Coney Island, Cincinnati. Not the New York one.

Lily's first ride was also today. It lasted 2 revolutions before they had to shut it down. We tried.

My cousin Emily's daughter Hannah making some kissyface with Abby. The Cincinnati kids are all fantastic at hanging with our little monkeys.

A little taste of how it's going tonight. Her shirt, if you're curious, says "Some birdy loves me". And there's a picture of a bird. So it's a play on words. Delightful.

I'm far, far too exhausted to attempt even the weakest stab at writing creatively; I'm not going to try and make this interesting.

We got a little dose of Gels history today. We went to Coney Island, a little amusement park complex thingymajob on the other side of town. Part of the complex is River Downs, a horse track where my Dad first met my Mom when they were both working there. We played a fair bit of skee ball at the same midway where they used to play, apparently quite competitively. I couldn't help but think of them when I saw two park employees talking and flirting with one another, and I wondered if I was watching the history of some future family to-be.

Despite the rainy day (all day, pretty much) we had a nice time at the water park, which was pretty cool, and Lily went for her first swim. It's criminal that we haven't taken her yet and she's already 16 months. Bad parents.

For dinner we settled on Skyline, and I was happy to finally get my fix. Then we found out that they're closed for the 4th. Drat. Some other time.

And now we're tuckered completely because of the long day and Abby's insistence on staying up until 10:30. So, it's off to bed for us.

Day whatever.

We're in Ohio! Hoo-ray for road trippin'!

Some scenes from Rockford, IL. The girls had their first night in a hotel...

Same crap, different scenery.

Cleaning staff adore us. They had this process down: Lily would whip the kleenex from the dispenser onto the floor, where Abby would descend on it until it lay in shreds. Repeat. Tonight, in Cincinnati, Jen took the kleenex box out of the hole before the girls ever even set foot in the room. Clever Mommy.

Lest you doubt my dedication to this dastardly blog of mine, this is being typed while kneeling on a hotel bed, in near darkness, muffling my clickity typing while the girls slumber just a few feet away. I'm always surprised that Jen and I can essentially perform sign language to each other when the purpose is to not roust the girls. She mouthes something to me and I know instantly what she's saying. Uncanny.

Lots of people doubted our ability to do this drive. Doubters. Yesterday we drove Minneapolis to Rockford with a small stop in St. Paul to deposit our slobbery beagle into Tobler's gracious home. It was about a 6 hour trip, and it went more or less like clockwork. It might make Andy, my boss, happy to know that we only barely used the DVD player, although the mere fact that we brought one at all seems to have damaged his view of me irreperably.



The second day (today) was (don't go back to) Rockford all the way to Cincinnati, another 6 hours. We aced the day, totally. It was actually a fun drive, the girls were very well mannered, Jen and I played the alphabet game and 20 questions to pass the time AND finished a crossword, so I feel good.




The evening we spent at my Uncle Jerry (my dad's brother) and Aunt Betty's place in Harrison (I think that's officially where we are? Probably?), and got to catch up with most of my Ohioan cousins and peeps. It's good to see the Gels clan again, as we are light hearted folk with a knack for the conversationing.



It's getting later, and I am truly exhausted from this process. Sure it went well, but that doesn't make it any less tiring. Off to bed, tomorrow we shall investigate Cincinnati and all its secrets...



Day one hundred and thirty seven.

Today's blog has been brought to you by the city Cincinnati and the number 2

Cincinnati, so you have a mental picture of where the girls (and us) are for the next few days.

We will be leaving soon after Dave gets home from work today. The car is almost completely packed, just some odds and ends left to do. But those odds and ends have a tendency to take longer than one thinks, so this blog post is going to be quite short.

For those of you with children...do any of you know of any tips for speeding up the process of packing for small children? I keep thinking that I will get faster at it, I even write out lists to help me, and yet it always takes forever. I don't understand. They are small, their stuff is small...why does it take so long to gather it all up and throw it in the car? Hmmm, it's a mystery.

Day one hundred thirty seven...I think. Maybe one hundred and thirty eight? Whatever...it's half-way through 2009.

(sorry about no pictures...I only have a couple minutes left to finish packing before the stinkers wake from their nap).

So...sleepy...

I found this on the camera, it must be from Jen during the day. There's an equally good photo of her in the same exact position only smiling. This one was too good, though. I like that look. She's a little teenager in the making.

It's way late. I worked, came home, hung with the kids, packed, packed, worked, and now it's late.

Jen reported that the girls kissed for the first time today. Lily leaned in to Abby, who promptly closed the gap and they locked lips. Lest you think it was a fluke, they went on to do it 2 more times.

Until lately, it's just like we've had one baby x's two. Two separate kids. More and more, they're morphing into actual siblings before our very (weary) eyes.

Day one hundred and thirty six.

Also from today, Jen says Lily tried to unlock the front door by sticking keys in that brown spot below the doorknob. It's so cute when they try to escape.

We all put that pair of underwear on our heads.

Oh, yeah. This kinda crap is going to land me in jail. Don't try it at home...this was a very controlled moment, I promise.

Skyway Chili, here I come.

Abby loves balls. Squishy ones are her favorite. She's especially good at "catching" them when they roll to her, and surprisingly she is pretty reliable at rolling it back.

Kids were super tonight. We went to target, which is pretty much Disneyland on 66th Street for them. We like to get seperate carts, and I face them towards each other and bang them together. I start softly, but it usually escalates to the point where the carts are smashing into one another quite smartly, which sends them into fits of laughter. Ah the happiness.

The Happiness lasted for a while, until Lily decided she'd had enough of the cart life. Out she went. While Jen considered car seats for a while, Lily literally (Lily literally...nice ring to that) ran some grooves into the aisles of Target. She is a machine, she would not stop running. Oh yes, that's not true, she would stop to stare at strangers and approach them in a friendly manner.

