So you say you want to get in shape...

but you're not exactly sure how to start. You've tried before, but failed and are currently convinced that your body is magic and just won't lose the weight.

I'm here to tell you, with some assistance from the internet, that you're wrong.

Your body is NOT magic. You CAN lose weight. You WILL lose weight. If you WANT to do it and are willing to put in the time and effort to do so.

The short version of this whole post is this (roughly in order, but that's up to you):

• Be honest with yourself.
• Set reasonable goals.
• Take pictures of yourself right now, in your skivvies and save it for later. You'll be glad you have that when you're setting up your "after" picture.
• Measure yourself (e.g. chest, waist, hip, thigh, upper arm). Track how those numbers change over time.
• Weigh yourself, but take what the scale says with a grain of salt and only track your weight weekly.
• Count (and track!) your calories.
• Weigh your food.
• Drink lots of water. No, more than that, lots of water.
• Sleep.
• Layer in exercise after you've gotten the hang of tracking your food intake.
• Give your body time to rest between workouts.
• Weight training is fantastic for both men and women. (Forget terms like "tone".) 
• Updated to add: My friend S (She of Red Flashlight) reminded me that it's also great to get support from your friends and family on your weight loss journey. More thoughts on that way down below.

Don't bother reading magazines that suggest you can get "bikini ready" in 6 weeks. Skip any magazine that tells you that you can lose X pounds in Y time period, and oh! here's the latest recipe for this great summer time dessert! All of those folks just want to sell you crap. Mostly the concept that you suck and that you need to be skinny and yet eat all of these yummy, well photographed convenience foods.

Weight loss is about calories in vs. calories out. The hardest part is being honest with yourself and properly tracking your food intake. Get yourself a kitchen scale and sign up for myfitnesspal.com - a calorie tracking website where you can log what you eat, track your measurements and progress.

"There is an inflexible law of physics — energy taken in must exactly equal the number of calories leaving the system when fat storage is unchanged. Calories leave the system when food is used to fuel the body. To lower fat content — reduce obesity — one must reduce calories taken in, or increase the output by increasing activity, or both."
-- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/nutrition/q-and-a-are-high-protein-low-carb-diets-effective.html?_r=1

Weigh your food. Eyeballing whether that chicken breast is 4 oz or 6 oz is not going to cut it. Start your diet by first tracking all the things you are currently eating this week. Note that you are the only one looking at this information and that if you lie to yourself about the data, you are not going to have significant progress in weight loss. The first step is to tell yourself the truth. After you've documented your actual intake for a week, I bet you can look right at the list of food you're eating and immediately know which kinds of foods to cut out.

Just in case you don't know, here are my suggestions:

1. Any liquid calories other than water, coffee or tea (I only leave those latter pair in because I know how hard it is to give up caffeine in our daily lives).
2. Candy.
3. Snack size anything other than vegetables.
4. Fast food.
5. Food ridiculously high in sodium.
6. Daily desserts.
7. Any food you eat that you justify as you "deserve" to have it, you've "earned it" or "you only live once". No one is trying to take anything from you. Remember that you have made the decision to lose weight. Thoughts that keep you focussed on food you're weak towards will only drag you down. Also, keep in mind that dieting is meant to be temporary. What is meant to be permanent is your relationship to food and the knowledge that you are what you eat means the difference between being healthy or unhealthy.

Over 1/3rd of the American population is obese. Houston, we clearly have a problem here. -- http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html/

Once you've started tracking, cut out the "low hanging fruit", it will be time to have a look at the rest of your diet. Is it primarily made up of convenience foods? Guess what? That kind of food, while fast to make, isn't good for you in the long run. Have a look at the ingredient list. Do you recognize those ingredients as food? It's time to eat real food again and it will take effort. It's up to you to decide how much effort you want to put into making food for your daily meals, but remember that you will pay for your choice with your health.

http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/

OK, so you've got your food under control, but you're desperate to lose weight so you're thinking you can lose 2 lbs or more a week if you starve yourself. Don't do it. My Fitness Pal will make suggestions, you get to choose how fast or slow you want to lose the weight and set your calories appropriately, but I'll tell you right now that if you're eating well in excess of 2500 or more calories per day, if you suddenly try to cut it all down to 1200 calories per day you're going to hate your life. And then you'll fail at weight loss again. Instead, consider trying to lose 1 lb a week. That's 3500 calories you would need to cut out of a week's worth of food - 500 calories a day. Want 2 lbs? OK, but that's 1000 calories, on average, every day. Set a reasonable weight loss rate as your goal that you can handle and stick to it.

You didn't gain all this weight in a month, you surely won't lose it in a month. It may take you years to lose it, if you have a significant amount of weight to lose. That's OK, though, because you're in this for the long haul. This is the only body you get and the sooner you stop taking it for granted, the sooner you will get healthier.

