Order of the Day

Note to self:

Days that begin with a conversation like this one,

Mom: Hey, come here... How long have you been wearing that underwear?

Biscuit (with an indignant look on his face): I don't know!

Those days can only improve from that moment forward.

For Grandpa

The world lost a great man on Thursday, August 28th. My grandfather passed away from pneumonia just shy of his 90th birthday. He requested that we hold no funeral or other formal service or post an obituary and we honor that wish, but the passing of such an honorable man should not go completely unrecognized.

Grandpa led a remarkable life. The last surviving sibling of eight, he enlisted in the Army during the Great Depression at the age of seventeen, having a neighbor sign an affidavit falsifying his age as eighteen. He was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. Many of his military friends lost their lives in the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and Grandpa found himself in more than one hair-raising situation at several points throughout his military career. He rose to the rank of Master Sergeant, the highest an enlisted man can hold, through sheer determination and an unwillingness to accept excuses from anyone, including and especially himself. He learned French at the Army Language School in the Presidio and lived with his family in Berlin before the Wall was built. He also served as an escort to bring deceased men home to their families.

It wasn’t Grandpa’s military record that earned him the title of “great”, though, at least not for us, his family. Sure, men who leave behind their families to travel overseas and fight for the individual rights we enjoy each and every day earn the title, and rightly so; but great men can be more than that. The adjective “great” gets bandied about freely in our culture, often finding itself applied to politicians who cheat on their wives, thieving CEOs and other powerful men in the public spotlight whose private conduct, when it comes to light, proves them otherwise. Truly great men inspire others to be better people themselves. Anyone who’s met my father knows that he is someone to depend on during trying times and a man who will not rest until there is nothing left for him to do. He was right by Grandpa’s side during the last days of his life, up until and beyond his last breath.

There need not be elaborate, opulent funerals or events of state to symbolize our mourning for truly great men. Instead, we should honor their sacrifice and dedication to higher ideals not by attending a public event for a couple of hours and then returning to a status-quo life, but by holding ourselves to the same standards to which these men held themselves and we should celebrate their lives by letting who they were become a part of who we are every day. We were fortunate to have Grandpa with us in good health for as long as we did. We loved him, appreciated him, respected him, and learned from him. We’ll honor his wish to do without a funeral without disappointment or a heavy heart because we will also honor him, perpetuating his great legacy by embracing the lessons of greatness we learned from him—and that will keep him with us always.

Happy Birthday Two Beans!!

No, we can't believe it's been a year already either, but it has. The Beans' favorite presents were the bows, the books, the blocks and a new phone. They liked the car, too. In other words, they liked everything, but Pipsi has fallen passionately in love with the phone. She would have taken it to bed with her had we allowed it.


Hubby and I are pooped. I'll write a little more tomorrow or Friday (still a lot to do for their party on Saturday) but for now here are a few photos worth a million words that are much cuter than anything I could write:

Wow, a bow! Bows are the best! What's this big thing sticking to it? Ah, who cares-- it's a BOW!

Can we please keep the bow and do you have any more?

Mmmm, red-- Parki's favorite flavor.

Pipsi drinking up all the birthday joy~ doesn't it look delicious?

Fill 'er up and hop in Pipsi-- I'm ready to roll.

Beans delishing on bows with the Biscuit

Where's Parki?

Peek-a-boo Pipsi!

Lookit! Mimzi made me into a present!

Excuse me, Daddy, but I must take this very important call.

Thank you for the ride, Biscuit- I'll also get my snack on with this yummy book you gave me.

C'mon Pipsi, let's go! Leave the phone-- it's way past our bedtime. Do you think all of our birthdays will be this much fun?

Merry Beansday Eve!!!

Our house smells like cake and it feels like Christmas Eve! I guess it's Beansday Eve.

We're having one pink cake with sprinkle frosting and one sprinkle cake with pink frosting. Yes, it's a little girly but the Beans will turn one only once.

Oh, we can't wait!!!!

Safety Check- A Lesson Learned The Hard Way

It is NEVER a good idea, under any circumstances whatsoever, to whip off a baby's diaper while she's standing in the Playground without first checking it for solid waste matter.

What Time Is It?

Good morning. The time is 8:43 AM and the Beans are asleep. No, they're not still asleep. They're off on Happy Nappy #1.

You're thinking, "But, Pie, I thought you said a few posts ago that the Beans go down for Happy Nappy #1 at 9 AM," and you would be both correct and quite perspicacious. The thing is, the Beans woke up early this morning. How early? I'd like to tell you, but it was too dark outside for me to see the clock to know what time it was, so how about we just call it o'dark:30.

Yes, there is an illuminated alarm clock in my room, right next to the bed where she glows as brilliantly as the North Star four inches from my face-- but only when she's plugged in. Sure, I could just turn her around so that she's facing the wall, but that would mean that if, in the dead of night I want to know what time it is, I'd have to reach my little winglet out of the warmth of the snuggly nest to turn the blinding face of the high-maintenance Alarm Crock-O-Drama directly into my own, simultaneously waking my brain with the visual equivalent of an eight-alarm fire brigade and blinding myself for a probable stumble through my room, across the hall and into the Beans' room. Does that sound like anything even remotely resembling pleasant?

Since I have two alarm clocks in the bedroom across the hall, AND because when the high-maintenance Alarm Crock-O-Drama is plugged in I have to sleep facing Hubby who likes to roll over and breathe right into my face, AND because the sound of the high-maintenance Alarm Crock-O-Drama seems to make me, at this stage of my life, homicidally irritated, I leave her unplugged. We get along better that way. She and I have one of those relationships that moms have with single, childless, drama-queen acquaintances they knew before getting pregnant. It's nice to hang out every once in a while and keep in touch, but my life is totally different and the high-maintenance Alarm Crock-O-Drama just wants to whinewhinewhine until I pay some attention to her and I just don't need that. Oh and before the Beans woke up, the dogs next door were going bonkers about something and were freaking out at full volume right outside our bathroom window. Maybe it was an M-O-U-S-E.

