I Do, And Still Would; Farewell To Casters

There's just something about a wedding, you know? Maybe it's the poofy dress and perfect hair and makeup, maybe it's the cake, or maybe it's the tickly champagne, but I just can't resist a good old vow-swap.

On Saturday, Hubby and I took the Beans went to their first wedding. Our friend G-Lo married her Mario in a beautiful outdoor ceremony at four o'clock in the afternoon. Doesn't that sound beautiful?!? It was! It was absolutely gorgeous except for the fact that it was four PM in California's Central Valley and therefore almost one hundred degrees. There should have been a banner reading "Welcome to G-Lo & Mario's Wedding in Hell".

We drove an hour to our destination. The Beans did really well in their now forward-facing behemoth carseats and we arrived just in time-- not too early because honestly, that's just asking for a meltdown. They remained happily in their strollers during the brief, beautiful ceremony and then we let them out to run around.

Pipsi can't wait to get on the dance floor.

The Beans dancing with Daddy

Oooh! The Beans love an audience!

Daddy dips Pipsi and Parki heads for...

...greener pastures :)

The wedding got me thinking, though. Not because it was like our wedding day (we got married at the courthouse on the rainiest, winteriest day of 2004). This was only the second wedding that Hubby and I have attended together. Of course, this is because we're old and pretty much all of our friends are already married and have been for quite some time. But anyway, G-Lo's wedding got me to thinking about our wedding and everything that's happened since and it made me realize how even though not a lot seems to change about our daily lives, we've come a long way together. And, I realized that there are things that I miss, like the spontaneity and unexpectedness that went along with our fledgling relationship.

Hubby must have been on the same wavelength because Sunday, after his long bike ride that took him to the summit of Mt Diablo, he shocked me by choosing to eat at Armadillo Willy's. Hubby jonesing for Bar-B-Que? That was pretty unexpected. The fact that he actually consumed it was even stranger still, but what followed was nothing short of weird.

"Want to take the Beans and go walk around the mall?"

After a second I picked my jaw up off the table but Hubby was already responding to my shock.

"It's cool there," he explained.

Hubby is not a fan of crowds. Crowds, I learned when we began dating, frequently consist of no more than two people. Did you know that? It's true. And Hubby would rather avoid them.

It was something different to do, though, so off we went. Biscuit met us there and we just scooted around Consumerville for about an hour, seeing other stuff and enjoying a cool place for a while. We were coming around full-circle on the second story of our little walkabout when Hubby said something I never, ever thought I'd hear him say in all my life:

"The Beans are probably going to be ready to go home pretty soon. Wanna go into Sears and check out vaccuums?"

Oh. My. God.

Stunned. That's what I was. And I think Biscuit was kind of that way, too. Dazed, we rolled into Sears and found the vaccuums and decided on one pretty quickly. And as I stood at the counter to pay for the new baby we were going to tote home so that I could finally-- gleefully, mirthfully, joyously, and yes, very much maliciously-- take the baseball bat to Eureka Betsy until I collapsed from exhaustion or until there weren't enough solid bits to hit anymore, I couldn't help feel bad for what I'd done to this man.

This is the same man who had enjoyed nothing more than posing the most provocative questions in class, the guy who had burst into the classroom late on the first day and was totally fine with everyone suddenly staring at him, the life of the party, the instigator, the mischief-maker, the bad boy, the man whose fearlessness I admire more than almost anything else in the world, the guy who can always identify exactly what he wants and make it come right to where he's standing, the man who wants a new bike so badly he can almost taste it (because I'm pretty sure he kisses his bike when nobody's looking)... and here he is, pushing babies around Sears in matching pink strollers while his wife (me) drops $400 on a vaccuum. What have I done to this poor guy?

But then I thought about how even though this wasn't exactly where we'd planned to land, the flight here has been good. Sure, it's had its high and low (sometimes very, very low) points, but I still like him and am just interested in him as ever, even as much as I was when I knew nothing about him and each new thing out of his mouth surprised me. It's cute how frequently we'll both want the same thing for dinner now, or how an image we see or something we hear together will illicit the same response from us simultaneously. Of course that has an awful lot to do with the fact that we are creatures of habit who have spent the last five years of our lives together, but we keep coming up with new stuff and surprising (and shocking, and pantsing, and wet-willying, and crashing into) each other, so I guess that means we're going to last.

I think that's good, because I can't wait to see what we'll do next.

