Traveling with twins

New York! New York! It's a helluva town!

And so very far away, one must hop onto a plane and fly there. To be honest, we did consider driving originally, but one more 5 hour trip to the mountains to visit Grammy convinced us that that way lay madness. Madness, I say!

So instead, we just went crazy and flew.

So we packed 2 bags for checking, 3 carryons (one entire bag dedicated to snacks), all three kids, one DVD, and books I knew we'd never have time to read and headed out. As I mentioned yesterday, getting through security was hellish, but once they were on the plane, they were fine. Logan sat in Eric's lap, while I held Emma and Caitlin sat next to me. Logan started grabbing at everything until he noticed the touch screen in front of him and then spent many long minutes pressing every button he could find. Eric was worried he was going to continually hit the call button for the flight attendant, but Logan couldn't reach it. Emma was just happy flipping through the in-flight magazines and reading a book about kitties.

And eating snacks.

We didn't have anything for them to suck on as the plane took off, so I was a little worried about the potential for screaming, but apparently if you're stuffing your face full of veggie straws, it works just the same.

The twins traveled beautifully!

Except that they didn't nap all day.

Eek!

We got to our hotel and then popped over to my sister's house to see the family. Mom was off baking the cake at my aunt's house (Apparently rueing the day she offered to make it in NY since no one has the gear for massive scale cake baking that she does at home. Well...except me, of course.) so we never saw her the first day and the bridegroom was suspiciously absent.

I got to meet my one and only niece whose shower, birth, christening and first birthday I completely missed out on (Sniff!), since she lives far, far away Canada. However, she forgave me once I turned on the charm and tickled her cubby little chin.

Cheek squeezing! Cheeeeeeek squeeeeeezing!

Let me put her into perspective:

"Tasha, I got dis remote and dis phone. You want 'nudder 'mote, you gotta get from Logan. Is OK, he big push ovah!"

Emma and Logan are 3 months older than she is. She outweighs them. Not collectively (Unlike some people! I'm lookin' at you, Mr. O!), but she is a hefty chunkalunka, as Jenni would say, and she is so incredibly sweet and soft and squishy you just want to eat her up with a spoon! The curly red hair! The velvety soft skin! The great big blue eyes! Eeee!

The twins never for a moment were concerned that I'd ditch them for the red haired one, though. Instead, they were busy exploring Dawn's totally-not-safe-for-children house and each was busy figuring out what they could and could not get into.

Emma discovered she could not get into my lap while I was taking pictures.

"Gimme up! Gimme UP!"

Logan discovered that Dawn had 2 or 3 remotes, each of which he was allowed to wander around with, so long as Emma didn't notice.

"Mine! You get you own!"

They also discovered my dad, who was a total sucker for Logan's patented "Ehn!" with "pick-me-up" extended arms.

Remarkably calm as he attempted to watch TV while Logan kept pressing the on/off button.

Dad kept marveling over how beautiful the twins were and it struck me that there's at least one upside to Alzheimer's. You can continually be amazed at the nice things you notice! He mentioned it several times, so it was clear he was really impressed by them. It was interesting to watch him respond so well to Logan who took to my dad straight away. There must be something about older guys - Logan is also madly in love with Grampy, here in Colorado.

We spent several hours chatting with my sisters and my brother-in-law until the twins made it clear that we needed to get outta there before they turned into piles of screaming goo on the floor.

The second day was a repeat of the first, and still there was no napping.

Traveling is hard on nappers! However, so long as someone was willing to hold them every time they wanted to be held, they were fine.

Oh, and the sleeping arrangements? One very small hotel room, five people, a queen sized bed, two cribs and a fold out couch. It was tight. However we all managed to sleep at least a little...just not the first night. The twins woke up at least 4 times and Caitlin tried sleepwalking for the very first time ever. Fortunately for us, the top latch was on, so she couldn't get out.

That's right. Sleepwalking.

