Easter

We had a very pleasant Easter – egg dyeing using thrift-store ties on Saturday, church on Sunday morning, neighbors over for Easter dinner, and a very non-Eastery James Bond Skyfall viewing in the evening after a movie and TV-free Lent. For Easter dinner we had:

• Glazed ham with homemade mustard sauce
• Cream cheese mashed potatoes
• Asparagus broiled with butter and parmesan cheese
• Shredded carrots in vinaigrette
• Salad with olive oil and balsamic dressing
• Hot rolls with butter (I made my life simpler by using frozen Sister Schubert’s yeast rolls)
• Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (this recipe was fantastic – I doubled the batter, substituted raisins for nuts, and used 1/4 cup applesauce instead of pineapple. I poured the batter into two round cake pans and baked about 25 minutes. The frosting does not need to be doubled)
• Chocolates
• Drink options of wine, water, milk, and apple juice (for the kids), followed by coffee with dessert

This was by far the largest number of dishes I’ve ever made for guests. My mother loves to set a beautiful formal table and create elaborate special meals for guests. It’s a gift that she’s perfected into both a hobby and a skill. It took me a few years to realize that following the Biblical command to practice hospitality doesn’t mean I have to follow it in exactly the same way. Everyone has their own hosting style, and what’s fun for her is stressful for me. I love to cook, but the key difference between cooking a meal just for our household vs. for guests is that I’m an introvert. Having guests saps a lot of energy. Having them arrive when I’m already drained from two frenzied hours in the kitchen means I dread their arrival and have a hard time summoning social energy to make them welcome.

Eventually I realized that I needed to create my own style of hospitality – something that would enable us to freely and frequently welcome guests with bounty but simplicity.  We set a goal for the number of times we’d like to welcome guests into our home each month, and went from there. Usually I cook a simple but homemade meal that works no matter how crazy the day. Often that means a big pot of soup, a salad, and bread, along with a quick tidy of the kitchen. Sometimes I mentally plan what to serve, then deliberately cut out one dish. More often than not dessert is just chocolates, if anything. The nice thing about a generation raised with terrible fast food and frozen dinners is that guests are delighted to have plentiful home-cooked meals. Once, we knew we wanted to invite a large group of neighbors over. However, the house badly needed a cleaning after busy work weeks for both of us, nd I didn’t have time to cook for that many. Instead, we had an after-dinner ice-cream social on the back porch: I whipped up a pan of brownies, brewed a pot of coffee, and guests made themselves sundaes with brownies, ice cream, and a few no-prep toppings like berries, nuts, and fudge sauce. It was fun and relaxing for guests and hosts alike.

All that to say, a meal like this is not the norm when hosting guests, but it worked. Our neighbors graciously had us over for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners when Carl worked both holidays this year. We wanted to create something truly special, both for Easter and in thanks to them. We prepped everything we could the night before and I wrote out a quick timetable since three different foods needed three different oven temperatures. Once the cold foods were prepared and everything else was boiling and baking I still had time to sit and read with the kids on the couch before guests arrived. After doing the dishes, I think Carl prefers the simpler three-dish dinners though!

What hosting tactics work for your household and personality?

Edited to add: learning to feed guests hasn’t been a perfectly smooth process. There was the episode of greasy ham and too-dry cornbread, the burned soup where we should’ve just ordered a pizza, and a few meals where I didn’t make enough and had to scramble. Practice makes progress.

Haferflocken? Nein Danke

Six weeks ago Jack started rice cereal on his doctor’s orders due to severe reflux. Initially, he hated it. The food tasted different. It felt different. The spoon was not a bottle. You can see his original reaction here.

Somewhat earlier in the training process, or, “painting the baby with oatmeal.”

However, after lots of varied but persistent introductions he’s more than delighted whenever we buckle him into his booster seat for a meal these days. At six months he opens his mouth wide, cleans each mouthful off the spoon, barely dribbles, and neatly keeps his hands in his lap without struggling (anymore…). While we plan to have him feed himself as well, so far we’ve found that starting with a puree of food helps because it first lets him adjust to the taste of a new thing before introducing a new texture. One new factor at a time seems to be the magic key with our boy.

