When does Fall start?

I'm sure I'll long for these hot, sunny August days in January...but for now, all I can think about is jeans and sweater weather. It's just so darn hot and humid. Our grass has turned crunchy and a shade of yellow, the flowers start wilting an hour after I water them, and you could hear a pin drop when you walk outside our door, whereas during nice weather, the sounds of kids laughing can be heard from the playground just down the street. The girls get red faced and cranky after just a few minutes of being outside, and our car is an oven most days when we get in - so the temptation to just stay inside all day and play is always there, which means we're experiencing a winter-like cabin fever. Luckily, the girls are easily entertained - they spent a half hour the other day climbing in and out of a cooler.


Which gave them close quarters for some open mouthed kissing (HA!)


There's just not a lot to do with 13-month olds, particularly when they're not content to sit in a stroller for any period of time (otherwise I'd be spending far too much time at the mall). Whereas Nashville is full of opportunities for pre-schoolers, from pottery painting and cooking classes to the new planetarium at the Adventure Science Center - taking young toddlers to those places is like throwing money down the drain, as I learned after paying the $13 admission fee to the Nashville Zoo in June and spending half of our time in front of the drinking fountain (the girls' favorite attraction, strangely enough).


During the week, my moms' club is a true sanity saver. We're headed to the library later today for their story time hour, which is such a completely awesome, free event. The last time we attended, the girls weren't walking yet - and so even though Margaret insisted on climbing into this other mom's lap four times in a row (apparently her lap was more comfy than mine), they generally stayed in my vicinity and actually paid attention to the story and puppets for about 5 minutes. I fear what today will be like, though, with their being proficient walkers - and sometimes runners (!). Luckily, the story time presenters don't seem to mind their audience making a lot of noise and moving around.


I've also signed the girls up for a music class on Thursdays at a bookstore, which I'm really looking forward to. I'm hoping Anna and Margaret will show off their rhythmic swaying/bobbing moves to the class. I hear the high-energy instructor is awesome but insists on all parents full participation, which means I'm going to make a fool of myself for an hour straight while I sing along and make the associated hand gestures to songs like "The Wheels on the Bus." I just always pray in those situations that no other adult is watching me.

Our weekend was nice and relaxing, although I ended up getting a head cold/sore throat/earache that was worse than any cold I've had in years. I guess I'm lucky to say that it really was the first time since the girls were born that I was too sick to take care of them - and so father of the year Joey stepped in and took the lead in tickling/chasing/throwing/singing to/feeding/and generally exhausting himself for 2 days straight, while I layed on the couch and watched. At the height of sore throat aching, all I could think of was eating a popsicle, so we took the girls to Dragon Park with the ultimate plan of walking over to Fido for a Las Paletas popsicle.

We had the park to ourselves, of course, and I adore this place - it's located directly across from Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and features a fully handicap-accessible playground, which is also quite awesome for wobbly toddlers not quite ready for the monkey bars and slides.




The Water Sprayer - which was quite a hit until the wasps started to surround us

Oh, and the Las Paletas popsicles? Totally hit the spot. We highly recommend the Mexican Caramel and Strawberry Pineapple Banana flavors, although Joey and I got a mere taste whereas the girls devoured them. I'm not even sure they stopped for air.

Well, I'm off to get a shower while the girls are still sleeping. Have a good one!

Catching up on some photos...and tangential stories

My parents came to visit us last weekend and brought with them a CD of photos from their first birthday celebration in St. Louis last month. I uploaded those photos to our web gallery, but thought I'd pick out a few of my favorite.

Anna's signature thumb suck - I love how she always hooks her finger around her nose

This photo cracks me up - check out their annoyed faces when we put on the birthday hats


Their favorite trick right now - putting their hands in the air when we say "Hands Up!"


Our first ride on a carousel - Margaret absolutely loving it


Anna - not so much


Margaret was desperate for another turn and couldn't believe the ride was over


Showing their determination in attempting to scale the slide


Totally loving climbing up this plastic tube


Not quite comfortable in the prickly grass


On an unrelated note, Joey and I test drove a Honda Odyssey minivan today, and we loved it. I make myself a little nauseous just writing that - if you'd have asked me 2 years ago if I would ever consider buying a minivan, my answer would be a definitely no, no way, never gonna do it. But seriously, this thing rides like a dream, has an infinite amount of storage space for the caravan of junk we take along while traveling with the girls, and you just push these little buttons and presto!, the doors close. Purchasing a car that gets a mere 16 miles to the gallon in this economy seems like a sin - but I've still got my head wrapped around buying a car that doesn't feel like the clown car I'm driving around town right now.

