double the laughter and twice the confusion

fall fun with the fam

2011-11-11T21:38:00.010-06:00

We recently had visitors from the north: Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mark, and his girlfriend Teresa came to visit. We had a lot of fun going to a pumpkin patch, a couple of fall festivals, a local zoo, and otherwise just having fun at home.

Lily was less-than-enthused about posing with pumpkins....

...but everybody had fun feeding the animals.

Riding the "train"...

Uncle Mark makes a fabulous horsie:

We went to a Halloween festival at Fort Hood...

On the morning of Halloween, Grandma and I took the twins to the Austin Children's Museum. Their favorite part? The stairs, of course...

We painted some miniature pumpkins that Gemma bought for us. I thought the kids would be too little to really get much out of it, but they had an absolute blast, and did a lot better than I expected!

Lily was not impressed with pumpkin guts.

Noah thought it was great fun though.

Meet Emily's new puppy, Knox. Enjoy the cutness now. In a year and a half he will weigh 200 lbs.

All decked out for Halloween:

gettin' busy livin'

2011-09-27T21:23:00.002-05:00

So to anyone who has even a moderate interest in reading this blog (this is you, Grandma and Gemma), I'm sorry. I have been quite remiss in keeping up with our exploits over the past few months. The task of summing up even a week or two is pretty overwhelming sometimes, so I let it slide. And the farther behind I got, the more insurmountable the job seemed to get...

...so I'm not going to surmount it, I decided. :) This decision was made easier by the fact that our computer died a dramatic, smoky death this afternoon, so I currently do not have a way to upload the many pictures I am lacking. So there's my excuse, and my motivation: I have to provide a quick recap of our summer before we get a new computer that I can add pictures to!

Okay, here goes:

Our summer was good, but HOT. I stopped keeping track of how many days reached over 100--it was just too depressing. Luckily, two-year-olds are pretty entertained by pretty much anything, since we spent most of the summer hiding from the sun. Crayons, markers, play-doh, and Diego have been our constant companions.

Potty training is going great! Lily has had about 3 accidents since mid-June. Noah is less reliable, but does a pretty good job staying dry and he is F-I-N-A-L-L-Y starting to poo in the potty! Sometimes growing up is hard to do.

The kids are still learning so much, it's unbelievable. They know all their letters, upper- and lowercase, and they know most of the letter sounds. (Thank you, Starfall and Leapfrog!) They can both count to ten in English and Spanish, and Noah recognizes numbers to ten. They love to "read" books--they remember quite a bit!

Lily and Noah are talking SO much these days! Lily's sentences are getting more and more perfect and detailed, and she's making new connections all the time. Today we saw rainclouds, and I explained that it had rained a little, and how much we need the rain. She looked up in the middle of the Walmart parking lot and said, "We need rain, please, God!" I don't know how much she understands about prayer and God and our needs, but it's apparently more than I had given her credit for!

Noah is quite the control freak lately. It makes me very tired, although I know it's completely normal. There are very well-defined limits throughout our days; there are specific things that I'm allowed to do, and many other things that Noah HAS to do for himself. As a result, he's able to do things like get himself completely dressed with almost no help from me. (I'm allowed to put on his shoes if he tries and fails.)

The kids are loving day care, which we call "school". They are always asking if we "Go skoo' 'mowwow?" We have lots of discussions about the days of the week and what we're doing on which days.

Things have been pretty crazy here over the past month or so. On September 4, a huge fire started, which destroyed over 1500 homes and something like 34,000 acres of land. Nobody is sure what the community will look like from now on, but the response from the state and the rest of the country has been pretty amazing. It's been pretty cool to see how God has provided in so many ways, even amid such a tragedy.

home sweet (plastic) home

2011-06-25T14:16:00.003-05:00

So we have moved, and we are semi-settled. Meaning that the kitchen is unpacked, I know how to get to Walmart without a map, and we can't step into our third bedroom because it's still so full of boxes.

For most intents and purposes, life as I have known it for months and/or years has come to a screeching, abrupt halt. Kind of a combination of the end of a busy school year, finally being done with renovations/cleaning/packing/moving, and relocating to a place where we live 5 miles from the nearest (small) town. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is taking some getting used to. There's only so long I can play with play-doh and watch the same Dora DVD before my brain starts to fry. I go through this to some degree every summer as I adjust to being off. And really, I am thrilled to have a couple of months to spend uninterrupted time with my ever-changing hoodlums. They still change so fast it's ridiculous, and they say and do things every day that make Scott and I laugh and shake our heads in amusement. Noah has made himself the "hat police"--he becomes extremely concerned if Scott seems to be heading off to work without his hat. Lily is currently convinced that every animal we see is either a baby who wants its mommy, or a mommy who wants her baby. Every animal. Squirrels, birds, ducks, whatever. And then we have to have a lengthy discussion about it. Every animal. Every time.

For those who are curious, here's a picture of our new digs:

It's not exciting, but it definitely works. It's been very interesting to me, moving into a manufactured house--I've never lived in one before. Some things seem just as sturdy as a "regular" house, and some things just don't. But it's in really good shape, and just a tiny bit smaller than our old house. It shares several acres with a few other small houses, owned by a sweet Vietnamese lady (and her dog, named Charlie--haven't quite figured that one out yet).

Small-town life is going to take some getting used to, although in a good way. People are ridiculously friendly, to the point that I just want to stare at them. Yesterday we took some cookies to our landowner (she gave us a squash last week), and we ended up being pretty much forced inside her house. She fed us fruit and grape juice on her couch while she sat on the floor, and insisted that the kids each take home a large stuffed animal (she had several--not sure why). Today I took the kids to the park and we were instantly adopted by an older couple who were there with their grandson. They helped my kids around on the equipment, told me their names and address, and said that if I ever come by, to go straight around to the back door--they can't hear it when people knock in the front.

See? Ridiculous! I could get used to it though. As long as the small-town drama doesn't turn out to be too bad.

So... so far so good in the land of Bastrop. Tomorrow's adventure: church!

like it never even happened

2011-06-18T14:22:00.002-05:00

In case there were any doubts, let me clarify: I don't like moving.

I mean I really, really don't like it.

I don't like making decisions in general. It feels like way too much power. (Doesn't somebody else know better than me how many kids I should have? Seriously.) And moving is kind of a biggie, especially when it's voluntary.

And then there's the preparation. Deciding when to make it "official". Getting your house ready to sell. Getting it even MORE ready to sell. Cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning some more. Keeping it spotlessly clean for showings, on top of everything else that already kept me busy till late in the evenings. Accepting the reality that you only have a few weeks left in your house, and all that must be done in that time. Finding a new house. Moving into that one. Cleaning it. Cleaning the old one! Driving back and forth. Saying goodbye to each facet of our old life, piece by piece by piece.

It is hard, and busy, and just sad. And, I realized today, it feels kind of insulting. To move out and clean out every piece of our life, as if it was never here. To look at our house now, nobody lives here. No dogs ever ran in and out with muddy feet and shed profusely all over. No babies crawled to the wall and left handprints as they pulled themselves up. Nobody accomplished anything, made anything, or did anything. Nobody talked or fought or loved. Nothing happened.

A house is just a house, I guess. It's just a place. But it's a very personal place. (Sort of like underwear.) The things we did here left messes and scuffs and stains. And to have to scrub my family out of the floors and wipe us off the walls so completely feels a little unjust, I think. I know it has to happen, and I wouldn't want to move into anybody else's dirty house, of course. Selling a house just turns an extremely personal place into a commodity, and it just feels wrong all the way around it.

And in two days it won't be ours anymore. A new family will come and make their own scuffs and marks as they live and love here. And it will be their home just as much as it was ours. And that's okay.

It just makes me sad.

a little birthday bashing goes a long way

2011-06-14T22:31:00.001-05:00

Okay, I've given up. The twins turned 2 almost a MONTH ago, and we had their birthday party two weeks before that. And I STILL have not documented it here. Of course, selling a house, finishing out a very busy school year, and moving into a new house don't leave a lot of time for extra things. So my perfect birthday post is just not going to happen. Instead, you get the smattering of pictures that I managed to upload a few weeks ago, before my lack of free time truly spiraled out of control. I think I can get the basic idea across, although there was so much more that happened...

Noah checking out his birthday cake, mid-creation. He was very handsy.

Noah's train, and Lily's butterfly cake.

Despite hours of practicing for the big moment with bubble wands, Lily could not be convinced to blow out her candles with an audience.

Noah could! His aim was worse, though, on account of his grabby arms having to be held down.

For those interested, red food coloring comes out with Oxi clean pre-wash spray!

Family birthday portrait. This is when we figured out that Lily could smile on command.

Lily with her Gemma and her stash of presents, birthday bashers in the background.

And Grandad, about half an hour post-party:

who's in charge here, anyway?

2011-05-30T19:37:00.005-05:00

I just realized that I made it the entire month of May without making a single post. AND IT WAS THE KIDS' BIRTHDAY! Sigh. I have pictures and stuff, I promise. Balloons and cake and the whole lot. I'll get to it someday.

But right now my motive is different: Just wanted to get something funny down on virtual paper before I forget about it.

Lest we all forget, potty training is still in full swing around here. The kids are slowly getting better--they usually only have about one potty accident a day. Noah has yet to decide that pooping should occur outside his pull-up, and Lily sometimes gets creative on where she puts her #2's. (Today's location: the back porch step.)

Anyway, along that vein, Scott decided in his random, spur-of-the-moment humor kind of way, to tease the kids by pretending to poop in the stroller. Lily became quite upset, squealing, "No, Daddy!" in an anguished voice as she pointed in the general direction of the bathroom.

Noah took a more hands-on approach, inspecting Daddy's pants for poo-poo.

Not finding any, he ran to the bathroom and removed the kiddie seat, then yelled, "Daddy! Poo-poo potty!" to get him to come and use the appropriate outlet.

All in all, hysterical. What did we ever do without kids?

bubble-icky

2011-04-30T12:35:00.003-05:00

I believe we have sufficiently answered the question: "Why did it take them so long to invent colored bubbles?

April is for backtracking

2011-04-26T22:21:00.005-05:00

I was organizing some pictures tonight, and realized I hadn't posted any pictures to the blog in quite a while... oops. Wouldn't everybody rather read my semi-morose ramblings than look at pictures of cute kiddos? Obviously.

But in case you're bored, here are some pictures as well:

We got to see Gemma and Granddad for a little while a couple weeks ago, down in Bastrop. There's a park there, with a lively (and cracker-loving) waterfowl population.

On the way home, we found an awesome bluebonnet field, where we got the picture at the top of the blog (obviously). We were lucky to get just one picture--the kids weren't really enthused about photography. We got a couple good shots, and then had to convince them there was a bunny hiding in the flowers to make them look interested.

Grandma sent the kids a box full of Easter-y goodies. Including an outfit with matching hat (guess which part was Lily's favorite), and some punch balloons. The balloons were an instant hit:

My college roommate Laura and her family came to visit from Illinois. They didn't come to visit me, necessarily, but since they were only an hour away visiting Laura's sister Shawna and her new baby Trey, we spent some time with them. We went to a community easter egg hunt, which was fun--if a bit hot and humid. I was careful not to point out that there was candy in the eggs until the hunt was over--otherwise I'm sure they would have stopped after the first egg!

toddlerisms

2011-04-19T21:15:00.003-05:00

Okay, I gotta write down some things before I forget them:

-----------

We have a couple of "boo-boo bunnies" --cloth ice cube holders for putting on ouchies. Back in my naive, early-mom days, I thought that we'd be using them all the time by now, but I was wrong. Ever tried to get a toddler to hold an ice pack to a boo-boo? It doesn't happen. They want to hold it and play with it, and leave it somewhere for the dog to chew its ears off. But we're getting there, so when Noah fell the other day and hit his ear hard enough against the railing of the porch that it began to swell, I got out the bunny.

Noah wasn't all too interested in holding it to his ear, as usual. But Lily was fiercely jealous, and started demanding, "Boo-boo baa-ey! Boo-boo baa-ey!" I told her she could have the bunny sometime later, when she got a boo-boo.

Hearing this, Lily sprang up from the porch step, ran over to the railing, and bashed her head (gently, but with gusto) against the wood. The look on her face as she braced for impact is something I hope I remember forever. She was none too pleased when I still denied her the bunny, even after such self-sacrifice!

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Both kids want to be just like us, and that is especially true of Daddy. Since he has been exercising a lot at home lately, they have seen him do a lot of workouts at home. Watching Noah try and jump over a jumprope is completely hysterical--not only can he not jump, but he can't begin to swing the rope. He just sort of spasms, and giggles about it. Lily is more interested in lying on the exercise mat and doing "crunches". Or something. She makes a big show about sitting down, and then lifts her legs in the air over and over. Sometimes she gets up and sits back down again to start over, for good measure.

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Lily has been very interested in identifying emotions these days, particularly "happy" and "sad". Recently Noah's Elmo cup has had to go to time out during dinner, since he keeps sticking his fork into the straw. One of these times, I pointed to Elmo on the cup and said, "Look--you made Elmo sad, because he's in time out." Both kids stared doubtfully at the obvious grin on Elmo's face, and Lily protested, "Ehmo 'appy!"

"No, no," I said. "Elmo is said, because he's in time out."

She looked at me, then at Elmo. Then she blew a kiss toward the cup and said, "Ehmo 'appy!"

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At bedtime, Noah and Lily wear pull-ups. Noah's have two varieties based on the movie Cars--one just has Lightning McQueen, and one has both McQueen and 'Mater the tow truck. Owing, I suppose, to his love of trucks, he refuses to wear the ones that only have a car on them. Since we have about 30 of them, I keep trying to trick him into wearing them by just having him put a pair on without pointing out the picture. He is ever-vigilant though, and always checks for the requisite truck. If there is only a car, he says "Uh-oh!" very importantly, like he's discovered some huge oversight. Then he runs to the drawer of pull-ups and rummages around until he finds the kind he wants. "There!" he says, very satisfied with himself for having corrected such a terrible error.

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Tonight we played outside after dinner until bath time. Lily wet her pants just before we came inside, so we took them off when we came in. I then announced that it was time to take a bath, and Lily went running off in the direction of the bathroom with more than the usual excitement.

A minute later, as I was trying to herd Noah toward the tub as well, I heard anguished cries coming from down the hall. I went to the bathroom, which was dark, and flipped on the light. The ensuing sight was a bit of a shock--Lily had bent herself headfirst into the tub and gotten stuck. Her feet dangled barely off the floor, with her bare bottom (etc.) in prominent view. I had to leave her there long enough to run and grab the camera, even though I obviously can't share the picture outside the immediate family! She's going to hate me for that one in a few years...

at the jumping-off place

2011-04-16T23:21:00.006-05:00

Well, it's official. We are moving to Bastrop.

It sounds sudden when I put it like that, but it's been in the works at some level for a long time. When Scott and I first got married, we planned and daydreamed where we might settle down someday, and Bastrop was on our short list. It's half an hour outside of Austin, in the middle of a randomly beautiful piece of Texas covered with hills and pine trees. It's decently close to Scott's parents, and it's close enough to Austin that Scott can attend trainings and possibly move into a different position in DPS without relocating the family.

So it's been in the plans for a while. Choosing the timing has been a bit tricky, but the plain truth is that we're outgrowing our house. We're going to have to upsize before too long anyway.

And there it is. I can tell you the reasons why. I can spell them out logically, and it all makes sense.

And in the grander scheme of things, I'm happy and excited. But in the day-to-day steps of making it all happen, our lofty goals are foggy and unclear in my view. The future is out there, but I don't know what it looks like. Much more real are the steps of extricating myself from the life we've built here. Getting our house ready to sell. Looking for a new job. Pulling those lofty reasons back out of the fog to show them to our friends and explain why we're leaving, over and over and over again. It makes me tired and it feels strange. Sometimes, like right now I find myself waiting to wake up from this weird dream. (Denial beats keeping my house squeaky-clean for showings, anyway.)

Ah, I probably sound depressed. I'm not. This move is something we've worked for, prayed about, and looked forward to for a long time. But "someday" and "today" are two very different things, and I'm not always the greatest with change. (Last night I realized that one of the "newer" t-shirts in my pajama rotation is 12 years old.) And beyond just change, uncertainty is pretty much terrible. I like being able to think a couple months ahead and know approximately what the horizon will look like. Once time passes and a few more things get figured out, I'll be able to rest a bit easier. Until then, I just need to have a little patience and a little faith.

on the twelfth day of potty training...

2011-03-21T20:39:00.004-05:00

So... potty training. For anyone interested in our progress, here is a rundown of things so far:

I can sing any and all lyrics to songs from "Elmo's Potty Time". Some of the songs about perseverence, I'm convinced, were written to parents rather than two-year-olds.
We have gone through two containers of Clorox wipes, a roll and a half of toilet paper, daily loads of laundry, and 38, 424 toilet flushes. I'm a bit scared to see our water bill this month.
Teaching your toddlers to "stand on their heads" (with feet still on the ground) is VERY helpful when wiping little bottoms.
From its association with dozens of accidents, I now have PTSD from the word "Uh-oh!" Full-on flashbacks, hypervigilance, irritability, and bad dreams.

In short, potty training hasn't gone exactly as I had planned. (Me and my nice, planned, perfect world--why won't real life cooperate?) To be fair, Lily has done pretty well. A few days ago she had an accident-free day, and today she had only one accident. But then, she loves praise and encouragement (and candy), and hates to do things wrong or get into trouble.

Noah, on the other hand, has decided that right NOW would be a great time to start the terrible twos in full force. Tell him to do something--ANYthing--and he won't. Won't, won't, WON'T!! And he'll have a grand time just staring at you, willing you to make him do it. Applied to peeing in the potty, this translates to... well, accidents. Or purpose-ents, or something. Because the kid KNOWS what it feels like when he has to go, and he just refuses. And you can lead a kid to the potty (and hold him down), but you just can't make him pee.

Anyway, that's enough potty talk for now. I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve and if those don't work... well, I don't know many adults who wear diapers. He'll probably learn eventually. Until then, I'm going to be severely jealous of any parent I see with kids in diapers.

The visit with my parents was fun--true to form, I didn't take very many pictures. At least events this week weren't exactly photogenic anyway.

Grandpa loves grapefruit. The kids were fascinated, until they tried some...

A much bigger hit were the purple-icing-coated cupcakes that my mom brought home one day. They were decorated with Dora the Explorer, and since that particular cartoon creation is the subject of Lily's current frenzied obsession, she thought they would make a nice celebratory dessert. They were also extraordinarily messy.

It would have been nice if they could have pooped purple or something exciting like that, but I was again disappointed.

all aboard the potty train

2011-03-13T14:36:00.006-05:00

Well, we've taken the plunge. "Diaper" is now a dirty word around the Hewitt house.

With spring break on the horizon and my mom coming to stay for a week and a half, we decided it was time to tackle the dreaded "P" word and get potty training over with, once and for all. I had planned this for months--I did lots of reading, bought training pants, and got plenty of pull-ups ready for naptime and bedtime. When I told people our plans, the response was almost universally skeptical, but I persisted.

"What if they're not ready?" people would say.

"But they ARE ready," I would say.

"What if they don't want to do it?" they would ask.

"They WILL do it," I would answer.