And, as usual, once the Beans are quiet, Biscuit decides to emerge from the tranquil refuge of his room, so if I go in and try for a litte nappy of my own, I'll feel intensely guilty for leaving him to fend for himself on the breakfast brigade. You see where this is going, right? Of course you do, because you've been there. The remedy? This is where photos of the kids being really cute come in handy. Cute photos remind us of how much we love our little kids no matter what hour they wake us and no matter how many poopy diapers we have to change first thing in the morning (3-- one Bean was interrupted and concluded her business fifteen minutes later. Thank you Diaper Change Fairy!). So here are some cute pics Aunt Niki took last time she was here with the Beans. I think it was date night with Batman (I didn't get to go out with Batman, although that would be interesting and somewhat complicated). Niki even got the Beans doing their Scrunchy Faces:

Awwwww! They're so cute!

Now it's 9:23 and Biscuit and I must eat. The Beans will probably be up early from Happy Nappy and we must fortify our resources-- I'm not too sure today will be a Happy Scrunchy Face day but I am fairly certain that we'll still have enough daylight to see the clock when bedtime rolls around...

Why? Because We LIKE You!!!

We're pretty big on accountability around here. It helps keep things simple because everybody knows where he or she stands with everybody else. By the way, thank you, Hubby, for fixing the kitchen faucet. I could have done it myself but it would have taken two days, put the rest of the house in (a greater state of) disarray and eventually caused our divorce. I wouldn't have had the stomach to do the marriage thing yet again, so I would have died a dowager's death, up in flames like Miss Havisham in her old withered lace dress, so thanks for trading ninety minutes of your time to save me from that fate.

Hubby is so handy! He can fix pretty much anything. And since he's a computer genius you know I can fix my own pretty well because my computer is just about the last thing he ever wants to hear about. I took care of that overheating problem the other day, Hubby. Thanks for asking. You do generally take care of the big stuff so I try not to freak out about the little stuff...



Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, accountability and little things. This is a holdover from years growing up in Mimzi's house. Mimzi and Uncle Mack (one of my brothers) were here the other day to watch the Beans (Mimzi) and play with Katie (Uncle Mack) while I ran errands and worked for a couple of hours. The great thing about Uncle Mack coming over is that it makes Katie very happy because Uncle Mack (who happens to be autistic) can actually outlast her endless ball-chasing exuberance. The not-so-great thing about Uncle Mack coming over is that he has a bit of a hand-washing OCD that's hard on the already lazy plumbing in the hall bathroom. He spent a good thirty minutes in there quietly, leaving everybody to wonder what he was up to. Most of the time it's just getting the OCD thing satisfied. Occasionally we end up with a clogged toilet. Either way it's a surprise and you know how we like surprises.



Anyhoo, right after Mimzi and Uncle Mack left, Biscuit went into the bathroom and asked me to bring him more TP. I obliged, not getting into the particulars except to ask him to put two of the three rolls I was bringing into the drawer.



"Um, there's kind of already some in there," he replied cryptically. Cryptic is not unusual for Biscuit since he was probably also thinking about three or four shiny objects that had caught his fancy earlier in the day. Still, I was a bit puzzled.



"How is there 'kind of' more?" I inquired, pausing at the door.



Biscuit stepped aside and pulled open the drawer, in which I saw this:





"Did you do that?" Biscuit's eyes went wide under Penetrating, Piercing Pie-Eyes. The next few seconds would be very important in determining how he would spend the remaining days of his summer vacation. Biscuit took a big breath and made sure he had his serious face on.



"No. I did not. Not unless I did it while I was sleeping," he said very c l e a r l y a n d d e l i b- e r a t e l y and then he paused, as though giving this honest consideration. It was plain on his face. He was wondering, "Did I really do that in my sleep? Is there a possibility it happened? If I did it in my sleep, I suppose it would be technically my fault because my hands were the hands that made this mess. But I wouldn't have intended to do it, so do I take responsibility for it? If I take responsibility for it even though I didn't really mean to do it, she'll think I'm being really responsible and that will probably get me in less trouble. But if I take responsibility when someone else did it all along and only led me to believe that I did it in my sleep, then I'm just a chump who loses the rest of summer vacation because somebody PWNed me."



"Relax," I said. "I'm not going to ground you."



I scooted over to the phone and dialed Mimzi, hoping to catch her before she got all the way home about four minutes away.



She answered, shouting "I'mnotlegalI'llcallyouwhenIgethome!!!" and with a click, she hung up.



Oops! I forgot Mimzi hasn't a headset for her phone and is fiercely paranoid about getting a ticket in the three blocks between our respective homes. About thirteen seconds later, my phone rang.



"Hello? Yes, what is it? Do you need me to come back?" She was shouting. Someday she might get used to the whole cell-phone thing but I'm not holding my breath.



"Mimzi, you're shouting," I said calmly. "I think Uncle Mack made a bit of a TP mess in the bathroom. I'm not mad or anything, but just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to come back and see it and maybe have a little talk with him," said I.



There was a pause, then a muffled exclamation, "Did you make a mess in the bathroom?!?!"



"Mess in the bathroom," came Uncle Mack's echolalic reply.



"Did you make a big TOILET PAPER MESS in Pie's bathroom?!?!?" Mimzi demanded again.



"Big toilet paper mess!" shouted Uncle Mack.



"I don't think that conversation's getting you anywhere Mimzi," I helpfully intoned.



"We'll be right there," Mimzi shouted into the phone. I could feel her scowl vibrating along my eardrums and rolling around inside of me to that place that, when she's in this mood, always feels happy that a) I'm a grown- up and b) I'm not the object of her ire.

But please, don't get me wrong. This wasn't a big deal as far as I was concerned. If anything, I'm glad Uncle Mack finds interesting ways of entertaining himself. And, I have been known to pull a prank or two involving toilet paper myself. The deal with Uncle Mack, though, is that if he gets away with something once he will do it over and over and over until something clicks off in his brain and neither he nor anyone else on the planet has any control over when, if ever, that little switch will click. Therefore, Mimzi always wants to nip any wayward behavior in the bud before it becomes weeks or months or years of misery for everybody.