Fun stuff. The trip to Target was necessary to provision ourselves for our voyage to Cincinnati this weekend. In the car. For 12 hours. Each way. The entire Minnesota Gelsians are headed back to their Ohioan roots to visit the cousins/uncles/aunts/etc. The girls' first real long road trip. We're looking forward to it and fearing it at the same time.

If you have any tips on keeping 2 kids happy for 12 hours, please, for the love of god, please please email me or call me any time, day or night.

Day one hundred and thirty five.

More time with that ball.

Lilillililillilipaaaaaaants.

Bonzai!

Nilla wafer titles gets me lots of google hits, which is sad.

Some more from Harriet on Sunday. Abby and I are dancing our arrhythmic dance.

So, way back a few months ago I installed a little thingity thing in the blog that lets me track my page stats via StatCounter. Thanks to Amy Wurdock getting me hooked on that. One of the things it lets me do is see the IP address, city and country of anyone who visits, as well as what link they used to click to my site. This last part is important, so remember it if you can.

Let's say you are someone who wants to find the blog, so you do a google search of 365daysoftwins, get the link, and you're there. This thing lets me see that that's how you made it here. Nifty, right? If not a bit of an invasion of privacy? Yeah. Well, I'm always interested in some of the google searches that people have used to find my site. One recent hit stood out quite clearly. It was from outside the US, where a person did a google search for "nilla wafers nude girl". Amazing, isn't it, that this search string will lead you right to my humble bloggity blog? I'm touched. And frightened. Nilla wafer related porn is apparently a niche industry.

Tonight, Jen clipped Lily's toenails. This is torture for her; either her toenails are the most sensitive part of her body, or she just doesn't like her feet touched. Afterward (this is the cute part, so look alive) she grabbed the clippers from Jen, toddled over, dropped to my feet, and started poking my toes with them. Aww. She's learning grooming, just like a monkey.

In the Abby corner, she crawled from the porch to the fireplace, a distance of 30 feet, in about 60 seconds. For her, that's barber pole. (only aviation nerds will get that one)

Sorry there isn't more today, it's gotten late on me.

Day one hundred and thirty four.

I like perspectives where your kids look like giants. Giant morons.

We got a nice shady spot under a tree.

Hangin' tough.

It's okay to admit it: you've played "Billy Jean" in the past 24 hours, haven't you?

Strawbby.

I'm not going to even attempt to assemble this post into something even pretending to be a coherent and fluid narrative.

I'll start with some commentary on the Jackson coverage...

After about 32 minutes of tv watching over the past few days, I now know the following irrefutable facts about Michael Jackson:

- Michael is legally credited with inventing every dance move since 1879.
- Michael AND HIS MONKEY (!) both scored a perfect 1600 on their SATs.
- Technically, every memory you have of the '80's earns MJ $1.29 in royalties. And a free bottle of pepsi.
- Every musician alive would be playing "Little Brown Jug" on a recorder right now if Michael had not existed to create music as we know it.
- The "moonwalk" was so named because Michael came up with it while inventing NASA.
- Joy has ceased to be. Bury your heads in the sand, America, and wait for the next person to come along and validate your existence with sequined, uni-gloved, crotch grabbing showmanship.

...such is the comically bloated weight of importance placed on his body of work. I certainly do not intend to make light of the man's death, but the extent of idolizing by every outlet of the news media is astounding. I'm cynical. I skew moderately afield from the mainstream as far as music goes; maybe that has a part to play in my contempt for the attention given to The Smooth Criminal.

"How," you're no doubt asking, "has this got anything to do with raising twins?"

Oh. Oh, plenty. Because we, as parents, are tasked with the heady task of teaching our kids about pop culture as we know it. What are we to say when the subject of "who's bad?" comes up? Do I explain the Jackson phenomenon through my own slanted prism, or do I tell the girls what the media would have us think: that Michael was all things to all people? I think I'm making parenting too hard. If they ask, maybe we'll just sit down and have a Pixies Appreciation Night or some such festivity.

Okay, I'm losing readers, I can feel it. On to the next point.

Today, we were doing "Sooooooo big!" in the high chairs, and Jenny mixed it up a bit and said, "Who's so big? Who's soooo big?" and Lily called out for all to hear, "Daddy!" Smart ass.

Next...

Lily loves strangers. I had suspected this much earlier, but it struck me as being quite true today. We headed to the Harriet bandshell for a pick-a-nick lunch, and before long a jazzy-type band started up some tunes. As such, some folks were in attendance. When we'd finished lunch and left Lily to her own devices (such fiendish devices that are in her employ), she went from person to person, stranger to stranger, and stood in front of them, and stared. And stared and stared. For even the friendliest of stranger, this starts to get decidedly awkward. They wave, say hi, try to engage her in conversation ("Shame about Michael, huh little girl?..."), then the excitement kinda peters out, yet Lily continues to stare. It's hard to pull her away, though, because she's always smiling and kinda flirty with it, so it's fun. Otherwise, she's the consummate overextended houseguest.

It was the perfect day to be outside. We decided early on that it would have been a crime to be indoors...it was warm but not hot, dry but not too dry, windy to keep the bugs away, and spotty cumulus glided by all day to blot us with some timely shade. First rate day, no doubt.

Acht, I know there's other stuff I wanted to mention, but it's getting on and my brain is packing up for the night. I used up all my material on the Michael Jackson bit. What a waste.

Day one hundred and thirty three.

During a brief respite while meeting with her constituency.

It makes you hungry, no? Give in. Go get yourself some teddy grahams.

Abby was babbling something here, and while I look interested, it's a facade; I had no clue what she was talking about.