13 Months

Once again, my attempts to take a cute picture of both kids together fail to achieve fruition. So this is all we've got:


See how they look kind of annoyed and ticked off? That's because they are. There are some cute times still, when Nora and Milo will laugh at each other or play little games together with the curtain, but mostly they're into antagonizing one another. And thus we enter...the toddler stage.

There's a great book I've been reading about toddlers. I think it's called "Your one year old: fun loving and fussy." It should really have been called "Your one year olds: they start out all cute and nice, and then they will slowly turn into cranky, self-absorbed monsters from hell." At least, that's the impression I'm getting from the book.

So whenever Milo and Nora are in close proximity to each other, they become aggressive in turn. Milo will yell at Nora. Perhaps he'll try to steal a toy for variety's sake, but that's not a necessary part of the ritual. Nora will then yell at Milo. Milo will then yell back, louder. Nora will then grab Milo's head with both of her hands and place her mouth on his forehead, yelling the whole time. At about that point both kids will collapse on the floor and start crying angrily. Then I'll intervene, re-direct them, and enjoy about 30 seconds of peace before something else upsets them.

The kids are doing some lovely things, too. For instance, Milo has developed a love of hugging anything soft like stuffed animals (or the cat). He'll roll all over the object of his affections, and occasionally that object will even be me and Jake, which is nice. Here he is hugging a polar bear that he got for Christmas from his grandparents:


Milo is starting to take some steps. He can walk 6 or 7 steps in a row, now, if he doesn't get too excited. One of Milo's favorite games right now is to have us balance him up on his feet, let go and scoot back, and then he'll walk towards us. He's so delighted by this that he'll laugh the entire time, and stick his tongue out in sheer joy. Often Milo will get so excited that he'll start trying to run forward, plunging head first into our arms. So his excitement can sometimes get in the way of him really practicing at those balancing skills that he needs for walking, but I know he'll get it down pretty soon.


Milo has developed some new words, like "school" and "boom" for when he knocks something over (like a tower of blocks). He's also saying car, sometimes, but we don't have enough exposure to cars right now for that concept to really take hold with him. He's still saying "ball" about 700 times a day, along with his other favorites, like baby, dada, mama, done, hi, and kitty. Milo also likes to raise one hand in a greeting, without waving it. He'll just...hold it there, upright, which bears an unfortunate resemblance to some sort of sieg heil salute. I've started teaching him to give me five when he does that, which he loves to do.


Milo remains fascinated by the telephone. When it rings he'll look at it and say "eh?" and then pretend to talk in a weird voice. He has a toy telephone that he likes to play with, too, but of course nothing reaches the fascination level of the forbidden real telephone.

Milo is a cuddler. I can still get him to cuddle in my arms sometimes, which is nice.


Milo has developed a weird issue with eating solid foods. He often decides that he doesn't want to rather early in the meal. Switching to a different food will pacify him for a while, but then he'll refuse the new food, and we're then reduced to placing some finger food on his tray and slipping in spoonfuls while he's occupied with playing with the finger food. Frankly, it's a real pain. I don't want mealtime to become a battle. At the same time, he can't get away with only eating a few spoonfuls. I think Milo's entering the tough stage at which he wants some more control over how he does things, like feeding himself, but he doesn't have the coordination to really do it himself yet. This has got to be really frustrating for him. I'm giving him as many finger foods as I can to help him have some autonomy over his eating, but of course there is a lot of stuff that he doesn't like to touch.

The other night I enjoyed watching Milo pick up a piece of macaroni and cheese and disdainfully toss it over the side of his tray, and then eat all of the smoked salmon instead. What kid eschews macaroni and cheese for smoked salmon? Meanwhile, the cat lingers under the high chairs and snatches up any bit of stray food. It's almost as good as having a dog.


Milo remains a great sleeper. He regularly naps for 2 to 2.5 hours, and sometimes we have to wake him up. He wakes gently and happily plays by himself in the crib if we don't get him right away. This kid is a real dream when it comes to sleeping.


Basically Milo is pretty mellow these days, as long as Nora isn't bothering him. Or rather, as long as he's not bothering Nora because he seems to be more the instigator right now. Other than that, and the eating thing, he's pretty happy. Milo enjoys his walks and his toys and his books and climbing the stairs and chasing the cats, and going after the plastic on those damn windows every chance he gets. He does it all with a general glee that's enjoyable to watch. He's fun to be around right now.


Nora, on the other hand, is turning into a bit of a cranky toddler. She's cranky when she wakes, cranky when she plays, cranky in the morning, cranky in the evening. I have no idea why. Teething, perhaps? Hah ha ha ha ha! She still doesn't have any teeth. On the bright side, Nora's language is really growing. In addition to the old standbys of mama, dada, hi, night night, kitty, done, and ball, Nora is also saying "shoe", "bye bye", "boom", "diaper", "nice", and "no".

The last two are my favorite. Nora has learned "no" from when I say it as they approach the windows. Now when Milo goes for the window, Nora will tell him "No!" and shake her head. But the funniest is when Nora herself decides to go for the plastic on the windows. As she's doing it, she'll say "no" and shake her head. She associates the word "no" with the windows, but totally doesn't get the purpose of the word. I think for Nora "no" means "playing with the plastic on the windows."

The other funny word that Nora uses is "nice", which is what she says whenever she hugs one of us or a stuffed animal. She'll hug us and then she'll say "nice". It must be because every time one of the kids hugs something, I tend to say "awww, that's nice."


The other big thing with Nora is that she is really walking now. She's pretty good at it and can turn around, and navigate around things, and side step, and do all sorts of fancy stuff. Walking has pretty much eliminated our need to provide Nora with any toys. She doesn't want to sit and play, she just wants to walk. All day long. She's happy just walking back and forth, all around the living room and the dining room and the kitchen. That's pretty much what Nora likes to do with her time.



Nora is doing a great job at eating solid foods. For instance, tonight for dinner she had mushed up chicken with vegetables, then some green beans with rice (mushed), then sunbutter, then yogurt, then smoked salmon.

It's good that she is doing well with her solid foods because she is pretty consistently rejecting the bottle, so the amount of liquids that Nora consumes is pretty low. I think a toddler this age is supposed to still drink about 24 ounces of milk. Today, Milo had 16 and Nora had 3. It is frustrating because it's very difficult to make up the calorie difference in solids. But there's not much I can do about it. I have spent more than a year now obsessed with figuring out how to get Nora to drink, either nursing or from a bottle, and she has always hated it and I'm sure always will. She is also not a big fan of the sippy cup or the straw cup. The only exception is if I put juice in the sippy cup. Then Nora will drink some, but I don't want her to get in the habit of drinking juice and only juice all the time. In fact, before the kids were born my plan was to never give them juice, just milk or water. Hah. Nora won't drink milk from any kind of cup, and she won't drink water, period. Man, these kids with their individual preferences and personalities and everything, who do they think they are?



Nora does enjoy showing off her little tricks, though, which is a saving grace in the midst of all of this non-drinking, non-sleeping, crankiness. She'll hold out one finger when you ask her how old she is. She'll show you her nose, her ear, and her belly. She'll show you the sign for "more" and for "eat" (but she won't use these signs to ever indicate that she, say, wants more to eat). When Nora's getting cranky I'll just cycle through her tricks, asking her how old she is, what an owl says, where her belly is, and she'll smile despite herself at the chance to show these things.


13 months is somewhat challenging, but at least she's cute.

The Never Ending Struggle

Now to post something good, Nora slept through the night last night, and Milo slept through until 5:50.

The last time Nora slept through the night was Christmas night, Dec. 25. Around that time she would frequently wake about once a night, but sometimes sleep through. That continued, and turned into twice a night on many nights. I did what I always do, which is to go in there and comfort her very briefly, and then return her to her crib with a pacifier, place her bunny in her hands, and leave. She would go back to sleep again.

