Childcare

Or, an excuse to post a couple of cute pictures of Nora in an adorable hat.

The twin whisperer, who specializes in infants, has promised to stay with us until the semester ends in May. Then we're on our own. There is an organization in our state that sends out a list of all of the registered child care facilities within a particular radius of your home, so I started looking at it recently. It's a handy service because they let you know whether there have ever been any enforcements on a place, whether they have dogs or allow smoking, that sort of thing. Okay, so places that have dogs or smoking, no. Places that have had enforcements, no. Places in a sketchy part of town or somewhere super far, no. Places that have nowhere outdoors to play, no.

That doesn't leave a ton of options, at least in the registered child care world. It leaves the two university preschools/daycares, both of which are accredited and wonderful. They house child development specialists, they're connected to the university child development programs, and obviously either one would be fabulous. The only problem is that we've been on the waiting list ever since May 2007, when I was barely pregnant. We're still on the waiting list. I don't know if we'll ever get off it because student parents have the first priority on slots. Also, the cost is daunting. Full time care would top out at over 30K a year. That's 30K after taxes. Even twice-a-week care would be 15K a year.

This whole thing is giving me an anxiety attack. Just looking at these places and then thinking about leaving Milo and Nora there with strangers upsets me. I can't get too attached to the university daycare, because I'll probably never get off the waiting list. Maybe we should get another nanny, maybe a college student, but on the other hand this summer the kids will be old enough to benefit from some more structured activities and some variety.

Our university has a committee on equity and a committee on women faculty issues. Here's a major issue about women faculty issues: you want to support my ability to get tenure? Provide more daycare options. We are an enormous campus. If I've been on a waiting list for 17 months already with no end in sight, then there's obviously enough demand for additional childcare facilities. And if you really want to support female faculty tenure bids, provide affordable childcare options. Give me a way to confidently leave my kids so that I can really focus on working. This issue seems like such an obvious no-brainer that I'm kind of surprised it's a problem on our campus. On the other hand, I work at a place with no parental leave policy, so maybe it's not such a surprise that this is a problem. This stuff makes me mad. I feel trapped, and I feel like I can see the trap closing all around me, slowly, day by day. But what was I supposed to do, just not have a family? Sacrifice my entire life for my job?

Milo's Language

I swear, more and more is getting through to Milo. This morning he was missing a sock and I started talking to him about it, asking him where his sock went. He then pointed at his bare foot! Then this evening Milo and Nora were standing up looking into a box of toys. Milo started saying "baby" which was weird because he's never spontaneously said it before, he just says it after we say it. I turned around and looked at him, and he was holding the baby doll that the twin whisperer got after he started saying baby.

I was blown away by that, so I tried an experiment. I gave him the doll and asked him what it was. Here it is, on video:



It impresses me that Milo (or any baby) can form a concept of something like "kitty" or "baby" when it means so many different things. Baby means him or his sister, or it means that random baby on the street, or it means the doll, or it means a picture of a baby in a book. We use the same word to refer to an idea that is an abstraction derived from many very different experiences. The fact that anybody can reflectively abstract a concept like "baby" blows me away.

Oh, Should I Not Be Doing This?

Unrelated Events

Today I had a meeting with one of my grad students and he wasn't very happy. When he started to explain things, he said "you and I haven't really had a conversation since before I got here." My mind immediately jumped to about 8 different conversations that we've had in the last month alone, but wisely I kept my mouth shut. I know we've had lots of conversations, but obviously my student hasn't felt like that, and this is his reality we were talking about, not mine. So to him, we haven't had any. As he kept talking I began to understand that what he meant was that we hadn't talked about what was troubling him about our program and how he fit into it. This is something that's been huge for him for about a year now, and I'd had no clue. He had never talked to me about it before, and I had no idea these things were going on with him. Now I knew and could start to help him. He talked and talked, and at the end we had some potential solutions in place and he said he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I don't think the solutions mattered to him quite as much as just having somebody listen to him for a while.

