The Monster

#1 has always been a champ.  Don't get me wrong, when things aren't the way she wants them she can throw a fit with the best of them, but she has dealt with a lot in her little life.

I guess between Hod and I, we refer to #1 as the Ornery One, and #2 as the Happy Camper.

It seems those days are changing.

#1 is finally starting to get over her orneryness.  #2 is just starting.  What is the culprit of #2's orneryness? Teething.  When #1 was teething it wasn't ever a big deal.  We'd give her some teething tablets, and she'd go to sleep, and life was good.  #2 can't handle it though.  We try teething tablets, we try Tylenol, we try everything.  And the poor girl can't get a break!  The only thing that relieves her is chewing on a cold bottle of water.  Currently that is the only way I can get her to sleep.  This is making for long nights.  A bottle of water only stays cold so long.  And then she moans and starts chewing on her hands, but then she bites too hard, so her life keeps being sad, and there is no hope in her world.

My sweet little girl is turning into a bit of a monster.  But I can't really blame her.

I mean, how can you be angry when she gives smiles like that?

 And This?

 And a little of this.

And just because I have two cute girls, and I can't leave #1 out.

These Girls rock my knee highs.

Parenting

#2 is a pretty sound sleeper.  Our apartment has really thin walls, and we have noisy neighbors.  She also has a pretty loud big sister.

However, there are certain very quiet sounds that she easily wakes up to.  The hardest one for me: the sound of my jeans swishing as I walk.  You see, I am not a super skinny girl.  My thighs touch.  I'm good with it.  But when I walk, if you really listen, you can hear the denim of my shorts swish.  This is a problem because #2 still sleeps in my room.  In our home, you always have to go through a bedroom to get to a bathroom.  If #1 is asleep, I can't go use her bathroom, because the door sticks and wakes her up.  #2 can easily sleep through the squeaky bedroom door, the closing of the bathroom door, all noises made in the bathroom (like hand washing and flushing toilets) all of that.  However, the sound of my jeans wakes her up.  I have now adapted with this really awkward walk where I space out my legs and squat down a little so as to not let my jeans swish.

I just ran through her room to get my phone that was ringing.  (She won't sleep through that.)

I think I pulled something doing my awkward "don't let the thighs touch" move.

The things we do for our kids. ;)

The Fam

Well, I am not really a regular blogger, am I?  I just feel like my day to day life isn't cool enough to report.  However, I have had family members tell me that reports of my normal days are fun for them, because they all live so far away. So, let us chat about what the family has been up to.

Hod is working hard.  This month he is doing an AMAZING job with his goals.  He is a selling machine!  He is looking into online school so he can get his Associates degree.  When not at work, he is playing with the girls, and they love their Dad!

#1 is a handful!  She loves to make friends, but she has very selective hearing.  This can get us into trouble.  She has finally reached the stage where she enjoys picking up, so that is exciting.  We have been talking both of the girls to an OD.  She adjusts their hips, back, and skull.  I feel as a result of this, #1 is finally progressing at a normal pace!  She is now doing complex babbling, and also works hard to mimic the sounds that Hod and I make.  Granted she should have been doing that way before 20 months, but I am just glad it is happening!  It seems her current goal in life is to be a parrot.  She screeches a lot, and likes to try to climb up and sit on my shoulder.  She asks to blow bubbles every day, and her favorite way to pop them is with her mouth.  I think that is gross, but she loves it!  She is pretty obsessed with all things sheep.  Right now she is walking around with her favorite pink blanket on her head.  That is a common occurrence, and as long as she doesn't run into the wall she is great!  She loves it when we style her hair, and gets excited when it is time to brush her teeth.

#2 is huge!  Between 3 and 4 months old she grew almost 2 inches!  She is in the 95% for height and 50% for weight.  We have started her on solids, and she doesn't get it.  But we will keep trying!  #1 always thinks she needs in on the rice cereal action... til she tries it.  #2 can hold her own bottle, however she doesn't yet really understand that when she pulls her hands away the food goes too.  If she understood the concept of holding onto things, she would be able to stand by herself for about 45 seconds.  She refuses to roll over.  She is such a bright point in my life, and has a ready smile for anyone who decided to look her way.

As for me... well, I spend my days trying to keep up with my crew!  My current project is learning to cook without using anything that could produce any sort of heat.  I'm failing at that.  Our apartment air conditioner is pretty much useless.  This makes for an unhappy family most afternoons and evenings.  We spend a lot of time letting #1 play in the children's place at the mall.  It has a good AC.

Anyway, here is a little movie I made of the girls.  It has very little editing, just cutting out the parts when I called the girls by name.  We have been working very hard on animal sounds with #1.  #2 likes to growl... I think it is adorable.

