Vermont Twin Odyssey

I'm a cheap date!

2010-02-09T09:05:00.004-05:00

This past week has been rough. Jordan was quite sick with bronchitis, which resulted in going back on his two nebulized medications, in addition to an antibiotic and a steroid. The steroid tastes awful, so it was a massive fight every time we had to give it to him. Then he got some kind of stomach bug which resulted in copious amounts of vomit in a 24 hour period. And when I say copious, I mean copious like 6 vomiting episodes in one morning. It was awful and resulted in much work and daycare being missed. And then Taylor got sick and participated briefly in Vomitfest 2010. Kids recovered, moms dragged ourselves around for the week.

Recently the kids have started deciding that they might not need to nap as much or at all anymore. We are devastated by this. And given their recent illnesses, clearly they need more sleep right now, not less. On Saturday, the kids napped for maybe an hour, and then were playing and chatting in their cribs, so we left them in there for a bit. Big mistake. HUGE! When we went in their room, both kids were stark naked and there was shit everywhere. OMG! They had thrown everything out of their cribs, including pull-ups full of shit, and they had danced and played in their own excrement, which was all over their cribs and themselves. We thought maybe we were going to escape this parenting experience. We were wrong. It immediately resulted in lots of work: baths, stripping the beds, washing everything, sanitizing the cribs and the mattresses. Did I mention we were already exhausted?

On Sunday everyone was healthy enough to follow through with plans we had made long ago. We have some local friends with twin boys who are a week younger than J&T and we have all been struggling with a lack of family support recently. Both families have been feeling overwhelmed, overtired, and just exhausted from the lack of breaks that we get from our kids. So, we have decided to exchange babysitting with each other once a month, so that each couple at least gets one day out together per month. To give you some perspective on the situation Penny and I have found ourselves in, I will let you in on a sad fact of our lives. Penny and I had not been out together on a date since September. That is 5 months ago folks! We don't have the money to pay a babysitter to go out very frequently and we don't have the village of family members around that I always thought I would have when I was raising my family. I envisioned dropping the kids off for the weekend with family members, so that they could have time with family and we could have time to rejuvenate as a couple. The reality is we just don't have that. It is very sad and a hard reality for us, but that's the way it is. We have considered crazy things like moving to FL where my mom is, or moving to MN where some of our best friends live who are in a similar situation to us. But, neither of those are really that feasible, so we need to make the best of what we have here.

So, on Sunday, we dropped J&T off at our friends' house at around 12:30, and we headed out for an actual date. We went to a show at the Flynn in Burlington. It was a group called Scrap Arts Music and the show was similar to Stomp in some ways. The group is from Canada and all of their instruments are made from found and recycled objects. The show was really good and you can catch the group at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in a few weeks! How cool is that? Even better is that we had free tickets to this show from a local newspaper who was having a giveaway. After the show, we had some time to kill before an early dinner, so we hit the local big box baby store for some wipes and pull-ups. Then we went to dinner, using a certificate from Restaurant.com that I had purchased. Are you familiar with Restaurant.com? If not, you should definitely check it out. You can get $25 gift certificates for lots of local restaurants for $2-$10, depending on the special they are running. I only buy them when they are $2 per certificate. Here's the way it works: You have to spend a minimum of $35, you can only use them for dinner, the tip gets automatically added to the bill, and you can only use one certificate per party. We both had an adult beverage, we shared an appetizer, and both had an entree. We met our $35 minimum, so were able to use our $25 gift certificate, and our out of pocket cost was $24. Do you know what that means? With free babysitting, a free show, and the gift certificate for the restaurant, we got a 6 hour date for a grand total of $24! OMG! That makes my coupon-using frugal heart so very, very happy!

Thanks E&D for the babysitting. We had a great time and are looking forward to returning the favor for you guys in a few weeks!

Topics I want to post about in the near future: troublesome toddler meal time, transitioning to toddler beds, losing the pacis in the next few months, and financial woes, coupled with gratitude for what we do have. Stay tuned! Is there any topic you want to hear about? Leave a comment and let me know!

A place to keep track

2010-02-04T10:40:00.005-05:00

I have been carrying these slips of paper around in my purse for too long and I need someplace to record this information, so it does not get lost. So, in continuing this blog as a modern day baby book, here are some height and weight stats from the past 2 years.

JORDAN:

Unknown date (Early 2008 maybe?)
20 pounds, 7 oz (50th percentile)
29 inches long (75th percentile)
head: 48 cm around

5/15/08
21 pounds, 6 ounces
30.25 inches tall
head: 47.5 cm around (uh oh! shrinking!)

4/22/09
27 pounds
34.25 inches tall

5/28/09
27.5 pounds
35.25 inches tall
head: 50.8 cm around

10/14/09
29.2 pounds (50th percentile)
35.25 inches tall (50th percentile)

TAYLOR:

Unknown date (Early 2008 maybe?)
17 pounds, 12 ounces (25th percentile)
26.5 inches long (10th percentile)
head: 45 cm around

5/15/08
19 pounds, 3 ounces
28.5 inches tall
head: 45.5 cm around

4/22/09
24 pounds
32.75 inches tall

5/28/09
24 pounds
33 inches tall
head: 48.3 cm around

10/14/09
26.6 pounds (25th percentile)
33.5 inches tall (10th percentile)

Kinda cool to see the progress over the past two years!

That's all folks!

2009-11-30T20:55:00.002-05:00

It's the end of November. And I freakin' did it! 30 posts in 30 days! I am super proud of myself for keeping up with it and actually finding things to post about. Perhaps some of you were bored to tears, but some people have told me they actually enjoyed the month and hearing about the happenings in our little piece of the world. Thanks for reading everyone! Blogging is a funny thing like that. People read and they know all about what is happening here, but I rarely know what is happening in the lives of others because they either have no blog or they have a much neglected blog (Nikki T, I am looking at you!!).

I hope that I can continue to post somewhat regularly on the blog, as I do enjoy it and it is a great way to document our lives. It's the modern day baby book!

Adios November and hello December. Be gentle to us, OK, Old Man Winter? I would like to put my request in for a warm and not too snowy winter. Wait...do you hear that? It is the universe laughing at me!

Almost there!

2009-11-29T22:36:00.003-05:00

November is almost over, which means NaBloPoMo is almost over, too. I totally completed this challenge. After today's post and tomorrow's post, I will have achieved 30 posts in 30 days. I can't believe I did it! Wahoo!

Today was a better day. I want to say that of course it was, as it could not have been much worse than yesterday, but I don't want to tempt the fates by saying something like that.

For the first time, Jordan and Taylor refused to nap today. They stayed in their cribs for over an hour before we finally gave in and let them get up. At first they were quiet and naps seemed imminent. But then they both pooped and yelled for us that they needed their diapers changed. After that, it was nothing but jumping on the crib mattresses, throwing everything in the cribs onto the floor, and talking and laughing. While it was annoying as hell that they did not nap, listening to them laugh and talk to each other was pretty cool. When they are getting along and playing together or talking to each other, it is pretty dang awesome and it makes me so happy that they have each other in this world.

I took the kids to the park for a few hours so that Penny could watch football in peace and then Penny had the kids for a few hours for dinner, baths, and books so that I could have some time to myself. I enjoyed getting my crafty on by working on some Secret Santa gifts. Very fun and it felt good to spend some time doing that stuff. I might try to do more of that on a regular basis between now and Christmas. There are certainly enough fun things I could make for people!

And, just like that, the 4-day weekend is over and we are back to the grindstone tomorrow. As my dad used to say, another day, another dollar...no, make that 50 cents! Taylor's pink eye is a little pinker today than it has been because some moms (whom I will not name here, to protect the guilty parties) forgot to put the medicine on all weekend since her eye really was looking fine. Well, now it is not looking so fine and I hope the 4 doses of meds that we gave her today help enough that she can go to daycare tomorrow!

We could not catch a break today.

2009-11-28T21:46:00.002-05:00

We got up this morning with plans of a late breakfast/brunch at a place where we had a restaurant.com gift certificate. You have to spend at least $35 to be able to use the $25 certificate. No problem. We figured we would get out of there and only have to pay about $10 out of pocket. Awesome! Turns out, the place is super expensive (menu online did not have prices. Should have suspected something then!) and the service SUCKS. We ended up paying almost $30 out-of-pocket, which means that our breakfast (2 adult meals, one kid meal to split, 4 drinks) cost over $50. Are you effing kidding me? Wow. We will never go back there again. Because the service was so bad, we were late getting out of there, which put the pressure on for getting to our next destination.

We showed up in Burlington a few minutes after 12, and the Santa Parade was supposed to start at 12. We worried we might miss it. We had been talking it up to the kids so much, that we were worried they would be so disappointed. So, we found parking and hurried to where it was supposed to be. Huh. Why are there so few people around? We asked a crossing guard and he told us that the parade already happened...YESTERDAY! WTF? Are you kidding me? Our AAA magazine had the parade listed for today at noon. Oh well. Thanks for nothing AAA. (Well, except for when you came to our house yesterday and towed the car out of the mud. Thanks for that!)

So, we walk around the marketplace area. It is nice and sunny, so we have a walk around, and try to stop for a hot chocolate break with the thermos we had the forethought to bring. The thermos kept the stuff so warm for over 4 hours that Taylor burns her mouth and her Thermos brand stainless steel sippy cup leaks all over her. Awesome! Jordan then throws up outside of City Hall after a brief coughing fit. Wow! This day really rocks!

We then decide to head inside the mall, where we saw Santa setting up earlier. What? You don't think a kid who just puked should go and have pics with Santa? I totally disagree! There was no line, so we figured we might as well get some pictures taken of the kids with Santa so that all is not lost of the day. On the way there we pass a dude making balloon sculptures for kids. Our kids love them and want some. Only problem? The guy charges $3 per sculpture and we have no cash on us, so we have to pull the kids away from him with no balloon animals. God, this day really rocks!

We get to the Santa area. Huh. Where's Santa? Oh, he is on a break and will be back in 30 minutes. Seriously? Are you freakin' kidding me? There is really nothing to do and there is no way our kids can stand there for 30 minutes, in the rapidly growing line. (The guy who will be taking the pictures tries telling us that "30 minutes isn't really THAT long." Really, dude? With 2.5 year old twins who are already SO DONE? OK, then why don't you stand in line with them?) So, we finally admit defeat and decide to head home.

Have you had days like this? From start to finish, we seriously COULD NOT CATCH A BREAK! Nary a thing went as we expected or in our favor. Although, given the season, if I had to pick something to be thankful for, I think I could actually come up with a few things:

1) We were there for less than 2 hours, so parking was free
2) Jordan chose to puke outside, rather than inside the car (his favorite spot for puking), so we did not have to clean the car and the car seat of copious amounts of vomit. Unfortunately we (and by we, I mean Penny) are experts at cleaning puke out of the nooks and crannies of Jordan's car seat with Q-tips. Now there's a visual I bet you could have done without!
3) Verizon was sponsoring FREE miniature horse drawn buggy rides for kids around the square. Our kids took a little ride and had a blast!

On a day like today, I say this: Thank God for small favors.

Can tomorrow please be a better day? PLEASE???

The day after...

2009-11-27T15:08:00.002-05:00

We had a lovely Turkey Day with friends and family. Everyone brought delicious additions to the meal and everyone went home with leftovers. My Nana's stuffing was a hit as always. I allowed myself to be off of South Beach yesterday. The plan was to be back on it today...The plan changed shortly after I woke up. The new plan is to get back on track ASAP. It is hard, but I am worth it. I can do this because I am strong and I have more power over food than it has over me, dammit! (I always think convictions sound stronger and better if you add "DAMMIT!" to the end of them, don't you?)

Anyway, the dishes are all done, the dishwasher is emptied, and our bellies (and the fridge) are full. Leftovers for dinner tonight, baby! Oh, and my low carb, no sugar pumpkin cheesecake was really good! There are leftovers and I am happy about that. I would definitely make it again.

Today we made an impromptu trip to some stores for some Black Friday action. We went to Toys R Us and Bed, Bath, and Beyond...both with the kids in tow. Since we did not go until almost 10 am, I expected things to be less crazy. I was right about BBB, but dreadfully wrong about Toys R Us. The line wound through several aisles and half way around the store. Holy crap! But, we got some good deals. I combined the sales with several coupons I had. God, I love coupons and can hardly buy things these days without them! Anyway, we got some stuff for J&T and some gifts for others. We spent $148. But, the sales and coupons saved us $118! So, if not for the sales and coupons, we would have spent almost $300! Awesome! We picked up a few deals at BBB, and that place was almost deserted, which was great. Jordan and Taylor were AMAZING and I was shocked at how patient they were. It could have been so much worse!

And now the kiddos are napping. And we are chilling out. Tomorrow there is a Santa Parade in Burlington, so I think we are going to hit that if the weather holds up. Sunday the moms are going to try to take turns having some much needed "Me Time."

Oh, and two other highlights for the day are:

1) The VUE got stuck in the mud in the driveway and we had to call AAA to come and tow it out.

2) Friends from Iowa did some big Black Friday shopping, including a very early a.m. trip to Target. They picked up a dual screen portable DVD player for us for the car, which was a door-buster on sale for only $88!! (We live in a very sad state with no Target!!) How amazing is it that someone would pick up something for you at that ungodly hour? Thanks so much Kate and Trish! Our road trip to Long Island in a few weeks will be so much easier, all thanks to you guys! You rock my world!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T08:29:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone has a wonderful day with friends and family. I have so much to be thankful for today and everyday. If you visit the blog today, please leave a comment with what you are most thankful for this Thanksgiving! I am most thankful for my wife, my children, and our legally married life in the wonderful state of Vermont. And all my extended family and my friends are pretty darn awesome, too, and I could not get by without them!

Enjoy some turkey TV!!

Sick Day

2009-11-25T11:37:00.002-05:00

I am home with Taylor today, aka Madam Pink Eye. It is a mild case and she is already on meds, so it should be fine for tomorrow. But, never a dull moment. I am attempting to work from home as much as I can, but it's a challenge. I will go in to work for a few hours this afternoon when Penny comes home early.

A scene from my kitchen:

Taylor: What 'chu doin', Mama?
Chris: I am unloading the dishwasher.
T: Can me help?
C: Sure, you can help.

She helps for a few minutes...

T: We usin' teamwork, Mama.

OMG, did my two-and-a-half year old just use the word "TEAMWORK" correctly in a complete sentence? She most certainly did! Wowsers! Will wonders never cease? And by the way, where did she even pick that word up? It is amazing to witness vocabulary develop!

And now I need to get to cleaning and cooking. Big day with friends and Penny's family all here tomorrow. Gonna be a full house. Everyone brings a part of the meal, though, which makes it a lot easier on the hostesses with the most-estes. I guess you could say we use "TEAMWORK" to get our Thanksgiving day done, and done right!

Being Thankful

2009-11-24T22:53:00.002-05:00

As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I am thinking about things I am thankful for, especially as compared to others. As you (I) go through life, it is hard not to compare myself to others. And I notice that I am mostly comparing myself to others who have more and feeling bad for myself. I am turning 35 in 1.5 months and there are certain things that I thought I would have in life by now, that just aren't there. Most of them revolve around money. We do not have a lot of money in the bank, we do not have our own house yet because of our debt to income ratios (Thank you very much student loans!), and we do not have money for a lot of extras.

But, we do have jobs that are dependable and allow us to get by with our basic needs met. We are incredibly lucky to have come out on the other side of infertility with not one, but two children. "One of each," people say, "You are so lucky!" And, dammit, yes, we are lucky. I need to remind myself about that as I go through my days and my months and my years. Others are not so fortunate, and I cannot take for granted the gifts that I have been granted. We have everything we really need. Well, maybe not enough "me time," but the basics are all taken care of. Working in the mental health field also provides me with many reminders of how lucky I am. In the past two years, we have gone on 2 trips to Disney World. Now, if that ain't lucky, I don't know what is!

It is much too easy to complain about things and feel bad for myself and to get caught up in the bullshit of everyday life. It is hard to remember the good stuff, when you are faced with 2 year old tantrums, kids rejecting you, saying they only want the other parent, and long, hard days of parenting. There's the dirty house, the bills to be paid, the bib and high chair tray cleaning THAT NEVER ENDS, the dishes that are always piled in the sink, etc, etc etc. But in the long run, I need to ask myself, "Do most of those things really matter?" The answer, of course is "No, not really."

My mom sent me a magazine article about the top 6 places to live in the United States. Our town was #3! We do live in a very nice area of VT and we are lucky to live here, even if there is no Target or Trader Joe's in this god forsaken state. (For the love of all that is holy. Please, TARGET, COME TO VERMONT ALREADY!)We live in a state that allows Penny and I to be legally married and offers our family all the protections that comes along with that. This is HUGE and we are lucky to have this right bestowed upon us in VT. Now, while I enjoyed the magazine article and enjoyed reading about our little town, I was dismayed when I looked down and saw where the article came from: AARP Magazine. Whatever. We (and the Baby Boomers) are very happy here...most of the time!

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Taylor, Jordan, and Penny
2) Having a warm house to sleep in at night (even if it is a rental!)
3) Having more than enough food and clothing for me and my family

What do you do to keep it real and remember to count your blessings on a regular basis?

So much to do

2009-11-23T21:50:00.002-05:00

So, I have a confession to make. I am addicted to the Internet. It's bad! And it is causing a snowball of wee problems. The kids go to bed at 7. Penny and I then cook dinner, do dishes, etc. We eat dinner either both in front of the TV or her in front of the T and me here at the computer. I read blogs, I follow and participate on a very active message board, I email, I facebook (and play Bejeweled Blitz and Cafe World), etc, etc. I spend a lot of time following couponing blogs that give tons of amazing deals and tips of free samples. I have saved tons of money doing this, but it is very time consuming.

I crave this time of the day when I can do whatever I want, without interruption. I stay up too late as a result of not wanting it to end. And then I am too tired to get up and exercise before work. And on and on and on. I also know I spend too much time on here in general, including on the weekends, and that Penny is not too wild about it. It easily sucks me in for hours, so I can see her point.

Also, my Internet time is cutting into time that I really want to spend on other things. Things like scrap booking, my business as a Creative Memories Consultant, knitting, sewing, reading are all suffering because I am online for many hours each night.

I have thought about setting a timer and trying to limit my time online to one hour a night. That way, I would spend time doing the things online that I felt were most important (like serving my Cafe World food. I mean, you don't want it to spoil!), like blogging and catching up with friends. And then once the hour is over, I would need to force myself to log off.

So, in the name of logging off at an appropriate time: It is 10:19 pm. I am now logging off to go and read my new library book: Commencement. It is written by a Smithie, about the Smithie experience. Bring it on!

How about you and your Internet use? Any feelings of being on too much? Guilt, exhaustion, etc? Tell me your war stories and how you have dealt with the draw of the Internet.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Being able to have fruit on Phase 2 of F
2) A 3-day work week and a 4 day weekend to spend time with family. May it be restful (HA!) and not too stressful!
3) A good and reliable job that pays me enough to support my family, even if we do have to squeak by and be very careful with spending. I am thankful for the affordable health care that the job provides, too.

Rough one

2009-11-22T23:37:00.002-05:00

It was a tough weekend at our house. I don't know if the kids are on the edge of some developmental milestone, or it's a growth spurt, or what. But we had about one cajillion tantrums here over the weekend, and frankly, I am looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. How pathetic is that?

We did not have any big plans this weekend, so we were looking forward to spending time at home, relaxing, etc. What it turned into, instead, was tantrum fest USA. The lack of planned activities did nothing for the moods of Taylor and Jordan. And, it did not help that Penny and I were trying to get through as much of a gigantic to-do list as possible, in preparation for hosting Thanksgiving at our house on Thursday.

The one highlight of the weekend was going to the library yesterday. Other than that, it feels like we spent a lot of time comforting crying kids, dealing with time-outs, and trying to figure out ways to entertain the little tykes. Inevitably, the TV went on as we tried to clean things, vacuum things, wash and fold things, and on and on. The house is quite clean. I scrubbed the hell out of our disgusting tub after I put the kids to bed. But, I fear that the lack of planned activities, coupled with no outside time, and too much TV on Saturday, maybe have caused our difficult weekend. I dunno, maybe it was a combo of all those things. Or maybe they were just being 2.5. This age is HARD!!!

And now, it is almost midnight, so I better hit post and get this in before the clock strikes 12.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Phase 2 of South Beach starts tomorrow. Give me some fruit, dammit!
2) Going back to work tomorrow means back to a predictable routine.
3) A full Creative Memories schedule for January. Now, I just need to make my quota for December and I will be able to get to a very fruitful January!

Bed Time Sweetness

2009-11-21T23:18:00.002-05:00

Tonight as I was putting Taylor to bed, I said to her, "I love you. You're my best girl."

And she replied, "You're my best mama. I love you!"

Oh, swoon! Is that the cutest thing you ever heard?

Other noteworthy things about the day: we went to the library, Penny kicked ass getting some house organizing and cleaning done (She cleaned the stove and the microwave! Give that woman a medal!), and the kids took very decent naps. Also, My Creative Memories Team is doing a "hot potato challenge" this weekend. Every time someone from my team calls me, I have to book a Get Together with a customer for January in order to pass the potato on to someone else. The (very lofty) goal is to book 6 get-togethers in January each, so that you can get the year off to a great start. I have 5 GT's booked already! I have calls and emails out to a few other people, so this number could still go up. A lesson learned for me today was that it was not as hard as I always make it in my mind. I really need to put more work into my business, and make it a more lucrative endeavor.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Kids who slept until 8 am!
2) Free offers online that allowed me to get 100 photo holiday cards for only the price of shipping ($6.40)
3) Having enough commitment to the SB diet to have made it to Phase 2 (starting on Monday. I did it!)

Satisfied

2009-11-20T23:01:00.002-05:00

We had a lovely evening of dinner and board games (80's trivia and Pass the Pigs)with some friends tonight. The kids went down very easily and slept the whole time we ate and played with Megan and Jean. We even ate a Phase One South Beach dinner! I have lost 10 pounds on the South Beach diet. And today I wore a pair of pants to work that did not fit 3 weeks ago.

It's Friday, it's payday (even though there is very little left after paying the rent and other bills) and I am satisfied!! Most of the chores are done and the shopping is all done for Thanksgiving. Bring on the weekend, baby!

I am taking part in a Creative Memories challenge this weekend, where I am on a team and we are aiming to schedule as many Get Togethers for the month of January as possible. I hope I can do my part and get some folks to schedule! Wish me luck! Anyone want to sign up with me???

Nature cures all

2009-11-19T10:27:00.003-05:00

After a very rough morning with Jordan, I was so pleased to be able to take a 45 minute walk all by myself in the woods. The silence was blissful and it really helped me to regroup for the day. We have some amazing trails literally across the street from our house and they go on and on for acres. It feels like you are far away and in another place, but you are really just in the woods across the street. I am so glad I did it, because I was in a foul mood and I feared the day would be ruined.

I have Thursdays off and the kids are at daycare, but I find that there is SO much to do that I often feel overwhelmed and even put upon. I usually do dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, and take the trash to the dump. The day goes by way too fast and sometimes I don't even feel like I got much done. I always want to get enough done that Penny feels like I contributed, but I also try to take some time for myself (which Penny supports). We really try to give each other "me time," either away from home or for a few hours on the weekends, but it literally never seems like enough.