It is much easier for me to be a better advisor than a wife or parent. It is easier for me to listen, to elicit what is going on for other people, and to place my ego aside and focus on the students and their ideas. On their problems, difficulties, triumphs, or epiphanies. It's my job, and 90% of what a good teacher should do is elicit, not tell.

However, if Jake had said something like that, something that struck me as patently false and maybe a little accusatory, would I have been able to keep quiet and refrain from correcting him? Maybe not...so one lesson for me is to learn how to take the skills I'm developing as an advisor and a teacher and use them as a spouse and a parent. Most of all I want to be able to listen to what is happening to Nora and Milo, to hear how they're feeling or thinking about something, and just accept what they say as their reality, no matter what I might think about it. One of the most powerful things my own mother was always able to do as a parent was listen and really hear me, and then empathize.

Now for the unrelated event, tonight I came home and started looking at a book with Milo. Jake said "turn to the page where there is a baby sticking his tongue out. Milo will point to the baby and stick his own tongue out." So I turned to that page, and sure enough, he did! I thought that was pretty impressive. Nora is saying something a lot like "hi" these days, and Milo is saying something that approximates "all done." Both babies wave now, and the twin whisperer swears that they can tell her a cow says "mooo", although I haven't seen that myself.

So That's Why Parents Look Old

Jesus fucking Christ.

One time I was riding in a car from Seattle to Spokane. My boyfriend, or maybe he was my ex-boyfriend by that time, was driving and he had brought his portable cd player. It was one of those with a tape that you put in the tapedeck. We were listening to The Cure, and I started dozing off. I think I was dreaming, or maybe half dreaming, when I suddenly woke up because the car was spinning around in circles on I-90. I couldn't see anything but blurs of blue and green, and we were both silent as this happened. The Cure kept playing. Time slowed down and I thought, "This is it. This is the end, right now." And then the car came to a stop in the ditch by the side of the road, and I lived to graduate from college and become a teacher and go to grad school and move to this town and meet Jake and have Nora and Milo. And the ex-boyfriend lived to graduate from college and become a programmer and meet his wife and buy a McMansion and have two adorable little girls.

Time never slowed down like that for me again, until today. Today, when I let the kids have some cut up baked potatoes after lunch and I sat there trying to prevent Milo from stuffing the 18th piece in his mouth like a little squirrel, and then something weird about Nora caused me to glance at her and see her straining, face red, eyes bulging, mouth wide open, no air going in or out. That's the precise moment when time slowed way, way down as I shoved my hand in her mouth, reached way back into her throat, and dislodged the piece of potato stuck there.

Nora gasped and started crying, and suddenly the world started moving again, and I broke out into a cold sweat.

Not only is it a miracle that kids survive childhood, it's a bigger miracle that their parents survive it.

Work / Life, Take 100

On Tuesdays I work an abbreviated day from 9-3, and then do some more after the babies are asleep from 7-9 or 10. I like to spend my Tuesdays in coffee shops instead of at the office, so that I can avoid students and the inevitable (but enjoyable) time sink they present. Pre-baby, I'd spend the day working at home, instead, but that's not really an option now.

There are 4 nice coffee shops within a short walk from my house, but I have a clear favorite. The ambiance is the nicest there, and they have the best lunch options. It's a very popular place for people to settle in with their laptops and while the hours away. I always get a lot of tedious tasks done there, like grading, or reviewing papers or grants, or responding to my advisees' prelims or dissertation drafts.

One great thing about this town is that you can't go anywhere without running in to people you know. Half of my colleagues are also my neighbors. These days any time I go to that particular coffee shop I run into at least two or three people I know. Today I had coffee with a colleague, and then spent some time talking to a grad student and fellow mother finishing up her dissertation. I finished reading the manuscript I was reviewing and was halfway through my notes when another colleague and friend walked in, so we spent some time talking about how difficult it is to get grants these days and how much she likes the preschool her daughter attends. These kinds of interactions are what make me feel so at home in this town. I feel like I'm really part of the community, and I love that.

