase the morons around the house again.

Day three hundred and six

Lily learning to "cook".

5 illnesses and counting

2009-12-18T22:49:00.002-06:00

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

2009-12-17T22:36:00.001-06:00

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.

---

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.

2009-12-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

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...

2009-12-15T22:14:00.008-06:00

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?

2009-12-14T22:00:00.004-06:00

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

2009-12-13T21:20:00.001-06:00

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.

I'm not fit to fit my kids for the outdoors.

2009-12-12T22:24:00.004-06:00

Vile weed!

I would rather eat cat poop than cooked brocolli. Jen loves cooked brocolli and wants to marry it.

Today, I made some for the girls for dinner. Abby turned up her nose at it. Lily crammed it into her esophagus as fast as is humanly possible.

Let there be no doubt whose kid is whose.

And in a crazy twist you never saw coming (take notes, M. Night!), I eat way more brocolli than Jen does, as I don't mind it raw and eat it frequently for the sheer goodness of it. It's actually rather pleasant raw. Cook it, though, and it tastes like the 5th circle of hell.

Today, Jen was at school from 9 until 9. 12 hours spent working tirelessly. Of course she comes home and thanks me and tells me she owes me, and so I ask you: how big of a dink would I be if I considered her indebted to me because I watched the kids all day while she was at school? So thanks Jen, but no thanks. I won't take you up on your offer of having all next weekend off from the kids.

For anyone interested in what my answer was to the dilemma of what to do with the kids today, the answer is: nothing. I had considered leaving to go do some shopping. This thought was usually followed by my visualizing the girls and me in the MOA, which was followed by me hyperventilating. Instead, I thought i could bring the girls out into the snow and play, which seemed like a home run idea. It was a total debacle.

Not the fault of the girls, though; they were troopers for the most part. I, however, apparently do not know how to dress toddlers in a waterproof/snowproof manner yet. I have seen parents and kids who are impossibly well put together and sophisticated, out in the snow enjoying themselves. To them I say: "How dare you flaunt your abilities." I do not have the skill to dress my kids.

Most importantly, I could not get their mittens to stay on, not for more than 9 seconds. They're impossible. They're too big, I think, but they're age appropriate, so I don't know what's going on. Both kids think taking their hats off is the easiest way to make me happy, so that happens the second I put them on. Abby had a particularly hard time. After all the preparations and layering, I brought them outside and put them in the snow. After a little bit, she started to get whiny, so I checked her out. There was at least 3 inches of bare leg, totally soaking up the snow and getting drenched. I'm still not sure how or why, but I couldn't cover her in a way that didn't allow 19 pounds of snow to funnel directly into her boots.

I admitted defeat pretty quickly.

The day passed, then, just doing random things around the house, simply partaking in whatever activity we had a whim for at any given moment. There was some roughhousing for a while, which was fun because they're just starting to do that. They both tried to tackle me, and as far as they know, they succeeded (I was faking...they're way too light and weak! They could never take me down).

Day two hundred and ninety nine.

She has a "busted" look here.

So does she.

And this one! My kids look so guilty!

Applepus! Applebutts!

2009-12-11T20:23:00.004-06:00

I have a pet peeve. Get ready...here it is. I have a strong dislike for any food production company that uses an anthropomorphic iteration of their product for marketing purposes. Dear god, what twisted mind thinks consumers would prefer to identify with their food before they eat it? Look at that package. I see - and always have, in these cases - three good (and multi-racial...aww!) friends who can talk, love, laugh. They likely have wafery wives and wafery kids back at the factory, but some of them will never see their families again. No. Because we're going to eat them.

M&Ms does this. So does Chips Ahoy, which I believe to be the most egregious offender based solely on the pathos of their dopey spokes-cookies. ("spokes-cookies" is a great word and a great name for a band). These tv spots are especially horrifying, as they present the psuedo-canibalistic consuming of their product as something to find highly amusing. I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of "Soylent Green".

Whew. I feel better. Am I the only person who thinks this way? I still eat all these things, because they're delicious.

The real reason I took that picture (my soliloquy above came after the fact) is to tell a story. It's not a good one, but cute. Grandpa Neil and Grandma Marj had those cookies up in Duluth, and at some point Grandpa gave them to the girls after a meal. They were fans. Thanks to some grandparental goodwill, the cookies then came back home with us. Tonight we gave some to the girls. Lily took a bite, smiled wide, and said, "Grandpa!"

In the Abby corner, she did an entire verse of Head Shoulder Knees AND Toes, all by herself, both the vocal and the gestures! That was huge, and cute, and awesome, and it made my day.

I'm not sure what was up with Lily today, but in general, all day, she was a total goofball. She kept laughing and giggling, sometimes at random things that weren't funny, sometimes at nothing at all. It was hilarious and very contagious.

Random observation of the day: Both the girls love to say "applesauce". Every time we have it, there's some palapable excitement. The amusing thing is that it always comes out as "applepus" or "applebutts". Good stuff. It's fun trying to decode their language. Lily said something to us tonight about 52 times before Jen finally figured out she was trying to tell us that she wanted to throw a kleenex in the garbage. Good thing the kids are patient with us.

I think those are the high points. Both of them were a riot tonight. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them tomorrow, as I'll likely have them for at least the morning by myself. Any thoughts or suggestions from my bloggy crowd? I was considering Christmas shopping, but I'm just not sure I can stomach being in a mall with them by myself.

Day two hundred and ninety eight.

Punk.

Random playtime.

Fire! FIRE!!! No...wait...forget it, false alarm.

