More Good Days Than Not

That's how I'm surviving this week.  Unfortunately (for you, readers) I haven't had time to write on the good days, when my best writing (in my opinion) seems to be done.  It's NOW that I have time, after two of the roughest days I've had with the fellas, on a single-mom-rain-all-day-Saturday-and-worst-of-all-my-son-figured-out-how-to-climb-out-of-his-crib-oh-my-gosh-I-need-a-glass-of-wine night that I have time to post.  Since, of course, I'm having technical difficulties with the Nikon, which I've been slowly but surely teaching myself (okay, I can't find the stupid USB cord), I uploaded the Handycam photos, and I am reminded that yes, there are more good days than bad.  It's just that the good days go so fast and the not-so-good-ones are so slow.  So unendingly slow.  Here's what I found on my Handycam tonight: a bunch of good days from the last two weeks.  So bottoms up and praise the Lord if your good days outnumber the bad not so good! 

(Sigh.) They're out of order and sideways to boot.  At least they're uploaded.  On Tuesday, a friend (good) exchanged the dead dino desktop (bad) for a new(ish-everything is relative!) tower (good!) and I'm still teaching myself how to use Picasa for my photo uploads (good?)  See...a 3/1 ratio!  Them's good odds! :)

Me and Harmon Killebrew celebrate 9 years of marriage on Wednesday!  I mean, Hubs and I saw a Twins game and posed with goofy statues at Target Field.

The fellas meet T.C. bear, the Twins' mascot at MOA Toddler Tuesdays.  N was NOT diggin' it!

N cools off on a 100 degree day last week.

The best my hat ever looked!  On M

They're diggin' hats so much, they wear flowerpots when I'm not looking! 

N and I try out a a digger at Central Park

Aunt L and M sharing a picnic lunch last week

More picnic pics, me and N

Aunt L snaps a shot of me snapping her!

Coolin' off by the shark pool with ice cream (and a dirty diaper, we'll soon learn!)

Cheers to summer!  N and Aunt L

M likes to read his birthday cards on a string

Pan Bagnet, the French tuna fish sandwich I made for the MVMOM gathering.  So delicious! (It was a great party, but the pics are on the Nikon of course, for a different post.)

Our first Target Field Twins game on our 9th anniversary.  I tried to surprise him, but he found the tickets weeks ago!  He was still happy, though!

See?

So there ya have it.  They say you remember 50% of what you hear, 90% of what you write down, and 100% of what you teach.  That's why I try my darndest to write the good stuff.  Because it's what I want to remember.  Have a great weekend, my friend! 

Wordless Wednesday: Friends

Tumbly Toddler Twins

Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew...taking my twin toddlers to a gymnastics center for open gym time, for example...with a bunch of other twin parents!
Then, my tumbly toddlers won't smile for the camera, even though I'm pretty sure they're having fun.  You'll notice my friends' kids love to smile for my camera! 
Fortunately, my Knight in Shining Armor comes to my rescue.  Can you "spot" him?
A fun, crazy time was had by all (I think) and I got my workout in!  We might even do it again someday.

Twin friends O and W sharing a tramp...M crawling across it!

M ignores his mama, but buddy A smiles for me

Mr. A is having a grand time...M again, crawling away!

Here are N and M bouncing across the 4 tramps...we'll work on turn-taking in the future.

N ignores mama again, but his friends smile for me!

Daddy to the rescue!

and into the foam cubes! 

N LOVED sproinging down the bouncy thing... 

Come on G, this is fun!

Four Bouncing Baby Boys

N looking like a real gymnast - full of chalk!

What if they were sextuplets?

That's what I think to myself when I look at these pics.  Yesterday I had two twin mom friends over.  You've all met both of them: E and her boys A and G star in my blog quite often, and M and her girls H and B appeared just last week.  Every now and then I get the unction to have a half dozen babies squeezed into my house so that after they leave I think, my goodness, my house is so spacious and huge!

The four boys are totally diggin' having two girls over!

Ready to roll!

 The two guys in orange are E's boys: G in front, A in back.  M is front and center (again with the binky - still cutting that molar and pretty crabby) and my little ham and cheese in the back, N.  H is pretty in pink and B is binky girl in the back (sorry if I got them mixed up, M!)

What's amazing is that my guys are totally cool with having friends over.  Toys that were boring yesterday are fun today when someone else shows interest!  They share their toys and their food.  N was munching on half an apple and gave it to G, who clearly had never had an apple halved like that.  N, my sweet boy, then tried to put the whole thing in G's mouth, you know, to show him how to take a bite!  Of course, he swiped one of G's ravioli's in trade...but we're working on it.