"Both of them at the same time?" they would question.

"Of course! They'll learn from each other," I would reason.

"Are you sure they're old enough?" they would say.

"SURE, they're old enough. We're going to do this!" I would assure them.

After all, they're almost two years old, I told myself. My mom potty trained me and my siblings by the time we were two. LOTS of kids are trained at this age. And we are all completely sick and tired of diaper rash. So what if there are two of them? It may be twice as messy, but we'll figure it out. They know how to say "tee-tee", "poo-poo" and "yay!" --what else do you need to know? We're set!

My mountain of confidence lasted about two hours into the first potty training day. After several glasses of juice, a dozen accidents, and the worst meltdown I'd seen from Noah in a long time, I was ready to throw in the pee-soaked towel and admit defeat. My careful plans and charts I'd made were abandoned. Noah was such a basket-case I ended up putting a diaper back on him. Thank goodness for Grandma, who calmed me down and convinced me to give it a little more time.

So after a little while, I took off Noah's diaper and held him down on the potty for a few minutes as he screamed and fought and....FINALLY went tee-tee in spite of himself. He immediately looked down, surprised, and seemed short of shocked and relieved that he hadn't self-destructed. Half an hour later, he sat calmly as he relieved himself, then clapped his hands and shouted, "Yay!" as he gleefully accepted his candy reward. It's amazing what changes an hour or two can bring!

And Lily, bless her juice-guzzling little heart, had more accidents than successes that first day--despite her apparent understanding of the whole potty process. But she's gradually done better and better too.

As for myself, I'm still terrified to leave the house with them and I'm not sure how complete their training will be by the end of this week, when I go back to work and real life resumes. But I find myself so proud of them that I can't help but think they may continue to surprise me.

...and I'm really, REALLY glad we have tile floors now. Can't even tell you how glad.

Watching their hero Elmo talk about using the potty:

take a picture; it'll last longer

2011-03-07T23:51:00.002-06:00

I will readily admit that I'm terrible at taking pictures. I'm a bit better at taking pictures of the twins than of other people and phases in my life, but ...well, not much. When we're with other people, I tend to be reminded to pull out my camera after other folks have already been snapping pictures for a while. (And shamelessly mooch their pictures later!) Even when something cool is going on, it just rarely strikes me to pull out a camera to capture it.

Part of it is that I'm scattered. I just am. I do well to remember my own name sometimes, let alone to snap a bunch of photos when I'm trying to keep track of two zoomy little toddlers.

But part of it, I think, is that it's just not that rewarding to take pictures. It's not positively reinforcing, to put it behaviorally. I can't take pictures of the things I really want to remember, the things I enjoy most. Like the way I can turn an anguished cry of "Boo-boo!" into a satisfied sigh with a simple kiss--dozens of times a day. And the willingness with which two tiny hands grab my fingers at my command, ready to follow me anywhere. The way it feels when Lily finally settles before her nap, nuzzling into my neck while I run my fingers through her hair. The way I can tell from across the house what my kids are doing (and whether they shouldn't be). The satisfaction in Noah's face when I've finally figured out what "Da!" means in a particular situation, after he's repeated himself 20 times.

They told me to make sure I had a good photographer at our wedding, because after a while that's all you remember--just what's in the pictures. And it's true, really. Two weeks after the event, I couldn't remember what song I had picked for the end of the ceremony--and I had agonized over it for months. My memories now run like a flipbook that mysteriously resembles the wedding album on the bookshelf.

But there is no good photographer here, and even if there were it wouldn't matter. There's just no way to capture the things I want to hold onto forever. Even the things I do remember will become grainy and distorted with time. It makes me a bit sad, like I'm constantly saying goodbye to two tiny people as they constantly get replaced by two slightly less-tiny people. And I know I will love the next stage as much as I have loved this one, and the stages before it, and even my life before them. I think I just have this impossible wish to hold onto everything wonderful my life has ever held, and never let anything go.

rite of poopage

2011-02-24T16:17:00.002-06:00

Well, it has happened. I have passed a threshold, crossed a bridge.

I expected it to happen before this, really. Talked to other parents who'd been through it before, and knew my day would come. Expected it. Feared it.

Today, Noah woke up from his nap and started to cry and fuss in his usual way. Sometimes he falls back asleep though, so I wasn't in a hurry to go get him. But after a few minutes his cry reached a desperation pitch and I knew naptime was officially over. So I went in to get him out of his tent--a pack-n-play sort of thing that's a lot less headache than an actual pack-n-play.

As I went in, I realized that Noah was trying to say something. Boo-boo? How did he get a boo-boo? I could see his tear-streaked face pushing through the mesh of the tent. So I unzipped it.

The situation dawned on me in pieces. First, I realized his diaper was babyless, lying on the tent mattress. Was he trying to say "diaper"? He kept crying, and I still thought he might be hurt.

Until I saw his hand, clutching a rather large (and luckily, rather solid) turd. He was holding his poop in his hand. He was saying "poo-poo", not "boo-boo"! I ALMOST almost took a picture of him sitting there, crying pathetically, clutching his poo. But finding the camera was a tall order when I was laughing too hard to see straight anyway.

I gingerly helped him down, helped him throw his creation in the toilet, and we both scrubbed our hands thoroughly. Then, realizing that he had residue all over his bottom and legs, I decided that a bath was in order and plunked him directly into the tub. Somehow even though I was being careful. I still managed to get poo on both my pants and shirt.

I'm not sure how he didn't make an even bigger mess--there was some poo on the sheet, but none on his pillow or the insides of the tent! Mommy's learned her lesson though, and never again will Noah take a nap without pants.

the icecapades and beyond

2011-02-21T19:44:00.006-06:00

It's one of those times when I feel I should chronicle some things. Not because I don't have enough to do or because it's anything exciting enough to share, but a monthish has passed in a blur and I really want to figure out where it went. So let's see, what have we been up to...

1. We lived through horrible winter weather. Superbowl week will now forever remind me of nasty ice and freezing winds. On the night of Monday, January 31, the temperatures dropped dramatically and freezing rain began falling. By the end of things, about an inch of ice and a couple inches of snow covered everything in sight. School was closed for four days, because the weather stayed below freezing and there weren't enough ice and salt trucks to make it around to everyone. It was the coldest weather northern Texas has seen in 15 years, the news said.

What made it even more exciting was that our power (including our heat and hot water) went out. For nine hours one day, and four hours the next. Our firewood was outside, frozen solidly to the ground. Our kitchen pipes froze for 2 days. Oh, and Scott was working 13+ hours a day in Arlington to deal with the Superbowl traffic. Thankfully, the roads started clearing enough for us to leave a little and the power came back on for the nighttime... but it was still a long, long day.

In lighter news, the kiddos braved the zero-degree windchill to play in the snow for about 5 minutes. Lily was pretty cool with it. Here she is trying to climb up the slide that had about 3 inches of solid snow and ice packed onto it:

(She failed.)

Noah was not as convinced that snow and cold are good things. Perhaps he was mourning the absence of his missing tiger mitten...

2. We have been sick. Nothing major, but what I thought was going to be a fairly forgiving cold season has turned out to be kind of horrible. From mid-December through Valentine's Day, it was hard to tell where one cold stopped and the next one started. Next year I'm buying stock in Kleenex. The twins are so used to having their little snotmakers wiped that they'll attempt to blow their nose on anything resembling a tissue. I turned around one day to see them raiding the napkins...

3. We went to Bastrop. Literally just a few days after the horribly cold temperatures, things warmed up to the 70s. We spent the weekend at the cabin in Bastrop with Brad, Becca, and Elijah, with a visit from Gemma and Granddad.

4. Lily got her first (semi-) black eye. It was very un-dramatic though. She was climbing up on some playground equipment, stumbled, and fell about 12 inches into a metal bar. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but it looked pretty spectacular for awhile.

5. We have enjoyed more warm weather. And especially after that terrible cold week at the end of winter, it's been just incredible to spend a lot of time outdoors. Noah and Lily LOVE being outside (as most kids do) and they can be happy doing just about anything. Their sidewalk chalk skills are a little better developed this year:

Noah was very concerned about the broken pieces of chalk. He also thinks that everything pink is "Nee-nee's"

6. We are putting down tile. What an undertaking! Scott is doing most/all of the actual tile-laying work, but I feel like I've been running a marathon for the past few days too. We're tiling about 2/3 of our house, including the living room/entry, kitchen, hallway, and bathrooms. That's pretty much everywhere we go all day, so there's a lot of furniture to move. And with little (hyperactive, defiant) toddlers, you can't just pile all the furniture in the other rooms and expect them to be happy twiddling their thumbs in their cribs all day. (But wow, wouldn't that be nice?!) So I've been busy organizing, cleaning, and rearranging our "office" into a play room area. We've always stuck everything in the office that we didn't want to deal with, so to tackle a whole roomful of procrastination was ... well, not fun. I pretty much stink at organizing and cleaning things out, so it was kind of torturous. But it is done and the kids have had a place to play as the rest of the house has been uprooted. And looking at all the hard work Scott has had to put in so far, I still feel like I've come out ahead... :)

madcap recap

2011-01-24T13:50:00.008-06:00

Annnnd it's catch-up time again here on the Hewitt blog. Rather than try to sum up our lives in the past month and a half, I'll rely on pictures...

When we were down in Beevile just before Christmas, Grandad built the twins a swing. Lily loves swinging so much that she can barely stand it when they come up in conversation.

Noah opted for a stroll--er, crawl--along the boards Grandad stacked for him to play on.

Gemma, Noah, and cousin Elijah

Some of the Christmas takings...

Elijah, practicing his Texish:

Standing around while Christmas tree shopping, and the salesperson just happened to snap a picture...

Enjoying more Christmas spoils...

Noah's really good at defying gravity. Or I just don't know how to rotate a picture.

Back at home, dressed in Christmas trappings:

Christmas morning festivities almost didn't make it past the stockings, once the youngun's realized there were suckers sticking out of the top. "SUCK! SUCK!" demands Lily:

"TEET! NAANEE!!" exclaims Noah:

Lily demonstrates the proper way to eat pumpkin pie: Scrape off the cool-whip, and toss the rest.

Noah, on the other hand (literally), demonstrates his pumpkin-pie-on-a-stick technique.

This is how you do it, right?

Winterwear, for the bone-chilling 50-degree weather:

New non-infant hooded towels, which the twins call "hats". Butterfly:

...and frog:

In early January, we headed up to Michigan for my brother Michael's wedding. Contrary to my fears, the twins did really well on the plane--no freak-outs, vomiting, or other excitement for us. Mother Nature celebrated our arrival with record-breaking lake-effect snowfall. No kidding. 38 inches over three days. Early in the frozen precipitation melee, I took the kids outside for some winter revelry. We gleefully celebrated...

...made snow angels...

...and trudged around in the snow for about 3 more minutes before giving up completely. The kiddos were fascinated by the snow until they touched it, and it was COLD.

As far as the rest of the trip (like the wedding), I am severely lacking in photographs. But it was beautiful and very happy, and we're glad we were able to go!

small wonder

2011-01-02T20:41:00.007-06:00

So we're not really potty training at the Hewitt house, but the level of potty awareness is fairly high these days. Mostly, this means that Scott and I get applause for using the restroom, as well as a couple of eager toilet-flushing assistants. And every evening before getting into the tub, the kiddos insist on having a seat in their potty chairs and attempting to go "tee-tee".

The results have been fairly hysterical, if a bit lackluster in the success department. Noah usually sits for about two seconds, then gets up and inspects the bowl of the potty--to no avail of course. I'm not sure how that child is ever going to have the patience to execute a complete tinkle.

Lily, on the other hand, has had a bit more success--she's actually managed to pee in the potty several times. She seems to think that peeing involves a great deal of straining and grunting, which usually yields little but some stifled giggles from Mommy. But for the past four nights in a row, she's gotten an added bonus:

At the risk of being a little too vulgar, I give you the Tiniest Turd Ever... version 4.0. She's made a similar-sized creation four nights in a row, and it's really cracking me up. Now that I know she's figured out at least something related to bodily functions, I need to start getting her on the toilet during her regular poo times. Too bad we're leaving for Michigan in three days... maybe once we get back, though!

In completely unrelated cuteness, the babies are beginning to understand that we need to be quiet when someone is sleeping. Sort of. Mostly this involves barging into the bedroom when Daddy is asleep after working all night, pointing at him, and then spitting "SSSSCCCCHHHHH!!" as loudly as possible with a finger to their lips.

Noah is especially aware that people's eyes are closed when they are sleeping, and that some of our favorite books feature sleeping animals and people. He points out aaaaallll the figures with closed eyes and sprays them with his "SSSSSCCCCHHH!!". Every one. Unfortunately, since mommy likes Sandra Boynton books which feature many dancing animals, and Ms. Boynton feels that animals tend to dance with their eyes closed, this is a lot of spitting.

And sometimes Mommy can barely stop giggling enough to finish the story...

still waters run deep

2010-12-29T22:58:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I don't post as often as I could, right? Little things happen here and there every day that either astonish me or crack me up. Often, they blitz out of my mind with the changing of the next dirty diaper duo. But sometimes I get set to share something, and I realize that it's not going to make an impression on anybody who doesn't have any 19-month-olds around to understand exactly what I mean. And in a couple of months, I'm going to have lost all frame of reference myself.

But I wanted to write this one down, so I need to explain a little bit of background:

Noah doesn't talk yet. Not really. He says a bunch of consonant sounds that are his words, but there are only 15-20 of those that I've nailed down as consistent words. (Things like "na-na" for banana, "bah" for bib or ball--or blocks or box or bye!--you get the idea.) 20 words isn't too bad, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not a lot. He still depends on his signs though, and uses them pretty consistently. Yesterday he even started using the sign for "daddy" even though I haven't used it with him in at LEAST 6 months. Crazy!

I digress... As far as their comprehension, both the babies are pretty good at following one-step concrete directions--sometimes even two-step ones--but their grasp of the abstract is... well, a bit lacking for obvious reasons. We know they understand more and more all the time, but we don't know how much.

Anyway, about a week ago we came back from a visit to Gemma and Granddad's. We brought back a picture of them which Scott posted on the fridge. Noah noticed it, and had fun pointing out Gemma and Granddad. He then pointed to the other prominent picture on the fridge, the save-the-date for my brother Michael and his fiancee Danielle. They're getting married next week and we're flying to see them. He had NO clue who they were (he's seen them twice, most recently 7 months ago), so I said, "That's Uncle Michael and Aunt Danielle". He pointed, but... I mean, really--how was he supposed to know who they were? But you're supposed to talk to your babies, so I figured I might as well say their names.

Okay, fast forward a bit. A few nights ago, I was rocking the kiddos in their room before putting them to bed. We heard a plane fly overhead, and Noah signed "plane" (with sound effects, of course). I said, "Yes, that's a plane." Then, because you're supposed to talk to your babies, I figured--what the hey, I may as well explain more even though he's not going to understand. So I continued, "We're going to go on a plane. We're going to get on it and fly in the sky to go see Michael and Danielle."

He BURST out sobbing, and signed that he was scared. I shushed him, bewildered--SURELY this child had no clue what I was talking about. He knows airplanes as things he waves bye-bye to in the sky--how on earth could he have the concept that they're big enough to carry people? I figured he had misunderstood somehow. So I explained again, "No, it's okay! It's a plane. Mommy and Daddy and Noah and Lily are going to go on a plane. We're going to fly in the sky and go see Michael and Danielle."

BIG sobs, and more professed fear. I was pretty amazed at this point. I mean, his idea of what I was talking about had to be pretty limited, but he understood a lot more than I had given him credit for.

...and now the REAL story I was leading up to:

Today, I was helping Noah wash his hands at the sink when he pointed over to the fridge. But he wasn't pointing at Gemma and Granddad--instead, he pointed to Michael and Danielle, signed "airplane" and then "scared".

!!!!

How in the world did he remember those names and put all that together??!! I have no idea. But I'm going to start reading Dickens to him tomorrow.

And the morals of this story are:

1) We may be in for a real meltdown on our plane trip next week.

2) You really never know what your kids understand. Seriously!

3) If you EVER plan to have children, TEACH THEM TO SIGN!!! I can't believe how much of a blessing and a window into their little minds it has been!

my title

2010-12-22T23:46:00.005-06:00

Mommies do lots of things, I'm finding.

Among other things, I am:

Kisser of Boo-Boos
Singer of Songs
Spinner of Stories
Tickler of Ribs
Captain of the Anti-Furniture-Climbing Squad
Chief Cook (and Veggie Hider)
All 3 branches of the government--I can create a law, enforce it, and sentence the guilty in under 1 minute
Master Peek-a-Boo-ist
Professor of English (and Math, and Science, and Ethics, and Everything Else)
Family Photographer and Historian
Guardian of the Remote Controls (and anything else with BUTTONS!)
Human Jungle Gym
Senior Laundress
Head of Purchasing
and
Dispenser of Marshmallows

And sometimes I even sit down.

At times it is wearying. (Okay, daily.) For example: I dream my lamplit visions of a Christmas morning of perfection, of smiles and hugs and cuddles. Of my children graciously eating their food (without throwing any on the floor). And then I come to the reality that there will be plenty of screaming and squabbles and tantrums and time-outs, just like any other day.

But if Christmas will be just like any other day, then any other day is just like Christmas. While I don't see the sort of linear progress or payback that might seem logical, there are other bonuses. Like the fact that I lose track of how many sweet smiles, hugs, and kisses I get all the time. And that I get applauded for opening the garage door (no kidding--they are THRILLED!). Even turning on a faucet is pretty much magical. So even if the days can be long and ordinary, and even if my ideas of what make a day special don't quite happen... well, at least I should get couple kisses if I happen to bang my knee. And even if my efforts at Christmasy-ness seem to go unnnoticed by my wee ones... well, I'm sure they'll give me applause for flushing the toilet!

sometimes you just gotta stop and pet the doggies

2010-12-04T22:46:00.003-06:00

When I was younger I remember my parents and other adults mentioning things about kids being very observant and noticing little details of things. I think I remember it because it didn't make any sense to me.

But now I think I know what they meant. Did you know that approximately 38,401 airplanes fly over our house every day? Neither did I, until Noah started pointing out every. single. one. And there are WAY more trains running through this neck of the woods than I ever knew about. I now am aware of all of them, though--Lily doesn't like them, so every time she hears a train whistle (even faintly), she screws up her face into an anguished look, says "Ooohhh!!" in a pained tone, and pats her chest (our sign for "scared").

Toddlers bring renewed meaning to the idea that it's not the destination, but the journey, that's important. We were getting family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago at a state park. As we traipsed along with our photographer, two women walking dogs came at us from the other direction. Listening to my children, you would've thought they'd just discovered the entire world was made of candy or something. I mean, come on--we HAVE two dogs! The ladies and their dogs seemed friendly, so we stopped and let Noah and Lily get acquainted for a minute. As we walked away, I realized that I hadn't even thought about how our photographer might not have the priority of stopping to pet every dog in the world. But she has small children too, so hopefully she didn't mind!