When they arrived Biscuit, the Beans and I were all in the kitchen, the Beans in their unoutlandish pink highchairs enjoying ba-bas full of num-nums before retiring for Happy Nappy #2. Mimzi and Uncle Mack burst through the front door, Mimzi blazing along the warpath for the bathroom towing along poor Uncle Mack in her churning, burning wake. I glanced at Biscuit.



"Are you SURE you didn't do it, dude? Because Uncle Mack is about to catch you-know-what for it and if you just shut up and let him take the fall that's not going to work out well for you, Karmically speaking. You'll end up with a huge zit on prom night or something comparably evil." I just wanted to give him the opportunity of eleventh-hour salvation, not that I'd go any easier on him for it.



"No, I SWEAR I didn't do it. Unless, you know, I did it in my sleep," and he looked at me with those big, beautiful blues and we were good. Biscuit, you may remember, has no poker face. He desperately wants one but at the moment hasn't one in his arsenal. This works out very well for me in my role as Chief Household Justice.



In the bathroom Mimzi tore into Uncle Mack. "Did you do this? What did you do?!? Did you make this big TOILET PAPER MESS?!?!? Look at this ! Look at what you did!!!"



Uncle Mack stood there and took it like a good soldier. He considered the drawer full of shredded TP, looked up at Mimzi and then contritely returned his gaze back downward toward the TP drawer, fists squarely on his hips. In the midst of Mimzi's rant a little black and white dog, her belly close to the ground in an effort to remain invisible, slunk out from her sanctuary under my bed and scooted out her door to the backyard. Someone was tossing an awful lot of hell around and although she loved to run and chase stuff, she sure as heck didn't want to catch any of THAT!



And there I paused and so, coincidentally, did Mimzi.



"Hang on, Mimz,"



"Pie, did you look at this?" we called to each other simultaneously.



"Did you just see that?" I asked Biscuit.



"What?" Yep, he's still my same old little Biscuit.



"Never mind," and I stepped toward the back door.



"Katie?!? Katie, come!"



Clickety- clack went the doggie door. I made for the bathroom thinking that perhaps I shouldn't always be so quick to put the blame on a biped. Katie followed with her ears pricked up inquisitively, watching to see what was the plan. Would I like to play? She'd be glad to go get a ball if I would like to play.



"Katie, what did you do?" Oh, dear, that wasn't what she wanted to hear! Down went the ears, down went the tail, down went the nose to the ground and Katie turned tail and went right back out the doggie door. Clickety- clack.



"Did you take a good look at this? This doesn't look like something Uncle Mack would do," Mimzi was picking through the TP snow in the drawer that was a petite, August winter wonderland. She pulled out a half- shredded roll of toilet paper that looked as though something had been gnawing at it for quite some time.



"It must have been Katie. I thought it was weird, but thought maybe Uncle Mack was just getting creative," I said. "I mean, come on, it isn't like he hasn't had a TP fetish all his life," Yes, I was getting defensive, but it was entirely true. Uncle Mack has had a long, storied affair with all sorts of paper products: Kleenex, paper towels, computer paper, Kleenex, construction paper, origami paper, paper plates, and more Kleenex.



"I don't think he did this," Mimzi said.



"I think you're right-- it must have been Katie. She has been acting a little guilty lately but I figured it was because she's been getting on the sofa while I was out and that hairclip she ate last week. She must really need some more exercise," I said, wondering where in the heck I was going to find time to treat my TP-crazed Border Collie to some Frisbee therapy.



"I'm sorry, Uncle Mack," said Mimzi and I. He gave us an apathetic glare and started back for the front door. He wanted to go home for a salami sandwich. It made me wish that salami sandwiches made me feel better, but I now have other things on my plate to deal with. No salami pour moi.



I called Hubby on the Boo-phone.



"Guess what your daughter just did?"



"Aw, what did she do?" asked Hubby, excited to hear what new feat a Bean had just accomplished.



"Not a good thing. It's the quadruped. She's becoming quite the criminal. Just come in and look-- I don't want to ruin the surprise." Hubby said he'd come in soon and I got the Beans off to Happy Nappy.



Hubby came in a little while later and I sent him to the bathroom to witness the evidence of Criminal Katie's misdeed.



"Katie didn't do this." Hubby declared.



"Well, Uncle Mack didn't do it either and Biscuit SWEARS it wasn't him." I was freaking out. Had Biscuit finally mastered the poker face and I'd missed it? Were we on the cusp of the coup I'd feared for so long?



"No, honey, this is a mouse or something."



"What? Excuse me.... a MOUSE?"



A MOUSE in my HOUSE?!?!?!? No, absolutely NOT!!!!! In the garage, maybe, but in my HOUSE where my CHILDREN SLEEP? Oh, shit. No, no, no. No way!



"Yep, see? There's poop in there. It's a mouse."



"Yeah," chimed in the Biscuit, "I thought it looked like a nest."



Awesome! Lovely! Fantastic! DIRTY!!!!!!!!! I felt one big wave of howling fantods about to overcome me.



"Well then, you need to go to the hardware store and get a MOUSE TRAP. Or I can go to the store and get a MOUSE TRAP. Oh, my God, that's what we've been hearing at night, isn't it? A MOUSE? In our HOUSE!?!?!? In the WALLS! Eating our TOILET PAPER!!! Oh, my God, it's POOPING in our BATHROOM DRAWERS!!! UUGGHHHRRRRRRAAAARRRGHHH!!!! Oh, it's so GROSS!"



"Chill out Pie. It's not a big deal. Next time you're at the hardware store just get some mouse traps." said Hubby.



That was Tuesday. Today is Thursday. Hubby fixed the faucet Wednesday (which I suppose merited a trip only to the plumber, not the hardware store) and is planning a bike ride this afternoon. I still don't have any mouse traps, so the little mouse is still at large in my house.

