In The Nudes-- I Mean, NEWS...

I'm happy to report that we do NOT have swine flu. At least not that we know of. But considering the way everyone's talking about that and nothing else I'm sure we'll all get it very soon. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.

We do have other news to report though. No, we're not expecting any more babies. At least not that we know of. But we had a visitor on Friday the 17th. The Binkie Fairy came to our house. That's right! The Beans are getting to be big girls now and the Binkie Fairy decided they were ready to leave the Bink behind in favor of Bedtime Bears.

Stupid Binkie Fairy.

Hubby and I put the Beans to bed that Friday night and within five minutes I had left the house. After almost two years of getting up, sometimes several times, in the middle of the night to rescue an overboard Binkie and scrambling madly at bedtime to procure the requisite number (5) for night-night, I was totally okay with letting Hubby handle this one. I called Biscuit about forty-five minutes later and he reported that the Beans were still crying. I hightailed it home and heard...

Silence.

My timing was perfect. Saturday night I left, too. I just can't take the crying and I knew that if I stuck around I'd cave and that could mean still more months of getting up in the middle of the night and doing the one-eye-partially-open-looking-at-the-black-floor-sweeping-the-hand-blindly-under-the-crib-hoping-she-doesn't-wake-up-for-real-okay-got-it-back-in-the-mouth-falling-asleep-thank-you-God-I'm-going-back-to-bed-ow-goddam-shoe-oh-sheets-are-still-warm routine and I couldn't TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!!!!!

I miss them a little bit. I miss how one would pick up two Binkies and take the extra one over to her sister and pop it into her mouth, or how they would swap because everybody knows that Binkies taste better with a coating of your twin's slobber on them. Sometimes one would walk over to the other one and pull the Binkie from her own mouth, lean over and pop out her sister's and shove it into her own piehole while forcing her former Binkie into her sister's maw while she just kept playing with whatever was in her hands.

So now they're finding other ways of entertaining themselves. With poop.

Yes, poop.

On Saturday, the day before Biscuit returned from Disneyland, the Beans were down for Happy Nappy and I poked my head in to peek at them. What greeted me was the unmistakable aroma of Beanpoop and the color brown. Parki had, in the ten minutes since I'd last checked on her, filled her diaper with solid waste matter, stripped naked, pulled off her diaper and PLAYED WITH ITS CONTENTS. It was always a matter of not if, but when, and I really wasn't in the mindframe to deal with it on that lovely Saturday afternoon but there it was. And it was in the crib, on the sheet, on the blanket, on her clothes, and in her hair, under her fingernails, on her hands and smeared across her little butt which, coincidentally, was the part I saw first through the crack in the door since it was pointed right at whomever walked past.

Needless to say, every day since then Parki's gone down buttoned, taped and zipped seven ways to Sunday. But at least there is no poop whatsoever on Bedtime Bear and I got a great picture to use whenever and how ever I deem appropriate.

And, I'm really sorry to be taking such long breaks between posts. I don't want to do that because I forget a lot of moments that I really want to blog about but Mimzi's been pretty high-maintenance lately. She's got "triple-negative" breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy on April 7th. Did you know that Nordstrom sells prosthetic breasts? I didn't either! But their staff is absolutely fantastic and I cannot recommend them highly enough. And you know I'd snark on them mercilessly if the case were otherwise. Mimzi is scheduled to begin dose-dense A/C chemotherapy on May 7th, but she may have hit a snag with that because while receiving treatment for sleep apnea, the neurologist ordered an ultrasound on her carotid artery (the one that hasn't already been surgically cleared) and he found "significant blockage". Ole Mimzi might need to get that fixed before chemo begins.

But she's a tough old biddy and, personally, I think she'll totally rock the bald look. Fortunately her lymph nodes were clear, so she's got that going for her. I'm thinking about getting her some of those thick plastic black-framed eyeglasses and having her dance around in a suit to some crazy techno music so she'll look like the creepy old dude in the Six Flags commercials. We could put it on YouTube and she'll be an Internet sensation. Or I could just get her a few cute hats and make her some homemade chicken noodle soup. Whatever she wants. If she starts jonesing for cotton candy and sardines I'll figure out a way to get her those too.

It's funny how something small, say, a three-centimeter tumor, can have such a tremendous impact on so many people. But what I think is even more important is how we're going to let it change us. Mimzi's taking everything one day at a time. DPSM's keeping his patent stiff upper lip, stoic in the face of new developments that seem to just complicate matters a little further each day. And I'm suddenly aware of a malignant specter lurking in the future that may rear its ugly head not just for me but for my kids, too. There isn't a "preferable" cancer, I don't think, but this one's particularly disheartening for a woman with twin daughters. That's six boobs to worry about. And I only have two eyes.

All in all, it makes me appreciate what's most important to me-- and I want to make sure that I accomplish everything on my list before I can't do it at all. I want to make sure my kids and Hubby know every single day how much I love them. I want to teach my kids to love completely and with all their hearts. I will never stop working to conquer my fears, and even though it may be extremely messy and smelly and get them in trouble sometimes, I hope my kids never lose their curiosity. But hopefully Parki's had her curiosity about poop satisfied. I'll be totally okay with that.