So once a night turned into twice a night, and then last week it started getting worse. Sometimes three times a night. Sometimes more. Not often. Saturday night, though, she woke up several times and was awake for about two hours in the middle of the night. She also woke Milo and all four of us were awake for a significant portion of the night. At that point I realized that my strategy of going in quickly to comfort Nora right away was making things worse. Even though my visits were brief, I got the impression that she was expecting it more and more.

So Sunday night I returned to the old sleep training habit of waiting 5 minutes before going in to comfort her. If Nora were to start crying hard or get upset, I wouldn't wait, but typically she doesn't do that. She'll make some noise, quiet down a little bit, whine or cry, quiet down, talk some, etc. So waiting 5 minutes doesn't mean that she's screaming in agony or anything. Nora woke at 11:30 or so and I waited 5 minutes, and she was still making noise so I went in and comforted her and put her back to bed. At about 2:30 she woke again, and she woke several more times through the night but my memory of the whole thing is blurry. Each time I put on my glasses and looked at the clock to wait 5 minutes, and each time she quieted down and went back to sleep by herself before the 5 minutes had passed.

The other thing I did differently on Sunday night was toss about 20 pacifiers into her crib so that she'd have no trouble finding one if that happened to be what was bothering her.

And then last night, she didn't wake (or at least didn't cry or make noise) at all. Having written that, I'm sure that Nora will wake tonight. I'm not naive enough to think that we've solved anything here. It'll probably be years before Nora reliably sleeps through the night. That just seems to be who she is no matter what I do. But it's good to remember that Nora is a very responsive little person. She seems to get the gist of things pretty quickly, and when I make a small change like waiting 5 minutes, she gets the picture. She was in such better spirits this morning as a result of actually having gotten a decent night's sleep.

I know we'll be dealing with sleep and Nora for a long time. Some kids are just better sleepers than others, I think, and we've got two who are rather on opposite ends of the spectrum. But for the moment I'm glad I made a change that will hopefully work, at least some of the time, rather than letting things get worse and worse for both her and me.

One last note about sleep -- sometimes the kids have a little bit of trouble going to sleep at night these days. If Milo is keyed up at all, he'll stand up and start jumping up and down in his crib. If Milo does that, Nora will do it too. Then they feed off of each other. So basically we'll put them to bed, say night night, leave, and then they'll get up and start jumping up and down. So far, we can settle them down if we go back in once or twice, make them lie down, and leave. But I'm just waiting for the day when that'll no longer work and they'll realize that they can jump up and down for an hour if they really want to. I hope it doesn't happen because I really like having them in the same room, and I don't feel anywhere near ready to separate them yet.

Not. Fair.

After 10 days of eating less and exercising more, I have not lost a single pound. Not even half a pound. I actually don't understand how this is even physically possible. It is so discouraging. I have never believed in dieting but maybe I do have to actually go on an actual diet to lose weight. Again, super discouraging. I guess it is harder and harder to lose weight the older you get? I don't know. I feel like crap. Now I will go to the Y and work out and at least feel physically better for a while after a night of being up from 1:30 - 3:30 (and before that at 11:30, and again at 6:30) with Nora. Maybe it is impossible to lose weight when you are chronically sleep deprived, who knows.

But the Workout was Nice

Today Nora and Milo spent almost an hour in the childcare room at the Y and when I was walking down the hall to get to the room to pick them up, I could hear Nora's cry before I even got to the room. She was crying the high-pitched hysterical cry that she almost never cries, the one that I hear when I'm getting out of the shower late at night and Jake has been holding her for the last 5 minutes and she's been inconsolable and saying "mama, mama". So...yeah.

Apparently she'd been fine until about the last 10 minutes but had been pretty unhappy for that last 10 minutes. Milo was fine. So now I have some mixed feelings about leaving them. 

The people working in the childcare room are pretty good. They immediately knew Milo & Nora's names today and they hold the babies/toddlers when they start to get fussy or upset. They play with them. So it's not like Nora was sitting in a corner crying. She was being held and crying, but still, is that unacceptable? Or do I need to just toughen up and not raise a couple of overly-coddled kids? Parenting is so hard. I have never done anything in my life that has been so filled with uncertainty and constant second guessing. It's like, when I started doing this a year ago I was clueless, and now I'm a whole year into it and I'm still clueless!

There's been a discussion going on over at Dooce about whether parenting is harder or marriage is harder. It blows my mind that this would even merit a discussion. How could anybody find anything harder than parenting? Parenting is a hundred, a thousand times harder than marriage. Jake is an adult who can take care of himself. When he takes a dump, he cleans it up himself. He can feed himself and dress himself. He's also a nice, reasonable person who doesn't scream for no apparent reason at the dinner table just to hear the sound of his own voice. Jake doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night. I'm not responsible for his safety or his cognitive and emotional development. He pretty much just runs on his own. Being married without kids involved things like taking naps whenever I felt like it. Parenthood took all of that away in one fell swoop. 

Being with the kids is fun, funny, exhausting, delightful, and frustrating. Behind it all is this constant low-grade worrying that never ends. I think that some people are just sort of naturals at being parents, and they take to it like fish to water, and I thought that I would be one of those people and it turns out I'm totally not. It's all alien to me and I feel like I'm walking around in a pitch-black house feeling the furniture with my hands and trying to figure out the lay of the room without ever knowing if I'm going to stumble over a footstool. Marriage is nothing like that. It's stress relieving rather than stress producing. I feel like I know how to be a wife to Jake, but I don't know how to be a parent to Nora & Milo so I'm totally faking it all the time.

Above are some photos I took today of Nora exploring technology. I have so many more pictures of Nora than Milo because he naps so much longer than she does. I probably spend an additional hour to two hours with Nora every single day compared to Milo because he sleeps so much more than she does.

Walking and Bear Hugs

Revealing my Town

Our neighborhood was written up in the paper today for, of all things, its ice rink. This ice rink is right in front of my house and all day long kids are out there skating on it. I'm looking forward to when Nora and Milo are old enough to skate on it, and maybe join in the hockey games.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/index.php?ntid=431378

It's Fun to Stay at the Y-M-C-A

Last weekend I took Nora to visit the local gym I was thinking of joining and I was less than impressed. The gym itself was fine but the playroom seemed a little...off. I don't know why. It was a little dingy and there was a t.v. blaring (granted, an older kid was watching it) and the young women watching the kids didn't seem very enthusiastic. It didn't leave a good taste in my mouth, so I kept looking. I found some other options with better childcare facilities, but they were out of my price range. Then I visited the YMCA, and it was great! The childcare room has no television and it has a separate gated off area for littler babies who can't walk yet. The staff greets you when you enter, and they're all certified in CPR and anti-child-abuse training and all sorts of other things. It was bright and cheerful.

So today I took both babies there for a trial run. I dropped them off, hanging around for a while with them, feeling a bit worried because it was the first time, after all, that I'd dropped them off anywhere for any kind of child care thing. But they were into all of the new toys and stuff and barely noticed me. They didn't care when I left.

I was gone for about 40 minutes and Nora was fine the whole time. Milo was getting a little fussy towards the end, they said, so when I returned somebody was holding him. They had tried to give them bottles but they weren't interested even though it was a little past time so I sat there in the room with them and fed them both. If I could actually get the babies to drink their bottles when they're in childcare, I could then have more than 30-40 minutes to work out, which would be fantastic. But the people working in the room don't really have the same, shall we say, persistence that the twin whisperer has when it come to getting them to eat. I guess I have to accept that not everybody is the twin whisperer, and it's not going to kill the kids to spend an hour in childcare where they're competently watched but not, you know, fawned over. Which is pretty much what the twin whisperer does when she's here.

So Milo and Nora seemed to like it just fine, and I'm glad for that. I feel weird about leaving them somewhere, even for a little while, but I think it's important to get over that because eventually they're going to have to, like, go to school and stuff. Eventually they'll get hurt when I'm not around, eventually somebody will be mean to them, eventually they'll cry and I won't be there to soothe them. It's all going to have to happen eventually.