Back when the babies were little, I realized that having children totally overhauls your ideas about productivity. Sitting around waiting for two newborns to wake up and need to eat didn't feel very useful, although it was. The rest of my life's activities had ground to an immediate halt. Now, at least, I can go about most of my usual business--I just have to stop for several detours along the way. Shopping at Wal-Mart? Sure. We just have to pass by (and discuss) the bananas, cookies, and Elmo, along with dozens of other things. Because what to me is a shopping trip is an adventure to my incredibly observant, 90-mile-an-hour toddlers. It's very fun if I can remember to be patient and not be in a hurry all the time. The times I forget to be patient... well, it's not so fun. But there's always another doggie around the next corner to let me try again.

turn, turn, turn

2010-11-20T13:31:00.009-06:00

Word has reached me from afar that I have been lax in posting. And I knew that, but when my mother-in-law brings me word from six hours away that her coworkers have been wondering if things are okay, then I suppose it's time to update! Rest assured that I still have all my fingers and that my children are still doing adorable things. If they would do those adorable things a little bit slower, I might take time to breathe and post a little more often.

Noah and Lily are almost eighteen months old. A year and a half!! Unbelievable. Every week they develop new aspects to their personalities and seem more and more grown up all the time. Some developments:

We are still signing, even though Mommy has gotten lazy about trying to research and teach new ones. At last count each of the twins was using over 70 signs.

The reason Mommy has gotten lazy is that the babies are now talking. Talking! They often sign at the same time, which is helpful in distinguishing whether "ba-ba" means "bye-bye", "pumpkin", or "zebra". I've counted about a dozen distinguishable words from Noah--I know there are more, but a lot of them sound like "da" so I'm not counting them yet. Lily's vocab has absolutely exploded--she says over 80 words and learns more almost every day.
Babies this age are completely exhausting, and an absolute BLAST! Scott and I have so much fun with them! It's hard to give up playing with them and go do housework, because it's just too much fun to watch them play. (Oh, and they scream like banshees if we stop paying attention to them. That too.) Sometimes I find myself just staring at one of them as they look at a book or play with a toy. Every facial expression, every turn, every movement is fascinating.

What is it about being outside? Lily and Noah could spend absolutely every moment outdoors, and probably never be sad, tired, or hungry. They would gladly pick up rocks and dirt (and dog poo) for weeks and happily waste away to nothing. I can fix any bad mood simply by mentioning "outside"--and they both make a mad dash and start grabbing at the door. I'm not looking forward to the cold months when our outdoor activity is restricted, but I'm glad we don't live in a cold, unpleasant climate.
Both of the kiddos are absolutely enthralled with aspects of going to the bathroom. This, along with a history of horrible diaper rash, has prompted me to plan to potty train them next week. I may be absolutely crazy, but we're going to give it a whirl while I have a week off. I just don't like the idea of keeping my kid in diapers when she tells me she's pooping, you know?

In recent photographic history, we enjoyed a visit from Grandpa and Grandma in mid-October, dressed up and went trick-or-treating for Halloween, and are currently hosting Gemma and Granddad for a couple of days. In recent un-photographic history, Scott has been out of town for trainings for about four weeks out of the past month and a half, so we're glad he's done with those for a while. As for me, I finally took the EPPP, the beastly licensing exam for psychologists. And I passed! So now the only things I need to do are to pass the oral exam, finish my postdoctoral supervision, and pay the state of Texas a lot of money, and I will finally finally FINALLY be a psychologist!

Okay, pictures. Grandpa with Lily:

Here's Noah with his (tiny) pumpkin. We let the babies choose their own, and I'm pretty sure he found the smallest one there. (I think he thought it was a ball, because he kept throwing it...)

Lily was less content to pose with her chosen veggie. I had to catch a shot of her as she attempted to climb off the wall.

Grandma with her grandbabies. Not sure what they're looking at, but it's not the camera.

Aren't I cute?

Here we are carving the (tiny) pumpkins on Halloween. This task was made more frustrating by the fact that I had kept them in the back of the fridge since our pumpkin patch day to keep them nice. But the back of our fridge freezes things. In case you're wondering, I don't recommend trying to carve tiny frozen pumpkins. Also, this picture is misleading: the babies didn't help carve pumpkins. They just kept trying to eat the seeds.

The end result:

Here's their Halloween costumes, although they looked cuter in person. Lily was Dorothy, and Noah was the cowardly lion. Which was fitting, because he was afraid of the costume for weeks. Oliver was Toto, but he had to play his role from inside our house, because he is insane and tries to kill other dogs with his high-pitched yelps of death.

And Scott dressed as himself. Note the dark colors and law enforcement t-shirt... he did a great impersonation!

My first kid-to-Mommy flowers. Now I just need a vase...

perfect

2010-09-27T19:14:00.006-05:00

Ahh, camping. Doesn't everybody love camping? The idyllic settings, the stillness, the s'mores. Who could ask for more?

Camping always sounds nice, but I'm learning that actually getting out for a trip is easier said than done. The last time Scott and I went was 3 years ago, in August. It was 104 degrees. We happened to pick a campground that was hosting some sort of terrible redneck family reunion--so not only were all the good camping spaces taken, but the place was absolutely overrun with loud, uneducated, profanity-spewing drunken rednecks. We ended up next to a group of particularly beautiful folks who woke us at 6 a.m. with loud arguments about how best to cover up the pile of human feces in the middle of their campsite. To top it off, we almost lost Scott's wedding ring and I ended up with about 60 bug bites on my feet and ankles alone.

Still, we told ourselves, we had fun. We love camping. Right? But in the three years following that particular trip, we haven't really even come close to having another go at it. A big part of that had to do with Exhibit A and Exhibit B showing up last spring. Who wants to go camping with one baby, let alone two? But toddlers are better. Right? So we became semi-determined to tackle an outing this fall, in a noncommittal "if-it-works-out" sort of way. And when Scott's long weekend coincided with the first true cold front of the fall, we decided to go for it.

It was, in a word, wonderful. The weather, the activities, the food, the company--perfect. We rented a screened shelter (basically a bare cabin) at Mineral Wells State Park. It's only an hour from home--so, we reasoned, we could easily turn around and come back if things got really bad. Here's our humble abode-for-a-day:

The view from our porch:

As far as activities, we thought we'd tackle a trail or two, and otherwise sit around and watch Noah and Lily eat rocks. But we got an added bonus in the form of a spillway that comes over the dam at one end of the lake. It's the wildest thing I've ever seen--an actual sidewalk and road that they allow water to trickle over constantly. It was fun even for Scott and I, and the twins absolutely couldn't get enough.

You can tell the sequence of some of the pictures based on the state of relative dryness of Noah's clothing. Early:

...later...

...and then we gave up even trying to keep him dry...

This morning we packed the kiddos on our back and tackled a lakeside trail. The terrain was rough, but pretty and very fun. Scott went first and cleared out most of the spiderwebs with his face, which was very kind of him. In related news, there's a species of very large spider living all around the lake that must not have any natural predators. We could have easily counted over a hundred dangling from the trees overhead in just our short hike.

So all in all, it was a great trip. I'm not sure I want to go for more than a 24-hour outing anytime soon, but I could see us taking more short camping trips in the near future.

Ahh, camping...

hats off... er, on

2010-09-19T22:33:00.010-05:00

Lately Noah and Lily have been obsessed with hats. That's not particularly new--they've enjoyed playing with random cowboy hats and baseball caps for a good while now. But for the past couple of days they've wanted to wear their sun hats that we use for zoo trips and such. And instead of the off-on-off-on routine they usually pull, they just wear them... for hours! It's so funny to see them toddling around in their hats as if they have every reason in the world to do so.

If there's orange and green in the plaid on his cap... does that mean the hat pulls the rest of his outfit together?

Lily prefers to wear her hat pulled low over her eyes, and then walks around half-blind. I have no idea how she manages not to walk into things constantly. She wore it this way during her snack, and just groped blindly at me whenever she wanted another bite of cheese or cracker.

It makes me feel like I'm interacting with one of those cutesy bonnet-wearing shepherdess girls that show up in country-esque drawings.

See what I mean?

The other night Scott was reading the kiddos a bedtime story. They just cuddled right down on his lap and sat there, pretty as a picture. Until I actually wanted to TAKE a picture, that is.

In other completely random news, our crepe myrtles have decided that it is June again. After flowering all summer, the blooms finally petered out a few weeks ago in what I assumed was the natural end-of-summer way. But after the torrential downpours of last week, they have found new energy (and flowers). I was just trying to take a semi-artistic picture of the flowers at an angle, but Lily wandered into the frame. And I think it's cuter that way.

an unplanned family trip

2010-09-14T20:16:00.008-05:00

So it's been a while since I posted. (What else is new?)

A couple of weeks ago, Scott's grandmother passed away. She had been suffering with Alzheimer's for some years and it's so nice to know that she is finally at peace. I never got to know her before her illness, so I look forward to the day when I can REALLY know her. We traveled down for the funeral and to visit Scott's family, and it was neat to hear everyone's stories and memories.

Here she is in an early picture. I'm not sure how old she is, but she can't be more than a few months different in age from the twins right now. Lily looks a lot like her, don't you think? Her face isn't so round, but she definitely has those eyes.

And although our purpose in traveling was for a funeral, and although we drove down through THREE HOURS of solid Tropical Storm Hermine, we had a wonderful time visiting Scott's parents, siblings, and extended family.

Baby Elijah had really changed since we saw him last! He is 8 months old now, crawling everywhere, and very alert and interactive. It won't be long before he and the twins will be able to play really well with each other. Assuming, of course, that my children ever stop stealing toys and biting long enough to ever play with ANYONE.

Granddad likes to transport babies in various vehicles:

The babies enjoyed it pretty well, too. Noah especially appreciated being Lily's grab-bar for the wheelbarrow ride.

We also had the chance to spend the day at the Texas State Aquarium, which was a lot of fun. Noah enjoyed terrorizing the hermit crabs...

Lily and Gemma just happened to pause in front of a scenic mural.

Noah hanging out waiting for the dolphin show to start. Babies' maximum wait time: 3 minutes. Dolphin show wait time: 20 minutes. Dolphin show length: 15 minutes. Any way you add it up, it was a tedious business. That, and jumping dolphins make Lily cry hysterically.

But although dolphins weren't Lily's fave, she enjoyed lunch much better. Here she is chowing down on the sauce that came with her meal. She didn't actually eat the fries--just dipped them in the sauce and licked them clean, over and over. Until it was GONE. It wasn't until later that we found out she was eating SPICY CAYENNE tartar sauce, and not some sort of southwest ranch dip, as I had thought. I tried a little--it wasn't for wimps! But apparently my child's love of uncommon baby foods extends beyond black olives.

We also took the babies by the beach for a quick look-see. They had an absolute blast. I'm sure they'd be up for a full swim day, although Mommy's nerves may not be ready. Here is Noah eating sand:

Noah hunting seagulls (unsuccessfully, thank goodness):

And just a couple of beach bums...

baby math

2010-08-24T20:25:00.004-05:00

If x is equal to a baby's normal speed,

y = (x /p) +m

where p = distance to the pool, m = Mommy's speed, and y = the baby's supersonic pool-sprinting speed.

In other words, the baby goes faster as he gets closer to the pool, and even faster as Mommy runs after him.

Solving for y, y =

oh where, oh where did my babies go?

2010-08-23T14:06:00.002-05:00

I realized recently that I still think of Noah and Lily as being just barely out of babyhood. But apparently I blinked, because they're not. They're FIFTEEN MONTHS old! A quarter of a year, gone in an instant.

They're both "officially" toddlers now--Noah walks around as if he's never done anything else, and Lily can make it across the room without a problem. Along with this new mobility, their attention span is completely out the window. We rarely make it through an entire board book these days, let alone a half-hour DVD. Excursions out of the house have become an ongoing dog-and-pony show, with Mommy as the star attraction. We point out hats, we sing songs, we look for babies--and that's just in the frozen food section of Wal-Mart.

At home it's a little better, mostly because we have baby gates and it's easier to contain the madness.

Any given activity entertains a baby for approximately 2.4 minutes. That is, if the other baby doesn't want to take it away. (The other baby ALWAYS wants to take it away.) So our day runs in a cycle that goes something like this:

Lily finds the shapes and the shape bucket. She settles herself in for some quality shape-sorting time.
Noah sees she has the shapes. He chases her down and wrests them from her, amidst screams and attempts to bite.
Lily moves on in search of the phone, while Noah plays with the shapes for 12 seconds before tiring of them.
Lily finds the phone on the other side of the recliner. Noah follows her to steal it. She sees him, squeals, and runs away.
Noah thinks Lily is playing peek-a-boo around the chair. Ridiculous giggles and raucous laughter ensue.
Peek-a-boo ends when the chair swivels unexpectedly, catapulting Lily's head into the baby fence. She cries. Noah siezes the opportunity to finally take the phone.
Repeat sequence approximately 482 times throughout the day.

It sounds tiring (and it is), but it's fun too. Major accomplishments are made every day. Things like First Successful Climb Onto the Coffee Table and First Time Closing the Drawer Without Squishing Fingers happen all the time. They're still using signs like crazy, with over 3 dozen signs each. Lily has said a few words lately too--"cracker" and "banana", and I think she's trying to say "diaper" and "shoe".

In the evenings after dinner, the backyard has cooled down enough for us to go and play before bathtime. As soon as I say the word "outside", Lily and Noah start a mad, shreiking scramble for the back door as if the house is on fire. I'm not sure why a 100-degree backyard, complete with poky, half-dead grass and scattered dog poo holds such an appeal. But it does. It will be nice when things cool down a little bit and we can spend some true quality time outdoors.

In other news, the babies' 15 month appointment was today. Noah weighs almost 25 lbs and Lily is almost 23. The fact that they've gained 4 lbs in the past 3 months isn't really a shock, given the fact that they've gone through 2 sizes of clothing this summer alone. One surprise: Lily has a heart murmur! The doctor wasn't concerned and said it was a small, benign murmur that she'll most likely outgrow as she gets older. Maybe it happened one of the times that Noah stepped on her in pursuit of a toy.

hard to go back

2010-08-04T19:37:00.003-05:00

Now that my summer break is over, today was Lily and Noah's first day back at Lisa's for babysitting while Scott and I both worked. I took them over a little early this morning so that I could stay a few minutes to help them get re-acclimated.

No dice, though. They started screaming as soon as we got in the door.

Nine hours later, they had taken a measly 45 minute nap, eaten very little, and cried most of the day. Oh, and Noah leaked nasty diarrhea through his diaper as soon as I picked him up.

And were they happy to get home with Mommy and Daddy? If happy means screaming, crying, and throwing fits, then yes. They were absolutely tickled to death.

I put them in bed an hour ago (at 6:30) and haven't heard a single peep since.

And we get to do it again tomorrow.

*sigh*

going vertical and other stories

2010-07-31T13:35:00.006-05:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I set out to update the blog! It's been Since my summer vacation started five weeks ago, in fact. One might assume (rather naturally) that since I was home nonstop, that would give me ample time to chronicle our family's happenings. And that does seem to make sense, and I'm really kind of shocked that I've gone SO long without updating. But being home all the time with two baby-toddlers does weird things to your sense of time and accomplishment. One one hand, they do cute/new/funny/horrifying things all the time, so there's lots to remember and write about. On the other hand, our day is broken up into about a million tiny segments. So by the time the 10 interesting little segments are mixed in with the 999,990 completely mundane segments, the days tend to feel pretty routine and unremarkable overall.

I recently ran across a funny column someone had re-posted on facebook. For those of you who don't have kids, and even for those who do, it's a pretty concise description of what mommies spend their days doing. Here it is. I'm going to keep it handy to read at the end of the days when I feel exhausted and yet can't quite exactly remember what I've done all day.

In the interest of everyone's time (mostly mine), I'm going to summarize our recent happenings and accomplishments...

We didn't do a real "vacation" this year, but we visited Gemma and Granddad in Bastrop and at their house (we're there right now) and hosted a week-long visit from Grandma, which was very fun. I'm missing some pictures, but here is one with Grandma about a week ago:

Both babies are walking, in a sense. Noah took steps almost a month ago, but has just recently gotten independent enough to walk across the room. Not to be outdone, Lily has decided she needs to walk as well. She's not very strong or coordinated, but has managed to toddle a couple steps out of sheer willpower. I think it'll be a while before I have two true toddlers, but it's not too far off.
Lily has continued to impress us with her determination and concentration. Lately, both babies are infatuated with clothes, especially putting on their pants. One day she sat down with a pair of shorts. I saw her get one leg in, and then I got distracted with something else. Next thing I knew, I heard her clapping for herself--she'd gotten both her legs in her shorts and was apparently very proud!

With the new walking skills, the babies have begun to discover the possibilities of climbing. We hijacked our neighbor's plastic kiddie slide while they were on vacation, and then got one for our own backyard. It is most enjoyable when mixed with suckers and hose-spraying.

Noah was determined to climb up the slide, even though it was slippery and soaking wet.

Neither of the babies has said much yet beyond a couple of words, but their sign language is taking off like crazy. In the past two months, they've gone from using the sign for "more" sporadically to using about 30 signs... and new ones still show up every couple of days. They tell us when they see a hat or ball, or when they want their milk or water, or get hungry and want to eat. They sign for several animals--dogs, bears, frogs, ducks, fish... and for a lot of daily routine things like washing hands, bath, blanket, and sleep. It's truly incredible, and much more fun than I ever thought it would be. I'm amazed to learn what they're thinking about and what they remember--it's a lot!

Okay, I think that's most of the notable notes. We did have a couple of play dates and zoo trips, though I'm not sure whether I have many good pictures to post. Perhaps I'll tell about those later...

...and, AHA! I just found a post from Page with some more pictures. We went to visit her family last Monday and Tuesday, and it was a lot of wild and crazy fun. Mostly crazy. Here's her summary of events:

The Boyd Gang

pincer grasp

2010-06-27T16:49:00.002-05:00

grasp, pincer

n. the grasping of an object between the thumb and forefinger. The ability to perform this task is a milestone of fine motor development in infants, usually occurring between 9 and 12 months of age.

"Um. I don't think you're doing it right."

"You also have a large piece of spinach next to your ear. Ew, boys."

"My bad. Here, let me try again..."

who are these short people living in my house?

2010-06-26T13:05:00.003-05:00

Remember all those times when I thought Noah and Lily were changing and growing quickly? I was wrong. Absolutely wrong.

Well not wrong, per se, but the amount of changing they've been doing lately puts all those other times to shame. I literally have different beings in my house than I did last month.

And no, they haven't started walking (although Noah is absolutely capable) or talking. But they are definitely different. For one thing, all of a sudden they show preferences, make choices, and communicate those desires. Gone are the days when I could just plunk any food in front of them at lunchtime and expect them to unquestioningly accept it. They make point and grab gestures to everything else on the table, especially Mommy's food and drink. And after a few repetitions, they usually seem to understand that they can't have it. (And then I hide it. Because understanding doesn't mean accepting.)

Just a few minutes ago, I was cleaning up the kitchen when I realized I couldn't hear the TV anymore. (We don't usually keep it on when the babies are awake, but Daddy had been catching up on soccer.) I looked into the living room to see the TV blank with some unrecognizable setting on the screen. And Noah looked at me innocently, holding the remote to his ear as if it was a telephone. It was too cute for me to get upset, even though remotes are off-limits. So then I took the remote and proceeded to get the TV back from never-never land. When I finished and looked up, Noah was sitting patiently on the floor and watching the TV. He then pointed at it, grunted, and looked at me. And then I realized that he thought, since I was doing things with the remote, that it was "movie time"--and he was all set! Again, too cute for me to resist, so they're now watching a sign language DVD.