Prior to having the kids I wouldn't have worried too much about taking time out here and there to connect with other people. I don't work well when I have to focus for 8 hours straight without a break. Who does? I like to take a little time here or there throughout the day to eat a snack or check my email or chat with the guy in the office next door. Now, though, the time I have out of the house is so precious that I find myself starting to resent any interruptions. Like I need to be hyper-focused 100% of the time I'm away from the babies. I have to get 3 times as much done as I would have in my prior life, because I just don't have the luxury to work 70 hours a week at a slower pace. Maybe I should shift to the more obscure coffee shop that is less popular among the university crowd.

But I like being there, and I like talking to folks I run into. Do I have to be a machine all the time? Maybe I do, to get tenure. Maybe that's not worth it, though. My priorities have shifted. I totally, totally get why mothers get tenure at much lower rates than fathers. I hate to think of myself becoming a statistic like that, but...

Time Keeps on Slipping, Slipping, Slipping

Boy, they just change so quickly. During the time I was gone, Milo learned how to pull up on the couch, the gate, the side of his crib -- he can pull up anywhere now. Way to go Milo!

10 Months

Autumn is here, the leaves are turning and starting to fall, and they cover the ground and crunch under my feet as I walk by. Great piles of orange, red, and yellow leaves wait to be kicked up by passing children. When a breeze picks up, the leaves swirl in the air, in giant circles, and I run the stroller through them, Nora and Milo laughing. The babies are 10 months old.

I can’t believe how quickly they’re changing now. They don’t want to cuddle with me anymore. Bottle feeding time is the one time when I can get Milo and Nora to stay still in my lap (well, Milo will stay still anyway) and snuggle up to me. Once they’re done drinking, forget cuddling, Mama! I want to wriggle around and go down on the floor and do stuff! What happened to little babies sleeping in my arms? I like them so much more now, I like them more every day as they grow into themselves, but at the same time I miss the little babies they used to be.

I think Milo’s behavior today demonstrated his first real word, beyond mama and dada, which may or may not have meaning for him. He says those, of course, and he says baby but doesn’t know what it means. He loves to try to say “kitty cat” and he’ll whisper lots of attempts at that. He’ll say “tititah ” and “kittehkeh” and things like that. And then today, when he turned his head and saw Sam sleeping on the bed, he spontaneously said “kitty cat” (or his best approximation). Well, anyway, the point is that he said it without being prompted. So I think Nora’s first word was “up”, and Milo’s is “kitty cat”.

Earlier I was changing Milo’s diaper and I said, almost to myself, “there’s nothing as soft as a baby’s bottom.” And he replied “baby!” More probably gets through to them than I realize.

I’m trying to teach the babies how to say “Obama” (the indoctrination starts early). I thought it’d be cool if they could say it by election day. So far we’ve got “ba”. It’s a start.


It’s no surprise that “kitty cat” is Milo’s first word because he loves the cats. Loves them, loves them, loves them, and loves nothing more than to bury his head into them. When he sees one of the cats, he takes off towards it, laughing the whole way, and then just buries his face into their fur. Caspian is incredibly tolerant of Milo’s vigorous attention; Sam is less so. We have to watch her carefully, and she has already swatted him once.

Milo is really mobile now. He can crawl well and is practicing at pulling up to a stand. He can pull up on low things, like the stairs. Milo loves to be standing, and he laughs with glee when he’s up. Last night I fed Nora at bedtime while Milo waited patiently in the crib. He decided to try to pull up on the rails and he couldn’t quite make it, but he tried and tried and tried, shoving his face through the little bars like he was trying to escape baby jail. Milo is pretty good natured about his foiled attempts; I think he’s just so happy that he can get around, now, that he is less frustrated in general.