And oh, that 35 minutes that I had to myself? Oh man. Perfection. It felt so wonderful to be there, to run, to do things that I can't do when I run with the kids, like listen to music. And not deal with them if they get fussy and fight. In other words, I could actually focus on what I was doing and zone out, get into that awesome place that you go when your body is working really hard and you're not thinking about anything, for once, you're just enjoying the sensation and the music. I missed this. It is such a terrific kind of happiness, that feeling you get after half an hour or so and everything is running smoothly, like a well-oiled machine, and you push yourself to go farther, faster, work just a little harder, and your face is red and you're sweating up a storm and everything is just perfect. I have missed that feeling. I don't know why I waited so long to start doing it again.

I have to remember that Nora and Milo are growing up quickly. Eventually they won't be drinking bottles, and they're going to drop their morning nap, and I'll be able to have, say, a whole hour to myself with maybe even some time to stretch afterward instead of rushing back to them to make sure they eat or drink. We'll get longer stretches of time in, and that's going to come sooner than I realize. Even this time next year everything is going to be totally different as far as scheduling goes, and I'll have bigger chunks of time to do things with the kids.

Tonight, I feel great. We'll go back on Thursday.

Photos

Nothing's more fun than sitting on a box.


Let me just reach in this box a liiiitle more to get that toy...whoops!

All Things Baby

So Milo has been taking a few steps here and there, grinning hugely as he does it and we clap and clap. He's been doing it for a while; almost as soon as he let go to stand on his own, he started trying a step or two. Meanwhile, Nora's been standing by herself for weeks now but never took a single step at all. She wanted to get steady with the standing and balancing first.

Then we made the huge mistake of letting Nora grab onto our fingers and walk with us as we walk backwards. Both babies love this sort of thing, but Nora loves it best and she wants to do it constantly. The problem with this is that adult backs hurt when they're constantly hunched like that, and we just can't do it without a break here and there, at which point Nora freaks. right. out. I mean, we're not just talking crying, or screaming, we're talking full-on tantrum on the floor, complete with pounding her fists and kicking her legs. I keep trying not to laugh during this hilarious outburst, but it's hard. Nora is very insistent, too. She'll constantly crawl up to us, pull up on our pants, and seek out our hands, grabbing onto our fingers, and then she'll jump up and down and yell at us, which roughly translated means "Come on, let's go! Walk, you giant people whose job is to fulfill all of my needs immediately! Walk! Walk!"

So yesterday we were in the playroom and Nora stood up on her own, at which point I immediately scooted back 10 paces and she then proceeded to walk across the room towards me as Jake and I clapped and cheered. She then did it again. So both of them are taking steps now, which I guess means the beginning of walking? Of course it might be quite a while before they're actually walking walking, instead of practice walking.

I thought of the walking milestone as sort of like the crawling milestone. When each baby started crawling, that was it. One day, they weren't crawling, and then, they were, and that was that. I guess I assumed that walking would be the same, like, one day they'd just start walking and then they would never crawl again. But Milo and Nora aren't really doing that, instead they're practicing with their standing, and taking a few steps here and there for fun, but when it's time to get somewhere, they crawl. So I guess it's more of a gradual evolution.

Milo really goes for Nora's toys all the time, trying to steal whatever is in her hand. Then we get another outburst from Nora. I was glad to see that over the weekend Nora has developed a defensive maneuver in which she twists her body away from Milo, shielding the toy, and then crawls away while holding it. He's usually fine with playing with something else at that point, not up for the challenge of chasing after it when it's being actively defended, and this way we avoid the resulting yellfest.

I need to teach Milo some different words. He is seriously obsessed with balls, ball is by far his favorite word, and lately he's been saying it constantly. Any remotely spherical thing, the light, the clementines on the counter, the head of a snowman, is "ball". Because of the clementines on the counter Milo has to say "ball" about 800 times whenever we eat a meal. This morning he woke up early and when Jake went into the nursery he found Milo in his crib, chatting to himself and saying "ball" over and over again. I am getting sick of "ball". Milo also knows kitty, night night, done, hi, bye, and baby, among other things, but I think it's time to branch out more and teach some different words. I was trying "book" for a while but he wasn't into it. Milo did learn "school" but that is such an abstract concept that it's a little hard to reinforce.

Nora's latest word is "shoe". She'll also say "night night" when she's getting tired and ready for her nap. Nora also says kitty, hoo hoo (for an owl), hi, bye, mama, daddy, and done. She'll say ball sometimes but nothing like Milo.

One weird thing about Milo is that while he adores small balls the size of a tennis ball, we have a bigger ball (maybe a little smaller than a soccer ball) that frightens him. It is made of that super soft rubber, and I don't know if it's the size or the way it feels or what, but we've had to put it away for good because every time Milo sees it he starts crying in fear.

Both kids also say "baba" with an associated sign that they made up, and I have absolutely no idea what it means. The twin whisperer thinks that it's their name for her, and I'm willing to go with that, but who knows. They say it almost exclusively during meal time (solid meals, not bottles, and it doesn't mean bottle).

That's pretty much all that is new in babyland, or I guess I should say, toddler land!

Too Old for This

Jake and I had a night out tonight, just the two of us, which hasn't happened in a long time. The worst part is that we were pretty much ready to go home by 6:50 p.m., but we didn't want to go home right in the middle of the kids going down. So after dinner we walked to a nearby cafe for some coffee, and by 8 p.m. we were dead tired and ready to come home and hit the sack. It's now 8:37 p.m. and as soon as I hit "publish post" I'm going to get in pajamas and go to bed. As we were driving home, Jake said "having kids is like having chronic fatigue syndrome." I had to laugh. I guess the problem is that I'm so dang old, too old to have babies, and I just can't deal with exhaustion and sleep deprivation the way I could in my twenties. Man I'm tired!

2009

Nora has been very cranky over the past few days. She must not be feeling well or something. I don't even want to say it's teething because I always say that and it never is. Every time I put her down or try to walk out of the room she freaks out and starts screaming. I hope she starts feeling better soon. Milo is still his happy little self.

I have been struggling to find a way to give the kids some more variety so that they don't get bored cooped up at home all day every day. In the summer and the fall we took walks all the time, and we could play outside, but now that it is so cold we can't rely on that anymore.  When it gets too cold for a walk, even, then what can we do? I have been looking around at various baby/toddler activities or open gym type things, and the biggest challenge is that most of them have set hours that happen in the morning, smack dab in the middle of Milo and Nora's nap. They still nap in the morning as well as in the afternoon, so the only big chunk of time we really have is in the late afternoon when nothing is open or scheduled.

So I can take them to the mall and let them play in the germfest that is the play area, or....hmm. What else can I do with them? Then I realized that I could join a gym. This would solve several problems at once:

-- The gym has a supervised playroom that's open in the afternoon so I can drop the kids off there and give them some variety.

-- The gym will give me a chance to work out when it's too cold to take the kids out in the jogging stroller, which it is most days.

-- Getting some kind of better work-out schedule in place (other than my lame 3-mile walk to and from work) will help with getting in better shape.

I weigh more now than I weighed this time last year, 3 weeks after the babies were born. That's pathetic. I weigh more now than I have at any time of my non-pregnant life, and it's time to stop. None of my clothes fit and I'm sick of it. I haven't really gone crazy with eating or anything, so the only thing I can think of is that I don't exercise like I used to because, of course, it's impossible to get anything like that done with the kids. So if I join the local gym and can drop the kids off in the playroom, my hope is that they'll get some variety into their day while I get some much-needed exercise time on my own.

