August 7, 2009, at 11:07 pm | The girls and I drove down to a nearby sidewalk fair today. The girls were entranced by all the activity, and couldn’t decide which direction was more interesting.
I was hoping to find some good gift ideas so I could start preliminary holiday shopping. I know, I know – it’s very early. But when I think about going shopping in New England inclement winter weather with two one-year-olds, my usual procrastination gets shoved to the side by desperation. Unfortunately, nothing caught my eye other than an attractive antique drawing. When I peeked at the price tag, I quickly concluded it was preferable to go shopping on Black Friday in sub-zero temperatures with two squalling children than pay that price. You know how much the picture cost?
$15,000.
Really. I counted the zeros three times just to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. This picture was sitting out in the grass in front of an antique shop, surrounded by $20 vases and chipped china plates. The shopkeeper had written the word “Very Rare†beneath its list price, as if those two words could justify such an exorbitant cost.
I immediately high-tailed it off the store’s property. I could just imagine one of the girls somehow coming down with a sudden case of the flu and projectile vomiting all over the picture, thereby ensuring that I indeed finished not only my Christmas shopping early, but all shopping for the next fifty years. Yikes.
So if you don’t end up with a good Christmas present from me this year, you can assume the horror I experienced from checking that price tag generalized itself to an all-encompassing sticker-shock. Or else I ended up buried in a snow drift on the way to the mall on Christmas Eve because I didn’t get my shopping done in time. Either is possible.
August 6, 2009, at 10:06 pm | We had a wonderful visit today from my dear friend Olga, with whom I lived when I moved to Connecticut after Jim and I were engaged. She was back here visiting her son and his family, and we were fortunate enough that she could make room in her busy schedule to meet my girls. It felt like just yesterday that she and I were living in her beautiful old home, just the two of us. My, how things have changed!
Olga is close with Jim’s Nana, and since today is Nana’s birthday, we stopped by for a mini-reunion and celebration. Happy Birthday, Nana!
August 5, 2009, at 9:41 pm | My friends Leah and Beth were kind enough to come to our house to spend the day with the us. Not only did they drive a long way to get here, but they came bearing mint chocolate brownies, brought chick-flicks to watch, took scores of photographs of the girls, and consented to be used as human handkerchiefs for sniffly Susie, who’s suffering from a nasty cold. Are those good friends, or what?
Here’s an action shot of the one of MANY photos they took of the girls. How could I not be flattered that they found the girls as photogenic as I do?
Susie (on the right) is making sure Beth was smeared with every last possible germ.
Leah and Becky
Beth and Becky
All the girls! Don’t be fooled by the kids’ dour expressions. They were thrilled to have such a captive audience! And I was so happy to have big-girl time!
August 5, 2009, at 12:09 am | My mom ordered the girls a new kind of life vest, hoping that if we found a more comfortable fit, we’d be more likely to make the girls wear them on the boat, the girls would be less likely to be tossed overboard unprotected, and my mom would be more likely to sleep at night. Hey, as long as she’s buying, we’ll do what we can to give her a good night’s rest! 🙂
The jury is still out on whether or not these vests will be more kid-friendly, and thus worn more often. But the verdict is in that the girls look hilarious in their new attire!
Susie: “I can’t put my arms down!”
Susie: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
Becky: “Mom, this is rather embarrassing.”
Becky (on left): “Help! How do I sit down?”
Susie (on right): “There, there, sister, it’s not so bad.”
Girls: “We can look cute no matter what we’re wearing!”
Here’s a video of the girls testing out their vests. They kind of remind me of puppy dogs wearing those plastic cones around their necks. Only dogs move around better than the girls do.
August 3, 2009, at 11:05 pm | How to tell when your kids have spent too much time in the car:
…when they climb into a car seat on their own. Together.
Too bad they can’t both fit in one seat – that would leave much more space in the car for my groceries!
August 2, 2009, at 9:16 pm | In the words of the American Academy of Pediatrics, by 12 months of age, children should be able to “Let objects go voluntarily.â€
Well, the girls have not only achieved, but positively mastered that behavior. In fact, it constitutes 80% of their waketime activity.