Milo is good at imitating and he likes to imitate Nora. Every time she coughs, he will then do a fake cough. Nora’s current weird habit is wiggling her tongue from side to side, making a noise as she does it, and now Milo wiggles his tongue from side to side too. The other day, Nora sneezed and then Milo made a fake sneeze noise. I have heard that twins tend to have delayed language development because each baby gets talked to less than they would if they were just a single baby. I think in Milo’s case he will learn extra things because he learns from Nora. They might not always be words, though.

Milo is good at figuring things out. The other day I was showing him how to put blocks in a tin and take them out again, and he started putting them in himself. He has this noisy shape sorter toy in which you drop a shape through a hole into a little “oven”. This is actually a toy that I once gave their cousin, Zane, for Christmas. That has come back to haunt me through the return of this toy and its mind-numbing songs. But Milo loves this thing, and he gets the idea of putting the shape into the hole and then taking it out of the oven. When I fit the shape in the hole, he loves to push it through.

Milo loves to touch everything delicately with his index finger, which his grandmom calls his “magic finger”. Milo especially likes to touch new and suspicious food with his magic finger. Pick it up and eat it, no way, but I might touch it a few times to make sure it’s okay.

Milo has a lot of determination and persistence. His latest thing is to crawl over to our non-functioning fireplace, which has an iron basket thing filled with candles. He likes to go up onto his knees and play with the candles. Well, we’ve decided that’s not a great idea because little pieces of the candles can break off and cause a choking hazard. So at first I just did what I’ve always done with the babies, which is pull him away from there and give him something else to do, and that’d be the end of it. But not anymore. Milo’s not falling for the “hey look at this different toy” trick anymore. As soon as I pull him away, he turns right back to that fireplace. Over and over and over again. So we need to get rid of the candles.

Milo’s not a cuddly little guy anymore, but he does like to show his affection by coming over to me and touching foreheads. Or sucking on my nose, which is somewhat less enjoyable. I love to flop down on the floor with the babies and watch as a laughing Milo crawls over to me and bangs his forehead against mine, over and over again. There’s nothing better than that, nothing at all.

Nora has also progressed a lot in the past month. She can pull up with ease, now, and she can creep along the couch while she’s holding on. She pulls up on anything, anywhere, any time. This kid loves to stand up. When she’s in the crib and she pulls up, she’ll then start bouncing and she’ll bounce harder and harder until, sometimes, her feet leave the mattress. Watching Nora pull up with so much ease as I watch Milo struggle to pull up reminds me of waterskiing. You see little kids, who weigh next to nothing, pop out of the water like it’s effortless. And then you see a big guy stand up, and it takes him forever to surface. Milo’s got more weight on him to lift up, but Nora is like a little bird, almost weightless, popping up with no effort at all.

Nora’s bottle drinking habits continue to deteriorate. Sometimes I can only get her to drink a couple of ounces. I do all of these tricks to get her to drink, like I’ll get her to hold the bottle herself, or I’ll carefully look away from her and pretend that I don’t care, or I’ll sing a certain song, or I’ll let her play with my hair while she drinks. Each time I find something that works, I hope that I’ve found the key, and I’ll repeat it the next time. I haven’t found anything that consistently works, though. So she doesn’t drink a whole lot, but at least she likes to eat her solid food, as long as it’s not too chunky. I have discovered avocado oil, which tastes like nothing (unlike olive oil), and I add a little to much of her food. She likes it.

Nora was recently saying “up” a lot, and she enjoyed the way it sounded and felt, I think, that hard p. She’d emphasize the p, saying “Upppphhh” over and over again. In the past few days Nora hasn’t said “up” so much. Instead she’s too busy experimenting with the sounds she can make when she moves her tongue in and out of her mouth, and back and forth. She takes after Jake that way; he’s always sticking his tongue out. Both Nora and Jake stick their tongues out when they concentrate.