I don't know where she was going, but it could have been very bad.

The second night's sleep was better and the 3rd night better still. Especially once the guy walking down the hallway cursing and playing loud rap music at 3 am checked out. Whew!

Isn't staying in hotels fun?!

Even though there aren't many photos from the first two days, rest assured that Caitlin did come with us and had a great time bonding with her cousin Daniel over DVDs and race cars. I was a little busy carrying a baby around. Sometimes even my own!

Then...on Saturday there was the wedding!

An open letter to the TSA

Warning: if you are easily offended by harsh language or verbal attacks on authority, skip this entry. Go check out ICanHasCheezburger. Yay! Kitties!

So, clearly we've returned from our Big Adventure (aka going to my sister Dawn's wedding), during which the twins went on their first train ride, bus ride and airplane ride, right in a row. They also got their first taste of Airport Security.

Let me take this opportunity to give a great big

FUCK YOU!

to the TSA!

Yes, I was the woman with the twin 18 month olds that you watched struggle through the line and caused at least a 10 minute pile up at DIA and again in the JFK airport. Why? Because when all 5 of us travel, that's a lot of gear.

1. Three carry-on bags.
2. Three children (Two screaming, one whining.).
3. Five coats.
4. Two umbrella strollers.
5. Two blankets.
6. Two stuffed cats.
7. Five pairs of shoes that you made us remove because God help us! if the twins should pass through security without taking off their shoes, they might possibly blow up an airplane. Or two. They're small and fast. You should see them get around when they're motivated!

Nothing makes a long distance trip by air travel complete without a ridiculous excuse to ramp up the waiting-in-line portion of your trip with stupid "security" rules!

Tell me exactly HOW does it make anyone feel more secure that we have to take our shoes off? Hmm?! One guy once made a failed attempt at packing some explosives and instead of investing in technology to make the airport security slicker, faster and smarter, your way to compensate for a one time event is to make everyone take off their shoes and have to check their bags (Don't even get me started on the liquid restrictions, you motherfuckers! That was also a failed attempt and it was determined that it never would have worked!) and walk through a metal detector.

Wait? What?!

This is the 21st fucking century! Figure this shit OUT!

And let's talk about the security level warning meter, shall we?

Turn that shit off.

No one cares about it anymore. No one pays any attention to the meters posted here and there telling us to be afraid in Orange! today. What the hell does that mean?! No one knows anymore and no one cares. The Administration of Fear is out of office, in case you hadn't noticed, let's clean that crap up.

In case you were wondering, holding a screaming twin in either arm, while having to take away their shoes and their comforting blankets is a complete waste of my time, yours and all the other people waiting in line behind us. No one is made safer by these rules. Three ounces of liquid? Shoe removal?

Oh and the fact that the wealthy/business travels can skip the ridiculous levels of security by buying a smart card or whatever you call it? That's just all kinds of wrong.

Since when is a government agency allowed to discriminate based on wealth?

Oh, that's right! Since always.

Let's just wonder, collectively, just how much all of these rules have cost the country by people deciding to not travel by air, shall we? Because I know this much: I won't be getting on a plane again anytime soon unless somebody dies.

So much for my tourist dollars! They'll just stay right here with me and within driving distance of my home.

There's nothin' like travelin'

To make you wish you could just stay home.

Why do we wait until the last minute to pack? Because we roll with the crazy just like that.

Uh huh.

So while you're seeing this Friday, I actually left yesterday. Uh huh.

See you next week! Bake something for me!

- Hatchet

P.S. Am absolutely freaked out about traveling on an airplane with the twins. I'm hoping it goes well. We've got enough snacks lined up to feed half an airplane. Let's hope no one wants to sit in the middle seat between us, eh?

Rollin', rollin', rollin'...!

Challah

Bored yet?

Me neither.