I just think that 2.5 years of sleep deprivation and just everything that is involved with parenting twins has really taken a toll on us. So even a weekend away does not seem like enough. And then of course I feel guilty for craving more time away from everyone.

Jordan has been very challenging lately with epic tantrums that make me want to tear my hair out. The screaming drives me bonkers and he often prefers Penny, so even when I go to him to try to comfort him (when that seems appropriate and necessary), he pushes me away and says he wants Mommy. I am usually not good enough for much when it comes to Jordan's needs when he is upset. This is tough and makes me want to withdraw. We usually just let him do his thing if he can do it safely, i.e. at home on the floor or in his crib. God forbid we are out and about when this happens, as it is a fit of epic proportions and then we have to try to buckle him in to his car seat. OMG, what a fiasco!

People I know with older kids say that 3 year-olds are worse than 2 year-olds. If that's true, then I want to start going backwards, rather than forwards. Where do I sign up for that? Some days I really want my snuggly babies back!

But, deep breath in, deep breath out. One day at a time. Thank god for walks in the woods and the support of Penny, friends, and family.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Walks in the woods.
2) Feeling good off of sugar and on the South Beach Diet. Down 9 pounds so far!
3) Having the luxury of a day at home alone to get chores done so that my family can have more fun together on the weekends.

So wrong on so many levels.

2009-11-18T23:29:00.006-05:00

If it's wrong to wish for something eventful to happen during your day so that you have something to blog about, then I don't want to be "write." Get it? Write? Oh, I am too funny!

I work late on Wednesday nights because I co-lead a Stress Management Group. When I got home at almost 8 pm tonight, Penny has dinner going full steam ahead and both kids were in bed, nice and quiet. Awesome! Dinner was chicken with a cheese and tomato sauce that tasted very much like lasagna, and spaghetti squash. We cooked that squash and we cooked that squash and it just did not seem to be getting done. But then it was finally done. And we knew it was done when it EXPLODED IN THE MICROWAVE! By the time I got into the kitchen, the microwave had smoke (maybe steam?) pouring out of it. The squash was fine...well, the parts I did not have to scrape off the walls and ceiling of the microwave were yummy anyway! And as soon as it happened, I thought, "I am SO gonna blog about this tonight!" DORK!!!

Penny relayed a conversation she had with Taylor on the way home from daycare today that is definitely blog-worthy as well. (Blog-worthy is a lot like 'sponge worthy' for your Seinfeld fans out there!)

Taylor: Mommy, you a girl?
Penny: Yes, Taylor, Mommy is a girl.
Taylor: Mama a girl?
P: Yes, Mama is a girl.
T: Jordan boy. No girl.
P: Right. Jordan is a boy.
T: Me a girl?
P: Yes, you are a girl.
T: But why I no have boops?

For some reason, our daughter is obsessed with breasts, or as she likes to call them "boops." Penny then has to explain to our little miss that girls get boops when they get older. Somehow I thought it would be several years before I had to have talks like that with J&T!

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Dinner very close to being done when I got home
2) Very verbally gifted children who can tell me what is on their minds
3) A regular 4 day work-week that allows me to get stuff done for the house and the family on Thursdays

Blogging is hard!

2009-11-17T22:40:00.003-05:00

Remember that Barbie that had everyone up in arms because she said things like "Math is hard!" and "Science is hard!" ? Well, I feel like that Barbie right now. "Blogging is hard!" This NaBloPoMo thing is harder than I anticipated. During the day I might have some ideas for posts, but then I forget and then it's after 11 pm before ya know it and I am once again in front of the computer wondering what the hell to write.

Jordan's pink eye is improving, but he might be coming down with something else. He was SUPER cranky this evening and had a low grade fever. I hope he sleeps OK tonight and does not wake up with his eyes fused shut! He also did not nap at daycare today and screamed bloody murder all the way home. Penny left me a voicemail message as he was screaming to make sure I knew how good of a time she was having.

We were all supposed to go to a neighborhood dinner tonight. Once every few weeks one of the neighbors makes dinner for everyone and we are all invited. I love these dinners, as they are free, healthy, prepared dinners that do not involve having to cook or clean up. We have hosted a few times and it is really fun. I think we are up again soon. The only down side to these dinners is that they are on week nights, so it is east for the whole night to go by and it be kiddo bedtime before ya know it. We try to get home before meltdown city!

Taylor and I went to the dinner alone tonight, as Jordan was in no mood to go out again. Before Taylor and I left, I bribed Jordan with cookies to let us put his eye drops in. It worked! He got his drops and his two cookies. And I got to leave without a huge song and dance. Taylor was super charming and everyone was pretty much smitten with her. The neighbors only see the kids once every 1-3 months or so, depending on how often the dinners are, so there are always big changes. They were particularly impressed with her ability to play on her own tonight while mama ate her dinner, and with how much she was talking. We first brought the kids to these dinners when they were 3 months old and we were brand new to the 'hood. So much has changed in the past two years!

South Beach is going well, but it is a daily struggle to resist sugar and carbs. I have lost 7.5 pounds so far (in just over a week!) and feel great about that. It is awesome to have a friend who is doing the same plan. We really support each other and help each other through the rough times. We are planning a South Beach friendly Thanksgiving. And even our book group has agreed to eat South Beach friendly food! This is all so helpful! I plan to stay on this for the long term and hope to lose a very substantial amount of weight over the next year. One meal at a time, one day at a time!

And now I have to go and wait for my pictures to finish uploading on Snapfish. If they can all get uploaded by midnight, I can get 100 free prints! Awesome. Except it is taking FOREVER and I am not sure I am gonna make it. Hopefully I do not fall asleep on the keyboard as I wait!

Do you need some laughs?

2009-11-16T23:06:00.003-05:00

If you are in need of some laugh therapy, please check out these websites ASAP.

http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com

And of course, the classic:

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com

Do you know why I needed some laughs this morning? Because I awoke to screams of "My eyes! My eyes!" coming from Jordan and Taylor's room. Jordan's eyes were fused shut with goo. Well hello pink eye, my old friend! Welcome back!

Married...again

2009-11-15T22:25:00.008-05:00

On 9/1/09, it became legal for same sex couples to get legally married. Vermont was the first state to pass the same sex marriage bill into law without a law suit. The Vermont legislators saw an injustice and they put their money where there mouths are and they did something about it. I have never been so happy to live here as when the news was announced!

We had a Civil Union in 2004, but wanted to get married as well for the additional legal protections for our family. So, on 9/11/09, the 5 year anniversary of our Civil Union, we got married in a very short and sweet ceremony, peformed by our friend and coworker, Wanda Miller, who is also a minister. The lovely albeit short ceremony was at the Women's Peace Park in Montpelier and was attended by two guests: Penny's sister Cindy and her niece Jessie. They brought us each a red rose for the ceremony. At the conclusion of the ceremony, we celebrated with some very festive wedding eclairs.

And now Jordan and Taylor have moms who are legally married. While there is still much work to be done on a federal level so that our marriage can be recognized federally, this is one significant step forward and I am very greatful to live in state where it is possible. Thank you Vermont!

P.S. The pics are out of order, but blogger is being weird and I am having trouble editing the post and moving the pictures around. You'll get the gist of things, anyway, I am certain!

Tough times in the land of 2.5 year olds

2009-11-14T22:18:00.003-05:00

Times are often tough here in the land of 2.5 year old twins. And, by the way, wow! The kids are now 2 and a half. In 6 months they will be three. I am seriously blown away! But 2.5 is hard. The tantrums, most often displayed by Jordan, are wicked. The screaming in the car is enough to make me want to drive into oncoming traffic just to make it stop. And the throwing of one's self to the ground (most often the kids, not the moms!) and flailing and wailing, especially when displayed in public, is just, well, lovely. Really, really lovely. Sometimes Penny and I have to tag team when it feels like the one dealing with the tantrum is about to blow and needs a time-out. That's when I feel so lucky to have a partner with whom I am sharing this parenting stuff. I can tag her in, and take a time-out so I do not tear my hair out or scream in frustration. It is so hard not to take things personally, especially when said tantrums involve some kind of assault (kicking, hitting, pulling hair, etc.), regardless of whether said assault was purposeful or not. It is during these times that I think of my friends who are single parents. I bow down to them, I salute them, and I stand in awe of them. Sometimes I can't (or don't want to) handle my two on my own for even an afternoon. I can't imagine flying solo ALL THE TIME! We manage the tantrums with time-outs for moms and kids, using sticker charts and other rewards (bribes!) to encourage and reward the behavior we want to see, and planned ignoring of negative behaviors. All of this works relatively well...except when it doesn't. Like anything else in parenting, it is a work in progress.

In other news...Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away! Holy crap! And so begins the whirlwind to the end of the year. Penny is having knee surgery at the beginning of December. Then we are going to my brother's house on Long Island for a long weekend to visit with the Parker clan: mom coming from FL and other brother and his girlfriend coming from MA. Christmas comes early for the Parkers this year. And then Christmas proper will be upon us. Happy New Year and all the jazz. Welcome 2010. A few days later, and holy crap I am turning 35. Wow. Mid thirties. As close to 40 as I am to 30. Advanced maternal age. (Not that I am really thinking about having any more babies, but, well, that offer of extra sp*erm mentioned by Eryn in the comments a few posts ago sure got me thinking. Penny just keeps slapping me upside the head every time I bring it up.)

We had a nice morning at the library today. Jordan and Taylor are finally at the place of being interested in picking out books and sitting while we read ENTIRE books to them. This is new and very exciting for me. I have been looking forward to this time for a long time. Today Taylor wanted booked about fish and Jordan wanted boooks about Dinosaurs. The kids took an awesome nap when we got home (2.5 hours!!), allowing Penny and me to catch up on the 3-part CSI crossover episodes from last week. Penny baked cookies with the kids in the afternoon, too. I have managed to not eat any and stay totally on target with my South Beach-ing. I am so proud of myself. Nary a morsel of BAD carbs or sugar have passed my lips in 6 days! I agreed that Penny could make the cookies with the kids, as long as she packaged them up and put them away so I could not see them or be tempted by them. When I gave the kids one each with their dinner, I inhaled deeply into the bag. I am pretty sure that sugar inhalation is allowed on South Beach.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) A loving and competent co-parent
2) A pantry where cookies can be tucked away, out of sight, out of mind
3) The public library, especially on a rainy and cold Saturday morning

Disney Picture Post

2009-11-13T22:40:00.004-05:00

Too tired to be coherent, so I give you a post of Disney World pictures. (A very small sampling of the over 400 pictures we took!) Enjoy. Maybe tomorrow I will have something interesting and/or important to say. I have my doubts!

Why?

2009-11-12T15:41:00.007-05:00

Please go to google and type in "why" without the quotes. You will not believe the suggestions. My personal favorites are the first one and the last one.

Anyone have any thoughts on why those ridiculous things come up? Could they possibly be the most popular "why" queries that are posed to google? If so, I am horrified...and unbelievably amused and entertained.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Will power...or should I say "won't power?"
2) A productive day of chores
3) Thursday night TV...even if I did fall asleep on the couch during Grey's. Boo!

Three cheers for a three day work week this week! And TGIF tomorrow. How is it possible that Thanksgiving is in 2 weeks? That is insane, especially with how warm it has been here. It hardly feels like November...not that I am complaining. I am happy to put off the snow for as long as possible, even though I am looking forward to the kids being old enough to play in it this year. And speaking of being old enough, recently Taylor and Jordan have been talking about Santa and how he brings presents to kids who are good. When Jordan was having a tantrum in the car this evening after Penny picked the kids up from daycare, Taylor said "I being a good girl. Santa bring me presents. Jordan, no presents." This of course made Jordan furious and he wailed even louder. Oh how I love this age! :)

Quote of the day

2009-11-11T22:27:00.003-05:00

Taylor was watching me get dressed. As I put on my bra, the following conversation took place... (with toddler language intentionally left in)

Taylor: (pointing to my bra) That not yours shirt, mama?

Me: No, it's not my shirt.

Taylor: What is it?

Me: That's my bra.

Taylor: That keeps yours boops warm?

Me: Yes, Taylor, that keeps my boobs warm.

God, she is hilarious! And the way the toddler mind works is just fascinating!

Penny and I went out to dinner with some other twin moms tonight, and left J&T home with their favorite sitter, Corrina. All went well and we had a nice (albeit short) night out. Oh, and Jordan pooped on the potty while we were gone. He poops on the potty regularly at daycare, and now at home, for Corrina. He will not poop on the potty at home for us. What the hell??

Have you heard of the website restaurant.com? If not, you should check it out. They regularly have sales on restaurant gift certificates where you can buy a $25 gift certificate for $2 - $4! We happened to have one for the place we went tonight that I bought for $2! Some restrictions apply: has to be eat in, has to be at least 2 people in the party, you have to spend at least $35 to use the $25 off, an 18% gratuity gets added at the end of the meal/onto the total bill, and most of them can only be used at dinner. All fine with me. There are a number of restaurants in this are that have certificates available. So, tonight our bill for the two of us was about $37 with tax and tip. We threw in the gift certificate, and another $12 in cash and we were good to go. So, for $14 we got $40 worth of restaurant experience and food. Add the $30 we paid the babysitter, and we got a night out for a total of $44. Not too shabby!

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Restaurant.com
2) A third day of South Beach that went well, including a restaurant meal!
3) Good weather that allowed for a one hour walk with the kids and my SB buddy.

A vow to make a daytime post tomorrow, maybe even with pictures!

2009-11-10T22:17:00.002-05:00

These late night posts have got to stop. Tomorrow I am off for Veteran's Day, so I am going to post during the day when I have more brain power. I am tired and fried right now and cannot think of a damn thing worth posting about!

I made a delicious dinner tonight: pork chops with a soy sauce and garlic sauce, acorn squash, and "mashed potatoes" made out of cauliflower. It was so yummy and we both enjoyed it.

We are looking forward to our day off tomorrow. I am going to take the kids and meet a friend to go for a walk, while Penny has some alone time. We are going out to dinner with some local twin moms and leaving the kids home with their favorite babysitter, Corrina. She's our favorite, too!

And now, I hear Jordan coughing in his sleep and fear that a wake-up is imminent, so I will sign off for now. My poor, poor boy is back on the nebulizer treatments due to cold-induced asthma. Thank god he is so much better about the treatments now. Old routine: One of us holds him down while the other one dances around doing the hokey-pokey trying to entertain and distract him. New routine: Jordan sits on the couch, holds his own medication up to his face, and watches TV while doing his treatment independently. Wow! What a difference that change has made in all of our lives!

Things I am thankful for today:
1) Veteran's Day holiday. Thank you to vets everywhere.
2) Day 2 of rocking the eating plan, drinking water, walking and saying eff you to sugar!
3) An awesome babysitter who loves our kids, and is affordable, trustworthy, and 100% competent.

I did it!

2009-11-09T23:19:00.004-05:00

It is time to go to bed, but I wanted to write about my great day today. It was day #1 of the South Beach Diet. I stayed 100% on plan, and even took a walk at lunch time. Yeah! I am so proud of myself. I found some candy in my desk from Halloween and some in my purse from the scrapbooking retreat. I dumped it all into the community candy dish at work and never looked back. Go me!

I attended my book club meeting tonight, where my friend and I brought our own South Beach friendly dinner components to share, so that we could stay on plan. I passed up a potato curry dish, rice, cheese spread and crackers, wine, and chocolate chip cookies and apple cake. (And then I brought cookies home for Penny and I managed to not eat them all on the way home! I did not even eat one!!) Having my friend there to support me really helped me stay on track and not want to stray. After the meeting, we talked about our plans for tomorrow and how to stay on track. I then came home and made my lunch for tomorrow. Planning ahead helps so much. As my dad used to say, "Plan your work and work your plan." Another quote I like is "Failure to plan is a plan to fail." This is so true for me when it comes to making big changes in life.

Here's hoping that day #2 is as great as day #1 and that I can keep up this momentum with support from my friend. One meal at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time. I can do this!

Oh gosh, I have not been posting things I am thankful for. I gotta stop posting late at night, 'cuz my memory is just shot.

Things I am thankful for today:
1) New local friends/twin moms in my book club that are fun and supportive
2) My ability to be vulnerable and put myself out there
3) The South Beach Diet

Home again, home again, Jiggity Jig.

2009-11-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

I got home safe and sound, despite the check engine light being on the whole way home. But then it turned itself off at night. What the hell is with that? Now, do I bring it in ASAP, or do I wait and see what happens. The budget says to wait and see, but I worry we might cause bigger problems if we do that.

I got home around 1:30 pm and the kids were so happy to see me. They ran to me and hugged and kissed me. It was so sweet! Penny was happy to see me too, but for other reasons! Ah, the sweet relief of the other parent arriving home after a weekend away! I gave Penny some relief and took the kids to the park for a few hours, so she could watch her blasted football in peace.

The evening was a whirlwind of activity and I will post more about that tomorrow.

Some funny tales from the road: I stopped at a rest area as I crossed the VT border. I passed a woman waiting for someone to come out of the restroom. As I passed, the other party must have come out, as the first woman said, "What'd you do? Fall in?" Now, is there any dignified way to answer this question? There are only a few things that cause you to be waylaid in the bathroom, and none of them are particularly ready for prime-time, if you know what I mean. If I was the second woman, I think I would have had to answer something like: "I was taking a giant dump. Is that ok with you?"

And I also saw a bumpersticker that I thought was particularly poignant. On a pick-up truck with several bumper stickers which I would never affix to my car, I saw this gem: The background was the confederate flag. And it read: "You can't fix stupid." Touche, Mr. Pick-up truck, touche! The other one I liked on that truck, which was so tasteful, was the Red Sox's mascot, the Green Monster, urinating on the New York Yankees logo. Now that, my friends, is what we call classy. So, you can't fix stupid, but can you fix trashy? How about tasteless?

Scrappy

2009-11-07T21:43:00.002-05:00

I am in CT and the scrapbooking is wrapping up. Saturday night already? Wow! That went by fast. We are cleaning up the scrap room and getting ready to hit the hotel bar for a drink. I have had a fabulous time catching up with friends and meeting some new folks. (Elissa, are you reading? I know how you hate the word "folks!")And now I am trying to get this blog post done ASAP so I don't miss a day.

I finished one album and got the Disney 2009 album 1/2 way done! I could have gotten more done on that one, but I have only printed half the pictures so far, so I did not want to fill the whole album with only 1/2 the pictures.

Tomorrow: farewell breakfast with friends. And then the 3.5 hour drive home. The check engine light came on yesterday while I was driving here. Please let me make it home safe and sound, without breaking down. When I drove to MA for the Creative Memories regional convention a few months ago, I was driving the Saturn and the check engine light came on, too. Now, it's the van, and the same light is on. FUCK! Our cars clearly hate lower New England. And I hate car repairs and the bills that come with them. OK, let's be frank. The repairs don't really bother me all that much. It's the effing cost that comes along with them. I always feel suspicious of the mechanics and worry that I am being ripped off.

Tomorrow evening I need to go shopping for all the South Beach necessities. And then Monday it is back to work, with a whole new plan of action.

And I'm off...in a few hours

2009-11-06T08:59:00.002-05:00

I am heading to CT in a few hours. Yay! I just have to pack my scrapbooking stuff. This is a bigger task than you might imagine, and I wish I had not left it until the last moment. I have to basically pick which pictures and stuff I want to work on while I am there. And hope that when I get there, I have what a I want and need, in order to scrap the photos that I brought. Who knew crafting could be stressful, right?

Kids are at daycare and Penny is at work. The house is quiet and I almost wish I was staying here to enjoy the quiet. But, I got my book on tape (CD, really, but book on CD sounds silly!) and I need to print directions and get on my way.

This is a lame blog post, but I did not want to leave it until tonight and have to do it at the hotel. I know there is a computer I can use there, and I will have to use it tomorrow night for blogging, but I thought I would get this post out of the way before I left. And then I will post on Sunday after I get home. I have never had to plan for blogging before. I just ignored the blog for months on end and all was good! Ha Ha!

I will disclose in this post that next week there are some big things happening here. I am embarking on a new and very serious journey toward getting my weight and my eating under control. I am terrified of making this disclosure online, but am forging forward. What does not kill us makes us stronger, right? A local friend and I are doing this together and it involves meetings, journalling, the South Beach diet, and being accountable to each other. We are considering getting together regularly to exercise, make menu plans, have "weigh-ins," and maybe even cook or grocery shop together. I will likely use the blog to process how things are going and try to be honest both about the successes and the struggles or failures. I need to embark on this journey for my health, my family, and my life. Enough is enough.

On that note, I will sign off. Given that the new way of life starts on Monday, I am looking forward to a weekend of indulgences with friends in CT. No doubt there will be plenty of wine, carbs, and sugar. Ye-ha!

5 days in...

2009-11-05T23:21:00.005-05:00

And I nearly blew it today! I was upstairs getting ready for bed and all of a sudden it hit me. It is 11:22 pm and I have not made a blog post today. Holy crap, I almost messed it up just five days into the 30 day deal-io! Whew. I am safe now because here I am...writing a post. The NaBloPoMo police will not come to arrest me. But it could have been worse. I could have actually been in bed when the thought occurred to me that I needed to write this. Being all warm and cozy and then having to leave bed would have been much, much worse!

Tomorrow I am off to CT for a lovely weekend of scrapboooking with one of my nearest and dearest friends in the whole world. We are so excited to have the whole weekend for nothing but crafting, eating, drinking, and shootin' the shit. Did I mention drinking? It is going to be glorious. I am thrilled that Penny's sister will be staying at our house for the weekend to help her, so that Penny does not have to fly solo for 48 hours. Thanks, Cindy! The kids are so excited that their "Cinny" is coming to visit them tomorrow! Oh how they love their "Cinny!"

Whenever one of us goes away for the weekend or for any period of time, I get so nervous that something bad will happen. Penny and I always have a conversation about being careful when driving, etc, etc because there is this terror of something awful happening that would leave one of us to raise the twins alone. How morbid, right? But I can't shake it. And I think it stems from our cross-country move when the kids were 3 months old. I flew to MA with J&T and my friend, Lisa. Penny drove with the pets and her brother. And I remember when she left us to start the drive, the day before we were flying out. I totally had a panic attack (which was not all that uncommon in the early days of newborn twins and sleep deprivation). And I was crying and saying to her, "You better be careful because I CANNOT DO THIS WITHOUT YOU!" I was terrified that somehing would happen to her and I would be left to raise infant twins on my own. But she made it, and everything was fine...well, except for the sleep deprivation. That seems to never really end. Ok, it has gotten much better, but there are still occasional nighttime wakings and boy do I hate 'em!

While I relish my time away with friends, coming home is also great. Seeing Penny and the kids when I get home is great. Seeing the kids excitement when they see me walk in the door is amazing. And even getting back to the routine after being away is something that I look forward to in a way, knowing that we are all back under one roof, together and safe.

3 Things I am thankful for today:
1) The feel of a new haircut
2) Crafts that I enjoy and that keep me feeling like myself
3) Chocolate fondue that I heard through the grapevine is being served this weekend

Hopefully when I come home on Sunday, I do not come home to this:

This picture was taken a few weeks ago. The first snowfall of the 2009/2010 winter season was in mid-October. Zoinks! Are we in for it this year or what?