When I lived in San Diego my apartment complex had its own gym that was free and 30 feet from my front door. It was filled with nerdy grad students and visiting professors, and it was kind of dingy, and small, and completely non-intimidating. It was just my kind of place. I used it every day and that was eventually how I started running (I started on the treadmill). I'd much rather find something like that, but on the other hand a) I'm not a grad student anymore and I don't want to run into my own students at the school gym, and b) those places don't have childcare. So I'll give this a try and see how it goes. I definitely have to do something about this weight problem, pronto.

I've never made a health or weight-loss NY resolution before. But it's time. The babies are a year old, they're done nursing, and it was reasonable to give myself their first year to just recover and cope and deal. Now it's time to move forward and get healthy again.

2008 was a big year. The babies went from being mostly out of it to being real little people. I went from barely being able to walk around the block to being able to run again, all while pushing a heavy stroller. Jake and I learned that sleep deprivation is hell on a marriage (and life) and the only saving grace is a sense of humor. Thank God Jake has a great one. I had an article published, two accepted for publication, and two submitted. I traveled for the first time and spent two nights away from the babies. Jake ended his business and started his graduate program. The babies learned to sit up, roll over, crawl, pull up to a stand, stand alone, eat solid foods, and talk. 2008 was a hard year but it got better with each passing month, and I hope that 2009 will continue along that trend.

Above are the kids' eyes. I can tell immediately whose is whose, but I don't know if it's that obvious to everybody else.

Hi! Hi! Hi!

I have trouble sleeping unless I take medication to help me sleep. I'm always waiting to get woken up. This morning after a fitful night (for me), Milo woke briefly at 4:47 a.m. After that I tried and tried to fall back asleep and was still trying when Nora inexplicably woke for good at 6. Usually they sleep until about 7 or even 7:30, so I don't know what the deal was. It was a hard morning. The kids were a couple of whine balls due to being tired. Sometimes I get very angry when I'm up and I'm not supposed to be up.

In brighter news, Milo took a couple of steps today! It's only been a few days since he started standing up on his own, which Nora has been doing for weeks and weeks now, and all of the sudden he's starting to take a step or two. The best part is that he loves standing up on his own and he laughs and laughs when doing it.

Nora says "night night" now whenever it's nap or bedtime, and she has also started saying "shoe". She has also perfected the ability to hold up one finger when I ask her how old she is. The kids' receptive language is just great.

I have been reading about kids aged 1-2 and have learned that 18 months is supposedly a terrible time. The social, eager-to-please 12-month old becomes a defiant, crabby 18-month old. So I guess I'd better enjoy this age while it lasts. It's great to come home and have both kids yell out "Hi! Hi! Hi!" over and over again.

These are the stories of parenthood

We're now banned from the family restaurant at Black River Falls.

Other than the banning incident, we had a decent holiday trip. Jake and I woke up to a sunny Christmas morning free of any snow or sleet or ice (well, except all of the stuff lying around on the ground). We packed up the kids and ourselves and headed out to the twin cities. When we got to Eau Claire, it was time for the kids to eat and we tried in vain to find something that was open. Everything was closed. We soldiered on, and eventually came to a truck stop attached to a Burger King. Sounds kind of awful, especially if you don't eat burgers, but actually it was just fine. They had high chairs! And the restroom had a changing table! And the kids ate lots of food for lunch, and I enjoyed my mid-day caffeine treat, and there were other families with babies there, cute, friendly babies. Nora and Milo had a blast. Once back in the car they slept, and we eventually made our way to Jake's brother's house.

Jake's brother and wife and parents spent about an hour with us before they took off to go to somebody else's house for dinner, leaving us all alone on Christmas. Fortunately, I had packed a dinner for us in the cooler, so after we fed the kids and put them down, Jake and I had a simple dinner than ended with a couple of clementines. We then had the rest of the night to ourselves, because his family didn't return until after we'd gone to bed (despite it being, you know, Christmas and everything). So we used that time to do something that families without televisions always do when they find themselves in the presence of a television: we watched old reruns on tv, like the Cosby Show and Star Trek.

The television, by the way, mesmerized the kids. It was on a lot when we were there and Nora and Milo sort of turned into zombies when they watched it. It was a strange thing to behold.

Anyway, the kids had a blast the next day. There were stairs to climb and toys to play with and cats to chase and a bunny to pet, and a pool table to play on. Milo loved the pool table, because it had so many balls, which is Milo's favorite word. So his grandpa set him on the pool table and Milo played with all the balls, constantly saying "Ball! Ball! Ball!" Meanwhile Nora was over in the corner playing in the cat's water dish.

Jake's brother has the kind of house where the Christmas tree is all coordinated. All of the lights on it were white, and all of the ornaments were white. No handmade ornaments from 1st grade, just pristine white balls, icycles, and snowflakes. It sat adjacent to the enormous flat-screen television that dominated the room. Under the television were many fancy electronic doodads and gizmos, and nearby was the slate coffee table (think sharp edges) with fancy glass figurines. You get the picture. It's not the kind of house for kids. I could see Jake's brother wincing every time either kid approached, well, anything. Of course, with so many buttons to push and figurines to topple over, the kids were in seventh heaven.

Today we headed on home, happy that we'd be able to stop at a place better than Burger King. Which led to our Black River Falls disgrace. We saw a sign for a "family restaurant" coming up, and figured that'd be the perfect place to stop. It's a family restaurant, that means a place for people like us, right? A place that will have high chairs and a kid's menu. A place where the wait staff won't necessarily wince when they see us come through the door. Instead we found a dilapidated building, a grungy restaurant, and a faint aroma of cigarette smoke lingering in the air. Nevertheless, we plunged forward, ordering our lunches and trying to feed two very wiggly, squirmy babies who were much more interested in watching the video slot machines behind them than, say, eating their peas and brown rice.

That's when Milo started crying out of the blue for no apparent reason. I thought "hmmm, the last time he cried like this was right before he threw up all over the kitchen floor that one time..." and that's when Milo threw up all over the carpeted restaurant floor. And his pants. And his shoes. And my pants. And my shoes. Then he threw up some more. The foursome next to us immediately got up and left. The grimacing waitress brought our to-go boxes without needing to be asked, and handed me a wet, dirty rag to try to wipe up some of the mess. I apologized profusely while attempting to clean up Milo. We threw our uneaten lunch in the boxes, paid our bill, and hightailed it out of there to change Milo on the front seat of the car, trying to shield his naked legs from the rain. At least it was 40 degrees and not 4 degrees.

At least he didn't throw up in his car seat.

We won't be returning to Black River Falls. And next year, I think we'll stay home for Christmas.

Christmas Eve

We were supposed to travel to the twin cities today, but weather prevented us from going. Actually, we possibly could have made it without a problem, as the forecast improved overnight, but we weren't prepared. So we'll go on Christmas day instead. It was very stressful to go back and forth between going versus waiting versus going versus waiting, all while factoring in the likely weather on the way home, and anticipating annoying Jake's family.

Who are, by the way, annoyed by our delay. We woke up to several inches of snow and it snowed until the afternoon, and there was a winter storm watch advising people to stay off the road, but they were annoyed nonetheless. Tomorrow morning as we're getting into the car to make a very, very long drive, they're going to have coffee and cookies and open their presents. Without us. Then tomorrow afternoon when we're scheduled to arrive, they're going to go to Jake's brother's wife's parents' house. Jake's brother was annoyed that we wouldn't be going over there -- this was the first we'd heard of it -- and exclaimed "you're missing Christmas!" So, maybe we'll arrive to an empty house? I hope they'll leave it unlocked for us. I'm packing a dinner for us just in case they're not there and there is no dinner for us to eat. It'll be fine; after a long drive, the kids are going to need to crawl around and play and let loose. I'm worried about traveling on Christmas day and finding a truck stop open where we can stop for lunch. With two one-year olds, skipping lunch (or eating it in the car) is not an option.

