365 Days of Twins: Tales of the Cantankerous Kid and the Human Mood Ring

Jen told me something tonight after she got home.

"You know," she offered sagely, "a day featuring the best moments with the kids can be easily tainted when the day also includes some of the worst moments with the kids."

There was a good reason she was proffering this apt platitude. ("apt platitude" has a nice ring to it. Mmmm...I love words.) My youngest (by 11 minutes) and largest (by 29 pounds) kid, Lily Ellen, spent the evening brazenly daring me to lose my temper. My hands and hair are sore from running the former through the latter. It was a long evening, and I'm grateful to Jen's CBE group (in case any of them read this) that they are efficient folk and sent my wife home earlier than I'd expected her.

This trial of a day started when I picked her up. Usually, she runs right into my proudly waiting arms. Today...straight away from me. When I finally got her in a good spot, I bent down to pick her up and she went boneless (credit to Mo Willems for that altogether genius phrase). She flopped to the floor, writhing, making a scene, apparently unwilling to leave day care. When I finally got her scooped into my grasp, *smack* went her deliberate hand right into my face. Sigh. (As a positive, I love that I can give her a look after she hits me and she knows (I think she knows??) that what she just did was wrong. If I do the look well enough, it is enough to set her to bawling, which is hilarious and wrong and yet also hilarious.)

When we pulled up to the house, she (very cutely) said "More?" and did the proper sign. I didn't know what she was talking about. Apparently, she wanted more car ride, because when I pulled her out she flailed right out of my arms and onto the boulevard.

Grandpa Neil was at the house for just a bit when we got home. She wouldn't even say hi to him.

I'll sum up the night, rather than recapitulate the entire thing, minute detail by minute detail. She was just set to go off at every turn. I accidentally grabbed something she was playing with at one point, and she pretty much headbutted me and screeched at a decibel level I heretofore thought impossible from any mortal person. This was followed by a 5 minute session of screeching and writhing.

This was repeated often.

But you know, I think Jen might have gotten it wrong after all. For I'm already finding the bad things slipping from my memory, slightly faded and playing hard to get in my synapses. My memory of the night is like panning for gold...the bad stuff is getting silted through, and I can now only clearly remember the gold.

During dinner, Abby delicately reached over and gave Lily a piece of her ham. Lily took it and uber-clearly said, "Thank you."

I had them both rolling with laughter when I brought out their favorite hand-puppet, Jacques the French Canadian Moose.

Right before bedtime, Lily leaned in to give me a kiss, and instead she put her nose in my mouth. Rather than pull back, she opted to breath out really firmly, unmistakably depositing a few loogies in my mouth.

I started laughing like Ernie from Sesame Street during dinner, and Lily followed suit for almost 5 minutes with no prompting. At the end, it was almost like she was possessed, but possessed hilariously.

I've been counting to ten a lot with both kids, and I think they both almost get it. Since the numbers actually elude them, they just list off nonsensical words but with the exact same intonation I use to count (raised at the end, like a question):

Me: "Wuu-UN. Tooo-OOH. Three-EE." etc.
Them: "Geee-OORP. Blooo-UURD. Skkeee-IEW."

I turned the hose on the kids in the yard, and they are both morons for water. Zombies. They just walk right into the stream like lemmings to a precipice.

So, yeah, what was I saying, who was crabby? Did I say that? It's slipped my mind.

Day two hundred and seventeen.

ps. I've OD'd on kid pictures again. Here are some castoffs from my Poho365 shoots, all of them from the park. They're fun to include here, I think, so the girls can get a glimpse of our surroundings when they were still wee girls.

pps. This is last minute, and I'm too tired to include in the main body, but I should explain the title. I've taken to calling Abby the Human Mood Ring because she is extraordinarily sensitive to Lily (and other people's) moods. If Lily starts losing it, there is almost 100% chance that Abby will join in within a few seconds. It's kinda cute, but infuriating because it's like an avalanche of crabby that feeds off itself. Conversely, I've seen Abby laugh when Lily laughed, even though she has no idea why she is laughing. She's just very in tune with other people's moods. It's cute. She has a lot of empathy, I think.