This might really peeve another woman, but not me. No! This is an opportunity for me to strut my stuff as a true merciless slayer. Maybe I lost out at my chance to shine with the kitchen-sink situation but the universe is offering me another chance and I'm going to take it and run with it (carefully, because I am still an accident-prone girl). Because no matter how many misadventures I might get us into, and no matter how many projects I try to muddle through and thoroughly mess up before Hubby comes along and fixes whatever it is in about five minutes, he loves that I fearlessly try, no matter how stupid I feel when I'm doing it.

AND, when he asks himself why he ever got himself into this mess, which he inevitably will, I can say, "WHY? Because we LIKE you!!! M - O - U - S - E!!!!!!"

Yes, Babies Bounce

They bounce, they roll, they flop around and do LOTS of other entertaining stuff. But Tuesday, the focus was mostly on how babies bounce.


The MoMs club meeting this month included a CPR refresher course led by the fabulous LF. Having never completed an official CPR certification course, the evening was certainly educational, and entertaining to boot. There's just something inherently funny about a group of women puffing on disturbingly blank-faced, open-mouthed dolls that have been passed around, bounced on tables and whacked on the back to dislodge the little items we've poked into their little mouths. I felt bad, though, when LF called me out for what must have been a bemused expression on my face.

I know that I don't have, nor have I had, emotional self-control at the level I'm used to having it for about the past eighteen months due in large part to the crazy, raging hormones that stubbornly refuse to leave coupled with lack of good, consistent sleep, not to mention all the little worrisome things I can't do anything about that have pushed me to the brink of freak-out mode and left me there while they go get a mani-pedi and a martini. So I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to find that what was an attempted "I'm being a good, attentive listener" face came out looking like a pasted-on smirk. I really am sorry, LF. I totally didn't mean it that way. Apparently, I've now also lost control of my facial muscles. I hate to think of what's next. Huzzah!

LF made many good points in her presentation, the greatest one being that no matter what we're doing when administering CPR to an unresponsive infant, toddler, pre-pubescent, adolescent, or adult, even if it isn't totally right it's better than doing nothing. The funniest point, which LF physically demonstrated with some enthusiasm which we could all probably embrace a little more than we'd like to admit, is that babies will bounce. Take from that what you like. Generally I like to think that we moms are all alert enough to prevent accidents but, metaphorically speaking, bullets travel fast and while we might be able to help our kids dodge a couple, they probably can't dodge them all. Thus, it's good to have a little bounce.

What this reminded me of, when LF made her "babies bounce" comment (and probably what helped put that unintentional, snarky smirk upon my well-meaning visage), was something my mom said a long, long time ago after my first nephew was born (I was twelve, I think), and a phrase I've carried around with me ever since. We were babysitting said adorable nephew and I was gingerly attempting to change his diaper while he squiggled, squirmed and successfully evaded my grasp for about ten minutes. She grabbed the baby and he writhed in protest. She plopped him down in front of her, held him firmly and said, "Now, change him and don't be so scared. Babies bend before they break." Mimzi has very good reason for holding this outlook on parenting.

And her point is true. Even Biscuit, for as accident-prone as he is, has only broken one bone in his entire life and required just four stitches under his ten-month-old chin for a freak fall. This is the kid whose face bounced off the wrought-iron bars of a fence at Disneyland, whose entire body has bounced numerous times off of sliding glass and screen doors, and whose keester has bounced off the ground while waveboarding, scootering, rollerblading, and bike riding more times that anyone could count.

I've been in a bit of a euphoria, too, over the past couple of weeks over the Beans' upcoming birthday. It's been almost an entire year since Pipsi's had any apnea episodes and I might finally be able to lay that fear to rest. I don't have my fingers crossed or my breath held, but it might happen. We've also been very fortunate to not have had any situations (aside from the one a couple of weeks ago which turned out to be nothing) in which we've had to be grateful for the fact that babies do indeed bounce, and I'm starting to breathe more easily since both Beans seem to be developmentally on track. There is, however, one more association I have with that word, "bounce", but it's a biggie and another one of the issues that will keep me from sleeping until the Beans are at least two years old and we get the all-clear.

You see, my brother bounces. He bounces for probably a couple of hours every day on a big red exercise ball in his room at my parents' house. He's 36 years old, has Star Trek paraphernalia throughout his room and he enjoys listening to SchoolHouse Rock and sitcom theme songs from the 80s. He likes to bounce because it mellows him out and he's done it for as long as I can remember and he'll probably do it for his entire life because he's severely autistic.

There are many ways in which I want my Beans to bounce. Of course I want them to be happy, bouncy babies. I want them to bounce back from illness and from physical and emotional pain. I want them to eat too much sugar and bounce off the walls at their first slumber party with all their giddy, screaming little girlfriends. I want them to bounce back from a bad grade on their first paper in college. And I want them to bounce their own babies in their arms after they finish grad school and get themselves into careers that satisfy them, all things they won't do if they spend their lives bouncing on the same ball in the same room day after day.

Do I have any control at all over that? Maybe just a little. I can pay attention at a CPR class and make sure that no matter what crisis arises I can bounce to the side of whomever is in need and help Biscuit or the Beans as best I can. When Hubby and I were expecting the Beans and visited the genetic counselor we got the standard "nobody knows what causes autism but it's probably got something to do with genetics and the odds of your kids having it are higher but we just can't tell you anything for sure" speech. And I specifically remember the day we found out the Beans were girls Hubby and I sharing in a little relief because autism occurs less frequently in females. I know that there's nothing I can do about the genes the girls got and the best I can do is be prepared for whatever life throws our way. But I still hope every day and with all my might that maybe, just maybe my Beans can do more than bounce. Hopefully, they can dodge at least one bullet in all their lives, and I hope it's this one.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26182016/

Eleven Hours

This morning, Hubby startled me with a hug. He hugs pretty frequently, so it wasn't the hug itself that was startling. The hug came from the right, not the left, so that was unusual. And it was pretty much just his head and shoulders which meant that he wasn't in bed like I was. And he was awake and I was not, up until the moment he hugged me. Slowly, I realized that it was light outside, the morning news was on he was going out the door to his office, which meant that it had to be about 7:15 and the Beans were still asleep.