So today we woke up to a weird sort of extra day, a day in which we didn't expect to be here, and so we had this unexpected day on our hands. And it was really lovely. All of the branches on all of the trees were covered with snow, which looked beautiful. It was also warm, in the upper twenties. I decided to make Christmas cookies and I needed butter and eggs so I strapped Nora into the baby backpack, pulled on my boots, and hoofed it over to the corner market. On the way there I ran into a neighbor I knew and we chatted for a while. Once in the store I chatted with the guy who rang us up. "Say hi to Jake, I haven't seen him in a long time!" he called as I left.

Later this afternoon, while the babies slept, I shoveled the walks and talked to another neighbor. "Weren't you supposed to take off today?", she asked. "Yeah, we were going to drive to the twin cities," I said. "Oh, definitely wait until tomorrow when the roads are cleared." A few minutes later another neighbor walked by with his dog. "Isn't it beautiful out here?", he asked. As I finished up shoveling I took some time to watch the skaters on the rink across the street from our house. People from the age of 4 to 44 were out there skating on this warm, snowy Christmas Eve.

Days like today remind me why I love living here so much, in this friendly city with sidewalks and kids out playing in the park, with neighbors who stop to chat, with folks who work in the corner store and know us by name. The friendly sense of community and the gorgeous snowfall really make it feel like Christmas.

Discipline already?

When babies are little you have to hold them and feed them and change them and play with them, but that's about it. Now that they are a little bigger, though, we are starting to run into some challenges that I find I'm woefully at a loss to handle.

My general strategy for dealing with mobile twins has been to babyproof the downstairs area as much as possible and then generally let them go at it. I can't constantly chase after two kids who are going in opposite directions, so I try to make it so that the worst that'll happen to them when I'm not right there is a bumped head. I also don't like the idea of having to say "no" and redirect them 800 times a day, so I figure it's better to just eliminate any dangers and let them explore to their heart's content.

We do, however, have this plastic on the windows that is very, very intriguing to Milo and Nora. Especially Milo.

When I put up the plastic it was mostly invisible thanks to a hair dryer and magic shrinking properties of plastic. However, if you touch it or mess with it, that destroys the seal and makes the plastic pucker and wrinkle. This not only looks bad, it ruins the insulating effects of the plastic. Now the dilemma. The kids love touching and messing with that plastic. In fact, they've even torn it off, destroying the seal. I can actually feel the cold wind rushing in through the window when the seal is broken. Yesterday it was -9 degrees outside, without the wind chill. So, it's cold. The plastic makes a huge difference in the warmth of our house.

But it doesn't make a difference if the seal is constantly broken by a couple of inquisitive babies. So now my whole method of "babyproof so I don't have to say no constantly" no longer works, because there is no way to keep the babies away from the windows. With Nora, I say "no" and she's just clueless. She doesn't really understand what that means, although she'll respond to her name in a stern voice. Physically removing her and redirecting her seems to be the only option at this point. Nora is not super interested in the windows all the time, though. She mostly only goes over there because Milo is doing it.

So Milo is the real problem when it comes to the windows. He knows what no means, and he knows that he is not supposed to touch those windows. As a result, Milo's one true desire is to touch those windows. All the time. If I see him approaching the window I'll first try to distract him with a toy or something else interesting. If that works, great. If not, I'll try the "no" approach. Half the time he'll listen when I say no, and he'll stop his approach and do something else instead, at which point I praise him effusively. The other half of the time, though, he'll deliberately look at me, and then very deliberately reach out his hand and start pounding on that plastic. (Interestingly, with Jake, I have not yet seen Milo respond to Jake's "no" even once. It's like Jake lacks that special stern tone of voice that means business). So anyway, we'll then physically remove him and redirect him to some other toy, but Milo is amazingly single-minded. He'll just crawl right back over to that window if he can. Again and again. I can put him in the exersaucer for 5 minutes and he'll play in there long enough to forget about the window, but that's about it. 

Basically I don't want to spend the next 3 months having to drag the kids away from the windows 800 times a day. I don't want to have to say "no" and then have them not listen anyway, and drag them away, only to repeat the whole process 15 minutes later.  So what to do? Our downstairs living room/dining room/kitchen area is where we spend all of our time. It's the only reasonable area for the kids to play during the day, for me and Jake to hang out, etc. Do I just persist and hope that they'll learn to listen to "no" eventually? Or is this the kind of thing they're not really going to listen to until they're 2? 

Sleeping In

Notice I'm no longer writing every other post about sleep, or lack of it. The kids sleep more or less decently, but not great. Some nights they will sleep all the way through. Most nights at least one of them wakes up at least once. Milo is actually waking fairly often these days, which is a new development. Usually whoever wakes just needs a little reassurance, and then it's back to sleep. Unfortunately, it's not always back to sleep for me, and I might lie awake for an hour or so, willing myself to go back to sleep before dawn arrives.

So...eh. The sleep thing isn't so bad. Waking up once or twice is nothing compared to what we went through for the first 6 or 7 months of the babies' lives. I do miss, however, sleeping in.

For some reason I didn't really think about how sleeping in would basically disappear all together once I became a parent. I thought maybe the kids would sleep in too (hah). Or I thought we would trade off getting up with them, which we do actually, so on those days I can sleep in until 8 or so, at which point I'm compelled to get up and help out, feed them breakfast, get them ready to go back down for their nap, and so forth. But that's not really the same thing as sleeping in until 10. Or 11.

I've always been a night owl and when I taught high school and had to get up at 6 or something unholy like that, I suffered a lot because I couldn't manage to ever go to sleep at a decent hour. I'd be exhausted throughout the afternoon, but by 9 or so my second wind would always kick in and I'd be wide awake for several more hours. Repeat endlessly. If it weren't for the horrible hours I'd probably still be teaching high school, because it was so much fun. I think I'm just fundamentally a night owl and that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.

And yet...sleeping in is definitely a thing of the past. By the time I'm able to do it again (when the kids are, I don't know, what, 8? 10?) I'll probably be over the whole sleeping in thing. Maybe I'll be an early bird by then. It feels weird to let go of looking forward to it, to accept that it's not going to happen anymore.

Except when I travel. I have to attend two conferences in April, which is a whole other post in itself for the guilt I feel about traveling, but anyway, I have to go, and part of me is hoping there will be an opportunity to sleep in. Knowing my luck, even if my talk isn't in the morning, I'll probably still get woken up by the elevator or loud guests guffawing in the hall or the maids vacuuming or something, but...there's always hope.

Miscellany

I enjoyed the interesting emails I got about the name dilemma. Opinions ranged all over the place, from a) I would be in my rights to send an aggressive letter demanding the use of my legal name, to b) it's a legitimate complaint but perhaps not worth wasting my energy over, to c) my desire to be called by my correct name is analogous to a Muslim man marrying into a non-Muslim family and then demanding that all of the women cover themselves in his presence.

In the end, I think it's possible to stand up for your beliefs without getting too worked up over it. I'm not going to sit around waiting for Jake's family to change, but I can also stop accepting correspondence addressed to somebody who doesn't exist. And then forget about it.

Today we had a snow day everywhere except at the university, which stayed open and enforced the last day of the final exam schedule. Poor students who had a final today! It would have been very difficult to drive anywhere and I only got to work because I walked, and even then it took me almost twice as long to walk there as normal. Then I discovered that I was pretty much the only person who had come in, but that's okay, as it's easier to get a lot of work done when things are quiet. These days I am putting a lot of energy into really focusing on work when I am at work, and really focusing on home when I am at home. When the kids are asleep I can work for a couple of hours, but otherwise, I put it out of my mind and just focus on them. This feels like a good way to be because it gives me license to not be guilty (about leaving my kids, about not working more) and just honor where I am at any given time.

This week Nora is into having pretend conversations and Milo is into testing us. Nora will start up a conversation in nonsense words and then mimic our voices and intonations perfectly. It's hilarious. Milo has developed a love of touching (and messing up) our ugly plastic on the windows. So we're saying no and then trying to distract him with other things, but he's amazingly single-minded. Now he'll crawl towards the window, pull up, and then look at me as he deliberately reaches for it. When I say no, he is starting to listen. Nora, not so much, but one step at a time...