Take pictures of yourself, right now, just as you are today. Do it in your skivvies, or your bathing suit or your workout gear. That photo is the truth about what you currently weigh and what you currently look like. No matter what you may think you weigh, that picture is the actuality of it. You don't have to show it to anyone, but you do have to face up to it. It can be your motivation. It will be your "before" photo. Trust me, you'll appreciate it in a few months as you progress.

Take your measurements. Get a tape measure and note your chest, waist, hip, thigh and upper arm measurements. As you progress in weight loss, you may reach a point where you think nothing is happening if the needle on the scale isn't budging. It's very likely, though, that you are going through a period of body recomposition and are losing inches but not pounds. This is much more important to pay attention to than your weight on the scale.

Weigh yourself. Jot that starting number down. You can weigh yourself daily or weekly or monthly, but remember that your weight will fluctuate wildly depending on the amount of water you're currently retaining, what time of day you weigh yourself, whether you had a big meal late at night or any number of other reasons. I recommend weighing yourself first thing in the morning, but only tracking your weight once a week. Do not freak out when the number on the scale remains the same. That would be a great time to check your measurements again. Your body is an amazing instrument but all a scale can actually tell you is the effect of gravity upon your mass. That's it. It doesn't know the difference between the fat you or the more muscled you. Don't panic.

Thoughts on the scale from MFP:  http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/BruteSquad/view/the-scale-281137

Paper towel theory of weight loss. A great analogy. http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16540

Drink lots of water. No, more like lots of water. Eight or more glasses per day. First off, it will help to stave off feelings of hunger and will assist in weight loss. Often we don't drink as much as we should and it leads to snacking. It also helps to flush your bodies waste products. It's good for you and it's free. Squeeze a little lemon or lime in there if you want. Drink up!

Get some sleep. If you're sleeping, you're not eating and your body has a chance to rebuild and repair your cells as well as burn more fat.


Get active. I left this for last since this is the section I could rant on and on about, but honestly, if you aren't controlling your diet you can exercise all you want but you can never outrun your fork. Don't try to diet, run and lift weights all at the same time. You will get frustrated and quit. Layer in additional levels of exercise after you've gotten in the habit of putting down your fork and saying no to all of those tempting snack foods. There are a ton of sites out there that recommend doing this or that for losing weight. At the end of the day, it's all about controlling your intake and then getting a move on.

Start by walking. It's free and you already know how to do it. Track your mileage, speed and route with Runkeeper or any similar running program. If you're a goofy geek like me, join Fitocracy and sync your Runkeeper to your fitocracy account and get points just like a character in a video game.

Fitocracy is the game you play to improve your fitness. Track your progress, compete against your friends, and get real world results. It’s time to be fitter and look better naked.

Also, what could be more fun than leveling up, running fitness quests and making new friends online? Getting fit, that's what!

If you're feeling like you want a challenge, get off the couch and start running. The Couch to 5K program may be just what you need to move your weight loss along. Also, cardio is the first rule of Zombieland. It also helps you to keep up with your kids or pets or catch that bus. Very useful.

Weight training is awesome and filled with win. I highly recommend Starting Strength and have heard good things about You Are Your Own Gym, The New Rules of Lifting for Women and Strong Lifts. You will not get "bulky" if you're a woman. That's just utter crap. Also, how many times in your life have you ever wished you were weaker? Here's a great article on the myth of toning. There are so many fantastic resources out there related to getting fit, I can't possibly list them all. There's also an even larger helping of crap and lies. For a really great overall site, with a fun writing style, have a look at Nerd Fitness. He's awesome and so is Staci who shows us how it's done.

Get support from friends and family members. You know what else is great about losing weight? Doing it with someone else. Someone you can suffer with, share the highs and lows with, and with whom you can trade ideas or provide feedback on your weightloss journey. ("Honey, that 170lb squat makes your ass legs look fantastic!") It also makes it a lot easier to get into the gym if there's someone else who you, out of the goodness of your heart of course, have to ensure makes it to the gym. They need you to get them going. Sometimes it's easier if we play head games on ourselves, to keep going even when your motivation is low. Having someone else to depend on and who is depending on you is fantastic.

That being said, there will be plenty of friends or family members that will not like you getting in shape. That, however, is a topic big enough for a whole other post. It's incredibly important for you to be self motivated when it comes to weight loss since you are the only one putting the fork in your mouth. It's also why you may note that fitocracy.com and myfitnesspal.com are both social sites. Take advantage of the tremendous number of people - currently strangers - that are willing to give you a fist bump or virtual highfive for any attempt or success you post. Those strangers can turn out to be great fitness friends if you let them!

So you want to be in shape? Get up and get going. You can do it. Have a look at reddit's Lose It to see thousands of ordinary people, just like you and me, who are losing weight and talking about it. There's no magic. No way around it but hard work and sticktoitiveness.