Nora continues her smoker’s hack of a laugh, and when she’s happy she squeals in a delightful high-pitched way. You can just tell that she’s happy from the way her voice sounds. You can also tell when she’s unhappy. On the nights when I have to put both babies to bed by myself, I stick one or the other in the crib with a bunch of toys while I feed and change the other baby. Nora has a little bit of trouble with waiting, sometimes. She gets really mad when I’m attending to Milo and she’ll stand up and say something like “nyyaaauugh arrrgh wauuuugh aaaauuugh!” She sounds like the devil has overtaken her voice. She sounds like she’s about to start spinning her head around and vomiting split-pea soup. An unhappy Nora is a terrible thing to behold.

I’m a little worried that Nora is becoming a tiny bully with Milo. Every time he has a toy, she likes to crawl over and grab it from him. Milo then cries. He’s just now getting to the point at which he’ll try to defend the toy, refusing to give it up. Then Nora will try to assert her dominance by yelling at him, and Milo will yell back. The yelling match is much preferable to the toy stealing. I’m starting to realize that I’d better get a little more proactive about that. Before, I could just separate them by moving them apart a foot or two, and give them each their own toy. But it’s becoming common enough that I need to teach Nora to stop before she starts.

I think Nora might be getting ready for that. One of her favorite dangerous things to do (it’s a long list) is crawl over to our unstable floor lamp and try to pull up on it. This is an accident waiting to happen and, like Milo, Nora has become pretty persistent lately. So in the last day or two I’ve started saying her name in a serious voice, and sometimes saying “no” if she continues towards it. So far Nora has begun to stop what she was doing, which impresses me a great deal. She stops and gives me this huge smile, as if to say, “Who me? I wasn’t doing anything. Look how cute I am!”



Nora loves music and dancing, and will wiggle and dance herself if the mood strikes her. She also loves buttons and strings. Tags mildly interest her, but strings fascinate her. I should make a taggy blanket that has nothing but buttons and strings on it – she’d love that.


Nora continues to be a generally easygoing baby. On the one hand, she’s got a mind of her own and doesn’t mind communicating when something is not to her liking. So she’ll yell, but she rarely gets scared or unbalanced by new situations. She takes those things in her stride, just going with the flow, happy to see new people, happy to go new places, it’s all fine to her. As long as I’m not trying to make her eat, Nora is remarkably cheerful. Every time the babies nap, Nora wakes up a good half an hour to an hour before Milo wakes. Whenever I go into the nursery to get her, she gives me the biggest smile and laughs the happiest laugh, just pleased as punch to see me, every single time. Or maybe she’s pleased that I’m there to facilitate her escape from the crib, who knows. But the delightful thing is that she’s just plain happy, no matter what comes her way, and that happiness is infectious indeed.

The babies are doing well and the time is starting to slip by so quickly. I don’t feel like I’m ready for them to turn one. I want them to stay babies, I want this time to last.

I couldn't have said it any better myself

...so I won't. Instead, just read this.

Business Trip

I had to leave this afternoon to get to the airport, and Milo was still sleeping. Nora was awake, of course; she is still awake almost all of the time. Milo probably sleeps a good two hours more than Nora in any given day. So I placed her in the arms of the twin whisperer and kissed her and told her that I would be back in three days. I wanted to cry but that would have upset Nora, so I held it together and smiled as I left. What a stupid idea, traveling when they are so young. What was I thinking?

I’m writing this on the airplane and I just called Jake before we took off. The babies’ bedtime has come and gone. Nora wouldn’t drink more than an ounce from him and cried. I was afraid of that; at night, before bed, she won’t drink from him and I always have to be the one to feed her. Thank GOD the twin whisperer was there and stayed late to help Jake put them to bed. The twin whisperer got Nora to fall asleep in her arms, and then basically fed Nora in her sleep. Tomorrow night the twin whisperer will also be there, but what about Friday night? I have been the only one she’ll accept comfort from at night, and now I’m not there. Again, what was I thinking?