Names

I got married at 25 and changed my name. I'm not sure why I changed my name at the time. It was a dumb, dumb thing to do and all I can think of is that I was extremely young and not much of a conscious feminist at the time, and I thought we would have kids and wanted everybody in the (hypothetical) family to have the same last name, so I changed mine. All stupid reasons and if I could go back and undo that mistake of changing my name, I would. I wouldn't undo the marriage, which I don't regret, but I'd undo the name changing. When I was 25 (which is generally too young to get married these days, I think) I married somebody who was kind, sweet, and generous. He is still all of those things and even though we were not right for each other, I am glad for the years that we had in each others' lives. I never would have had the confidence and courage to do the things I've done in life if it weren't for his belief in me. Anyway, so I'm fine with that marriage in my history, but I wish I hadn't changed my name at the time.

So when we got divorced I had already established a publishing record. It is a hassle to change your name when you're already publishing, and I didn't have very strong feelings about going back to my maiden name, so I kept it. I've had this name for most of my adult life and I identify with it now, and I like it. So anyway, I kept the name, which was much easier to do given the way things work in academics, and I've been publishing under it this whole time.

When I got married to Jake I didn't change my name to his name. By then so many more years had passed which means more publishing had been done under my name, and I was beginning to get recognition under my name, and changing it would have been very confusing. Not to mention, by the time we got married, changing my name to my husband's isn't something I would have done regardless of the publishing issue. Everybody has their own preferences and beliefs about this practice, and I respect other people's preferences and call them by whatever name they choose.

So of course the problem comes up in relationship to his family, who does not respect the fact that I didn't take his name. They uniformly call me Amy HisLastName, and address things like Christmas cards to Jake and Amy HisLastName. They've had a lot of opportunities to figure out that this is incorrect. First of all, I told them. (You'd think that'd do the trick). Then, they had a baby shower for me and everybody had to go to the registry, which was under my name. So they all had to learn my correct name for the baby shower. In addition, every time I send thank-you notes or cards, I include my return address which has my correct name on it. We even had to address this very explicitly with Jake's uncle, who sent a check on behalf of Jake's grandmother made out to "Jake and Amy HisLastName". The bank wouldn't let us cash it, because the "and" meant we both had to sign it, but I wasn't allowed to sign a name that wasn't actually my correct name. So we had to return the check and explain about the issue of not being allowed to cash it due to an incorrect name for me being on it. Then I discussed the issue again with Jake's mother, explaining all of these things and asking why their entire family didn't call me by my actual name. She didn't really have an answer other than the fact that I should have changed my name, and that's what people do here in the midwest, etc.

So now we're getting cards again addressed to Jake & Amy HisLastName. Today we just got a card from Jake's parents. His mother addressed the envelope to "The Jake HisLastName Family".

I think everybody's opinion about this is that I should just suck it up and let it go. That it's not worth it, and I shouldn't do something super passive aggressive like, say, returning mail that is incorrectly addressed (which I am contemplating doing, and am sorely tempted to do). Obviously being direct about it hasn't worked, and being polite about it hasn't worked, so I guess the thing I am supposed to do is be gracious and accept that people don't respect me enough to use my proper name, and deal with that for the rest of my life.

But I am having a hard time letting this go. I think that purposely calling a woman by her husband's name when it goes against her stated preferences is deliberately sexist and disrespectful. I would guess that Jake's family probably resents the fact that the name I use isn't really even "my" name at all, and it's inappropriate for me to use it when I'm married to Jake. Jake didn't want me to change my name when we got married, probably because he's proud of who I am and what I've accomplished under this name, but he's also very passive with his family and is not generally willing to stand up to them.

So what to do, what to do. Just letting it go for the rest of my life feels wrong to me because it's sending a message to everybody that this is okay, and I don't think it's okay. On the other hand, resisting it will cause trouble and I'm already too much of a troublemaker according to most folks.

Some Birthday Pictures

Nora and Milo show off their fancy birthday outfits:

Nora plays with my hair:


Jake and the kids open some presents:


Milo is a little pirate:


What is this cake of which you speak?


I guess it's okay...


Well, if I must...

First Birthday

I've been neglecting the blog lately. Nora and Milo turned 1! I'll try to put up some pictures soon. They have changed so much in just the last couple of weeks. Nora is standing up by herself all the time now, balancing for a while before needing to grab on to something. Milo can say (and recognize) doggie. Yesterday I taught Nora to show us one finger to say that she is one. Today I heard Greg ask Milo to wait and Milo did the sign for wait. Also today I told Milo to put the block on the drum and he did it. He understands on and off and in and out, and likes doing all of those things over and over again with his toys. I also saw Milo do the sign for more when I said more, and Nora has signed milk. If we weren't super lame with signing, they'd be doing a lot more. What they're doing now is just what they've mostly picked up from my mom and the twin whisperer. I need to remember to sign more with them.

If we ask the babies to pat the tray or to wave, they can do those things. Their receptive language is growing by leaps and bounds. Nora likes to shake her head no, and she also likes to dance when music is on. I've also been hearing Nora say "ball", which is still Milo's favorite word. They will also both say "night night" at bedtime. It's just amazing what they're learning every day.

The babies are developing issues with sharing now. Milo is starting to get to the point where he'll place something in your hands sometimes. He has a little walker that he absolutely loves, but when Nora approaches that walker when he's using it, he freaks out. The other day I actually saw him forcibly remove her hand from the walker. So the kids are already having to learn some hard lessons about sharing at this early age. At the same time, they're also really interacting with each other when they play. They'll chase each other around the room, and if one person does something like patting a toy, the other will mimic.

The babies seemed to have a good birthday. They had a nice dinner that included smoked salmon, which they both liked. They were actually a little cautious with their cake, not smashing it into their faces, but they liked it. I baked two cakes, a chocolate one with white frosting for Nora and a white cake with chocolate frosting for Milo. Now we have way too much cake in the house. Milo got really excited about his cake in the end, which led to an evening full of outrageous excitement. We popped open a bottle of champagne and toasted surviving the year. After a year of parenting twins we're all still here, alive, and we're even still married! I can't wait to see what next year brings.

1 Year

Snowstorm

Pushing a stroller through several inches of fresh snow is more tiring than I would have guessed.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Nora and Milo were playing when suddenly Nora started crying.  She hadn't fallen, so I didn't know what her problem was. I picked her up and saw bite marks on her forehead. Bite marks that matched up perfectly with Milo's four teeth. That little fucker bit her! Greeeeaat.

Her Body, My Baby

This is an interesting NYT article written by a woman who hired a surrogate to bear her child. After multiple failed IVFs and devastating miscarriages over the course of 5 years, she and her husband decided to try the option of a surrogate to carry a baby that would be genetically theirs. It worked, and the author is now the mother of a baby boy.

There are some irritating things about this article that are typical of NYT articles in general. The author is wealthy and takes for granted options that are closed to most people in the U.S. The photographs paint a more disturbing picture than what we see in the article itself; the surrogate, barefoot on a dilapidated porch; the author, prim and proper with her baby boy, standing in front of her impressive estate while her Black "baby nurse" hovers in the background; these images highlight the undiscussed issues of class and privilege that permeate most NYT articles. The author explores a scenario that most people cannot relate to because most people cannot even fathom affording more than 100K to have a biological baby.

I think I've written before that infertility gave me the gift of learning how to reserve judgment. It's hard to imagine that I would have hired a gestational surrogate, but what do I know? I was lucky and never had to face that situation. The things that I did ultimately do in order to have children, the painful shots, the carcinogenic drugs, the humiliating exams, the mounting medical bills, those are all things that I'd once sworn I would never, ever do. I would never go off the deep end like that just to have a child. It's so easy to pass judgment on people who do things like that, to swear that you'd never do those things, when you don't have to walk in those shoes. It's humbling to get yourself stuck in a hellish situation, mired in sadness and anger and jealousy, and then finally consider the kinds of things you'd previously mocked.