2009-12-10T21:22:00.005-06:00

Rat a tat tat. She's a sharp percussionist.

To Christy: I'm working on a video/audio of them babbling over the monitor. I've actually tried already, but they have a preturnatural sense for when I'm filming them, even when we're in different rooms on different floors, and promptly clam up. Damn psychic kids.

And there is nothing stopping you from enjoying this soup. It is calling to you. If you want, here it is; very very easy:

Slice about 5-6 large onions thinly (no need to dice or chop, just slice and cut them so they're semicircles). This is the hardest step of the recipe...
Saute onion in a large pot with 1/2 stick of butter over medium-low heat for 30 minutes
Add a tbsp of flour; saute 3 more minutes
Add 1 1/2 quarts of beef broth.
Add a dash of worchestershire and a splash of red wine (those are optional)
Bring to boil.
Simmer for 15 minutes.
While that's going, cut up some french bread (the denser and higher quality, the better) into cubes; toast under the broiler on high.
Ladle soup into oven proof bowls. Top with bread cubes. Add craploads of shredded swiss and parmesan (or gruyere, some people do that, or use whatever you want).
Broil until bubbly.
Let cool. (very important. Nobody likes mouth blisters)
Thank brother in law.

Some get all lunatic and add rosemary and bay and thyme and 12 other things; I prefer to stay basic and let the onions speak for themselves.

I should say that eating a lot of this soup made my pee smell kinda funny. So, you know...caveat emptor and all that.

Poor Jen/Mommy. She's working at school, as it's the zero hour for a giant presentation thingy (I'm paraphrasing) that needs to be done, so she's called to let me know not to wait up. Less than a week out from graduating and being done with school, and she's not even allowed to slack.

Tonight, I decided to do music night. I dragged out an electronic piano, a snare drum, a tamborine, and (most importantly) a cowbell and let the girls have at it. They seemed amazed at first, then interested, then okay with it all, and then kinda bored, until finally, maybe 12 minutes after starting, they were ready to go back to what they normally do: reading stories and playing with baby (a baby doll that Lily likes). Meh. I wouldn't call music night a failure, but the tour is definitely on hold for now.

I don't think I helped things when I gave the snare drum a rather enthusiastic couple measures, and Lily seemed pretty annoyed. She told me, "Nooo!"

I'm not sure if it's already happened, but Lily counted to ten all by herself tonight for, as far as I know, the first time. Yay! And while I was doing the alphabet for Abby, she nailed "L-M-N-O-P". Yay! My kids are geniuses. Geniui? Geniusees? Smart kids.

Speaking of talking, we now have a new word for pacifier. She's started dropping the "paci-" part, and is just calling it "fier", or "fire", since that's exactly what it sounds like. So every night, come night night time, we find her loitering around the buffet, pointing at it and mewing, "..fire! fire!" We might be avoiding crowded theaters for a while.

Day two hundred and ninety seven.

I like error pictures. I probably did permanent damage to her retina with this flash, but it was worth it. So blue!

She even looks like a piano player.

In case you thought I was lying about music night (how dare you not believe me!??)

Raising kids...is there an app for that?

2009-12-09T21:28:00.001-06:00

Reason #42 to embrace winter: you think you're going to curl up with a bubbly-hot bowl of french onion soup in the middle of July? I don't think so.

It's impossible to make french onion soup and not feel like I'm 16 and working at Sir Ben's again - shilling beer to the regulars and getting a lifetime of bluegrass music in 5 summer's worth of Thursday nights. It must be the smell; the place reeked of onions and wood and stale pints of kayak kolsch. But then, I should state for the record that they called their soup English Onion; same ingredients, just more pretention.

After at least a weeklong string of nights that featured our kids babbling to each other for at least 40 minutes after bedtime, I think we have to face some facts: our nighttime schedule is about to be extinct.

That's the bad news.

On the good side of things, it does not seem to be affecting us in any way, since the girls are perfectly happy to still go to bed at 7, but now they just happily yap back and forth from their cribs until Lily falls asleep. Lily always goes first. We usually notice that her contributions become fewer and fewer until they disappear entirely. Abby always soldiers on, though; I imagine she is sitting back down at this point, conversing with the monkey she sleeps with. After 40 to 60 minutes, the pauses get longer and her comments more incoherent, even by Abby standards, until finally, sweet sweet silence.

This seems to be a transition time. I imagine that the near future will see us having to bump them back to 7:30 or 8:00 bedtimes. Yikes. There goes an hour of time to get things done. But then, here comes an hour more with the kids. The yin and yang of parenting: always the good with the bad.

Day two hundred and ninety six.

Toddler smothered wth Beagle sauce.

Doin' time in solitary

It's coming down. Go home and take a snow day, Mrs. Braintree.

2009-12-08T21:52:00.004-06:00

Our street tonight. This photo is dedicated to my Dad's air conditioner, which is likely working dutifully down in Ft. Myers.

There seems to be some mystical quality of the snow that makes other parents linger at day care during the drop off, as if they think they can sequester themselves inside and forget about the blustery weather outside. During both drop off and pick up today, the street parking was full, so both times found me driving around the block twice and slowly lingering, waiting, waiting for these people to just move already. Sooo....sloowww. I'm also intrigued at whatever ridiculous procedure people use to get their kids into/out of their car seats. Not that I'm keeping score, but I am usually faster with two kids than most are with one. Harumph!