His twin sister, however, is less excited about solids. In part, it’s just because she cares less about food in general while he could eat all.day.long. She’s progressed from spitting everything out, but it’s hard to hit her sweet spot between “hungry enough to try something” and “too full from that delicious bottle to care about food.” The mechanics of eating from a spoon haven’t quite come together for her yet. She politely mouths things, swallows about 40% of her meal, and smiles a lot. Sometimes she tries to swallow but accidentally squishes the food out her lips. Sometimes she just sputters for the fun of it as oatmeal or sweet potato droplets fly across the kitchen. She does like the taste and will eagerly wait for an approaching spoon. However, rather than opening her mouth for the spoon when she sees it she sticks out a hopeful tongue. Like any baby the majority of her nutrition comes from her liquid feedings so we’re in no rush. We have plenty of time to let her figure things out, and for the most part she enjoys the process. Except, that is, for this morning when she’d had her fill, saw the oatmeal-laden spoon coming her way, and began to wail an irritated “Nein! Nein! Nein!” Her English is non-existent, but her German is coming along nicely.

(Last week Jack looked up and yelled “Damn!” while peacefully playing on his back. Perhaps we should redirect him toward German too.)

Six Month Snapshot

Our babies turn six months old today. They’re changing, fast, and I wanted to capture a snapshot of these days before life changes yet again. None of these details are momentous, but they’re things I’m likely to forget as time passes. No day is identical or scheduled to the minute, but we do follow the same basic routine week to week. The structure supports their sleep habits. We also find it’s a big help in reducing crying and helping us accurately diagnose what’s bothering them if they’re fussy without multiple throws at the hungry?tired?wet?uncomfortable?bored?justmessingwithmyhead? dartboard. Overall, with two babies that tend to need the same things around the same time, a routine makes sure they get quality sleep and fit in all their feedings, tummy time, and other needs. It also lets their parents maintain a reasonably clean and tidy house and get quality time together. If Dad has a day off the sleep patterns stay the same, but we feed the kids together when they wake up, and work other activities like church, errands, or hiking into the mix.

0400/0430: The first alarm goes off. Carl is catatonic until he’s had his coffee and dislikes waiting for it to brew and take effect each morning. His efficient solution? Make coffee for the week and refrigerate it in a jug. Each night he pours coffee for the morning into a travel/thermos mug and puts it by the bed. When his first alarm goes off he gulps it down and goes back to sleep. Caffeine has about a thirty minute wait time to full effectiveness – thirty minutes later, it naturally wakes him up. By 4:30 or 4:45 he’s up. I usually sleep about twenty minutes longer than he does, but find getting up well before the kids key to my sanity and a smoothly running home.  Every morning Carl works through a small section of a medical review books to keep his knowledge fresh, exercises, shaves, showers, dresses, and sometimes fits in a small chore or two. I may do chores, check email, do my Bible Study reading, or work on paperwork and administrative tasks before pulling breakfast together. I used to feel a need to completely fill this time with chores before the babies woke, but found that a little quiet time writing or reading leaves me in a much better mood for the day. I gladly get up two hours before the kids to guarantee that time. It’s no sacrifice since we go to bed early and get an uninterupted night’s sleep.

~0600-0615: We eat breakfast together every day, a habit passed on from my family. Even if we’re sleepy and just eating cereal or bagels, starting the day with a meal together really helps things get off on the right foot.

~0615 (sometimes 0545 or 0600): Carl heads out the door to work. I shower, tidy the kitchen, wrap up a few chores, assemble bottles, and generally try to make sure everything is laid out and ready for the day.

