Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Stats

Four shots, two flu mists, two finger pricks and associated blood collection. Loud crying (Molly, mostly). The girls both seem to have some minor skin conditions they may fight for life (to be confirmed by a specialist hopefully soon), but otherwise got a thumbs up from the doctor today. As always, Lily is a bit taller and weighs a hair less. Lily is 34 inches, 24 lbs 14 oz. (50th on height and 30th on weight), and Molly is 33 1/2 inches and 25 lbs (30th on height and 50th on weight).

Shots mean crankiness, so I listened to whining and crying on top of three loads of laundry, an emptied dishwasher, dinner cooked while the kids ran wild (Kyle was not home to help), perpetual toy clean up ... and of course my job had to fit somewhere in there too. An exhausting day I'd rather not repeat any time soon.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Lawrence Visit

Visiting my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas has not always been at the top of my list because of the effort in packing up all the kids and kid gear. Fortunately my own parents have indulged me by driving the short 35 minutes my way. But now that the kids are getting older, it's becoming a little easier to hop in the car and visit, although the twins' afternoon nap means we still have to accommodate that afternoon hard stop.

Today we took the twins over to visit Papa. We had a quick lunch and then enjoyed a walk on the beautiful KU campus before getting the twins home for nap time. Molly was cute trying to balance her new doggie on her head ...



... and here's a photo of the campanile ...



... and here are the kids enjoying the Chi-O fountain where just half an hour before college co-eds were rinsing mud off their fully covered bodies ...



And now that my vacation is coming to a close, I'm mentally preparing myself for the work grind tomorrow. We miss Auntie and Uncle already!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Birthday Party

The twins' birthday party was held today so that their grandmother and great-grandmother (four generations!) could also attend along with Auntie and Uncle. Fortunately, unlike last year, we had no crying over the cake and presents, and instead the twins (and Claire) were in super-sugared excited mode. What a difference a year makes.

The girls got tons of new clothes, a tiny Radio Flyer toy wagon, and lots of new Dora and dog books. We also had a balloon explosion in the house ...




... but the most important event of the day is that we became pet owners. Sort of. Claire got an early birthday present from Auntie and Uncle, and I agreed to letting Claire have a little tank of two miniature frogs and a snail. With a once-a-week feeding and a twice-yearly tank cleaning, I decided we could handle the care. Here's a photo of our new family members ...



kind-of cute, don't you think?

Friday, September 25, 2009

Happy Second Birthday, Molly and Lily


Can you imagine a more perfect girl cake than this? I certainly cannot. And yes, her cakes taste as good as they look. This lady also made our wedding cakes so I know she's well worth the hour-long round trip drive this morning.

Happy birthday to the twins today ... can't believe we've hit the magic "two years", but admittedly it's been a bumpy ride. We've got a busy day today - Claire and I are off to pick up Auntie at the airport soon while the nanny stays with the twins during their naptime. But somewhere inside my head, I'm having some quiet moments remembering the twins' birth and their first few days and months. What a ride we've all had.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

My Twin, My Friend

On the eve of the twins' second birthday, I am counting my blessings that we've made it here (somewhat in one piece), and also noting that I'm seeing more of the "built-in friend" interaction between the girls. Just from today, here are some photos that show their blooming play skills .... we've got the "copycat" idea here, and the "let me check out what you're doing" thing, and the usual "fighting over the same spot" concept, and the "I'm going to push you, in a slightly mean way" going on here too. And the peek-a-boo game. All this adds up to what my twin friends have told me: twins can be easier to raise than singletons sometimes. Just not in the first two years.






Staycation, Day Three

The twins and I went to the Overland Park Arboretum while Claire was at school this morning. We shared the park with some retirement village folks, so the girls got lots of attention. We even met another Lillian ("Lilly"), a lady in her 80s or 90s, which pleased me because I like to think of my kids' names as old-fashioned. After picking up Claire from school, we had lunch at Waffle House, got the twins a short nap (and wrapped their birthday presents while they slept), and then went back to Deanna Rose (animal park) for the afternoon. As always, the girls had a blast, and here are the photos ....







Tomorrow Auntie and Uncle fly in for the twins' birthday, so we'll be busy picking up the birthday cake, picking up Auntie at the airport, and enjoying all the visitors in the house all weekend. Can't wait for all the excitement! Claire is so thrilled she is bursting.