Speaking of sign language, there's another area where the twins have exploded. Before their birthday a month ago, they could sign "more", and Lily was beginning to pick up "milk". Now, they also do eat, bath, please, hat, dog, ball, and baby. A lot of these are not super consistent, and there are a couple that they don't both do. But they're beginning to generalize and use them out of context, which is really exciting. They've also learned several body parts in the past month: they now know tongue, hair, head, nose, ear, and bellybutton. It's ridiculous.

I have a couple videos I want to put up, but I think I'll do them a little later...

the wild jungles of suburbia

2010-06-11T23:32:00.003-05:00

I may never go out in the backyard at night again. A couple hours ago I found a (small) snake eating a (huge) toad. There was blood. It was very ick.

A few minutes ago I went out with the flashlight to make sure the snake-toad ensemble had cleared out before I let the dogs have access to the yard again. During my (squeamish) search, I inadvertently rediscovered a trick they taught me in third grade. Namely, how to use a flashlight to find spiders. The light reflects back off their spidery eyes as bright blue little glints of light.

There were a LOT of little blue glints. I tracked down a couple of the closest ones, and they belonged to massive wolf spiders. They tried to eat my toes, but I was already running away from the snake and the bloody toad, so they didn't catch me.

hair and side effects

2010-06-03T15:26:00.005-05:00

As the baby-toddlers' hair has gotten longer, we have had to figure out things to do with it. For those of you tuning in via pictures only, it probably looks like they both have the same type of hair. Au contraire, my friends. While they do seem to sport almost identical hair colors (Lily's is a touch darker), everything else is different. Noah's hair has curls; Lily's is straight (though it is beginning to curl at the ends). Noah's is sikly and shiny; Lily's is fuzzy and wispy. And though it is less obvious now, Noah's hair grew in mohawk-first, and Lily's was an even length all over her head.

Anyway, despite his curls, Noah's hair had been getting on my nerves for some time now. It was just a little too shaggy. But I was afraid of him looking too grown up too early, so we waited until recently to cut it. And so, just after the birthday party a couple weeks ago, with both grandmothers on hand (both experienced hair-cutters), Noah got his ears lowered. He did pretty well--sat fairly still and endured quite a bit of head-handling. (Thank goodness for Baby Einstein videos...)

And here's my big boy with his new grown-up haircut!

Not to be outdone, Lily is also changing up her 'do. She finally has long enough hair to manage vague impressions of ponytails. She HATES me messing with her hair, as I have to pull it a bit to keep it together. And it's all for nothing, because the ponytails stay in for approximately 8 seconds. Long enough to snap a couple pictures, anyway...

In other news, my children are gaining skills by leaps and bounds. They've gotten to the point where they can imitate me (and each other) fairly easily, which is fun. They point to some body parts and to several other objects. Unfortunately, this new awareness and skill acquisition has some unfortunate side effects. Cases in point:

I lay the babies on their backs in the bathtub to wash their hair. When I lay Lily down, Noah immediately points out her bellybutton. He does so by grabbing a fistful of her belly skin and squeezing it as hard as he can. Every time. Sadly, I am not a fast learner and I generally realize he has done this when Lily screams in anguish.
When the table is turned and I lay Noah down, Lily thinks it's great fun to yank a handful of his hair. Not sure if it's retaliatory or not, but there's no doubt he's earned it.
The other day I gave the babies each a graham cracker as an appetizer while I finished heating up their dinner. Noah finished his while Lily nibbled slowly on hers. When I then crammed a spoonful of spinach and mashed potatoes into Noah's gaping, graham-cracker-anticipating maw, he was most offended. He spit it out, looked at Lily, and pointed insistently at her half-eaten cracker. "EEEHHH!!!" She looked at him cooly (and, may I say, a little exultantly?) and continued munching. As if this wasn't maddening enough, his mommy then proceeded to stuff another spoonful of potatoes into his mouth. And then we had Noah's First Temper Tantrum.
While in the bathtub (are you gathering that bath time can be a bit trying?), Noah tries to stand up about three times per second. Since I like to minimize the opportunity for concussions, drowning, and other festivities while I bathe two slippery kiddos, I enforce a sitting-only policy in the tub. Which means I tell him "No", "Sit down", "I said SIT DOWN", and other such things about 37,000 times per bath. This hasn't been an issue for Lily, who's not good at pulling up yet. But lately, in the middle of Noah's up-down routine, Lily grabs the edge of the tub and pulls as if she's about to stand, and looks at me expectantly. Seriously? Can't we just learn the GOOD behaviors from each other and save Mommy a LITTLE time?

the birthday bash

2010-05-27T22:02:00.013-05:00

And finally, Mommy is getting around to recording the events of our birthday party a couple weeks ago.

Although this wasn't actually AT the party, Daddy spent quite a bit of time making blocks for Noah and Lily. It'll be a while before they can fully appreciate all the construction capabilities, but they already enjoy knocking them down!

I went and picked up the balloons for the party while the babies were napping, and they were quite impressed when they woke up:

In case you can't tell, the big balloons are a dragonfly (I thought it was a butterfly when I ordered it) and an elephant. They have been quite fun. They're still "alive", though they are quickly dying, and the babies are still fascinated by them.

And, since it wouldn't be a birthday without cake... The small cakes were for Noah and Lily, the big cake was for most of the rest of us, and the cupcakes were for any small dairy-allergic partygoers.

They didn't need a lot of explanation on what to do with their cakes:

Noah pursues star power:

"Oh, uh-oh, I think I got a little something on my hand..."

Noah was the most talented at making an incredible mess.

Even Lily can't quite understand quite how he got THAT messy.

After the cake and a lengthy clean-up, it was on to presents! There were a LOT of them. The kiddos didn't quite have the expertise or the stamina to stay focused to get through them all:

Luckily, they had a couple of professional present-openers to help out. Jenna was very excited to help Noah open the present she and her mommy brought:

And Dylan was happy to demonstrate how this EXTREMELY loud toy worked. Notice the shocked looks on everybody's faces!

I was very proud of the cute plushy doll I found for Lily. She liked it too, and immediately gave it a big kiss:

By the end of the presents, our living room looked like the toy section of Wal-Mart had exploded. There were like 10 other people there, but it was standing room only for the rest of the crowd.

Other pictures of birthday party fun:

Okay, this one isn't from the actual party--it's not even from the visit. But I realized I didn't take any good pictures of Michael and his fiancee Danielle. So I stole a picture from facebook:

no more babies

2010-05-21T20:44:00.006-05:00

One year ago at this moment, we were on our way to the hospital for what I had convinced myself was a false alarm. After all, I couldn't be in labor--they had just scheduled my induction for the following week. About 12 hours later, these guys proved me wrong:

And today was the last day I held my babies, and the last night I kissed them goodnight. The last time I nursed my babies and fed them. The last time I heaved myself off the floor holding two babies.

Because tomorrow, despite the lack of any two-legged ambulation, they are officially toddlers. I guess. (There needs to be some sort of in-between word for my poor mobility-challenged younguns.)

I can't decide if it feels like it has been a year, or whether it feels like only a few days, or like a lifetime. I was so afraid of having children because I knew they would take over my life. Little did I know the extent to which they would consume me. And I was absolutely ignorant of just how thrilled I would be to hand my life over to them, gift-wrapped. (Babies love wrapping paper, you know.)

Speaking of wrapping paper, the birthday party last week went just swimmingly. Of course, I was too busy being Party Referee to manage to take any pictures. So as soon as all the folks who took pictures manage to email those to me, I will make a birthday party post. (Hint-hint...)

Until then, here's a little picture tribute to my kiddos and their first year...

Newborn

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

12 Months

nearing the... end?

2010-05-03T15:59:00.007-05:00

A year ago, I was very, very, VERY tired of being pregnant. Luckily, I am not very tired of my children. I hear they stick around awhile.

And as much as I will miss their babyhood and as much as a part of my wants them to stay small forever, a very large part of me wants them to be old enough to STOP POOPING IN THE TUB. Seriously! It's a major mess. And while you clean it out, what do you do with two naked babes who still have crusty pudding in their hair?

In other news, Lily is almostalmostalmost crawling. SO close!!! She will wiggle and squirm and squeal and roll enough to propel herself a few inches at a time. A couple times today she even did the face-plant-and-leg-push thing that Noah did at first. I don't think it'll be long now. She may yet be a crawler before she's a year old!

Not much else has happened lately, although birthday preparations are in full swing. I have decided to opt for a mommy-made cake, with high hopes for its appearance. So we'll see how it goes. Otherwise, here are a few pictures of things lately...

What's more fun than having pink piggies on your clothes? REALIZING that you have pink piggies on your clothes, of course!

It got warm enough yesterday that we broke out the little turtle pool I found on clearance last fall. The babies kind of liked it... I think. Lil was a bit chilly--she was covered in teensy baby gooesbumps for awhile until she got used to it. As a bonus, the turtle squirts water out its head. The kiddos didn't feel like the squirting was necessarily a bonus.

Why does baby-friendly food have to be soooo messy?

Just hangin' in the swing like big people...

Lately, Noah has been sticking his rear end up in the air sometime around 1 a.m. When Mommy checks on him around 11, he's lying flat. When Daddy comes home late from work and checks on him, he looks like this:

One of Noah's favorite things these days--opening and closing the gate. Or any door. Or anything that remotely resembles a door.

March madness, section deux

2010-04-16T22:22:00.017-05:00

Okay, where was I...? Oh yes. In the middle of reliving an extremely crazy month. So, we've covered the first three crazy weekends--spring break in Kentucky, and the visit from Laura's family. Now I've covered through March... I keep up at this rate and I'll be writing about the twins' first birthday party sometime next September.

Anyway, on to:

Weekend #4

April 2-3: Last year, Scott's aunt Susie got an idea in her brain about starting a Hewitt family reunion. Scott's dad's parents had five kids who in turn have generated a slew of cousins, and we are now busy filling the earth with sub-cousins. Or something. Anyway, the family has bloomed and spread across the country, and the opportunities to get everyone together have gotten fewer and farther between. So she organized a get-together in Gruene, in New Braunfels. She booked a really neat house-cabin ensemble on the Guadalupe River and we went campin'.

Noah helped us pack. Okay, so he didn't. But he did climb onto a suitcase. Lily was not impressed.

He begins to lose his balance--Lily gets interested.

He crashes and burns--Lily looks on, intrigued. Our little darling, unburdened by any sense of empathy. Must take after her mommy, who was more interested in taking a picture than preventing the tragedy...

Here we are with Brad and Becca and their little Elijah. He's about 3 months old in this picture, and creeping up on 4 months at the end of this month. It was so strange to be around a baby who doesn't babble or reach or sit up! Babies change fast, but our expectations of them are only a tiny bit behind.

Here we are on the riverbank, with a view provided by Giovanna and Chuck out on a kayak. Lily DESPERATELY wanted to go swimming--she was pretty sure the river was the coolest thing on the planet. I would have been more willing to let her if we hadn't accidentally left all the babies' spare clothing at home...

Jackson was NOT as interested in the water. He was much more interested in throwing his mama's camera into the river.

We went shopping around Gruene, and the babies kicked back and enjoyed some nice refreshing formula. There wasn't enough to go around, so the adults in the gathering opted for snow cones.

Notice Lily's change of clothes. They are actually pajamas. Because when do your kids poop in their clothes? WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE ANY EXTRAS. Lily's best friend is named Murphy, by the way.

Our slice of the Hewitt reunion pie:

Weekend #5

April 8-12: We took advantage of Scott's ACTUAL weekend off (he gets one scheduled 4-day weekend per month) to visit his family in Beeville and see Brad, Becca, and Elijah again before they headed down to Mexico. They're actually on their way as I write: Brad and Danny have driven about halfway there (safely, thank God!) and Becca and Elijah are flying soon. They're changing locations and will now be toughing it out in the barren wasteland of Puerto Escondido. Reed and Liz weren't feeling the greatest and couldn't make it, so we missed getting to see them again.

Ooh, what do YOUR footies look like?

I became obsessed with taking baby pictures in wildflowers, and our trip north happened at the perfect time. So we stopped and took pictures. The perfectionist in me has been eyeing every wildflower field and picture I've seen since then, wondering if we could have scored a better spot if we'd just held out a little longer. But with a 6-hour car ride and twinfants to consider, you have to take your cards as they fall sometimes. And even if there's a better bluebonnet field out there somewhere, I think my babies are still the cutest things on Earth.

Noah apparently just can't contain all the glee... Lily may be picking out which flower she is going to eat.

Because she did eat one. Oh, yes she did. Did you know that bluebonnets induce vomiting? Oh, yes they do. Right after a big breakfast and a full bottle. In the car. On the road. Luckily, we had extra clothes this time.

We also got a completely random chance to see my friend Nancy from high school when we drove through Austin. I went to high school in Ohio, and she then moved to New York--so it was great to get a chance to see her! She was trying to decide which grad school to attend. (She chose the wrong school, so it was our first and LAST chance to see her in Austin.) I took a picture, but if I uploaded it now it would mess up all my formatting (not my favorite feature of Blogger). So if you would like to see us with Nancy, please visit my facebook.

And finally, since last Monday, we've been back at home uninterrupted for awhile. Back to enjoying the simple things, like the wonderful swings Scott put up on the back porch. I have NEVER heard babies laugh so much as Noah does when Daddy darts under the swing and pops up unexpectedly.

In other news, the babies turn a year old in A MONTH. That's approximately equal to half a nanosecond, for those of you who haven't had kids and watched them change visibly in between blinks. Their faces and babbles and movements are looking more and more like those of toddlers than babies every day. Noah has perfected the army crawl and pulls up on everything that gives him even half a handhold. I wouldn't be surprised if he started walking within the week. I can get him to follow me around the house when I say one of his favorite words, like "eat" or "milk" or "bath". I'm pretty sure the follow-mommy-around-like-a-puppy phase doesn't last very long, so I'm going to enjoy it as much as possible while it lasts.

On the other side of the twin situation, Lily has remained utterly, completely, and absolutely stationary. No crawling. Occasionally she'll push really hard to reach something and actually propel herself backward about half an inch. I'm trying not to worry too much, but she's got to be reaching some sort of record for Worst Crawler Ever. And for those of you who say "maybe she'll skip crawling"... well, maybe I'll post a video of her awkward, stiff-legged attempts to stand up. She is slowly, slowly getting stronger, but it is... well, slow. In other things, though, Lily amazes me every day with new skills. She plays peek-a-boo with her hands, makes a "wa-wa-wa" sound by patting her hand on her mouth, and constantly beeps my nose. She gives kisses, both on command and spontaneously to babies' pictures in books. She can even eat pudding with a spoon, and protests "MA-MA-MA!" when you take the bowl away. (Girl has a sweet tooth.) She constantly looks through books, points at the pictures and babbles at them. So she's not dumb, just really, really uncoordinated. Perhaps we will pursue instruments with Lily and leave the organized sports to Noah.

So that was our crazy month, and those are my babies. I'm going to use that word as long as I can, though it's not much longer. I can't picture their birthday without getting majorly teary-eyed. We'll see if I can make it through the actual day with dry eyes.

For as scary as the concept of twin babies has seemed to me, I have found a far more frightening concept: Twin toddlers.

March madness, installment #1

2010-04-13T21:58:00.004-05:00

Ahh, home sweet home. Complete with omnipresent piles of laundry, multiple baby gates, and cat hair that never quite comes out of the carpet. Humble as our little home is, it is comforting to know that the dirt that Noah is ingesting these days will be familiar dirt.

SO. Let me recap the whirlwind of the past month, before I sleep too many times and lose it forever. Because as hectic as it's been, it has been wonderful.

Weekend #1

Sunday, March 14: Three years ago, Scott's friend and fellow trooper Todd Holmes was killed in the line of duty. To commemorate his sacrifice, a highway overpass was named in his honor. So we packed up the fam and drove the three hours to east Texas to witness the naming. It was pretty neat, and a nice chance to visit with Todd's family again.

And then we drove three hours home. Sounds nice and smooth, doesn't it? It wasn't, although time has thankfully blurred my memory of the rougher bits of that little day-trip.

Weekend #1.5 - #2

March 15 - 22: We got home from our memorial overpass viewing around 9 p.m. Sunday night, and put the kids to bed. And then we got them back OUT of bed at 4 a.m. the next morning. Because why would you sleep when you could catch an early morning flight with two babies? My mind gets a little fuzzy when I try to recall our frantic preparations for that trip. I fretted and fussed for weeks on end, trying to research and choose the absolute best ways to keep our little passengers happy on the plane. Who in their right mind would choose to fly with two babies, you ask? Anybody who is faced with the unhappy alternative of driving FIFTEEN HOURS with those babies. However heinous a flight may be, it is blessedly brief in comparison.

It turned out not to be too bad. And we learned a few things:

Only one lap baby is allowed per row. So twins on Mommy and Daddy's laps can't sit next to each other. Hopefully all the other passengers enjoyed our constant exchange of toys and Cheerios across the aisle.
Pacifiers dropped between airline seats are extremely hard to recover.
You MUST recover the pacifier you dropped (read: Lily THREW) between the seats.
Having a baby on your lap is roughly equivalent to waving a neon sign that says, "I HAVE BUBONIC PLAGUE!" Because nobody, and I mean nobody at all, wants to sit next to a baby. Not even really cute ones who scream and throw pacifiers.

The week with my family went well. In typical Lisa fashion, I didn't take nearly enough pictures. But here are a few:

Weekend #3

March 25 - 29: My darling college roommate Laura came down to visit from Illinois a few days after we got home from Kentucky. I wish I could say she came to visit me, but she mostly came to visit her sister Shawna's family--they live near Dallas, about an hour from here. I got to see her, her husband David, and their girls Bethany and Elena, as well as Shawna, her husband Bobby, and their little girl Jenna. It was lovely to see them all, although the visit did kill any possibility of reliving any college memories. Such as watching the six-hour version of Pride and Prejudice. Or, say, having ANY conversation that uses more than half my brain and lasts more than five minutes. Because small children rule the world with tiny iron fists. Seriously. At one point there were five adults and five kids under three running (and crawling) around my house and I was trying to feed them all lunch. It was absolute madness. To the two or three people I'm positive got skipped completely in the feeding frenzy, I'm very sorry. Come by sometime and I'll make you a sandwich.