0700/0730: The twins wake up cooing and happy after sleeping through the night. I pick each one up for a good morning hug and cuddle, then put them back down in their cribs on their stomachs, facing each other. First-thing-in-the-morning tummy time works well for us right now because 1) their stomachs are empty so they don’t spit up, 2) they’ve been on their backs all night so they’re actually pretty happy to spend time in a new position, 3) they love being set down face to face. Much smiling and squealing at each other ensues. I open the curtains, lay out clothing and burp cloths, pick them up to change diapers and put them back down on their stomachs, mix formula, and heat bottles while talking or singing to the kids. “Morning has Broken” is a favorite hymn for this time – the Third Day version on the link has some alterations to the original hymn and gaelic tune, but you get the idea. After about ten minutes of tummy time Jack becomes impatient. I feed him his breakfast bottle in the rocking chair next to Annie’s crib, flipping her onto her back when she, too, eventually gets tired on her stomach. Once Jack finishes he sits in the swing with a toy for some post-feeding upright time (reduces spit up…at least theoretically) while Annie eats. Throughout feeding there’s lots of talk about our day, lots of singing, and lots of making funny noises for our boy if he starts to get fussy and bored while waiting. I wash and lotion their faces, and oil and comb their hair. Usually we head to the guest bedroom for playtime. I put on some classical music – it’s still just background noise to the babies, but it makes the morning more interesting and fun for Mom. Tickling while singing “Ten Little Monkeys” (they know that song is associated with tickling and start flailing and squealing as soon as I sing the first measure), practicing sitting up, kicking around on their backs playing with toys, peek-a-boo, and sometimes picture books round out the morning before it’s time to change diapers, get dressed for the day, and go down for their morning nap. Occasionally I need to do chores during this time, but since having only two kids is a temporary luxury, I try to follow a rule of focusing on them during their awake time and doing chores or computer time during their naps.

0900/0930 – 1130: I watch for their drowsy-but-not-tired signs and put the kids down for their morning naps. It’s a quick routine – into their crib or car seat, tucked in, blinds closed, fan on and out of the room. Put together those cues mean sleep time to them and they’re usually asleep within two minutes with no fussing. They usually nap for two hours, sometimes three. While they nap, I work on chores and sometimes even get a start on dinner. Meal planning happens before our weekly grocery shopping run, but sometimes a meal can still catch you by surprise when evening comes and the meat isn’t defrosted or vegetables need chopping. A quick recipe or ingredient review in the morning helps the afternoon and evening run smoothly. I also try to fit at least 15 minutes of something calm and refreshing in here – sitting down with a book, for example. Sometimes I’ll also eat an early lunch, a meal that migrates throughout the middle of the day depending on the babies’ behavior. Toward the end of nap time I mix formula for the next feeding so everything is set when the first baby wakes.

~1130: The first baby starts chirping. I sneak him or her out for a diaper change and then we settle onto the couch for a little one-on-one time and a lunch bottle. Sometimes we just sit and cuddle, sometimes I’ll play a recorded book, lecture, or sermon in the background. Four hours of feeding babies a day adds up… About 75% of the time the other twin sleeps until almost the end of this feeding. Sometimes they wake up and fuss off and on. Sometimes they drift back off, or kick around contentedly while they wait upstairs. The simple fact of twins is that there are two of them and one of me. I try to be attentive, but of necessity they are also learning quite early to be patient. Once the bottle is empty, the first baby goes in a bouncy seat with a toy for some post-feeding upright time while the second baby gets changed and fed. If the weather is even halfway decent (meaning anything other than a torrential downpour) we’ll often head out for a long walk or errands. The kids love getting out of the house into the sunshine, and it’s good for me too. The logistics of getting two small babies out the door can be off-putting, but it is always worth it. Depending on the outing length it may be time for their afternoon nap when we get back, or we may spend some more time doing tummy time, playing on the floor, flying through the air like superman, etc. There’s no way to hold both babies all the time, and they’re learning to play independently very well, but I try to regularly pick one or the other up for some individual cuddles and play. It’s hard to get all the attention you want with another baby always getting in the way!

~1300/1330: The babies go down for a two or three-hour afternoon nap when they start showing drowsy signs. It’s back to more of the same household routines for me, plus possibly laying out bedtime/bathtime supplies or getting dinner in the oven depending on what time Carl will be home.