I am off soon for a nighttime outing which I haven't yet done this week, but is much needed before my official vacation draws to a close. A little adult time is always a good thing!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Staycation, Day Two

My "vacation" day today left a very unsatisfactory taste in my mouth: my sleep in time didn't happen (nanny let the kids scream and run wildly downstairs, unaware of my need to sleep), and then Claire tagged along all afternoon for boring errands (hair cut, jewelry cleaning, watch repair, etc.). So as the day closed, I had no real "me" time, and I didn't get any fun kid time either. I suppose I need to count the errands accomplished as a positive here, but I regret that a rare day off had to be used for such mundane tasks.

My hope is that tomorrow makes up for the lack of fun today ... now I just need to determine the plans for tomorrow!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Louisburg Cider Mill


This afternoon I took the kids to the Louisburg Cider Mill, where you can eat apple cider doughnuts, drink apple cider, watch how the cider is made, buy pumpkins, and climb hay bales. The crisp Fall air was the perfect touch for the afternoon event. Molly wasn't a big fan of the place (the cider machine noises scared her), but Lily and Claire had a pretty good time. The hay bales were a big hit with those two. You'll note Molly is non-existent in my photos because she had to hold my hand or hang onto my leg, which made it impossible to get a decent photo of her.

Sometimes I marvel that such bucolic scenes are only a 15 minute drive from my house ...


... and here are Molly and Claire enjoying the hay bales and checking out the pumpkins ...



... and it's just past 9:30pm, and this mom is tired! Tomorrow the nanny decided she did want to help, so I have a haircut planned for some "me time", and I might grab a couple extra books for the twins' birthday presents. Other than that, my plans are still up in the air, and I tend to like it that way.

Staycation, Morning One

Ahhhhhhh. I needed the work break. Today, the first day of Fall, kicked off my 'staycation' week (stay-at-home vacation time). While Claire was at preschool, the twins and I went to Deanna Rose (the animal park) for the morning. We had fun feeding the baby goats, checking out the cows, and watching the geese (but we needed jackets!). Here are a few of my favorite shots from this morning ...



A girl kindly offered Molly a goat bottle so Molly got to try her hand at feeding a goat out of a bottle ...


... and we went inside the goat cage for the first time, where the goats chewed on the girls' clothes ...



... and this goat wouldn't leave Molly alone, but she didn't seem too upset about it ...



After we picked up Claire from school, we had our usual Tuesday lunch at Arby's, the kids loved the furniture store I stopped in, and now the twins are napping before I wake them up for some more afternoon fun. And now I'm remembering the only downside to not having a real away-from-home vacation is I'm still stuck cleaning, washing dishes, and doing laundry. In fact, the next load is calling my name now ...

Sunday, September 20, 2009

A Claire Weekend

Between the nine hours at the garage sale yesterday and an afternoon with Claire today, I had a "Claire weekend" - lots of time with her, not as much time with the twins. Claire was super helpful at the garage sale yesterday, and fun on our outing this afternoon. I know I tend to post more twin photos, but today I'm making an effort at posting some Claire photos. I had to work like mad to get her to quit making goofy faces or frowning at the camera (which is why I so rarely post photos of her anymore), but I think I pulled off some good ones. We had a lovely snack of chocolate fondue with fun things to dip in it ...



... and we sat outside the restaurant and enjoyed the gorgeous weather together. The restaurant is in the exact same spot I took the twins' photos for the "product review" photo shoot, so I tried to get Claire to play along for some fun photos. She cooperated a little, and here are the results ...





... with the last photo being her idea to throw some tiny Fall yellow leaves in the air while I shot the picture. I love how it turned out! I also love the one of her laughing in the photo exactly like the lady on the billboard. This is clearly my new favorite place to take photos - the colors are fantastic.

Claire and I started planning her birthday party for about a month from now, and she's already impatient for the day to come. As expected, she's also quite opinionated about how the day ought to go!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Mom Friends

CNN.com posted a great article about friends that mothers need to have:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/09/18/p.six.friends.moms.need/index.html

I'm perfecting my select group (for sure I am missing the no-kids "cool" female friend), but I know this: my close girlfriends are absolutely critical to my sanity. I could live without a lot of things, but I would wither without these women in my life. The men in my life just cannot mind-meld on motherhood and a mother's daily balancing act like these women can. Validation from another mother has very deep implications.

A heartfelt thank you to my girlfriends, my fellow mother blog readers, and all the other mothers who enrich my life by offering me a place to feel safe and vulnerable at the same time.

Friday Is For Cheating

Friday, if I rig it right, is always about a little work cheating. If I get enough work done Monday through Thursday, my goal is always to take a "long lunch" on Friday and then quit working just after 4pm so I can get the kids out of the house for some fun a couple times in the day. Today the day fell into place. We had some fun at a park this morning ...