Sorry it gets so shaky at the end.  #1 was trying to climb up on my shoulder.  Oh, and it is #1 that says "Hi," not #2.

On another note... Any of you know of a great tutorial of how to add sleeves to things?  I used to just put a onsie under everything, but the girls have been getting heat rashes with those.  We put on sweaters when we go places, but that is too hot, and they are unhappy.  I would really like my girls to have sleeves!

Say What?

#1 is not much of a talker. She wants to talk, but she is super behind on the skill. We practice, and she is improving.  She says hi, bye, mom, dad dad (she always says it twice), no, and a new word:

Num-nes

Any guesses what she is saying?  After a few guesses from you, I'll tell you in the comments.

Great Day

Today is my birthday! (And apparently national chocolate chip day... how cool is that!)

The girls had a rough night last night. By 7 this morning (when #1 got up for the day) I had only slept 45 minutes without a baby in my arms. I was tired, and honestly didn't have great hopes for the day.  Hod had spent a lot of time planning our activities, so I put on my happy face and tried to get excited.

We took the girls to a babysitter, put on our fancy clothes, and went to a nice lunch. I am almost positive that was the first time Hod and I have had a nice baby free meal together since... well when I was pregnant with #1. Not that she was high maintenance those days, but I am just uncomfortable while pregnant. Our lunch was just delightful. I don't remember at all what we talked about. However, I do know that during that meal, not one person threw food, screamed at me, spit out their food, or cried, and I got to eat with two hands! I was with an amazing man, and I just got to enjoy him.

After lunch we hurried to change clothes and went on probably the coolest date I've ever been on. We went to a glass blowing school and made flowers! We didn't actually "blow" glass. That is a tricky thing that takes much longer than 20 minutes to learn. We did get to heat and shape glass though, and it was heck-a cool.

We were given a walk-through of what was going to happen, and then we jumped right in.  I went first.  The expert guy put the clear glass on the long pipe (I don't remember what the non-blowing pipes were called, but they have a cool name) cooled off the pipe so I could handle it, and then gave it to me.  I will try to explain this with pictures.

He brought me the clear glass, and I rolled it in chips of colored glass.  First was the color I picked for the stem of my flower.  I picked white.

After rolling it in the color, I pushed it into the hot box thing that runs at about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.  During all of this, we were constantly rolling the glass.  Because it was almost liquid we had to constantly roll it so gravity didn't pull it off, or bend it it ways we didn't want it.

The expert then shaped the glass by rolling it on top of a metal cart.  (Sorry I don't have that picture.)   Then we went and got more hot clear glass.  

Next we pressed the hot glass into our second color choice.  This was the color for the flower petals.  (We didn't get a picture of me doing this, so here is my handsome hubby doing this step for his flower.)

The glass expert heated this all together while I got situated on the special bench.  I grabbed my tongs and excitedly waited.

Once the glass guy brought me my super hot glass, he rolled it while I pinched in the petal details with the tongs.  When the tongs started to stick, I had to hurry and dip them in cold water sitting behind me.

(Look how fast the color changes!  And my flower is actually a dark purple, not bright red.  That is how hot it is!)

After one more heating, I then got to start pulling on the glass to get the petal layer of glass apart from the stem layer.

We let gravity help us a little bit.

This is what my flower looked like right before he tapped it off of the metal pole.  Those are the colors that I picked for my flower, and though it looks cool, it is still sitting at about 1400 degrees.

This picture is really busy.  My flower is upside down.  It has dark purple petals, and a white stem.  In the orange cup on the right is some water.  That is used to "shock" the joint where the glass is going to break.  They then used the blow torch you can see in the bottom of the picture on the broken part of the glass to smooth it out.

Because the flower was still so hot, I have to wait til tomorrow to get it.  They put it in a special hot box that slowly brings it to room temperature. (That takes about 21 hours.) It has to do it slow because if it changes temperatures too fast the glass breaks.  

Tomorrow I am planning on going to pick up our flowers.  I'll post a picture of the finished product as soon as I can.

Then, to end my birthday, we had some friends over for games.

It was a wonderful day!  

 And if any of you want to come visit, I'll take you to a glass class and you can make a flower too!

Day To Day

I love my girls.  Sure, when I was younger I never thought I would want or have 2 kids under 2.  Especially when I haven't even been married three years yet.  However, my family is my world, and I wouldn't change the size or age of my family for anything.  We always have our adventures.