 - 1530/1600: The first baby wakes. If I got alone time with one twin in the morning, I try to get alone time with the other twin in the afternoon as I change them and feed them their afternoon snack bottle. As with the morning, Twin 1 goes in the bouncy seat for upright time while I collect and feed Twin 2. Usually I pull both babies onto my lap to read a stack of picture books together for 20 minutes or so – about their maximum attention span right now. Sometimes Carl gets home early, around 1630. His shortest days are 10 hours, but by going in early he can sometimes make it home for a little pre-bed play time. Other days he works 12 or 14 or 18 hours, so we enjoy the early days when we can get them. Jack gets a quick spoon-feeding of rice cereal in the evening (after much patient coaxing and regular introductions he’s spoon-feeding like a champ), and Annie will start solids soon as well. If Carl’s home, the kids get Daddy play time, if he’s not, they might hang out in their Bumbo seats watching me cook dinner, play on the floor with occasional Mom visits for cuddles, or kick around in the Johnny Jumper for 15 minutes (a favorite treat for both of them). Around 1730 our son goes down for a short catnap is his swing in the library. Our daughter gave up her evening nap about six weeks ago, but sometimes sits in the library in her bouncy seat for some evening quiet/wind-down time during his nap. Otherwise, she usually stays with us and enjoys getting all the attention to herself. Some evenings we have dinner together before we put the kids down. Twice a week (more often dries out their sensitive skin) we start the babies evenings a little early with 1730 or 1745 bath. Otherwise:

- 1800: Bedtime! We lotion or oil the kids head-to-toe, change their diapers, and suit them up in a fresh onesie, sleeper, and sleep sack for bedtime. Bedtime is peaceful and quiet with one soft shaded light and (often) classical music or Gregorian chant playing from Pandora. We love this peaceful family time with all four of us, talking over the day and feeding the kids their dinnertime bottle. By 1845 they are tucked in with a family prayer and kisses goodnight. Fan on, lights off, and that’s the last we hear from them until wake-up time in the morning. Nights when Carl can’t be home for bedtime are definitely the hardest part of parenting baby twins. It’s doable, but by the time I’ve fed and tucked in the last kid I could crawl into a crib and fall right to sleep with them.

1845/1900: If we haven’t already, Carl and I sit down to dinner together, then do dishes, and prep Carl’s bedtime snack, morning coffee, and lunch for the next day. We also try to do a quick tidy each evening, tossing stray burp rags in the hamper, folding up blankets, returning bouncers and Bumbos to their proper places, and returning toys to the toy basket. It only takes five minutes, and keeps the house reasonably tidy. Carl has his evening snack. Usually, this leaves a nice little gap of time to read or play a game, followed by Bible reading together (we just finished Isaiah and are now reading the epistles of Peter). Around 2000 Carl’s bedtime alarm goes off (he’s nothing if not systematic about planning his day) and by 2030 or 2045 we’re usually brushed, changed, and ready for bed. Carl always goes in to check on the babies one last time. Last night he walked in to Annie talking in her sleep for the first time.

An Abbreviated Daybook

Outside my window: Gray skies and chilly days. Sunday, though, the weather after church was so warm and sunny that we packed up the kids, stopped to pick up a sack of BBQ and hushpuppies, and headed to a nearby state park for a riverside picnic and hiking. Getting out the door with two babies is just a bit more work, but always worth it.

I am listening to artillery. It’s been a noisy “war zone” week with helicopters barreling back and forth just above the treetops all day and the Marines in town for training. Artillery is normal here, with occasional loud days and disrupted nights. However, the Marines living over by the coast don’t have ranges long enough for their biggest guns and rockets, so they haul them inland every Spring and then cram a year’s worth of training into two weeks, firing all day and all night and shaking our house like a baby’s rattle. Imagine a bus careening off the road and ramming your house every two minutes; it’s a close approximate.

In the kitchen we’ve been experimenting with vegetable soups for Lent. I’m working alphabetically through the single-vegetable soups section of James Peterson’s wonderful Splendid Soups. Artichoke, asparagus, and avocado all made delicious soups. We’re skipping beets (not a favorite) and cardoons (car-what? car-where? no specialty Italian veggies in rural nowheresville) and moving on to carrots.