I'm constantly amazed at the things I'm willing to do when I'm feeling creative in the kitchen. Recipes I've had yet have never bothered to try before. It's not like I don't have at least 4 different cookbooks with Challah recipes, you know. I just haven't bothered to make it before.


It's pretty! And yummy! I think I see french toast made with Challah for breakfast very soon.

Braiding bread, by the way, is a very odd thing. Fun, but odd.

I wonder if my bread will be confiscated on the airplane on my trip to NYC? Let's find out!

Puzzled

I asked for a puzzle for my birthday (Thanks Scott and Sierra!) and received one. When I was asked what kind, I suggested 1500 - 2000 pieces and something interesting, not just a black circle or something equally obnoxious. They came through with Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

I was looking for a good puzzle to be in a photo I'm doing for my father's Memory Book. Mom asked for a photo and a happy memory I had of my dad. Here it is.

My father taught me how to do puzzles when I was a kid. We'd sit down together, either just the two of us or we'd include my brother and sisters, it all depended on who was most interested. Generally it was just Dad and I. No one else was either interested or had enough patience. Dad and I didn't do little kid puzzles, they were generally larger puzzles - several hundred to a thousand pieces. I can't remember what they were pictures of, probably paintings of ships or woodland scenes.

I remember that he had the most amazing ability to put a puzzle together. He could just pick up a piece and seemingly knew exactly where it went.

Snap! would go the piece into place.

He taught me to build the borders of the puzzle first. Then to move to something within the image that had a unique color or unusual pattern and pick out all of the pieces from the box that seemed to match it. If you could get little groups put together like that, pretty soon, your picture would start coming into focus.

As I sat down to work on this new puzzle I thought about puzzles and how they relate to life.

Often when you first open the box, all of those undifferentiated pieces can feel overwhelming. You might even want to walk away from the puzzle, and not even bother starting it. "It's too hard!" you might complain. You might even be right. However, many things seem hard when you look at them all scrambled, problems to be solved, laying in a heap at your feet.

First things first, though. Erect your boundaries.

They give you a feel for how things can shape up quickly. Also, setting them gives you a decided sense of satisfaction.

You'll note that while working on puzzles, sometimes you'll put pieces together that really look like they belong together, but they don't, really. Sometimes you might have those pieces snapped together for a long time until it suddenly strikes you that they really don't fit.

It's OK to be wrong.

Sometimes, you can just pick up a piece and, like my father, just know exactly where it belongs and put it there unerringly. Those times are wonderful and it always feels as if your brain is ticking along just so when that happens. When things are going well in your life and you're making the right choices - that's a heady feeling.

There's a lot of work involved in puzzling. Lonely work, mostly, since puzzles are often done alone. You can have help, so long as the helpers also have a lot of patience. Expect them to come and go as you obsess over your life puzzle.

It's a good idea to take interest in sections that appeal to you, even if it's just a small grouping in the larger picture. Sometimes that little piece can start a chain of events leading to bigger and better things coming together. It's as if a little forward momentum can put you in the puzzling zone and you just sort of recognize where many pieces belong. Snap! Snap! Snap! The image becomes clearer the longer you work at it.

Not everyone likes the same kind of puzzles, either. I like interesting images that are challenging, but not insane. Those circular all black puzzles? Not for me.

I like my life like that, too: challenging at times, but not insane. Pretty and complex. Colorful.

I hope I can teach Caitlin about puzzling, as my father taught me. Apparently he taught me more than I'd realized as we sat together, over 30 years ago, quietly building pictures together.

Thanks Dad.

This puzzle is for you.


All my love,

Hatchet

Beignets

The only thing better than bread is deep fried bread smothered in confectioner's sugar and jam.

My love affair with this book is not yet over.

I didn't know you could take brioche dough, roll it out, deep fry it and have a beignet! Well, until I did it, that is. This is dangerous knowledge!

My official taste tester.

Emma gives it her seal of approval.