... and then ate lunch at Waffle House (I've never seen the twins eat so much!). While the twins napped, I worked and Claire played nicely by herself. Around 4:30pm, we entertained ourselves at a small toy store for over an hour ...



... and then I took the girls to dinner (Kyle got home from work too late to join us). A no cooking day! On the way home, I stopped at a stable where the horses congregate by the fence hoping for food from all the nighttime walkers. There were probably 20 or more horses by the fence and the girls were fascinated. While Molly and Claire hung back a bit, Lily went right to the fence and tried to feed them ....



... and she loved being close to them, until this one horse took a particular fondness to her, and he bent his long neck over the fence and started sniffing her head. Lily, looking quite small against the big horse head, was terrified and screaming for my assistance, while I was a little amused (I was pretty darned sure these horses were very tame and wouldn't hurt her). I missed the photo of the horse sniffing her head, but you can get a sense of the action here as Lily tries to run away, because Lily's protective elbow is at the bottom of the photo as the horse head looms over the fence ...



... and needless to say, everyone backed away after this scene. The funniest moment was when two horses decided to pee while we were standing there, and it was impossible to miss, so all three girls stood gape mouthed at the event. All the drive home, Molly said over and over "neigh, pee pee" [translation: the horse peed], and then went into fits of giggles. Again. And again. It was highly amusing (and reminds me of my recent gutter humor post).

I'm posting late Friday night, because I had the crazy idea to do this garage sale thing a second weekend in a row at my friend Jill's house this time. I just returned from the set up and need to be up early for the sale tomorrow. Good night!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Planning For Time Off

Occasionally, even a control freak like myself can let go. Today, for a first in my book, I let Lauren's mom pick up Claire from preschool so Claire could play at Lauren's house for the afternoon. I was firmly comfortable in this decision, and with Claire out of the house and the twins taking a full nap today, I got three uninterrupted hours of work time. Three hours is unheard of on a usual WFH day, and was much needed to catch up on all sorts of big and small work tasks. All along, I've been working against a September 15 customer deadline, and thought that once I hit 9/15 I'd be able to finally take that week of vacation I never took this summer. Instead, the customer pushed back its product launch, and I'm juggling all sorts of last-minute changes, and I'm sensing my vacation time is slipping away again. And I'm frustrated. Burned out. I really need the break. I have taken one vacation day this entire year, and that was the Friday Claire and I flew to Atlanta.

So I might just take time off, customer delay and all. I have already set aside the twins' birthday as a vacation day, so I might start adding on days next week. Or the following week. All I know is I refuse to let vacation time slip into cold weather time - I need to take it before we get much into October. I want to play outside all day long, visit a pumpkin patch, and do other outdoorsy things. And I want to take time off before we hit the first sickness for the kids, which is sure to slam us any day now that Claire is back in school. Oh, blessed summer of 2009, this was the healthiest we've ever been, and I thank the gods of health for our break from after-hours clinic visits. I dread the sickness cycle we will be entering soon, so I need a good week with the kids to remember fondly when we're in the thick of ear infections, fevers, and vomit this fall and winter. With vacation on the brain, it's now time for me to research kid's activities for the next couple weeks, so I'm signing off.

Oh, and thank you, Lauren's mom, for ensuring that Claire fell asleep before 10:30pm tonight. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing her little face at 11pm, still wandering the house looking for attention. Can someone please explain to me how an almost-five-year-old gets by on less than ten hours of sleep a night?

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Hug

I spied it from afar, a first for the twins: out of mommy's watchful gaze, the twins embraced each other in this beautiful, spontaneous (not requested by a parent) hug. I looked up from what I was doing and nearly melted.

And then I asked them to please, please keep hugging so I could catch it on camera, and amazingly, they held the position and allowed me to snap this photo ...


... which I will forever remember as the moment they first lovingly hugged each other in sisterly appreciation for their special twin bond. Awwwwwww.

And just to be on the up-and-up, this did occur last week, when I was too busy to post anything due to the garage sale. But the sweet moment has stuck with me, and when I think about it, I get a little choked up.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Sale

Folks, I apologize for the long delayed update. This is a first in my blogging history, and indicates just how busy I've been preparing for the four-family garage sale we held at our house today. For four nights, I individually priced three sets of clothes (from the first two years of all three girls' lives), and then last night put everything on hangers and hung them on the clothing racks we rented. We were high style! We looked like a consignment baby store - with clothing for nine kids hanging, we overflowed seven clothing racks. It was unreal. I also got just 5 hours of sleep last night, with a 2am bedtime not sitting so well with me currently.