This is all notable for the reason that Lily, on passing day care during our first transit around the block, once again took this to mean we were not going into day care, and exploded into a supernova of unhappiness and tears. I have to say, I never really considered how aware she is of our surroundings in the car. I've watched her in the mirror...she doesn't really look outside. Normally she just makes funny noises, asks me for kleenexes ("Nooose! Noose!!!! NOOOOSE!" I give it to her for a few seconds. "All done!"), and plays this game with Abby where they try to grab each other's hands, which is wicked cute. I have truly never seen her look out the window with any semblance of anything smacking of cognition in our location.

Yet somehow, she knows instinctively that we just passed day care.

As it was the first time she did this, it was adorablesadfunny. The sad part comes from knowing how ingrained she is in the rigamarole of being with somebody else all day. It makes me feel secondary in their lives.

In other news...Abby is starting to pick up on the whole "talking with words instead of whining gets better results" principle. There's been an uptick in her "more"s and "eat"s and other pleadings of necessity. She's also aces at doing the sign for "please", but when she does it she says, "Abby?" Funny how much they both love the word "Abby".

So I have to go on record as saying how excited I am about the snow. I have no real reason to be; I have no vested recreational interest in the stuff, like I had when we lived in Denver and days like this would send me running for Summit County. I just like the change of seasons. And to be honest, I feel like I need to defend winter. I've heard so much griping today about the misery that is floating down upon us (or flying sideways to drift upon us, as the case may be tonight), and I think winter simply gets a raw deal. So, here's to you, winter. Thanks for the variety. Thanks for giving me reason to hug my registers. Thanks for making me use 3rd, 2nd, and (yipes!) 1st gear on the highway. Thanks for reminding me why I keep those sleds stored in my garage all year.

Day two hundred and ninety five.

This picture is unique in that her hair seems to be defying gravity on the upper-left part of the picture. Not sure why.

Abby, difusing a bomb.

The tongue is there, just aching to get past those lips.

The Count (did I already use that for a post title?)

2009-12-07T22:18:00.005-06:00

"Muunnn. Poooo. Freeee. Aaaaiittt. Eine. TEN!"

"That's good. What about four?"

"Poooor. Piiiive. Sissss. Sebbben. AaitEineTEN!"

Lily is indeed on the very cusp of being able to pin down the whole count to ten thing. Abby isn't close, but she can do little bunches of numbers as well, and is pretty good at chiming in with the alphabet song for random bits of letters.

Tonight is Monday, and we all know what Monday is....drag a member of my family over to hang out night!! Surely a wordy title, but it's a good event. Tonight, Steve and the kids came by. There was entertainment for all. Even Abby, who's been a little slight because of a sore tooth and some Daddy-centered neediness lately, was running around babbling at her cousins.

Day two hundred and ninety four.

Daddy!

Buaaaaa ha ha!

Daddy defers to his sleepyheadedness.

2009-12-06T22:23:00.002-06:00

And what's a beard shaving without trying out some new, experimental looks?

I'd gotten down to a handlebar (sort of) mustache and decided to go with a "Daniel Day-Lewis from 'Gangs of New York'" sorta look. I think I did okay, minus the big top hat.

I'm pretty spent. I've already passed out on the couch tonight. I'm going to take the night off, I apologize.

I would hope publicly releasing a photo like the one above would help atone for my shortcomings. You be the judge.

Day two hundred and ninety three.

"huuuh..?"

"gaaaahh...?"

Sneaking, Vol II

2009-12-06T00:17:00.003-06:00

Adios, beard.

Before:

(my eyes are really crooked)

And after:

My eyes are still crooked, and I am suddenly struck at how very unattractive I am.

It's 20 after 12. That's late for me in any stage of life, and especially after I've had kids (in general) and a couple beers (tonight specifically).

Yup, I shaved the beard. It feels great to have it off, but I'm now very much of the opinion that my facial features are hideously out of whack. My mouth is tiny! And crooked. And off center. I won't even get started on my droopy eyes. Why I lived with these things for 33 years and had no problem, then grew and shaved a beard and am now totally self-conscious, I have no clue.

I was musing on Christy's comment from yesterday (thanks, glad to know I'm not the only crazy parent), and I suddenly realized I missed a head-smackingly obvious correlation that would have brought the whole post full circle, and it is this: While I know how to walk around the house without making noise to wake the girls, in just a few years the girls will reverse that, knowing how to get around without waking their parents up. As a kid myself, I used to know the best way of getting around our house in Duluth for maximum silence. This seems to be the natural progression of things, and, in the words of K. Vonnegut, "... so it goes"

Day two hundred and ninety two.

My delicate slip of sunshine.

Radiator head rest.

The Peek, or Sometimes it Feels Like, Somebody's Watching You.

2009-12-04T22:12:00.004-06:00

I brandish my kids randomly and with no regard to safety.

Never in my 34 years on this earth have I wanted to eat a face so badly.

(please read in the second person. thank you.)

We still peek at you girls, every night. Okay, sometimes I bow out because I'm a little tired or just don't feel like it, but Mommy does it every night without fail. She's a rock.

Our house, being as old and woody as it is, makes traversing into your cozy little abode a silence-shatteringly creaky affair. However, I've made a mental map of all the safe spots to step on; so while I may look moronic stretching my gait to weird extremes, I can usually keep it relatively hushed. By the time we finally make it to your cribs and hover, you usually haven't made a peep.

We don't linger for long. Just long enough to look at you and make googly faces. I like to daydream about how great it might be to hop into bed with either of you, curl up and sleep the rest of the night there. I wouldn't even steal your monkey/froggy.