In case you're wondering why Logan never gets to be the tester, he does, but inhales the food so quickly I can't photograph him eating it. Or else he rushes the camera with food in hand. [Shudder!] We can't have that!

The three of us just barely saved some for Eric and Caitlin.

Just so you know, beignets should never be 2" squares. So...should you dare to make this recipe, aim for 4" squares. Really.

And invite me over!

Fuh-fuh-fuh-forty!

I didn't make my own cake.

That's a first for me.

Eric didn't make it either. Instead, he ordered it from Glacier Ice Cream in Boulder.

Yes, I did just tell you that I had an ice cream cake for my 40th birthday. In March. Why not?

Let the singing begin!

I wish...I wish...! (Sierra looks horrified in the background. I think she was expecting a conflagration on top of my cake.)

I find it's hard to make wishes while people are trying to make you laugh. How about you?


It was Jamaican coconut ice cream, with a chocolate cookie crust. Yum!

I also skipped out on most of the photography until the very end. I had Misty do it, instead. Thanks Misty!

There were a few party-goers.

Sierra and Scott

Laurie and Dan

Heather

Misty

There was even dancing!

Misty and Oliver get down and boogie.

OK, maybe not a lot of dancing.

And a little drinking.

Sluuuurp!

OK, maybe not a lot of drinking, either.

It was a child friendly party.

Tara

Mini-Heather (aka Faith)

Mini-Lee aka The Cutest Boy Ever (The title holder from the Hatchet Household was sleeping.)

It went really well. I spent more time making gourmet pizza than I had intended. I suspect I will be like my mom and always be cooking in the kitchen during my own parties. Good thing I had the kitchen remodeled to make it so that I get included in the party! (Mom, maybe you should knock down a few of those kitchen walls.) However, the pizza, while unphotographed, was yummy. Yet another bread dough from the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book. It was cool to just have 4 lbs of pizza dough ready to go.

I would like to officially apologize to Eric for melting down on him the week before about the party and assuming he wasn't doing anything for me. Apparently I don't do surprises well. (I've never had a surprise party. He originally wasn't going to tell me about the fancy dinner the night before and described the party as a regular old spaghetti night kind of party and I was...bummed, to put it lightly. I spoiled his surprise.) Even though no one jumped out of a cake, nothing was set on fire, there wasn't any karaoke or bungee jumping, it went really well.

I had a great time!

And two pieces of cake.

Thanks Eric!

Putter Up With Extraordinary Grumpiness

I'll always share my cake with you.

Maybe you can bake for me next year! I'll let you practice on Caitlin.


Forty, huh? I'll get used to it.

Raw Meat and Snails

When one has only one night left to be in their thirties, what should one do with it?

Well, some people might go bungee jumping. Others might take up tap dancing.

Me?

Well, it only seemed appropriate with all of the whining to go eat some raw meat and snails. Worms, you see, were not on the menu.

Filet mignon tartare, lobster ravioli with beurre blanc, escargot with potato foam (and a cage made out of crispy potato!), kobe ribeye and more were on the menu!

And it was good.

I smiled. I laughed. We left the children at home with Grammy and Grampy. Eric and I got to eat and entire 8 course meal without anyone trying to scramble into our laps and grunt "Ehn! Ehn!" at us while desperately gesturing at something that wasn't right in the toddler universe.

It was heavenly!

Now I must say Adieu! to my thirties as I head off into this new world of my...my...forties.

Hopefully the food will be good there.