One fun thing we did was go to the zoo. Again, I managed to be very bad at taking pictures. But Shawna snapped a few good ones of the babies:

Wow, so... that took me all evening and I still have two weekends to go! I'll wrap it up another day. Until then, please adore my children:

keeping up is hard to do

2010-03-28T23:18:00.003-05:00

For any of you who have been worried, I am not dead. Just busy. I usually update on the weekends, which works... most of the time. But when we have a string of FIVE WEEKENDS where we are out of town or visiting friends who came from out of town... well, blogs take a backseat. So to all of you in the backseat, hang on a few more weeks. We'll be home soon.

a tutorial

2010-03-08T09:24:00.003-06:00

A Step-by-Step Guide to Crawling

by: Noah Hewitt

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Decide what it is you're going for. No need putting forth the effort unless it's worth it. Example: a doggie is not worth it--they keep walking away. Food is ALWAYS worth it.
Cry a little (or a lot) to build up your courage.
If you are sitting, you need to lie down. To do this, do a face-plant into the floor. Use the friction between your face and the carpet to hold you steady while you straighten your legs out behind you.
Take another look at your goal.
Cry a little more.
Re-plant your face into the carpet. Agan utilizing the face-carpet friction factor, walk forward with your toes (keeping your face steady) until your bottom is way up in the air.
Push harder with your toes, until your face breaks loose and skids across the floor.
Reassess your goal, and cry if you haven't reached it yet.
Repeat steps 6-8 as needed.

----------------------------------

A Glossary of Terms

by: Lillian Hewitt

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

clap (v.) - the act of putting one's hands together repeatedly. Adults get really excited when I do this. Sometimes Mommy even feeds me when I clap. This is weird, but pleasant nonetheless.
dance (v.) - the act of simultaneously shaking one's head and wiggling one's shoulders and torso while sitting. It is very difficult not to fall over when dancing vigorously. Adults seem to think I should clap while dancing, which would certainly make me fall over. Many times when I dance, adults will turn on music, which is confusing.
hug (v.) - to grab handfuls of skin on each side of someone's neck while pulling your body close to theirs. You have to grab on tight (use fingernails!) or else they will get away before you're completed the hug. Hugs are best combined with kisses (see below).
kiss (v.) - to suck on or bite a portion of another person's face or shoulder. It is best if you get as large a mouthful as possible. It is also best if you say "awwww!" while you do it, and combine it with hugging (see above).

----------------------------------------

We got the babies some foam letters for bathtime. They are supposed to stick to the walls of the bathtub, but they have the added bonus of sticking to babies as well:

Noah wants to pull up on EVERYTHING these days. He almost drowned twice (okay, not really, but HE thought so) a couple days ago, trying to do all his new activities in the tub. Even with that trauma, I'm not sure if he's convinced he should reserve crawling and pulling up for doing on dry land only.

the red balloon

2010-03-01T19:41:00.002-06:00

It feels like every time the babies learn something new, it's my favorite thing in the world. It seems so trite and cliche to say it, but it's unbelievably amazing how quickly they learn. (Note: There are times when it does NOT feel like a baby is learning quickly. Every single day, in fact. Like when they need attention and entertainment every stinking second for HOURS. But I digress...)

Lately, the kiddos have become ...what should I call it? Detail-oriented? I don't think they're seeing anything new, necessarily, but lately they can't see the forest for the trees. You sit Noah in his high chair and he immediately grabs for the little strap to chew. I pick Lily up and she wastes no time before grabbing for the zipper on my sweatshirt. Scott came home unexpectedly this evening after going to work, so he bent over the babies as they played on the floor. Their reaction? Not smiles or squeals. Just grabbing for his badge!

My latest favorite thing involves this detail stuff, combined with the fact that Lily has learned to make a pointer finger. I thought I had heard that pointing was more of a toddler skill, so I've been pleasantly surprised to see her teensy little finger poking out at lots of things. She tries to use her little pointer finger to turn off light switches, push buttons, and touch the kitty. Today she tried to stick it up my nose. (Hasn't discovered hers yet.)

She's also been using it to point at stuff in books--mostly kind of randomly, not at the same stuff, and not consistently. But tonight while reading Goodnight Moon, I noticed a pattern. She apparently is very conscious of the red balloon that appears on most of the pictures. For those of you who can't quote the book and/or reproduce every drawing from memory, here's what I'm talking about:

As soon as the page turns, she IMMEDIATELY points to the balloon. Nothing else. On the pages without a balloon, she doesn't point to anything. She doesn't seem to be anticipating it--doesn't get excited, and sometimes looks away while I'm reading. Oh--and then there's the fact that both babies LOVE to turn the pages, so they get pretty distracted while they wrestle each other to grab for the next page. But never fear--Lily never misses a balloon. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Until the next discovery trumps it, of course...

three-quarters

2010-02-24T20:23:00.009-06:00

The babies are 75% of the way through their first year. They are closer to toddlers than newborns, my chunky little muffins.

Speaking of chunky, Noah is still heavier than Lily, at 19 lbs versus her 17.5. BUT. Her thighs are fatter. And her arms have more rolls. Poor thing. I've had to put away some pants and shirts that she SHOULD have just gotten big enough to wear, because they look like sausage casings on her poor little limbs. Oddly enough, she is now officially on the growth charts for height, while Noah is still dangling somewhere below the fifth percentile.

And speaking of muffins... I like muffins. Mmm, muffins.

Noah surprised me (and probably himself) this morning by going vertical. I put him in the play yard as I generally do in the mornings, and took Lily next door to be babysat. When I came back, he had pulled himself into a standing position! I was so shocked I snatched him up like I was saving him from the brink of death. And then I realized that he had just been making some really excited noises, and that he was probably super proud of himself for this first-time accomplishment! So then I felt bad and tried to congratulate him, but his goldfish memory had already lost the thought. I'll just have to try to remember to give him some good applause the NEXT time he freaks me out.

Lily still thinks all things related to crawling and walking are utterly unworthy of her attention. Instead, she babbles like a teensy little maniac. So far, she says "da-da" (often during nursing sessions, which is weird...) and "ma-ma". And all kinds of other sounds, which mostly degenerate into spitting noises when she is frustrated. Lately she is sickly, so I'm waiting to see if today's fever hangs out till tomorrow and merits a call to the doctor. Once today when I set her down, she whimpered pathetically, looked up at me, and said "Mama!" as one shiny tear slid down her flushed little cheek. Tell me again why I wanted her to be able to talk to me? So she could BREAK MY HEART???

And now some pictures. Granddad introduced Lily to the wonders of the iPhone during their recent visit:

I thought we'd make it till she was at least 10 before she started asking for a cell phone, but that may be wishful thinking.

Noah taking a bath: (And yes, I chose this picture because the strategically-placed dolphin made me giggle my head off.)

My little Lily, ready for bed:

And Noah, showing off his "standing", complete with the Grip of Death on that little activity table.

because I am lazy

2010-02-20T00:00:00.001-06:00

... and because it is late, I'm going to just post a link to the pictures I just put on facebook. I'll write later...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2918555&id=8350385&l=66c38b3660

a handful of firsts

2010-02-15T15:23:00.005-06:00

Time has been flying by here at the Hewitt house. Lose track for a day, and you never know what you'll see when you turn around again.

Scott left for an inservice training in Austin and was gone for 4 days. It was his first time being away from the babies for more than a handful of hours. Which was weird for him, but not really weird for me, since sometimes our opposite shifts mean we don't see each other for a few days at a time.

The babies were very glad to see him again--Noah busted a big grin on sight, and kept grinning every time Scott came around a corner, as if he reassured that Daddy hadn't left town once again. Lily was a little skeptical, and had to do some closer inspection to make sure he was really Daddy:

All good! Welcome home, Daddy!

After a short reprieve from illness, the babies wound up sharing a cold this past week. Lily caught it first and has borne it beautifully. Today I wiped her nose and found that her skin was raw and cracked from so many wipings--but she didn't fuss at all! She really has become a happy, independent, tolerant little girl. Here she is at the height of her cold, with matching shirt, bib, cheeks, and even the food on her face:

Like everyone else here in North Texas, we got a bunch of snow last week. The official count in Fort Worth was 12 inches, but I think we got closer to 8 inches or so. It was wet, heavy snow that stuck to everything, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I had forgotten how beautiful, still, and peaceful the world becomes when it's covered with a good blanket of snow.

And then there are the teeth. Noah has two, Lily has one (just barely), and both of them have toothy bumps. Noah's upper gum is so swollen and sore he won't let anybody near it without screaming his head off. Poor babies! They still seem to be handling it like champs, though--aside from a little fussiness and enough drool to fill a swimming pool.

In other very exciting news, the babies have both "said" their first "words"! Okay, so I had to put quotations there because there's a little explanation necessary. Lily has officially said "da-da" several times, and there is an outside possibility she has some idea what it means. Of course, she has also said "ga-ga" and "ba-ba" and a few other things, so who knows. The most exciting thing is that she has figured out how to repeat "da-da" when we say it to her. (Same goes for spitting.)

Noah hasn't vocalized anything specific yet, but he has mastered the sign for "more". (Not exactly shocking that the fat kid is the first to figure out how to insist he gets fed, and NOW.) He figured out how to "clap" (bring his hands together) at the babysitter's. Since that's pretty close to the sign for "more", I took it and ran. From there it wasn't too hard to teach him how to ask for more food--I think Noah would learn to fly if there was food involved. Now he asks for "more" in between every. single. bite of food sometimes, and sometimes when there is no food anywhere around. (But if it's not time for food, I just pretend I think he's clapping and say, "Yay!!" Poor hungry kid...)

Here's a sampling of his new talent:

things that make babies sad

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

So as it turns out, babies cry a lot. More than that, they cry at some fairly random things.

Case in point: puppets. If you read my last post, you know that my babies are absolutely in love with Baby Einstein puppets. Trying to capitalize on this new love affair, Scott made a sock puppet to entertain our little darlings. The only problem is, it makes them scream in agony. I can't imagine why it would be scary, can you:

Other things that make babies (especially Noah) cry include: food processors, roaring noises (we have to be careful when providing sound effects for books), and not being held or fed RIGHT NOW.

mommy's new favorite toy

2010-01-31T21:33:00.003-06:00

It is not a new discovery to me that my babies love watching TV. From the time they could drag their noggins on their tiny wobbly necks, they would defy the non-TV-facing positions we placed them in to turn toward the screen. But since the prevailing wisdom is that television is Evil for babies, we haven't exactly been indulging their interest.

Until lately, anyway...

I've been working on trying to teach some sign language to Noah and Lily. (Twins can be somewhat delayed in language acquisition, so I'm hoping the signing helps make up for some of that.) So far, it has been completely unrewarding. A typical example: Noah will sit in his high chair, yelling and banging his tray loudly with both hands. Instead of running for the cereal and fruit as I would typically do, I go to Noah and touch my hand to my mouth several times, saying, "Eat? Eat?" He briefly stops yelling, shoots me a look that clearly says, "Are you NUTS, lady? Can't you hear me?" and then resumes his noise with vigor.

Anyway, as part of our sign language education, I thought I'd see if the babies would enjoy the Baby Einstien DVD of signs. They do. VERY much. Noah doesn't quite have the attention span to sit and watch the whole thing (it's half an hour long) without needing to wiggle and play, but he still liked it. Lily, on the other hand, sat COMPLETELY enraptured the entire time. Especially during the segments with puppets, such as this guy:

Me, I think he's kinda creepy looking. Lily thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. (And since she's never actually had sliced bread... probably the best thing, period.) Every time they had a puppet segment, her cute little jaw would drop open, she would stare, and SQUEAL and flap her arms! I've never seen her act like that before. Possibly I will see that behavior again when she is in middle school around boys. I'm going to hope she doesn't develop feelings for furry blue otters.

Anyway, following that glowing review, I have sanctioned the occasional use of baby-appropriate TV for educational purposes, and in extreme circumstances. Such as when it's too late for a nap and too early for bed, and Mommy still hasn't grown that third arm for holding cranky babies. I have begun looking for other Baby Einstein DVDs, because I think I'm going to get tired of this one fairly quickly.

I just hope they all have blue otters...

what's in a name?

2010-01-31T19:05:00.002-06:00

I know it doesn't mean anything, really. Just some consonant and vowel sounds that babies have to learn to make before they can talk.

So why did it almost make me cry when she said "Mmm-ma"?

a touch of the yuckies

2010-01-23T20:46:00.002-06:00

If I were making a baby book for myself, I would put my "firsts" in it. Like "Mommy's first successful nap-during-a-nap" or "Mommy's first successful double-baby pick-up".

This past week, it would be "Mommy's discovery of the difference between spit-up and throw-up".

As it happens, there is a big difference.

Sparing everyone most of the gory details, Noah and Lily caught a bit of a stomach bug last weekend. Noah got over it very quickly, but Lily continued to randomly reject some of her meals throughout the week. (In case you're interested, cranberry-raspberry applesauce looks rather fuchsia afer its upward journey.)

But they're doing better now. They even felt up to the challenge of a chilly walk in their fun fleece hats:

For the remainder of this entry, I thought I'd share a small slice of my Life With Scott. It never ceases to amuse me that he appears so straight-laced and sedate to most people... but he's not. Those of us who read his facebook status updates found this out long ago. I love the way he thinks--I don't understand, it, but I love it.

For example, one day I came home and found this:

A closer view:

That's not a living creature, in case you were worried. It's a rubbery toy. I couldn't wait to hear what crazy reason Scott had for having the toy climb the side of the window... As it turned out though, he was just using it to squish the blinds over and help block the afternoon sun.

I found this about a week ago:

Yes, that's my oven, and no, that's not edible. It's a wooden mold filled with concrete. Yes, in my oven. In the kitchen. The one I cook food in.

Now, I have to say that the concrete was for a good purpose: Scott was making a base for a gate fastener, and it works wonderfully.

But still--it did give me a bit of a shock when I opened the oven door...

in and out

2010-01-16T20:57:00.003-06:00

I feel like it has been a looooong time since I've updated. And it's been over two weeks, so I suppose it has been quite a little while. I think I've hit one of those points where I feel like there's not anything exciting enough to worry about sharing with the general populace. But I think that's some sort of denial, because when I get down to actually summarizing the past several days... it is a daunting prospect, indeed.

FIRST of all, I am an aunt!! Scott's brother Brad and his wife Becca were expecting a baby boy at the end of January, but he decided to make an appearance a month early. His name is Elijah James Hewitt.

He had to stay in the hospital for several days while he adjusted to life on the outside, but he's doing great now. The scariest part to me was the fact that without warning, Becca's water broke and by the time they got to the hospital, they had to immediately do a c-section because he was ready to come out, hindquarters-first. It's amazing how much can happen in an hour and a half! Thankfully, everyone is fine and home. They are staying in Australia for another month or so, and then they come back to Texas for awhile before heading to a new home in Mexico.

Then, my mom came to visit for a week. We had a great time, of course. The photographic highlight was our trip to the zoo with the babies. (My brother Michael got us a much-appreciated season pass to the zoo, so it will definitely NOT be our last trip!) Apparently not a lot of people wake up on Monday mornings in January and think, "Hey, we should go to the zoo!" We saw maybe a dozen other visitors the whole time, and a lot of attractions were closed!

Also, as a side commentary: Why aren't zoo exhibits more short-people friendly? At every cool little animal enclosure we got to, I would try to get the babies to look at whatever animal was there. But I would usually realize that, no matter how obvious and cooperative the animals were being, the only view my kiddos were getting was a fence rail or an iron bar. At this point, they don't know enough to care--they're equally impressed with lions as with plant life.

But aside from viewing issues, it was a nice day and we had a good time.

The best part was the parakeet house, where you go into this aviary-thing where a few hundred parakeets and cockatiels are flying around. They sell sticks covered with honey and seeds that you can hold to attract the birds. Noah and Lily LOVED them.

Oh yeah, and I got a haircut. It is short.

In other baby-related news, Noah and Lily have been on the outside of me almost as long as they were on the inside of me. As much as they have changed in the past almost-eight months, it is still incredible to me to think that the same amount of time previously took them from nonexistence to beautiful newborns.

Currently, we still have no baby teeth to speak of, but Noah is trying to change that. He's got a little bump on his lower gum that's gradually getting harder and whiter. It hasn't seemed to bother him too much except for some occasional fussiness. Ironically, it's Lily who's figured out how to "chew" her food. So she'll be well-prepared, I suppose... assuming she will ever HAVE teeth. Seriously, how many babies make it to eight months without even the shadow of a tooth? I was four months old when I got my first one. She's still going to be teething when she goes to kindergarten.

...and that is all. For now.

one of those moments

2009-12-31T18:30:00.004-06:00

So, today has been a weird nap day. I put the babies down for an extra late nap, from which Noah arose refreshed and energetic, but Lily got up craaaanky.

So I was sitting here holding Lily as she fussed and yelled, with Noah lying next to me on the couch. After several seconds of extreme fussiness from Lily, I looked over at Noah. He had KICKED off his PANTS! He would have been thrilled about it, but he wasn't aware he was half naked--just kept kicking. I had to set Lily down (sparking horrific screams of injustice) to re-clothe my male child. He just kept on kicking, with a frantic look on his face as if he was sprinting to the finish in a 100-yard dash. That didn't make it easy to put his pants on, in case you were wondering. Neither did my other screaming child, or the fact that by this point I was laughing so hard I was crying.

It was one of those moments of pure chaos that I knew I could never fully convey to any other person. And yet... here I am.

Christmas review: episode 2

2009-12-31T09:20:00.006-06:00

Okay, I'm finally getting to the rest of the pictures from our Christmas festivities in Bastrop.

Lily with Gemma:

Noah "playing" with cousin (second cousin?) Jackson:

We tried "real" swings for the first time at a park in Bastrop. It was pretty cold (and it was hard to photograph moving swings at twilight), but the babies had a BLAST. I need to start looking for good playgrounds around here--that phase of our lives isn't far off now!

One beautiful day, we went for a hike at Bastrop State Park. Since I neglected to pack our baby carriers or COATS for the kiddos, we carried them with us wrapped in blankets. It got a little wearying for the adults by the end, but I don't think the babies minded--they both took the opportunity to nap.

Not sure I was supposed to see this one. (At least it's a BB gun.)

The kiddos try their hand at opening presents. They were terrible at it.

Noah's allllmost tall enough to see over Daddy's head!

Noah and Granddad:

Hewitt Family 2009 yearbook

2009-12-27T22:08:00.001-06:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Christmas review: episode 1

2009-12-26T09:41:00.012-06:00

Why is it that we make such a big deal out of a baby's first Christmas? It's not like they care. At ALL. (Though I have to admit, Lily was pretty enraptured by a couple of the pretty bows.) Maybe it's just that, by the time we have children, we miss the childlike joy of Christmas so much that we're going to project it onto any child-like person that comes into our lives. The same reason that dogs get stockings.

Anyway, how was that for a non-festive way to start a Christmas entry? On to funner things!

First of all, it's been way too long since I've posted. Since it usually takes me all day, off and on, to make even one normal post, I'm breaking this into two entries. (It will also give me time to find a bunch of pictures I'm missing...)

Noah and Lily accompanied me on my pre-Christmas shopping trip to Kroger. Usually if I take them both, I use their carseats and put one baby in the seat part, and one baby in the basket. This means that my shopping cart maxes out with about 3 cans of vegetables, 4 bananas, and a 2-liter. Any more than that, and the baby in the basket of the cart runs the risk of suffocation or avalanche from the groceries. As someone who perpetually buys tons of groceries, this was majorly cramping my style. So since Lily and Noah have been sitting up better and better, I was thrilled that they might be ready to ride together in the front part of the basket. The result was extreme and unexpected cuteness:

In the split second that it took me to re-focus the camera for another shot, this happened:

Needless to say we hit up the Clorox wipes as soon as we got to the entrance. I'm not too germophobic about most things, but Lily's determination to lick every inch of the shopping cart within her reach was a little scary. All in all the trip went pretty well, although the "twin factor" was pretty high with them sitting side-by-side. Meaning that we couldn't get more than about 10 feet without somebody wanting to chat with me about them. And they got a little bored by the end, but I was impressed at how well they did overall.