Big kids hit the playground

2009-11-04T21:56:00.002-05:00

The local community family center is near our house and they recently relocated to a new fancy schmancy location. This new building also has an amazing playground that is open and available to the public on the weekends. One of the best things about this playground is that it is fenced in. This makes it very easy for a mother of twins to take her kids to the playground on her own and not worry about kids running out in the parking lot or running away unnoticed. They also leave all the bikes and trikes out over the weekend for the kids to ride. The first time we went there and saw all the bikes left out, including about 10 Kettler trikes, I had a very "you know you're in Vermont when..." type of moment. I could not believe that such great (and expensive) bikes were left out 24/7 and no one ever stole them! California mentality much? I mean, we leave our doors unlocked during the day when we are not home, so maybe I should not be that surprised. But, our house also has the very tough and menacing BEAR at the ready to attack if intruders were to invade...unless said intruders knew Bear's name and brought her some treats! And then? I got nothing!

Anyway, the park is amazing and I love taking the kids there. We are often the only ones there, so J&T have the run of the place. Jordan shocked me a few times ago by getting on one of the Kettler bikes and just riding off. No practice necessary! This kid is seriously gifted in the physical skills department. He got the pedals and how to ride the bike automatically, with no instruction! I was amazed, I was shocked, I was saddened. How did my baby become such a big boy?

And speaking of big kids, Taylor went over to the climbing wall and climbed right up! This is amazing, especially for her, as she tends to be the more clumsy of the two. She often does things first (talk, walk), but Jordan usually excels at those things before Taylor does. But, she climbed right up that climbing wall, without even falling or faltering once!

I can't believe that my babies will be 2.5 years old in a few days. Seriously, how did that happen? One of the bad things about having twins is that, yes, we have two kids (and we are eternally gratefulf for this!), but we only got to experience everything once. I guess that kind of goes both ways. When other people have their second kids, I love the idea of having twins, as we only had to do he serious sleep deprivation thing one time. But, when other people have new tiny babies, I am so jealous! I feel like I want to experience that again, but we never will! :( The other day I told Penny that I kind of had baby fever. You know what she told me? Take some Tylenol and get rid of that fever! So cold, right?) I mean, we totally can't afford another child, financially, physically, or emotionally. We are tapped out with our two darlings. But when I see pregnant women or women with their tiny babies in their fancy carriers and wraps, I get twinges of jealousy. I wish that I was able to have the experience of a singleton, to know what it is like for 2 parents to manage one baby. I wonder how different that experience would be for us, versus the twin experience that we had. But I can wonder until the cows come home, cuz it ain't never gonna happen. And I will never accidentally get knocked up...unless, hmmm, a vial of donor sperm happens to fall from the sky exactly when I am ovulating and exactly when I am laying on my back in the middle of the street....naked, with my legs in the air. Not a pretty picture, but, hey, it could happen. As they say in the NY Lotto: Hey, ya never know! All ya need is a dollar and a dream!

Three things I am thankful for today:
1)Being lucky enough to have gotten pregnant at all
2) Having a wife that supports me in going to CT for an amazing scrapbooking retreat with one of my best friends from college...in two days!
3)Having two of the cutest kids alive

Is there anything that you are dying to know? Please post any burning questions in the comments section and I would be happy to address almost anything.

Adventures in Potty Training

2009-11-03T20:16:00.003-05:00

Potty training is happening slow and steady in our house. You might be able to imagine the fun of potty training...now multiply that by two and imagine all the fun we are having at our house right now! The kids are very into their big kid "unnawears," AKA Pull-Ups. Some days they use the potty enough to keep their unnawears on all day. Other days they pee in the Pull-Up right away. Since their ability to stay consistently dry is unpredictable, and Pull-Ups are even more expensive than diapers, we start the day with each kid in a Pull-Up. They can keep it on for as long as they stay dry. Once they pee in the Pull-Up, we put diapers on them, unless we are feeling lazy. While they are more expensive, Pull-Ups are great because the kids can pull them up themselves and we can stop having to lay them down on the changing table to put on diapers. While Penny can manage to diaper the kids while they are standing up, I never quite mastered that skill.

Potty training has brought on a lot of funny moments, as the kids explore their own bodies and want to know what is going on with our bodies and their sibling's body. They are fascinated with who has a pe*nis and who has a "gina." I know, I know. The correct term is vu*lva, but we went with the former and never looked back.

Jordan always wants his privacy and does not want Taylor in the bathroom when he pees. However, when you try to prevent him from being int he bathroom when Taylor is in there, LOOK OUT! Prepare yourself for a mega-tantrum! Jordan is infamous for his tantrums. He loves to throw himself down on the floor and wail away like someone is pulling out his toenails. When we aren't tearing our hair out as a result of this behavior, it can be pretty entertaining, in a "why did we have kids again?" kind of way.

Taylor loves to be naked and dance around the house. She does this little naked dance, where she shakes her booty and pumps her arms, while running around, saying, "Naked, naked!" She is such a little imp and definitely gives us a run for our money in a much different way than her brother.

A blog I read has a "30 days of Thanks" thing going on, to go along with NaBloPoMo. Seems like a cool idea, so I am gonna do it, too, but I have a few days to catch up on.

11/1/09
1) Friends who live in a great Trick or Treat neighborhood.
2) A heaping bowl of Halloween candy
3) A loving Mimi who sends warm Halloween costumes that are perfect for Trick or Treating in VT

11/2/09
1) Two days out of the office at an interesting conference, which was paid for me by my agency
2) Free breakfast, lunch, and snacks at said conference
3) Safe, reliable, and affordable daycare where I know T&J are well cared for and loved

And today...
1) A new pellet stove that keeps us warm at night
2) Only getting 3 voice mails at work while I was out of the office for 2 days
3) Yummy chicken and pasta for dinner, made for me by my lovely wife. (Oh yeah, did I mention we got legally married? Well, we did...on the 5 year anniversary of our Civil Union (9/11). Photos of our "quickie" wedding to come sometime this month. Hey, I can't post everything all at once! I gotta find 30 things to post about. (Well, just 27 more, actually!) And if I gave you all the good stuff all at once, would you keep coming back?)

Halloween Recap

2009-11-02T19:25:00.004-05:00

So, this was the first year that we truly dressed Jordan and Taylor up for Halloween. Their first Halloween (at age 5 months old), they wore orange and black fuzzy sleepers. At that time they went to daycare 2 days per week, so they wore their Halloween "outfits" to daycare. Their second Halloween, at age 1.5, they wore some very lame costumes to daycare. Jordan was a "farmer," with overalls and a flannel shirt. And Taylor wore her Piglet sweat suit. Hey, at least the hood had ears! I don't even think we have a picture from that year. Trick or treating before this year seemed silly, as even last year the kids could not really walk from house to house and we were not too into them eating candy. This year, though, they are almost 2 and a half and we said let's go for it. I struggled with wanting to be the cool mom that makes costumes for kids, but then also facing the reality of being constantly short on time (due in some part to a Facebook and Bejeweled Blitz addiction). So, we went with the store bought costumes, but I have definite aspirations of making costumes in the future. We bought a witch costume for Taylor and a vamprire for Jordan. And then my mom sent us matching fleece pumpkin suits, which were super cute and also warm. They were much more comfy for the kids, so they wore the pumpkin costumes to daycare on Friday, and again for trick or treating on Saturday. They wore the witch and the vampire costumes to the Green Mountain Multiples Halloween Party that we went to, as well. While I love the cute pics of the kids posing a whole lot, I also love the above pic of Jordan tantrumming on the floor in his pumpkin suit. Priceless!

Trick or treating was fun, but now we have a ton of candy, and that poses its own dilemmas. 1)I don't want the kids eating all that, and some stuff is probably too hard and/or dangerous for them to eat. Charleston chews and toddlers don't seem like a great match. 2) I don't really want to eat all the candy myself. And when it comes to a huge bowl of candy on the counter, well, let's face it, self control goes out the window. I am thinking of having Penny take it to work where she can either pass it out to staff or clients, or she can eat it all herself. She has more self control than I do, and a smaller ass.

Over the next 30 days, I am hoping to write posts on my new love of couponing and all the deals I have been scoring, a journey I am shortly beginning to hopefully get said lack of self control with food under much better control, parenting joys and challenges, and my new venture as a Creative Memories Consultant.

Stay tuned....if not for my witty posts, than at least to see if I can actually write 30 posts in 30 days!

How fitting!

2009-11-01T12:24:00.003-05:00

In an effort to increase posting on the blog, I have decided to participate in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). As of today, I am committing to posting at least one post per day for 30 days. Can I do it? Am I up to the challenge? I am certainly going to give it my best effort. There's lots I want to say and share, so 30 days, 30 posts. I hope people will read and comment and let me know they are out there. This seems like a very fitting challenge to undertake on this post, as this is the 100th post of this blog! 100 posts in almost 3 years is not too impressive, ey?

Happy day after Halloween everyone. I have some super cute pics of the kids that I will try to post later today. This was the first year we took them out trick or treating. They really got into it and seemed to enjoy it.

Happy November!!

Am I living the dream?

2009-08-28T14:40:00.004-04:00

Last night I went to see Julie and Julia with my friend, Elissa. She is another twin mom who I met here in VT. Her twin boys are a week younger than Jordan and Taylor. We are a lot alike and we really enjoy spending time together. We were thrilled to have a night out together last night! We loved the movie, but we came away wondering how we could find our own special projects with which to become famous. Ok, maybe not famous, but maybe a bit more fabulous!

Do you ever do that? I love going to the movies, but I often come away feeling crappy about my life. Ok, maybe not crappy, but less than, or like something is lacking, and like I want more. And then sometimes I am inspired to do things, like lose weight, blog more, do more stand-up comedy, be more crafty and fabulous, etc, etc, etc.

Today there was a newsletter from Smith in my email box. (By the way, Julia Child went to Smith and there was not one damn reference to my alma mater in the whole movie. I am sure I am not the only Smithie who was pissed about this!) In the email, I noticed a tagline for the college. I am not sure if this is a new tagline or not. The tagline is: Smith College educates women of promise for lives of distinction.

I like it! It made me smile. Ok, so at one time, Smith College considered me a woman of promise. Shit, since I went there for my BA and again for my MSW, they actually thought that about me twice (Can you visualize me patting myself on the back and congratulating myself?) But, the question is, as I sit here in my office with no windows (did I just admit to blogging at work? That's allowed on your lunch break, right? Right??), am I living a life of distinction?

Is this enough? And if it's not, am I willing to do what it takes to get what I want? Do you ever think like this?

It's summer time and we are feelin' fine.

2009-08-14T12:09:00.002-04:00

I have to start with our newest milestone. Jordan pooped on the potty last night! Not a lot (sorry for that gross little tidbit of information), and not on purpose, but he did it! We are in the midst of starting potty training. We offer the kids the opportunity to sit on the potty, and they usually refuse. And we are ok with that. We don't want potty training to be stressful or forced, so we are laying low. Jordan asks to go on the potty more than Taylor, but I think that is more about getting into the bathroom and then asking to wash his hands and brush his teeth, than about really wanting to use the potty. But, he pees on the potty a few times per week, including at daycare, which is great. Taylor usually refuses, or she sits, but does nothing. I think we have a long road ahead of us on this one, but if they are potty trained (or at least a lot closer than they are now) by the time they are three, I will be ok with that. If we are in the same place we are now in about 9 months, I will not be thrilled.

Summer is flying by, but it feels more like winter in Berkeley with all the rain we have had. Not thrilled about that. But, we have made the most of it and have still had some fun adventures. We went to Bristol, RI for 4th of July with my mom, to reinvent the yearly familiy tradition. It was lots of fun and we hope to do it again next year. The kids did really well and even sat and watched the 3+ hour parade with us. Mimi bought them balloons and toys, they had lots of yummy treats to eat, so they were happy!

We also went to visit friends on the Cape for a few days, which was great. Very relaxing. I recently came across the term "chillaxin," which was just what we did when in Cape Cod. We chillaxed with our friends, drank wine, went in the hot tub, went to the beach and spent a day in P-town. Awesome!

We made it to Pride in VT this year. A bit lackluster compared to SF, but it was quaint and we were glad we made it. Lisa and Robin came up from Boston for the weekend to attend Pride with us. We were all proud together!

In a few weeks we are heading to Florida for a week at Disneyworld with Bill and his family. We are so excited to have a week with my brother's family and for the kids to be together. We are all staying at Saratoga Springs in their new treehouses that sleep 9. They are gorgeous!

Will end for now. Have lots of pics to post as usual. Never seem to get around to them. But, with our brand new Dell laptop that we orderded (and that has already been shipped! SQUEE!!), I hope that all things computer and internet related will not only be easier but lots faster. It is time to retire the dinosaur that we bought for Penny to start grad school sometime around 2002.

Gotta Love It!

2009-06-14T00:10:00.002-04:00

There is a great blog that I have been reading recently called Freebies 4 Mom. There are tons of cool things on there that you can get for free. Check her out at www.freebies4mom.blogspot.com

One very cool freebie that she has listed now is a 50% off coupon for e.l.f. cosmetics. They have tons of cool stuff, for super cheap, that is getting lots of great reviews. I ordered 15 different things for a grand total of $14.45, including shipping! Wow! I have lots of old make-up that I hardly ever wear. Such is the luxurious life of a mom with twin toddlers! I hate to throw things away to replace them, though, as it hardly seems worth it. Well, for under $15, I guess I can chuck some of the old stuff that would likely give me an eye infection if I used it again anyway!

So, go check out Freebies 4 Mom and get some nice new cosmetics for cheap!

Sweet sweet relief!

2009-06-12T11:58:00.002-04:00

Want some free chocolate? Well then, go here and get some!

https://secure.realchocolate.com/default.aspx?ar=1

Free chocolate every Friday. Up to 4 coupons per household! I got one a few weeks ago. Already got the coupon and have a lovely Twix bar waiting for me at home in the fridge. And I just got another free coupon today that should be on its way to me in a few weeks! Yay!

No, Mama! Me do it!

2009-06-12T11:09:00.002-04:00

I think the day they turned two a button was thrown wherein they began being their lovely "terrible two" selves. And people say three is worse. God help me! If we put them in the high chair, or in the car seat, or in the crib, or on the changing table, you can hear "ME DO IT! reverberating through our house. They want to then climb down, attempt to do said activity ("Me climb up!"), and then either have some success or ask for help. It is maddening and time consuming and yet endearing all at the same time. They are both great climbers and it is so cute to see them do it themselves, little butts in the air. But taking double time for everything is crazy making. I guess we should either 1) just let them climb up from the beginning or 2) go to the time store and buy some more because this takes a long time and I could really use a few more hours in the day!

Mimi is coming for a visit from FL next week and she is staying for 3 weeks! I am thrilled and also nervous. I hope she does not get too bored and that we do not want to kill each other by the end of it. I am so excited for the kids to get to be with her for such a long time. It will be awesome for all of us. And, I know that our house will be clean and we will eat GOOD! My mama is super helpful when she visits and OMG are we ever grateful. Penny and I are going to a B&B in Stowe for one night next week and we are so excited. Mimi says she is up to the task of having the kids on her own (probably for about 20 hours), so we are taking her to task. We are using a bedandbreakfast.com gift certificate that we got as a gift from friends Sarah and Sarah when I was pregnant. We never used it and it never expired, so we are going away and it will only cost us about $50 out of pocket. How freakin' awesome is that? Thanks Sarah and Sarah! Penny and I are also going to go out to dinner, maybe see a movie, and go to a paint your own pottery place in Stowe the next day. All that free time? My god, can you stand it?

And then next weekend my brothers and their people (Tim: gf Cara, Bill: Wife Michelle, and kids Kelly and Will) are all visiting and staying with us. It will be a full house for sure, but I am so excited for us to all be together. It will be Father's Day weekend, which will be hard as usual. But, we will celebrate Bill being a father and we are going to have a joint birthday party for all the spring-summer-fall birthdays (Michelle, Taylor, Jordan, Kelly, Will, Tim, Penny, Bill). That's a lot of birthdays! Hope for good weather so we can be outside with the kids and they can play in the kiddie pools, play house, sandbox, and water table. Bill and Michelle have a little bouncy house that blows up and they are bringing that, too! Awesome!

I have so much more to say, since I hardly ever blog anymore, but I will stop here for now.

Things I want to post about: Disney Trip in September, being a Creative Memories Consultant, trying to buy a house, the new daycare center. And I want to post lots of pics, like birthday pics, funny recent pics, and even pics from Disney last year. I hate to bring up what a slacker blogger I am in every damn post, but if the shoe fits? Ya know you gotta wear it.

TGIF everyone. We are going to a birthday BBQ on Saturday and having a scrapbooking party on Sunday. Oh, and we gotta clean the house for Mimi's arrival on Wednesday. That is a tall order and a busy weekend!

Happy Birthday, my loves.

2009-05-10T22:03:00.003-04:00

Jordan and Taylor are 2 years old today. My oh my how the time flies. We had a lovely birthday party with friends and family, that even included a bunch of kids. Last year's party was all adults and the kids were only 1, so they hardly knew the difference. This year, we had other little ones and it was more chaotic, for sure! I wondered if we should have had some games planned. We did not have any games, but I think it still went well.

We had a cute animal theme and gave out cute goody boxes. Our friends and family were incredibly generous and the twins were blessed with an abundance of awesome new stuff. Thank you everyone! I made cupcakes for the kids at the party. Jordan blew out his big "2" candle, but Taylor needed a little help. She wanted to grab the flame, but did not quite grasp the concept of blowing out the candle. Oh well. Next year, maybe. I also made an awesome rainbow cake that came out looking very psychadelic and very cool! We took lots of pics, so I will get some up later this week. I know what you are thinking...promises, promises. No really, I will get the pics up. I want to get back into blogging and this is just the time to do it.

And, so I always remember the kids at this age, I want to write a few things down here about each of them. Unfortunately, this is the closest we get to a baby book. Lame, right? Oh well. Such is life with twins. Anyhoo...

Jordan is pretty advanced in his physical skills. He likes to run and climb and can jump with both feet off the floor. Jordan is often heard saying, "No help! Me do it!" He is stubborn and obstinate and willful and he gives us a run for our money! We are learning ways to work with him so that we stay sane and he feels like he is getting a chance to try things and master them in his own way and in his own time. Imagine how tough this is when you are trying to get someplace, anyplace, quickly. Jordan is also so so cute and loveable and, once he thinks it was his idea in the first place, he loves to give hugs and kisses. His little "Wuv you, mama" just melt me! Jordan finally recognizes that he is named Jordan and not Taylor and he sounds so cute when he says his own name. He has learned how to climb out of the crib, but does not do it on a regular basis. I think we are on the verge of toddler beds. Jordan is learning about the potty and sometimes asking to go on it. We are making progress. Jordan loves to eat fruit, cheese, and all things sugary and carby. He loves yogurt and spaghettios and applesauce and berries.

Taylor is a little imp and a ham and she loves to test us. She gets a gleam in her eye when she knows she is doing something she is not supposed to, but she knows she is going to do it anyway. She tries to keep up with her brother, but is not quite as skilles physically yet. She can climb up into her high chair and surprised us all by climbing out of her crib and meeting Mommy in the bathroom on Easter morning. Penny from the bathroom: "Chris? Did you take Taylor out of her crib?" Me: "No. Why?" Penny: "Because she is standing in front of me in the bathroom!" We did not even hear a sound as she slid stealthily from her bed. See what I mean about her being an imp? Taylor loves to snuggle and looks to us for kisses to make it all better when she gets a boo-boo. She wakes up slowly in the mornings and likes to rock with mama as she wakes up. I am only too happy to oblige, as her warm sweet-smelling body comes alive for another day...except on those mornings when she is not so sweet smelling! Taylor loves macaroni and cheese (but only from a can. EW!). She also loves bananas, grapes, and berries, and yogurt, and toast (but not the crust. Where do kids all of a sudden learn not to like crust?) She likes chicken nuggets, especially when there is ketchup for dipping. She also loves popcorn, which, unfortunately, she refers to as p*o*r*n!

These two kids are amazing and make us laugh all the time. Both kids have really started talking a lot more recently and they say new words all the time, some of which we did not even know they knew! When they see us at daycare pick-up, their eyes light up and we know we are doing something right as we navigate the world of parenting. We laugh when they say funny things, like when Jordan called Taylor "honey!" the other day. But, we also remember the heartache of 27 months of trying to get pregnant. Today, on their birthday, we remember how very lucky we are that Taylor and Jordan found their way to us eventually. Happy 2nd Birthday, monkeys. Mama and Mommy love you so so much! We hope you have many many hours of fun in your new playhouse with the slide (that took an UNBELIEVABLE amount of time and people to put together) that we bought you for your birthday. Thanks to Mimi for chipping in on this, to make such a cool gift possible!

Birthday Eve

2009-05-09T23:20:00.003-04:00

It is the night before the twins' 2nd birthday. Techincally, their birthday starts in 40 minutes, as it is 11:20 pm on May 9th, 2009. I am the only one awake. The kids are asleep. Penny and the pets are asleep. Our friends and their toddler are asleep upstairs, too. The cupcakes are baked and cooling. The house is clean. We are ready for the party tomorrow. Well, I still gotta bake the rainbow cake in the morning. No problem! :) Look for pictures later in the week.

We had a hard week here this week. It was the 11th anniversary of my dad's death, and I was kind of surprised how raw my emotions were about it, even still after 11 years. I think they might always be like that, perhaps more dull as the years go by, but right there under the surface, ready to bubble up whenever I give them any attention. I still miss him so so much. Our red bird is back again this year. We are still calling him Bill, and now the kids do, too.

The kids are starting at a new daycare on Monday. It is a home center that will save us $700 per month! We cried this week about the end of the kids' time at their current center, as they are so loved there. Jordan and Taylor clearly loved it there and we are sad to be taking that away from them. We are sad to leave the amazing women of Playcare behind, as they so clearly adored our children. But, it is time for a change, even though it sucks to be changing for a financial reason. We can't continue to pay more for daycare per month than our rent, when we are struggling month to month to pay the bills. The new place is great, although a little more out of the way. Healthy meals are included and the space is really great. There are only 4 other kids there right now, so the numbers are low, too. J&T went there for a 1/2 day visit last week. The provider made them cupcakes for their birthday, and sent them home with framed handprint art for us for Mother's Day. Wow! We were impressed. So, think of us on Monday. I hope the transition goes well and none of us are any worse for the wear.

And now, I must go to bed, to rest up for the big day tomorrow. My babies are turning two years old tomorrow. I am somewhat stunned. How did this happen? Really? Have we been doing this mom thing for two whole years already? Sometimes it seems as if they were just born and sometimes it seems as if they have been here forever.

I will leave you with the text from the post I made almost exactly two years ago today, at around midnight on May 9th, 2007. We had no idea what we were in for!

**Hello everyone. It's a big day for news here!

Last week I had an amnio to check for lung maturity of the babies. Not sure what they measure, but a level of 55 indicates lung maturity. Our results came back at 54, whch they told us means that our babies' lungs would finish maturing this week. Yay! Both babies were still head down at the amnio.

I saw my OB today. And, after finally being head down for a few weeks, including last Thursday when I had the amnio, the babies are breech again! The OB and I were shocked when we saw both heads high up in my abdomen on the ultrasound! Also, my blood pressure was a bit up and I had protein in my urine. (I am not really sure what protein in the urine means, other than that it is not good. But, did they see some pork chops or chicken breasts in my urine, or what??)

