Adventures on the Colorado Prairie

In early May, my girlfriend Misty asked me to run away with her for the weekend, go camping, and fix barbed wire fences.

Of course I had to say yes. Who would refuse such an invitation?! Run off to the middle of no where in South East Colorado? Volunteer to spend 2 1/2 days exposed to the sun, wind, stars and possibly rattlesnakes? Sleep on the ground, grungy and unwashed? Develop calluses and play tetanus tag?

OMG! YES!

She had volunteered to go fix fences for an organization she is a part of and suddenly thought of who else she knew that might be interested in going with her when she realized that I was the perfect sucker friend to ask. It took me all of 2 minutes to think it over and after verifying that Eric would be okay with being abandoned with the mini horde, I joyfully called her back and gushed, "Yes!"

We began the trip on a bright and sunny Friday afternoon, went grocery shopping to ensure that we'd have the bare minimum of food in case the folks we'd be hanging out with were only supplying food filled with Misty-poison (Gluten). After gathering supplies and many gallons of water, we headed East on our new adventure.

Alone.

Together.

Without the children.

Without the husbands.

Without any need to be anywhere but exactly where we were: together and driving off into the distance, laughing and talking and talking and giggling and being terribly rude, crude and silly just as we pleased.

Without interruption. For six hours.

If you have children, you know how incredible that experience is - to be all alone and have uninterrupted conversation. To do it with your best friend? Fan-freakin'-tastic! The time just flew. Even with stopping at two different grocery stores (And having been followed by a fellow shopper from one to the next...Creepy.) and assorted gas stations, becoming temporarily displaced (For the record we were never "lost", just temporarily displaced!) and finally finding our destination, it really only seemed as if we were driving for an hour. Amazing.

The place we were staying was a buffalo ranch in the middle of no where.

The road to no where.

Click to enlarge the photos. You won't regret it!

We drove down miles and miles of dirt roads that only had numbers and letters. The GPS unit had no idea where we were in the vastness of the Colorado plains. The landscape didn't roll so much as it unfolded before us as we drove mile after mile away from all we knew.

After fretting about whether we'd have access to running water and a coffee pot (For Misty, of course. After all, I'm a tea person!), it turned out that there was an entire house on the ranch. However, since we came prepared to camp, we set up our tent off to the side and thanked our lucky stars that we wouldn't have to pee behind a cactus. At night. With coyotes howling in the near distance. In case you're wondering, trees are few and far between out on the plains, while there are plenty of cactus and yucca. Colorado is basically a desert plain with those measly 14" of rain per year, thus no respectable amount of cover for covert urinating.

You've been warned.

After getting our sleeping arrangements worked out, we hung about and traded stories with the other weekend volunteers. Gardening stories were exchanged. Volunteering credentials were presented. ("I'm here because of the blonde.") That night, Misty and I stayed up way later than we should have, giggling and thinking about how much we resembled our own daughters at sleepovers. It was the first time we'd ever had one together! Eventually, after staring up into the infinite night sky that bloomed with stars and a radiant moon, we finally slept.

Then, typical of an early Saturday morning, we woke to the roaring of a lawn mower.

Outside our tent.

What the bloody hell?!

It was our host's way of waking us all up in a...distinctive manner. Well, we did need to wake up early to get the fence repairs done before it got too hot....

After mental threats of unspecified violence, we organized ourselves, slathered on sunscreen and drove to an unremarkable stretch of land that sported sagging barbed wire fences. There we received fence repair and rattlesnake avoidance instructions.

That's right: rattlesnakes.

For the record, I was utterly disappointed that there were no rattlesnake encounters the entire weekend. We did almost run over a bull snake, but they aren't deadly poisonous and thus are disappointing for near-death-seeking fence repair teams. OK, maybe that was just me.

He blends nicely into the background, doesn't he? Watch your step!

Then, tools in hand, our host set us loose on a half mile stretch of sagging fence that needed to be taken down so that it could be repaired, re-stretched and re-attached.

Grab with pliers. Unwrap post clip from wire. Remove mangled clip. Drop wire. Repeat ad nauseum.

Misty shows us how it's done.

The work wasn't hard...repetitive tedious, yes, but made much more fun when chatting with Misty and the other volunteers as we leap-frogged one another down the fence line. Hours later, with hands beginning to cramp and considering blistering, I took advantage of Misty's recent concussion to declare we needed a shaded rest back at the ranch for lunch. It was hot and she was clearly fading, while turning bright red in the sun. The fact that I, too, wanted a break was totally beside the point! (Wink!)