Example:  Going to the grocery store.  This has never been one of my favorite tasks.  Now I pretty much hate it.  Figuring out how to maneuver a grocery store with two girls was a struggle.  But I think I have it down.  Oh, but I just told you I hate it.  Why would I hate it?  Because of all of the lame people!

I realize where I live that a family like mine is unusual.  I'm used to the surprised looks.  I'm fine with people asking the ages of my girls.  We can be a bit of a spectacle.  It is normal for me to hear someone comment on how cute #1 is, to then have them look with surprise when they realize there is a baby in a carrier right behind her.  But really, friends.  Can we work on a few things?

For example:  Today I went to Aldi.  It is a great grocery store with awesome prices.  There are a few quirks for those of you not in the know.  They don't bag your groceries.  They take the food right off the belt, scan it, and put it back in the cart.  Also, you have to "pay" a quarter to get a cart.  You get your quarter back when you return the cart.  We made it through the store with #2 in the car seat at the front of the cart, and #1 in the main part of the cart.  She loved that I kept handing her new toys to play with.  "Oh look!  A box!  And a can!  And another box!!!  My life is awesome!"  (I'm pretty sure that is what she was thinking.)  We even managed to buy eggs and get them home in one piece.  (Well, 12 pieces.)  While shopping I had quite a few of the normal comments I get.  That's cool.  #1 was squealing a lot.  But she was super happy so I didn't stop her.  It's not like we were at the library or anything.  I heard (and I guess that there were more comments I didn't hear) one woman say under her breath "she could probably keep her kid under control if she didn't have two to deal with."  EXCUSE ME?  Who are you to say something like that?  My girls were both being very well behaved.  If you are allowed to make any noise, then so is my 18 month old.

When I went to return my cart I had both girls with me.  It is getting hot here, #2 was asleep, and I knew if I put the girls in the car and when to return the cart #1 would scream and wake up her sister.  The problem was, you can't get your quarter back if anything is in the cart.  I pushed the cart to the return area and passed a couple that was smoking.  "Oh, look how sweet" the lady said.  "She is adora... wait!  Is there another baby there?"asked the man.  I smiled and told him that yes, there were two and they are both mine.  He then proceeded to watch me struggle to return the cart while holding a squirmy toddler and a baby in a car seat.  While I was doing this he commented that I, "must have a really hard time doing normal things like grocery shop with those kids."  Huh.  Ya think?  Maybe you could put down your cigarette for a minute and return my cart for me?  I realize that you may have had to step about three feet to do this, but that would have been much kinder than just watching me struggle and commenting about it.

Oh, and probably my favorite comment I get from people:  "Did you know you don't have to have your kids so close together?  There area ways to prevent that...."   oh... gosh... I'm so embarrassed   I didn't know that.  I sure wish I had known you before so you could have imparted your great and wonderful wisdom earlier.

Maybe we should just be nice?  Maybe you don't have to approve of the spacing of my children but you could just keep your opinion to yourself?


And just one more story.  This last week Hod and I were out shopping for Mother's Day.  He wanted to get me some jewelry with an emerald.  Right after finding out the ages of the girls (18 and 3 months) the sales lady perked up and asked, "Oh, so do you want an emerald because that is their birthstone?"  Ha!  Nice math lady.  But if this month is May and emeralds are the birthstone for this month.... how can an 18 and 3 month old have May birthdays?  People are funny.  At least she was nice. :)

Just A Moment

#1 and I had some time this morning, just the two of us before #2 woke up. #1 likes to play with me for a while,  go do her own thing, and then come back to me. She walked to me and I scooped her up into a snuggle-hug. She rested her head on my shoulder and used her little arms to pull me just a tiny bit closer. As she let out a little sigh it hit me. That feeling of overwhelming peace, joy, and love. Ahhh... there it is. That is why I love being a mom. Best job ever.

Wrinkles

I remember one summer day when I was a young teen, lounging on the couch reading a book when my Mom came up to me and starting rubbing my eyebrows....

Yeah, that was my reaction too.  She was trying to smooth them out because I furrow my brow when I read.  (And apparently when I type too...)  She was worried that I would get wrinkles.  I didn't listen to my mom.  I wasn't really worried about the wrinkles. Now I totally have them.  Not a big deal.  I'm fine with it.

However, I have found myself trying to smooth out #2's wrinkles that she is getting for the same reason.  It is funny to see her furrow her brow so often.  Maybe there is something in the genetics?  Whatever.  Wrinkles are in this season, right?

And now some random pictures.

 "I look down my nose at you, ma'am.  This I do because I am incredibly cute, and I can get away with it.  Now go fetch me some nourishment."

"Why am I chewing on a belt?  Because it exists, thus it must go into my mouth."