You can do it.

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.

Caitlin Graduates

Another milestone has passed in Caitlin's childhood - she has graduated from elementary school.

A funny thing about endings and me: apparently I'm a sucker for them. I was ecstatic sending her off to kindergarten 6 years ago and yet immediately ready to cry the day of her graduation.

I know that everyone says time flies, and truly it does as you get older, but the proof is startling when you are suddenly faced with key milestones. That 5 year old turned into a 10 year old while I was watching, slowly but surely.

She's the same girl and yet not.

Tears started welling up in my eyes as soon as I read the opening poem in the program:

Congratulations! Today is your day. You're off to Great Places! You're off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go! --Dr. Seuss

It is true that she has brains in her head. I tried to get to them, but apparently I needed to work harder at it.

The song they sang after entering the hall, the words from their teachers, walking across the stage, all of it had me verklempt. The best and worst was yet to come, in the form of the video slide show that one of the mother's put together as a memento. Set to music, they had images from picture day from kindergarten morphing into the 5th grade photo. It was a very dramatic change from cherub-like cheeks and smiling eyes to longer faces and serious expressions. My mother-in-law noted that it's a lot harder to get Caitlin to really smile in photos these days, I know all about it. I think it comes from the embarrassment of ever having relatives that want to photograph you...ever. The happiest and most relaxed photos are when she's with one of her best friends.

Perhaps, like me, she has a height requirement for best friends? "You must be this tall to be my friend." It's not like we're short or anything. They are just tall! (You girlfriends know who I'm talkin' about!)

After the ceremony was over and my newly minted graduate was returned to me I squished her hard. I can't keep her from growing up, but I'll try like hell to pay close attention as she does so.

In Bloom In the Garden - Early May Edition

My mother and I were talking on the phone yesterday and she told me that she missed my blog. Clearly, I needed to get back to editing photos and writing again if even my mother was concerned! So here I am again, months and months after my last post.

I don't have a fantastic reason, or a million new stories to share, but I've finally had a couple of adventures and am editing the photos that go with them. Today, after reading a gardening magazine, I realized that I should probably go document what is currently blooming in my yard. I took pictures in April, but still haven't edited those. Perhaps this will get me started!

I have been gardening fairly constantly since the temperatures warmed up to 70 degrees in mid-March. I ripped out the majority of the plants in the Bees Below Your Knees garden and replaced them with blue and orange flowering plants and a few Blue Fescue grasses. The crazy floppiness of the 'Blue Hills' sage and the rampant wildness of the Keys of Heaven were making me feel a little twitchy. Also, I had a burning desire to see the California fuchsia's bright orange blooming near some cool blue, and started thinking of what else I could put in that 21' L x 3' W space that would look coordinated and low maintenance.

Bees Below Your Knees, now in orange, yellow, blue and purple (Not that you can tell from this picture...)! April 13th, 2012

If you click to enlarge, you'll see lavendar, knautia macedonia, California fuchsia, Johnny Jump Ups, Blue Fescue, Phlox subulata, 'Walker's Low' catmint, columbine, prairie tickseed, 'Rocky Mountain Blue' penstemon and a few leftover 'Johnson's Blue' geraniums. Considering that I just installed it in March and that the plants were all roughly pulled from locations all over my xeric garden, a good number of these plants are already blooming in May.

Here is what it looks like a month later, May 12, 2012.

I went to the Cactus and Succulent Society plant sale in late April and bought a pile of plants for my pots out front and for the deck.

Click to enlarge the above image

I'm beginning to wonder if I need a Gardening Intervention. When I saw the huge range of succulents I really wanted one of almost every type. Instead I filled a flat and called it good.

In the first image, the largest pot:

1. Starting from the back right corner: the strappy plant is a Red Yucca. It's actually a perennial that I will lift and put into the garden in the fall.
2. Middle right: Echeveria lauii.
3. Rt corner front: red sempervivum.
4. Middle front: echeveria 'Lilacina' 
5. Bottom left corner: Crassula volkensii 
6. Middle left: Graptoveria species
7. Behind Graptoveria: echeveria 'Black Knight' 
8. Behind and to the right of the 'Black Knight': Cotyledon orbiculata
9. In the center of the pot: Senecio talinoides 'Blue Chalk Sticks'

Squished in here and there are some random sedum that overwintered in a pot. They should fill in over the summer and look all spiff.

The next two pots have Red Yucca, 2 different forms of cobweb sempervivums (Cebenese and Baronesse), a 'Blue Boy' and an 'Oddity' semper, along with more sprigs of sedum that overwintered well. I love tough plants.

Sempervivum bowl 2012.

