Little "Helpers"

Here are some action shots of the girls "helping me"

I like to think of the first one as "spring cleaning" and the second as "let's see if putting raisins down the heat vent gives this place a nice smell."

I've been reflecting a bit on the nature of most of my posts. They are obviously VERY centered around Charlotte and Dylan. I realize this may get boring at times, and yes, there are other things going on in my life. But then I realized that I have a VERY short window for these type of posts. I mean really, is anyone going to want to read about how "today Dylan said her first swear word" or "Charlotte got caught cutting class" or "I found a bag of marijuana in my wheel rim" (don't ask). Or even worse, "Charlotte got straight As...again!" or "Dylan won the science competition" ---Anyway, my point is that at this age ALL babies are cute, and because of this as parents we're allowed to talk about how cute they are...but yes, at a certain age talking about how great your kids are becomes a bit obnoxious. But for now, I'm totally allowed to go on and on about them, right?!

Quack Quack

We've found a new pasttime of late...feeding the ducks. We live about two blocks from the Palace of Fine Arts, and now that it is no longer being renovated, and the weather has started getting better, it has been a great new thing to work into our routine. The only problem is that once Charlotte figures out I'm throwing bread she looks at me like "why are you throwing my food away? are you CRAZY?!"

Toughest Grandma on the Block

"Your mother is so tough" -- Andrew.

This is a picture of my mother holding Dylan. No, I didn't hit her, the playground did. She was with the girls at the park, kneeling down with them next to a big structure. Charlotte went to try to crawl up the slide, and my mother jumped up to stop her. She didn't realize that there was a bullhorn sticking out from the structure and she slammed her browbone into it.

I don't know what is craziest:
--That she must have jumped up with so much force...
--That she didn't pass out (a mother there who saw it happen offered to call the paramedics!)
--That her awful, horrible daughter didn't IMMEDIATELY make her lay down when she saw her mother come home with a GOLF BALL coming out of her forehead (oh no, i had her help me feed C/D and put them to bed! who brought the *sshole?!)
--That she takes the munchkins to the park (and has even taken them overnight) by herself in the first place...

So yes, now she has a ghastly shiner and I feel incredibly guilty about it. Worse, the other day she said she went into a store, had to leave for a few minutes. When she returned the people there were discussing "domestic violence."

Birthday Bonanzas (a little late)

We had several mini birthday celebrations this weekened.

The first was a belated little celebration for the girls with a very small group of family and friends. We waited to do it because it was the best time for the Dodsons to make it out here (and it wasn't like C/D were going to know the difference). It also happened to be the day the girls came home from the hospital last year (feb 24th) which was a very special day indeed. Not much to report other than that charlotte is a BIG fan of banana cupcakes with cream cheese (dylan liked hers too, but didn't devour it like C). It was also Sam's birthday (he very nicely gave the girls the spotlight for the day), so we then went out to dinner to celebrate that event.

Feb 24 was also Gumma, my grandmother's, 88th birthday. So on Sunday we visited the home that she lives in (she has alzheimers). The girls wore the adorable watermelon dresses their OTHER greatgrandmother, Andrew's Grandmommy Helen, MADE for them (unbelievable!) The ladies got their second dose of frosting in two days, and we had to literally run from a very aggressive lady ("attack of the octogenerians" according to my uncle). But I was glad we could make it to celebrate with sweet Gumma!

Oh Lion my Lion

If you want to know who the girls love almost as much as 'da da,' I can tell you--their lions. Back when we were initially sleep training them several people suggested I get them animal blankets, sleep with them for a few nights so they smelled like me, and then give to them during bedtimes to have something to cuddle.

I remember the day this happened that I was in a hurry and desperate to do anything to make sleep training easier, so i bought the first animal blankets i found--ugly but incredibly soft green lions from Manhattan Baby. A few weeks later my mom found these adorable ones that apparently also have proteins embedded in them that help prevent asthma (who knows, but sounds good!) As cute as these other animal blankets are, they are a distant second to the love affair c/d have with the lions.

Somewhere along the way we decided to only give them to them at bedtime, and that turned out to be a GREAT call because now when we are putting them to bed they get all excited and happy to see their lions. They throw their faces into them, roll around on the floor with them, and look up at us like we just gave them a lifetime supply of cookies. When they first started learning to pull themselves up in their cribs they struggled w/ getting up and keeping hold of the lion. Then they remembered they had teeth! They now just stick the lions in their mouths and that frees up their hands to climb and crawl!!

Our only issue now is that if they happen to see the other person's lion they try to get it, because of course two lions are better than one. I just found a "Giraffe" by the same company and I'm trying to figure out if I can slowly transition one from Lion to Giraffe so that they each feel like they have their own special animal.

Their new trick is to drop things on the floor and say "ought oh" ...unfortunately they started doing this with their lions, but then they are heartbroken without them. About a week ago I heard them waking up from a nap..usually they wake up and kinda chit chat for awhile. But then I heard Charlotte basically sobbing, and I walked in to find her looking forlornly down at her lion w/ tears running down her face. Luckily all I had to do was give her back Lion and the world was a good place again.