Sometimes you roust yourselves a bit, which can be entertaining. Both of you, when this happens, will normally just stare at us, trying to comprehend what we're doing there. It's rather unsettling sometimes, looking down at you and seeing those two big black spots that are your eyes, knowing they're open and gazing back at us. You never really react, just stare for a bit, then flip over and succumb to sleep again.

In an effort of utmost futility, we cover you guys with your blankets. We know it won't last more than a few minutes, when you'll kick them off and go back to being cold, but we do it anyway because we're parents and it would be unthinkable not to tuck you back in.

After the tuck in, we head back out, retracing the non-creaky steps. Leaving is tense; for some reason I feel like we're rushing out just as you're about to wake up, and it's a race to the door. This is the same feeling I used to have when I had to go to the basement as a kid, and was keenly aware of the monsters behind me when I ran back up the stairs.

Once we're out and safely back in our bedroom, we usually talk for a couple minutes about the funny positions you guys were in, or the weird noises you make while you dream, or just how cute we find you.

I'm amazed there was a time in my life that I didn't get to do this every night.

Day two hundred and ninety one.

Abs was in an on-again, off-again pony tail tonight, which is a look that we are absolutely in love with. If only she didn't pull it out after just a few minutes.

We'll never let her out, NEVER!

I don't wanna.

2009-12-03T21:39:00.003-06:00

As it turns out, we are no longer the bosses around the house. Lily has definitely started to exert her influence on the mechanics of our daily toil. She is an enormous proponent of the status quo, as it turns out; and when we attempt to make changes to that, there is some serious vocal opposition. Oh yes.

In short, she hates to be told what to do. Particularly grievous offences include: changing clothes, changing diapers, giving baths, that sort of thing. I'm not sure if it's the fact that she doesn't want the change to occur, or that the act itself is undertaken without her explicit approval. I'm almost sure it's the latter, as she normally snaps back into cheery mode once the status change is over. I guess I can understand the psychology behind her reaction; I would be none too happy if I was happily going about my day and an 18 foot leviathan lumbers by, rips off my clothes, and sticks me in some footied jammies. It's offensive, frankly, and totally insulting for us to manipulate Lily to bend her to the needs of our daily schedule.

But, of course, that's life. We're her parents. We get the final say.

So right now, the battlefield is set. I am smart enough to know that this fight is just beginning, that the rules of the game are being lain out. It will get ugly. It already is ugly. Tonight, for example, she did not want to take a bath. She kicked and flailed when I dragged her upstairs. She melted out of my arms, wailing away, fought us tooth and nail with every fiber of her being. The bath went predictably bad - I'm amazed I got her in at all - for the first five minutes. Eager to move quickly, I got her clean in about three minutes. After that, though, she started to calm down a bit. Then she started to almost enjoy herself. Of course, this came as the bath was starting to get cold, the night was getting long, and it was time for her to come out. So while getting her in the bath and cleaned was a disaster, she cheered up just long enough for me to start the process all over again trying to get her OUT of the bath. Sigh.

Hooray for the contest of wills! We'll see who wins...

Day two hundred and ninety.

I actually tried to get photos tonight, I did. Picked up the camera, turned it on, and the battery died. Typical.

"I'm cleeeeaaaaning!! Yay!"

The tongue is out. The tongue of concentration.

The state of things.

2009-12-02T21:49:00.002-06:00

My camera continues to collect dust...today's photos are from forever ago.

The tranquility.

It's been a while since the girls had a good performance review. It might be illuminating for all of you on the interweb to get a quick rundown of exactly what those snuggle bunnies can do these days. Plus, it will be in bullet form...I LOVE bullets!

Talkytalk

- Lily is starting to put a lot more words together. Last night's, "Night night Olly" is a good example. I'd put her vocab at about 30 or 40 words, although that's just a quick guess. She's great at, "Bless you", doling them out for coughs and sneezes alike.
- Abby doesn't have as many words as Lily, but she certainly makes up for it in conversation. Abby will spew out these minutes long string of babbling - punched up here and there with an actual English word - without breaking a sweat.

Locomoting

- Abby is still a bit wobbly on her feet, and is notoriously bad at watching where she's going. Tonight she tried to sit on Jen's lap and ended up sitting on the dog instead. So tenuous is her walk that she's been known to be taken down by something as small as a piece of string. Still, she's surprisingly fast and can follow me to the kitchen faster than I can close the gate behind me sometimes.
- Lily can technically run now, and is pretty close to being able to jump in the air. Lily is fast enough that when I go to the kitchen, she beats me there and is already pouring a bowl of cereal.

Foodies

- Lily is starting to reject a lot more foods lately. We enjoyed some golden days this year of being able to feed both girls pretty much anything, but it seems that pickiness is starting to gain a toehold. Reference my post yesterday and her vocal display of tuna-hate.
- Abby's a little better as far as food variety. This is offset by her thrilling enjoyment in throwing all the food off the tray when it displeases her.
- Both girls are largely to the point that we can give them food and they can fend for themselves in the shovelling category. This is nice, as it's freed us up to eat at the same time, laying the groundwork for what will eventually be family mealtime.

Playtime

- Lily's favorite pasttimes as of late include: coloring, drawing, dancing, playing mommy to a baby and bear, throwing things, playing with buckles.
- Abby's favorites: being hung upside down, stacking cups, turning the tv on and off and on and off and on and off, trying to get my camera, attacking anything soft.

That's about all I can come up with, which means this list feels weak and unaccomplished. I'll have to add to it as I think of things.

Day two hundred and eighty nine

Pony time.

I'm not even sure if she's crying here or singing something maybe.

It's my party, I'll cry if I want to.