Our little fam trekked to Bastrop the weekend before Christmas to visit Scott's parents. It was a very fun trip and great to see them. Why a random town in the middle of Texas, you might say? Scott's extended family has a cabin there, in the midst of pine trees on top of a hill. His grandparents bought it nearly 40 years ago. It's not a cabin in the strictest sense of the word--more like a small, rough house, with ancient furniture, several beds, and a decent smattering of sheets, towels, cooking utensils, and other items that have been collected over the years. I always get a kick out of finding old stuff there. Here were my favorites from this trip:

I'm open to ideas as to how old anybody thinks these things are. The cabin was purchased in 1973... I'm wondering if these were among its first occupants. The wax paper has a coupon on the back that you can send in and get a wall-mounted wax paper dispenser for a dollar. I wonder what they'd do if I sent it in? I also wonder who in the world wants a wall-mounted wax paper dispenser...?

Most of the pictures from the trip were taken with Gemma's camera and they're not within arm's reach... so that will be the focus of the next entry. I do have a picture I took the other day of the babies with their new "laptops" that they opened on the trip...

They strongly approve of technology.

In other news, our Christmas was white! Scott heard somewhere that this was the first white Christmas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in about 80 years. That may not be true, but it sounds cool! It was not just a little snow, either--enough to cover the grass and stick on driveways.

So from our house to yours, we hope you've had a wonderful Christmas!!

a little Christmas reflection

2009-12-24T14:15:00.004-06:00

It's amazing how much that we, even with the best of intentions, can mangle even the most precious things. You know? Like Christmas. And I'm not even talking about the secular celebration of Christmas, or all the political correctness that makes it hard to even utter "merry Christmas" to a stranger without having second thoughts, in case they might be Muslim or something. I'm talking about ...well, myself, mostly. How even as a lifelong believer, I can let the holiday periphery interfere so markedly with my observance of the true celebration.

Mostly, I think, I get caught up in the fun of Christmas--the traditions, the funny movies, the joy of picking out presents (and opening them). But the true first Christmas wasn't what I'd call "fun", exactly. Joyful, yes--in a way. Joy with a heavy peppering of forthcoming sacrifice and disquiet before it was all over. But there was a lot of hardship and worry, too. A lot of people had to practice a lot of true, steadfast faith in God to make that first Christmas happen. The first Christmas was hard. Hard, gritty, and overwhelmingly sacred.

It strikes me every year, but my re-realization this year has been more profound than usual. Perhaps because taking care of babies makes you realize the indignity and fragility of the human condition. It's hard to imagine anyone in their right mind choosing to be so helpless that they don't even recognize their own limbs, let alone know how to use them. Or volunteering to poop in a diaper for a couple of years and have somebody else clean it up. How much greater a sacrifice would it be for God Himself to make that decision? Every year I try to wrap my mind around it, and every year I fail.

So today I just wanted to post and meditate on Christmas a little bit. I have lots of pictures of babies opening presents, but those can wait. For now, I just want to celebrate Christmas, all by itself. And post a quote from Frederick Buechner that I have loved for many years:

"The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: 'God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God... who for us and for our salvation,' as the Nicene Creed puts it, 'came down from heaven.'

Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast."

mean mommy

2009-12-07T11:27:00.000-06:00

As the babies get older, our adventures in solid food continue. The kiddos have definite opinions about what makes good eats and what doesn't. Fruit, as a rule, is a good idea (not surprisingly). Cereal is also fine, especially when mixed with fruit. Veggies are on another page, and meat is a completely different story. But, armed with my research (from the internet and parenting magazines), I am determined to provide the kiddos with the 6-10 exposures to a new food that it often takes before they learn to like it. And, let's be honest--I'm not going to count to 10 for each food, for each baby. I'm pretty much just going to keep feeding them what I think they need to eat, regardless of how they like it.

And why wouldn't I keep shoving foods in their faces that they don't like, when my reward is faces like this?

...and this?

And when I continue, the faces get exponentially better...

A few other cute things:

Noah is somewhat mobile these days, having learned to roll over so well that it gets him places. Not that he's aiming. I keep coming back into the room to find him wedged against the wall, Lily, or the base of the Christmas tree. The playpen is getting set up semi-permanently this evening.
Lily has begun blowing raspberries regularly when she is angry. Just as a tip, I wouldn't recommend raspberry-blowing as a way to communicate anger to others. I just sit and laugh at her as she makes pitiful spitting noises between whines.
The babies are sitting better and better these days, even able to play with a toy for several seconds before their jerky movements catapult them headfirst into the ground. It's absolutely delightful (to me) that babies' ability to fall over far precedes their ability to catch themselves. As long as they're just landing unhurt on a soft blanket, of course.

Most of my family made it down to our place for Thanksgiving...

Grandma with Noah and his Ridiculous Hat.

pseudo-Thanksgiving post

2009-11-24T22:36:00.000-06:00

So here are some pictures of our early Thanksgiving weekend with Scott's family...

DOGGIE!

Gemma and Grandad with the babies.

Family shot:

Brad and Becca borrowing the babies for a picture...

The Hewitt fam

Liz and Lily

I thought the babies could have their own "Thanksgiving dinner" while the rest of the family ate, so I brought jars of sweet potatoes and turkey. Noah liked it okay... Lily, not so much.

Aren't we just cute?

semestris

2009-11-23T21:38:00.000-06:00

Six months ago, my babies were fetuses. Six months from now, they will no longer be infants.

As much as it seems like my life has been consumed by babies forever, this whole thing is going way too stinking fast. In the past several days, Noah has developed about 28 new facial expressions. He now has a consonant sound: "b", and babbles it all. the. time. He now rolls over CONSTANTLY in his sleep, and wakes up very confused as to who put him on his tummy. Lily deftly pulled off her socks today to play with her toes. Her hair is getting so long that she always looks like some sort of mad scientist with a flyaway 'do. Her favorite thing lately is the Grabbing Faces Game, which she pretty much never stops playing.

Our little fam just spent Thanksgiving #1 with Scott's family in Beeville. Brad and Becca are in Texas for awhile on their way to Australia, so we took advantage of the opportunity to celebrate with the family a little early. They're taking off soon for Becca's home country before their baby boy is born in a couple of months. We had a good time catching up with family and consuming ridiculous amounts of food.

On a related note, babies love routines. Need routines. Especially Lily. We have been traveling for the past 4 days, and missing our normal sights, sounds, and timelines. So either due to that, or because she experienced her first ear infection (and subsequent diarrhea-inducing antibiotics) over the past week, Miss Lillian hasn't been herself lately. Fussy, uncomfortable, not sleeping well, not laughing or smiling as much... it makes a mommy sad. So we finally got home this afternoon after a 6 1/2 hour journey. I almost breathed a sigh of relief, until I realized that tomorrow they have their 6 month checkup... and shots. And then the day after that, MY family will be rolling into town for OUR Thanksgiving. Holidays are wonderful and I love spending time with family... I don't like that there's a part of me that's starting to dread times like this, wanting to run away with my babies and protect them from anything that might disrupt their little lives. I want them to learn to be flexible and resilient, and the only way to do that is to let them experience things and learn to bounce back. But it's hard. Good thing it'll only get easier for me to control, protect, and manage their lives...

Okay, enough of that. (Have I mentioned that they are growing up too fast?) Now is when I would post pictures, except that I have tried twice and apparently the ever-capricious internet is refusing my attempts. I'll try again tomorrow...

picture catch-up

2009-11-11T19:46:00.000-06:00

So, Mommy's been a slacker in the visual media department lately. In my defense, though, I truly believe that time has speeded up lately. Take my last post, for example: It's only been about 3 days since I posted, and yet the dates say it's been over a week! Something has gone awry in the space-time continuum.

Anyway, I am catching up. This is mostly a collection of pictures and a couple videos, so to those of you who yawn a bit when I get long-winded, Happy Birthday. I'm not feeling verbose tonight.

Here are Halloween babies (Thing 1 and Thing 2) ready to dispense candy to the masses. (They are clearly unaware of the deliciousness of chocolate and chewy sugar, being so ready to give it all away!)

Mmm, peas!!

Mommy's exciting and slightly-psychotic peek-a-boo face...

Noah flying with Daddy

Lily has a great passion for sucking on things--she took to a pacifier from birth. Lately, though, she has her hand shoved in her mouth more often than not. A couple of times, it's been like this, just like Daddy used to suck on his fingers when he was little:

The view from our back porch on Diaper Day:

Could he GET cuter?

These are Texas babies, after all...

The kiddos enjoy sitting in front of the front door lately, can you tell?

...and now on to some video footage. Scott caught Lily blowing raspberries for the firsts time yesterday, and managed to catch it on camera. Believe it or not, it's a developmental milestone to blow raspberries! Lily isn't too happy about it, though...

People are always asking me about how the babies interact, since they're twins and all. I'm sorry to say that our kiddos do not show any of the touted benefits of twindom, such as being calmed by each other's presence, reading each other's thoughts, tandem telekinesis, or whatever else twins may be purported to do. They do acknowledge each other's presence, and could be construed to "play" with each other, if you're imaginative. Here they are:

a day in the life

2009-11-02T16:20:00.000-06:00

For better or worse, a fairly predictable routine has been a part of our daily lives for a long time. Well, I guess you could call it "long" --for most of the babies' lives, anyway. It's evolved a bit over time, so I thought I might record it the way it stands right now. Both for the sake of curious and bored readers, as well as for my own gratification when things (so they promise me) get easier.

Here is a typical day when I am home with kiddos:

6:30 - Babies awaken! Happy smiles for a few minutes. Their wild screaming usually begins when they are on the nursing pillow, because they realize where they are and it apparently infuriates them that they are not already eating.

6:45 - Babies eat. This process has gotten both faster and more violent as the babies have gotten older.

7:00 - Babies play. They have gotten better at playing, but their attention span is still pathetic. I spend their playtimes rotating them to different Baby Play Stations every 10 seconds to 10 minutes, as I hear them yell their dissatisfaction.

8:15 - Babies begin screaming, signalling the need for a nap.

8:20 - Naptime. These last anywhere from 20 minutes to 2.5 hours and may involve The Pacifier Game, swing, and/or hair dryer to help them sleep longer. Things get even more complicated when Mom tries to grab a nap.

10:00 - Babies eat.

10:15 - Babies play. Attention span is a bit shorter than it was last time.

10:45 - Lily has an uncontrollable fit of fussiness.

11:30 - Naptime #2.

11:40 - Noah wakes up and refuses to go back to sleep.

1:00 - Babies eat.

1:52 - Noah has an inconsolable meltdown, refuses to nurse and doesn't calm down until he's given a bottle of formula.

2:13 - Noah falls asleep for Nap #3.

3:00 - Lily falls asleep for Nap #3.

3:01 - Noah wakes up.

4:00 - Babies eat.

4:15 - Babies SHOULD play, but they are fussy unless they are being held. And sometimes when they ARE being held.

4:48 - Mom's daily near-breakdown. Recent topics include: "Why do they keep crying?" "How could God give me two babies?" and "How long until bedtime?"

5:00 - Some days, Nap #4. I'm not sure babies this age are supposed to have four naps in a day. Ask me if I care.

6:00 - Babies eat final meal, sometimes have a bath, and change to pajamas.

7:00 - Baby bedtime.

10:30 - Nightly check-in on sweetly sleeping babies.

10:31 - Nightly moment of reflection. Recent topics include: "How blessed can one mommy get?" "How could people think having twins is hard?" and "At least it's not triplets!"

tips of the day #3 and #4

2009-11-01T14:55:00.000-06:00

First of all, let's just get it on the table: When you take your 8-month-old trick-or-treating, you're not fooling anybody. I don't care how cute her little doggie costume is, everybody knows the candy's going to be for you. So unless you're actually willing to let your infant gum her way through a pile of Snickers and Tootsie Rolls, just let the farce go. You're a big girl--go to Wal-Mart and get yourself a nice big bag of candy and just eat it all yourself. You can even toss it into a plastic pumpkin first if it makes you happy.

Secondly, it is never okay to ask if you can hold a stranger's baby.* It's just not. Especially not while you're trick-or-treating and your judgment has already been called into question for the reason described above. Not even if you say, "I have a baby too!" What sort of ridiculous reason is that for me to let you hold my child? During flu season?! Go hold your own baby, then, and quit pushing her around in a stroller while you beg candy from your neighbors.

*I suppose, in the interest of full disclosure, that there are SOME instances in which it is okay to hold a stranger's baby. Like if somehow you witness someone toss their baby into the air as they fall down three flights of stairs--I think in that case they would be glad for you to catch their child. You might not even need to ask.

so as not to forget

2009-10-28T21:40:00.000-05:00

My friend Page will occasionally blog about things her kids do so that she won't forget. I find myself wanting to do that lately, so I think today's the day. The babis get more delicious by the minute, and they've hit an age that's just an incredible amount fo fun. For the first time, I find myself wanting to hang onto this stage, instead of just being anxious for them to get a little bigger and more independent.

Noah

Ah, Mister Noah. You have to be one of the happiest babies I have ever seen. I look forward to seeing you and your big grin every morning, and I love the laugh/squeal/gasp/thing that you do when you just can't contain the joy. When you start to get mad, you sort of pant really fast, and it always makes me laugh. It used to be so hard for you to fall asleep, until you finally figured out how to hold a pacifier in your mouth, and now there's nothing left that's difficult about you. For the past couple fo weeks, you have been sleeping half turned-over to the right, as if you fell asleep in the middle of tossing aside a boulder, and it's phenomenally cute. I think if I just had you, I would wonder what people found so challenging about having a baby.

Lily

Ohh, Lily. You take everything seriously, even laughing. From the moment you were born you have been wide awake and staring, drinking in everything you can. Daddy says you have a "million-watt grin" because it's just so intense! From smiling to rolling over to sitting, you are ahead on every milestone and I'm always wondering what you're going to do next. It's amazing to hear your baby coos and sounds, because they are so expressive I can tell exactly how you're feeling. You are a wonderful cuddler when you're sleepy, and it makes me feel like the most special person in the world when you snuggle against me.

Both of you love to watch the dogs, and you laugh and squeal with delight when they sneak in a slobbery kiss. (The dogs aren't quite as thrilled that you've learned to grab their ears.) You both have been sleeping 11-12 hours through the night (with occasional minor wake-ups) for more than two months now, and for that I am eternally grateful. You love it when I read to you and sing to you. You love tickles and peek-a-boo and being swung into the air.

A year ago yesterday we found out we would be having twins. And I almost cried. Almost. (And it wouldn't have been from joy.) But I didn't cry. And it's been a long time since I could have imagined or wanted my life without you.

thank goodness for daddies...

2009-10-26T17:45:00.000-05:00

... because mommies aren't as good at making beat-box noises while making babies "dance".

... because mommies might not think of making fart noises and pretending that they propel a baby into the air from the force of the gusts.

... because mommies forget that bath time is, first and foremost, time for blowing raspberries on naked baby skin.

... because mommies may not notice that a red-and-white polka-dotted shirt looks something like a bandanna. Therefore, they might also not wrap it around a baby's head (and one of her eyes) and swish her hand around while growling, "Avast, ye mateys!"

... because mommies get so caught up in feeding babies baby food that she doesn't realize how funny baby laughs are when their mouths are full of cereal and squash.

... but mostly because daddies are the best at making babies laugh, hands down, and helping mommies to slow down and enjoy the fun moments.

five months! and toes!

2009-10-22T22:19:00.001-05:00

The babies are five months old!! Absolute craziness.

Noah is more of a heartbreaker than ever:

...and Lily is zooming ahead on those milestones. She figured out how to grab her toes today. (Noah is vaguely aware that he has toes, but he can't stop giggling long enough to try and catch them.)

sweeeeet.

2009-10-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

tip of the day #2

2009-10-15T16:05:00.001-05:00

If you meet a mother who is holding a baby, and the baby begins to squirm, squeal and cry, it is best to end the conversation and excuse the mother to comfort her child.

It is not a good idea to ignore the baby's cries and continue talking. Especially if you are talking about useless information that the baby's mother cares nothing about. And especially if you just KEEP TALKING while the baby cries louder and louder.

It is also NOT the best time to mention that you are a twin. Wait five minutes and someone may care. Maybe. If they aren't actively avoiding you for being so inconsiderate.

promoting responsible family planning, one couple at a time

2009-10-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

We have recently been visited by my brother Michael and his girlfriend Danielle. Bless their little hearts, they drove about 30 hours round-trip, mostly in rain, to come see us and the kiddos. It was my first time meeting Danielle, and it was very much a pleasure. I kind of feel bad having anybody come visit these days, because it seems like they get volunteered to help out with babies. But Michael and Danielle rose to the challenge beautifully... mostly. I think Michael's pretty sure he doesn't want children anytime soon, unless they can change their own diapers. And entertain themselves longer than 5 minutes at a time. And not cry all day long.

And here we have a few photos I hadn't managed to post yet, mostly because I am lazy.

This may possibly be my favorite baby picture so far:

We FINALLY found the little "baby trooper" onesies that Scott's coworker (another Danielle) got for them. I have packed and re-packed various sizes, seasons, and genders of baby clothing so much that I was afraid I had organized them into oblivion. But here they are, and I even found them before they got outgrown!

what could be more fun than a laughing baby?

2009-09-27T21:40:00.000-05:00

TWO laughing babies. Duh.

We can't quite match the level of the famous laughing quadruplets, but I think our version of multiple baby laughter is pretty cute.

In other areas of babydom, the kiddos have been cleared by the pediatrician to begin solid food. Mostly because they are four months old now, and not really for any other good reason. I had planned to wait until they were closer to six months old to start them on solids, but somehow having it mentioned by the doctor spurred some wave of food giddiness in me. I went from the doctor's office straight to Target, and came away with rice cereal, baby food of several different types, two dozen tiny spoons and a bunch of plastic bowls. (Our pediatrician may possibly receive kickbacks from Gerber for her crafty advertising.)

The resulting First Food experience started out sort of mediocre and disintegrated from there...

playing catch-up with pictures

2009-09-20T20:06:00.000-05:00

Alright, it's finally picture time. The babies turn four months old in two days, so I went through and organized pictures tonight. And realized that, not only have I been much more delinquent in actually taking pictures, but I haven't posted nearly as many, either. This is the first month we've both been back to work, and Scott went back to work with a vengeance. Like yesterday, when he left for work at 4:30 a.m. and got home sometime after midnight. So lately I've been playing the single mom game quite a bit, and pictures fall a bit lower on the priority list than a lot of other things. BUT, now I am catching up. I have some videos to put up, too, but those take awhile to upload so I'll probably tackle them in the next couple of days.

Sorry about this one being sideways. I tried once to fix it and then didn't care enough to try again. Anyway, here the kiddos just pooped out while playing--an extremely rare occurrence.

My attempt at a self-portrait holding two babies. (Have I mentioned that Scott has been working a lot?) It also stands as proof that my reasoning skills ain't what they used to be. Otherwise, why would I think two babies would smile at a camera that can't smile back? And why would I memorialize myself with half my face showing and my hair in a towel?