Since the babies were measuring 6 and 8 lbs (at the last ultrasound on 4/25), they scheduled me for a C-Section THIS THURSDAY MORNING! We have to call in tomorrow evening to make sure the scheudle has not gotten too crazy. If things are a go, we have to be at the hospital on Thursday morning at 7 am.

Penny and I are scrambling to get the last minute things done. Holy Cow! We are gonna have two babies in less than two days! And we are gonna be moms by mother's day! Unreal! We will post news when we can after that. Watch this space for pictures and news. We will try to post as quickly as we can, but know that with a C-Section, we will be in the hospital for about 3-4 days.**

Good News in VT spurs a return to blogging!

2009-04-08T09:32:00.020-04:00

Well, this blog has been sorely lacking in posts and activity recently, but I want to make a concerted effort to change that. So, on the day after VT made history, I have made a pledge to revive this blog!

Yesterday VT became the first state in the country to have Same Sex Marriage legalized by the Legislature! After being approved by the Senate and the House, the bill went to the Governor who, unfortunately, vetoed the bill. Boo Hiss! The bill went back to the Senate and the House for veto override votes. It was a landslide in the Senate, but VERY close in the House. The House needed 100 votes to override the veto and the final count was 100 to 49! Phew! Close call! We are thrilled to be living in this state at such an exciting time. We had a Civil Union in VT in 2004, but are now planning to get married sometime this fall to further secure rights for us, our kids, and our family. We will likely have a small ceremony and then maybe a big BBQ with friends and family to celebrate. Stay tuned!

Thank you Vermont Legislators for your bravery and your commitment to equal civil rights for all. Our family is proud to be Vermonters today! Check out how happy we were at Disney World in September... We are even MORE happy today, if you can even imagine that!

December still had some more suckage!

2008-12-31T16:17:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately, as the month of December wore on, we had a bit more crap to deal with. The back windshield on the other car (the minivan) was shot out as well, about a week after the first car was hit. It seemed that perhaps we were being targeted, and we worried it was for being gay. (There is also a possibility that these acts were done by a hunter who was hunting RIGHT IN OUR BACKYARD a few weeks before this all happened. He was in our yard, with his gun, not even in the woods. P went out on the deck and asked him to please not hunt in our yard, since we have animals who go outside and two little kids. He said he had an agreement with the previous owners that it was ok for him to hunt there. We told him they had sold the house. He said no problem and we thought we were done with it. We later found out from the previos owners that they had had no such agreement with anyone! So, maybe this hunter was pissed and decided to shoot out our car windows to teach us a lesson. If so, what an effing bastard!) We filed a police report, got the window replaced, and sent out a message to the neighbors. Apparently our road is known for being a place where teens from the nearby high school like to drive fast and be reckless. Several neighbors over the years have had mailboxes smashed (some several times as the boxes are replaced), car windows shot out, and other vandalism. We were encouraged to park our cars as close to the house and far away from the road as possible to prevent whatever future damage we could. We are doing this as much as possible, but it gets harder and harder as the winter goes on and the snowbanks in the driveway get bigger and bigger. Unfortunately, we felt under attack and as if we had no way to protect ourselves, since we do not have a garage. The total cost to us for the windows to be replaced was $730. Money we absolutely did not have. Hello Mr. Plastic. Ugh! We have not had any more problems since then, knock on wood, and hope to be out of the woods on this.

We have taken a few additional precautions, however, which include keeping the house and the cars locked at all times, even when we are home, and renaming this blog to remove our last names and the name of the town in which we live. It sucks to have to be so nervous and maybe even paranoid, but it is a crazy world we live in, and with two small kids, I guess we can't be too careful.

We had a lovely Christmas with Bill and his family in NY and my mom even flew in for the occasion! I will try to get some pics up from the holiday soon. Happy New Year's eve to you all. I hope 2009 is a good one and that your 2008 ended on a better note than ours did this year.

One in a million

2008-12-05T12:40:00.002-05:00

Here's an opportunity that is free, worthwhile, and seemingly easy. Oh, and hey, wouldn't it be cool to say you were part of the research that found a cure for breast cancer?

Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and the Avon Foundation have joined forces to launch the Love/Avon Army of Women. The goal is to recruit one million healthy women of every age and ethnicity to participate in research that will eradicate breast cancer. Nursing mothers and breastmilk is needed for some of the studies. To join the Army of Women, go to: www.armyofwomen.org. Please share this information with all the women you know. Together, we can beat breast cancer!

I signed up. Will you?

So far, December sucks!

2008-12-02T20:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Penny went out to the Saturn to go to work. She opened the door, then shut the door, then heard a weird noise. Looked in the rear view, and could see out. Back windshield shattered! Got out to inspect it more. Back right quarter glass also all spider-webbed and mushy (as in you could push it in). Two smashed windows? Rocks from the snow plow perhaps? (It snowed the previous evening and the plows had been out.) An errant BB? Rocks from a passing car? Who the frig knows.

Penny called me, I came home, and we took the car to Windshield World. Our out of pocket cost for all this? $500. Insurance will cover the rest. It's all fine to have a high-ish deductible when you never have a claim. Nice to pay the lower fee each month for the insurance. But, when you have a claim, suddenly the $500 deductible seems like a sucktastic idea.

So, we were feeling a bit (understatement of the century) shitty. Big unexpected bill, recession, and all. Pinching pennies does not even begin to cover what we have been doing lately. Things are T-I-G-H-T here!

Fast forward to last night. Kids go down to bed at normal time (7 pm) and all is quite on the home front until 11 pm or so. Then Jordan wakes up screaming. Jordan has been waking up pretty much every night for the past few weeks, screaming like he is having a bad dream, and only wanting Penny (and in the process, rejecting me, by hitting my arms and saying "NO!" when I try to get him out of the crib). He has not been able to be settled back in the crib, so has been co-sleeping with one of us, either in our bed or on the air mattress in the guest room. Mostly, he has been sleeping with Penny, because, as I mentioned, during the night he has been rejecting me big time. Hurt feelings much? We have no idea what this is about.

We thought last night would be like the others. Except it wasn't. Jordan WOULD NOT SETTLE. He pretty much screamed througout the entire night! We tried water, Tylenol, walking around, taking him downstairs, rocking him, laying him down in both rooms/beds. We tried everything we could think of. Jordan slept for 10-20 minute increments and then for two hours from 1-3 am and that was it. We were pulling our hair out and bickering with one another. What was happening here? Was this a temper tantrum, coupled with being over tired? Was he sick?

This morning he seemed better. No fever. His mood was ok and he ate ok. We took him to the doctor's anyway. Double ear infections. He had been on antibiotics for the past 6 days due to a cough and his cold-induced asthma (wheezing for 4 weeks, despite using 2 inhalers every 4-6 hours). So, we thought if he did have an ear infection, those abx would have taken care of it. Not so much.

So, now our boy has double ear infections and is on another antibiotic for 10 days. He was in pain, and we were bickering with each other, wondering if this was a tantrum that we had created by indulging him with sleeping in our bed over the past few weeks. Oh the things that happen and the things you think during the middle of the night when you are sleep deprived.

So, can I have November back? Please?

(P.S. Taylor slept like a freakin' rock star last night. Did not even wake up one time during Jordan's hours and hours of screaming shenanigans. She slept in the crib from 7 pm until 6 am when we woke her up. Thank you, Taylor! You made our night!)

(P.P.S. Oh, the best part? At pick up this evening, day care told us he was just as happy as could be all day, napped great for them, and they could not even tell that he was overtired or sick. Thanks for only sharing your best side with us, Buddy! We love you!)

It's 9:07 pm on Tuesday night and I just heard Jordan start crying. Please let this be a better night.

What a difference a year makes!

2008-11-28T12:09:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving 2008

What food item will we pose with next year??

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T11:37:00.006-05:00

We are thankful for so much again this year. We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal at home with Penny's family. After finally getting the kitchen cleaned up this morning, we began thinking of ways to use the leftovers. Turkey pot pie anyone? It started snowing this morning, but has stopped now. We are looking forward to a quiet weekend at home. And the moms hope to get in some craftiness.

And speaking of craftiness, below are some pics of the felt bread slices that I made for the IVP's felt food swap. I think they came out pretty good if I do say so myself!

I have also included some pics of the kids and us from yesterday, as well as a shot of Jordan helping me make the pumpkin cookies. I so look forward to being able to cook with the kids more as they get a bit older. They love helping Penny feed the animals, pouring the food into the bowls, so I know they will adore mixing and pouring and everything wonderful that goes along with cooking!

We demand equality for OUR FAMILY AND FOR ALL FAMILIES NOW!!

2008-11-11T16:02:00.003-05:00

HOT DAMN!!

2008-11-05T09:46:00.004-05:00

I cannot believe it! Obama is our next President. WOW! We are so thrilled and just overwhelmed with the whole thing. As the numbers started rolling in last night and it was looking good, I was just crying with joy, overcome with the relief that it looked like things were finally going to turn around in this country. It was very exciting for Vermont to be the first state to be officially called in Obama's favor.

Tiredness overcame us before the final numbers were in and the celebrations began. When we went to bed, Obama was leading by about 100 electoral votes. I wish we had been able to stay up late into the night to celebrate, but it just wasn't feasible. We woke up, giddy with anticipation, turned on the TV and saw the amazing news. We tried to get Jordan and Taylor to say Obama, but it was a no-go. Jordan was too busy saying uh-oh and Taylor was too busy eating toast.

A few thoughts:

I am so proud of Florida for turning blue this election. What a difference 4 years makes, ey? My mom lives in Florida, so it was a state I was watching, especially given the history there.

Voting in VT was so, so freakin' easy! No lines for me when I voted in the morning and no lines for Penny when she voted in the evening after work. What a difference voting in a rural state makes! In CA, we always waited in pretty long lines and had to strategically plan when we were able to take enough time away from work to go and vote.

Vermont is a blue state, elected Obama for President by a margin of about 55% to 44 % for McCain, and yet our Republican Governor was re-elected, despite two pretty good Democratic and Independent candidates. This is odd to me, but Douglas is a good speaker, so I guess people went with who they knew and felt comfortable with in that office.

I can't believe we have someone other than a white man moving into the Whiet House. It is a day that I never thought I would see in my lifetime and yet, here it is! Well, it's not January yet, but you know what I mean. We have elected a black man to be our President. This is so so awesome and I can only hope that it means our country is moving in the right direction.

However, I am disappointed to see that many (perhaps all, once the final numbers are all in) of the propositions and amendments regarding gay and lesbian rights came down on the side of bigotry and discrimination. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. Maybe someday Jordan and Taylor will live in a world where their family is validated as 100% equal in the eyes of the law. I am grateful that we live in VT, where their moms can have a civil union (not equal to marriage, but it is better than nothing!) and can both be seen as their legal parents through a second parent adoption. Here's to seeing the day when same sex parents can be married in all states and have it be federally recognized and not have to "adopt" their own children.

Where does the time go?

2008-10-21T10:18:00.002-04:00

We had a great time at Disney, but of course it was more exhausting than we expected. The kids did great on the plane rides to Orlando and back. We were thrilled and shocked by this! I highly recommend direct flights on Jet Blue. The kids did not watch much of the DirectTV, but it helped some and every little bit of help is gold! I will put up a Disney post with lots of pics, soon.

So, getting back to some stuff that I said I wanted to blog about... Our house we are renting was sold over the summer. The couple who bought it live in San Diego and want to move to VT in a few years, maybe for their retirement. So, they basically invited us to sign another lease and stay in the house for the next 1-2 or so years. We signed the lease for a year and we hope to be able to buy something next year. We will start looking around in the Spring and Summer and maybe buy in August or so. Having never bought anything bigger than a car, moving towards homeownership seems both terrifying and thrilling to us, especially since, um, we have no money! Good times of working in nonprofit mental health and having two toddlers in full-time daycare. Hey, if we had no school loans, credit card debt, or kids in daycare, we would be living high on the hog! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

The new landlords have put some work into the house and we are so happy with the results. They put on some amazing and very safe hardwood railings all along the stairway going up to the second story. Some of you know that before, it was all open, with no railings, other than on the wall side. It would have been very easy to fall directly from the second floor down to the first floor and we had to be super vigilant about the kids. We could not even attach a gate, because there was nothing to attach it to! All the work on the stairs was done while we were on vacation. Perfect timing. The other big change the new owners are making is installing a dryer! We have had a washer, but no dryer, which has meant weekly trips to the laundromat for me to partake of their hot air. Every Thursday, after my day at home with the kids, my treat has been that I "got" to go do the drying when Penny got home from work. Now, don't get all jealous. Soon, I will do the drying like everyone else...at home in my very own dryer! We can't wait till it gets here. We are told it should be here soon. Yay!

Penny has a new job with the same agency we both already worked at. Penny was working as an employment specialist for adults with mental illness since December. Well, a case manager position became available, so she applied and she got it! Our badass teacher/anthropology grad student is now working in the mental health world! Who woulda thunk it? Well, when you live in a more rural place, you get whatever work you can. Congrats to Penny on her new job, which comes with a nice little raise. This little raise will help us to keep our previously glub-glubbing heads, a bit more above the water. Thank G-D for small miracles! Penny felt badly about leaving the first position because she had been there for less than a year, and people have a habit of moving from the other position into this new one because the money is so much better. And, she really liked the other position and the clients and her coworkers. And, and, and....But, the move was very necessary for our family, so she had to do it. Thanks for making the sacrifice, Pen. Our family and our checking account thanks you!

That's enough for now, I think. More soon. Sooner than a month from now, I promise!

Vacation approaching

2008-09-16T11:03:00.002-04:00

Vacation in a few days means a few things:

We start making crazy lists and piles all around the house. To go on the trip, to be done before the trip, to recycle, to get rid of to take care of, etc, etc, etc
We both start feeling sick or hoping we are not starting to feel sick.
We start hoping the kids will stay well. "Does he feel warm? Get the Tylenol!"

Do other people start feeling almost manic before a vacation? We have things we have neglected that now I feel a need to get done before we go. I have not balanced the checkbook in about 6 months. Now I am balancing it everyday, one month at a time, so that I know we are all up to date by the time we leave. I am shredding things and organizing things like we are going to be gone for 7 months, rather than 7 days. Because even though that one box has not been unpacked since we moved into the house a year ago, it must be done now, before we leave for a week!

And I start worrying that something will happen in the last days leading up to the trip that will prevent us from actually getting on the plane. I try to will us all to stay well and to stay safe and not get in any crazy car accidents or any other such nonsense. Do other people feel this way?

Part of the craziness might be that we have not gone on a vacation since summer 2006, when we had the amazing vacation in France and England for Harry and Woody's wedding, the month before I had the IVF and got pregnant. It was truly our last hurrah before pregnancy and babies. And it was a wonderful trip and we will likely never have another one like it, or not for a very long time, anyway. The past two years have been a whirlwind of pregnancy, and giving birth to twins, and moving cross-country, and getting new jobs, and trying to figure out what it means to be a family of 4. It has been wonderful, but holy crap, we are exhausted! We think we are doing a pretty good job, but man, we need a vacation! Wish us luck that the trip to FL is not thwarted by any natural disasters and that, even with our 16 month old monsters, er, make that darlings, it is still fun enough and relaxing enough to make it all worth it. Did I say relaxing? I fear that some illness is coming over me to make me think such foolish thoughts. Maybe we should cancel the trip?

Other summer highlights...

2008-08-31T20:49:00.005-04:00

We had a very busy summer, which may have led to such sparse blog posting....or maybe that was laziness? Anyway, here are some highlights, in no particular order!

We spent a lovely weekend in Jamaica, VT (yeah, I did not know there was a Jamaica, VT either!) with Bill and his family. Michelle's family has an A-frame house there and Bill and Michelle try to vacation there once a year. Now we live in VT, so we joined them for a weekend. From left to right: Back row: Bill, Michelle and Chris. Front row: Will, Taylor, Kelly, and Jordan. I am so glad these kids will all get to grow up together!

We took a dip in Cindy and Brian's pool one hot day. Not a bad lookin' bunch, if I do say so myself.

Hey kids, I think that's a one-seater! Cousin Chase graciously shared his jeep with Taylor and Jordan. Only trouble was, they could not decide who was gonna use it first. Oh yeah, and the fact that you have to steer and push the gas pedal.

Nikki came to visit us this week, along with Hannah and Parker. We had a blast and spent the day together in Burlington. We went to the VT Teddy Bear Company, where Jordan had a blast in their huge pile of soft pillows. I did not get any pics of all the kids together, unfortunately. We also went to ECHO, a children's museum and aquarium. Nikki wants me to make sure to tell you that I got stuck in the door coming out of ECHO, thanks to the new-to-us side-by-side double jogging stroller that she gave us. Yeah, thanks for THAT hand-me-down, Nik! It was all she could do to help me get out of the door, without wetting her pants. Thanks for visiting us guys, and thanks for all the rockin' hand-me-downs you brought us (yes, even the stroller that causes one to be trapped in a building. G-d forbid there was a fire!)! We are so glad to be on the East Coast and closer to you guys now!

Taylor learned how to ride this lion this summer and just recently she learned how to push it forward with her feet, rather than going backwards. She is such a big girl!

Chris and Connie got married this summer and we were lucky enough to make it to the wedding. Well, they really had their Civil Union in January, when NH legalized it, but they had a ring exchange and a big ol' party a few weeks ago and we are so glad we got to go! We love you guys and it was so great to see you and have you meet the twinners!

One of the awesomest parts of going to this party was the LOBSTAH! Welcome back to New England, baby! It was awesome!

We were thrilled to get to spend some time with Kelly and Sylvia at the wedding, too. Oh how we miss our CA next-door neighbors! You guys are the best and we love you and miss you so much! Hard to have ya babysit when you are 3,000 damn miles away!

Penny's uncle came to visit a few weeks ago and we all met for lunch. It was nice for him to get to meet the kids and to spend some time with the family. Pictured above are also Cindy and Brian who are going to Walt Disney World with us in a few weeks.

We spent 4th of July with Jess and her family in CT. It was a mini Smith reunion, as Rajni (and Barry) and Aileen were also there. Above are Andy, Jordan, Will, Ben, and Taylor. Not pictured is Jess' newest: Jackson. Thanks for a lovely weekend, Jess. We had tons of fun!

Whew! Were we busy enough for ya? The kids are doing more and more everyday and it is all we can do to keep up with them. The biggies right now are talking and signing (baby sign language is AMAZING!) and running. We are such lucky mamas to have them in our lives, keeping us alive and on our toes!

A trip to Santa's Village in Jefferson, NH

2008-08-31T20:24:00.003-04:00

We are headed to Disney World in Orlando, FL in three weeks for our first big family vacation. We are going to Disney more as a getaway and as an opportunity to spend time with family than we are for the kids to actually experience Disney World. We know they are much to young to really enjoy it, and we hope to have many more Disney trips in the future. Joining us in Orlando are Bill's family: Bill, Michelle, Kelly and Will and some of Penny's family: Cindy (Penny's sister) and her husband Brian, and their daughter, Heather and her boyfriend, PJ. Also, we will see my mom and her boyfriend Bob there, as well as my brother Tim. Tim lives with my mom now, but is moving to Boston the week we are in FL. It will be nice to Bill and Tim to be so (relatively) close by!

Anyway, we took a day trip to Santa's Village to see how the kids would do in a theme park environment. They did great and we had a lovely day!

Check us out on the monorail sleigh ride. Fun stuff!

This is a picture of Taylor and Jordan's very first ride they ever went on. They are a bit too young to drive and their legs do not touch the pedals, so Mama P drove and the rest of us were just along for the ride!

Jordan was such a little daredevil on the playground at Santa's Village. He seemed fearless and even went down a bigger slide than this one, on his stomach, coming down face first! Fearless I tell you!

Mama P and Taylor feed the reindeer. There were REAL LIVE reindeer here and they were quite gentle. You could hold your hand out and feed them these little crackers they sold there. Jordan even fed them out of his own hand. Again, the daredevil!

Penny and the kids pose on a freakishly large rabbit. Do you think he lives at the North Pole with Santa and Mrs. Claus and the elves?

Our last ride of the day was the carousel. The kids did great, even though the moms thought the ride went unusually fast for a carousel!

Overall, it was a successful day. We left a bit early as Taylor did not seem to be feeling that well. She was kind of sluggish and felt very warm. After a little Children's Motrin and a nap in the car, she seemed fine once we got home. As an aside, both kids slept all the way there and all the way home, even though it was a 2 hour ride each way! ZOINKS!! Guess they were tired!

We are super excited for WDW in three weeks and Mimi can't wait to see her grandkiddos. Given how the kids did at SV, we hope they will do at Disney, too. We plan on relatively short days at the park, with plenty of trips back to the condo for naps, lunch, and swimming. Hopefully there are no hurricanes or tropical storms happening while we are there!

"A weekend you'll never forget, at Farnsworth..."

2008-08-31T20:04:00.002-04:00

We spent a weekend at Camp Farnsworth in Thetford, VT a few weeks ago. I went to this camp as a camper and Penny spent 10 years working at this camp, so when the camp turned 100 years old and we had a chance to go back for a weekend, we jumped at the chance. The weekend was exhausting, as we spent a good chunk of it chasing after our rambunctious toddlers, but we had a blast never the less! Here are a few memorable shots from the weekend.

Here's Jordan and Taylor taking a stroll with their new pal Darci. Luckily for us, she and her partner Elisha live in Burlington. Score on some new VT pals!!

Chris and Elisha pose for a pic with a sleeping Jordan. Camp just wore him right out. HUGE thanks to Darci and Elisha for loving spending time with our kids and giving us a break from chasing them around the dining hall, especially during the hail storm when we were all cooped up. These chicks are so awesome, they even offered to babysit!! WHOA!!

It was chilly in the mornings, so we were all decked out in our sweat suits.
Taylor discovered a love of sweeping during the weekend. We start training them young in our family.

Jordan and Taylor dined in style. Their little seats clip right on to the table and then kind of hang there, suspended. Pretty cool! We take them everywhere with us, so we always have a place for the kids to sit and eat. We hope Taylor attends Camp Farnsworth in the future and that we will have many picture of Taylor through the years in this very dining hall. We will have to find an equally awesome camp for Jordan to attend!

Can I get an award?

2008-08-29T14:42:00.004-04:00

Now you are wondering what kind of award I should get. I think we might be the worst bloggers EVAH!! Is there an award for that? The time between blog posts is appalling and I am ashamed of us. What? Are we busy or something?

So, the summer is almost over and I am pissed! It has rained as much this summer as any winter in Northern Cali and now the leaves are changing (already??) and that means winter is coming. I feel like we barely took the snow tires off and now we have to put them back on. Now, what kind of racket is that? Pay to take them off and pay to put them back on? Total BS! Remind me why we moved to VT again??