Eleven hours, my friends. Eleven hours. That has to be a record, especially because last night yours truly also took the opportunity to go to bed early and it did us all a world of good.

Sleeping's been a little iffy lately. The Beans must either be getting more teeth or the impending birthday party has them too jazzed to fully sink into restful REM, and it's making them a little cranky, Pooki in particular.

Pipsi, when tired, will sit with her back up against a wall or other supporting object, grab the nearest tag, hold it about two inches in front of her nose and yell at it until someone carries her to her crib, where she will happily continue yelling at something (crib, sheet, wall, foot) until she falls asleep. That is, if she is free to clutch whatever it is, unmolested, until overtaken by sleepiness. Enter Pooki.

Pooki, when sleepy, is a whirling dervish of mischief and malcontent. Seriously. If Pooki is sleepy she will make Pipsi (and pretty much everyone else) miserable. I'd go so far as to say that Pooki gets a little aggressive. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking. What could possibly compel me to label a sweet, innocent baby as aggressive? How about this:

It's 8:42 AM and official Happy Nappy time is 17 minutes away. Pooki is starting to rub her eyes and nose and occasionally issue short, bright bursts of scream, classic signs that she's fast approaching meltdown mode. Sitting in the center of a circle of toys, she grabs whatever is closest to her and tosses it. Where it lands, she does not care. All she knows is these toys bore her and she hungers for something more challenging. Something... alive. Her restless eyes roam the Playground and she zeroes in on Pipsi.

Pipsi, reclined in Zen-like repose against an inflatable tube, is shouting benignly at the tag on Big Bird's butt. The tag is clutched in her little ham-fist and a Binkie is at the ready in her other hand when she feels Pooki's laser-gaze lock onto her and her toys. Pipsi sees Pooki embark across the Playground in her direction at a lightning-fast crawl and Pipsi immediately begins evasive maneuvers. She chokes off her contented yell and takes a deep breath while flipping over and off the tube, abandoning her comfortable perch in search of a safe haven. She knows what's coming.

Pooki crawls relentlessly toward her twin, hell-bent on possessing whatever Pipsi has and vanquishing her sister forever. Pooki pants and grunts and issues a few more little war cries in her advance. Pipsi scoots over to a corner of the Playground, standing with her back to her sister in the classic "if I can't see you, you can't see me" defensive position. Pooki arrives at her objective destination and begins to employ torture tactics in an effort to get her opponent to acquiesce.

First, Pooki acquires Big Bird. With one hard yank, out pops Big Bird's tag from Pipsi's clenched fist. "Mruuuuaaaargh!" Pipsi protests in vain. "Yeeeyeeeeyeeee!" Screams Pooki in triumph. Pipsi attempts to preserve her remaining comfort item, the Binkie, by placing it in her mouth and turning her face away from the invader. Pipsi puts her foot out toward Pooki in an effort to keep the Binkie Thief at bay. Mommy, watching from the sidelines and advancing toward the mayhem says something about another Binkie by Pooki, but Pooki will not be deterred. Pooki sees the Binkie she wants and Pooki shall have it, whatever the cost. Pipsi turns her head toward Mommy's voice in the hope that salvation is at hand when out of nowhere, a wily little Bean hand pops the Binkie from Pipsi's mouth and immediately sticks it into her own.

BinkBinkBink goes the little Pooki mouth, happily wrapped around Pipsi's Binkie. Pipsi begins to scream in rage at this injustice. Pooki answers her by raising the hand with Big Bird and beating her sister around the head and shoulders with the smiling yellow bird. Pipsi drops, crying, to all fours. Pooki lets loose with yet another Shriek of Triumph, also drops to her knees next to her fallen sister and continues to whack her on the back with Pipsi's tag-friend-turned-torture-implement.

Pooki's fun is cut short when Mommy steps over the walls of the Playground, pulls Pooki off of her sister, and picks up a screaming Pipsi who readily accepts the other Binkie which, coincidentally, Mommy retrieved from the floor (yes, the floor-- we're past that now) right next to Pooki. Mommy offers Elmo who fortunately also has a tag on his butt. Safely ensconced in Mommy's protective arms, Pipsi leans her head against Mommy's shoulder and begins yelling around the Binkie at Elmo's butt-tag.

Mommy turns her gaze to Pooki, now standing with Pipsi's Binkie in her mouth, Big Bird in hand, her big, sleepy blue eyes trained on the Elmo doll that is now the object of her twin's attention. "Pooki, don't take Pipsi's toys-- look, there are all these other toys. Here, take Blue Star," and Mommy puts Blue Star in Pooki's open hand.

Pooki doesn't even look at Blue Star. She just grabs it and tosses it behind her, eyes still on Elmo. "Okay, how about Pink Star?" And Pink Star follows her brother Blue Star to an inauspicious resting place behind Pooki. Even the clatter of star on star doesn't pull Pooki's gaze away from the coveted Elmo.

"Okay, then, it must be Happy Nappy!" And Mommy rises to her feet, carries Pipsi into the Beans' room for Happy Nappy, returns for Pooki, and off the two Beans go for a little R&R, only to repeat the cycle scant hours later.

I read some great advice a while ago. There are volumes and volumes and volumes of writing dedicated to making parents' lives easier and I think that the four or five tenets to which I closely adhere were worth wading through all the crap to find. They are:

1. Stick to the "4B's" evening routine every night: bath, book, bottle, bed
2. If you want to sleep at all when they're little, swaddle them for as long as possible
3. Try to do the same or similar things at the same time every day so the babies know what to expect
4. Treat the whole day like one long sleep cycle.

If any of the tenets had to be altered or changed in a day, I always tried to keep #4 as whole as possible sinch it's more of a philosophy and an attitude than a concrete practice. You've now seen what happens during the daily grind and perhaps now have an inkling of the importance of Happy Nappy-- not only for the babies' sakes, but for our own as well.

What really surprised me this morning wasn't the hug, but rather how much a little extra sleep improved Mommy's and Daddy's moods. Because the early-morning hug used to not be such a rarity. Someday we'll get back into the habit and take it for granted again, but today I was glad to have the opportunity to appreciate such a happy gesture. After all, Pooki's not the only one who gets a little aggressive when she's sleepy.

