Ten Months

The main problem with having kids is the unrelenting monotony of every day chores.

A typical day:

1. Wake to crying (Logan). Might be 5:30 am. Might be 7:30 am. Hell, just for grins it might be 3:30 am and then again at 5:30 and 7:30. Who knows? The small people with the tiny tummies, that's who!
2. Nurse crying babies back to sleep. Unless it's 7:30 am. In that case, call sleeping husband in to help change diapers and then trundle downstairs for breakfast.
3. Chop up food into baby bite-sized pieces.
   
4. Throw food at ravening mini-horde. Repeat as angry, goat-like sounds continue (Logan). Until, of course, the tenor of the goat-like mewling sounds changes into "Get me outta dis chair!" sounds. In which case...
5. Remove from highchairs.
   
6. Hose down children.
   
7. Change diapers.
   
8. Set twins down in protected area for play time. Protected from them and for them. The only thing missing is padding on the walls or perhaps helmets for the Not Too Steady On Their Feet crowd. Tiny drunkards, I'm telling you. Maybe the apple juice is fermented?
9. Clean up highchairs.
   
10. Sweep floor. Are those two actually eating the food or just wearing/sitting in it? Here's where having a rental dog would come in handy.
    
11. Tenor of noises in protected area is changing from Enjoying Poking Sibling to Needing To Nap (Logan. Are you sensing a pattern here?). Remove from play area.
12. Change diapers.
    
13. Nurse.
    
14. Put down for naps. Ignore crying (Emma. Thought there was a pattern, didn't ya?) until either they're actually both asleep or it becomes obvious that someone needs a little more milk.
15. Put away previous night's dishes.
    
16. Wash dishes.
17. Discover dishes are multiplying on kitchen table, countertop and assorted other flat surfaces. Where the heck are all of these dirty pots coming from?! Freakin' dish fairies!
18. Somewhere in there around step 3, manage to make and eat something and get eldest daughter to eat. Or complain about food choices and eat. Or complain about lack of food choices and eat. Just eat already!
    

Just as you start to think that you can now get to that Oh So Important Project (Paying bills, working, cleaning, laundry, showering?, weeding, reading emails, strolling through your garden lustfully ogling green tomatoes, etc.) the crying starts up again.

Repeat steps 1-18 again, at least 3 more times during the day.

OMG! Where are all of these freakin' dishes coming from?!

Um. Oh! Hello! Twins. You want to know about them, don't you?

Yes. Let's see.

The twins are mostly sleeping through the night. Most some nights we get to sleep from 11 pm until 7 am and that is wonderful. Absolutely incredible! This sleeping thing: I highly recommend it. Then there are the other type of nights that involve waking up at 3 am and nursing again and those are a lot less than wonderful. A. Lot. Less.

The twins are both standing and balancing on their own a lot. They get great glee out of swaying gently back and forth while gripping a sippy cup in one hand and a fistful of my skin/shirt/hair in the other. Tiny drunks. I'm telling you! We've tried having them walk to the other parent or Caitlin or to a random assortment of friends and relatives, but so far they just sort of lunge towards the second person and then fall to their knees and crawl over. So I guess we'll just have to wait a little longer for walking. Soon though...soon.

Pretty soon. Some day. Ayup.

Babbling continues and is cute. We are somewhat convinced that they know who Daaah-deee is and that I'm Mom-mom-mom, but they're keeping any data on additional words very close to their tiny convex chests. No actual solid evidence that they say "Caitlin" or "kitty" or "Fooooood!", but we're always on the lookout for language development. In the meantime, we continue to work on Baby Sign Language and we keep repeating the signs for "more", "all done", "food", and "milk" whenever we have two hands free to do so. Logan responds to the sign for "all done" by reaching his out and up to me to be removed from his highchair (See step 5, above.). Clearly he understands me. The communication breakdown is all on my end. Where's my translator?!

Emma has started shaking her head no. She doesn't do it all of the time, just kind of randomly. I think she's checking to make sure I'm paying attention. I was offering her more (sign) food (sign) the other night and she shook her tiny head. Startled, I checked in by bringing the food closer to her mouth.

"Are you sure? More food?" Head shake with lips pressed tightly together.

Okay then! Pointing and head shaking. Genius?

Genius!

Geen-yuss!

Emma has also been a lot more confident around other people recently. She went right to Misty and Lee when they were over visiting. Perhaps it was because Misty smells like milk. Perhaps it was because Misty has a Oliver and thus Emma considers her "safe" or "domesticated". Whatever it is, Emma took right to her. She also really likes Aunt Jenni (Who babysat the twins, Caitlin and her two boys last night and let us go see The Dark Knight. Woo!). The feeling appears to be mutual.

"Dis our Aunty Jenni. She let us stay up late and eat Cheerios. Yay!"

Jenni, Cousin A and Emma.

Logan is still a massive flirt and still does the smile and head-duck thing. Meltingly sweet!

Logan practices his heart melting looks on Jenni.
She immediately offers to babysit again. Score!

Both twins eat a wide range of food now, which is very nice, although they did both turn up their noses at my zucchini. Phooey! See if I share!

I can't believe we're only 2 months away from the big One Year mark. It doesn't feel like it's been 10 months, but at the same time, with the serious lack of sleep my time sense has been completely hosed. It seems as if we're either getting into a nice groove or as if the additional sleep has made everything easier to deal with. Perhaps it's some of each?

"Zoom! Zoom! Maybe dey let me drive when I one? I bettah praktiss."

In short: life is good. Now in Ten Month Old Flavor!