The kids are keeping us super busy and we are tired moms, who basically endure 24/7 of chasing our toddlers and trying to figure out what the hell they want as they point and make versions of this sound" eh, eh" just about every hour they are awake! This is what made our summer and the fun weekend trips we made turn out to not be as relaxing as we remembered. We attended a civil union party (Congrats Chris and Connie!), a Girl Scout Camp 100th birthday weekend (Yay for Camp Farnsworth!), spent the 4th of July weekend in CT with my college friends and their spouses/families, and spent the weekend at a cute A-frame cabin in VT (did you know there is a Jamaica, VT? Neither did I!)with my brother and his family. These weekends away were great and seeing everyone definitely helped us to remember just why we moved back here. But they were also exhausting with the kids, and the amount of stuff you have to take for a weekend away with two kids is absolutely freakin' ridiculous! We have also spent tons of time with Penny's family, which has been great. We are exicited for the kids to grow up seeing the Penny's side of the family as much as possible.

We are very excited to be heading to Disney World in three weeks. It is our first big family vacation and we are psyched! We know that the kids will not remember it, but we are mostly just going to get away and be with family. My mom and her boyfriend Bob live down there, and my brother Tim is down there now, as well. (Tim is moving to Boston the same week we are in FL, and I am exicted to have him so much closer to us. I feel some big family holidays coming on!) My brother Bill and his family (wife: Michelle and kids: Kelly and Will) are also going on this vacaton, as well as Penny's sister (Cindy) and her husband (Brian) and their daughter (Heather) and her boyfriend (PJ). It is going to be great. We have adjusted our Disney expectations and plan on short days in the park, combined with trips back to the condo for napping, lunch, and swimming.

We had a great visit with my friend, Nikki and her kids Hannah and Parker, over the past few days. It was so great of them to come from NH to see us and hang out with us on Thursday, which is my day at home with the kids. We went to Burlington to the VT Teddy Bear Company, had lunch at the Olive Garden, and then went to ECHO, a children's museum and aquarium. It was a blast. Jordan and Taylor did not cry whent the giant bear came out to walk around with the kids at the Teddy Bear Factory. Jordan even high-fived the bear and hugged him! I think this bodes well for Disney!

This weekend we are headed to Santa's Village to further expose the kids to a theme park and check out how they might do and what kind of stamina they might have for a park day.

I can't believe it is Labor Day Weekend already! WOW! Where has the summer gone?

I hope to write a post soon about some things I have been struggling with, in terms of being a mom and feeling like I have lost myself as a person. I also want to talk about our housing situation and Penny's new job. Stay tuned! Hopefully I will get another post up this weekend, with the above topics and maybe even some new pictures!

Just to catch you up.

2008-07-09T13:03:00.002-04:00

Well a lot has happened in twin land. We have had our first molars to start coming in. The kids have graduated up to tooth brushes from the little things you put on your finger. Taylor is becoming attached to her Froggy and Jordan is starting to become attached to his elephant. The kids have had pink eye. Heck we all had pink eye. But the winner of the worst pink eye in the family goes to Chris. I have never seen pink eye so bad. The illness of the week is now Hand, foot and mouth disease. Love the crazy illnesses.

This past week we went to CT to spend the 4th with Chris' friend Jess and her family. It was fun but the weather did not cooperate. We did get to swim in their pool and it was nice seeing everyone. Rajni and Barry and Eileen came too. Unfortunately, our kids might have passed on their little bug to Jess' kids. We hope not but if we did we are sorry.

Also over the Fourth my niece Jessie moved back to VT from Utah and we are pleased about this. Jess has a son who is a few years older than our kids but it will be good to have some young ones for our kids to grow up with. This weekend there is a welcome home BBQ for her and all of my siblings (Penny) and their families will be there.

Just an up date on the Relay for Life. We had fun and as it stands now we plan on doing it again next year. During the 3 am lap was a costume competition. We were supposed to dress up like a super hero. I wore my Wonder Woman adult underoo type garment and was very cold. On the bright side I also won the contest. Chris and I raised over $400 and the team won for raising the most money. Thank you all for your help and support.

Back to the kids. Jordan says a few words like Baby and he tries to say Bear (Our dog). The new word is No. He started saying, "No", Monday and it makes us laugh (now) because it sounds like he is saying it with and English accent. Taylor points to things that she wants and clearly says, "Dat" when she wants to be picked up she says, "Dup" They are walking very well and are very quick. They also love to crawl up the stairs.

I hope I haven't forgotten anything. We will add more pictures soon.

Memorial Day Camping Trip 2008

2008-06-22T10:23:00.011-04:00

Finally as promised here are some pictures and an up date on our family's first camping trip. Chris mentioned that we went camping in Island Pond, VT which is about 40 minutes from the Canadian boarder. The weekend was cold, cloudy and it did rain a bit too. Although the weather was not always with us. We had fun spent time with family and the kids were able to experience their first nights in a tent, campfire, homemade ice cream, rocky mountain pies, nap in a camper and special time with cousin Heather and PJ.

This is our new tent. It can be divided into two rooms and with the right adaptor it can have electricity (We do not have the adaptor.)!

Cousin Heather is playing with Jordan while he is in his stroller and PJ is snuggling with Taylor. They love hanging with Cousin Heather and PJ and well I think the feeling is mutual. Because they could not come up for the Kids birthday. Heather and PJ got the kids Red Sox T shirts.
You can tell by the way the kids are dressed that it is a chilly evening by the fire. Cousin Heather and I hold our kids while we try to stay warm.

Say cheese! PJ is cheesing it up with Taylor.

On Sunday. Which was the Sunny day, we loaded up the van and the car and drove to Newport VT. We thought about zipping in to Canada for a bit, but we decided that we would wait for our next trip up North for that. For lunch we stopped at Wendy's where Heather and PJ volunteered to eat lunch with the kids.

Two handsome men in Wendy's. That's PJ and Jordan. You gotta love a guy who likes to hang out with babies.

Here is Auntie Cindy cheesing it up with Taylor. Taylor loved wearing Auntie Cindy's sunglasses.

After our trip to Newport we did a little shopping in Island Pond where we bought the kids some tevas. We then returned to the campsite and made two types of ice cream in an ice cream ball that we bought from LL Bean. We ate the ice cream Monday on our way home.

Although the weather could have been warmer we did have fun. Heather and I (Penny) also got a chance to plan our Orland trip. We can not wait.

Behind in blogging!

2008-06-16T09:44:00.002-04:00

There is so much going on and I am not doing a great job of keeping up with the blogging. Here are some highlights, with a promise of more news and pics soon.

We took Jordan and Taylor camping (in a TENT!) over Memorial Day Weekend. We went to Island Pond in northern VT, near the Canadian border. It was COLD at night. The kids slept in their fleece hats and gloves! We were mocked by co-workers, who said, "You do know you're not in California anymore, right?" We went with Cindy and Brian (Penny's sister and brother-in-law) and Heather (our niece) and her boyfriend, PJ. They were all so helpful with the kids and it was so great to be with family. Another thing that was so great is that Cindy and Brian have a camper, so when it was cold, we could have the babies go in there to get warm. They took naps in the camper and it was so helpful. Thanks, guys! I will post some camping pics, soon. Overall, it was a lot more work than camping was pre-kids, but we had a lot of fun, too!

Both kids are walking now and that is a lot of fun. They are still doing what we call "the drunken robot" walk, taking unsteady steps with their arms outstretched. Very cute. Sleep is going well for the most part. We read to the kids a lot at night. Penny is reading them the Harry Potter books right now. She is about 1/2 way through Book 1.

The kids are transitioning to the toddler room at daycare. When did they get so big?

Jordan and Taylor are pros at drinking from sippy cups now. They eat well and enjoy tons of different foods. It is so great to be able to go to any restaurant, have them sit so well in high chairs, and be able to order them pretty much anything from the menu. It makes life so much easier to have to pack less in the diaper bag when you go out. They are also learning to drink from straws! Exciting!

We are really looking forward to a bunch of weekend trips over the summer. And the big vacation of the year will be a trip to Disney World in Florida in September. We are going for a week with my brother, Bill and his family, as well as Cindy, Brian, Heather and PJ. They are even gonna babysit for us at least one night so Penny and I can get out for date night. Yay! Penny has a countdown going, and she tells me we have less than 100 days left to go. We are in the double digits. Yeah baby!

That's it for now. Pics to come soon. Maybe this evening if I get a chance. Penny and I have been talking about the blog lately. We love to keep folks updated, but sometimes we worry about safety concerns with having our faces and names out there for all to see/read. Do other people worry about that?

In closing, we had a pretty quiet weekend. It was Father's Day and I know I missed my dad. I am sure Penny missed her dad, too. I spent some time thinking about our donor, as well. If I could, I would say a million thanks to TSBC donor #1376. He helped us to create a beautiful family that we feel so lucky to have every single day.

We made it through the first year!

2008-05-22T10:56:00.011-04:00

On May 10th, our babies turned 1. We had a lovely party with friends and family, who came to celebrate Jordan and Taylor and us all making it through the first year as a family.

I ordered these cool personalized bibs from etsy.com and they came out great! We loved them and have now added them to the drawer of keepsakes that we are saving for the babies when they are older.

Uncle Brian tames wild Thing 1 before the party begins. Doesn't she look wild? Thanks to Uncle Brian (or Buncle, as we like to call him after I switched the B and the U when referring to him. Get it?) for color coordinating with Taylor and Jordan on their big day!

Auntie Lisa helps with Jordan, the wildest of the beasts. We ordered the shirts online, too. Don't ya love 'em? It was so great to spend the weekend with Lisa and Robyn, who came up from Boston to spend some time with us. They had not seen the babies since they were 3 months old and we moved from CA. Lisa is the lucky lady who flew with me and the kids from CA to Boston. And she lived to tell the tale. We talked about the flying experience and how we both kept telling ourselves: "We will never see these people again" and "Every second that goes by is one second closer to the end of this journey." There were some "interesting" moments during the flights, as you might imagine!

Thanks to Auntie Cindy for making these awesome birthday cakes for the kids. This one is a turltle. Check out the licorice toenails! Such detail! And very yummy, too! Thanks, Cindy!

This giraffe cake was pretty awesome, too. The colors are dyed coconut. Isn't the neat? Anyone want to place an order with Cindy for their next party? She did an amazing job!

Here are the cupcakes that Mama Chris made, simply because she felt like a slouch if Aunt cindy was the only one to bake for the twins' first birthday! The kids each had one of these to dig into. You will see more of these in a bit, but they will not look this good!

Thanks to Auntie Robyn for being the grill master during the party! She made some pretty awesome burgers and dogs for the masses to gnosh on. Thanks so much, Robyn!

Enjoying the sunshine and a few brewskis.

Hail, hail the gang's all here! Even Jordan and Taylor's great-grandmother made it to the party! And she seemed to have a damn fine time!

Taylor and Jordan check out the cupcakes. At first, they were not sure what to make of them. They were hesitant. They were cautious....

And then the sugar started to hit and they were psyched! Look at that face!

Jordan got messy and enjoyed his cupcake thoroughly.

I have never seen someone suck a cupcake until it was gone, but that is exactly what Taylor did. Once she tasted that sugary icing, she was not putting that thing down for anything in the world and she wanted to make sure no one tried to take it from her. Enjoyment would be an understatement, I think!

Check out those frosting hands!

A family picture to commemorate the big day! We made it through the first year! Hip Hip Horray!
Thanks for this huge bag of mess-makers, I mean blocks, Uncle Ray and Aunt Jenn. (And they gave us TWO bags of them!) You know what they say about pay-back, right? I can't wait to shop for your kids for Christmas!

I love this picture of Jordan playing with a ribbon from one of the presents. He just looks SO happy!

They love their new riding zebra that we got them for their birthday. Our first mistake was only getting one and thinking they MIGHT be able to take turns and share. Mom, we're one. We ain't gonna do no stinkin' sharing!

Jordan tries out the walker/riding Lion from Auntie Lisa and Auntie Robin. The kids LOVED this! And it is so perfect to help out with developing their walking skills.

The shirts the kids wore for the party. They got dirty, but not anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be after such merry-making!

The post-birthday party bath. Taylor is tired and Jordan is ready to go another round. The mamas just want to pass out in bed!

G'night everone. Thanks for an awesome birthday. We had a blast and are so, so tired!

Relay For Life

2008-05-19T12:16:00.006-04:00

On June 20th and 21st, Chris and I will be walking in the Relay for Life. This event is a fundraiser for The American Cancer Society. Although many of you were asked a few years ago to help us raise money when we did the Avon 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk (3 days, 60 miles and one of the most moving experiences of our life.), I am reaching out my hand and asking friends, family and strangers to sponsor either Chris or myself (or even both) once again.

Cancer has had a huge impact on my (Penny's) family. On November 20th, 1991 my mother lost her battle to breast cancer. When my father died, he had prostate cancer. I have also had many aunts on both sides of my family battle AND WIN the fight against beast cancer.

Currently, my second to the oldest brother has skin cancer which spread to his lymph nodes. His prognosis looks good! He had surgery last week, during which they removed the rest of his lymph glands and did not find any more cancer. The only areas of concern are some spots on his lungs and groin which were visible on a CT scan. In a few months, they will rescan and see if they can see cancer in those areas. My uncle on my mother's side is currently battling bladder cancer. This fight is not going as well. A few months ago they removed a tumor the size of a golf ball from his bladder. A month later they removed another one. Unfortunately this one was the size of his fist. At this point his doctors decided to remove his bladder. That surgery went fine. However the tube that brought the urine to the bag outside of his body needed to be fixed. He entered the hospital (fortunately) the night before his surgery. That night he began to have difficulty breathing. The cancer is now in his lungs. He has had a few set backs but we are all staying positive.

Needless to say cancer is big and bad in my family and I find the need to do what I can to help with research. If you feel you are able to do so, please sponsor me. If you can not afford to sponsor me , please consider participating in some way at a cancer fundraising event in your area.

Please feel free to donate in any amount. No amount is too small. I thank you. Chris thanks you, and my family thanks you! Please feel free to make donations using the following links:

My home page is http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeNewEnglandDivision?px=6234919&pg=personal&fr_id=7661

Chris' home page is
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeNewEnglandDivision?px=5052623&pg=personal&fr_id=7661

Thanks again! We will post details of the event here once it is over!

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T19:51:00.002-04:00

Happy Mother's Day! We had a nice day here that involved lunch out at a Chinese buffet, a trip to the park, some more fun time with Aunties Lisa and Robin (who were visiting for the weekend), and some nice presents from the moms to each other. Thanks, Penny, for the facial gift certificate! I can't wait to make the appointment and get me some pampering!

One year ago today, we brought our babies home from the hospital, after a 4 day stay, post c-section. May 10th and Mother's Day were a few days apart last year, obviously! We were quite a spectacle, me being wheeled out on Mother's Day with two newborns. People were oohing and aaahing, and we got our first glimpse of the freak show we would become while in public. People love to ogle you, and sometimes make nice comments and sometimes act like total freakshows! We prefer the nice comments!

Anyway, while it was a lovely Mother's Day this year and last year, I am also painfully aware of Mother's Days in the past when I felt depressed and so sad, in wondering whether I would ever become a mother. Our journey to parenthood was a long and difficult one and, while going through it, we had no idea how or when it might end, and whether that ending would be a sad or happy one. I am also aware of all the women I know in real life and via message boards and blogs online, who are still struggling to become mothers through various avenues. I know the pain of cursing pregnant women, Hallmark cards, and Mother's Day commercials in your face every place you look. Ugh!!

I hope that all women who want to be mothers are able to celebrate Mother's Day at some point in the (near!) future and that the hurt of infertility does not always hurt so acutely.

Happy Birthday!

2008-05-10T20:36:00.002-04:00

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY, to our lovely lovely babies! One year ago you came into our lives in a whirlwind and it has been go, go, go ever since.

We had a great birthday party today with friends and family. We took lots of pictures that I will try to post very soon. It was tons of fun, the kids got some great presents, and the weather was gorgeous for a BBQ on the deck. Thanks to all who came to help us celebrate and thanks to all the gift givers for their amazing generosity. The kids have already started having fun with some of the loot!

It has been a long day, so I will stop here. I just wanted to get a post in on May 10th to say Happy 1st Birthday to our gorgeous babies. Thank you for bringing such joy into our lives, the likes of which we never knew before!!

An anniversary

2008-05-06T10:48:00.002-04:00

Dear dad,

It has been ten years today since that awful day when you died. Ten years? That seems so totally unfathomable to me. So much has happened to our family in ten years that if you popped in today, I fear you would hardly recognize us. I am so sad that you will never meet Taylor and Jordan. They are amazing little creatures, even when Jordan is shrieking and Taylor is awake so much at night. You would have loved them and you would have been such a great "Grampy." I truly feel my kids are missing out by not having you in their lives.

Thank you for being such a great parent to me and for teaching me how to be a parent. If I can manage to be half the parent you were to me, Jordan and Taylor will be lucky little devils.

I miss you every day and I still cry when I think of you and all the things you have not and will not get to be a part of in this world. Some days I am mad at you for never quitting smoking. You were so healthy in other areas of your life. How could you keep smoking and killing yourself slowly, so that you left us when you were only 49 years old? I forgive you and I know you were addicted to the smoking, but it just sucks so much. And it hurts that you are gone.

We have a cardinal that visits us daily and I started calling him "Bill." Is it you or maybe your spirit? The bird seems so intent on getting our attention by flying into the windows and sitting right outside on the branches. The bird is always around and seems to be watching over us. Oh, and the bird is a cardinal and you were a red head. Dad, is it you? I really want it to be you, watching over us.

It has been a long ten years in some ways. I can't believe I have not seen you in ten years. I miss your funny sayings (Ba-ding, Ba-dang, That's not even a little bit funny, Six of one, Half dozen of another) and I miss your jokes and I miss talking about Seinfeld with you.

I love you, dad. And I miss you like we just lost you yesterday. Peek in on us on Saturday, if you are not too busy. It's the twins' birthday party that day and I would love for you to be there.

Love always,
Chris

News in the world of baby bottles

2008-05-05T14:23:00.002-04:00

Here is an FYI for any parents reading this blog:

Babies R Us is issuing store credit for all baby bottles containing Bisphenol-A (BPA) - that includes Dr. Brown's, Avent, Playtex, Soothie, Breastflow, you name it - so that parents can buy new BPA-free bottles.

Many thanks to Jude for giving me a heads up on this hot button issue. I called our local Babies R Us and the first woman I spoke to said they were only taking the bottles back with receipts. Well, after a year of use, we hardly still have the receipts. I said I know other stores are taking the bottles back without receipts. So, the first woman gave me to another woman, to whom I had to ask the same questions. Woman #2 said they will take all the bottles back, for full store credit, without a receipt, as long as you have the nipples, rings, lids, etc.

Awesome news!! I am BRU bound on Friday when I am in Burlington for a training. We have a lot of bottles, so this is very good news for us!

Too long since my last post!

2008-05-05T13:53:00.003-04:00

Crap, where has the time gone? It has been several weeks since my last post.....sounds like I am going to confession. "Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last confession. Here are my sins!" Thank you, Catholic school!

So, we have been busy and sick. Story of our lives.

We all came down with some pukey ickiness. Jordan had it the worst. Following that worst night ever with Taylor screaming all night long, we had Jordan's worst night ever a few weeks later, with much puking whenever he laid down. We went through an uncountable amount of crib sheets, pajamas, and changing table covers. Our poor boy. We ended up taking turns sleeping with him on the couch, so we were all propped up. The next day he was mostly fine, although Penny stayed home with him as he could clearly not yet go to daycare. That was a Sunday/Monday.

By Wednesday night, we thought the rest of us had escaped it. Wednesday night, Taylor started puking, although she did not have it as bad as Jordan did by any means. I was sick on Thursday and was home with both kids. Miserable, miserable day. There should be some rule that if the mom is sick, she should be relieved of all duties. And perhaps a Nanny 911 type should be whisked in to help! Penny also felt likle crap on Thursday. By Friday we were all on the mend, more or less. For now, the puking is over and we are grateful. Did I mention how much it sucked to live in a house with a washer, but no dryer, when your kids are puking their guts out? Um, yeah...it does!

Over the weekend, Penny and I went to a scrapbooking event called "Scrap for the Cure," which was a fundraiser for Relay for Life. The kids stayed home with a babysitter from their daycare center. We had tons of fun and we are so glad we were able to get out. However, having to pay for both an event/outing and a babysitter makes for a very expensive day out. It was worth it, and I hope we can get out more in the future. Although maybe long whole days out are a bit much for the budget.

We are having Jordan and Taylor's first birthday party on Saturday and we are very excited. Some friends and family will be attending and it promises to be a blast. I hope the weather is good, so we can BBQ outside on the deck. I can hardly believe it has been a year since the little monsters were born. This time a year ago, I was 36 weeks pregnant and waiting around to see what was going to happen next. Those following along at home may remember that we ended up having a c-section scheduled because Ms. Taylor (AKA Baby A) was transverse and would not flip around!! Mr. Jordan (aka Baby B) was breech, but may have flipped around if Taylor would have cooperated. She did not cooperate, so a c-section it was.

We will have a picture post of the birthday party early next week sometime! And probably some comparison photos, too. A little "THEN" and "NOW" perhaps.

The worst of times and the best of times...

2008-04-17T19:59:00.004-04:00

On Tuesday night, we had the worst night we have had since the babies were born. Taylor screamed bloody murder for LITERALLY the entire night. She screamed more when we tried to lay her down in her crib. Penny and I were going out of our minds, taking turns with her and switching every hour or so, while the other one tried to sleep. Taylor's screaming did not change whether we held her, rocked her, swaddled her, let her lay next to us, let her lay on us. She slept a few times during the night for about ten minutes. We tried feeding her. We tried changing her diaper. We took her pajamas off. We tried Tylenol. NOTHING worked. She has never been inconsolable like that for so long, so we knew something was wrong. Penny took her to the doctor yesterday. Diagnosis? DOUBLE EAR INFECTION! The doctor said the reason for the screaming was that her ear drums were swelling. OMG! Our poor baby! Now she is on antibiotics and is doing great. They seemed to start making a difference right away. Ah, the miracles of modern medicine!

Today being Thursday, I was home with the kids as I am every Thursday. The day started off well with the kids sleeping much better last night than the previous night from hell. And then the hits kept on coming by the kids taking a GLORIOUS THREE HOUR NAP! They both slept from 10:20 am to almost 1:30 pm! I got a ton of stuff done and had a really relazing time. Thank you, thank you, thank you! When the kids woke up, I fed them and they ate like they had been sleeping for 100 years. They both immensely enjoyed some plain bread. This was the first time they had plain bread. They also ate pears, chicken, goldfish, cheerios, and formula. Big lunch for 11 month olds, right?

It was a gorgeous day, so I loaded the kids into the mom mobile (yes, we drive a minivan now!) and took them into town. We took a lovely walk (oh how I love our double stroller! It makes taking the kids out alone SO EASY!), then went to the library where the kids played and crawled around. Mama Penny met us there, which was a nice afternoon surprise. Then we went to Ben and Jerry's for a little ice cream treat. We even let the kids have tiny tastes of the yummy creamy treat on such a hot day. Then Mama Penny had to head back to work for a bit, so the kids and I headed home.

This was the nicest Thursday I have spent with the kids thus far and I was so psyched to get out of the house and partake of a few activities. I look forward to more outings with them in the nice weather.

In other news of things that I am psyched about....I am headed out of town for the weekend tomorrow to have a girls weekend with my Smithies. I am so excited to see them and it promises to be a lovely weekend. Many thanks to Penny and Auntie Cindy for doing the kid thing together this weekend, so that I can get a little R&R.