On a side note, N has also learned how to hug!  On his own, he approached his brother and wrapped his arms around him yesterday!  It was so sweet, I would have cried, except M thought he was being attacked and got very upset, crying.  So I laughed instead, and tried to explain that N was hugging him.  N tried it again today, but M just walked away, N following him a bit like Frankenstein.  We'll keep trying.  I can't wait to snag a pic of the two of them hugging it out.

So what if they were sextuplets?  I could handle it for two hours, maybe, like yesterday, but the truth is, I'm happy with just twins.

Sixteen Little Monkeys

Jumping on the couch

One fell off 

And cried out, "OUCH!"

Okay, no one fell off the couch, and as far as I know, none of them can actually say, "ouch." 

Yes, there were 8 MVMOMs and 16 one-year-old twins in attendance at this week's play date!  The photo shoot lasted less than two minutes and this one had one escapee, and Mr. C. on the far left was leaving, too.  Matthew and Nathan were gems and stayed put on the floor where the couches come together, waiting for the other 14 kids to get their acts together.

They didn't.  That's our buddy, A, escaping into his mom's arms.

Hopefully someone got a shot with all the kids in it, but I didn't.  I was just glad that my two behaved themselves the entire two hours!  I think they're understanding that when they're good in public, I'm willing to take them places (or maybe I'm convincing myself).  They save their naughtiness for the car and at home.  That's okay by me.  Above, that's me and Matthew waving to the camera, surrounded by friends.

Here's Nathan and buddy G.  Nathan LOVED this shopping cart and played with it for about an hour.  He was even able to push it through the crowd of kids all by himself!  After this playdate, I realized that our toys are kind of babyish and spent yesterday afternoon taking out the baby stuff and pulling out the big-kid toys.  A kitchen or workbench type toy is on my list - I think I'm going to need it this fall and winter when we have to stay indoors.  They LOVED playing with it at this date!

 Here's your bonus pic: we actually had TWO playdates this week - here we are at E's house, who had put her boys' bouncy chair in the basement.  Guess who found it and surfed?  Matthew and Nathan spent about an hour doing this - you can see how much Matthew loved it!

 

Dear Daddy,

Hi Dad,
I can call you that now that we're big, right?  We officially graduated from "Moms and Muffins" today - it was our last time hanging out with the babies.  But it was good...you know, there were girls here.  Yes, I said "here," mom actually let us have girls over!  Now we KNOW we're big!  See?

That's me, then Nathan, and you know A and G, then there's our new girlfriends A and M -(or is that M and A?) They're pretty cool.  They say they're not identical, but they look alike to me!  I really liked M, but I just didn't have the nerve to ask her out.  Mom says that I need to wait 20 years, but I'm thinking maybe we can go out for pizza next month for her birthday.  What do you think?  Can I borrow the car?

Love, Matthew

Dear Daddy,
Matthew is so funny!  He's all talk - he was so shy around the girls!  Ha, ha!  They were really fun and played with our toys and sat on Mom's lap.  I guess she likes it when babies do that? 

 
Then we took a nap, then we took a walk and saw a SCHOOL BUS and CATERPILLARS!  We read stories and played and skyped with you and played and skyped with Grandma and played and then when Aunt L thought I was asleep and she was giving Matthew his bottle I POOPED!  Ha, ha!  Then she had to clean me up!  Ha, ha!  It was a super-fun day!

Love, Nathan

First Day of School

Today was Matthew and Nathan's first day of school!  We went to our first ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) class - you might remember me blogging about it last month.  I don't have any pictures today since the camera is in Zurich, Switzerland with Daddy, so you just have to imagine it:

• 1 teacher
• 12 mommies sitting in a circle around a rug filled with toys
• 12 little tiny babies, being cute and cooing on a blanket, sleeping, or holding a toy
• me, crawling around after the boys, sitting next to a nice neighbor-mommy
• Matthew, crawling away from me, crawling into the teacher's lap, crawling around the teacher to the mommy on the other side of her, crawling over to the mirror and laughing at himself in it, crawling across the circle rug to touch the other babies
• me, getting up to bring Matthew back to our side of the circle several times (no one else has to do this the WHOLE class time)
• Nathan, crawling to the mommy next to me, trying to touch her baby's head, me grabbing Nathan away and trying to surreptitiously wipe his snotty nose, Nathan chewing on one toy, then another, then another
• the teacher, telling us to try to keep any toys our babies play with in our area to keep their germs away from other kids
• me, for the rest of the class, trying to keep both boys playing only with the first 11 or so toys they'd put in their mouth the first few minutes of class
• Matthew, continuing his quest to discover more and more amazing parts of the room with only one shoe on
• me, retrieving the backup binks, then trying to do what the teacher told us and get to know the mommy next to me while all the aforementioned antics are being carried out
• teacher, offers to bring the exersaucer over to our area and corrals Nathan (why'd you pick HIM? Can't you see he doesn't go as far?  Oh, but his nose is running so at least that's contained next to me now.  Better try wiping that again.)
• me finally able to talk to neighbor-mommy because I can hold onto Matthew
• teacher takes Nathan to hold in her lap for song time (I offered him up because I knew he'd be smiling and go along with it, albeit the nose)
• me, singing "Wheels on the Bus" and other assorted baby songs with actions with Matthew, who was getting a wee bit crabby 
• Nathan, smiling and giggling to the baby songs on the teacher's lap
• Matthew, smiles a couple of times - guess it's not so bad, even though he'd rather be exploring
• me, packing them up and asking the teacher what she thought of us moving to the Friday morning Multiples class because I'm having my doubts about this one because she'd talked about having to split the class due to its size (4 mommies and babies weren't there, for a total of 16 mommies and 17 babies signed up - HUGE class).
• Matthew and Nathan falling asleep on the 5 minute ride home
• me, blogging and waiting for the teacher to call to tell us we can go to the Multiples class where I'll feel better around women who know what it's like to have two little tornadoes there is more room for us.

 

Who, us?

More Babyfriends!

Yesterday, I wrote that one thing we like about Michigan is seeing old friends who also travel back here to see their families for the holidays.  Today I had a special treat!  Thanks to Facebook, I've been able to reconnect with a high school friend whom I hadn't seen in (gasp!) 14 years.  We've been chatting all summer because lo and behold, we were both pregnant with twins at the same time! 

When we realized we'd both be in our hometown this week, we decided to get together for one BIG playdate.  For old time's sake, we ate LaPizza pizza and breadsticks for lunch - our high school lunch staple. The kiddos didn't exactly play together - they're not there yet, but we adults had a good time catching up with all the old high school gossip (some of it very interesting, but I won't spread it here) and Hubbies got to talk twin-dad shop, something that they very rarely have an opportunity to do. 

K's babies, C and J, were little (okay, BIG!) sweeties this afternoon.  C and J really seemed to understand what vacation means; lounging, eating, smiling, giggling, and watching the ceiling fan.  Nathan and Matthew, just one month older, seemed to scare K and her hubby because they were showing off their rolling-over skills.  In fact, just after they left, Matthew figured out how to go back-to-tummy-to-back over and over!  He kept going until he bonked his head on the footstool and that was that.  We'll see if he tries again tomorrow.

There was a very brief sliver of time all four babies were awake for a photo, so we snapped a few and I even got one with all eight eyes open!  We had such a good time and can't wait to get back together again.  In the meantime, K, let's keep skyping and emailing!  Thank you for a very special and memorable afternoon!

New Babyfriends: Baby C, Baby J, Matthew, Nathan

Up Up and Away!

Midland Ballon Fest Sept.19

Our second family trip to Michigan is already better than our first one was!  We want our boys to be good travelers so that we can show them the world and spend time with our out-of-state families.  On the way to the airport, we coach them to be as cute as can be so as to dazzle the folks working at the security checkpoint - they didn't disappoint!  People are so amazed to see a couple traveling with infant twins, they don't mind as we unload the two carseats, two diaper-backpacks, shoes, wallet, cell phones, baby bottles, and a double stroller onto the x-ray belt because staff and passengers are occupied making ga-ga and goo-goo faces at the babies! 

It turns out that twins are more common than I ever imagained.  While checking our luggage at MSP, a woman at the check-in kiosk nearby said, "I'm a twin, too!"  and the customer service agent asked us, "Did you name them like I named my twins?  They're 15 now - Sharika and Shaniqua!"  Steve and I grin whenever we have to explain our babies' 'normal' names: Matthew and Nathan.  I guess that's just too boring for some folks.

Nathan is our little sleep machine, so whomever carries him in the Snugli has the easy ride.  Mr. I-can't-close-my-eyes-because-there's-stuff-to-look-at-Matthew rode in my carrier, so I was busy, busy, busy the whole flight!  He decided it was taking too long to get his bottle (it was about 5 minutes past baba time) and started fussing.  Since we had to wait for the plane to be at cruising altitude before the flight attendant could help warm the bottles, I tried giving it to him cold.  WRONG!  My seat mate and I had a huge laugh as Matthew oh-so-politely refused his cold milk, screwing up his face and crying as it poured out both sides of his mouth!  Fortunately, he was a father of two boys and thought this was a blast from the past.  Even better, the flight attendant came right then to warm up the babas.  Whew, close call!