The comments to this piece are judgmental (and sometimes cruel). For instance:

That smug cow. If she doesn't have a big enough heart to love a baby that wasn't "genetically" hers, then she never should have been allowed custody of a child in the first place.

And:

I guess there were no children who needed adoption in her state.

I'd like to point out that just like IVF, most adoptions are an option only for those with generous financial resources. Adoptions run anywhere from 20K to 45K. In addition, adoptions can be time consuming. When Jake and I were considering it, the local agency let me know that the average wait time in our state is 2 years. That's after your home study is completed, after you've filled out reams of paperwork in triplicate, after you've been subjected to interviews and financial interrogations, after you've written up your profile. International adoptions can take even longer. For a woman like me, one who is super old, yo, these wait times are everything. I didn't want to be too old to be able to chase my kids around the park. (Hmm. Maybe too late. Fortunately Jake is young).

There is no "just" about adopting. That doesn't mean it isn't a wonderful, worthwhile option to consider. It is. But it's not simple, and it's not cheap, and it's not fast. I couldn't help but notice that when Jake and I were struggling to have a family, the people who suggested that we "just adopt" hadn't actually, you know, adopted themselves. They'd had biological kids, and somehow thought that it was the job of the infertile to save the world.

The days of Little Orphan Annie are over. If somebody had told us, when we were struggling to have a family, that I could adopt a baby tomorrow, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I didn't care about DNA, I cared about having a child. I didn't do IVF because I was some selfish, narcissistic person who couldn't love a baby not genetically related to me. I did it because I looked at the options and chose the one that seemed likely to be the fastest and the cheapest. Of course, if it doesn't work the first time (or the second), that sucks and you have to reassess, as we did, but still, we took the path of least resistance.

And I was lucky, because we did have the resources to pull it off. I was also lucky because, in the end, it worked. And maybe this is selfish, but I wanted to know what it was like to carry a baby and to give birth. Okay, that is definitely selfish. In fact I've yet to hear anybody provide an unselfish reason for deciding to have a baby. It's an inherently selfish act. It's just that the people who suffer for it, who sacrifice everything to do it, are the only ones who are labeled selfish.

Frugal Midwesterner

Last year Jake's brother and his wife came for Thanksgiving and Jake made the entire meal from start to finish, including two pies. Jake's not a huge fan of turkey and he wanted to do something different, so we looked around for fancy recipes and found a great one for Cornish game hens. Jake went off to the store to buy everything for the dinner. This was also unusual, as I'm always the one who does the shopping. But at that point I was about 3 weeks away from giving birth, and I wasn't moving a whole lot.

So Jake came home from the store and he said, "Do you have any idea how much game hens cost? I mean, they're tiny! They're barely bigger than your fist, and they cost an arm and a leg!" "Yeah," I responded, "they're expensive. But they sure are delicious." Jake paused. I got suspicious. "Well," he said, "there's no way I was going to pay those kinds of prices for four game hens when it was a much better deal to just buy a nice big chicken." I gaped at him. "You bought a chicken instead of the game hens?" Defensively, he said "What's the difference? They're basically the same thing. Hens, chickens, same thing. I bet they taste exactly the same." "They do not taste the same. There is nothing fancy about a chicken! I can't believe you bought a chicken!" I couldn't believe it. A chicken! "Plus," I argued, "the recipe is for game hens, not for a whole chicken. How are we going to adjust the ingredients? How long are we supposed to cook the chicken?" Jake sighed. "It'll be fine. It's no big deal, I'll figure it out."

We spent something like the next three days arguing about the difference between game hens and a chicken. I just couldn't believe he was going to serve a chicken for Thanksgiving. I washed my hands of the whole thing and let him plan the meal.

Well, the meal turned out fine. The chicken was delicious, the sides were great, and the pies were incredible. I didn't cook, and I didn't clean, I just enjoyed the dinner.

This year, I am so, so glad to not be 3 weeks away from giving birth to twins. I can move, I can shop, I can walk, I can cook. I made the whole meal from the turkey to the pie. Brining really does wonders for turkey; we just ate the most moist and flavorful turkey I've ever had. Nora did a decent job of eating a little bit of turkey, stuffing, and potatoes. Milo had a couple of cranberries and he put a green bean in his mouth. Both babies ate a bit of chocolate pumpkin pie at the end. Nora had a spoonful of gravy. Nobody did much more than taste things, but it's a start. I am trying to think up more and better ideas for high-calorie mushy/pureed foods, because Nora is basically weaning herself off the bottle. So maybe I should come up with some sort of super high-calorie protien shake or something. I wonder when they'll be able to use a straw?

Above, Nora and Milo show us how big they are.

Community

As we approach Thanksgiving I am thinking a lot about how much things have changed over the course of a year. One thing that I can barely wrap my head around is how hard it was in the beginning, how lost I felt for so long. Other new parents don't seem to go through quite as much melodramatic angst as I felt like I went through. I'm not sure if it was the fact that we had twins, or the sleep deprivation associated with having two early babies who needed to eat around the clock, or maybe I'm just whinier than most and everybody goes through what I went through (yeah, it was probably that). I don't really know why it was so hard. But I do know that we couldn't have made it without all of the help that we received. In addition to being thankful for having Nora and Milo, something I thought might never happen, I'm thankful for being able to lean on my community of family and friends. I am humbled by all of the help people gave us, and by how much we really needed that help.

There is no way we could have made it through those early weeks without my mom. She stayed with us for 9 weeks and spent the whole time feeding and holding babies, doing laundry, doing dishes, cleaning, shopping, and basically taking care of our every need. I'm so glad that Nora and Milo had their grandmother there from the minute they were born so that they had constant access to somebody who was calm, happy, and loving them all the time. Jake and I loved them but we were uptight and neurotic and scared, which couldn't have been easy on the babies. My mom also visits them all the time so they have been able to see her a lot, and she also more or less single-handedly outfits their entire wardrobe. So basically she visits, clothes them, gives them toys, and then teaches them how to sit, crawl, and eat without gagging. This is very handy when you are a completely clueless parent.

The rest of my family also came and visited the babies. My sister came and told me stories about when her kids were babies, and those stories made me feel a hundred times better because I realized that what I was going through was more or less normal. My dad and stepmom also came to visit, and they held the babies and amused them and took us out to dinner and cooked for us. Our family members have also given us a ton of gifts, both old and new, useful hand-me-downs and beautiful books and toys and all sorts of things the babies needed.

We had so many friends who gave us so much help. My friends Anne and Jake practically saved our lives in the early months. They had empathy and read my panicked blog posts and then sent warm, helpful, wonderful emails. I remember in one case Jake told me that it gets easier even though it doesn't seem like it will. He said something like "every day, every week, every month it gets a little easier until it's no big deal." The phrase "no big deal" was something I clung to in hope. And he was right. And Anne sent me about 100 emails in the early weeks responding to all of my questions and angst. It helped so much to know that I could write and she wouldn't get annoyed, and instead would listen and offer help. I felt...it's hard to describe how safe I felt because I had that. Anne and Jake also gave us an enormous gift that we ultimately used to have the twin whisperer come help us through the month of March, a full month earlier than had been planned and budgeted. That was sort of an emergency situation for us that happened at the last minute, but we were able to deal with it thanks to that gift. And if that weren't enough, they also sent us wonderful things for the babies and gorgeous clothes from their own beautiful kids.