There Must Be Something In The Water

If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that recent posts have branched out a bit from being super kid-focused and are touching on other subjects-- more mundane ones like panic and insanity. This is because I know that even though most of you dear readers are friends and family and you tune in really just to check up on us (read: make sure none of us has killed any of the others) because you're afraid to call at a "bad time" (trust me-- there is NO time that is worse than any other and yes, I will just let you go to voicemail when elbow-deep in poop, which is at least three times a day), I know that not everyone is as fascinated by my childrens' antics as Hubby and I. I can respect that, especially in light of recent events.

What recent events? Well, specifically, how about Viv & Knox? Or Max & Emme? Or how about Hazel & Phinnaeus, remember them? What about Dr. McDreamy's twins or Dennis Quaid's? And Marcia Cross, we can't forget her. Or there are the two that Rebecca Romjin is currently gestating and two more developing within Lisa Marie Presley. Those recent events.

Twins are trendy I guess (BTW, way to catch up Hollywood-- I SO did that last year). And I'm sick of hearing about the latest celebrity having them. Here's the deal: twins happen, and they happen to people from all walks of life. And they can happen for several different reasons, not just as a result of IVF (oh dear, it seems as though there's a full-fledged vent coming on). Everybody was all agog when Angelina went into the hospital for the final few weeks of her latest pregnancy. So freakin' what? Yes, yes, it seems like SUCH a big deal because the majority of births in the world are still, for the moment, singletons. Speaking from experience, a twin pregnancy is very little like a singleton pregnancy. In both cases, the mother is a woman and she's preganant. That's about as far as the similarities go. Complication rates jump significantly when the number of babies simultaneously gestating in one womb increases. Double the babies means double the potential complications. There are higher risks for everything that can possibly happen to both the babies and the mother-- and that's just physically. That doesn't even touch upon the tremendous physical and emotional toll a multiple pregnancy takes on the mother and her family.

I saw on the cover of the tabloids, all of which I refuse to purchase because I think they're all blatantly disrespectful of everyone's rights to privacy, that Angelina was going crazy and screaming at Brad while she was pregnant. What?!?!?! Oh, my God-- Are you SERIOUS?!?!?! A PREGNANT woman SCREAMING at her PARTNER?!?!?! What a SCANDAL!!!!!! What the tabloids didn't mention, I noticed, is that having double the babies ALSO means double the hormones. When I saw that headline I thought back to the endless, indescribable discomfort of my internal organs pressed up against my ribcage, leaving me short of breath while doing nothing at all. I remembered feeling contractions beginning while playing Frisbee with Katie and having to stop so I could drink a liter of water and lie on my left side on the downstairs sofa because I could only make it up and down the stairs once a day. I remembered how much it hurt to get up out of bed at night to go pee (again and again, and having to wake up Hubby to help me even sit up, then in and out of bed) and having my Great-Pumpkin-sized uterus and both of the babies in it shift down low and pull my skin out of shape and so tight I was numb between my navel and thighs. I remembered sitting in the movie theater with Biscuit watching Harry Potter in July the month before the Beans were born and feeling my ankles and feet suddenly swell with fluid, and for the remainder of my pregnancy, how much it hurt to walk around on those swollen-sausage feet. I remember not being able to read a book because I developed carpal tunnel syndrome and my forearms and hands, all the way to my fingertips, would go numb and I'd drop the book. I remember towards the end carrying my belly around with both my hands beneath it because it was so heavy it hurt just to stand. I remembered not sleeping at night because I was just too hot and no, Hubby, don't you dare touch that thermostat!!! And I remembered all the raging, uncontrollable hormones that turned reasonable, sensible, easygoing me into an unrecognizably bloated, screaming, sweating, panting pig of a madwoman who barricaded herself in the bedroom with the lights out so she could gnaw like a crazed rat on an entire block of sharp cheddar cheese, snarling at everyone to get the hell away and leave me alone and go clean the damn house and shut up you're bothering me and, by the way, I hate you.

... Anyway, I looked at that headline and thought (with a surprising amount of sympathy) that no matter how much money an expectant mom has, and no matter how many people she has around to help her, she has to do the pregnancy thing herself. It's worth it, don't get me wrong-- because afterward Mommy has two babies to love and cuddle and keep her up at night with their screams, but it isn't easy and there's no going back. What I think I'm really trying to get at (and this is just a guess, mind you) is that the whole multiple pregnancy thing has been glamourised (as the British would write) by the media-- and they've done it because of the public's fascination with it and its willingness to experience (or judge) it through whichever celebrity's suffering through it at the moment. I'm not going to get up on my philosophical high horse and spout off about my views on the crazy consumerism that drives pretty much everything we do in this country (I haven't the time today-- I'm taking the Beans to Aunt Niki's to get their pictures taken, and I'm sure that'll be an interesting, if not calmer, post), but I'll just say that the media has seemed to highlight all the pretty things about having twins (or higher-order multiples) in their pretty, glossy, well-lit, shiny-object photo spreads and sensationalized or elided everything else (see snarling raging beast description above), which is the "normal" experience and the hallmark-slash-badge-of-honor of having twins.