And here is new baby hair, as well as I can photograph it, anyway. They both have blondish fuzz slowly taking over as their old hair falls out. For Noah, who never had much hair to begin with, this looks like three lonely longer hairs wisping softly over his new fuzz. Don't bother looking for those three hairs, though--they are apparently camera shy.

And here's Lily. I think she has enough fuzz to qualify as "fluff", but just barely. Just like when they were born, hers is longer, darker, and more dense than Noah's so far. I think they will both be some shade of blond though.

Daddy and bebes:

Will you SCRAM?! This is MY moment!

Okay, these next couple will require a little imagination on your part. I caught the babies smiling at each other for the first time that I had noticed. However, it is very difficult to hold and/or maneuver two babies so that they can see each other, and simultaneously take a picture of both of their faces at once. (Have I mentioned that Scott has been working a lot lately?) So here is Lily and a bit of Noah's head:

...and this is what he is doing:

Noah amazed me about a week ago by holding up his bottle by himself! He's only done it a couple of times and it only lasts for a few seconds, but it's a true testament to the fact that the kiddos are finally figuring out the use of their hands.

The nightly before-bed feeding... Also a rare daddy sighting. Usually these creatures are only out late at night or in the wee hours of the morning.

We've not quite figured out books yet, but we're trying...

Is he not just adorable?

Lily is trying to roll over in BOTH directions before Noah even masters one way--I caught her halfway onto her stomach, from her back! Poor Noah. At least he has his looks.

real babies!

2009-09-18T09:41:00.000-05:00

It appears that our kiddos have finally gotten the memo on what babies are supposed to do, and they are complying accordingly. Cooing, laughing, reaching for things, and of course attempting to shove everything into their mouths. It's such an odd thing to never quite be sure what your children are capable of doing, because they're changing so fast. First I realized that, contrary to what I'd been telling EVERYONE, Lily's not that fussy after all. When did that change? We're still not sure. And as soon as I tell people they're not reaching for things yet.... they start. It's like trying to make friends with people as you stand in the middle of the street and they drive past you in cars. But not quite as frustrating. And the cars are really cute. :)

In other news, I am shedding. I debated on whether the whole postpartum hair loss thing was even worth mention on the world wide web, but mine has reached levels I never anticipated. I mean, seriously. I had read about losing hair after pregnancy, but I'm glad my doctor told me to expect to feel like a chemotherapy patient, because otherwise I'd be super worried at this point. The scariest amounts come out in the shower and directly afterward when I comb my hair. (I actually contemplated posting a picture of one shower's worth of hair, but decided that would definitely cross the "too much information" line I am so delicately treading.) So lately I've been going two or three days between hair-washings, to try and not go bald. The only problem is, it appears that without getting a bunch of hair out at once, I get to the point where I am just dripping hair. Literally. Like a leaky faucet (or possibly a waterfall), I can stand stock still and hairs just drift off of me.

And sadly, as much as I adore exaggerating for effect... I'm not. So if, in a few weeks, you see some squishy-bellied girl with large bald patches and think she looks familiar, just say hi.

And now for visual entertainment. It's Noah's turn this time. As he has not yet mastered the skill of rolling over, he had to find another venue to express himself. And as it turns out, he is a phenomenal laugher. He laughs at smiles, movement, tickles, funny noises--you name it. (See? Real babies!) There is one video on facebook--this one is different. Enjoy!

one year ago this week...

2009-09-14T20:02:00.000-05:00

... I defended my dissertation. And I got pregnant with twins.

Kind of a big week.

a note of general appreciation

2009-09-06T20:25:00.000-05:00

I was reading on a message board today--it's composed of a bunch of women who were due with babies in June. So now it's a bunch of mothers of babies around the same age as mine. Anyway, there was this thread where people were posting all the unwanted advice they'd gotten from people about how to raise babies. And I was stunned! People sure think some strange things. And I just wanted to thank the general public, since I've been relatively untouched by such odd tips. This may possibly be because I rarely leave the house. Or it could be the twin factor--people are generally struck by some sort of Idiot Hammer when they see two small babies at once. They tend toward saying things like, "Oh! Are they twins?" (duh) or "Oh, two boys?" (grr). Either way, I've escaped most of these comments. Here are some of the more incredible ones:

"when i was giving my toddler a sippy cup of milk (i think she was 2) someone told me to add an onuce of water to it or else she'd get 'milk worms'. i think she meant pin worms but i didn't ask.. i just ignored her."

"I couldn't believe this lady told me this but she said that I need to pull my baby out of the bath tub by her neck, not under her arms because I'll compress her rib cage. (Yes, this woman has children, and they are all alive and she was very serious)."

"i got told whenever my son wakes up for my husband and i to each take an arm and a leg and turn him counterclockwise so he will start sleeping at night instead of during the day."

"When I was a kid. I remember hearing that if a baby ever gets scared/shocked in order to reverse the shock you're supposed to spank them."

"I was once told by a family member not to breastfeed over a year because 'she'll know the breast is sexual and it will confuse her, causing homosexuality.' "

"I was told to turn my son's pjs inside out and hang a hard boiled egg in the doorframe to help him sleep at night."

"I had cut out dairy from my diet becuase my baby was having allergies. Great grandma said you're at least drinking milk, right? I replied, no, milk is dairy. She said but you need to drink milk to produce more milk for baby."

So, again--thanks to all you lovely people for NOT telling me any of these things.

Oh--and if anybody actually thinks these things are true... we may need to have a little chat.

you know you're too gung-ho about multitasking when...

2009-09-03T21:43:00.000-05:00

...you settle yourself on the couch next to the breastpump to harvest a bit of milk. Pumping is boring, so you have brought something to do. But you look down, and between the computer, camera memory card, TV remote, two books, and a magazine you have brought with you to occupy your time for 15 minutes, you can't even get to the milk-makers. Multitasking is great, but apparently you can have too much of a good thing...

In other news, Lily is rolling over like a maniac. Okay, not really, but she rolls over a couple times a day now. I decided to document this milestone in video. It took three tries.

Attempt number one: Lily is all excited for her big starring "roll", and gets very angry when her little body just doesn't cooperate with her bid for stardom.

Attempt number two: Lily is too keyed up and nervous from her last failed attempt at rolling over. Her poor little tummy just can't handle it.

Attempt number three: After a good nap, it's time for another try...

Noah, so far, has not kept up with his sister's new skill. He HATES being on his tummy and uses tummy time to put up a raucous protest, rather than trying to get onto his back. But he is managing to get from his back onto his side, so that's not too bad. [For those un-obsessed with baby milestones, here's a factoid: Babies used to roll over front-to-back first, then back-to-front. Back-to-front is harder. But now that babies are mandated to sleep on their backs, a lot of babies now roll back-to-front before they learn front-to-back. This pushes the milestone back from about 4 months to more like 5-6. In other words, Noah is fine. Just picky.]

The babies are getting more and more fun every day. They give us little laughs all the time now, and they are starting to like things that normal people think are fun, such as being "tossed" (an inch) into the air, funny noises, and having their feet tickled. Lily also LOVES watching TV. We are apparently terrible parents. Today I came home from work to very hungry babies, and the only way Scott could keep Lily calm was to hold her where she could see the TV. Turn it off, she would scream--turn it back on, and she was happy. *sigh*

this post was bought for the price of a nap

2009-08-29T08:20:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, my naplessness will likely sap all the creativity out of my posting. But I must post! It's been way too long.

For instance, I give you Exhibit A: Three-month-and-one-week old babies! It has taken me a WEEK to post that they are now three months old. At three months, Noah weighed 12 lbs. 9 oz., and Lily weighed 10 lbs., 9 oz. They were 21.75 and 21.5 inches long, respectively. That was a week ago, and now they are... well, a little bigger.

Here is something that makes their mommy slightly unhappy: They are both on the growth chart for weight (Lily is somewhere around the 5th-10th percentile, and Noah is around the 25th). But NEITHER of them is on it for height!! We are apparently producing beachball-shaped people. Perhaps hanging them from their heels is in order--maybe it will stretch them out. We'll have nap time, tummy time, and stretchy time.

Want to see them look REALLY small? I went to a baby shower last weekend and took the babies (but did not shower them). Another baby was there who is a week older than mine. Can you tell which one he is?

Right, that was probably too easy--he's half Chinese. Seriously though, the child made my babies look like silly imps! He weighs over 20 pounds. He is more off the charts on the large end than mine are off the small end, so it was really funny looking.

We had an interesting incident the other night--we're pretty sure our house was struck by lightning! I ran to Wal-Mart while Scott stayed home with sleeping babies. A storm rolled in. Scott was on the computer, and suddenly there was a massive clap of thunder and lightning. He also felt a big shock, smelled burned hair, and saw sparks all over the living room. He said the room was just buzzing afterward. The thunder was so loud that our neighbor called to see if we were okay. We're pretty sure the lightning struck our satellite dish, because Scott discovered a charred spot in the carpet and a place where the cable to the satellite receiver had blown out. Oh yeah, and our TV, DVD player, and satellite dish are all kaput. The lightning also killed the batteries (yes, batteries) in the thermostat control. And our security system (that we don't use) started smoking ominously when the power came back on. (Scott ripped it off the wall.)

Oh yeah, and Scott's okay. He had a headache, and found a quarter-sized patch of arm hair that had been sizzled off. (It wasn't touching the computer or anything, so it's a mystery.)

And the babies slept through the whole thing.

Okay, what else do I need to record for posterity...? Both the babies have laughed now--Lily only once (but very clearly) and Noah several times. And both of them have rolled over--Noah only did it twice in a row a couple weeks ago, but Lily has managed it several times. They have both begin discovering various body parts and can fling their arms in the general direction they want them to go. (It's endlessly entertaining to watch a baby stare at something and obviously want to touch it, but their arms just don't make it anywhere close.)

And now a couple more pictures. Not too many, because I've been a bad photographer lately, too. But I'm putting the camera on the charger and I promise to reform my wayward habits in the upcoming weeks.

Lily has some idea of smiling at the camera. Noah thinks it's a trick.

Emily got me this for my birthday--sadly, it took me over a month to stick the silly thing on my car. But I've gotten lots of comments on its cuteness since!

looooots of pictures

2009-08-18T14:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm FINALLY getting to post the pictures from our trip that was now two weeks ago!! I can't believe it has taken me this long. I've literally been uploading pictures here and there for two or three DAYS, whenever I have a spare minute. Part of this is because I've started working again. But mostly, this is because Scott's mom ("Gemma") takes her job as Family Documenter very seriously. Very, VERY seriously. There were literally hundreds of pictures to sort through. But while it is a lot, I am very glad that there are people who are better at remembering to take pictures than I am. Because I look back at pictures like this:

and this:

...and I am very glad I am not the only one in charge of taking pictures. How on EARTH can they change so fast and not be morphing right before my eyes??

Anyway, on to our trip. Lily is having a very important science lesson about trees:

Doesn't Noah look contemplative? Probably contemplating what bark would taste like. (Why won't these people ever feed me??)

Gemma, Granddad, and twins in their Sunday best. Noah is particularly unimpressed with the proceedings. In other words, he's hungry.

And yet another picture of babies in Sunday clothes. Noah is beginning to wonder if he will ever eat again...

Scott's aunt Ann picked up Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls at Cracker Barrell. It was so fun to see the babies get so intrigued by them!

Lily was absolutely captivated by her doll. I hope this does not signify an early interest in excessive makeup and dyed hair...

Scott and I rode his dad's motorcycle while we were visiting:

This was my favorite part (getting off). Sorry, Scott. Tooooo windy for me.

Granddad and Gemma held a get-together for relatives to come visit the kiddos. (We have tons of pictures of everybody holding babies, but I think I've already expressed how weary I am of uploading pictures--so please don't be offended if you're not pictured!)

Lily is learning to multitask--here she is napping while attending her own party:

Noah is not quite as adventurous and didn't sleep the entire afternoon and early evening. As a result, he spent most of the day looking fairly bleary-eyed, but appeared to thoroughly enjoy his party.

Lily looooved spending time on the hammock with Granddad:

Happy Noah! He will probably be mortified of this picture when he is seven--how much pink can a little guy take?

We got to visit both of Scott's grandmothers, who were staying in the same facility at the time.

Noah found his Great-Granny to be a very suitable mattress. (Apparently Reed wasn't as comfortable...)

And onward, to a cacophony of matching outfits! We had to do a little finagling to get them both in the Ralph Lauren outfits their Great-Aunt Susie got them. (Noah is fat. He also thinks he looks too preppy.)

Here they are (though you can't tell) in onesies that both proclaim "I'm the best!" --courtesy of (aunt) Liz and (uncle) Reed.

... and Mommy's shining star, and Daddy's little sunshine. Complete with two little faces that are clearly tired of being dressed up and wedged into the same Boppy.

an epiphany

2009-08-17T23:09:00.000-05:00

My babies are wonderful and beautiful and precious.

That is all.

our trip in pictures

2009-08-15T21:42:00.000-05:00

... or pictures, anyway. I wrote the title and then couldn't find many trip-specific shots! I'll have to beg them off of relatives and re-post. But, never fear--we have other pictures. I did find one of our trip, of the babies' first visit to the beach. Noah did great--he just hung out in my arm like that as we walked for a little while. Lily, on the other hand, had a small mental breakdown on our arrival, which is why she's swaddled at the beach. Ah, well--there's always next time.
And I forgot to mention our mini-trip a few days before the big trip to Corpus. We went and visited the family of Scott's friend Todd, a trooper who was killed in a car accident a couple years ago. But he did manage to produce four adorable children before he had to go. They like Scott:

And that's only three of them! (Scott is behind the horde of children, with Noah.) Tyler, the oldest, preferred to play with a rubber band at the moment.

Here is Noah dreaming of becoming a cha-cha dancer. Hopefully his dreams will become more gender-appropriate as he gets older.

Lily is really getting a handle on tummy time!

Noah is doing much better too. Both babies actually rolled over this week! I think it was mostly a fluke though--I always put them down on their bellies with their hands up like they would be for a push-up. It tends to keep them happier than having them down at their sides. So I don't think they can roll over "from scratch", like having to pull their hands up AND roll over. But still--I'm excited!

Oh, and I almost forgot--Noah has purportedly laughed, like 3 times! All incidents have been witnessed solely by the daddy, so I guess I have to take his word for it. But Noah apparently likes it when Scott makes fart noises. Boys!!

And speaking of boys, remember this picture of Noah?

And remember this picture of Noah?

Except it's SCOTT. Weird, huh? It's starting to look like we cloned Scott instead of going about babymaking in the normal way.

And one more happy twin picture for the road...

our big adventure... sort of

2009-08-13T23:51:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I've been able to post. I've been really meaning to for the last few days, but the time keeps getting away from me (worse than usual). This is our last week before going back to work, so I'm trying to squeeze in a bunch of things. Really fun things, like sifting through the semi-permanent pile of papers and cards that has littered the kitchen counter since the babies arrived. And squeezing a clothes-shopping trip in between feedings so that I could buy some fat clothes and not show up naked the first day of work. Fortunately (or not), Noah has chosen this week to move into the next size of clothing, which sends me into an odyssey of sorting, washing, and packing up. I have no idea how two tiny people can require so much clothing.

Speaking of moving into the next size of clothing, Noah is officially huge. Two days ago he weighed in at 12 lbs, 3 oz! He is in his fourth size of clothing since being born. And Lily is right at 10 lbs. The gap between them is definitely getting bigger! But they are both growing fine--it looks like Noah is approaching the 25th percentile, and Lily is finally on the charts.

We took a trip down to visit Gemma and Granddad last week. A 6-hour trek is quite the journey for new parents to attempt, so we were definitely feeling a little apprehensive. But the babies really did well! They don't need a whole lot of entertainment at this point, which is a blessing. They were happy through the whole car ride. And during our visit, we got to introduce them to gobs of family and friends. I will post pictures, eventually...

We drove home Monday, and a few miles from home we were congratulating ourselves on having had such a smooth trip. We celebrated a little too early, as it turns out... A few miles from our exit, I was in the backseat--I had just fed the babies with bottles and was pumping more milk (which takes at least one hand and a little coordination). Scott was driving and on the phone with his mom. I noticed a bit of drool on Lily's mouth and pulled up the burp rag that was next to her in her carseat, to wipe it off. I noticed too late that the burp rage was COVERED in yellow baby poo! Which I had just wiped on my poor baby!

Now remember, one of my hands is taken up holding the pumping stuff. So now my other hand is holding a poo rag, and I can't put it down, or I'll get even more poo everywhere! I told Scott we had to pull over, even if we were only 2 miles from our exit. At the same time, he was actually trying to avoid hitting some random guy who was walking slowly across the interstate, as he talked to his mom. So after a few minutes of confusion, he pulled into a conveniently-situated rest stop so we could pull things back together. He got Dakota out of the back and tied her to a trash can post so that I could use the back tailgate to change Lily's diaper (and clothes, etc.). As I tried to figure out how to get her outfit off over her head without getting any of the poo in her hair (or mouth), I heard Scott make a disgusted noise. Apparently the trash can to which Dakota was tethered had a puddle of leaky trash juice underneath it. Dakota must have thought she died and went to heaven--such a perfect opportunity to roll in some lovely muck! By the time Scott caught her, she was all wet and smelled like a dump.

This was the point I started laughing. Really hard.

As I continued getting Lily under control, Scott dragged Dakota away from the trash and I heard another yell. It seems that Dakota decided she was a little TOO damp from trash juice and had shaken herself... all over Scott! So now Scott smelled like a dump. too.

This was the point I started crying, I was laughing so hard.

Through my tears, I finally got all the way down to Lily's diaper. Turns out she hadn't filled her diaper to overflowing, as I had thought. Her diaper was just on a little crooked--enough that she pooped out the side. Totally preventable!

Needless to say, we limped home a little humble than we'd been just a few miles previously.

tip of the day

2009-08-03T16:49:00.000-05:00

When someone lets you hold her two-month-old for the first time, and the baby is asleep and wrapped snugly in a blanket, it is not a good idea to immediately unwrap her. Not even if you declare that "She just needs to breathe a minute." When the baby then starts crying (duh), it is also unwise to tell her mother that "She wants to go home now."

Her mother JUST might smack you. Or at least proclaim your ignorance all over the world-wide web.

genetics and hand-eating

2009-07-30T16:44:00.000-05:00

So as much as these babies look like their daddy, it appears that I have passed on a few little things to my offspring. Including, apparently, the art of sleeping with one's mouth open. It's also nice to know that this "gift" may be genetically linked, so that it's not something I can control...

Apparently the flash on a camera startles sleeping babies--who knew?

And here's the mega-pouty face I got for embarrasing her by taking advantage of such an unflattering photo op. That's her lower lip, by the way--not her tongue!

This picture of Noah makes me giggle. He tends to look sideways a lot, by virtue of having a head that lays better on the sides, and us trying to get him to look straight ahead. But this day he looked especially resentful of our efforts.

And here's a sampling of a skill Noah's been honing since birth: chewing on his hands. It's not the greatest video; sometimes he gets going even more than this. But those times I feel more guilty about videoing him instead of feeding the poor child.

necessity is the mother of compromise. oh yeah--and invention, too.