I am reading An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler. A fantastic read if you’re looking for motivation in the kitchen. It is delightful and inspiring. It is neither a cookbook nor a series of essays, but something in between, full of ideas on how to use every part of everything, and use it well. It’s an invitation to play in the kitchen, starting from the ground up rather than from a recipe down. The tone is sometimes a bit annoying (affected casual, if that’s possible?), and every so often there’s something that sounds good but doesn’t really bear up scientifically. This book assumes some basic cooking knowledge and is not really for beginners even though it’s presented that way. Those small caveats aside, I’m reading and re-reading, making mental lists, playing in the kitchen, and planning on buying it for keeps after returning the library copy.

I am creating something out of nothing. Or at least, meals out of scraps I normally overlook or throw away, thanks to An Everlasting Meal. Last night I brewed up a savory vegetable broth with the greens from leeks, tough broccoli steams, onion skins and ends, celery leaves, a couple of carrots, and other odds and ends. It will be the base for carrot soup on Friday. Meanwhile, parmesan risotto for dinner with bacon-wrapped asparagus.

I am thankful for my husband. The twins received another round of immunizations on Friday. Fussy fevers x 2 are much more manageable when Dad is home to baby juggle.

I am wearing jeans, a sage green t-shirt, and a charcoal gray Old Navy cardigan.

Around the house Taxes, plus advance preparations for many things: Easter (the neighbors are coming for Easter dinner), a road trip (our first nights away from home with the babies. Tips for traveling with babies, anyone?), and house guests, in addition to the usual chores and cooking. We started into Spring yard work over the weekend as well.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Walking with a friend and her young baby, hosting dinner for a house-hunting Army doctor moving to our post this summer, and a Palm Sunday potluck at church.

A peek into my day…

Our daughter is always done at bedtime, no matter how early we start her feeding. At the start of her evening bottle she is wide awake, squealing and smiling. By halfway through, she’s rubbing her eyes and burrowing into our shoulders. At the end, it’s always a race to coax a burp out of her before she flops over into a warm limp puddle of sleeping baby. Her brother is exactly the opposite. With eight delicious ounces in his belly he thinks it’s party time and always flails, chats, and coos as we put him down and give him a goodnight kiss. He’s always asleep within a few minutes, though.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

For more {P,H,F,R} please visit Like Mother, Like Daughter.

PRETTY

Out on a walk in her first snow. It was a meager half-inch, but this winter-missing, born-and-raised Chicagoan will take it. Below is a more typical picture of winter here in the South:

*Image credit to Dave Granlund, Metrowest Daily News

HAPPY

FUNNY

Someone was unimpressed by her mother’s finger-over-the-lens photography skills:

REAL

You probably know that you’re not supposed to use Pyrex glass pans under the broiler. I did. Then we moved here, and had to leave our old metal broiler pan behind in Texas. One day we were in the countdown hour to dinner and I realized dinner required broiling. Just that once, I tentatively slid a glass Pyrex 13×9 under the broiler. It was fine. Nothing happened. Between one thing and another I kept reverting to a glass dish for the next two and a half years. Until last week, when I pulled a lovely Filipino-style marinated london broil out of the oven, set it on the counter, and the glass pan exploded:

When I say the pan exploded, I’m not exagerating – in a split second it disintegrated with a deafening bang, sending screaming hot shards of glass shrapnel spinning throughout the kitchen. It is a small miracle that nobody was hurt – only minutes before I’d moved the fussy-from-immunizations babies from the kitchen (where they usually watch me make dinner) to the next room for a nap. Because it was cold I had on jeans, thick socks, a long-sleeved shirt and leather moccasins, plus a spare old shirt of my husband’s that I wear as a smock when feeding our spit-uppy son. No glass made it through the clothing layers for burns or cuts. But basically? When your glass pan says “don’t use under a broiler”, don’t use it under a broiler.

After a quick rinse and pat dry to remove any glass splinters, the London Broil was delicious though .

Also REAL:

Someone was outraged! Outraged! that his mother had attempted to give him rice cereal for the first time. We have another 20 equally blurry, equally irritated photos of him giving his opinion on this new form of baby torture. Normally I’d be with the “wait until they’re bigger” for solids crowd, but in this case his doctor hopes that something a little more solid will help him keep food down.