On the way to the dealership, I asked Joey if he feels like his fun and crazy bachelorhood is truly long gone since he's taking his wife and 2 kids to look at minivans. You know what he said? That he loves his family so very much, and that this is exactly what he wants to be doing. I truly married the right man, and 2 days ago, as we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary over a romantic dinner and a dozen roses that he brought home for me, I was reminded of how lucky and blessed I am. I love you, baby. You are an incredible husband and father.


July 31, 2004

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, Indiana

Slipping into my old blogging ways

I was doing so well for a while there - keeping the posts coming every few days. And then, I don't know - I could blame my lack of posting on company coming in town, the girls' simultaneously getting colds and new teeth (and associated lack of sleep affecting all four people in our household), and a general fatigue from caring for very mobile, active, headstrong toddlers. But I think laziness is more to blame than anything. So here I am again - resolving myself to do better!

I've heard of the terrible twos - even the terrible threes - but is there a word for this stage right now? The willful ones? Perhaps I'm just getting a taste of toddler hood and I wasn't prepared for how strong-willed 13-month old toddlers were capable of being. Every day is a constant and endless battle of my trying to figure out what Anna and Margaret want. Their lack of words, and my inability to decipher their screeches and frantic pointing and head shaking, leave all three of us exhausted and frustrated by the time Daddy walks in the door from a long day of work. I have to say that the finger pointing is quite funny, though - numerous times during the day, the girls beg to be picked up by running over and slamming their bodies into my legs. Once in my arms, they locate something across the room they'd like - the light switch, a glass of water on the counter, the much coveted laptop computer - yet when we get over there and they've had their fill of that particular object, they just move their finger pointing to another object in the room. So, I spend about 5 minutes just moving them in whatever direction their little constantly migrating fingers are pointing. I'm sure they find it to be a fun little game.

I had heard of baby sign language and had once considered it to be a fairly useless skill for parents with too much time on their hands. I am now eating my words and we're diving in headfirst to signing in some hope that we can find some way to communicate. Surprisingly, after just a day, Anna was signing back the word "eat" to me - although her favorite way to show me she's hungry is to walk over to the highchairs and push them away from the counter, as I always do before each meal. She's direct and to the point, and I appreciate it.

So despite the screaming, the frantic head shaking (boy they've learned to say no!), and the occasional tantrum (complete with feet kicking, fist pounding, and even an intentional and quite painful head pounding into the wood floor for good measure), life is still incredibly funny and charming with the girls (seriously!). They fascinate me with what they're learning every day, and make me laugh with their funny little quirks. Just some things I can think of off the top of my head:

- They're learning to share. Though it's far more common to see one swipe a toy away from the other one, I do catch really tender moments throughout the day when one will bring the other a toy or reach over and hand a piece of food off of her highchair tray to the other. They also love to feed me - so I frequently am the lucky recipient of a gummy wad of macaroni and cheese during lunch time. Delicious!

- Simples phrases are understandable to them, such as "please give that to me," "be gentle to your sister," "stop pulling her hair" (repeat 10 times throughout the day), "it's time to take a nap," and "let's go outside."

- They revel in the routine of walking Daddy to his car every morning and saying goodbye. It's pretty funny - they start waving to him and saying "bye-bye Daddy" when we're still inside and he's packing up his bag. After he pulls out of the driveway, they like to stand there for a few extra minutes, waving goodbye in the general direction of where he drove off, and if we come back out there sometime in the middle of the day, they instinctively wave again. It's a little Pavlovian but very endearing.

- Anna has this adorable all over body smile - she raises her shoulders up to her ears and her whole face lights up.

- Margaret makes a "fish face" periodically throughout the day, and has also learned to smack her lips together.

- The girls both adore music and dance in their own funny way the minute anything starts playing. Margaret does this funny little thing where she walks while bobbing her head and pounding her feet excitedly on the floor. We were at a restaurant the other day and caught her bobbing her head to the background music. The girl's got rhythm!