But it’s done, and I hope they’ll survive. Hopefully I haven’t damaged the babies by leaving them for three days. I need to try to enjoy this opportunity a little bit instead of constantly obsessing about whether the babies are okay. I need to try to enjoy being in a hotel room, all by myself, all night long, something I fantasized about just a few short months ago. Tomorrow morning Nora will be happy and laughing, even if tonight is a tough one.

There is something about motherhood and guilt that is difficult to assimilate. Prior to becoming a mother the feeling of guilt was a compass, telling me that I’d done something wrong. Now, though, I feel guilty a lot, even if I haven’t necessarily done anything wrong. Or have I? It’s not so clear anymore. I feel guilty for going to work and leaving the babies. But sometimes I feel guilty for the very opposite, for not working more. I feel guilty for going on this trip. I feel guilty if we don’t make it outside for a walk. I feel guilty if I get frustrated with the babies. I feel guilty for a lot of things, and it’s hard to know which of those things really matters and which are just me being paranoid. Sometimes I even feel guilty for having twins, so that neither baby gets the attention he or she deserves.

To end on a completely different note, I have a secret message for the NYC dickhead at the gate counter. Dude, you aren’t special. We all need to get where we’re going. We’ve all got important business to conduct. We all have to wait our turn. We all have connecting flights that we’re going to miss. Nothing about your situation was unique to you, nothing about it merited you cutting in line, yelling at nobody in particular, and abusing the gate agent. You’re like 50 or 60 years old. Haven’t you learned any maturity in all that time? Grow the hell up.

OMG No Time

The babies turn 10 months old tomorrow (10 months!) but their monthly update will have to be a few days late because I'm running up against a deadline and losing. Every spare moment around the clock is being taken up by reviewing grants, which takes for-freaking-ever, as it turns out. Then on Wednesday I hop on a plane to DC to go to the NSF. I'll be away from the kids for 3 days. At the time, it seemed like a good idea because I will learn super valuable things from this trip that will help me be better situated to get grants in the future. Plus, the money is good, too good to pass up.

Of course now as the time draws near and I think about being away from them for so long, it doesn't seem like such a great idea after all. In fact, it seems like a pretty terrible idea.

Nora Up Close, Milo says Baby

Fantasy versus Reality

"I love living in the village," he said. "We'd love to get you here."

In my mind, living in NYC would be all Sex in the City, and Harriet the Spy, and Woody Allen movies. It'd be Central Park and funky little coffee shops and fabulous shoes and visits to the art museum. It'd be trendy evenings eating canapes with my hip multicultural friends. There'd be funky glasses lady, and cool dreadlocks guy, and we'd wear messenger bags and our conversations would be deliberately ironic. The kids would learn Spanish from their playmates in the building. Miles Davis would be the soundtrack to our lives.

In reality it'd probably be constant frustration over not having enough space, and worrying about how I was supposed to apply to 100 different preschools back when I got pregnant, and never being able to let the kids play outside on their own, and never ever having enough money for anything. It'd be dealing with the super who never fixed anything on time, and complaining about $14 sandwiches, and worrying about how the kids were breathing in tons of pollution every day of their lives. It'd be dealing with cockroaches and rats. I'd have dreams about cockroaches riding through our apartment on the backs of rats, like little prehistoric cowboys.

It probably wouldn't be the right place for us as a family. But oh, the fantasy...

New Words

Maybe they're not words in the traditional sense, but the babies are able to imitate new sounds all the time now. Milo has learned "up" from Nora although he doesn't know what it means. Nora can say "uh oh". Today I got home from work to find that the twin whisperer taught Milo how to say "baby". This morning when Jake came down the stairs Milo said "Dada!" Any time I say "there's the kitty cat", the babies turn their heads to see where the cats are. It is so fun to hear them saying so many new things. Next I'm working on teaching them how to say "feminism" and "corporate greed".