Today the sale started out slow but gained traction throughout the day. Fortunately, Kyle helped with the kids (well, at least the twins) most of the day other than an hour and a half that was super difficult juggling the three kids and a sale. I was fortunate to have three other moms helping me, so I watched kids while they dealt with the buyers. Claire, of course, did a lemonade stand and made about $20 but spent a little on the ice cream man tonight.

Here's a view of the sale in action ...


... which even the twins found interesting, but by far the best kid entertainment of the day happened to be little Ella. Friend and fellow seller Jill brought over her baby girl for the day, and the four girls had this amazing calming ability on each other - the twins loved seeing a 'real' baby, Claire loved being allowed to 'babysit' a real baby, and baby Ella herself seem quite mesmerized by all the attention. It was all unbelievably cute (but no, did not make me consider having a fourth child - ha!). I took a few photos of the girls watching Ella roll around on the floor ...






... but the photo I missed was of all three girls lying on their tummies, eye level with Ella, watching her roll around - it was too cute! By the time I tried to snap the photo, Lily was off running around the house (per usual behavior), Claire had sat up, but Molly was still on her tummy staring as in the above photo. What I appreciate most about little girls is just how intuitively gentle they are with little babies. It's amazing and must be pre-programmed in us girls.

I expected reasonable success from the sale (and unfortunately, we still re-packed five large tubs of clothes we didn't sell today), but after I counted my take, I consider the sale a resounding success! I can now treat myself to that dream digital SLR, after, of course, I get a couple gift certificates for my birthday or Christmas (or both) to Best Buy. We pocketed just over $550 from the sale! I guess kid's clothes do have some re-sale value!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Gutter Humor

After dinner tonight, Claire and Molly were over in a corner of the room playing together. Molly got gassy, and she looked at Claire and screamed, "Me! Poo poo!". The two of them then erupted in giggles.

Across the room, I turned my head and laughed too. It seems the bathroom humor starts early. Glad to see the kids are fulfilling their family gutter humor legacy (*snicker*).

On another note, I am frantically preparing for an enormous four-family garage sale to be held at my house this coming Saturday. I've priced but one quarter of the kid clothes we are selling so it's likely I won't post much for the remainder of the week. I need to be heads down working on tagging all the kid and maternity clothes. Am I a tad sentimental about the items? Maybe a touch, but pregnancy and babies are now in my past, and it's time to dump the items and make some money off of the investment we made.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

A Tourist In My Own City

And now for the history lesson (as promised in my previous post). While Claire and I enjoyed the carnival, I also snuck in a small history lesson. Independence, Missouri is home to President Harry S. Truman, and while the town has sadly declined, the history remains. We saw a statue of Andrew Jackson that President Truman gave to the city ...





... and we learned the Oregon Trail started in Independence ...



... and we did a quick drive-by of the presidential museum, which I visited about a decade ago ...



The coolest part of the museum is that there's an exact replica of the Oval Office inside, which obviously still provides a sense of where our current president goes to work each day. We then drove past the Truman residence. It was termed the "summer White House", because Truman would spend his summers as president in the home, and it is also where he lived before becoming president ...



... the home is actually quite large, which the photo here does not show very well. As expected, most of the history lesson meant nothing to a not-quite-5-year-old, but I enjoyed the sights and felt some excitement about the prospect of having older children some day who can share my appreciation of history.

Santa-Cali-Gon Days

With Kyle on twin duty this afternoon, Claire and I had the opportunity to take a short drive out to Independence, Missouri to enjoy the carnival and see a few historic sights too (I'll post separately for the history lesson). Claire finally rode her first carnival rides, and I captured all of them on film. First she tried the flying elephant ride ...



... and then the roller coaster ...



... and lastly the canoe ride (where Claire seems to have her game face on for this relaxed ride) ...


... and of course I got sucked into paying for a couple of carnival games to win cheapy toys ...



... and we partook of the requisite snack of lemonade and funnel cakes ...



... all for a most satisfying afternoon. I missed being with the twins (really, I did), but Claire and I had some great mother/daughter time and I always love watching her have new experiences. I did a good job overlooking some of the seedier parts of the carnival because it's doubtful that Claire even noticed - she was taking it all in as a kid would, without noticing groups of swearing and smoking teenagers, or creepy looking men, or the lack of reasonable restrooms. It was also a bonus that our weather continues to be amazing and topped out around 80 degrees today.

Now if I could just return the noise-making horn she won in the fish game ...