Here are D & C waving to me when I came in to their room right after a nap.



And since i've been watching way too much TV lately while I write website content, I have to say--a ferry accident???! Falling off a pier...can't she swim?! I mean are they TRYING to make it easy for Andrew to rip on the show? The only good part of that episode was getting a quick hit of Coach Taylor. That show has TANKED in the last year. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky.

Crawling Critters

Life has changed CONSIDERABLY in the last few weeks. The munchkins are crawling all over the place and into EVERYTHING. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I found Charlotte licking the toilet seat lid yesterday (according to LJ studies show that the toilet seat is actually a LOT cleaner than say, the kitchen sink). Each day we discover something else that we need to "baby proof"--the tall lamp (they shake it and might pull it down), the side table (they climb up on it and could topple it), the dvd player (they hit every button possible), the pantry (charlotte digs her teeth into the apple sauce containers to poke holes in the foil so she can suck out the juice), the garbage can in the bathroom (knock it over), tv stand drawers (they either open up and remove all cds/dvds, or worse, get their fingers stuck in the drawer), etc. It's been interesting, to say the least. Good thing I think they are cute.

I am also finding myself faced with what my friend Karen John aptly described as a "daily Sophie's Choice." Now that they can crawl, pull themselves up, and throw themselves on me, I'm constantly having to choose who to pick up, hold, etc. It sucks, and I really wish I had more hands.

Random Thoughts

--I don't understand why, but the girls love to stick their fingers in each others mouths. It is like they are sticking their fingers in those bags filled with skinned grapes we used to be given at Halloween. They do it w/ trepidation AND excitement. And then what do you know...the one with the mouth chomps down, and out comes a loud scream from the finger owner. I try to stop it when I see it, but sometimes I'm too late. What I don't get is why about 20 seconds after she stops crying, she starts to move the finger towards the mouth AGAIN!!

--Sometimes at dinner Tenacious D starts to make this grunting noise. She looks like she is about to do you-know-what, and so I start to smile at her nicely because I want to encourage her. Then I realize she's trying to be funny! She makes these weird grunting noises several times, and then laughs! Charlotte watches, and then starts making the same noises. It's a little odd.

--C & D actually play best when I'm 'not around' so sometimes I step away and watch from afar.

--Sometimes they are both headed in the same direction and they end up in a bottleneck. It is the CUTEST thing in the world to watch because it's like they can't figure out what is happening. They are cruising along and all of a sudden they get 'stuck' (like in a door jam). Most of the time they start wailing, occasionally one of them figures out a way to climb OVER her sister.

--God HELP me if I start to bring a bowl or plate of food towards them and then turn around for some reason. They ERUPT. I get this "ta ta ta ta ta" from Dylan... from Charlotte I just get these shrieks of dismay--sort of like "how you could DO that to me?!" When hungry they are a force to be reckoned with...

--If I give C a strip of string cheese she shoves the whole thing in her mouth. If I give it to D she aggressively bites it off piece by piece.

May I be lucky enough to have thousands of days that go by One Cheerio at a Time

Here's a video of them at the park on their birthday. As you can see, I'm more pro-experiences than I am anti-germ : ).

Lost Weekend

First, I must have REALLY pissed off the milk gods, because Friday night at about 8pm I started to feel really bad, and yes, mastitis, AGAIN. And this time may have been the worst. I have been running a fever of about 103 on and off for almost 48 hours. I don't even know how it happened because I hadn't changed things much and have really slowed down the weaning process. Apparently whatever I'm doing isn't enough because this time was AWFUL.

Much worse than my mastitis is the fact that Dylan has pneumonia. Now the weird thing about this is that she isn't really acting sick. She was starting to wheeze on Thursday so I took her to the doctor in the evening. Earlier in the day I had also had C/Ds blood taken as part of their one year check (check for anemia, etc.). I had to start giving her albuterol again. Albuterol it's asthma medicine that helps some babies w/ bronchialitis--although i'm worried Tenacious D may be diagnosed w/ asthma eventually--DAMN those Dodson genes!---unfortunately, it is like baby crack...you have no idea how jacked up the poor thing gets while on it). Otherwise though, no medicine.

But then I get a call from the doctor an hour later..they got her blood test results and she had a REALLY high white blood cell count. This could mean she was actually really sick, or it could have been a side effect of stress. Why stress? Because getting blood from Dylan was extremely traumatic. The little thing is so small, her veins are minute, and yet she is really strong for her size. It took FOREVER to find the vein, and she was fighting back so much they had to get TWO other men to help me keep her still, and then even when he stuck the needle in he had to FISH AROUND underneath her skin for at least 30 seconds. The poor thing was so distraught that by the end she wasn't even crying, she was just wimpering. The whole time I was just so grateful that she was healthy and we didn't have to do this on a regular basis (and I was grateful for the three women who were entertaining Charlotte after she was in hysterics from getting her blood drawn).