My friend Bekky gave me so much support that helped me keep going with breastfeeding through times when I had no supply, the babies couldn't latch, and I hated the pump with every ounce of my being. She had all of these ideas and tips that helped make it work better than it was working, and I credit that support with giving me the ability to keep going instead of throwing in the towel after a couple of weeks. She also shared all sorts of stories about things that had happened when her baby was small, stories that helped me put everything into perspective. She was also the one who correctly guessed that the babies might have reflux, and once we diagnosed that their lives got so much better. It was again so nice to have that kind of support through the computer, to have an understanding, helpful, non-judgmental ear.

Most of our friends in town are not parents. They helped us in their own ways, but there is one friend who is a parent who really supported me again and again. Her name is Jenny and her son is about a year older than Nora and Milo. Because of that Jenny has been able to share all sorts of advice, help, and support. She had a c-section like I did and she really understood how I felt about that and why I was so sad to not be able to have a natural birth. She was in the no-sleep trenches right along with me and shared a lot of coping strategies. She is much better at keeping it together in the face of sleeplessness than I am. Seeing her handle it with so much acceptance for so long was very inspirational to me. She also routinely gives us all sorts of things that her son outgrows, so we have things like jump-ups and exercsaucers thanks to her.

Our friends in town made dinners for us for about 6 weeks. Imagine how incredible that is. 6 weeks of dinners. It was amazing. Just as nice as the dinners were all of the visits we got from everybody. My coworkers were also very supportive, offering to babysit, giving so many gifts to the babies, and always asking me if I needed any help.

I look around at the things we use for the babies and I think about the generosity behind most of what we have. I have logged countless midnight hours in our glider, a gift from my dad and stepmom, and am so glad that it is as comfortable as it is. We put the babies to bed in cribs that are gifts from Jake's family, with bedding from my mom. Every time I put an outfit on the babies I think of the generosity of my mom, my friends, or my sister. Every time I read them a book I think about the coworker or the aunt who gave that book to the babies. When we put them in the carseats I think of Jake's parents, who gave them to us. This outpouring of generosity makes us feel so lucky. It was was a big deal to us, especially because we were grappling with paying over 30K in medical bills, out of pocket, before Milo and Nora even arrived.

I think like many Americans I live with a created myth about being self sufficient, when nothing is farther from the truth. I haven't done anything on my own. Everything I've done has been the result of the help and support and generosity of the people in my life. I just never paid much attention to it until Milo and Nora were born, when I was thrown into a situation where I really noticed how much I actually needed that help on a day-to-day basis.

Now we're in a much better place, and I'm almost starting to forget what it was like last winter. Right now I'm typing this while Nora and Milo are on the floor near me playing with each other. They don't even care that I'm here, they're having too much fun together! It's great to watch, and it makes me glad that I have twins. These happy times make the earlier memories fade, but I'll never forget how lucky we were to have so much help from everybody.

Hmmmm

I had a tenure review committee meeting this morning. A tenure review committee is a group of people who are watching my progress and advising me about what to do to get tenure. The group has an evaluatory role (did I just make up that word?), but it's fairly informal. I have to make progress reports and meet with them to show them what I've done lately, and then they judge my work, make suggestions about other things I should be doing, provide advice for getting ready for my tenure bid, etc.

My tenure committee is composed of extremely nice, helpful, supportive people. And yet I was so nervous that I could feel my lower jaw shaking.

So anyway, without any extensions on my clock I would go up next year in the spring. I have two extensions, though, so I can go up as late as 3 years from now if I need to. Waiting means more time to publish more and therefore a better chance of getting tenure. Today my committee surprised me by suggesting that I consider going up next year and not taking either of my extensions. They think I'll get tenure at this point based on what I have already and where I'm going. I was shocked, because I feel like I've been derailed over the past year. We decided to hold off on that decision until the spring, but to keep it in mind.

In reality I doubt I'll go up next year. It still feels too soon and I'd rather wait until perhaps the fall of the following year to go up. But it is really tempting to think about going up sooner. As one member said, "the advantage of going up next spring is that you can just get it over with. You can put all of the stress behind you and just get on with your career." The idea of putting it behind me is very tempting. But being conservative and perhaps a lacking confidence, I'll probably wait another year to be safe. I'd hate to go up early and then not get tenure when I could have waited and made a stronger case.

Getting tenure will be huge. (I've decided to start acting and talking like it's going to happen, instead of being pessimistic). To no longer worry about how I am going to provide for my family, especially in this economy with Jake's chances of ever getting a job being kind of lousy...well, to know that we could count on my job, that would be such a relief.

Ugly But Worth It

Winter in a northern state necessitates a great deal of compromising on style.

A lot of very warm winter clothing is just ugly. There are cute boots out there, as well as cute gloves and cute coats. The cute ones tend not to be very warm. When it's -15 degrees out, cute doesn't matter anymore. I need the full length, puffy, unfashionable down coat. I need the bulky, huge boots and gloves. Nobody looks good in this stuff. When I'm decked out for winter I look like the stay-puff marshmallow man.

One of the worst winter travesties is turtlenecks. No woman looks good in a turtleneck. I don't care what size you are, whether you're short or tall, whether you are amply endowed or can get away without wearing a bra, a turtleneck does not flatter any body type. As for men, well, it takes a very rare type of man who can pull off a turtleneck without looking like a complete tool. Those men tend not to live in the midwest. Turtlenecks are just hideous, period, and yet, I own and wear 5 different turtleneck sweaters. Yes, they're awful, but they're so warm! I can't help it!

We even voluntarily uglify our house for winter. I spent last weekend sealing plastic over our windows (our 80-year old windows) to protect us from drafts. Last year I skipped this step, being too pregnant to crawl on furniture and balance on stools, and we really paid the price. The icy wind just flew through our useless windows. Now the plastic swells and shrinks like the windows are breathing in and out. It's ugly, but warm. Some day we will replace our windows, but until then, I'm embracing the ugly.

Wait...I Thought I Liked Middle Schoolers

I am not looking forward to dealing with this kind of thing in 12 or 13 years:

Trite

He kept bumping his head on the table;

She kept letting go and falling down;

He knocked over a cup of water;

She refused to drink her bottle;

He pushed her over;

She poked his eyes;

They fought over each and every toy;

And everything was perfect

on that cold fall evening.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

I put the kids into some fancy clothes and tried to take some pictures for a Christmas card. It is very hard to get two babies to provide nice smiles at the same time while also sitting still and not crawling towards the camera to try to grab the strap or touch the buttons. I took about 200 pictures and got one picture that is maybe good enough to use. I'll try again in a couple of days. Here is one of the 199 rejects that give a sense of how difficult I'm finding it to get decent pictures.

Plus, why am I even thinking about making Christmas cards? I never send out Christmas cards. I don't even have the addresses of most people in my life. Also, I have always disliked it when I got cards from my friends and saw that they sent photos of their kids but not of themselves. I always want to see what my friends look like, too, not just the kids. And now I'm suddenly trying to take a cute picture of the babies for a Christmas card? Who am I? My pre-baby self would be totally annoyed by something like this.

We are running a search again this year to try to hire a new colleague. This is a difficult process because in my field universities compete for candidates. We have identified the top three candidates and are going to bring them out in the first two weeks of December. This means lots of lunches and dinners out with the candidates, as well as interviewing them and attending their job talks. It means a lot of time outside of the house and a lot of evenings away from the kids. Fortunately, my colleague is the search chair, not me, so he's the one who has to shlep out to the airport and drive candidates back and forth from their hotels.

Today it was about 28 degrees when I took Milo and Nora for a walk. I bundled them up in down coats and hats and mittens pinned to their sleeves so they wouldn't tear them off, and then I stuffed them into fleece sacks that are sort of too small for them in the stroller, and then I put a giant plastic tent over the stroller to shield them from the wind. The whole process took like 15 minutes just to go on a walk, and I'm kind of wondering whether I really want to do this throughout the winter. But we can't stay stuck inside all day, either.

When I asked Nora what an owl says, she says "Who! Who!"

Milo has a 3rd tooth. Nora still has zero teeth. I hope there isn't some rare disorder in which people just don't develop teeth.