- They love to mimic - they hold play phones up to their ears, attempt to brush their hair with a hairbrush, and I even caught one of them punching the numbers on their play kitchen's microwave the other day. Aw - they cook like mommy does! With a microwave!

- It never fails that around mid-day, they chase each other around the kitchen island, laughing hysterically in their chase and often changing course to surprise each other.

- Anna has a serious fixation with the Hershey's syrup in the fridge, and the other day I took my eyes off her for just 10 seconds after I had opened the fridge door to get something, and in that time she swiped the bottle out of there, opened up the cap, and was sucking chocolate sauce out of the bottle. I caught her with a guilty look on her face and chocolate smeared all over her chin. I mean, the girl loves chocolate. She's definitely my daughter.

There's so much more, but I imagine I've bored you by now. So I'll leave you with a cute little video clip of Anna giving Margaret zerberts (and punches). You'd think Margaret wouldn't appreciate getting pinned down like that - but she seems to roll over and come back for more at one point.

Silly little sisters!

96 degrees and rising

What do you do with two 1-year olds when it's just too hot to go to the park or even get into the car and drive somewhere?

How about fill a few solo cups full of ice and sit on the deck?

Just had to post these

I'm once again stealing someone else's pictures. My sister-in-law, Karolyn, posted (on Facebook) some funny pictures of the girls from their first birthday party in Indiana, and I had to show off a few that made me smile (thank you, Karolyn, for taking these).

The festivities kick off with party hats


Margaret's not so big of a fan of the hat


The fastest way to consuming chocolate cake, as demonstrated by Anna


The girls loving their cake


Wait a minute - there's still chocolate left on the plate! Jackpot!


Yummmm....there's chocolate left on my fingers too!


Oh wait - there's a little bit left on the plate (persistence pays off)


By far my absolute favorite - Anna's signature "shoulder shrug smile," a little look she gives several times a day when she's positively overjoyed by something (usually when her Daddy comes home from work). I love this little satisfied grin she's giving here.

How little we knew

You'd think the girls' first birthday would put a moratorium on any sentimental, "flash back" type of posts on this blog. But after going through our camera the other night and pulling old videos off of it, I couldn't resist not sharing one from the first few days of their lives.



Seeing the girls so itty bitty is really sweet. I can't believe they were that alien-like - I mean cute and tiny - just one year ago. But I pulled this video in particular because I really have to laugh at myself for the following (enumerated, because I'm that nerdy) reasons:

1) My voice sounds ridiculously chipper and full of energy (and awfully cheesy as well). I think this may have been the most energy I had for the next 7 months or so, and I must have been still experiencing the after-delivery euphoria of having brand new babies (and the luxury of having nurses taking care of them for the majority of the three days I was in the hospital). Someone should have clued me in at the hospital that Anna and Margaret didn't sleep for those 3 hours between each feeding, as I naively thought. I think I was seriously under the impression that once the nurse took the babies back to the nursery after I was finished feeding them, they would just soundly sleep until they were wheeled back in to our hospital room for the next feeding (and dumped on my lap by the nurse like a sack of potatoes, as I vividly recall).

2. I'm kind of freaking out in that video about that tiny bit of spit-up from Anna. Little did I know that that little bit was just the beginning of a deluge of spit-up over the next 6 months. It was a long time before I stopped smelling like curdled milk all day. The day after the girls were born, one of the girls spit up for the first time and I recall demanding that Joey go down to the nurse's station to fetch a nurse and have her come check on the baby to see if that was normal. We must have given that nurse a good "clueless new parent" story to chuckle about.

3. I wonder if I can get the girls to lay there and calmly stare at each other like that again?





Nah, I doubt it.

Giving a new look to this thing...

I'm trying out a new header for this website - the Pepto-Bismol pink header just isn't cutting it anymore. I don't have a creative bone in my body, so I'm using the awesome powers of scrapblog to try something new. I'm not exactly crazy about the whole bathtime theme, and the photos are fuzzy and have shadows, but I just wanted to try this out and see if it works. I'll be working on a new one (and perhaps enlisting the help of the uber creative person in our family, Joey) in the next few days - stay tuned!