She Might Be That Girl

Toddlers like being naked. Biscuit loved it. When we were living with Mimzi and DPSM and Biscuit was around two or three, I would let him run naked around the house after a bath just to let him get it out of his system. He'd go crazy. He would hold his cape (no, not a towel, a cape, Mommy) around his shoulders and sneak up on Mimzi, who'd shout, "Oh, no! Naked Kid! Naked kid!" and high jinks ensued until bedtime. The remainder of the time, Biscuit knew he was expected to remain, for the most part, fully clothed and had no problem with that.

Pipsi is much the same. She enjoys air on her beautiful Beanskin as much as the next kid and pitches an admirable post-bath fit when it comes time to diaper and pajama her, just like her twin. In the end, Hubby and/ or I triumph though, and that's that. But Pooki put an interesting spin on things today, and I must say I found myself stymied and probably, no, certainly not for the last time.

It was just after 4 PM and we were working on Happy Nappy #2. The Beans had their Binkies and all was well in Beansland. I was in the kitchen when Pooki summoned someone, anyone, to please come pick up at least one of the three Binkies (yes, really, three) she'd thrown overboard while experimenting to see whether gravity still had the same effect it did on Binkies during the minutes preceding Happy Nappy #1. As I walked quietly down the hall I could hear the little monkey jumping on the bed and I peeked through the crack before opening the door a little wider, just to make sure she wasn't pulling a fast one. She wasn't. She was pulling a new one.

Somehow, after about four minutes alone in her crib, Pooki managed to get her dress completely off and bid it sayonara over the side of her crib. I entered the room to find her Binkieless, topless and swinging aound, back arched, chin up in the air, looking just like a college freshman at her first Mardi Gras. And, I must admit, I didn't expect to see this when I woke up this morning.

I had no beads to offer, but I did manage to quickly replace the Binkies and get her calmed down with a blankie. I looked over to the other crib and saw Pipsi as usual taking it all in and having a good giggle at the entire scenario.

"Pooki's nekkid! Did you see that? She just took her whole dress right off?!?" I said to Pipsi, sotto voce. Pipsi looked over at Pooki and flapped the hem of her own dress up to her little Beanbellybutton a couple of times, watching my face for a reaction.

"Hm, I think one dressless Bean is enough for today, don't you? How about you do it tomorrow? Happy Nappy now,"

And with that, the Beans settled down and got in a good little refreshing nap.

I sat down in front of the computer and started researching whether girls get arrested for flashing and how much it costs to bail them out.

Sigh.

Keeping Up

Poor, neglected little blog. Don't worry-- you're in good company with the dishes, laundry and most other chores around here. The bathtub needs a good cleaning. Why? Because Pipsi pooped in it.







It's been a while since the Beans had a real bath. Normally Hubby or I get into the shower with one and then the other because it's faster and easier than kneeling next to and reaching over the tub, especially because the tub has a door-- you get what I mean. There's also an issue with the hot water. There isn't a lot. We could set the temperature higher and run the risk of burning the little Beans (and the Biscuit for that matter) but with little hands being as quick as they are I'd rather not go that route, so we settle for quick baths when we have them; thus baths have become a treat that the Beans absolutely love.







Pipsi was going first. Normally we plop Parki in with me first only because she has more hair and having her in the tub first gives her a little extra drying-time before bed. But, Pipsi was first the other night because we really try to keep everything even-stevens. I scrubbed the tub clean while Hubby grabbed a quick nap on the sofa (yeah, I really felt that was fair, too) and the Beans watched from their high chairs. We stripped the Beans down to diapers, got all set, and in plopped Pipsi.







Splashsplashsplash! Oh, she was having so much fun! I didn't get what was happening when she turned her back to me and stopped splashing, but then I heard the grunt. Then a plop of a different kind.







Oh, the humanity!!! I called urgently for Hubby (read: screamed), informing him of Pipsi's productive event and he arrived at the bathroom with his howling fantods barely in check.







"What do you need?" He asked me. That was sweet. Hubby has a thing about poop. He doesn't care for it.







In George Orwell's 1984, when Winston Smith finds himself confronted with the rat-mask in Room 101 at the Ministry of Love , he screams, "Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!", and in that moment Big Brother breaks him, effectively proving to Winston that there's nothing and nobody he would protect before himself when confronted by his greatest fear, or what Orwell refers to as "the worst thing in the world".