This pot was filled and overflowing with Oddity, Blue Boy and a surviving 'October Daphne'. I pulled everything out and started over. Now it has 3x October Daphne, 4x Blue Boy, 3x Oddity, 3x Limelight, 5x Baronesse cobweb, and 1x red I-can't-remember-its-name sempervivum, plus 2x Angelonia sedum and a good looking flat rock from the garden. Did I take a picture before I ripped it apart? Of course not.

My strawberry pot of sedums and sempers got a tiny refresh as well. I'm continually surprised at just how often my plants survive despite me. Whew!

Then there are the flowers going off right now. Here's a selection.

Top: Johnny Jump Ups, Flax, Keys of Heaven

Middle: Siberian catmint, Japanese honeysuckle, culinary sage

Bottom: Columbine, 'Walker's Low' catmint, Bleeding hearts

Top: 'Johnson's Blue' geranium, phlox subulata, 'Bowl of Beauty' peony (closed since it was so overcast)

Middle: Candytuft, Prairie smoke, Spiderwort

Bottom: Knockout Rose in hot pink, Carolina Allspice, Halls' honeysuckle

I've got tons more work to do editing the long shots of the garden, so I'll get to those. I also have a story about a trip out into Colorado's prairie where I helped to fix barbed wire fences with my girlfriend. I'll get to those in the next few days.

I hope you've all been well, while I've been working away in the kitchen and the garden!

P.S. Hi mom!

I Love You...You Make Me Crazy

There are so many things to remember that I am fast forgetting, I wanted to jot them down before they fade.

It's always amazing just how fast the kids grow up, isn't it? How quickly their language changes from baby talk and morphs into that of "real people".*

Aminals = animals
Yogan = Logan (Actually, any word that starts with "L", Logan pronounces as a Yuh. Yehgs = legs.)
Muse-kick = music
Lightning The Queen = Lightning McQueen
Chockit = chocolate
Peppah-oh-nee = pepperoni

They sleep in the same room, share toys (mostly), food, and laughter. Occasionally you can find one has crawled into bed with the other, clutching their blankies and fast asleep. Other times you'll be woken up by Logan wailing that Emma has stolen his blanket and you'll see she must've grabbed it and rolled over on it. Probably not on purpose, either.

Emma can stay up later than Logan without melting down and then sleeps like a log. Logan starts whining and is willing to tell you he's ready for bed at 6pm, but will wake up in the middle of the night hollering about one thing or the other. Is it nightmares? Is he just a light sleeper? Who knows! He's the first one to wake up in the morning, demanding food and clothing. He's ready to go to school at the drop of a hat. Emma will wait for you to choose her clothes for her, but won't act like you've asked her to fight off demons if you ask her to put on her socks. Unlike some people. [Insert hairy eyeball here.]


Logan whines more than Emma, but she's more likely to throw herself on the floor when melting down. He has worn a corner off of his blanket because that's his special sniffin' spot, but she holds it in the middle and sort of plucks at the raised fabric dots. She won't leave it at home when they leave for preschool, while he will. She likes milk, peanut butter and jam, while he won't eat nuts at all or drink milk that isn't in cereal or has chocolate mixed in. She speaks much more clearly than he does, but he'll correct you and say things like "Actually...[explanation]."

They both use ridiculous high pitched voices when playing together with their toys. It cracks me up every single time.

Logan will share food or toys with Emma at the drop of a hat. Emma will only share with Logan if she is done with something. Emma will snuggle you more readily than Logan will, he has to constantly remain in motion or the world comes to a firey end. They love to sneak into Caitlin's room and play with her things which drives Caitlin to distraction and me up a wall. I hate the sound of them fighting and when Caitlin** screams, "Logan!" in That Voice, I want to murder them all. They all love one another and hate one another. They play well together until they suddenly and ubruptly don't. I love the sound of laughing screams and chasing games until, suddenly, someone crashes or smashes another and all the laughter ends and the screeching begins. Then, it sounds like I live in the Monkey section at the zoo.

Emma is crazy about her baby cousin Maddie and cousin Natasha, while Logan goes nuts over cousins Axl, Max, and Daniel. If we ever get all of them in one room at the same time, I suspect the twins might explode from sheer delight.


Their faces keep changing, morphing into Who They Will Be from Who They Were.

Logan

Day 1

6 Months

Year 1

Year 2

2.5 Years

Year 3

Year 4

Today

Emma

Day 1

6 Months

Year 1

Year 2

2.5 Years

Year 3

Year 4

Today

Some day, very soon, they'll be starting kindergarten and I'll be left wondering where my babies have gone. While we still refer to them as "the babies", they really aren't, but "the toddlers" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, nor does it sound quite right. I guess we'll just have to start calling the twins plus Caitlin "the kids".

Frankly, I think I'll continue referring to them as "the babies" until I just can't anymore. 



* I'll add more words as I run across them. These are all of the ones I can think of at the moment.
** I will have a post about Caitlin, too. Never fear.