Hurtling towards 40

Litany of complaints:

1. What the hell?! Wrinkles? (Yeah, I know some of you are going to wish bad things upon me for complaining about this, but it's my midlife crisis! So nyah!)
2. Gray hair getting grayer.
3. I now have a marsupial pouch where I used to have a belly. Damn those 65 lbs! OK, it was a two-for-one deal, so I guess there'd be fallout, but damn!
4. My eyeballs are getting weirder and weirder. I found myself stretching my arms out to see a printed page more clearly - like my mother! But only for my left eye. WTF?!
5. My foot hurts. Why is there a bruise on my instep? Is it because I wore out my old shoes or is this some strange new foot malady?
6. My jaw aches some mornings as soon as I wake up. Am I grinding my teeth in my sleep? Why am I trying to rescue Robert Downey Jr. in my dreams, anyway?
7. My house is may be a wreck, but by god! I have fresh bread to eat every day!
8. Weight goes on and does not want to come off without serious applications of exercise.
9. Seven year olds can be big ole stinkers.
10. All babies, all the time.

Am I having a midlife crisis? Because I'm planning on living to 100, so this is a decade early, as far as I am concerned. Somehow, though, forty is really bugging me. It's got that whole significant birthday thing going on, with it's nasty little zero at the end of the number. I don't feel like I have anything to show for it.

No job. No career. My farm thing seems to have gone up in smoke. My friends are either scattered or incredibly busy.

I need to get out more.

I just spent a few minutes re-reading material I'd written in late September 2007 (right before the twins were born) and damn! I was funny! So it's nice to know that I can make myself laugh even now.

Maybe I should write more, although it's tough when you feel like all you want to do is complain. I don't want to be Whiney Hatchet all the time.

I'll be 40 (FORTEEEE!) on Saturday and had a meltdown about it last week. The only way out of it is to have an abrupt halt to all further aging, but that doesn't jibe well with my plans on being a centigenarian.

So. Any words of wisdom?

English Muffins

Hey! Guess what?!

I'm still making my own bread and now that the muffin molds have come in the mail, it's time to make English muffins.

I've gone through a lot of the recipes in the book and have made rye bread, semolina, brioche (with chocolate ganache and into cinnamon buns), etcetera, etcetera, and now I've made buttermilk bread! I noticed the openness of the texture on the buttermilk bread and decided it would probably be perfect for muffins, so now I'm giving it a whirl.

They're still rising as I type. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Feeling sad sucks, but at least I have fresh bread every damn day! Yarrrr!

So, turns out they need more like an hour to rise when starting with refrigerated dough, at this elevation, in order to reach the top of the ring. I also increase the baking temperature by 25 degrees (and only use 1 tbsp yeast in the main batch), so these were baked at 375, for about 30 minutes, instead of 20.

However, they are lovely when done. Next time I think I'll use semolina flour on the bottoms instead of the cornmeal I have. It's a whole grain cornmeal and possibly too crunchy! They did dome up, but I'm not a purist, so I love them anyway. After reading some of the comments on the AB5M website, I found I could probably put a cookie sheet over top of them while they cook to get both sides flat. Maybe next time.

The interior crumb is lovely, too.

Oh and did I mention that they're yummy?

Sorry, I couldn't resist taking a bite before photographing it!

I think we may be done buying bread at the store, so long as I have room in my fridge for my two bread proofing boxes. Which I do. I keep two different types of dough going, just to try all of the different recipes. It's been really fun, too. One may have brioche, while the other is buttermilk. Or whole wheat and peasant bread. The babies are loving it, as are Caitlin and Eric and whomever may drop in for dinner.

I've found that vital wheat gluten makes a huge difference in breads that have whole grains in them, so I do throw a tablespoon of that in per cup of whole grain flours. It makes a big difference at this elevation. After I've made at least one batch of each different type of recipe, I'll probably go back and start really messing around with ingredients, just to see if I can make the "perfect" (for us) loaf of sandwich bread. I like something with whole wheat in it, so it's not all white flour we're eating and Caitlin likes something with a softer crust. Eric is happy eating anything but the 100% whole wheat recipe.

Onwards!

Games babies play

In the car, running errands. From the back seat, a happy little voice says, "Mommy?!"

I respond, equally happy, "Bunny?"

A few seconds pass, then "Mommy!"

"Emma!"