If Hubby were ever in Room 101 at the Ministry of Love, he'd be confronted by his own worst thing in the world: a man in a full-body rubber glove standing next to a 55-gallon drum of wet, sticky, steaming poop and wielding big, flat, poop-covered spatulas in both hands, slowly, inexorably advancing toward Hubby. Oh, and there would also be lots of flies like the ones at his apartment in Kensington in the Spring of 2003, the flies issued from the depths of Hell by Beelzebub himself, flies the size of B-17s that left breezes in their wakes, crawling all over the mounds of poop and then buzzing over and landing on Hubby's naked, vulnerable lips and crawling up his nose ( and here I realize I really shouldn't have had that third cup of coffee this morning). I don't think he could handle that. I think he'd probably echo Winston's sentiments on that one.







"Do it to Pie! Do it to Pie! For the love of God, do it to Pie!"







Well, you know, I wouldn't really appreciate it, but I know it wouldn't gross me out as much as it would Hubby. Not just because I've so recently had the opportunity to bathe in poop (more like with poop, actually), but because I've dropped my vendetta against it. Sometimes, to minimize the dramatic effects of something you just have to roll with it. I'm not saying I rolled in poop, but I've definitely learned not to let a little brown get me down. And you can quote me on that.







So, in the spirit of that sentiment, let's move on. Yes, yes we cleaned up all persons involved but I still need to get to the tub. Since that must conclude today's post I'll write tomorrow or some other time about the bug that went through the household, compounding the falling-behind issue last week, and about the funk I'm having the hardest time shaking, and the euphemisms that have had their lasts. Today, I shall leave you with cute photos that have nothing to do with poop...



Pipsi showing off her apple-gumming prowess



Parki, the Apple-Horned Unicorn



Bean Simmons



The No-Hands Grilled Cheese Chomp



The Beans' first moments in their musical activity chairs. They no longer sit in them; rather, they climb and stand on them until they intvitably fall off of them, generally onto blocks or whatever else is around that happens to have rigid corners. They are, after all, my progeny too.



Parki looooooves Grilled Cheese.



Story time with Daddy.



Parki's favorite place to read.

More Vital Stats

Silly me! I forgot to mention the super-important thing we did yesterday!

Yesterday, in addition to remembering where we were seven years ago, Hubby and I took the Beans in for their 1-year checkup.

Parker is 21 pounds, 1 ounce and 29.25 inches tall, and
Piper is 22 pounds, 13 punces and 30 inches.

Both Beans are right on track developmentally.

Wow. I wish you could see the Beans at mealtime. It's the cutest, funniest, most frustrating experience I've ever had five or six times a day. Katie enjoys it immensely because Katie bats cleanup.

Pipsi eats everything. Yogurt? Loves it. Veggies? Love 'em. Cereal? Sure! Fruits, chicken, fish, pasta? Bring it all on! The only thing she doesn't seem to care for are ground beef and tomato-based sauces which sadly rules out spaghetti as a menu item, but all else considered I have no room to complain. Pooki's another story.

Over the past several months, Pipsi's become much more quick to smile and express herself. On the other hand, Pooki has always been exceedingly expressive both facially and vocally. An area in which she expresses herself freely and copiously is in anything related to food. She's interested in everything we put in front of her as long as she doesn't have to eat it. She'll lick it, smear it all over her face and hair and gladly share it with Katie or Pipsi. Our little Pooki has been known to throw entire handfuls of cheerios overboard and then scream-whistle for Katie to come help herself, breakfast is served. Without Katie, Eureka Betsy would have died for good long ago; instead she keeps wheezing along, sucking up Katie's hair while Katie sucks up all the good stuff.

Dr Lionel says as long as she gets the basics, Parki's fine. And she takes a little supplement and is obviously growing well so there's nothing to worry about-- except for me hanging onto my sanity as I'm sprayed (AGAIN) by (ANOTHER) mouthful of lentil-vegetable dinner or am covered by another spoonful of yogurt slapped out of my hand and splattered all over my everything.

And now, the end of Happy Nappy draws nigh and I must change and feed the Beans, and then we're off to Costco to buy MILK. I'm sorry, what did I just write? MILK? MILK??? Why yes, milk. We can change from one of the most expensive formulas on the market ($25 per can) to MILK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cheap, easy, plain old get-it-anywhere, straight-from-the-jug MILK!!!!!!!

So I guess I should have mentioned that yesterday was one of the best days of Hubby's and my lives :)

But I still think I wear more food than Parki eats.

Is That Really You In There?