Word Play (or “The day I finally gave up and grabbed a dictionary”)

I was home schooled for twelve years in a joyously nerdy family. We studied latin and greek roots, cherry-picked the book-lined walls, hauled a laundry basket full of new reading home from the library each week, and slogged through many years of vocabulary workbooks. After that, I attended a university with a rigorous classics and writing-centric core curriculum, wrote military history articles for a newspaper, and spent years knocking out business and competitor reports. I thought I had a good vocabulary. Then I met the works of Edmund Crispin.

My mother-in-law recently introduced us to Crispin’s deliciously funny mysteries. In his stories, the mystery quite often plays second fiddle to the hilarious dialogue, commentary, and characters. The writing is intelligent and cheeky, as if P.G. Wodehouse married Dorothy Sayers and read the dictionary to their in-utero author son. Bonus points if you know these at first glance – I didn’t: Logomachy; Hierophantically; Objurgatory; Minatory (makes sense once you think of the myth…I didn’t); Proscenium; Tutelary (not what I guessed); Exiguous; Epicene (wrong there, too – I was thinking of Epicureans); Atavism.

At least I got Rhadamanthine. Maybe I should have taken Latin for longer? For now, I choose to blame the current level of reading in this house. It’s melting our brains:

How could this melt your brain Mom? There are eight whole words on this page!

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

It can be a bit discouraging knowing anything I dress the kids (or myself) in will be soaked through within hours; the joys of kids with reflux. Multiple soaked outfits a day times two babies requires a fair amount of clothes, even if we run wash every day. With two babies in the same size, the cost of clothing to keep them dry, warm, and clean could really add up, so to keep myself from leaving them in stained sleepers all day I’ve been playing a bit of a game putting together their (economical) outfits and recording them each day. Between hand-me-downs, thrift stores (there’s an amazing one with giant bins of good baby things nearby!), and gifts, clothing twins can still be done very affordably. I think the only things I’ve bought new were four shirts (all $5 or under, and two with a $10 off coupon) from Old Navy. Feel free to join in the clothing game or chime in with your favorite ways to clothe your kids well but affordably – I’m all ears!

PRETTY/REAL

The babies are pretty, the piles of laundry they endlessly create are real…

The Clothes Game: Boy romper - free, hand-me-down. Socks – gifts. Girl snowflake sweater – 50¢ from the thrift store. Red leggings – hand-me-down. Socks – gift. Striped ruffled shirt – $4, Old Navy sale.

 

HAPPY

We have an open adoption, which means we visit and exchange pictures and letters with the babies’ birthmother on a regular basis. We had our first post-placement visit yesterday at a Chik Fil A in the “big city” an hour and a half away. Open adoption certainly deserves a post of its own, but for now we are happy that the twins can know their birthmother. Studies and experience have shown that the old style of adoption where birthmothers were never heard from again (and children were often lied to about being adopted) were typically far more destructive than dealing with complex but tangible relationships with known birthparents. Their birthmother, was, of course, happy to see the babies who have grown and thrived over the last three months. And we, meanwhile, were also happy to see clear signs of the babies’ attachment to us as parents from this visit. In the adoption context, attachment means the child’s recognition of their adoptive parents as their parents, and all other people as strangers – something that can get more and more difficult the older a child is and the more transitions they’ve been through (our babies are on their fifth home/caregiver) before adoption. While our babies were calm with their birthmother (as with most other people they meet), they lit up when returned to our arms and cuddled all afternoon – a very good sign of a well-formed attachment in the adoption setting! Attachment and adoption – yet another post all its own…

And of course, the babies are quite attached to each other already:

The Clothes Game: Red/Blue boy’s Oshkosh shirt – gift. Khaki cargo pants – thrifted, gift. Hanna Anderson dress and leggings – gift. Onesies – gifts.

FUNNY

Being a twin means you always have a playmate. Sometimes it means your playmate gets a firm grip on your nose though. Lucky for her, he doesn’t have much fine motor control and can’t keep a hold for long…

The Clothes Game: Embroidered dress/tunic – 50¢, thrifted. Yellow pants – hand-me-downs. Boy’s striped hat – 20¢, thrifted (back when we brought the kids home with a sleeper each and nothing to keep them warm – now it just protects the linens from their freshly-oiled hair). Navy shirt – handmedown. Knitted pants – 50¢, thrifted (so happy I found these – they keep little babies rolling around on the floor so warm in winter!). Socks – gifts.