"Mommy!"

"Emma!" It makes me grin from ear to ear.

This goes on for quite awhile, until Eric gets jealous. Finally, Emma says, "Daddy?!" and then Eric gets to join in. For some reason, we spent a good 10 minutes calling back and forth and were well amused by how happy it made Emma to make up a new game.

Logan, unfortunately, was too cool to join in. I think he growled once, just to let us know that he was still back there. Maybe next time.

Seventeen Months

Duet in Twin Minor.

I know, I know. I'm late on the monthly twin post! I'll make it up in photos, I promise.

Lots of changes, some big and some small. Logan continues to be musically inclined.

"Doe! A deer! A female deer!"

He continues to inhale food, depending on his mood. He really really likes fresh bread.

Logan gives rye bread his seal of approval.

Unfortunately, he continues to be difficult to put down on the floor. Is it the crumbs? Those are your own fault, buddy!

"Ehn!" A facial expression and a sound I see and hear way too often.

Emma has also been taking up the Never Put Me Down song of suffering as well. I tried to photograph her distraught face for you but she moved, instead you have a sweet bread chewing face.

How can you look at a face this sweet and want to put me down?!

The twins are very interested in books and reading and will sometimes allow you to actually read to them. Sometimes. Other times they just pull the book out of your hand and wander off with it, "read" it to themselves, switch it for the other twin's book or hand it to the other parent for reading. You never know. Many thanks to Heather for the new pile of books!

"Hmm...bahhh-deee book. Babies!"

Emma and Logan have been turning into chipmunks recently around snack time. They fill their cheek pouches full of food and hold food there unless you make them a better offer.

Don't make them a better offer. They'll just spit out what's currently in there to get to your new offering.

Food and books! Double yum!

They've been really interested in trying to feed themselves which is...um...kind of nice? Mostly it makes me insane if there's oatmeal involved. Goo everywhere! Aiiieee! They do pretty well with forks, if we're having pasta. You can never give just one a fork or spoon, though. Don't even think it.

Emma likes full service dining, while Logan is engaging in self-serve in the background.

I noticed the other day that Emma is finally cutting more teeth (Top pair on either side of her front teeth.). I think Logan may be as well, but he didn't let me pry his jaws open and take a look around. I don't know if that's why they seem more clingy or if that's just my imagination, but it's possible that teething very slowly still hurts, just over a longer time period.

[The rest of the photos are from our last trip into the mountains. The trip that convinced us that we're flying to NYC for my sister's wedding. Five hours in the car was too much.]

Photographic evidence that I still exist.

The twins have been getting into a lot of stuff recently. Emma is becoming more and more monkey-like - I caught her on top of the toy oven that Aunt Jenni bought Caitlin when she was three. She has figured out how to climb into and out of most chairs, but the sofa still seems beyond her grasp. Logan is not far behind. He just figured out how to get in and out of Caitlin's bathtub by himself. Clearly another reason we keep that door shut when they're awake.

Logan has also discovered that he can lift the toilet seat up. Oh and look! Water to splash in! Whee!

Aiiee!

Eric pointed out something interesting earlier today: we're at one of the most stressful points of baby-hood. They are fully mobile without the ability to fully communicate and are not potty trained. So we get a lot of the Ehn! face pictured above and screaming. While the twins are clearly demonstrating they have wants they aren't clear on just what it is that they want. Mostly they want to be held every single minute of the day.

Argh!

Logan repeats an iconic shot from Eric's childhood with Grampy's headphones.

One change that has happened slowly that Eric just pointed out today is that Logan no longer screams like you're killing him when you change his diaper. He still will try to roll over and escape, but he doesn't deafen you as he does it. Perhaps he's finally figured out that clean butt = happy butt?

Reading with Grampy. Logan was attached to Grampy at all times during this visit.