The girls now enjoy letting anything and everything go. Food in their hands inevitably drops to the floor (carpet…beige carpet). Anything on a table within arm’s reach is grasped, pulled off, and let go with no regard for the effects of gravity. Books are one-by-one withdrawn from the shelf and tossed over their shoulders, as if the girls have been tasked with tunneling through a mountain of paperbacks and depositing the refuse behind them. Clothes are plucked from drawers and fly through the air. Laundry is pulled from the dryer and deposited in a wrinkled heap nearby.
Now tell me, you American Academy of Pediatrics, when do children reach the milestone where they “clean objects up voluntarilyâ€? I’m waiting!
August 1, 2009, at 11:28 pm | We spent the day – you guessed it! Boating. And playing. And eating. A perfect day in our book!
Becky (on left): “This life vest is the pits.â€
Susie: “I’m not very comfortable in this vest, but I’m too relaxed to do anything about it.â€
Becky: “I’m free! And look at my pretty new swimsuit!â€
Chris teaches Susie how to perfect her scowl.
All that scowling wore Susie out.
Becky was so bored with her sister’s scowling that she dozed off.
Susie got her second wind at dinnertime. Jim warned Chris not to teach our girls to dance on tables.
Becky: “Can you believe what a fool my sister’s making of herself? Dignified young ladies don’t dance on tables…â€
Becky: “…but they DO crawl around with toy animals in their teeth.â€
July 31, 2009, at 10:34 pm | I came up with the perfect weight-loss plan.
Well, actually, Susanna came up with it. Now I just have to convince her to abandon the plan in favor of a weight-gain plan.
Susanna loves to stuff food in her mouth. Her sticky fingers snatch food off her tray so eagerly that I can barely cut up the food fast enough. She wedges food so adeptly into her already-full cheeks that I think I’m going have her pack my suitcase on our next trip; the girl knows how to cram.
She enjoys the food, sucks the life out of the food. Sometimes she takes it out, inspects it, and the re-inserts the food into her mouth.
She stuffs and chews, chews and stuffs…but I never see her swallow.
Theoretically, she must swallow the food at some point. Yet I have my suspicions that she actually just pockets it away in her cheeks until it dissolves. That must be how she maintains her petite figure – perhaps all the calories just give up and die while they’re waiting in limbo to be consumed.
Not that I’m advocating this weight-loss plan. Not in her case, anyway. I would much rather she bulk up like a bear prior to hibernation. I just need to convince her of the benefits of food consumption, not just food tasting.
Well, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to go emulate Susanna’s mouth-stuffing techniques on the donuts Jim brought home from work. We’ll see if I can make them disintegrate before the calories reach my hips.
July 30, 2009, at 8:57 pm | On Tuesday, I had the privilege of meeting up with my friends Carrie and Sarah for a picnic at a beautiful park. Wouldn’t you know, the day ended up being one of the hottest this summer. But we kept cool in the shade, and took advantage of all the park had to offer.
We swung on the swings…
 
We played in the sand…
 
…And we enjoyed the company of good friends!
July 29, 2009, at 9:43 pm | Dear Alli (or as we like to call you, Ah-da),
We can’t thank you enough for spending this past month with us. We did so many fun things together! Thanks for playing with us, pushing us in our stroller, carrying us, dressing us, singing to us, cuddling with us, teaching us, photographing us, traveling with us, entertaining us, and just being the best big cousin we could ever ask for! We love you so much and can’t wait until we can come out to see you in Arizona. We may even be able to take walks with you by then! Mom says she’s going to miss you even more than us, but we don’t think that’s possible – we miss you already!
Love your cousins,
Becky & Susie
P.S. Here are lots of pictures to help you remember all the fun stuff we did together this summer!
(We may be upset in this last picture, but it’s just because we’re about to say goodbye. We miss our Ah-da!)
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ABOUT US I'm blessed to be saved by the grace of God, loved by my wonderful husband Jim, and embraced by my twin girls, Rebecca Faith and Susanna Joy and my sons Jimmy and Danny. I started this blog in May 2008 when I was hospitalized for pre-term labor at 24 weeks gestation. The Lord allowed me to keep the girls inside until they were 34 weeks along, and on July 27th, Rebecca made her debut, followed by Susanna, five minutes later, on July 28th. We ecstatically welcomed Jimmy into our lives on April 25th, 2011, and Danny on August 31, 2012. This blog has been a personal journal of faith and motherhood and the only way I can remember which child did what and when. Thanks for stopping by to share in my Faith and Joy! Feel free to e-mail me at: [email protected]. |
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