So net net, we had to go BACK to get her blood drawn on Saturday. That morning I was running a fever of 103, so Andrew took her, but first he took her to the doctor AGAIN because we thought maybe the wheezing was worse. But she STILL wasn't acting that sick, and the doctor didn't think she was that sick. So more blood drawn, and it was just as traumatic (they had to prick her four times... Andrew kept telling me "you have no idea how bad it was.." and i was thinking "REALLY!?" NO!). Anyway, short story long, blood count still high, we had to have a chest xray taken and some lab work done, and lo and behold, our tough little girl has pneumonia.

So between miss D's long ordeal at the doctor's office and me being down for the count w/ mastitis, I basically feel like we totally lost what was supposed to be a very relaxing, low key weekend. Sounds stupid, but they change so quickly, and I really look forward to weekends without a lot to do, and so to lose even a weekend is a definite bummer.

In other news, I found the most amazing preschool and would LOVE to get them into it. I walked in and all I could see was Charlotte and Dylan running around in the cozy rooms and letting their imaginations run wild. Unfortunately I think they have no chance of getting in...even though I applied within 6 months of their birth, I know several other twins parents/parents who applied earlier than me. On my small tour that day was another woman I know with 9 month old identical girls...she has an older daughter, so if that daughter gets in then her girls would get in before mine, and I can't imagine they'd want 2 sets of identical girls out of 16 people. It bums me out that it is so hard to get into a preschool here, but I guess I'll forge ahead and see if I can find a close second. (Honestly, until now I thought this whole preschool frenzy was BS, and all about social status, but this place was like a dream come true for a little mind and now I wish I had applied at BIRTH...but come on, doesn't that sound ridiculous?)

Here's a video of C saying hi (and if she seems sleepy/cranky, it is probably because it is about 6am and her sister woke her up at least a half hour ago).

And the pic above might be the first time the girls are seen with a book that they aren't trying to EAT!

Who's Your Daddy?

Apparently, everyone.

Charlotte and Dylan are starting to show signs of saying actual words. Two in particular--"Hi" and "Dada" seem to be noises that are moving from just babbbling to actual words. I think it is fair to say that Charlotte's first word is "Hi!" because she says it whenever she sees new people or whenever someone waves to her. Dylan still sounds a little bit like "hah!" but she's close to getting it (and she is better at sign language, though "better" is stretching it given that "more" and clapping look oddly similar).

As for "DaDa," they definitely associate the term with Andrew. They hear the door open at night and they start going "Da da da da!" They watch for him at the front window and start going "da da da da" when they see him. They scream "da da da da" non-stop until I hoist them both up into his arms the minute they see him. Andrew has been pretty psyched.

Unfortunately, it's recently become apparent that they say "da da da da" to other things too...namely, to other men. When we went over to the Glotzbachs for yet another chance to mooch off them and eat their fantastic food, the girls were definitely calling other people "da da." Matthew is one thing....just another pale white dude in conservative clothes. But Uncle Sudhir? When they started calling him "da da" instead of "manny" I think Andrew was a little crestfallen.

Still, there is no WAY they are going to say "ma ma" anytime soon, so he still beat me by a longshot. Clearly all those mornings of waking up at 4 am so he could get to their morning feedings in the NICU before heading to work are paying off for him :-)

(The picture is of the girls waiting for their daddy to come home..it's become a favorite pasttime)

(and yes, i just posted a LOT of posts that i had saved as draft for way too long. SUCH a bad habit i've gotten in)

Girls Trip

We went to Utah again this past weekend. At the last minute Andrew had to take a later flight and so it was just me and the girls. So the three dodson girls had a little adventure, and actually it wasn't that bad. It was such a short flight there wasn't much time for things to go really wrong, i kept them in their car seats so they couldn't squirm about, and I just figured that it was "an emergency" and that meant I could give them as many cheerios and raisins as they needed. (i know, don't i just seem to make the rules that perfectly fit MY life at just that moment?: )) If anything, I started to get annoyed when people kept saying to me "you're flying with them ALONE?" I started to feel like "what, why wouldn't I want to hang out with these cute little girls?" I sometimes think that our generation has become a bunch of parenting wimps. I mean my mother did a LOT of things with four kids and never had any help.

But anyway, we got there just fine and had a great weekend. My skiing is in very poor shape and the snow was only mediocre but it is alway fun to go to Deer Valley. The girls had a great time with Gram and Sam and were very, very proud of themselves when we took them out to dinner. (Although Charlotte sort of thought everyone was just walking through her kitchen and so was of course there for her entertainment).

The flight home was actually much worse for several reasons. For one thing, there were nine year old identical twin girls on the flight who were obsessed with babies. It made me so happy to see two sisters who seemed to get along so well. But then when I asked one of them what was the best part about being twins she said "Oh we HATE being twins! We had to wear the same clothes until recently..people always get us confused...she pulls my hair..." It TOTALLY crushed me and I will never stop worrying about how to find a balance between all the great things about being twins and all the bad things. ugh.

ps. Here are c and d in their new valentine's outfits from Gram and Sam, with Gram and Sam!