Emma is definitely ahead of Logan on picking up speech. Today, after finishing off frozen blueberries, Logan came to me and indicated that he wanted more. I gave him the sign for "all done" and then offered him canned peaches that Heather had made. When I pulled the jar out, the twins both got excited and Emma started saying "Pee! Pee!". We had to work on that and Eric and I kept prompting her to say peeee-chhh. Pretty soon, she was saying it! Logan was too busy stuffing his cheeks to care.

Grammy was jealous of all of the Logan/Grampy photos and wanted photographic proof that she held Logan at least once while we were visiting.

Logan is big into dancing. I wish I had a photo of that, but it's just a blurry shot of him with his cheeks full of food and a weird facial expression. Then again, boys often look funny while dancing....

He loves to dance and will start dancing as soon as he hears music. He indicates he wants music by Ehn!-ing at the CD player to get us to turn it on. He and Emma then will dance around the room with Caitlin and grin from ear to ear. They also like climbing into the empty tub and dancing there, too.

Don't ask why. I don't know.

Rest assured, however, that it's cute.

Emma and Aunt Jenni reading.

Here's something Logan learned away from home:

Boozin' it up with Grampy.

That little lush!

By the way, my son has now officially had more beer in his lifetime than I have had in mine.

I'm so not making that up.

Upon listening to everyone's winter blues advice (Get out of the house! Take vitamins! Get more sun!) we've been out for walks with the twins (and Caitlin when she's home) and we've gone to the park. The twins have discovered they love the slide and both said "Whee!" at the end of the run. They also liked the swings, although Emma needed a second try before she started "Whee!"-ing.

Emma also liked the chance to climb all over stuff and not get in trouble. She went right up the side of a plastic climby bit, but then couldn't make it onto the platform. They also liked the lop-sided spinny egg cup thingy, but I didn't. I haven't been that dizzy in ages and it made me frankly nauseous. Bleah!

I have to tell you, though, that trying to keep both of them in view or on a piece of equipment is almost impossible for one person. I could put one twin on the slide, but then the other would wander off. Fortunately Eric was with me, but Caitlin also needed attention, stretching our attention. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this on my own should the occasion arise.

It's been a hard winter for me, emotionally, as I've mentioned before. I do feel a bit better since getting outside more, even if it's just for a little while and taking my vitamins again. It's funny how you never really think about needing sunlight, but you really do.

The twins remain terribly, terribly cute. They're getting bigger every day (Although Emma is now obviously taller than Logan by at least two inches.) and funnier. They like giving kisses now, instead of just blowing them and will lean over and kiss one another while they're supposed to be nursing (Yes, we're still nursing. It's going pretty well, actually, and no one is more amazed than I am that we're still nursing.) as well as beeping the other's nose.

Or mine.

Or giving me kisses.

They often point out babies when we're in public. Seeing their own reflection in glass or metal or mirror is enough to get the cry of "Baby!" going from either of them. They will also point to the other twin and yell "Baby!", but never refer to the other as Emma or Logan, just baby. Funny, that.

When tired, they will lay their weary heads down on your shoulder in such a way that your heart can't help but melt. They will sign when they're tired most of the time and will curl up with their blankets for naps. Unless they're overtired in which case, their cribs are lava and you are evil, horrible and terrible for putting them down for a nap. How could you possibly think they were tir--

Thud!

The screaming of overtired babies is the hardest part to live through. It sets my teeth on edge and makes me feel crazy. Bedtime is often the worst time of day around here. We've been trying to get them to bed earlier so that Eric and I can eat dinner with Caitlin without screamy babies sitting in our laps.

We dream of the day when we can eat our own meals without anyone else sitting on our laps.

One day....

So if you ever want to visit during dinner, be prepared to share your seat and your plate with someone small wearing footie PJs.

It's OK, they say they'll share their juice with you.

On that note, my friends, seventeen months! Can you believe it?!

Waiting for winter to end.

So small and yet so big.

How do they do that?!