2009-12-01T22:17:00.004-06:00

Dear kids:

What? What were you crying about all night?

I gave you an awesome tuna fish sandwich for dinner. Abby, you liked it; Lily it made you furious.

I tried to play with you guys; nothing held your interest and you ended up just crying anyway. You guys cried at me. You cried at each other. You threw down your corpses and yelled at god.

The bath was excruciating. Why? Because of the constant wailing. It was incessant. Before the bath. During the bath. After the bath. The night was a juggernaut of unhappiness.

You guys cried when I tried to color with you. Snacks went well, but when that was over...you guessed it...more crying.

Should I even mention what the changings were like? They were miserable.

You guys saved it at the very end, when I asked if you were ready for night night. You both put your milks down, Abby you buried your head into my neck, and Lily you kept saying "Night night Olly" to the dog as we went upstairs.

I could still have done with less crying.

Day two hundred and eighty eight.

ps. old photos. didn't take any tonight. too much crying.

Town crier #1

Town crier #2

So when do kids change their own clothes?

2009-11-30T21:57:00.001-06:00

Caaandy caaaane!

Monday night is fast becoming Aunt Tracey night.

I coached the yahoos on how to say 'Tracey!' during all 19 blocks of our drive home from daycare. They had progressed to the point where they could both mumble out a passable 'Sooossie', which was nowhere even close to the neighborhood of 'Tracey', but I told them they were trying very hard and that was superb. None of it was worth a lick when I pulled up at the house and they saw Aunt Tracey, for they failed to say a peep. Morons! Naysayers! Conspirators!

Jen felt compelled once again to be a good student and go to class tonight, so once more my sister came by to hang with us. By 'hang with us' I do mean 'bring us dinner and do the dishes and make googly faces at the girls'.

A notable event from the day includes Lily's obstinate refusal to have her clothes changed or altered in any way. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this, but it happened both this morning and tonight. Both times, she fought the changing as if it was her last stand against a grizzly death. Tooth and nail. Thrashing and kicking. It got ugly, especially in the morning. Is this some desperate power grab of hers? Is she exerting herself in an effort to carve out some autonomy in her life, to prove to us that she is in charge of her clothing schedule? Whatever it is, it makes the mechanics of the day an outright tribulation.

I'll shortly be reviewing the day care rules of conduct to find anything dealing with bringing in kids in their jammies; I can't imagine it hasn't been brought up before.

Day two hundred and eighty seven.

See how well Lily is being cared for?

Shh. We've been bugged.

2009-11-29T20:54:00.005-06:00

Lily loves when I jump over her. I think I stole this move from my brother. Photo courtesy of Grandma/Marj and her quick shutter finger.

The kids are listening. More frighteningly, they are absorbing our idiosyncrasies and parroting them back to us. The ramifications of this are epic: what we do and say around the kids now seems to matter. eep!

I'd suspected as much for a while, but it was made clear to me today during a walk at the Stalkers'. I heard Lily say (and I forget the context, I'm sure she was giving something to someone) the word, "Aeeryuuugaaaoo". This word was not new; I'd heard it before. It was a Lilyism of the phrase, "There you go". It's dastardly cute when she lays it out, and today it made me realize something: I always use that phrase, especially around the kids. It's not exactly a verbal crutch or anything (certainly nothing on par with the 'like's and 'goes's of the world), but it just gets used a lot. For example:

Lily (in high chair during the waning moments of dinner): "Aaaaaall done!"
[Lily overturns her plate of pasta onto the waiting beagle below her]
Me: "Okily dokily."
[I hoist her out and plop her on the ground, dusting off the 11 pieces of macaroni desperately clinging to her bottom]
Me: "There-ya-go."

See? It gets said a lot. What is going to keep me up at night is the thought that these three words in tandem are quaintly Minnesotan. "Derr yah goo!" Oh yah... So am I unwittingly yoking my kids to a regional dialect? It's rather off-putting - and grandly intimidating - that I'm now having a direct effect on diction. Nothing does more to highlight my unfortunate influence than to hear my stupid, idiotic predilection for stupid, idiotic phrases repeated right back in my face. I'm eager for the day when they're both running in the park, chasing squirrels and yelling, "Oof daa! Derrr yaaa gooo! Betcha!"

And I'm technically from Ohio, which is all the more baffling.

Thanksgiving, give or take a minor illness of dire gastrointestinal consequences, was nice. Thank you Marj and Neil for having us up; I'm trying to remember a moment during the weekend when I raised a finger to help cook or clean, and none are coming to mind. Very telling indeed. You guys are awesome. Awesome!! (that was from Lily)

Day two hundred and eighty six.

ps. I just got a nameless invite to Google Wave. If that was you...thanks!! No idea who sent it. Santa??

Lily during our walk today. Brr. She refused to be phased by the brr.

What 36 degree day isn't complete without hanging out at the swings?? Again: brr.

Grandpa teaching Abby the finer points of crosswording.

Dear Santa: waaaaaaaaaaaah.

2009-11-28T23:02:00.005-06:00

Found these girls wandering the lakewalk outside Fitgers. Kept 'em.

Today we were pleased and honored to find that the Gels clan passed along whatever illness we had to the Stalker clan (Lino Lakes chapter). Yay for proliferating disease! I'd be more proud if not wracked with guilt about it. Sorry, Jon and Kyla (and Suze, if you've gotten it by now)!