Happy 11 Months, Jordan and Taylor!

2008-04-10T21:14:00.003-04:00

Our babies are 11 months old today! Wow! In a month, it will be their 1st birthday. My babies have left the building and in their place are these amazing and crazy almost toddlers! Day care is talking about transitioning them from the infant room to the toddler room. Wah! The kids are on the verge of walking, teeth are popping up all over the place, and we are making the move from bottles to sippy cups. My god! Where has the time gone?

Thank you for changing our lives for the better, our lovely babies. We are so lucky that you found your way to us, after such a long journey. We are getting excited for your birthday party next month. Auntie Cindy is going to make you some fancy cakes!

A year ago today, I was 33 weeks pregnant and could not wait to meet you guys. We thought we knew what was in store for us. Of course, there was so much we were not ready for. But, we are all alive and thriving and, while exhausted, we are loving having you guys around and we are so glad you picked us to be your parents!

Love,
your moms

(Over the weekend, I will try to post pics of Jordan drinking from a big boy sippy cup and Taylor in her fancy Smith College t-shirt. I also want to write a post about the day care transition plan, and post pics/talk about our great family visit with my brother and his family and my mom last weekend.)

Time to get your Picture Pages

2008-03-30T16:57:00.006-04:00

New friends, Beth and Tracy from Burlington, came to visit us one lovely afternoon. We had such a nice visit and look forward to many more with them! They also volunteered to babysit! We love them even MORE now! :P

Here's us with the babies. Another rare picture of all 4 of us together. For a change, Jordan is smiling, but Taylor has the glassy look. Most pics, as you might notice, have Jordan with the glassy eyed look. Taylor is usually such a ham for the camera!

Taylor loves playing with this toy, which we lovingly call "Dino Balls." Thanks to the Thompson family for passing it along to us!

Jordan and Taylor in a rare moment of playing together peacefully. Although, if you notice, Jordan's hand is on Taylors...perhaps to rip it off of Mr. Dino in a fit of anger. Jordan already shows a dislike of sharing. Wonderful!

Jordan and Taylor love their new activity table that the Easter Bunny brought them. The moms love that there are 4 sides to stand on and this hopefully means less squabbling!

Taylor loves her some spaghetti...but only if she can eat it with her hands herself. She refused to eat it from a spoon. This was not a designated bath night, but that obviously changed early on during dinner time.
Jordan also enjoyed the spaghetti, but in a much more civilized manner!

We had a lovely visit with the "two moms" bloggy family a few weeks ago. It was so great for the kids (and us!) to meet Jordan and Taylor's 1/2 brother, Mr. E. Thanks for a great weekend, ladies, and for being such gracious hostesses.

We met up with Jude, Jen, and Gus for some yummy sushi that weekend. Gus is getting so big and cute. Her moms have their hands full, just like us!

A lovely group shot pre-sushi gnoshing.

Jordan tried some rice for the first time. He loved eating right from the chopstick!
Taylor also liked the rice from the chopsticks.
Mimi bought these funny pajamas for the babies. Check out the matching hats! Very funny. The babies seem to hate the hats, but Taylor didn't seem to mind in this pic.

Jordan models his matching PJ and hat set, while hanging over his crib railing. Note receiving blankets that have been secured to the crib rail with medical tape, as Jordan was actually gnawing through the teething guard that came with the crib. We would find him with bits of the wood finish dotting his slobbery cheek after his gnaw sessions.

In closing, I leave you with pics of my craftiness. I took part in a felt food swap with some gals from an online group of moms I met when I was trying to get pregnant. I made donuts for the swap and was very pleased with the results. What do you think?

I think they look good enough to eat, personally! Mmmmmm, donuts!

Updates and news

2008-03-30T09:48:00.002-04:00

Well, over the past few weeks, we did some sleep training with the babies, which involved up to 20 minutes of crying at a time per baby. We did our evening routine (playing in the play room after dinner, a bath every other night, changing into PJs, rocking and book reading, and then bed. We would leave the room for 20 minutes to try to get the kids to settle down by themselves. The first night, Jordan wailed for 40 minutes (2 20 minute stretches), despite us going in after 20 minutes to soothe and pat and shush. We vowed not to pick the babies up to rock them back to sleep, unless they were hysterical and clearly not going to settle down. After three nights, Jordan settled with NO crying and slept through the night from about 730 pm to 6 am! Holy crap! A miracle had taken place! Taylor still has trouble settling on her own, and sometimes needs to be swaddled on her upper body, due to flailing arms that prevent settling. But, once swaddled, Taylor also found success in sleep and the moms were so, so happy....And then both kids got sick again and now all bets are off! We are back to copious amounts of rocking, which goes along with copious amounts of snot and coughing. God, this winter sucks donkey balls! Both kids have also had goopy eyes, which thankfully has not turned into pink eye. We are using a home remedy to treat the eye goop, which our pedi nurse practitioner thought was brilliant. We made some weak black tea, and we rub down the eyes with tea soaked cotton balls. Apparently the tanins (sp?) in the tea are good for healing the eyes. The kids hate it, but it worked to clear up Jordan's eyes and it is doing a good job on Taylor's eyes, too!

Jordan now has three teeth on the bottom and he is getting ready to walk. He does this funny crawl where he has one knee on the ground and then the other leg is bent so that his foot is on the ground. It is kind of a walking crawl. He can stand on his own for a few seconds and he loves to walk behind this little push cart we have. He does not need us to help at all and he just walks right along with it. It is so cute! Jordan is also talking up a storm and he seems to be trying to say words. He makes sounds and then points to things and looks at us, as if asking what the word is. Very fascinating to watch! Jordan loves waving, bananas, and dancing.

Taylor has a third tooth trying to cut through on the bottom. She loves to wave bye-bye and laugh and hold her arms up when she wants us to pick her up. She loves bananas, playing with her dino balls toy, and cruising along the furniture. It won't be long before she walks, too, I think. Taylor is a super fast crawler, which is good, because Jordan likes to try to take things away from her. Taylor needs to be able to escape fast!

We are planning a very exciting trip to Florida/Disney World in September. We are going with my brother, Bill, and his family (wife Michelle, daughter Kelly, and son, Will), as well as Penny's sister Cindy and her husband Brian, and Cindy's daughter Heather and her boyfriend, PJ. My mom and other brother, Tim, also live in Florida, so we will get to see them, too! We will be down there for a week and we are all very excited, both for the time together and the Disney experience. Penny and I have been doing lots of planning about how we will make the trip doable for the kids. This includes shorter park days, as well as going back to the condo for naps and swimming in the middle of the day. We are staying at a condo about a mile away from Disney, that we were able to get for next to nothing, through our timeshare organization.

That's about it for now, I guess. We are excited about a visit from my mom and Bill's family next weekend. It will be nice to all get together. While my mom is excited to see all of us, she is most excited to spend a long weekend with all four of her grandchildren in the same place! We have lots of new pics to post, but I will have to try to get to that later today!

Jude wants to know....

2008-03-14T09:35:00.002-04:00

What I was like in high school...

Well, for me, high school was actually quite enjoyable. I had a lot of friends from sports teams and I guess you could say I was popular, although that seems weird to write. I had a terrible time in junior high because I switched schools in 7th grade (after skipping 6th grade). No one knew I had skipped 6th grade, but they were a bunch of kids who had all been together since Grade K and they were not too welcoming. Plus, I wore braces and head gear. (I had to wear the heada gear 22 hours per day. My orthodontist told my parents I had the worst jaw that he had ever seen. Our choices were to break my jaw and have it wired shut for some period of time, or to have braces and head gear. I wore braces from 4th grade to 9th grade! Looking back, I wonder whether we should have just gone for breaking my jaw!) While I cried everyday after I came home from 7th grade (things got somewhat better in 8th grade), I have a lot of fond memories from high school of bus rides to and from games and friends spending the night at my house.

I went to a small coed Catholic high school in NH. I played field hockey, basketball, and softball. I was the class Vice President and I was in the National Honor Society. I loved working on the yearbook my senior year. My date to the Junior Prom backed out on me at the last minute (even though I was on the prom committee and this crushed me not to be able to attend), but I had an awesome time at my Senior Prom with a pretty cute guy!

I dated a few guys in high school, but always ended up breaking up with them either when it got too serious (physically or emotionally), or when I got bored with their high school boy antics. I always wondered why my friends all had more long-term boyfriends and I didn't. Gee, I wonder why it never worked out! I did not know anyone gay at my school, although looking back, there are a number of sports teammates that I wonder about. Maybe someday I get to find out if some of them are lesbians now.

That's all I can think of to write about regarding who I was in high school. Oh yeah, I had big hair and big bangs they took a long time to get just right. My parents and I had our challenges over the years and I remember fighting over wanting a phone in my room. I also remember fighting with them, storming up the stairs to my room, slamming my door, playing music really loudly and having said phone taken away. Sometimes my mom now says, "You are lucky we let you live through high school!" Good times. I, for one, can't wait to see what Taylor is like in high school. In some ways, g*d help us if she is anything like I was. In other ways, I hope that she is like I was, since I have so many fond high school memories!

Thanks for the question/comment, Jude!

Inquiring minds want to know...

2008-03-14T09:13:00.002-04:00

Babyblueprint and Familiewillim both had questions about our two year journey to parenthood, including how we coped and how we decided it would be me to carry a baby..or two, as it turned out!

So, I have always wanted to be a mom and had long dreamed of being pregnant and giving birth. I knew that if I was with another woman who also wanted to birth a child that we would have to take turns. While Penny always hoped to be a mom, being pregnant and birthing a child was not something that she felt a strong need to do. Also, Penny is 10 years older than I am, so that kind of made the decision for us. Our IVF doc did talk to us about using Penny's eggs for the IVF, but we decided that was not important enough to us to warrant both the cost and the level of invasiveness.

Over our two year journey to parenthood, we tried lots of different things. We tried fresh sperm (from a donor who was a friend of ours) and frozen sperm (from a local sperm bank). We tried just about all the different kinds of meds there are: clomid, femara, a few different injectibles, progesterone, metformin, and trigger shots. I had lots of testing and all my hormone levels came back fine. We tried different types of inseminations: IUI's, ICI's/IVI's, at home, with a midwife, just us, with a friend assisting (Thanks, Jean!) at the doc's office, etc, etc, etc.

So, I had unexplained infertility. I am not sure whether this made it harder or easier to keep going. In a way, if everything was fine, it made me feel more positive about going forward and believing that it would work at some point. On the other hand, it becam more and more frustating over time that it was not working, given that even my reproductive endocrinologist was saying she did not understand why I was not becoming pregnant! Her and me both! One recommendation was to lose weight, which I tried to do and was somewhat successful with, but it was hard for me to rely on that as my sole hope of becoming pregnant because my periods were regular, I appeared to be ovulating, and I just did not believe that being fat was my sole problem. Maybe that was naivete, or maybe it was a survival mechanism!

We took some breaks during the two years, so we really "only" had 14 months of active trying over the 27 months. When I counted my cycles, I was amazed that we had actually taken about as many breaks as we had active cycles. This was fascinating to me, as it seemed like we were always trying or waiting. I also tried acupuncture and made some diet changes. We tried to take good care of ourselves during the 2 years, by having date nights, taking some weekend and extended vacations, and checking in with each other as the process dragged on and on.

In the end, we decided to try IVF one time. I had great infertility coverage through work (IVF only cost us $3000), so we had not spent much up to that point. Meds only ever cost me a $5 copay and the office visits were free. Frozen sperm was our greatest expense, but for a year we used fresh and that was just $1 per donation! We talked about moving back to the east coast, but felt like we were putting our "real lives" on hold, until we had a baby. As time went by, we realized that might never happen. So, to put an end to the wait ifs and the maybes, we decided to try IVF one time. If it worked, we would wait till the "baby" was born, and then we would move to New England. If it did not work, then we would move right away.

So, we tried it, it worked...times two, we stayed in CA until the babies were born (and collected all the amazing CA maternity leave benefits, including paid FMLA for both of us, and an additional 8 weeks paid disabilty for me. I was off a total of about 4 months, totally paid!) and then we moved to VT when they were three months old. After a long journey and much struggle and heartache, we were so happy and amazed that it worked! And now, when we are sick and sleep deprived and struggling with the winter that just will not end, I try to be reminded of how lucky we are to have sleep deprivation because of the two most amazing little babies in the world, who, by the way are not so little anymore! The babies are ten months old now and I just can't believe it!!

Thanks for the questions/comments!

Meme Alert

2008-03-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

Stolen from Judecorp and Life of Joan...

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it.

Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on lima beans, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc.

Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

Responses/posts will be screened and posted separately.

Piling up

2008-02-28T08:14:00.003-05:00

We are having struggles in the world of sleep. And maybe if you look at each kid individually, it is not that bad. But consider the two together, and it seems like our sleep is really really shitty right now. The kids are 9.5 months old. Could it be a growth spurt? We went through some really good weeks of sleep and we rejoiced that we had survived the worst of sleep stuff. And then the gods laughed at us, and the bad sleep started again. WHY WHY WHY? One of the worst things we are experiencing right now is that Jordan can be exhausted and his eyes are barely open to slits. But when you try to hold him and rock him and soothe him, he pushes against you with amazing force, trying to get away. And if you the put him in the crib, he wails and wails. The pushing away is annoying because it can be painful, it can be tough to hold on to him and not drop him (he is almost 21 lbs now!), and, in a way, it feels like a rejection from him. This may seem weird to say, but it really does feel personally insulting. Like, hey dude, I am trying to rock you and this mommy and me time should be so nice and all you want to do is get the hell away from me.

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Every Thursday I am home with the kids because I now work 4 ten hour days to make up my full time work schedule. In theory, it is nice to have an extra day with the kids and it saves on day care costs. My current struggle is that Thursdays tend to be pretty difficult. I want to cherish these days with the kids, but I find myself more enduring them and wishing them away than anything else. I am constantly looking at the clock and counting the hours until Penny gets home. I hope that, as the kids get older and as the weather gets better, I will be able to get out with them more and enjoy them. Being home for a whole day with the kids alone is tough because it is a neverending litany of feeding, changing, holding, playing, trying to get down for naps (them, not me!), and shuttling them up and down the stairs. Exhausted does not even begin to cover it.

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Both kids have colds and are terribly snotty. Any guesses as to how much they each like to have their noses suctioned out with the nasal aspirator? Also, Taylor has another ear infection, so she is now on antibiotics. Taylor had a rough weekend last week due to fevers of up to 103 degrees, which resulted in a doc's appointment on Sunday...no fever at time of appointment and no ear infection, then being sent home from daycare on Tuesday with a fever os 102.6, another doctor's appointment on Tuesday, and a subsequent diagnosis of an ear infection and the beginning of antibiotics. Good times.

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Yesterday we had another big snowstorm. They predicted 16 inches and I thought about slitting my wrists. In the end, we only got about 8 inches, so that was much nicer. But, Jee-zus! Is this winter over yet? Everyone tells us, "Ya picked a hell of a winter to come back to New England!" Thanks. Very helpful!

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The house we are living in has been sold. This is the 3rd rental house that has been sold out from under us while we were living in it. We may stay here until the end of our lease in August, or we may move early if we can find a suitable arrangement. The sellers have been clear that we are welcome to stay until the end of out lease, which has been nice. But, the buyers are quite vested is us leaving early. We may actually switch houses with them, as they are renting a nice house nearby. We are going to look at it on Sunday. We are asking the buyers to pay for a packer/mover for us, if they really want us to move out early, due to our time constraints with two babies and the fact that we just went through a cross country move 6 months ago. We have proposed the idea to them and they are going to let us know.

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For some reason, my left eye will not stop twitching and watering. Stress and sleep deprivation anyone? In good news, however, is that day care was closed yesterday due to snow and Penny stayed home with the kids becuase I had to go to a staff retreat. The kids were able to go to daycare today instead, and I do not work on Thursdays, so guess who is home all alone, with an entire day all to herself to lay around and eat grapes and bon bons? You guessed it...yours truly. There are SO many things I want to do with my time, so I better run! Penny and I are meeting for lunch later today.

Pics, pics, pics

2008-02-24T16:07:00.003-05:00

Cousins Heather and Jessie with J & T recently. Jessie was home from Utah for a visit (along with fiancee Matt and son Chase) and we had a lot of good family time. It was great to meet Matt and to hang out with Chase. He is such a big boy now!

Ms. Taylor is on the move! Check out that drool!

Here's Chase with one of his favorite birthay gifts, courtesy of MeMa (Cindy). Check out that tongue!

Cousins Alex and Trent love to hold J & T. Lookin' good everybody!

Jessie looks ready to be a mom of twins herself, doesn't she? Rockin' the twins, Jess! LOVE the face on Taylor!

Jordan is enjoying finger foods, especially 'nanners! He is a very messy boy. Gotta roll up the sleeves!

Taylor loves her some 'nanners, too! She is such a ham when the camera comes out!

My name is Jordan and I love to eat plastic!

Check out the teeth!

Oh, that eating was such hard, hard work! She fell asleep right in her highchair, so we left her there for a little snooze!

Jordan LOVES to stuff his mouth. Lots of gagging. Good times. And we gotta watch him for choking like you would not believe! This boy gives us a run for our money in the eating department. He also apparently has an endless appetite!

Um, I think I'll take "cute as can be" for 100, Alex.

Penny, Taylor, and Chase. Thanks for letting T wear your hat, Chase!

At Penny's grandmother's surprise 90th birthday party, they took a picture of all the grandkids and great grandkids...and there is even a great great grandkid (Chase)! Penny especially likes this pic, since the babies have so many cousins and I have only one. And this is only ONE side of her family!
Penny and her siblings have not been all together for a long time, but here they were at Gram's 90th. What a motley crew, ey? Standing from oldest to youngest, from right to left: Gordie, Bobby, Cindy, Penny, and Raymond

Rockin' and Rollin' and What-not

2008-02-15T10:30:00.003-05:00

The kids had their nine month check-up yesterday. They both got a clean bill of health. Yay! Both kids still have colds, but we can stop Jordan's nebulizer treatments for now, as his lungs are clear and the treatments are not needed. Yay again! Jordan is now more than 2 pounds bigger than Taylor. In fact, he is almost 3 pounds bigger than she is. Here are the stats:

Jordan: 20 lbs, 7 oz (50th percentile), 29 inches long (75th percentile), 19 inch head circumference (97th percentile!)

Taylor: 17 lbs, 12 oz (25th percentile), 26.5 inches long (10th percentile), 17.5 inch head circumference (50th percentile).

Bottom line: Jordan has a gigantic head and loves to eat. Taylor is more petite, but she is growing well and is in proportion, so there is no cause for alarm. (Taylor also loves to eat, but just is not growing by as many leaps and bounds as Jordan is!)

After the doc appointment, we dropped the kids off at daycare and the moms went out for a nice Valentine's Day lunch...alone. It was lovely and relaxing. We also cooked a nice dinner at home, which included steak, crusty bread with goat cheese, sweet potatoes, wine, and chocolate chip cookies. Yeah baby! Oh yeah, and candles. Go us! It was a lovely day!

Hope you all had nice V Days also!

9 Months Old!

2008-02-11T09:46:00.000-05:00

Well, we all survived my weekend away! I had a great time in LA and Mandy's wedding was gorgeous. She was a beautiful bride and the wedding was such a neat reflection of Mandy and Dustin as a couple. I got to spend a lot of time with my mom and with my dad's side of the family. It was really lovely. I enjoyed my book on CD (A Wedding in December by Anita Shr.eve), reading leisurely in the morning when I woke up and before I fell asleep (19 minutes by Jodi Picou.lt), eating out with the family, and sleeping in a lovely big bed all to myself. (Thanks to Aunt Nancy who insisted that I have a reservation for a room with a kind sized bed, so that I could spread out and enjoy my two nights away to their fullest!) But, I missed the babies and Penny tremendously and I still felt exhausted when I got home. I was happy to get back home and back to the routine that I was surprised to realize I actually enjoy and relish on a daily basis. Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees! (Oh, and many, many thanks for the amazing Penny who was such a rock star in her ability to care for the babies on her own for most of the weekend. And whose selflessness allowed me to attend the wedding of my ONLY cousin! Thanks, Pen! You continue to amaze me both as a parent, a wife, and a person. We are all so lucky to have you in our lives!)

The babies are 9 months old now. Seriously, they are 3/4 of a year old? How is that even possible? It will be their birthday in the blink of an eye.

Jordan enjoys pulling himself up to a standing position whenever humanly possible. Then he cries because he gets tired and does not know how to lower himself back down to sitting. Jordan also loves crawling like a little wild man, eating as much as he can by shoving food into his pie hole (oh, how he would love some pie!), and sticking his cute tongue out when he is doing just about everything. Jordan also loves to be naked, to turn over on the changing table when you are trying to change him, and attempt to throw himself off of anything that he can. If he is naked when attempting such acrobatics...even better! Jordan also enjoys stealing whatever toy Taylor is playing with and knocking Taylor down when he is crawling around. Clearly, Jordan needs to be taught a few manners!

Taylor is getting so good at holding her own bottle. She makes the cutest faces when she is trying new foods. Taylor is getting much better at eating, and no longer pushes all her food out by thrusting her tongue when trying to eat. Taylor loves to cuddle when she is tired and is able to let her very active body rest. She is learning to pull herself up, she loves to crawl, and she loves to pull hair and blow raspberries at everyone. Taylor loves, loves, loves to splash in the bath. She also loves to touch/pet the dog and cats. Taylor is learning to hold her own against her bully little (Younger by 1 minute...yes, but little? Not so much!) brother. Go girlfriend!

We love you so much Jordan and Taylor. We can't believe that you have been in our lives for 9 months already. You have now been with us on the outside (36 weeks) just about as long as you were growing in Mama Chris' belly (37 weeks). You have taught us so much about ourselves as people, as parents, and as a couple. Thank you for all your love and for teaching us patience on a daily basis. You have made our lives so very, very rich and we look forward to many more milestones to come. We waited a long time for you to come into our lives, but the wait was so, so worth it. And, just as the acupuncturist told us when we were trying to get pregnant with you, everything works out just the way it is supposed to, at just the right time, in just the right way. I think I finally believe her!

Love,
Your mamas

News and updates

2008-01-31T11:04:00.000-05:00

I am off to Louisiana for my cousin's wedding this weekend. (I should note, because Penny always gets such a kick out of it, that Amanda is my only first cousin. Penny has about, oh, a bajillion first cousins, so she thinks it's funny that I have one!) I am very excited to go. However, Penny is staying home with the kiddos and the plans for someone to come and stay with her to help for the weekend just recently fell through. Therefore, I am feeling pretty guilty about going. But, the plans are made and there is not much I can do. So, I wish Penny good luck. And she knows I will be bringing home the mother of all goodies for her. Not sure what it will be yet, but I gotta find something good!

All that said...I am looking forward to two nights in a hotel by myself, as well as a rental car in which I will do several hours of driving (from TX to LA), all the while listening to a luxurious book on tape. The time alone seems so appealing now, but I am sure that I will miss Penny and the kids more than currently anticipated. I'll be back home Sunday night by midnight...and no doubt hating life on Monday morning when it is time to get up for work!

In baby news, we had to lower Jordan's crib mattress because he was pulling up onto his knees and well on his way to pulling himself into a standing position. Very exciting developmentally, but very sad for the mommas that their babies are on their way to walking! Jordan has also started clapping while he laughs, which is unbeliavably cute.

