Parker listening to music after a snack

Well, we did it.

We moved all the kids into one room. AND... we got them all to nap together today. Incredible. Michael did most of the moving of furniture and stuff, while I baby-sat. And since he was kinda beat when we were done with the bulk of it, he took a nap of his own.



He looks almost as sweet as Eli does during her snooze.

Red Blue Yellow Shoe

We've been enjoying some Tana Hoban books of late. Today before nap we read Red, Blue, Yellow Show. It is basically a picture book about colors. A red clock. A blue glove. A yellow shoe. Etc. The print is big and in all capitals so Parker reads all the letters of the colors printed at the bottom of rach page each time. He says, "One red clock. R - E -D " Recently I started to sound out the words after he spells them. Rhhh eeeeedddddddd. Red. Sort of like the old electric company thing (sh ip, ship. fo rk, fork...which we always did using swear words of course, but I digress.) So today, he says, One Red Clock. R, E, D. CLLLLLLOOOOOOCCCCCCCKKKKKKK with his finger carefully tracing the word RED.

These are the moments when I chuckle, amused at myself for thinking he is so advanced.

During the same reading session, I was singing him Chicka, Chicka Boom Boom. (Sometimes we read it, sometimes we sing it.). I got to Wheeee, said D to E, F, G and I got corrected. Parker said, NO! Wheeee said D to E, F, G, perfectly in pitch. You see, he wasn't correcting the words, just the tone and pitch of my song.

Man, that hurt.

Stay on Target...Almost There...

Breakfast from a Distance

Cloud Coocoo Land

Not sure what happened this morning, but Parker slept until 6:30am (an absolute miracle) and the girls were relatively quiet until 7am. Michael and I got to eat our breakfast sitting down together like civilized people. What a treat!

Fruit Sucks

When Parker was a baby, Michael's good friend Kevin gave us this baby feeding device. It is small coned shaped object made of mesh that has a handle. You put pieces of fruit in it. The baby sucks on it and gets the fruit out without any fear of choking. Parker never really dug it, but Elizabeth sure does.

Bad Hair Day

Parker woke up this morning with quite the hair. It was curly and wavy and all over the place. We never, ever brush his hair, but today I thought we really must. Dad, however, did not agree and so he went to daycare looking...well...interesting.

A montage

Bilingual orneriness

Parker brought me a book this morning that he didn't want me to read to him, which is a new little mind-game he's started playing. When I started to read it he snapped at me, "No quiero papa!"

Freakishly cute

Miranda is becoming quite the looker. Here are just a few examples.

First modeling her new responsible pet ownership look.


Then trying on her bathing suit in preparation for next weekends party at Shari's house. (I had to return this one as the 6-12 month was a bit small.)


And lastly, just hanging with dad, who is looking freakishly cute himself.

The amazing update

For those still keeping score, The amazing roll over baby has now reached 1000 views on YouTube. I continue to have no clue what the hell is going on with this.

Name that twin

Marble game

Parker has been an avid marble game player since he got a marble run for christmas, but only recently has he shown real skill and design savvy in building his own runs. Lately he has been contructing minimalist towers, which makes for an interesting aesthetic and a pretty quick marble run.



The other day he built one that he could only reach the top of by standing on his tiptoes. Eventually this one suffered structural integrity failure somewhere in the middle of the tower, and shortly after that he walked into the kitchen holding the top half of the tower and said to me, "I need help with the marble game."



He has always called it marble game, so that's what we all call it. That wheel in the middle of the tower below is known as the flower one, and features prominently in many builds. Parker likes to keep his hand on the flower one while the marbles build up above it, and then let them go all at once.

Twin Racism?