This morning we set off for Duluth proper (I consider Island Lake to be "fake" Duluth) so the Fitgers Brewery Complex could feel the blunt force of our girls. The idea behind this trek was that we could see Santa, who had just flown in for a quick visit. I invite you to take a moment and note how many pictures I've posted of the girls with Santa. Yup. Jen managed to make it to the couch beside Santa while holding Abby. I couldn't even get in the room holding Lily without inflicting some lasting psychological damage. She was right terrified of the jolly old chap.

What does it say about our kids - or even the psychology of kids at large - that we then went to visit 2 live reindeer on display, and they accepted this reality with no hint of apprehension or fear? Fat guy in a red suit with bells and candy? The devil. Large brown ungulates with horns growing out of their skulls? Commonplace. Were they not caged, I imagine we could have simply put the kids on top and called that our Santa picture.

Day two hundred and eighty five.

ps. Sorry to the Lukasewycz's for mispelling Andrew's name yesterday. Andred does have a nice ring, though.

Abby, peeping out from behind her mum.

Given a bit more time, this would have been a better shot. But she was crabby and I had to hurry.

Lily strolling

Yak. Flush. Repeat.

2009-11-27T21:34:00.002-06:00

Abby, that little petri dish, successfully passed her illness from Wendesday on to me. Yesterday I was fine. Went to bed, couldn't sleep. Sharp abdominal pains. Gas. Lots of trips to the bathroom. Then this morning I threw up. A lot.

I can't blame Abby. I did my best to try and make her feel better, so I'm sure there was plenty of chances for some transfer of germs. Kisses are bad like that.

Holidays are great for sharing illnesses.

I can't say much about the day, really, it was a haze for me. The girls were fairly amusing, the little I saw of them. The rest of the family, they're pretty amusing too. Maniacs, all of them.

Even though I took yesterday off, I was going to write a little something and I forgot. I was going to say how un-holiday it felt not having Christy and Steve and Andred and Matthew here. It's hard shaking the feeling that there should be 4 more people adding to the anarchy. So yeah: we all miss them and wish they were here.

Day two hundred and eighty something.

Gobble.

2009-11-26T22:17:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! (I'm taking the day off.)

I'm much, much happier than I look in this shot.

Lilymonster
Abbygator

Day two hundred and eighty three.

Twin Power

2009-11-25T22:03:00.004-06:00

See the burp rag? That's no mistake that it's right below her mouth. Bleeeeccchh!!

Last year Abby caught pneumonia (for the first of two times) on the day before Thanksgiving. Apparently, she's shooting for a repeat. I don't think she's even close, thankfully; sure she spent the morning vomiting and pooping and watching cartoons, but I don't think we're even flirting with the pneumonia stage.

This morning, then, Jen and I had to have one of those rare discussions where our days are pitted against one another in a match of outright importance:

J: "I've got two classes that I absolutely cannot miss or else I'll fail and be hung. What's going on for you at work today?"

D: "I was going to spend 45 minutes trying to throw a little red ball into a milk jug, which is kind of a little game we made up. But it's really competitive!!"

And so my day lost, miserably so. It was Jennifer, then, who drove off to day care and school whilst I stayed behind to care for Abby. This departure was rendered utterly heartbreaking when Lily, dressed and coated and being carried over the threshold, suddenly realized she alone was leaving and her twin was being left behind.

"Abby. Abs. Abby? ABBY??? ABBBBBBBYYYYYYY!!!!!!??!?!" she screamed, she wailed, as she threw her arms out over my shoulders back towards the house. It could have almost been funny if it wasn't totally devastating. Really sad, actually, and touching. According to Jen, it didn't end in the car. She kept repeating, "Abby? Abby, come. Abby come!" And of course, when they got to day care, she ran around looking for her.

It's this stupid crap that makes me love them so much it is painful.

Abby and I had a mostly uneventful day, by and large. She's a world class snuggler when she's sick, so I got to spend lots of time on the couch watching Curious George (who I have now realized reminds me a lot of Lily, actually) with a blonde 19 pound sack on my chest. In the afternoon, after a hashed together packing attempt, we wound up on the road and in Duluth, where the Stalkers have taken us in for the holidays. Hooray Duluth! Hooray Stalkers!

Everyone have a lovely Thanksgiving. Hug a lot. Eat a ton. Be gracious.

Day two hundred and eighty two.

Heading north on I35, the fiery glow of Duluth beckoning us on from afar.

Flex Spending...the working man's $20 bill in the long lost jeans pocket.

2009-11-24T22:24:00.005-06:00

Bill the Cat?

Us denizens of the Gels household are procrastinators of varying degrees (me = horrible, Jen = manageable); thus, our paperwork for flex spending reimbursement normally goes out once a year. Today, I got my check, which was a whopping $4k and change. Now, I realize this is my money in the first place - tax free, which is nice - but I can't shake the feeling that I've just won some sort of prize. Trumping the pathos of this kneejerk mental reaction to getting my own money back is the fact that I'm more than willing to let my brain carry on with the illusion. From here on out, that money is NOT mine, it IS a windfall, and I DIDN'T already blow it all on daycare.

I'm always frustrated that, every time we find ourselves at the pediatrician for the girls regular tune-up (with free wheel rotation), months of cumulative questions that I've squirreled away for our doctor always evaporate in a puff of parental idle-mindedness. I am therefore writing down the question I have come up with over the past couple days: why do our kids crank out poopy diapers like an assembly line when they are suffering from scathingly bad rashes? Is this a cause/effect thing? Either way, linger outside our back door for longer than 40 minutes and you will be privvy to our clockwork delivery of another steaming ball of poo. It's uncanny.

Abby's already been up tonight for a change. She was so cute and patient about it, and totally calm about all the pain I caused her for the wiping. Tough little monkey. Lily, I'm sure we'll get her by midnight.