Taylor is really a mover and shaker. She is all over the place now, although forward crawling is still elusive to her. She can get around just fine, though, which led us to a recent purchase of a gated enclosure where we can put both kids and they can play freely, without us constantly on top of them. Bring on the childproofing! Ugh!

Both kids are doing really well with eating and sleeping. They are branching out into all different kinds of foods and finding lots of things that they like. It is really fun to give them new things and see them experience different tastes and textures. Both kids are loving some mixed fruit that we made up recently. The moms are enjoying making homemade baby food!

Both kids are finally back to sleeping in their cribs and sleeping mostly through the night. They are both doing a great job on figuring out how to soothe themselves and fall back to sleep after a bit of babbling or crying in the middle of the night. Moms are happy to be getting some good sleep.

That's about it. It is Thursday, which means I am home with the kids, so I have to run. They are calling me...

Picture Post

2008-01-27T09:17:00.001-05:00

Happy babies on Christmas morning.

This was our sad, sad Char.lie Brown Christmas tree. After going to three places to look for a tree and finding them all sold out, our friend Michael went out onto our land on snowshoes in search of a tree. This was the best of the very few options. Behold the great Christmas tree of 2007! Thanks Michael. Hey, it was free and it was all ours!

Taylor loves to pose whenever the camera comes out. Rarely is there a picture where she is not smiling.
Is this a dacyare center or our house? The twinners love their exersaucers! (Oh, and it's our house!)

Jordan and Mama Chris playing after work one day. Jordan was loving taking his socks off and putting them in his mouth. It looks like we don't feed him enough, doesn't it? Perhaps socks taste better than our homemade babyfood?

Jordan loves to throw himself upside down at any opportunity. He is so funny!

Perhaps Taylor would agree that socks taste better than our homemade babyfood?

And perhaps duckies taste better than what is served at our house?

Taylor gives the bath time ducky restaurant 4 stars!

The family who bathes together, stays together!

We love to splash!

Mama Penny and Taylor after bath time. Look at those smiles!

I'm ready for my close up, Mr. Hef*ner!

Mama Penny and her two sweet babies. My three favorite people in the whole world!

Sweet dreams, little one! (Possible suffocation devices removed after this photo was taken!)

Questions, questions, questions

2008-01-15T08:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a meme stolen from judecorp...

Because we never really know each other as well as we think, in response to this post I'd like you to ask a question. Anything about which you are curious, anything you feel you ought to know about me. Silly, serious, personal, fannish. Ask away. Then copy this to your own journal/blog, and see what people don't know/want to know about you.

Congrats to all the new moms!!

2008-01-13T09:13:00.000-05:00

E and A from "Two Moms are Better than One" had their baby, and it's a boy! This precious boy is the 1/2 brother of Taylor and Jordan, as we used the same sperm donor. We have seen pics and they emailed us his name, but neither is posted on their blog yet, so I will refrain from sharing. He is super cute, definitely has the same chin as T and J, that we suspected was from the donor, and he has a great name! Congrats to E&A! We are so happy for you! And we are really looking forward to forging ahead with you guys into the land of defining our new extended 21st century family!!

Also, Jenny and E from "Probably Boring Ramblings" had their baby girl (Elsie Jane) early this morning. All are doing well and basking in the glory of their long awaited little one. At long last, your dreams have come true and I am so happy for you!!

Congrats to all the new moms on their new additions. You're in for a wild ride!!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

Well, 2008 has arrived and we are already being blessed with two sleeping babies, taking nice long naps this morning! Yay! So, there is time for a New Year's blog post.

Penny and I stayed in last night. 7.5 month old twins...not much choice in the celebrating matter! We were happy to stay in, although isn't it funny that when the choice is made for you, you feel like you wish you had options. But when we had no babies and could do whatever we wanted for New Year's Eve, wouldn't ya know it...we mostly also stayed home. But, we usually also had friends over for games and some sort of yummy dinner. Oh how we miss the CA friends!

While the evening started out quite bland (I went to the laundry mat to dry our laundry. The house we are renting only has a washer. Go figure!), it ended quite nicely, even though neither one of us saw midnight. After the kids went to bed, Penny and I did cook ourselves a lovely dinner. We had mussels steamed in white wine and garlic, along with linguine with clam sauce, breadsticks, wine, and chocolate mousse for dessert. We were quite thrilled with ourselves, actually. It was so yummy! And, it's great to start the new year with all clean laundry!

2007 was quite a year for us, as you can imagine. We finally became moms, after a long two year struggle with infertility and journey to conception. In 2007, we found out we were having boy/girl twins and felt like the luckiest women alive. We took two lovely weekend babymoons for relaxing and enjoying each other before our world would be turned upside down. We experienced unbelievable love, support, and generosity from our friends, family, and coworkers with a multitude of baby showers and subsequent yummy meals delivered to our door after the babies arrived. (Seriously, we might have made it without the meal delivery, but we certainly would not have been so well nourished by your food and your love!) Of course, we also welcomed Taylor and Jordan into our lives, when they made us a family on May 10th. Other massive changes were leaving our jobs (and our friends and everything that had been our lives for 7 years), moving cross-country from CA to VT with our three month old twinners, and settling into a new life as born-again New Englanders. We are thankful to live so close to Penny's family, as well as to be on the same coast as all of my family. (Hey, it's a big improvement from CA, NY, and FL!)

In 2008, our babies will turn 1. (Seriously, how is that possible?) And we will see big changes in them: crawling, walking, more teeth, more food experiences, personalities further emerging, and a multitude of other things that cannot be predicted. Penny and I hope to get in better shape, lose some weight (ah, the old weight loss New Year's resolution), support and encourage each other as parents, and find ways to continue to connect with each other. We hope to use our craft room more, save more money, take one day at a time, and appreciate the daily grind that is so easy to try to get through, rather than enjoy.

Thanks to the readers out there. We love reading your comments, so say hi if you stop by to let us know you were around. And here's to a great 2008 for you all. We wish you health, happiness, fulfillment, and fertility to those struggling with that. We hope all your dreams come true!

You know you're in VT when...

2007-12-30T09:25:00.001-05:00

Last night Penny was planning on watching the big Pats game and I knew I did not want any part of that. Sorry, honey! So, this gal checked into some options and guess who went out to her first movie in almost eight months (since the babies were born)? That's right, it's me. (Hold on. I lied. Penny and I went to see Harry*Potter for her birthday in July, while my mom babysat.) I love going to the movies. I love the previews. I love the seats (when my fat ass is not being pinched by them!). And I love being in the dark with strangers, all there with a common purpose. So, I have been sad to not go to the movies in so long. And I am someone who kind of enjoys going to the movies alone. I like going with others, too, but there is something cool and fun and relaxing about going alone. I can cry and laugh and do whatever without thinking the other person thinks I am weird or some sort of loony crying movie watcher. I tend to cry a fair amount at the movies.

Last night I saw Juno and it was fab! I am so glad that I caught it. If you have not seen it, and are able to, I highly recommend getting out there to see it. It was a poignant coming of age, teen pregnancy movie. It reminded me of Welcome to the Dollhouse, but it was not quite as painful to watch. But, I still cried...a few times.

Going to the movies in VT means:

1) Tickets cost a mere $7.50! (I heard another movie goer from out of town say, "I can't believe these prices! In Providence, tickets are about $12." I hear ya, girlfriend. Cali was the same!)

2) There is a theatre that plays first-run/current movies, but has just one screen and shows just one movie at a time.

3) The theatre is so small... (How small is it?) It's so small that after you buy your ticket from the single ticket agent, you have to stand outside in line until the earlier movie gets out and you have someplace to go! Oh, how I wished I had brought a hat!

4) People bring their own tupper*ware from home from which to consume their popcorn!

Seriously, can you stand the quaintness?

A manual of expectations

2007-12-27T15:21:00.000-05:00

It's the holiday season and your kids go to daycare. Do you know the etiquette? I guess you are supposed to get your daycare providers holiday gifts of appreciation. But, as first time moms, we are confused. Or maybe a better term to use is clueless! Until this past week, the kids have gone to daycare just two days a week, since September. In the infant room, there are two regular teachers (I always feel weird calling an infant daycare provider "a teacher") and then there are other people who work in there as needed, some more regularly than others. Until today, we had not gotten them anything. When Penny dropped the kids off yesterday, she said she felt like she got a weird look and the vibe was kinda off. She called me and said, "I think we need to get them something."

They had sent home some little gifts for the kids, as well as some cute ornaments that they made for us with pictures of the kids. But, we (with our twinfants) are frazzled about, um, 99% of the time and days and weeks easily get away from us. In getting ready for weekend visitors and holiday festivities, we had not planned far enough in advance (which would have actually had to be by 12/21 because daycare was closed on the 24th and 25th), so the holiday came and went and we had not done anything for the daycare folks. Also, we are kinda broke right now! After a cross-country move and living on my new modest VT salary for the past few months, things are rather tight around here. Penny and I did not even buy each other Christmas presents! And the kids have everything they need, so we did not buy anything new for them either, unless you count bibs and little shoes that we recently ordered online.

Yesterday, I went to Dunkin*Donuts and got 4 gift cards: two for the main infant room teachers ($10 each) and two for the other most regular infant room providers ($5 each). Does this sound adequate? We did not get anything for the director of the daycare. Today I gave everyone a Dr. Suess holiday card, with their gift card, and a pic of the kids with santa at the mall. Any opinions on this? I hope it was good enough, even though they were not expensive or homemade or edible gifts. Well, they can buy DD edible goodies anyway! Honestly, it was the best we could do this year.

Sometimes we feel so clueless on this whole parenting thing. If only the kiddos came with a manual that told you real world practical information about stuff, including this type of holiday day care dilemma. Maybe I will write one, make my millions, and never have a lean Christmas again!

A lovely weekend

2007-12-26T08:41:00.002-05:00

Our first Christmas back in New England was a lovely one! It started with a weekend visit from NH friends and their kids, ages 5 and 2. A million thanks to Nikki and Michael for bringing us so many hand-me-down toys, clothes, and gear. We got a 2nd high chair and a 2nd exersaucer that have already made such a difference! Nikki introduced us to the wonderful world of homemade baby food, and she cooked the moms some banana bread, Sheppard's Pie, and a chicken pot pie to nourish us after they were gone. Michael strapped on the ol' snow shoes and trekked out to the back 40 to cut us down a Christmas tree, after our efforts to get a tree were thwarted at 4 sold-out tree places. (I've got to get a picture of this tree up on the blog soon. To call it a Charlie Brown tree would be the understatement of the century. But, it was free and it was all ours!) Nikki and Michael also helped us to manage Jordan's asthma through steam follwed by cold air, when the nebs were not quite cutting it. So, a million thanks to N&M for an amazing visit, that was so filled with love and support. You are both truly amazing people and we are so lucky to have you in our lives.

The kids had a great first Christmas with their aunties, uncles, and cousins. We had the Penny's family over to our house on Sunday for a potluck and gift exchange, and then we went to Penny's sister's house for dinner on Christmas day. Our kids are so loved and supported by these guys and we are so lucky to live so close to many of them. Many thanks for the super cute clothes and toys for the kids. You guys are so generous! And thanks, too, for holding and playing with and loving our babies so the moms could get a little break. We are lucky to be back in VT, so close to you guys!

Thanks to my brother, Bill, and his wife Michelle, for the Target gift cards for the kids...even though it makes me want to kick your asses because we agreed we were not exchanging gifts this year. GGrrr! And thanks to Mimi (my mom) for the gifts for the kids: some great "1st xmas" ornaments, a cute barn with animals that make sounds, and an amazing Radio*Flyer wagon with built in seats and a canopy for transporting the kids around. We can't wait to use it this summer!

Penny and I are back to work today and the kiddos are back at daycare. Starting the 2nd week of January, I will be working a 4-day work week. Yay! This is so great because it means that the kids will only be in daycare 4 days a week, instead of 5. And it means that I get an extra day with the kids. After working so hard to get these little miracles into our lives, having them with us 3 days and in daycare for 4 days a week feels so much better than with us 2 days and in daycare 5 days a week. I know it is just a day, but it feels like a much better fit for us. Plus, it saves us a bunch of money in monthly daycare costs and we love that!

Hope everyone had a happy and healthy Christmas. Hard to believe that New Year's is right around the corner!

And the seasons, they go round and round

2007-12-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

December is in full swing. Big news: Penny got a job, working at the same agency where I work! Yay Penny! She is an Employment Specialist and will be helping support folks with mental illness in their employment endeavors. The babies start full-time daycare next week. Although, in a few weeks, this may be cut down to just 4 days a week because I am in the process of being approved to work 4 long days, rather than 5 days a week. Very excited about that, especially because it means that the babies will be with us three days a week!

Things here in twin land march on faster and faster each day. The days themselves often feel long, but the months fly by and milestones are happening everyday. We are struggling with colds, and asthma, and trouble sleeping due to stuffy noses. Ah, the first winter! But, we are enjoying the smiles, and the babbling, and the new experiences with food and toys and the whole world all around us.

Our big boy, Jordan, now loves to hold his own bottle. Often, however, he loses his grip and milk sprays all over him. Check out those chubby little hands.

During the time when I was working and Penny was staying home with the kids three days a week, they were always so happy to see me when I got home. Talk about melting your heart. Their little faces would light up as if to say, "It's you! We didn't know whether we would ever see you again, and yet here you are. Hooray!!" Penny snapped this picture of both kids holding my hands one day when I had just gotten home from work. Makes me such a happy mama!

Jordan and Taylor are getting so much more interactive with their environment. They love Bear, Cosmo, and Milo so much. And the animals are unbelievably tolerant. Here's our "killer" dog, Bear, holding court over her babies. She loves to be where they are and she just lets them maul, er pet, her whenever they want to. What a good doggie!

Look at these big babies sitting up and playing with toys. They love their crinkle books! People think they look so much alike, and sometimes I think they look a lot alike, too. But, in this pic, not so much. What do you think? Oh, and you can't imagine how many people ask us everytime we are out whether the kids are indentical or fraternal. If they are a boy and a girl, folks, they cannot be identical!

The conversation usually goes something like this: Person: Oh, a boy and a girl? Me: Yup...(trying to move on without making too much eye contact. Twin survival mode.) Person: Well, you have your hands full. Me: *Smile.* Yup. Person: Are they identical? Me: Nope, a boy and a girl? Person: I know, but are they identical? Me: What I actually say: Nope, they are fraternal. (What I really want to say: DAMMIT PEOPLE! DO YOU KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD IDENTICAL? A BOY AND A GIRL HAVE SOME SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN THEIR PARTS. THEREFORE...NOT FREAKIN' IDENTICAL!)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled, non-ranting blog post.

One thing Penny and I often lament is that we do not have the same down time with the babies that we imgaine parents of singletons have the opportunity to experience more often. We are usually busy busy busy with tasky things when the kids are napping. We are trying to slow down and cherish the times we have with these amazing little people while they are still little. This picture of Jordan sleeping on Penny was camera worthy, as these peaceful moments with each individual child are, unfortunately, more rare than we would like.

The obligatory first Santa pic is posted here in all its glory! It took a few tries to get the kids to look forward, stop grabbing Santa's beard, and have semi smiling looks on their faces. They sat with Santa for about 5 minutes or so, no one cried, and we got this pretty great picture. We were thrilled!

Hope the holiday season is treating you all well. We are in a winter wonderland today, with an excess of 18 inches expected. Penny is out shovelling now, and we will try to keep up with the snow throughout the day. Will try to post wintery pics later. We are excited to have a lazy Sunday, all cozy in the house, while it snows and snows and snows outside. I baked muffins for breakfast and we are gonna have some yummy soup for lunch. It's gonna be a greay day!

Time for more pics

2007-12-04T19:33:00.001-05:00

Here's me with the babies at a recent visit to Northampton, MA to visit the alma mater, as well as visit with Jean who was in town from California. Ok, the real reason for the visit was to see Jean. We miss our Cali friends, big time!
A rare pic of the 4 of us. Note sleeping babies in strollers (if you can see their faces). Yeah!
Jordan and Taylor go swimming for the first time at the hotel in Northampton. We met Jude, Jen, and Gus from Judecorp. Cool to meet internet friends! In the above pic, I have Jordan, Jude (far left) has Taylor, and Jen (middle) has Gus.
Mama Penny and her babies rockin' out in the pool.
Babies were enjoying the lush bed in the hotel. Whoa, Jordan. Where ya headed?

We had brunch in Northampton with blogger/internet friends, as well as my long lost counsin, Jessica, her husband, Steve, and their daughter, Anna Louise.
Lookin' good in Sylvester's! While we were waiting for a table, a friend from grad school walked in the door. Whoa! Small world!
Here's me, with E and A from Two Moms blogging fame. E is pregnant with the same donor used to conceive Jordan and Taylor. They are expecting baby "Moon," the 1/2 sibling of J & T, in January. Creating different definitions of family rocks!

Jordan and Taylor lookin' dapper in their LL*Bean fleece hats and mittens.

Both babies love to pet the kitties and dog. Penny snapped this great pic of me and Jordan, with Milo. Good job, Pen!
Taylor loves tummy time, thanks to this activity mat that makes sounds and lights up. She can now roll from front to back and back again, with ease.
Loving their cowboy outfits from Auntie Ali on Thanksgiving. Jordan's face says, "These outfits rock. Why has it taken you so long to let us wear them?"
We enjoyed their first Thanksgiving as a family of four. So much to be thankful for this year, that's for sure! Note that the babies are about the same size as the turkey!
Penny's family came to join us for Thanksgiving, and brought lots of yummy food with them. Thanks everyone, for making our first holiday in VT so special!

We love snowsuits and we love sleeping babies. Do you just want to eat them up? I do...especially Taylor, the little pink marshmallow in her fluffy snowsuit! We are getting new carseats soon, as the kids are almost outgrowing these. Also, with the big snowsuits, they are especially tight for Jordan and Taylor. Jordan is bigger, but Taylor has a fluffier snowsuit. Jordan also needs a new snowsuit soon. So many changes all the time...and expenses!

Big snow here recently. Pictures of that to come. In other news, we are on to Stage 2 baby food, sitting up without being supported, and Jordan has two teeth poking through his bottom gums. Big kids all around!

Check us out!

2007-12-01T20:35:00.001-05:00

Hello All-

We have been taking dancing lessons and thought you guys might want to check this out. Next stop: Dancing with the Stars! http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1130512732

Love, Chris, Penny, Taylor and Jordan

A New Milestone!

2007-11-30T08:48:00.000-05:00

Jordan slept the entire night in his crib last night! No time in the swing. No time in bed with one or both mamas. Our big boy slept the entire night in his crib all by himself. Granted, he was on his stomach for some of the night and I worried about suffocation. And granted, we had to go in a few more times than a few times to put his pacifier back in his mouth. But, still! A whole night in the crib! Yay for Jordan.

Taylor, on the other hand, made up for it by being more fussy than usual and ending up spending a few hours in the swing. I tell ya. If it's not one thing, it's another!! :)

Focusing on the positive over here! And, a big thanks to Nikki in NH for a wonderful reassuring conversation last night, where she assured me that we aer doing great and that things will smooth out as time goes by. Thanks for the support, Nik!

I Can Not Believe How Big They Are

2007-11-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

I (Penny) have not added to this blog in ages, so I thought I would put my two cents in. Every day I am looking for jobs (boo hoo) and on non-day care days I spend the day as a stay at home mom. For the most part I love being with the kids all day, but... I am not bringing in money and I feel bad about that. I have had a few interviews but I have been told that I am over qualified for most things. So what if I applied for the job. I must want it, or I would not have applied. Okay enough of a pity party for Penny.

Growing Pains

2007-11-26T12:08:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving at our house was good and everyone had a nice time. We will put some pics up soon. But, that's not what I want to write about today.

We are tired. I was so looking forward to a 4-day weekend, especially after working in a hospital for the past 5 years where I did not have the day after Thanksgiving off. But, this past weekend, was a LONG one and I found myself looking forward to going back to work. And then feeling guilty about that. I love the babies, obviously, but I am so exhausted and it is so hard to have very little time for myself. Penny and I talked it over and she is feeling the same way. However, I "get" to get away to work, so we are feeling it in a different way. Not more or less, just different, and I will let her make a post about how she is feeling if she wants to.

It is fall and we have a craft room. And I want to be crafty. But, there is no time for craftiness and I am feeling crappy about that. I was so psyched to move into this big house and have space for laying out scrapbook pages to work on and maybe even learning some new crafty things. But it's not happening! When we are home with the babies, it is a neverending cycle of feeding, playing, changing, trying to get them to sleep, repeat, repeat, repeat. I know, I know. What did I expect? We have twins and they are busy little 6 month olds. But even when there are a few moments, I find that I am hesitant to start anything because there is never a significant enough chunk of time to start anything. And so I am watching too much TV or spending too much time on the internet and I am hating it. Well, hating it might be too strong. I strongly regret the time I lose to TV and the internet.

Penny and I are trying to do Weight*Watchers and we have done relatively well so far by making better food choices. We have both lost about 11 pounds. Yay us! But, we are not exercising and that sucks, too. I want to, but again, I cannot find the time. I cannot fathom getting up one second earlier than I have to, as I already feel so sleep deprived. And then when the kids go to bed for the night, we are so tired, that we usually make and eat dinner, and then veg out in front of the TV. I want to use this time efficiently, but I just feel too worn out to use that time to exercise, scrapbook, or anything else.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts, encouragement, or words of wisdom? We started this blog as a way to keep people informed and in the loop about the babies and our move, but I have felt rather "Pollyanna" lately with mostly all hearts and rainbow posts, when, in reality, I am struggling with some things. Do other bloggers struggle with how much to complain and how much to sugar-coat things for people who are reading?

And speaking of struggling, remember when I mentioned Jordan's coughing and wheezing the other day? Well, we took him to the doc's office and they said he has cold induced asthma! *SIGH* So, they sent us home with a nebulizer and meds and now we have to give him breathing treatments every 4 hours when he is awake. As you can imagine, our 6 month old boy does not like sitting still for ten minutes with a mask held over his face, blowing mist his way. Good times, good times.

Posts galore

2007-11-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

So, I did not sign up for that NOBLOPOMO or whatever the heck it is called, where you are supposed to blog everyday in November, but I am quite proud of myself for blogging as much as I have recently. There have been more posts this month than any other month since the blog began. Yeah!

I recently signed up with Blog*lines, as I had heard such cool things about it. Basically what it does is keep track of all the blogs you read for new posts. You log into your page and it highlights in bold which of the beloved blogs that you read have new posts. This means that I don't have to slog through my blogroll (slog through the blogs..hee-hee!!) everyday, clicking on every link to see who might have a new post up. In theory, this is super and saves lots of time. In practice, it means that I log into Blog*lines about a million times a day, like some blog-reading-crazed fool, to see if there are any new posts. Easier? Yes. Less time consuming? Yes. Less addictive? Not so much!

Snowing here again today. Second snow of the season. It will be a white Christmas for sure, if this keeps up. It will definitely be a white Thanksgiving. We are hosting at our house, with lots of Penny's family. It is a potluck, thank goodness. We are cooking the turkey, stuffing, and potatoes. And Penny's sister and brother-in-law (Cindy and Brian) are coming over Wednesday night to help with cooking and the babies. But not cooking the babies.