REAL

Bottles, bottles, always more bottles to clean, sterilize, assemble, and fill. To any parents dealing with twins and bottle-feeding, we highly recommend investing in enough bottles to last at least two days at a time. When we started we only had three small bottles each from the adoption agency. Life was a constant race to wash and sterilize everything for the next round of feedings while being serenaded by wailing infants. We ordered several extra packs of bottles, and fill up everything for the day assembly-line style – it saves on both time and stress when all you have to do is tip in some powder at meal times.

For other {pretty, happy, funny, real} posts this week please visit Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

For more {Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} entries please visit Like Mother, Like Daughter. And also, please forgive the lack of proofreading. One baby or the other keeps howling for attention whenever I get the first photo loaded. Slapdash beats nothing?

PRETTY

With Advent and Christmas over and post-baby “crisis mode” receding we’ve been doing a bit of inexpensive sprucing in our living room and hall, mostly using things we had with a few new touches. I am a hesitant shopper - it takes me years of craigslisting, occasional store visits, and online research to find just the right thing, and then I always have a hard time deciding where to put it. These days the hardest task is finding a good time to hang paintings and pictures – when the babies are awake, they take both my hands, and when they’re asleep it’s a bad idea to start hammering nails into the wall. In the end though, it’s very satisfying looking at a still full wallet and knowing that patience turns up things that are just right for you and your home and your budget. After several years of hunting for the right price/look combination I found this dresser at a local store (the kind that’s really a thrift store but has aspirations of grandeur and claims to be an antique store). Here it is, still at the store. We love the unique shape, the beautiful birds-eye maple, and the nice low price we paid after a little bargaining.

I also had this sketch my grandmother drew as a teenager re-matted. That’s a great way to save money, by the way, if you have a framing project but don’t have time to do it all yourself. With my own frame and glass, Hobby Lobby charged $11 to custom cut a new mat, remount the art, clean up the glass/frame, and put it all back together again. I’m so glad this picture made its way to me after 50 years in various parts of the family tree!

Among several other mini projects we also hung this painting/mirror combination by the back door. I found it secondhand for a few dollars a year ago, but couldn’t decide where to put it. Can anybody tell me what sort of bird that is?

HAPPY

The babies got to meet another one of their grandparents last week. On wakeful non-cranky days they often join us at the table for meals – fun for everyone:

FUNNY

 

REAL

This is what happens when it’s bedtime and you’ve spit-up on all the boy and neutral sleepers in the house and you have a twin sister. My poor son – cupcakes and flowers and pink – it’s a trifecta of humiliation:

Dream Babies

Two nights ago Carl’s shouting jerked me upright from a deep sleep.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! WHOA! WHOOAA!” My husband was running across our bedroom, grabbing at the floor. I yelled, stopping him inches from the wall. He turned around, slowly waking up as he climbed back into bed.

“What was that all about?”

“I don’t know…some sort of mound…or…thing…was scuttling off with our children. I was trying to grab them. Just confirm for me – where are the kids?”

“Asleep in their crib.”

“Okay.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about our mutual sleepwalking-sleeptalking tendencies. Now, though, it’s not Rick Santorum’s baby that’s missing, it’s ours. A few nights a week, someone dreams that we’ve lost a baby in our bed. One moment our kid is there, the next it’s not. We wake up patting frantically at an empty pillowcase or tugging at the sheet, looking for an infant who was never in our bed in the first place. I know we’re not the only ones – my brother had the same dream when his firstborn arrived. At least things have improved since our first week with the twins; one night we each woke at least half a dozen times looking for lost babies.When not bleary-eyed and irritated at the sleep interruption, I find it fascinating that different humans have the same dream and such a strong urge to protect our kids.

At least sometimes the dream-baby is in our bed but not lost. Last night I laughed in my sleep, waking Carl.

“What’s so funny?”

“She just made a cute face.”

“You do realize she’s asleep in her crib in the other room?”

“……..details, schmeetails.”