It's been a week already. A week since what? I couldn't tell you-- but it's been a week and it was one of those weeks. There was just too much to do for there to be any semblance of organization. The days are all squooshed together into one big glop of time that was punctuated by brief smatterings of Happy Nappys and longer periods of sleeping time that happened at night but personally, very little of the sleeping was getting done by yours truly until last night.

Last night, although I briefly woke to sounds of traps snapping in the bathrooms (our elusive euphemism who lives in the walls between the bathrooms is proving very wily indeed), Katie slamming into the closet door, Beans stirring a couple of times, and the garbage truck, for the most part I slept like a rock. In life BT (before twins) this would NEVER have counted as a good night's sleep but now I take what I can get with blithering gratitude that I'll make it through today with fewer than five caffeinated beverages. See? Still not making a lot of sense-- but, moving on...

I totally overslept this morning. The garbage truck usually comes around five AM. I heard that, and then the next thing I heard was Hubby say, "Oh, Pie, it's 7:21".

That was bad.

Biscuit and I are supposed to leave the house by 7:22 to get him to school on time. Usually we're a couple of minutes behind (and by "we" I mean the Biscuit), but as long as we're pulling out of the driveway by 7:26, Biscuit makes it on time if he scoots along. I got that miserable feeling in the pit of my stomach that he was going to be late and it was all my sleepy-headed fault.

I jumped out of bed, threw on my robe and jetted over to the door. I opened it, expecting to see Biscuit's closed door standing blankly, defiantly, before me, a non-reactive hurdle to barrel through in my groggy state, a barrier between me and the comatose body of my son who needed rousing, breakfast, dressing, teeth-brushing and everything else to prepare him for the rigors of an eighth-grade Friday. All this raced through my head in the milliseconds it took to open the door and glance across the hall and I resigned myself to the fact that getting this day off to the best possible start was going to be a tough task and that I was a terrible mother who didn't deserve the three fantastic kids, devoted dog and non-schlubby Hubby I had.

But the sight greeting my bleary eyes was not Biscuit's door. His door was open, his bed was empty (not made, but hey, I'd take whatever I could get this morning) and his backpack and sax were gone. I stumbled down the hall on the verge of shock and into the kitchen, where Biscuit was just entering from the family room dressed, accessorized and ready to go.

"I love those Pop-Tarts. They're the best thing I've ever had for breakfast. Thank you for getting them. "

"I'm still dreaming," I thought. "You already ate? You're ready to go?" I stood before my son in disbelief, goosebumps raising all over my lower legs-- and not just because I was wearing a short robe.

"Yeah," the Biscuit responded nonchalantly, as though this occurrence was the most normal thing that had ever happened in all his life.

I took my cue from him and decided not to react like I wanted, jumping up and down in joy and singing a Hallelujah chorus because yes, he should be able to do this every morning, and no, nobody wants to hear me sing, especially not first thing in the morning.

We boarded the Starship Margaret and trekked across the municipal universe to school and I told Biscuit along the way that he really is the awesomest kid on the planet.

"I know," the Biscuit replied.

There are days I wish I were more of a morning person. Today, I was more of a morning person due in large part to my son's awesome behavior, which shows that maybe, just maybe, one time he listened to me and remembered something I said so maybe there's hope for the world after all. But at least for today I'm still going to be on the lookout for flying pigs, watching the news for notice that Hell has frozen over, or for an alien crawling out of my son's inanimate body-- a polite, punctual alien.

A Little Help From My Friend

Saturday Morning, Bright and Early

Hubby: Ugh! This kitchen is a mess!

Me: Mm-hm.

Hubby: I don't think it's ever been this messy! It's just gross!

Me: Yep. I know.

Hubby: And it isn't just the kitchen-- it's the whole house. The carpets... everything!

Me (paused in mid-baba preparation, glowering at Hubby): I know. I live here. Every day.

Hubby (smirking): You know what you need to do?

Me (still glowering at Hubby, telepathically IMing him, "What, Asshat? What is it I need to do? Please, tell me so I can fix my life!"): What?

Hubby (smirking harder): You need to figure out how to clean the kitchen, do all the cooking, the laundry---

Me: Hahahahaha--

Hubby (continuing): All the vacuuming, taking care of the Beans--

Me (continuing): Hahahahahahaha--

Hubby (continuing): All by yourself.

Me (catching my breath): Yes. You're right. That's exactly what I need to do.

Hubby kisses me farewell and heads out the door for a two-hour-plus bike ride. I feed, change and dress the Beans, get them into the stroller, walk downtown to the farmer's market, stopping at an ATM on the way, procure fresh produce to feed the family for the week, and treat myself for the first time in years, to three bunches of the most exquisite sweet peas imaginable.