Jordan is sick and has a crazy cough. So, back to the pediatrician for him today. He has been sounding kinda wheezy, and that's never good.

If you wanna support some women who are having a tough time with a pregnancy that might not make it, go give some hugs over at Cha Cherry Cola. They are going through a shitty time right now.

Back home, safe and sound

2007-11-19T10:29:00.000-05:00

We had a lovely weekend away, with lots of fun and visiting. It is still kind of fall-like in MA, so it was a far cry from the winter wonderland that we left back home. We got 4 inches of snow last week on Friday, if you can believe that. Hello winter, my old friend. When one of the local radio stations started playing 24-7 Xmas music, it felt way too early for that. But then the snow came and now it feels just right. It is really Thanksgiving (ALREADY?) this week?

So, we had a nice visit walking around my alma mater with Jean, and her friends Jeanna and Jess from Boston and their 1 y.o son, Oscar. He is so cute!

Our hotel was nice and I was psyched to have spent so little on it, since I booked it through Hot*wire. We took the kids swimming in the pool for the first time and they loved it...until they were cold and their lips turned blue. Pics to be posted on the blog soon. This hotel was not a super fancy one, but it was one of the ones that is now providing higher end beds, bed linens, and pillows. I love this trend! The mattresses were super comfy, the duvet was a down alternative comforter that was a perfect weight, and the pillows were lofty and yet also a perfect squishiness. There were two types of pillows (and a little sign told us so): down and down alternative. Thank you very much, Hot*wire deal of a hotel. I am rarely let down with bookings through Hot*wire.

Jude and Jen from "judecorp" called us on Saturday night and asked if I was serious about an email I sent out before we left home, inviting people to come swimming with us. But, of course. Their little punk (and I only use that endearing term because they do!), Gus was having a fussy day and they thought maybe the pool would help. So, they came over and we all went swimming. So much fun and it was great to meet the three of them in person! We were the only ones in the pool, which was cool. After said swimming, Gus and our two promptly fell asleep (after proper warming, of course) and we all contemplated ordering in sushi. By the time we got ourselves together enough to order, Gus was waking up, so Jude and Jen decided to head home rather than tempt fate too much. Penny and I had sushi in the room, and it was yummy. Oh Berkeley, with your 10,0000000 sushi restaurants how we miss you so. The sleeping kids proved to be short lived, with our two, mostly Jordan, having a not so great night's sleep. We made it through though. Jude and Jen, however, reported on Sunday that Gus had a great night's sleep after swimming. Glad we could help!

Sunday brought a lovely brunch with the "judecorp" gals, E & A from "two moms," and my cousin Jess, her husband Steve, and their daughter Anna. We had such a fun time and I was sad when it was over that we did not live closer so that we could all get together on a more regular basis. E & A were lovely and we are excited to have them as new members of a weird extended family, made through donor sperm! It was neat to see them interacting with our kids, holding them and cooing at them, knowing that E is carrying the 1/2 sib of our duo. WOW! We can't wait to meet the wee "moon," expected in January. And, it was great to see my cousin, Jess, again, after not seeing each other for so many years. Great, too, to meet Steve and Anna. Now that we are a mere 2.5 hours away, we should stay in better touch.

Before heading home, we stopped at Tar*get. In CA, this was not such an exciting outing. But now, we live in a state where there are NO TAR*GETS, if you can freakin' believe that! We also wanted to hit Trader*Joes, but time did not permit it. Oh well. Better luck next visit.

On the drive home, Jordan slept for 2 of the 2.5 hours and Taylor slept for 2 hrs 15 minutes. We were so blessed. But the last 15 minutes was pure hell with much screaming, which I believe could be translated to, "We're starving over here and our giant thighs and rolls on our knees are dwindling so much, that if we don't get some bottles right now, we might just cease to exist!"

Already?

2007-11-16T16:15:00.001-05:00

One thing no one told me about blogging is that you start composing posts in your head when you are not at a computer. I always think of the most witty things to write when I am driving, in a meeting, or someplace where I cannot compose said brilliance right away. Bummer!

Some things that made me title this entry, "Already?"

It snowed today. ALREADY?

The kids are 6 months old and that means we are kinda 1/2 way through the baby experience. In a way this is good, as there are exciting times to come, but really? 50% done with my baby snuggles ALREADY? WAH!

At the last appointment with the pediatrician, Taylor weighed 15 lbs, 4 oz and Jordan weighed 17 lbs, 4 oz. Jordan has an ear infection and he is now on his first course of antibiotics. ALREADY?

Now, in non-already news, we are headed to the great town of my alma mater tomorrow to see Jean who is in from CA to visit some friends and to see us for the day. We are so excited, but are very sad, sad, sad that Aimee and Garett stayed back in CA. God how we miss our CA pals.

On Sunday, for the first time ever, we are meeting some internet friends, in an attempt to make them real-life friends! I don't know how to be all fancy and make that underlined text that links to blogs (hell, I just figured out how to make the blogroll to the right!), but we are meeting with the lovely ladies from "Judecorp" and their little punk, Gus. And, we are meeting E&A from "Two moms are better than one." E is pregnant with the same donor that we used, making E&A the impending moms of the half-sibs of our kids. Holy crap, that's crazy talk! We are also meeting up with my cousin Jess and her baby Anna. (Under the heading of "what a small world," Jude of Judecorp is friends with Jess, so they are coming to brunch with us, too. And, E&A are also friends with Jude and her partner. Whoa! Go ahead, say it. What a small world!) We are very excited about this baby-blogga-bruncha-palooza!!

Have a great weekend. Look for pics of the kids in the hotel pool after the weekend is over and we are back home safe and sound. And, for those of you who posted in the "Pay it Forward" post, watch your mailboxes. Goodies are on their way!!

Happy 6 month birthday, Taylor and Jordan!

2007-11-10T19:28:00.000-05:00

Taylor and Jordan are six months old today! I wanted to make sure that I got a post in before the end of the day, so here it is. More pics than news, but it's late and I'm tired. So it will have to do.

T and J have been enjoying lots of tummy time recently and it has been great to see them interact with one another. They have mastered rolling over from their backs to their tummies, but tummies to backs is another story. The latter direction is much harder, although Jordan can do it more easily then Taylor can at this point.

Here's Taylor and Jordan in their Halloween outfits. Not really costumes per se, but we did get festive for daycare and the kids participated in the costume parade. There were lots of oohhs and aahhs from the spectators!
Another rare picture of all four of us. A ghoulish family picture for Halloween!!
Taylor loves the exersaucer. Look at that smile! With half of the DNA being so unknown, how did we get so lucky? We feel so fortunate!

Jordan is learning to sit up on his own. Lots of trial and error on this one. Funny to watch, until he gets so frustrated that he cries, or he topples over and bangs his head on the floor. Good times...bad mommies!

In closing, I leave you with a photo comparison to see just how far we've come since May 10th. I call it "A photo essay in carseats."

Coming home from the hospital.

(3 days old)

Both sleeping at once. WOW!
(1 month old)

And just look at us now! Six months old and rockin' the cool fleece hats that Mimi sent us from LL Bea.n. You've come a long way, babies!

Taylor and Jordan, thank you for brightening our lives in unbelievable ways. The past six months have been challening and wonderful and tiring and amazing. Thank you for the best six months of our lives! We love you to the moon and back and can't wait to see what the future holds for our new family. Love always, Your Mamas

The hits just keep on coming!

2007-11-08T08:48:00.000-05:00

The kids go to daycare two days per week so that Penny has time to look for jobs and go on interviews. We found a daycare center that we liked and have been generally happy with it thus far. However, nothing is perfect and there are snags along the way. For instance, our daycare center seems to be crazy temperature takers. Our kids have been going there since September, and they have been sent home for temps and/or called us to ok Tylenol on about 5 occasions. This seems extreme to me. When we have taken them home, we have found that they either have no temp, or a much lower temp than reported by daycare. Now, of course, I do not want my sick kids to stay at daycare and I do not want anyone else's sick kids to be ay daycare. But, it kinda burns me up (pun intended) when we have paid for them to be there and they are sent home and seem not to actually be sick. Is it possible that their thermometer is wonky? They use an under the arm thermometer, so that should be more accurate. One day, the kids were sent home because we were told they both had temps and appeared to have chicken pox. There have been three cases of chicken pox in the infant room since the kids started going there. So, we picked the kids up, called the doctor's office, and went to an appointment that afternoon, a mere one hour later. We did not give them Tylenol before the appt. At the appt, one hour after being sent home from daycare, both kids were found to have no temps and aboslutely no signs of chicken pox. Sigh. What to do in this situation? We talked to the daycare about this, sent the kids back to daycare two days later when they were next scheduled (along with the doctor's note), and hoped for the best. That was yesterday. Jordan was sent home half way through the day with a fever, which was actually confirmed at home with our thermometer, although the temp we got was much lower.

I know that kids get sick and have colds and get fevers and all turns out ok. What I don't know about is how you are a working parent when kids are constantly getting sent home from daycare. It is ok for now, since Penny is not working yet. And we got a 2nd car (a Minivan. Yup, a mom-mobile!), so that works out ok. But once we are both working, I don't know how we are gonna swing this frequent need to be picked up from daycare and brought home. Since I have been a working person for longer than I have been a mom, it feels weird to leave work to pick kids up and all. And I feel weird about it, especially since I am at a new job. Do other working moms have an opinion on this?

And the thing is that our kids are not unusually sick. They are happy babies and mostly healthy, but daycare sure is doing a number on them. And them being over sensitive about temperatures is getting to be a hassle! But, the bottom line for now, is that there are no pox so far. And that's a good thing. But we are on the lookout!

And do you know what another bummer is? At work today I was the mom who came to work with spit-up on her shirt who did not even realize it until she had been at work for some time and who's coworkers probably saw said spit up and were totally grossed out and repulsed and said nothing to alert me to the situation. Hello, I am your new employee. Please be impressed by me!

A fun weekend that turned gross...

2007-11-05T10:20:00.000-05:00

Hey, check me out! Three posts in two days! Yeah, baby!

It was a nice weekend here in twin land. Penny's friend, Denise, stayed over on Friday night because she had a meeting near us on Saturday morning. It was so nice to have a friend here to have dinner with and to chat with . We are seriously lacking in the friend department here and it's a bit tough for me sometimes.

On Saturday we went into town to try to hit the Farmer's Market, but found that it is already shut down for the winter. Boo Hiss!! We were disappointed, but we decided to kick around the downtown area for a while instead. We got to check out lots of the little shops that I had seen, but had not yet gone into. While this was great, I still feel like I want to check them out again sometime, sans double stroller, as it is a bit tough to really browse/shop thoroughly when you have the gargantuan stroller with you, not to mention two babies who might start crying at any time. But, it was nice to check the shops out anyway. We braved the cold weather and did just fine. The kids wore the super cute fleece hats with tassles (and velcro under the chins) that my mom bought them. Forgot to take a pic, but we will soon and will post it. We even ate lunch out successfully, without making too much of a crying scene in the restaurant. Yeah!

Saturday night I experienced the grossest part of parenting thus far. We fed the kids their cereal and baby food. They tried rice cereal for the 1st time, after previously only having oatmeal, and we mixed in pureed pears. They loved it. Then, Jordan had the rest of the squash that was left over from yesterday. This kid can eat! A bit later, both kids both had their bottles and then we started to get them ready for bed. I have heard that babies will not overeat, but that instead, they will stop eating when they are full. Sure they will...

Well, I brought Jordan upstairs to change him. As we reach the top of the stairs, he lets out a massive burp that keeps going and going. And then he starts to vomit like nothing I have ever seen come out of him before. And he keeps on vomiting, until both the front and back of my t-shirt is covered in vomit, the floor in the hallway and the nursery floor is covered in vomit, his whole face and front is covered in vomit, and there's even vomit on my ear and in my hair. I call Penny, who comes to the rescue to help with the clean up. I strip down and then turn to clean Jordan up, and he is smiling away like a little devil. The kid is not even bothered by vomit all over his face, and now his hands, as he had been touching his face while I was stripping. We got all cleaned up, using mostly baby wipes, and my previously stuffed little Jordan went off to bed, with what now must have been an empty belly.

The best part is (and I think this really speaks to the exhaustion of a mom of 6 month old twinfants...), I did not even take a shower before bed. Yup, I'm just that gross. So, who wants to be my friend now?

November already?

2007-11-04T13:02:00.000-05:00

It's my first day of eating cereal...The moms are obviously clueless. And the bibs are...where? Look what happened to my nice Red Sox shirt!
Yes, we are sitting in the recalled Bumb*o seats. That's because we have negligent moms, obviously. Don't worry everyone...the moms watch us closely and we will no longer be able to use these soon, anyway, because our gigunda thighs and butts stick in the seats and make us cry when it is time to try to get out of them! Good times!
One of my moms got a clue on this second day of eating cereal and finally put a bib on me! And hey, check out my stylin' high chair! Well, you can't see the whole thing, but my aunties Rajni and Jess (and their super husbands) got us this M.ercede.s of all high chairs. Thanks guys. It is comfy and colorful and Jordan and I love it!! And it means that one of us gets spared the recalled seat at dinner time! Yay for safety!
Hey, I'm just chillin' on my letters and numbers mat. Check me out. I think this is Thursday night. Can't miss my Grey*s Anatomy! I just love that Callie! (Just kidding! The kids don't watch TV and even the mommies are usually in bed by the time GA comes on! We tape it though, and watch it whenever we can fit it in. Hard to find a 1 hour slot to watch it, actually.)
Hey Taylor, nice cradle cap. Want me to scratch that for ya?

Pay it Forward

2007-11-04T12:48:00.000-05:00

As seen throughout Blogland lately, I have decided to pay it forward. The first five people who leave a comment on this blog entry will receive something fun and lovely from me in the mail. Don't ask what it is, because I have not decided yet!

So...who will it be? Oh, and if you reply, then you also have to do the same thing on your blog, or you have to pay it forward in some other way in your life if you do not have a blog.

This is gonna be fun!

Settling in nicely!

2007-10-06T18:30:00.000-04:00

Hello all! Sorry it has been so long since the last post. Time just seems to get away from us these days. Shocker! The new house is good, the babies are getting bigger and doing more everyday, and I am enjoying my new job with the county mental health agency. Penny is becoming a star at baby wrangling and cooking healthy dinners in our new awesome kitchen, while she looks for an exciting new employment situation. The babies go to day care 2 days per week, so that Penny has time for applying for jobs, interviewing, and completing the "Honey Do" list! (LOL!)

Jordan is all about trying to roll over and put his feet in his mouth. He loves to grab his toes. And he is becoming a real challenge to change, because he is always trying to roll over and look behind him. Taylor is big into sitting up. She loves to be propped up on a pillow and sit up like a big girl. Penny calls her "Crunch" because when she is laying down, she is always doing crunches, trying her hardest to sit up. And then when she is not successful, she screams her little head off. Both babies are enjoying finding their voices. They chat with one another and laugh and screech almost constantly. It is so cute. Oh, and they love looking at each other and interacting with each other. Sometimes they hold hands and it is so cute. And sometimes one punches, kicks, or scratches the other one and that is not so cute!

And now, onto the new pictures...

We have very few pictures of the four of us as a new family. We have got to be better about this. Anyway, here we are...all four of us together in one shot. Penny has Taylor and I have Jordan.

Here's Jordan asleep in his swing. Check out his Dr. Evil pose..."I want to hold the world hostage for one million dollars."

Jordan loves the new exersaucer. He stands up in it and touches all the toys, until he tires himself right out. Thanks Auntie Rajni and Auntie Jessica for this great present!

Check out Taylor in her little baby seersucker outfit. So cute!

Penny's longtime friend, Denise (pictured with Taylor) and her partner, Laurie, came to visit us from NH one weekend. It was a lovely visit and we were glad to get a chance to catch up with them!

Here's a picture of the house we are renting. This picture is from the front. The path leads to the driveway. Check out Bear in the pic. More of her a bit later...

This is a picture of the back of the house, taken from the backyard. The backyard is on quite a slope and goes down to a huge garden, a grassy area, and even a little basketball court!

This kitchen is one of the best parts of the house! We are so excited to finally have a house with a kitchen that is open, big, and highly functional. We have been cooking a lot and LOVING the ease of clean-up with a dishwasher. This kitchen has also helped us to cut down on our eating in front of the TV. We now eat most of our meals at the little island.

Here's the living room. The house has really great hardwood floors. And isn't that entertainment center cool? The house was rented to us furnished, so most of the furniture is not ours. But it is comfortable and functional and we are really enjoying it! Think we have enough baby gear all over the place?

We finally bought and set up matching cribs in the nursery. The cribs are actually identical, even though the pic makes them look like different color wood. The cribs convert to toddler beds and then to day beds as the kids get bigger. Sweet! The babies are sleeping really well in their cribs and are each waking up once per night to eat. The mamas seem to actually be getting an OK amount of sleep at this point. YAY!!
Here's another view of the nursery. The room is shaped like an "L," and has lots of windows. It is a lovely room with gorgeous hardwood floors and built-in book shelves. We are still working on the room, though, and have to put stuff up on the walls and buy a nice rug.

Check out our doggy, Bear, in her VT state approved hunting jacket! Bear's coloring makes her super hard to see outside, so we decided to get her this coat so that no one mistakes her for a deer or anything. There should not be any hunters in a residential area anyway, but better safe than sorry. Plus, this even helps us to see Bear when she is outside. She blends in REALLY well!

These apples grow on the two trees that we have in our backyard. There are HUNDREDS of apples, but they are all pretty high up and we do not have one of those long-handled apple pickers. Are you wondering why there are not any apples close to the ground? Read on...

Every evening we have a few visitors in our backyard. You know you're in VT when....

Can you believe this? We are so enamored with their presence that we look for them every evening and try to sneak out on the deck to look at them and take pictures. Each evening there are between 1 and 4 deer out in our yard, grazing on grass and eating our apples.

And here's a better pic of two of the deer. Clearly they knew we were there as they are looking straight at us. So cool! When they are out there, it is all we can do to keep Bear in the house. She so badly wants to chase them...um, I mean play with them!

Well, that's about it for now, I guess. Penny and I are really trying to be better with taking the camera places, but we forget all the time. We have been to two fall foliage arts and crafts festivals over the past few weeks, and we forgot the camera both times. We live in VT and have no foliage pictures yet. And we are about at peak color right now. Gorgeous! Stay tuned, as we are really gonna try to get some good fall pictures up soon.

Don't forget to leave us a comment and let us know that you stopped by! We love to read what you have to say!

It takes a village...to move cross-country!

2007-09-09T11:01:00.001-04:00

We are catching up here on the Vermont Twin Odyssey, in terms of pictures, posts, and news. I know lots of you have been asking for more of all of these things, so, here's a few more things to quench your thirst!

Hi, my name's Taylor and I am super wicked cute. My moms are not biased at all, or anything like that. I really am just that cute!

Here's Lisa, my friend from college, who flew in from Boston, helped with the packing, truck loading, and baby wrangling. And that was before this superstar flew cross-country with me and the babies, and then put us up (or put up with us!) for a week, while we were waiting for Penny and her brother Raymond and the pets to make it across the country. Lisa, you are a star and I am indebted to you FOREVA!! Love ya!
Here is our moving truck, our driver Ron, and his little dog. He was afraid that Bear was gonna eat his doggie-poo for a snack! Funny. Ron was great and so helpful. All our stuff made it safe and sound to Vermont. And not a single thing was broken! Thanks, Ron. Something funny...In Berkeley, the neighbors asked if Ron could turn off the engine while we were loading because of the noise. In Vermont, the neighbors asked if he could turn off the engine while we were unloading for environmental reasons! What a difference 3000 miles makes! The answer was "NO" both times, as little poochie needed her AC!!
Here's Penny's brother, Raymond, who drove with Penny and the pets from CA to VT. You're a star, Ray! Thanks for keeping Penny and the animals safe and for providing such good company along the way! We couldn't have done it without ya. Seriously! Love you!
One thing that Penny wanted to do ASAP once we made it to VT, was to have the babies meet her grandmother. We had a lovely visit! Here's a pic of Penny, the babies, and Gram. She was so tickled to meet her twin great-grandbabies, even if she was not quite sure how to refer to the two moms in relation to the babies. She loves us, she loves the babies, and that's all that matters!

Stay tuned. Vermont pics to follow later this week. Hey California friends, who wants to come and visit and see some Vermont foliage? It's been great catching up with New England friends since we have been here! We are so happy to be back, but we miss the CA crew dreadfully, too!

An update and some new pics!

2007-09-09T10:47:00.000-04:00

We are settling in nicely in Vermont. The house is great, the boxes are almost unpacked, and the leaves are starting to change. The mornings and evenings are cool (yay!), but the days are humid (BOO!). Here are some pics from before the move, that I wanted to make sure to include.

Over the past few years, I have been a part of an amazing knitting group, formed totally by chance through craigs*list. These women are funny and smart and kind and talented and I am so glad to have found them. But, now I miss them! We started a tradition a few years ago, when the first group member had a baby. We started knitting baby blankets for the new babies by knitting individual squares and then sewing them together into a patchwork blanket.

I am the third woman in the knitting group to have a baby since the group formed. But, the first to have twins! It was quite an undertaking for these special women, but above is the fruits of their labor. I can easily imagine these gorgeous blankets on the college dorm beds of the kids when they get older. These blankets will be trasured for many years to come, as will my friendships with the Purl Gurls! Love you guys!

Here's me with the two blankets! Thank you ladies!

Here's a pic of Taylor (before the move), enjoying some time on the activity mat. We finally caught her smiling on camera! Taylor is now wearing some of Jordan's hand-me-downs (as above), sinc Jordan is a big dude and Taylor is our little petite fleur!
Mama Penny and Jordan enjoy some quiet time in Berkeley. Check out the message on the butt of the pants! So cute!
Here's our two hunks of love enjoying some together time. Could you just eat them up, or what?

No pics, just news

2007-08-18T13:17:00.000-04:00

Well, we have arrived in New England! I (Chris) arrived in Boston with the babies and my college friend, Lisa, on Wednesday morning after a crazy overnight flight from Oakland. Penny, Bear, Cosmo, and Milo arrive in Vermont today, along with Penny's brother, Raymond. While all of us are blind with exhaustion, we are safe and sound and so excited to move into our new house on Monday. I am heading to Vermont tomorrow and can't wait for our family to be reunited!

The babies did great on the flight from Oakland to Las Vegas. They slept the entire time, from take-off to landing! At the Vegas airport both babies screamed bloody murder for about 30 minutes. Good times! You could easily read peoples' thoughts: "Please god, don't let those babies be on my next flight!" On the Vegas to Boston flight, the babies screamed some and slept some. On both flights, we were lucky enough have three seats to ourselves, which gave us a bit of extra room. I was so glad to touch down in Boston and it has been great to be at Lisa's condo for the the past few days.

In moving news, the moving day went unbelievably well! We want to thank all our friends who helped out and made the day so smooth! Everything was loaded onto the truck in under two hours! Friends helped with loading boxes, holding and feeding babies, cleaning, packing the last few boxes, and vacuuming. Thank you a million times over to everyone! We are expecting the moving truck to arrive in VT around August 23rd.

We will have pictures up soon, after we are settled in the new house. Stay tuned...