2009-07-27T19:03:00.000-05:00

I read a whole lot of books about babies while I was pregnant. Books about getting pregnant, being pregnant, buying baby stuff, things that can go wrong, things that can go right, having babies, feeding babies, getting them to sleep/wake/eat/get to their college classes on time. Books have been enormously helpful. In fact, I'm still reading books--I keep two or three close at hand in my little nursing niches so that I can grab them whilst my body is immobilized and I remember all the baby-related questions that have cropped up in the previous few hours. And let's not even mention the hours I've spent combing the internet... All this inquiry has taught me such useful tidbits as:

What cradle cap is, and how to fix it
How to use a vacuum cleaner to put a baby to sleep
That breastmilk can taste like garlic
That babies apparently like garlic-flavored mommy-nosh
How to swaddle a baby so securely they won't get out on their own before kindergarten
...and many other useful things.

When it comes down to it, though, there are times (and plenty of them) when I've just had to stuff the books and magazines under a pillow so their authors won't witness me going absolutely against their advice. Like when we put Lily to sleep in the swing again even though this will apparently ruin the chances that she will ever put herself to sleep before she's 50. And when we don't change Noah for the third time in an hour because he's finally quiet and sleepy, and maaaaybe that squishy sound was really just gas.

Because I am not perfect, and my children apparently did not read all those books to know what they were supposed to do. And sometimes, I just need to bend the rules a little if I'm ever going to find time to sleep. (Or get to that stupid laundry.) And the reasonable part of me figures that Noah and Lily just might grow up happy despite all the compromise.

And now, further evidence in pictures: When two babies are crying and hungry at once, you improvise. A rubber band attached to the mobile of the baby papasan chair can feed a baby.

And when baby equipment keeps taking up all your sleeping spaces, you just sort of make do:

And when they don't make baby seats and helmets small enough, you find other ways:

This is Lily practicing to be Saudi Arabian:

And this is Noah practicing to be asleep. He's gotten so good, it's hard to tell he's only faking.

Seriously, can you even tell he's wide awake?

two months in

2009-07-22T16:53:00.000-05:00

Surely it's been more than two months than the babies were born, right? Surely it's been hundreds and thousands of days of diapers and Boppies and bottles and smiles in the morning. Right? Did I really have a different life two months ago?

I think it's safe to say that we've adjusted to being parents. Not that we know what we're doing all the time, or even half the time... but the idea has definitely had time to sink in. I've had a couple of "aha!" moments where I was looking at one of the babies and all of a sudden it hit me that they were mine. Weird feeling, but very cool.

It's amazing how much they've changed in the past two months, too. Lily has gained three and a half pounds, weighing in yesterday at 8 lbs, 14 oz. And Noah has more than doubled his birth weight, coming in at a whopping 10 lbs, 9 oz! Noah is now at the 11th percentile for his weight, but they're not on the charts yet for length or head circumference... gotta take it one step at a time though, I guess! At least Lily's head is finally big enough for those little stretchy headbands, so people can stop asking me if they are both boys. They are holding their heads up much better, smiling all the time, and making all kinds of noises. Noah gave the nurse a HUGE smile yesterday at the doctor's office... right before she gave him his shots. And Lily is so fun every morning. I un-swaddle her and lay her on the changing table, and she immediately starts kicking, flailing, looking around wide-eyed, and cooing and smiling. It almost makes 5:30 a.m. a bearable hour to be alive.

Two month old bebes, reclining in their Boppies. Lily is looking at me like I'm crazy, probably for putting her little headband on when we weren't going anywhere.

Their head control has also gotten good enough for us to be able to use their Bumbo chairs, which is fun. They like being able to sit up and look around more and more. I love the way Lily has her arm out like she's just reclining. Noah looks like he's having trouble bending in the middle--possibly due to his enormous tummy:

Scott is sticking her tongue out at Lily--she stares at it, but doesn't yet appear to get offended.

noah's traumatic event and other updates

2009-07-15T14:27:00.000-05:00

A few days ago Scott put Noah down to sleep in his crib. He wasn't quite asleep yet, so Scott turned on the "TV"--a flat plastic toy that shines lights and plays music. It's supposed to strap to the side of the crib, but since we move it around a lot, we just let it lean against the side of whatever apparatus the babies are in at the moment. Noah loves the thing--it'll keep him entertained for a long time (at LEAST three minutes). A few minutes later, Scott heard hysterical crying coming from the nursery and went in to find the toy toppled over onto Noah's face, still flashing and playing music. It took the poor kid quite awhile to calm down!

Lily's fussiness has been a lot better lately, thank goodness! We were hunkering down for a few months of solid crying, since she seemed to meet the "official" criteria for having colic and colic generally lasts awhile. Every evening and into the night, we would enter an odyssey of wailing and screaming, courtesy of our little princess. But about a week ago, Lily had a really good night. And then another one the next day. And she's had one every night since. Right now it's 10:30 and she's in bed in the bassinet (not the swing!), sleeping soundly. This is an absolute miracle, in my opinion. I have no idea whether our good luck will continue or not, but it's nice for now!

And now for some pictures. We propped Noah up in the big comfy glider and noticed he was cute, so we took a picture:

And then we piled on Lily, and it was even cuter. It almost seemed as if they were beginning to appreciate each other's company...

...until Noah started trying to latch on to Lily's head. Again. So much for brotherly love.

Here's another gratuitously cute picture of Noah in that baseball cap. It still doesn't fit him, but it's scary how quickly he's almost grown into it, from how huge it was on him a few weeks ago.

And here's Lily, exhibiting her newfound laid-back attitude, since she's sleeping without being swaddled and without her trusty hair dryer blowing. And I'm sorry, but is she not gorgeous??

More evidence of her gorgeousness...

And a wonderful, happy fat baby smile from Mr. Noah to round things out:

daddyisms

2009-07-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

If it's one thing that babies can do, it's scrape life down to the bare essentials (eating, sleeping, pooping). Given the ridiculous amount of time that we spend on these essentials, I have recently been impressed with the importance of maintaining our sense of humor. So to that end, I want to record a couple of very funny moments. At least, I thought they were hysterical. We'll see if all you folks operating on more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep have the same opinion.

Several nights ago, Scott and I were in the living room and a show about adoption was on TV. This couple was trying to adopt an 18-month-old Indian boy who had had a trachaeotomy. Because of the trach, he couldn't talk or make noises. It was the weirdest thing to watch him cry pitifully without making a sound. Scott was on the computer and hadn't been watching, so I said, "Hey look, that boy has a trach, so he doesn't make any noise when he cries!" Without missing a SECOND, Scott looks up and says, "How much does that cost?"

And then last night we were entertaining Lily away from fussiness, and started thinking and talking about how tiny her little organs must be. This led us to contemplate her tiny little girl organs, and the fact that she already has all her eggs. And then we made the jump to thinking about Lily having babies. Scott told her very seriously that she was WAY too young to have babies, that she was simply not mature enough. And it was just so funny, sitting there thinking of Lily, who can't take care of herself enough to even know why she's crying half the time, taking care of her own fussy babies. Baby Lily and her teensy little babies, just sitting there crying together.

Auntie Em and air conditioning

2009-07-10T11:38:00.000-05:00

My sister Emily came last week for our birthdays (they are a day apart) and to see the babies. We had a lovely time, especially during the car ride home from the airport, during which Emily sat in the back while Lily screamed for half an hour. She has since decided she may not be ready to have children at the moment. Here we are with our birthday cake, which we absolutely did not make. Sadly, I neglected to take pictures of the Fourth of July cupcakes that we--I mean Emily--actually did make.

I had an interesting birthday, overall. It happened to be one of those days when I couldn't put down a baby long enough to use the restroom, let alone get anything else done. And sometime around noon we realized the air conditioning wasn't working, so we spent the rest of the day having a repairman visit and trying to decide where we would get money for a new a/c system. After Scott had made a dozen phone calls, we realized the air was working again (and it has been, ever since). So it looks like we won't need a new system right away, at least...

In other news, I have begun the long road to getting myself back into shape. Apparently, going nearly a year without breaking a sweat is not the best way to maintain one's physical fitness. I've never been much of an athlete, but I like to be able to run (well, jog at least) 2-3 miles. Once the presence of two parasites was discovered in my abdomen, I was restricted to walking. I planned to keep up with exercise through the pregnancy, but by the end the only sport I could manage was couch-sitting. And then after the c-section I wasn't really supposed to do much exercise for 6 weeks.

And now 6 weeks have passed and I am cleared to work out again. So the other day I went for a "run". I use the term loosely--I wouldn't use it at all, but to say "I dragged my sorry carcass around the block at slightly faster than a walk" isn't very concise. It wasn't my best performance, to say the least. Suffice it to say that, after this "run", I feel as though I've been hit by a truck. Good thing I have my flubby leftover twin-belly to laugh at me in the mirror and motivate me to keep exercising.

And now for pictures! Here's the first baby-smile caught on camera... (it's Lily)

And Noah is sort of smiling...it's mostly just a trick of the camera, but this is pretty much what his smiles look like. They are smiling more and more every day, which is nice. Apparently we truly have produced two little people and not just two small, needy blobs.

And here's Noah, demonstrating the proper way to slip into a milk coma: (I had to hold his hand there whilst Daddy grabbed the camera)

off the cuff is out the window

2009-06-28T13:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm not stupid. I have always understood that babies are pretty needy. Smart girl that I am, at some point while I was pregnant with two babies, it occurred to me that my life might soon change a little.

But I don't think you can really appreciate the depth and pervasiveness of that change until it happens to you. Until your brain is puttering along on 4 scattered hours of sleep and you notice that you're wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday, and you really can’t muster the energy to care. Until your arm gets numb from jiggling a crying baby as you watch the window lighten at dawn, and you realize dimly that this is what people are talking about when they say that babies keep you up at night.

I think that the hardest thing to adjust to, though, is not a crying baby or sleep deprivation. It's the fact that I have been tossed into a completely foreign existence, and there is no end in sight. I remember hearing a mother once talk about caring for her three-year-old son who had severe cognitive impairments and health issues. She said it felt like she and her husband were surviving in "crisis mode" to get sleep, food, etc.--but that the "crisis mode" just never ended. That's sort of what I feel like, only not nearly that dramatic. It feels like I've made crazy changes to my life to get through a crazy situation, like taking extra deep breaths and focusing to get myself through the last few laps as I run on a track. But this time, when I squint toward the end of the track to see how far there is to go... there's no end! For the foreseeable future, my life revolves in three-hour segments of feeding, sleeping, and changing, with bouts of crying and rocking peppered in for flavor.

And it's not that bad--it sounds kind of depressing on the surface, but it's nice to be in a routine and know what to expect. It just takes a whole different lifestyle and frame of mind than I've ever had.

Want to know my newest revelation? I am TIRED of planning!! Me, the princess of plans, wants to abdicate the throne. Because now I'm not just planning on a large scale. I have to plan every single minute in order to get anything done. I have to plan LAUNDRY. Laundry! I hate laundry! And now I have to make advanced effort just to fit it into the day! Because if I just wait until the moment strikes me, as I've always done, it won't happen. I will think of it just as a baby starts crying, or after 10:00, when I really need to drop everything and sleep or I'll never get any rest. Because I need to plan when I will sleep, too! My life has no spontaneity at all anymore!

That's not even all, though--the real kick in the pants is that things will NEVER turn out the way I planned them! I feel a little like that Greek guy who had to roll the boulder up a hill and watch it roll down again, over and over for all eternity.

And now, because I am overly dramatic when I describe things and people reading this may think I am nearing suicidal levels of depression, let me just say that I am fine. WE are fine. If this is torture, then it's fairly pleasant torture. And there are many good moments. Both babies broke from the plan yesterday and slept soundly through a two-hour car ride, including an hour of stop-and-go traffic. Noah gave me a very cute and very real half-smile this morning. And Lily got lots of compliments on her tiny baby bracelet at church today. So I suppose we may make it after all.

Until they start teething, of course.

In other news, we are growing massive babies. As of last Friday, the kiddos were 5 weeks old. Lily weighed 6 lbs, 14 oz, and Noah weighed 8 lbs, 1 oz! So she has gained a pound and a half, and he has gained three pounds!! These kids are actually going to make it onto the growth charts! It is sadder than I expected to watch Noah outgrow his cute little newborn clothes. I’m going to have to buy outfits in three consecutive sizes when I really like them, so I can enjoy them for more than a couple of weeks.

And now for pictures! Here is Noah in his gangsta hat.

And Lily in her ladybug outfit, complete with hat. Unfortunately, the outfit is newborn sized and the hat is much bigger...

Unka Mark, taking a quick moment to relax with baby twins before heading back to Illinois.

Grandma with babies. (Noah is not feeling photogenic.)

Grandma and Grandpa with our little fam.

I think I forgot to post a picture of Scott's parents when they were here a few weeks ago. So here they are:

a month of babyness

2009-06-22T22:37:00.000-05:00

It's extraordinarily hard to believe, but Noah and Lillian are a whole month old today! In some ways it feels like they can't be that old, and in other ways it feels like they've been around forever. As wonderful as it is to see them change and learn and grow, it's a little sad to lose my teensy little newborns. Well, Lily still looks and feels like a newborn. Noah is starting to feel more like a large sack of flour. (A sack of flour with a tongue.) As of today, Lily weighs 6 lbs, 8 oz, which means she has gained a pound and 3 ounces. Noah weigs 7 lbs, 7 oz, which means he has gained two pounds and five ounces!! He is determined to be huge, I think. But as much as they are growing, they still have a ways to go. Noah is finally on the growth chart at the 5th percentile for one-month-olds, but Lily is still somewhere below the 5th percentile, although she appears to be gaining ground. (It's hard to tell--the little boxes on those growth charts are pretty miniscule!)

The babies have really started staying awake for longer periods, holding up their heads, and looking at things around them. We've even gotten a couple of smiles from them that seem like they couldn't have been completely accidental. Lily has teensy little biceps and calf muscles, no doubt from her constant kicking and flailing. We're pretty sure she'd be gaining more weight if she didn't burn off so many calories all the time! Mr. Noah is still calm and patient, and can entertain himself for quite awhile on the play mat or bouncer. He has recently perfected making the sound of an old, creaky door closing.

And now for some pictures...

Noah with Grandma, doing what he does best: (Well, second best if you count eating.)
Lily, taking a moment from her sport of giraffe-kicking to cast a knowing glance at the camera

Lily with her daddy

Cute baby feet, in cute hand-knitted socks that my friend Kate sent me. Her grandmother made these socks for Kate's new baby, but she had a normal-to-large sized offspring and these socks were apparently a better fit for dinky little feet.

And one more of sweet, sleepy Noah...

40 weeks

2009-06-11T14:22:00.000-05:00

The twins are due tomorrow! Oh, wait...

I can't believe how much the babies have changed in just 3 weeks. Noah is putting on so much weight it's ridiculous. He developed a double chin sometime last week and he may have a third one soon. I want to weigh him every day because I can feel him getting heavier. Lily has turned into a very alert little baby. She stays awake several periods every day, looking around and grunting. She picks her head up really well, too! Noah is also working on lifting his head, but is a bit slower about it. I think he should get a little extra consideration for having such a massive noggin on such a tiny neck.

Every day they get a little more different from each other, too. From the shape of their eyes and faces to their temperaments (and, okay, their respective boy/girl parts), they are two very different people. Noah is calm and easygoing for the most part. You pick him up, feed him, change his diaper, and put him back in his bed for the next nap time, and you usually don't hear from him until he gets hungry again. (Which, amazingly, follows pretty closely to the three-hour schedule we are trying to follow. He may be very punctual when he grows up.)

Lily, on the other hand, gets a bit more interesting. She is quick to let you know when she is hungry. Or tired. Or whether the position you have had her in for 30 seconds has gotten uninteresting. Or whether she'd really like wrapped up in a blanket. Or unwrapped. And she is even quicker to let you know when she is REALLY upset about any of those things after approximately 3 seconds of grumbling. And she's not exactly precise in letting you know what it is that's bothering her. (It becomes like some sort of game show where you try and figure out what the answer is before the time runs out. But nobody gives you any money for figuring it out...)

But she keeps things exciting, that's for sure. And she is so alert and responsive, I think she'll be a really bright and interesting (if somewhat intense) little kid. She's definitely going to be a cuddler, that's for sure. I feel bad sometimes for poor Noah, who doesn't get snuggled 24 hours a day simply because he's not crying all the time. But he seems happy enough, and I suppose he may forgive me someday.

We took the babies to get pictures taken yesterday. I have always enjoyed the cute pictures I've seen of sweet, peaceful babies sleeping in serene little poses. I had always wondered how they got the babies to sleep so well. Want to know the secret? They don't! Noah was fairly unconscious for our little photo shoot, but Lily was her usual awake and active little self. They pretty much had to take the pictures while she was blinking. The effect is pretty good though. Here is a sampling of the best shots...

Noah:

Lillian:

And both babies:

diaper rash and other adventures

2009-06-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

Okay, so diaper rash is one of those things that I expected to have to deal with, at least at some point. Not sure I was prepared for week-old babies to have it, but such is life I suppose. Several days ago Noah's little bottom started looking a bit red and he started to let us know he'd much rather skip his diaper changes, thank you very much. Pretty soon Lily started to follow suit. Before we knew it, and despite liberal application of various ointments, our little babies had icky red cracks and open spots all around their little poopers. We got fairly worried about it, and were glad we had a doctor's appointment coming up in a couple of days. I was prepared to be told that they were severely allergic to all kinds of food in my diet, that they had weird skin-munching intestinal worms, or all sorts of other horrible things.

So we went to the doctor yesterday and expressed our deep concern over our kiddos' wounded bottoms. The nurse and doctor took quick looks under their diapers and gave us some samples of diaper rash creme. Apparently what we thought was an extreme case of bottom ickiness is nothing more than mild diaper rash. Mild!! God bless the poor little babies with the severe cases!

In other news, the babies are growing! Lillian is up to 5 lbs, 9 oz. And Noah has hit 6 pounds!! The way he eats, I wasn't surprised at his gaining more weight than her, but... 6 pounds! He's like a normal baby size! Normally they're content if babies regain their birth weight by their 2 week appointment--let alone gain nearly a pound! My days of toting little teensy babies are definitely numbered, anyway. It makes me wonder if Noah is going to turn out to be some hulking beast of a boy.

Several people have asked us how the animals are adjusting to the new additions. They're doing really, really well, thankfully. Both Hank and Dakota know that the babies are off-limits unless they're given permission to sniff. And Cooper has decided that little baby people are even less worthy of his kitty attention than the grown-up variety. We do think they are bothered by their relative lack of attention lately, though. Yesterday Dakota tried to convince us she could defy gravity and walk on the wall, just to get a bit of notice.

Since the babies are less-than-interactive at the moment, Scott has been looking for ways to increase their entertainment value. Noah appears to be constantly hungry, and will generally attempt to drink from anything within 6 inches of his face. One time, he seemed very interested in Lily's ear. (She was not impressed.) We tried to repeat the little scenario by pushing their little heads together, but apparently Noah had decided his sister's ear was not a good source of nourishment:

And one more picture, just because they're so stinking cute...