On another note, Lily has started randomly calling us "Mom" and "Dad". Guess she's growing up?? Should we just go straight to "mother" and "father"? I command respect, Lily! I'm gunning for the Captain von Trapp school of rearing. It will be "Sir" or it's off to bed without your porridge.

Day two hundred and eighty one.

Abby took this. Technically.

Saddest picture of her I've seen in a while.

Lounge time. I like that you can tell she's laughing by the eyes. Also notable is the fact that I'm not amused in the freaking slightest by whatever we're looking at, yet she finds it hilarious. Maybe it was a Jim Carrey movie?

Watching CNN is bad for parenting.

2009-11-23T21:37:00.002-06:00

Kids are a battlefield.

CNN has crackerjack timing. Seeking the refuge of some mindless drivel from the newsies while I cleaned up post-bedtime, I turned to CNN. The girls had been been down for less than 2 minutes. The first words out of the tv:

"...thanks Frank, that was a super human interest piece. Now we've got some breaking news you won't want to miss. You will not want to put your kids to bed before watching this."

Thanks, Ted Turner. As it turned out, it was a story about a crib recall. Apparently some drop-sided cribs can come apart and the tots can become trapped. Their heavily-used graphic for this story was a still shot of a baby-sized rag doll pinned between the crib wall and the mattress, which is going to give me nightmares. It took a monumental effort of will to not run upstairs and peek on the girls and make sure all was well, despite the fact that the recall was not for a crib we have. But still: should they not run this story just a little earlier?

The real question is: if it DID affect us, would I roust the girls, or just assume that they've gone this long, certainly one more night in a recalled crib couldn't hurt? And what would I do with them if I got them up? Make them sleep on the couch? The good people at CNN offered no alternatives; just grim photos of asphyxiating baby dolls.

Tonight was swell. I was flying solo (I never miss an opportunity to mention if I have to be alone; this ensures I get maximum empathy from our readers. Awww...) since Jen had class. Me and the girls came to our usual Monday night agreement: they don't scream at Daddy, and Daddy lets them play with the electrical outlets.

I did find out the interesting way that Lily is now able to clamber up on the dining room chairs with no aid (I assume there was no aid. I didn't help her, and I don't think Abby was down there giving her the two handed boost. But if that did happen, how awesome would that be??). I'd left a pair of scissors right in the middle of the dining room table, went to the kitchen for a minute, and found the brown one sitting complacently, gingerly running her hands all over those shiny blades. Super job, Dave. So the dining room has been lost as a horizontal surface that can be used to hide/place things. We're almost down to just the mantle, and I imagine it won't be long until the girls fashion their own ladders. Then, it's boarding school.

Day two hundred and ninety.

Yup. So, we're starting to introduce this whole topic.

So thoughtful.

Our Rashy Day

2009-11-22T21:10:00.002-06:00

Shellshocked from a changing nightmare.

Upside down Lily cake.

I'm exhausted, and I have to be honest I don't really want to do an entry tonight. I'm still mystified by this cold and sore throat that I can't shake, and it's sapping my energy at every turn.

The girls' rashes look ridiculously terrible. Changing them is a nightmare, complete with shrieking, thrashing, and cursing. I can't blame them: it looks absurdly painful, and the guilt of having to clean them and cause them that pain is like a needle in my heart.

We spent most of the day having a lazy house day, usually naked or pantless, letting them air out as much as possible. During the afternoon, I headed to the Bensons' to do a family photoshoot with those crazy people, which was fun because their kids are hilarious and well behaved - a rare combo.

Tonight, went to my Dad's, celebrated my birthday (a week early), had some pizza and cake (it was good cake, Dad, really), and enjoyed each other's company before the elder Gels flies south for the winter. We'll all miss DaJiPapa this winter...

Day two hundred and eighty nine.

Yeah, she's naked under there.

Does this not just look like lazy Sunday or what?

Boys are different 'n stuff.

2009-11-21T21:35:00.001-06:00

What good parents wouldn't allow their kids the chance to play in the dog's water dish?

Why do I feel like the only person who gets sick like I do? I feel awful for one day, fine the next, then I languish for 12 more days feeling tired, mucky, sore throat, and just deflated. Maybe it's H1N1, despite the fact that I never ran much of a fever and never threw up. Who knows. My physiology is a mystery.

Most of the day with the girls was rather hazy and unremarkable, to be honest. We went on a walk. Lily has a wicked rash; bad enough that I get that tingly-awful sensation in my spine when I see it. Ouchie. This means that dressing and changing her is pretty tortuous and makes us feel terrible about doing it. Not helping is the fact that she's going into crap-factory overdrive lately. She's getting decaf from here on out.

I wonder if it's something viral or yeast maybe, because Abby is now showing some nasty signs of it. Joy! Rashes are a pox on the good experience that is parenting.

Tonight we headed over to the Dockters' house, where they gregariously shared their Sammy's brand frozen pizza (producto de Duluth) with us. Frozen pizza may not sound like a notable event, but this was a pretty decent approximation of the real Sammy's pizza, which is fairly outstanding.

The Dockters have a 4 year old and 2 year old twins, all boys. It was lunacy. Being around little boys is a nice chance to see just how different an experience it is. They are so very boyish, in every way. There's a lot more leaping. And snakes and crocodiles and millipedes and bouncing. I don't think the girls knew how to handle it right away (too many girl cousins), but after a while it sunk in they had a good time. Nico sang us some songs, and Lily danced in front of him. It was her ho-down yokel dance with the right leg stomp. Fun times.