We ran out of milk and cat food today. No biggie right? Well...it can be a big deal to go shopping with twins when your doctor has told you not to carry them on your person (which is what I usually do when I shop...one in the bjorn, one in the cart). But then I remember, Costco, god bless them, has shopping carts with TWO seats for kids. I head down there, load them up and stroll on in. I didn't even get out of parking lot before I was accosted by people wanting to ooogle and ogle at the babies. This went on for the entire shopping trip. "Yes, they are twins." "Yes, they are girls." "Eight months" "Miranda and Elizabeth" "Thanks" "Yes, an toddler son." Blah, blah, blah.

When I got my giant boxes of milk, cat food, and the unplanned diapers, wipes and formula (yes, Elizabeth is almost all the way weaned), I headed to the line, where more ooohing and ahhhing took place. Then I noticed there was a Latina mom in front of me with two kids in her basket too. They look very similar, about the same age, etc, but no one was ooohing and aahhing at her babies. So I asked, "Twins?" realizing that I had just become what I hate. "Yes, she said." "How old?" I asked disgusted by the sound of my own voice. 12 months. It was obvious they were a boy and a girl so I didn't ask. More people had started smiling and pointing at my girls, but no one was looking at hers. Sure they were a bit older, but not much and still very, very cute. Was it because mine were both in (different) light pink sleepers? Or was it because they had no hair? Or because they had blue eyes? Or maybe they were just light years cuter than any other babies ever were?

Whatever it was, it was odd and made me feel weird.

Snow Cones

A while back (when I was pregnant), I bought a snow cone machine. I never made any snow cones and my purchase was the butt of many jokes from Michael. Recently, I decided to give it a whirl and boy are they good. I make them regularly now and Parker says, "Snow Cones are delicious." He is right, you know.

Grandma Judy

My back decided that I was doing too much carrying babies around and stopped working last week. After a day of agony and being unable to move, I called my mommy who was on a plane just hours later to help take care of one of her babies and three of her grandbabies. She just left today and I couldn't thank her enough for all she did. She picked them up, carried them around, sang them songs, changed their poop, and fed them homemade food that she made them. And most appreciated was how early she had to get up to help out in the mornings. She didn't bring any books for Parker this time, but he liked her anyway.

Here she is doing one of her favorite activities with them...looking out the window.

Adventures in babysitting

Aunt Lori came to visit the kids this weekend, and they all had a swell time with her. Parker was giddy to have her here, most likely because she plays with him nonstop and finds whatever he does charming and delightful. The girls are generally happy with anyone willing to make faces at them, and Aunt Lori did not disappoint.



On Saturday night Rachel and I went out for dinner and a movie, and left Lori with the kids. We'd put the girls to bed, and they're always champion sleepers, so Lori just had to get Parker to bed. We were frankly nervous this arrangement, but Lori assured us that she had 100% confidence in her ability to deal.

Rachel and I grabbed a quick dinner at Barney's and then saw The Year of the Dog, with Molly Shannon, who gave a solid performance in an odd little movie. After that we sat in a hot tub, and then headed home. It was about 9:45 when we got home, and you couldn't hear any screaming from the street, which we thought was a good sign.

Lori was sitting at the dining room table when we got in, and she looked a little haggard. Apparently it had only been about 15 minutes since she'd gotten the last kid to sleep, and she was still just catching her breath. Rachel and I sat down to hear the harrowing tale.

Apparently Miranda had woken up crying shortly after we left, who proceeded to wake up Elizabeth, and Lori made a couple of trips into the room to put pacifiers back in their mouths (our recommendation) and get them calmed down. But by the third trip in, Lori was somehow lured into making a cardinal error of bedtime: she got Miranda out of bed and brought her into the living room.

To be honest, I couldn't follow all the intricacies of what happened next, I think because I was so mortified listening to it. I think she let Parker stay up past his bedtime in the hopes that she'd be able to get Miranda back to sleep, but Miranda was apparently alert and happy and delightful, and showed no signs of being tired. And neither did Parker. When Lori finally gave in and started Parker's bedtime routine, Miranda was still awake, and so Aunt Lori read books and sang songs to both kids at once. And then when the routine was over Parker threw an unfortunately fairly common bedtime tantrum, and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs from his bed for half an hour, while Lori sat in the living room trying to coax Miranda into showing the slightest sign of sleepiness, which apparently took a good long while still.