After lunch, a whole lotta water and a short nap, we returned to the blistering heat of the late afternoon sun and reclipped all the fence we'd unclipped after it was all re-stretched, repaired and ready to go.

Yes, all of that fence.

We had a little excitement in the form of cattle from the neighboring ranch that were interested in snacking on the greener grass across the way (The grass really was greener since no grazing was allowed on the conservation land we were working on. It was long and luscious and apparently too tempting to miss for the bovine crowd that snuck in through an opening while we were off having lunch.). Our fearless leader chased them off her land with cowboy-like prowess. That's when I learned that Colorado is what they call a "fence out" state: if you don't want cattle noshing on your land, you put up a fence or deal with the consequences.

The snack bar is now closed!

Most of the cattle easily crossed the road and hooked up with the rest of the herd, however there was a pair that were dumber than a pair of old boots that took off on their own down the road. Only after watching us repair the fence and then back the car up several hundred feet away from them, did they feel safe enough to come back down the road towards the herd. First, though, they needed to check to see if the snack bar was still open.

Seriously! One of the two walked to where the opening had been and then looked over at the car in what appeared to be a bovine glare before they finally crossed back onto the neighbor's land and shuffled off to the rest of the buffalo.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

That night, we had a full moon. The Super Moon, they said. Unfortunately, my photo doesn't do it justice at all. I blame my lack of previous nighttime photography experience.

I can attest to the fact that the night was incredibly bright in a way you can't experience within the city or suburb. Way out on the plains, where there aren't any other houses and light sources for miles and miles, it was huge, bright and stunning. The quiet of the evening wrapped around us; bugs hushed, birds made their last calls to one another, and the soft wind were the only sounds we heard aside from our own breathing.

That night the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up.

A lot.

So much so that it woke me up at 2 am to the sound of the tent flapping around us, and the tree above us creaking as the branches whipped back and forth. The light from the huge moon dispersed behind the thick clouds was so bright I could see everything clearly. I turned to Misty and suggested we might want to move indoors since sleeping under such conditions was impossible while also being somewhat dangerous should the weather get worse. She had to think about it for a bit and suggested that I could go in without her.

I reminded her that we were in this adventure together and that if she wasn't going to go then I certainly wasn't going without her. After she cogitated a bit more we agreed that we could weigh the tent down with gear from the car and take ourselves in out of the windstorm. For those of you unfamiliar with Colorado, we easily get 100 mph winds without having actual tornadoes tiptoeing over our heads, but being out on the plains it could have easily turned into a tornado. Staying outside just to tough it out just wasn't feasible. Inside we were quietly welcomed by our fearless, cattle chasing, leader. Turns out that we were the last ones to take refuge indoors. Heh!

The next day, after a few more hours of taking down and clipping back up barbed wire fences, we said our goodbyes and headed back home. This time, since we weren't in a rush to return to family, friends and all of those responsibilities we ran away from on Friday, we took our time and I took a few landscape shots.

It's been a long time since I've shot anything that wasn't short and related to me or a plant I grew in my own yard. I was worried that I'd lost my mojo. My chops are rusty, it's true, but they still appear to be there.

I present to you the barren beauty of the plains.

Yes, it's flat. Still not as flat as Kansas. 

This is the effect that rock gardeners want. 

So very flat and mostly featureless. 

Pointy devils. I don't plant cactus in my yard because I just know that I'll fall on it. 

I couldn't not photograph this after it immediately reminded me of Lois Lane's car in Superman. Now you know where it ended up. 

I love how big the sky is out here in Colorado. 

Mesas and yuccas. 

Scrub.

A quick picture of the intrepid explorers! 

Turns out that I like my prairie with more trees on it. Go figure. 

Turns out that cattle love yucca flowers like kids love ice cream.

Wild flowers on ungrazed land. 

You know you're way out there when you can stand in the middle of the road without fear of cars coming by any time soon. 

Giant hammer meets earth. How else did it get broken up that way?

A tree grows alone. 

As we drove home we declared our undying love for one another that we should repeat this adventure every year. While we won't necessarily repair fences every year, camping alone is definitely a must. Getting away from it all, even when you love all of "it" is a treat when you take one of your favorite people with you. Silly stories, new inside jokes, terrible food, good food, fabulous conversation, and uncertain outcomes are the stuff of a life well lived.

Even when there aren't any rattlesnake encounters.

I'm in real trouble now!