Day two hundred and eighty eight.

This picture makes our sidewalk look so long.

It was a short and slow walk. Olly is seen here, silently pleading with the girls to, "Hurry the $&%(# up!" (in Beaglese, of course)

Lily practicing for her future career in corrections and detention.

The good. The bad. The French.

2009-11-20T22:19:00.004-06:00

Blondie McNaked and Scratchelopodess

My Dad once loaned me a book titled, "How Soccer Explains the World". The conclusions this piece of non-fiction came to were largely on a macro scale and dealt with macro issues: racism, fascism, idealism, patriotism, and a hobnob of other isms. I'm wondering if a sequel titled "How Soccer Explains Parenting" might be a worthy endeavor.

To wit: as the girls are in their nascent stages of learning the ever-confusing line between right and wrong, I'm constantly wondering if I have the proper tools to teach them what "the right thing" is. Thankfully, I now have the prism of Thierry Henry, France, Ireland, Diego Maradona, FIFA, Robbie Keane, the papacy, and the world at large to look through for the perfect analogy of how to properly decipher what to do in any number of sticky situations.

"Girls," I can now ask, as I sit them down to watch the youTube video (see below), "is the dependence on authority a valid reason to set aside your ethics?"

"Meow!" they'll likely respond.

"Suppose, then, you succeeded in circumventing the rules of society and did something you weren't allowed to: would you then blame us, your parents, for dereliction of our duty to catch you in the act?"

"Color!!!"

"Girls, are you going to try to get away with things because you think you can, or because you think I'll catch you anyway? Now be aware: it's a damning question. There is no right answer. Either you tried to do wrong and get away with it, or you were just doing it to test me. Both don't fly."

"..."

True lessons can be learned from this handball and the fallout that is still occurring. Henry admitted blame - deftly claiming, though, that it was unintentional - and capitulated that the Irish have a legitimate claim in requesting a rematch (the winner of this game goes straight to South Africa for the world cup. Heady consequences indeed). Should Henry, right then and there on the pitch, raised his own hand in fault? In every pickup game of soccer, with every person I've played with, I have no doubt that this would happen; in the absence of oversight, people will inherently fall back upon their ethics. Not even ethics, but belief in the game, in the knowledge that allowing a cheap goal will further cheapen the fabric of the sport itself. And these are pickup games, where the ramifications of a goal are about who has to walk to go get the ball.

In a telling quote which highlights exactly the moral quandry that is this goal, Thierry Henry stated that it's up to the refs to catch him in the act. Everything else is fair game. You see where I'm going with this, the lessons I want to teach the girls? And is he vindicated for admitting wrongdoing, but not until after the match? Tough questions.

I didn't used to try and transpose normal everyday life into super life lessons that I can pass on later. But I think I'll bookmark the video.

In more normal blogging news, the girls are good. There is a great deal of talking, and in the next few days I'm going to need to rundown some of their favorite phrases.

Jen was making a buzzing sound tonight, due to seeing a bee in a book. Abby, mouthful of milk and unaware of the consequences of physics, tried to buzz and spewed milk all over herself. Delightful.

Day two hundred and eighty seven.

The good replay starts at 1:00. Also note the fact that the French are totally offsides during this play. Also remember: this is to decide who goes to the world cup. And for a backstory, Ireland totally owned the rest of this match.

Scream therapy.

2009-11-19T21:30:00.002-06:00

Walking a mile in Daddy's shoes.

(5:03pm. Chicago Ave South and 52nd Street. Inside the unassuming blue Forester with an ironic Apple sticker on the rear window, rocketing north towards Powderhorn.)

"...how was your day, girls??"

[nothing]

"Did you guys do anything fun today at day care?"

[belch. slight whine.]

"Do you guys want to sing songs on the way home?"

Lily: "Yah!"

"Okay. 'Iiiiiiiiiiiif you're happy and you know it clap your hands...'" (continued to its logical conclusion)

Both morons: "Yaaay! More more more more more more more more"

"Sure! How about this: 'I'm all made of hinges and everything bends, from the top of my head way down to my ends....'"

Lily: "No! No no no! Nooooo!"

"What?"

Lily: "More"

"Oooookay. 'Sarasponda sarasponda sarasponda ret set set...'"

Lily (and Abby chiming in now): "Noooooooo!"

[I'm thinking]

Both: "more more more more more more"

"'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands??'"

[Both laugh. I finish the song.]

"More more more more!"

"Sure." (I know better, but try this anyway) "'There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo..'"

"Nooooo no no no no!"

I went back to "If you're happy" for about 18 more refrains. Sick of 'clap your hands', it soon became:

If you're happy and you know it...snap your fingers
...hit your head
...stamp your feet
...yell 'Hello'
...scream at the guy driving slow in front of us (you think I'm joking; oh no, we sang it)
...slap the dashboard
...say 'Hi Daddy'
...swerve the car (that was fun, actually)
...swear at cabs

Okay, this makes me sound like a bad/dangerous/angry driver, but it was all in fun. Except maybe for the cabs thing, as I truly hold those guys in some serious contempt.

Later on during the commute, I'm not sure how the ball got rolling, but we all got in a shouting contest. Not the bad kind; a fun one, where we all took turns yelling. It was hilarious. Lily would scream her head off, Abby would yell at the top of her tiny little lungs, and I would follow suit. All of us, really pretty loud actually. I told them it was cathartic. I think they liked it...they did clap their hands, so that meant they were happy and they knew it.

Day two hundred and eighty six.

Shorty.