But that's as bad as it's been so far this weekend.  After finishing his (warm) baba, Matthew turned on the charm and batted his loooong eyelashes at the woman across the aisle who was trying to get him to smile.

Now that they're bigger, stronger, and so expressive, it's a lot of fun taking them out in public.  We're learning to be gracious to people who take such a keen interest in them.  As we walk by, strangers smile, wave, coo and talk to them before even greeting us!  I suppose I might have done the same thing, marveling at infant twins.  I don't mind though.  People have been generally kind and helpful (or at least give us a wide berth!) when they see us coming. 

Our babies are becoming real Fly Guys!  Up, up, and away!

Double Doody

"It's Mommy's turn!"  I hear my husband singsong to the boys, kicking and playing happily in their bouncy chairs this morning.  Dang it, he's right.  I can smell the distinct baby-poop scent wafting my way.  I'd weaseled my may out of several poopy diapers over the weekend because "I do it all week - you can do it on the weekends!"  (Don't knock me - it's still working). 

Sniff, sniff..."Which one?" I ask.  They both smile and kick.  I choose Matthew.  It's time to change them out of their pj's anyway, so I lay out the blanket and haul over two sets of overalls, two diapers, and the wipes.  Matthew laughs and coos as I unfasten the diaper as if great fun is about to be had.  I reach to keep his left foot from crashing into his poo and jam my own finger into the small pile of rank, warm mush.  "Eww, Matthew, ewww!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I cry, as he kicks his right foot into the mess.  "Matthew, stop that!" I laugh.

Steve, of course, thinks this is totally hilarious, and takes this opportunity to remind me that HE had to change all the poopy diapers this weekend, so I deserve the mess Matthew is making.  ""Har, har," I retort.

Nathan, by the way, has been watching the scene lying alongside Matthew, quiet as can be.  Steve gloats in his victory of having chosen the clean baby. 

Great fun WAS had by all when he opened Nathan's diaper to find the biggest load of stinky baby doody he's created in weeks! 

Surprise Me, God

When Pastor asked the congregation who liked surprises, I leaned over to my neighbor and whispered, "Are you kidding?  Surprises cost money!"  She was like-minded and added, "Surprise!  Your refrigerator broke on vacation and all your food spoiled!"  He then explained that insurance companies have conditioned us to believe that surprises are bad - unwelcome "Acts of God," such as tornadoes, fires, and floods.

Matthew's round blue eyes searched mine from behind his rounder, bluer Soothie pacifier.  Aren't Nathan and I God's best surprise ever? he seemed to ask.  I was immediately convicted. "Yes, you are," I whispered, and kissed the top of his warm baby head.

 

Pastor taught us today that God is a God of surprise, not God of the boring.  This is a lifelong lesson for us.  Steve and I continually ask each other when our lives will become "normal," because absolutely nothing about our lives seems to work out the way we think it "should."  God is always surprising us!

Because I cannot possibly recount all of His surprises, I'll just tell you about the biggest one of all.  You guessed it: the day we learned we were pregnant with twins.  The following is an excerpt from the scrapbook I created for the boys while I was pregnant:

November 3, 2008

"The Most Shocking Day of Our Lives"

You two have never known what it's like to not have a twin.  Before this day, the idea of being twins' parents had never crossed our minds!

We had a doctor's appointment in the morning.  It was supposed to be short and quick, so your dad and I both planned to go back to work afterward.  We expected the doctor to say, "Congratulations, you're pregnant," and we'd go back to work like normal.

On the ultrasound screen, we saw lots of black and white fuzzy stuff, but in the middle were two black ovals, each with a fuzzy, blinking center.  Having never been pregnant before, we didn't know that we were looking at TWO six-week-old embryos.  "It looks like there are two in there," the doctor said calmly.

I gasped and clapped my hand over my mouth in shock!  Your dad was silent, holding my hand and staring intently at the screen.  After years of waiting and praying, believing for one baby, it seemed unimaginable that God would bless us with two babies at once.  Your dad's sense of humor kicked in (and thank goodness!  I couldn't speak because I was crying tears of joy!) and he asked, "Are there any more?"

As expected, the appointment was quick and we were done, but neither of us wanted to go back to work.  I was so excited and disoriented that I got into your dad's car instead of mine.  In the parking lot, we laughed and hugged and kissed some more.  We prayed together in the car, thanking God for two miracles growing in my belly.  

Pastor has challenged the church to pray, "Surprise me, God," every day for 30 days.  I'm up for it.  He's proven himself faithful to us time and time again, "giving us more than we could ever ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20).  I wonder what kind of surprises he has in store for us this month?

(Stop snickering!  I know some of you out there are thinking I'll get another set of twins out of this!)

I'll let you know how it goes.