The Beans and I trek home. They're becoming restless in the stroller and are on the cusp of a nap-deprived, hair-pulling Armageddon when we hear the tick-tick-tick of Daddy's bike behind us. He's arrived home at the same time we have! We bring in the Beans, the veggies and the flowers and put everything and everyone where they belong and I lament the lack of clean space to display the pretty flowers, settling for a teensy little clear patch of dining-room table. The Beans and I have lots of fun sniffing them. We go in really close and I start with the sniffle-sniffle-sniffle sounds and they do likewise, dissolving into giggles when the velvety petals touch their comparably soft little faces. Adorable.

We spend the day doing all of our running around, eating and so forth and by the end of the day, the house is still a wreck. Sigh.

Early the following afternoon (today), Mimzi came over and I scooted out to do some errands, meeting a friend for coffee. I was gone for about two hours. And what did I find when I returned home?

Vaccuumed and scrubbed floors. Clean laundry--washed and dried. A spotless kitchen. Beans delishing on yogurt and organic lentil-vegetable dinner. And there, smack in the middle of the almost-clear dining room table stood my lovely sweet peas, an aromatically resplendent vision of pink and lavender.

The cleaning fairies visited my house today.

I hope someday when Hubby's out they'll come and clean the house so I can get the credit. In the meantime I will hand it to Hubby-- he sure knows how to make a bunch of flowers look even better.

The Real Sasquatch

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but here goes.

If you've had a baby chances are you know about the foot-growth phenomenon that occurs during pregnancy. First there's the swelling, then the spreading. Then there's giving birth and recovery, and then the fluids slowly leave the mother's body-- a relief like nothing else. I've been exceedingly fortunate to snap back to pre-pregnancy size very quickly, albeit with plenty of extra skin around the middle, due largely to the fact that I never relax (but that's another post entitled "Living On The Razor's Edge of A Huge Manic Meltdown" which will be written in some kind of buzzing, vibrating font and probably impossible to read since it'll be written from my exclusive, padded room in whichever fine institution they end up committing me).

Alas, my feet have not enjoyed the same happy ending as the rest of my body. I'm just a tad over 5'2" and yes, the tad counts. Any little bit counts when you're under 5'7". When I graduated high school, my feet were between a size 6 1/2 and a 7. Then Biscuit was born and I moved up to a 7 or 7 1/2. Fast-forward to my post-Bean body and I am now just about an 8. Momma never warned me about this.

Hubby's mom is just about the same height as me and she wears a 6. My Grandma is about two inches shorted than me and wears a 5. My awesome next-door neighbor TMNT is just a little shorter than I and can fit into kids' size shoes. And I'm an 8. In other words, compared to my petite peers, I am Bigfoot.

All along I thought it was an anomaly, that my disproportionately huge feet were a little practical joke Mother Nature slipped into my DNA. After all, Mimzi was a beauty queen and I came out looking pretty much exactly like Dad. Haha, very funny. And all throughout my pregnancy with the Beans including the painful cankles and feet-swelling, I figured the Beans would both come out petite, especially since they were so close in size in utero and within two ounces and half an inch of each other at birth.

But we noticed almost immediately that Pipsi's hands and feet were bigger than Pooki's. Not by just a little bit, either. Our focus in the early days was on more basic issues of course, like their breathing and eating habits, but as time has passed and they've both proven to be more than proficient at both, we can solemny declare that Pooki has Daddy's eyes, nose, head, chin and jaw, and her Gran's dainty little hands and feet, Pippers looks an awful lot like her Papa and has Mommy's great big hands and FEET. Parki is still wearing 6-12-month size Robeez, and Pipsi's just about to outgrow the 12-18's.

Sigh. At the moment I can't think of many redeeming qualities of big feet and hands. She'll be in high demand at summer camp when it comes to squashing bugs. Maybe she'll have a slight advantage in arm-wrestling and perhaps at juggling. Arguably, she'll get more of her money's worth out of a pedicure because there will be more surface area to buff and massage. She'll probably be able to open pickle jars by herself, but if she also inherited my dislike for pickles that'll be a moot point.

I guess I'm a little bummed to have passed on that gene. But on the flip side, Pipsi and her twin are both beautiful little girls with gorgeous blue eyes, great senses of humor and are both very quick to smile their big, happy, light-up-the-world smiles. And, on the bright side for them, at least they'll probably never have to share shoes with each other.