See what happens when you go visit your kid sister? You come back with a hundred ideas about how to organize your house and Oh! wouldn't it be nice to paint the bedroom and living room again and Oh! what colors should I use and Ooh! we need to build Caitlin a desk/cubby system and on and on and on.

Next thing you know you're falling down the rabbit hole of links and find wall art so sensational that you know you must recreate it in your own room. I'm doomed and here's the picture that doomed me (From Girl in Air's blog. Too crafty for words.). I searched her site thinking that I was looking at a stencil, but it turns out she used a projector and here are the step by step instructions from Vintage Revival's blog. Now I'm seriously all squee-y about those trees and the burning need to paint them in my own room.

No, those aren't going into Caitlin's room. I think I'm done there, other than the cubby/desk furniture. Fortunately for me, I bugged Eric until he couldn't take it anymore got Eric to start work on the desk yesterday. Today I started sanding and filling in holes while he put the drawer together. If I weren't so tired from being up at 3am with a screamy Logan (Why? Whyyyy did I offer to let them sleep with me last night?!), I'd be out in the garage right now priming that sucker.

I should probably take pictures, huh?

Tomorrow, in daylight, I'll take pictures.

Then I'm gonna bug the heck out of Eric to finish the cubby system until we can get all of Caitlin's crap out of our room so that I can start work on renovating our bedroom! Lemme tell you, it's a wreck.

I don't know about you, but my bedroom becomes a dumping ground for all of the laundry, books, confiscated toys and books and other debris that needs to find a home. The main problem with it being our room that I've waited so long to work on is the fact that I know the Diderot Effect will get me. I will want blackout shades that match those in the kids' rooms instead of the ones we installed 16 years ago. I'll want to rip out the carpet and replace it with bamboo flooring to match the rest of the house (Why didn't I just do that when we had the floor installed during the kitchen remodel 9 years ago?! Clearly I'm a blockhead.) and then I'll need to update all of our trim to white to match Caitlin's.

I already gave in to the idea that once I started changing trim out that I'd then have to do the whole rest of the house. Bit by bit.

The problem with me is that once I have an idea for something, I wanna do it now! Now! NOW! Quick! Before my inner slacker takes over!

I can just feel Cindy laughing at me in Canada and my mom shaking her head at me and mumbling something about "not doing anything by halves". Again. Yeah. Fortunately (?) for me Eric is on the critical path (Project manager speak, there. Don't mind me.) to getting stuff built, so I have to move at his speed. His speed, when compared to mine, is often...lackadaisical. (Yeah. Second definition down.) Good thing I'm good at pushing motivating him.

[Breaks out the coconut cupcake recipe.]

If I ever...

decide to write a book about, you know, all this [Wild gesture to encompass crazy household of 2 year old twins, 8 year old girl , 2 cats, 1 husband, several thousand plants and a dying, weed infested lawn and the skeletal remains of a vegetable garden.] I have a title.

You know, in case I can ever sit down and write anything. Also assuming anyone would read such drivel.

The title?

Remain Calm.

Don't steal it. It's totally mine.

I'm warnin' ya!

Twenty Three Months

The twins want you to know that they plan on partying hard in just 26 more days. Yes, indeed.

Since they survived their wild attempt at mountaineering in their bedroom, I thought you could use a few photos. Also? I'm late on the 23 month update. Surprise!

Emma stares deeply into your soul. "Cookie?"

Emma wants you to know that in addition to her fabulous verbal skills (Chatter! Chatter! Chatter!), she's also a great mimic. She's taken to imitating Caitlin, at Caitlin's worst, to me. As in, the other day she turned to me and folded her little arms together: harrumph! And then grinned. See? It's cute when you're small, but not when you're 8.

The food thing is still and on-again, off-again issue. Some days it seems like they won't eat anything but carbs and then other days, they chow down on coconut curry chicken soup.

"Yum!" Logan has the best grin.

That was my soup, just so you know. They won't eat on their trays, but pop them in your lap and poof! All of your food disappears. I dislike it when it appears all over the floor but am OK with it going into their tummies.

While the twins still are madly in love with having baths, they don't really like being told that it's bedtime, unless there's a lot of this going on:

So tired!

In which case, they'll happy climb the stairs lickety-split and head to bed.

Up the stairs! Up the stairs!

It seems like they're just a little bit away from walking up the steps like big kids. Just a little...bit...more. I'm not in a hurry, though. Logan will occasionally practice going down the stairs by holding onto the bannister, it's very cute. They'll also hold your hand and walk down the "normal" way, as well as up, but they'd really prefer that you carry them.

Emma, aren't you coming?

As has been the trend all along, Emma continues to be taller than Logan. I point this out because it's really obvious in the next picture.

"You ready yet? You so SLOW!"

She's got at least 2 inches on him and uses it to her advantage. She gets on and off chairs, sofas, boxes, bookshelves...you name it, she climbs it. She's been trying to climb in to the cribs and can so long as the side of the crib is down. Luckily, she hasn't tried to climb out yet. I'm not quite sure how we're going to handle the transition to regular twin beds yet. There are no other rooms for them to sleep in, so they'll still have to share a room, but I'm not certain how much sleeping will take place once they can actively get in and out of their own beds.

Note that they haven't figured out how to open doors yet, so we're safe from that skill for a little while longer.

"You ready for night diapah, yet? I hep you get ready."

Their language skills have taken a big jump this last month. They are saying many different words, bunches of them are quite clear, too. Emma said "Monkeys!" very clearly today in response to a picture. They make many different animal noises, with a nice roar being the clear favorite. They also listen pretty well to direction. Especially when you say something like "Get him!" This is the result:

Strange blue tones are from bouncing the flash off the very blue ceiling. Whoops!

Looks like a hug...


No! It's a take down!
Emma drags Logan down, giggling.

"You OK, right?"

But she also checks to make sure that he's OK.

They really like to tickle one another and chase each other around screaming. Chase games are even more fun if Caitlin and I are involved. Of course, the volume goes way up if that's the case.

There are still plenty of hugs

Squishes!

and kisses

Mmm-wah!

going around, but you never know when it's going to go from gleeful hugging

into a wrestling match,

complete with hair pulling.

Good thing Logan thinks it's still funny.

Recently, Logan has been waking up in the middle of the night and screaming his tiny head off. I'm not sure if it's teething (they're still getting teeth in) or if it's because someone didn't eat enough at dinner, but it's no fun. He squeals like a stuck pig. LOUDLY. Then there's all the guilt from hearing him call your name over and over again. If you go in, he calms down, but only as long as you're in there. As soon as you leave, he screams louder.

Somehow, Caitlin sleeps through all of this. It's amazing.

Last night I went in armed with water and a muffin and after he'd calmed down, fed him the muffin and water. Eventually he let me leave without too much additional screaming. Emma woke up and stood up in her crib. Since it was pitch black, I couldn't tell for certain but I'd swear that she fell asleep again standing up next to me. After putting Logan back in his crib, I picked her up and laid her down. Not a peep out of her. Poor, tired monkey!

They love going 'side (outside) and will open the back door, if you leave it unlocked, and wander out. The only problem is that they're not safe in the backyard.

Or, rather, the yard isn't safe from them. They rip green tomatoes off, willy-nilly. Rip flower heads off with great abandon and make mommy cry. It's bad enough when the mice do it. So it's become impossible to garden with them in the garden, which means my garden currently looks like hell. During the day, it's too hot to weed and at night, while there's still light out, I'm busy making dinner. Sigh. Maybe in the fall?

The twins have discovered a great love for the playground where Logan will fling himself down the slides like a maniac. Emma follows, but at a much slower pace. She's more than willing to climb to the very top of the structure, but is less willing to just go down the slide once she gets there. Both of them have an unnerving tendency to change their minds and suddenly want off the level they're currently on and will back out over space. You have to be ready to grab them at a moment's notice. Park trips aren't easy with only one parent.

Logan's favorite vehicle is currently the plane. Whenever (and I mean whenever!) he hears one flying overhead he will start yelling "Fly! Fly! Fly!" until you acknowledge the fantastic sound of jets flying over.

Oh and he wants you to know that any round, reddish fruit is an apple. Even if it's a peach. It gets called an apple. You can insist all you want, he doesn't care.

On the potty training front, I haven't even tried, yet. If you have any recommendations on how to do it for twins, let me know in the comments. I'm worn out before breakfast is over. Having to stop and try to get them to sit on the potty? Not happening. Yet. Maybe we'll try a crazy weekend approach. I don't know, but I'm willing to listen to suggestions!

That's it for now. Now for a quick quiz. Which baby is which in the following picture without scrolling back up?

They look most like twins from back here. Can you tell which is which?

Make your guesses in the comments! The winner gets a warm feeling of satisfaction from being right. You know you want it!

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!

Twelve Hours

The most amazing thing happened yesterday!

We put the twins to bed around 6:30 pm after having stuffed them full of food and especially rice (They went crazy for it and ate and ate like little piggies!) then they nursed the tiniest possible amount and went to sleep. I fully expected them to wake up between 10 and 11 pm for one last nursing before it became Eric's turn to fend them off in the middle of the night but...the cry for milk never came.

They slept.

And they slept.

And they slept some more until it was 6:30 am and I was exploding with milk. When they finally woke, I dragged myself out of bed, tired but grateful. It was only when I got back into bed that I found out what time it was and that they'd slept for 12 hours. Woo!

If only I'd gone to bed at 10:30 as I had planned! Instead, since I kept waiting for them to wake up, I wasted all of that sleeping time! Aiee!

Tonight I think I'll try harder to get in bed before midnight. I might even get some real sleep!

Is it a trick? Is it a phase? Is it the beginning of something wonderful?

Oh please! Oh please! Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease!

Updated to add: It was a trick! For woe is us! The screaming started at 1:30 am and didn't stop. Then Caitlin woke up (she never has before) and started screaming for the screaming to stop. Strangely enough, that didn't work. Then there was the screaming for the person with the milk who was attempting to hide from all of the screaming but couldn't. Finally, the Milk-Giver arrived and

the screaming

abruptly

stopped.

Time and its lack

Have you ever noticed how no matter that everyone has exactly the same number of hours in their day, somehow you never have enough?

That somehow two babies can conspire to fill up every single moment of your day with their needs, even though their needs are relatively small. Yet, somehow, we're always in an endless cycle of feed, clean, play, sleep.

To give you an idea, here's a typical day:

Wake, nurse, feed breakfast, put down for first nap, eat breakfast, spend an hour cleaning up the disaster zone they leave behind, sit down to catch up on emails for 5 to 15 minutes and pow! The twins are awake again. You can leave them to play with each other in their cribs if they continue making happy sounds. As soon as the sounds turn to cries, it's time to pull them out, possibly nurse them, feed them lunch, put them down to play for awhile, each lunch yourself, start cleaning, put them down for naps when they get cranky, finish cleaning and sit down for a minute or try to work on your own projects for a moment - but wait! Now it's time to get Caitlin from school.

Repeat the first cycle after picking Caitlin up and then it's dinner time. It's only after dinner that we have any time to ourselves.

Earlier today I skipped out on clean up and went to go play with my compost. I sifted a huge pile of it yesterday and spent about an hour today with Eric shifting the current pile into the middle bin to start it heating up again. There was a good article on how to build your own 3 bin composter in the November issue of Organic Gardening (Thanks Janet!). So if you don't have one, but were thinking about getting or making one, I'd recommend a 3 bin (BTW, they didn't pay me or anything, I just like OG and love composting.). You would be amazed how much we keep out of our trash stream by composting everything we can and almost all of our yard waste. I toss the seed filled weeds and bindweed, as a general rule.

After sifting about 160 lbs of finished compost, I had the best feeling of accomplishment. It's so hard to get anything that takes longer than a few minutes together done that I really enjoy beginning and ending a task in the same day.

Maybe tomorrow I can rake a few leaves or start cleaning up the front yard.

Dream big, Hatchet! Dream big!

How do you get anything done?

Ten Times a Night

The twins are trying to kill us. Again.

On Tuesday night and well into Wednesday morning, they woke up ten times*.

Ten. 10!

We were a little wrecked yesterday, as you might guess, and then Eric decided he'd forgotten what it was like to go to lunch with the little beasties. So we went out, and he was reminded. Forcibly.

Imagine being at lunch with the Tasmanian Devil, only there are two of them, and they're really happy and they want to share that happiness with everyone within earshot (and possibly some dogs, too). Oh and they want to eat your food, play with your utensils, throw anything you hand them onto the floor and smile gleefully at the waitstaff.

Yeah.

Who could forget that?!

Ah well. Never you mind. There's always next time. Perhaps it was the sleeplessness that drove that memory out of Eric's head?

From today's Baby Blues strip. One of my favorite comics!

* We suspect teething or a full moon or evil fairies were involved.

My own brand of stupid

You'd think I'd learn!

No.

Visit from Girlfriend + Yummy flavored black tea for 3 days in a row = Caffeinated breastmilk.

Caffeine + Twins = No naps.

No naps + Hyper Twins = Cranky babies.

Visit from GF + Staying up waaaaay late = No sleep.

No sleep + Cranky babies = Cranky sleepy Hatchet lusting after caffeinated teas.

You see my problem?

The twins have no caffeine tolerance. That's the problem!

Whaaaat? Don't look at me like thaaat! [Shifty eyes.]

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!