Lesson Learned

Even though he's having an absolute blast, do not let your baby twirl himself in circles for 10 minutes in a row when he's in the jump-up. If you do, he might projectile vomit his entire dinner all over you and the kitchen floor. If this happens, don't then focus all of your attention on the crying, vomit-covered baby who just threw up. Instead, make sure you take 10 seconds to get the other baby out of the kitchen before she crawls all through the giant vomit puddle.

Disillusioned

An older gentleman, a professor, came to visit with Nora and Milo today. He held each of them, and in turn they stared and stared at him, perhaps intrigued by his thick grey hair or his thick commanding accent. Both babies went into a sort of trance in his arms, silent and still for once, all eyes. "She is so beautiful," he said. "She has your eyes." When he held Milo he was surprised at how heavy he was in comparison to Nora. "You're a big guy, aren't you," he said. Perhaps this was the first and last time Milo will be called a big guy. Milo said "bo" in appreciation.

This professor has always been something of a father figure to me. He was demanding, and I liked that about him, but he was also kind. I could push his ideas as hard as I wanted and he was always willing to push back. He could be a little rigid at times, and a lot of students didn't like him, but I appreciated how much he forced me to grow intellectually. I liked how he always made me think, and then think some more, and I liked how enthusiastically he responded to challenges, questions, and new ideas. Talking to him was like playing ball.

When I was a graduate student I suffered at the mercy of some people who had power but lacked integrity. There is nothing special about that story. It happens to a lot of grad students; it's an inherent risk in a system in which some people have all of the power and others have none. This particular professor, though, protected me again and again. He behaved with integrity. There were times when he chose to do the right thing for me even when that meant risking the ire of others or losing the recognition he deserved. I looked to him as an example of how to treat others once I was a professor with power over my own graduate students.

The Golden Leeks?

I'm all for supporting local business, but there's a limit. I bought these three items at the neighborhood grocery and paid $12.86. That can't be right. Once I got home I realized that there must have been a mistake. Leeks are expensive, but there are only 2 leeks there. She must have accidentally rung them up as, what, organic avocados or something? Even that wouldn't explain paying $12.86 for three items. I should have walked the extra half mile to Trader Joe's.

When my mother was here recently she taught Nora how to say "up", which Nora would do after my mom said it. Then a few days ago Nora pulled up on the bookshelf and, apropos of nothing, said "Up!" Then this evening she pulled up on the sofa in order to harass the cat and said "Up! Up Up Up Up Up!"



Milo is trying to say "kitty cat". When I say "there's the kitty cat", he looks around to see the cat. He whispers "kitty", or some close approximation of it. He doesn't do this spontaneously upon seeing the cat yet. Instead he laughs with glee, crawls towards the cat, and shoves his face into the cat. Milo likes the feel of soft, fuzzy things like blankets on his face. Apparently he also likes the feel of cat on his face.


This week I have to put the babies to bed by myself for 3 nights. Jake has a night class, a night review session, and a night test. This definitely isn't a family-friendly grad program. Tonight it didn't go so well as I could only get Nora to drink 2 ounces. I got Milo all fed and changed and into his crib, and he kept fussing and fussing as I changed Nora. Usually he just grabs his doggy blanket, pushes it into his face, and happily goes to sleep so I don't know why he was fussing like that. I finally put Nora into her crib and then turned out the light, and that's when Milo stopped fussing. I realized he was making a racket because he just wanted me to turn out the light and leave already! That kid loves sleep like nobody's business.

Nicely Mundane

We've got a night game tonight, and I can hear it through the windows.

After putting up this picture I just realized that I forgot to read a book to Nora today. I read one to Milo but not Nora. Every day I try to read them both books, listen to some music with them, and get outside of the house at least once. I also forgot to bathe them today. Whoops.

Instead of reading books to the babies I put on my iPod and walked over to one of the nearby coffee shops to meet up with some of my former undergrad students. Two of them are teaching in the twin cities. Two of them are teaching in Rockford. One is teaching right in town. They had lots of teaching stories to share, and story stories, and they are just so sweet and fun. When I got back in the afternoon, it was time for a walk so we walked in the sunny, crisp fall air and went to one of the local playgrounds. Then it was back home for dinner, playtime, and bed.

Some kids came to the door selling cookie dough. In the past, I seem to remember they'd actually bake the cookies for you, at least. But no, just the dough. I bought some because I made a promise a long time ago that I would. I used to have to sell things door to door as a kid sometimes, like coupon books for gymnastics or Christmas cards for school, and I hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. With a passion. I got so many doors closed in my face and I made a vow that when I grew up I would never say no to a kid who was cursed with the burden of selling things door to door. So I don't say no to kids, and that means I end up buying really ugly wrapping paper, boxes of chocolate, cookies, and now cookie dough. That's a new one.

It's Saturday night and I should be doing laundry and changing the sheets and cleaning up the living room, but instead I'm just collapsed on the sofa. Saturday nights are good nights.

Sometimes I run into other twin parents and some of them like to tell me that it never gets any easier, it just gets different.

I think these people must be smoking crack.

Fall has arrived overnight and it's suddenly pretty chilly. We're turning on the heat, we're switching over to winter bedding, and last night I pulled out a long-sleeved pajama top. I think my mom bought it for me like a week after the twins were born. As soon as I pulled it out a wave of memories rushed over me. Sleeping in that pajama top with the twins in their bassinet right next to the bed. Going to sleep and setting the alarm for 10 p.m., 1 a.m., 4 a.m., and 7 a.m. Getting up in the middle of the night to feed the babies, praying that I could get the first one fed before the second one lost it completely and started screaming in distress. Those ill-advised nights when I tried, without success, to figure out a way to feed them both simultaneously and just ended up with two screaming babies. That feeling of relief I had when they were both fed, changed, swaddled, and back in their bassinet sleeping while I pumped. Hoping against hope that I could get the entire process completed in under 2 hours so that I could squeeze in an hour of sleep before the entire process began again.

Most of all, the anxiety. The fear of nighttime. The exhaustion. The constant, never-ending anxiety.

I honestly cannot imagine anything that we deal with now or will deal with later being that hard. Obviously there are tragic exceptions when parents have to deal with children who are very sick, or hurt, or something terrible like that. I'm not talking about those things, and I hope we will be lucky enough to avoid that kind of tragedy. But when it comes to the normal course of parenting, yes chasing two crawling babies who can pull up is exhausting. I'm sure dealing with two defiant toddlers will test my patience in ways I can only imagine. I have no doubt that it'll be hard. But hard like last winter? Hard like that? That hard? Hell no.

Things are so much easier now. I remember when the kids were about 3 months old a neighbor told me that even though I didn't know it, I was actually in the easy part and it would get harder when they became mobile. That thought depressed me a great deal because I already found the whole thing so hard. Well, it turns out that she was wrong. I could see how she'd be right if you just had one baby. But with two of them I was constantly afraid of the times when they would both need to be held or soothed or rocked or fed, and I only had enough arms to help one. When they were little they couldn't wait. Now, the babies can wait their turn. One can amuse herself in the jumper while I feed the other one. They play together (if stealing toys back and forth can be called "playing"). I can calm and soothe the baby who has to wait by talking to him while I feed or change the other one. It's nowhere near as hard as it used to be, and that's taking into account the fact that both of them are crawling around and pulling up and in constant danger of getting hurt.

I have to keep reminding myself as I sense winter approaching that it's going to be okay. That just because the weather is turning cold it doesn't meant that we're going to return to those times again. Things are good now! The babies sleep, more or less. Even if they wake, it's not like I'm getting up every 3 hours throughout the night, for 2 hours at a time. And heck, at least when they cry now, they cry for a reason. Usually a reason I can actually fix. I feel this weird dread stealing over me as the leaves fall and the nights turn chilly, but I have to remember, it's not going to be like that this winter. Things are different now.

We Love the Outdoors

Let me out!


Let me out!


Ahhhh.