And one more point I'd like to make is that our culture of celebrity (sorry-- I tried not to go here, really I did) has begun to show its effects on all multiple moms. What is it that makes women stop us in Walgreen's and ask all kinds of highly personal questions regarding the conceptions of our children? Nobody asked me about the when I was just having one, but when there were two in there, and now when I cart them around and reluctantly admit that yes, they're twins (oh, yes, I do deny it on occasion-- sometimes I just want to get my business done and go home), now it's like my reproductive health and habits are suitable conversation topics for any woman or deranged man so inclined to discuss it. Sure, I'm fine discussing it with a close friend because she's my close friend, but why do people think it's okay or even better to discuss the subject because we're strangers? That's what the Internet is for!!! Go be anonymous there, not to my face. It's rude and you should be ashamed of yourself. And I just deleted a couple of nasty words from those last few sentences because now the mood swing is back up :)

So, next time you see a mother of twins on the street or in the doctor's office or in the grocery store and you see her twins being obnoxious or sweet or silly or throwing fits or crying or running away, please don't mention anything to her about celebrity twins, or about your niece or friend or daughter who wants to have twins. Look at what we've already been through just to get to this day, today, and think about the rest of what we have yet to endure until said kids are off to college. Sure, we would do it all again, but you'd be in dangerous territory to go there with us, and I'll tell you the secret why: Those hormones that kick in after the babies are born that make us love the little ones so much that even when they're screaming for going on the fifth consecutive hour we still won't flush them down the toilet or stick them in a box labeled "deliver to the fire department"-- you know, those hormones? Those hormones, while they're not nearly as ferocious as the other ones, still make us crazy, and are (OBVIOUSLY) still affecting me almost a whole year later and if you're at all in doubt of that fact you're obviously not a careful reader. We MoMs are all pretty much constantly about one-half of a catastrophe away from pulling all our hair out and committing ourselves to mental institutions, just so we can have a little break from the insanity we deal with moment after moment in our daily lives. If you or your loved ones want to wish THAT upon yourselves, please, go right ahead. Just don't try to take us along for the ride because we've already been there and I'm tellin' ya, when we laugh and smile and say, "That's nice, I hope you get just what you want", we mean it.

Expect The Unexpected

As long as they don't involve poop, we love surprises around here. Not only do we love the surprises themselves, we're also big fans of the chaos that ensues immediately after the surprise gets sprung upon its victim(s) -- and I'm not just talking about the benevolent surprise party every couple of years. Maybe it's the look of shock upon Biscuit's face just before a well-aimed pair of socks hits him upside the head, or maybe it's the knowledge that Hubby will not let an unexpected wet-willie go unanswered (I still say it was worth it), or maybe it's the way my dad (The Dead-Pan-Straight-Man) jumps backwards and bounces for a bit after I jump out of the closet at him (absolutely priceless-- all three times we've managed to pull it off-- and one of my all-time favorite shenanigans). Or maybe it's just a little bit of the devious fairy in us needing to come to the surface and work some mischief in public. And I know we've overdone it a bit over the years (Mimzi and Dead-Pan-Straight-Man didn't believe there were two babies in the belly until they saw the ultrasound and even then they were skeptical, thinking we'd just Photoshopped the whole thing-- I thought for a minute that maybe we should tone down the surprise-a-thon that is our life and then realized that would just be silly). We get the occasional backfire, like flat tires, pies in the face, and twins, but most of the time it's all good fun. Because you know, it's the backfires that are really the most fun.

Hubby thinks they're hilarious but, sadly, he never gets to witness them. There was the time a few weeks ago when I was getting the Beans into their strollers (we use two singles when going out shopping now-- but that's another post entitled) when Biscuit and I were going to Wal-Mart and while pulling Parki out of her carseat I stepped backwards, tripped over the stroller and landed flat on my keester in the middle of the WalMart parking lot while holding the baby, who was wearing a very surprised expression, up in the air. Biscuit leaned over me spluttering, "Are you okay?"

"MMMMrrgh," I said, and then clarifying, "Yes." I peered up at my son, who dutifully stayed right by Pipsi's stroller and wore a squiggly, squirmy expression on his face that said he was trying SO HARD not to laugh.

"It's okay, you can laugh. I'm sure that looked absolutely ridiculous," He didn't hear the last half of the sentence because he had already fallen apart. Upon reflection, I see that as a rather low point in my life: on my butt in the WalMart parking lot with a twelve-year-old laughing hysterically at me, along with everyone else in the vicinity.

When we got home that evening Hubby asked, "What happened to your leg?" pointing to the long scabby scrape and bruise along the back of my thigh.

Biscuit told him, "Pie bailed hard in the WalMart parking lot! You should've seen it!"

Hubby looked at me. I nodded. "You should have. It was pretty funny."

Hubby looked disappointed. "I never get to see it. I'm always somewhere else when all the good stuff happens."

This is true. He missed the time in college during passing period when I fell forward onto my hands and knees in front of Dwinelle Hall and my heavy backback continued on after I stopped, pushing my head down on the concrete. Lots of people saw that one and laughed, but Hubby did not. Then there was time I was standing outside the door to my boss' office and turned to scoot over to my desk and ran right into the wall. My boss laughed his butt off and rightly so. Hubby missed that one, too. And let's not forget the time I was walking out of a pizza place carrying a gigantic pizza over which I could see nothing but sky, and I slipped in the mud and landed with my legs all akimbo, half-on, half-off the curb. No Hubby around then, but the pizza made it safely home. Oh, and there was the night I was talking to a friend outside a restaurant and when I turned around to go inside I walked right into a pole which made a pretty singing noise when my face hit it. Alas, Hubby was absent then, too. I told him when we first got together that these kinds of things seem to happen frequently and I think that back then I labeled myself "accident-prone" but now that we're older and wiser, I think it's just the universe getting back at mischievous me and keeping the score a little more even.

Take last night for example. Yesterday was Mimzi's birthday. Hubby and I were scooting around trying to get everything and everybody ready to get over to Mimzi & DPSM's house to celebrate for ten minutes before the Beans completely melted down. Already tired from waking up early (and I don't know what was up with that except possibly more teeth?), our little Beans were vociferously protesting their wakeful state and Katie was adding to the mix, sliding up and down the hall after me, before me, around me, and generally just totally in my way, begging not to be left behind this time. It was getting ready to sprinkle outside so Hubby decided we should load the Beans into the Starship Margaret for the five-minute journey (we figured no matter what we strapped them into to get from A to B they were going to scream all the way, so better to keep them out of the rain and separate enough to keep them from thieving each other's Binkies and pulling each other's hair and- I shudder to say it- from biting each other) and I was making my way back down the hall from the Beans' room to the Playground when Katie paused in front of me, looking back over her shoulder at me with one ear up and her tongue out the side of her grinning mouth, so cute I couldn't resist her playful attitude. I started stomping my feet and scampering up the hall toward her, figuring with all the other chaos going on I might as well just go with the flow and at least keep the dog happy.