So by the time we walked in the door, Parker had been asleep about 45 minutes and Miranda had been asleep for about 15 minutes, and Lori looked like she'd just gone twelve rounds.

Elizabeth, of course, had been asleep for hours.

We aren't alone.

Today, Liz and Ebba came over to hang out. They each brought their twins Sydney, Courtney, Fiona and Allison as well as their older child, Samatha and Lincoln, respectively. We had a grand time as the twins sat and lay on the blankets while the other kids ran around eating snow cones, playing on the slide, in the ball pit, with the tracks, and generally acting like little monkeys. Lincoln, being 4 1/2, was slightly bored with all the toddler and baby nonsense, but Samantha and Parker hit it off. All 9 of them did great until about an hour past nap time when Parker lost it completely.

For the record

I did make it to the top of that wall, a feat left ambiguous in another post.

Pies

As you all know, Michael makes me a cake every year for my bday. So this year, he requested that we start a tradition for him that involves me baking a pie for his bday. I'm no cook or even a baker, but how could I say no?

So I asked my sister what a good easy pie was and she suggested strawberry as you don't even bake the pie at all. Since strawberries are still in season, that sealed the deal. After confirming with Michael that I could get a premade crust ("Yes, this year since it is your first,") I got some strawberries from Trader Joes and found a good easy recipe.

Unfortunately, the ease of the recipe elluded me as I "drained off" the juices from the strawberry/sugar combination right down the sink and not into the pot to boil. Bummer. After some tears, hugs from Michael and suggestions from Lori who was visiting, I finished the pies. (Yes, I made two.) They seemed no worse for wear. I even got a little silly with the whipped topping.

Michael said it was still good. Parker liked it too. I liked the whipped cream.

Piedmont Park

The whole family went to a quaint park in Piedmont today. Peidmont, for those of you that don't know, is a city within Oakland. An exclusive, incredibly expensive, great school district kind of place where the cheapest, smallest house is over a million dollars, the grass is all green all the time, and parking is by permit only. It's surrounded on all sides by Oakland, but the differences are hard not to notice.

So we spread out a blanket, plopped the girls down with some toys and let Parker run around. Dad decided to give the rock climbing wall a try. As you can see, it was all lovely.

Peek a Boo

Apparently, Miranda knows how to play Peek-a-boo. Yesterday at Twin Class, she was moving her hands up to cover her face (and eyes) and then lowering them and smiling at this other twin mom. She did it over and over and it sure looked like it was intentional. I brushed it off as a coincidence since I don't believe 7.5 month olds can do that. But then today, at Trader Joes, while we waited endlessly in the line, she was doing it with this older Japanese woman behind us. Miranda was in the shopping cart like a big girl and her arms were going up and down covering her eyes (sometimes pausing at the top), with smiles in between. The woman loved it and played with Miranda the whole time. I'm not one to think what babies do is cute, but this was damn cute and everyone in line was smiling and laughing watching it happen. It almost made me forget how I annoyed I was for picking a bad line.

Almost.

Shapes

Tonight before bedtime Parker wanted to play with his clock. The clock is a wooden clock that doesn't actually tell time. It has different shape chunky puzzle pieces for the different numbers. 1 is a club. 2 is a parallelogram, 3 is triangle, etc. They come out of the clock. Parker methodically went through each of them, telling us the number on each.

We asked him where the hexagon was, since he recently learned what a hexagon was reading Color Farm, and sure enough, he picked it out. Same with the octagon. Several times so we know he wasn't just guessing one of the 12 shapes. Now, with the exception of one blond boy living in Culver City, I'm not sure I have heard of any other kid who can tell the difference between a hexagon and an octagon when he was not quite 2 and a half years old.

Not that I'm bragging.

For those keeping score

The amazing roll over baby has now had over 600 views on YouTube.