Therapeutic Clock and Balls

Twice a week for the past three weeks I've scooted out of the house for an hour for a physical therapy appointment. While the objective of the therapy is to get Frankenfoot functioning normally again (and it's working very well) the appointment also serves as a way for me to escape the house and the rigors of perpetual parenthood for at least one hunded thirty minutes per week.

Ahhh. Sweet relief.

But not on Monday. No, on Monday morning Hubby left for a meeting in Central California and was not returning until six o'clock, which meant that either I had to find a sub Beansitter, cancel the appointment, or lug 'em along. As the day progressed and I made some phone calls, the options dwindled and at around four o'clock I decided that the Beans were in a jolly-enough temperament to accompany me. With their butterfly bookbags crammed full of entertainment options, their cups full of water, and several various snackables, we piled into the stroller and walked four blocks to the physical therapist's office.

The therapists and their staff are in a converted office building that houses a pool, small gym and a few individual exam rooms. Most everyone's therapy takes place in the main gym which looks like it once held several blocks of cubicles but now finds itself chock full of exercise bikes, treadmills, weight machines, exercise balls, school-nurse's-office-style vinyl beds, and a bunch of other stuff whose uses I cannot yet identify. The Beans happily rolled along in Big Red back into the gym with me and watched intently as I climbed on the bike and began pedaling. They had their books, they had their water, they each even had an old cell phone to make pretend calls to Mimzi or Santa if they wanted. They were perfectly happy. For about 150 seconds. And then they wanted to do something else.

"Ouh?" Pipsi asked, pulling at her stroller straps and looking at me.

"No, no, Bean, Mommy needs to pretend to ride the bike for another twelve minutes. Watch! Isn't it cool? Where's your book? Can you find another book?" Already desperate, I yammered away at her until she turned away from me in boredom, sighing and settling back into her seat. Then it was Parki's turn.

"Ball? Ball? BALL?!?!?" Parki had discovered the ball rack over in the corner of the room. All kinds of balls of various sizes and colors taunted Parki deliciously from their corner. They knew she wanted them but that I'd never let her over there to touch them. They were bastard balls.

"BALL?" Parki repeated. Pipsi, as usual, had turned to look at Parki then looked around to see what all the fuss was about. She saw the balls too but knew better than to obsess about the same item of Parki's interest lest she suddenly find herself whacked in the head with said item. She looked around some more at the place and in a few seconds her eyes came to rest on one of the five clocks strategically placed around the gym.

"Cock! Cock!" Pipsi exclaimed, pointing and smiling.

It went like that on and off for the next hour with everyone's therapy punctuated by a couple of adorable little girls screaming "cock" and "ball" intermittently. Noboby seemed terribly bothered by it though. CPS didn't come barrelling through the door to sieze the Beans and arrest me for being a bad mom so I guess Hubby is right and I was probably the only one who really understood what the Beans were saying. Or maybe it's the status quo around that joint for little girls to mention cock and balls at the tops of their voices every few minutes.

We'll just count it as another new, exciting, successful experience for the not-so-little-anymore Beans. Hopefully we'll get to do the same this weekend when the Binkie Fairy pays our house a visit, taking all the Beans' old (and VERY beloved) Binkies and leaving teddy bears in their place.

We shall see. In the meantime, I'm going to have a sitter tomorrow afternoon and save myself the embarrassment of my publicly vulgar company.

Ever-Expanding Vocabularies

"No" is here. It arrived on Saturday, leaving Parki's little mouth and floating around ominously, just as one would expect from a proper harbinger of doom. Along with "no" tagged a couple of flailing fits, complete with faces down on the floor, arms wagging around and deep, heartwrenching sobs.

Those will, I'm sure, go over very well in public should we ever dare to venture out again. And I'm not sure we may. I gave potty training a cursory shot this weekend, too and yes, I know we're not really "supposed to" do that.

Parki weeweed in the potty again (which I suspect may have brought about the onset of "no") and we thought we'd see if Pipsi was game. She was very excited to get naked and sit down, smiling broadly and signing "chair" for about three seconds. Then she wanted to stand up and move the chair. Hubby and I were also preparing a bath for the Beans and, stupid grown-ups that we are, realized too late that this was one exciting event too many for the Beans. Pipsi went weewee not once, not twice, but three times on the hall floor between the potty and the tub and I pretended like she didn't go again once she got in the tub with Parki because there wasn't enough hot water left to refill the tub. I figured there couldn't have been that much anyway, considering how much she'd already expended in her efforts to yellow-flood the hall.

While Pipsi isn't quite as verbally-inclined as her twin, she's definitely getting her point across more and more every day and is particularly fond of the vigorous headshake for "no" and a big, giggly smile for "yes". For example, we were able to get to the park Friday, Saturday and Sunday this weekend, and the Beans were just pleased as punch at having the opportunity to play outside with other kids so much. When we returned home on Saturday, Pipsi was making the "more" sign. Hubby and I kept asking her what wanted. "More crackers?" "More juice?" "More cookies?" We were looking around helplessly for what it was she could possibly want when she stared right at us, made the "swing" sign and followed it with "more".

"You want to swing some more? More swinging?" And Pipsi smiled and giggled.

So I guess the Beans want what all babies want: more time to play and fewer reminders about their waste management habits. For the moment I'm happy to oblige. As long as I know that someday I'll be done cleaning weewee up off of the floor.