Suddenly, out of nowhere there was a big THUNK and blinding, crippling, make-you-pee-your-pants pain was shooting up my arm through my torso, down to my fingertips and into my head and coursing throughout the rest of my body. Something clattered to the floor and through the red haze of pain I saw Katie pause, look at the object and cautiously approach to sniff at it. In the brief instant before the tears obscured my vision (which was weird because in none of these other ridiculous situations has there ever been sufficient pain to make me cry-- not even when I was nine and took a softball in the eye or got sort of run over by a Ford Mustang when I was 16) I recognized the offender and realized I'd just been humbled / crippled / PWNed by an Unidentified Flying Smoke Detector. The drum of my heels on the hall floor must have shaken it from its precarious perch in the ceiling and Karma had aimed it directly at my left elbow. Or maybe Karma aimed it at my head and fortunately missed. I spun around and staggered back down the hall toward my bedroom, my right hand cradling my poor throbbing elbow. I heard Hubby behind me in the living room.

"Pie, you about ready? Are you bringing their jackets?"

"MMMglarpfh unh unh, ow," I choked out.

"What? Do you have the jackets? Parki's coming for you,"

Slap, slap, slap went Bean hands on the floor. Thump, thump, thump went little Bean knees.

"Pick up the smoke detector," I gasped, "pick it up!"

"What? I can't hear you. Where are you? We gotta get going. What are you doing?" Hubby finally looked down the hall and saw me squatting in the doorway of our bedroom, temporarily incapacitated by pain. I was turned away from him, so he didn't see the tears spilling down my cheeks. Suspicious and wary, he approached me with caution. He was probably remembering the time I faked injury to get him close enough to mash a Ho-Ho in his face, a ruse, I remember, which worked perfectly.

"Pick up the smoke detector. Make sure there aren't any screws laying around," I instructed. I think I grunted a little bit, too. It really hurt.

Hubby stopped en route to the bedroom and picked up the smoke detector. "What's this?" he puzzled. Have I mentioned that Hubby's a smart guy but a shitty listener? I can't help but think that if he listened a little better he wouldn't miss quite so much-- like Unidentified Flying Smoke Detectors assaulting his wife.

"Where did this come from? Are you ok? What happened?" Cute little confused Hubby was about to receive yet another disappointment.

"It fell down and hit me," I whimpered. Hubby came around me, over the threshold and into the bedroom. "It really hurts, " I added, just in case the tears and grunts weren't enough to help him draw this conclusion for himself.

"Oh, wow, Pie." He said, looking at the mess that, for better or worse (and this was definitely worse-- a slobbery, runny-nosed, mascara-smeared worse), he was married to. "Do you want me to get you some ice?"

And with that, Hubby went into Mom mode. The Beans were screaming since he'd put Parki in the Playground before coming down the hall, so I went and climbed in with them to calm them down. Hubby fixed an ice pack and applied it to my poor little winglet and then called Mimzi and DPSM and invited them over, explaining that I'd been victim of yet another freak accident but damn, was it funny. He was walking into the kitchen to put a couple stray cups in the Deeshwasherator when he started to chuckle mirthfully.

"This could only happen to you," he said.

"You were right here! You didn't see it happen?" I couldn't believe his terrible luck.

He came over to the Playground. "Do we need to take you to the hospital?"

"Not at the moment." The Motrin he'd brough me a little earlier were already helping but it still hurt A LOT.

Mimzi and DPSM arrived and looked at me, holding an ice pack on my elbow, surrounded by toys and Beans.

"You okay?" asked my dear father, DPSM.

"Uh-huh." I replied.

"So the smoke detector fell from the ceiling and hit you in the elbow? You're lucky it wasn't your head. You need some mollies?" Dead-Pan-Straight-Man turned to talk hardware with Hubby. I watched him talking earnestly about how to keep this from happening again and thought that there's only one way to prevent this or any other situation like it from occurring and that's to quit with all the surprises. Will that ever happen? Not in our household.

While it might be nice to live in a world where poles, walls and smoke detectors all stay put and don't jump out and whack us every once in a while, it would be awfully boring. I wouldn't want to raise my kids in that world. Even though it's often annoying, inconvenient and occasionally requires an ER visit, life with surprises teaches kids to keep their eyes and ears open and be ready for anything and that's a good thing. Because you never know when you're going to get a BIG surprise-- like two babies at the same time.

Outlandish? I Think Not!

Pooki is a climber. We discovered this when the Beans were in their highchairs and I walked around the wall to pick up the mail, returning to find Pooki turned around, standing up in the highchair, leaning over the back of it about to fall to her doom. Okay, I thought. Time to find another highchair with a five-point harness because, of course, it's only a matter of time until Pipsi joins her partner in crime-- well, not crime, but certainly her partner in Let's Give Mommy The Howling Fantods Again.

Most of the Beans' gear is second-hand and I'm proud of that fact, believe it or not. I've spent countless hours scouring Craigslist for what we need and buying something new has become a last resort. It now physically hurts me inside to part with money for something I know they'll quickly outgrow. When the Beans were born, we had two highchairs-- one had belonged to my friend's daughter, the other I'd acquired from another MoM. Both were good, high-quality chairs but only one had shoulder straps and, being the safety freak that I am, every time I looked at the chairs all I could see was a Bean falling on her head. So, the search was on.

When I brought home the first one and proudly set it up next to its navy-blue-and-white counterpart, Hubby snorted and immediately opined: "That is truly outlandish."

Outlandish? Really? I turned around and looked at the Craigslist prize I'd been thoroughly overjoyed to bring home (and already secretly scheming to find another one as soon as humanly possible and setting it up right next to the other one, ridding the Beans of the blue-is-for-boys, redheaded-stepchild highchair once and for all) cradling my little Bean in all its safe and beautiful glory and thought, "No, no it isn't. Definitely not subtle, I grant you, but certainly not outlandish. And if I had one I would sit in it all the time."

Come on, wouldn't you? You would if you looked this cute: