Our Weekend in Animals

Gracie the Gecko:

Imagine our surprise when it was London's turn for Gracie, the class pet! We get to take care of her until Tuesday, a task London and Madelyn take very seriously. She has not left anybody's sight, not even at soccer practice. Gracie comes with a special notebook where we record what she's been up to at our house!

Three musketeers.

Pflying Pfrogs (ha ha, like Pflugerville, get it?):

I might have mentioned Ryan has volunteered to coach L & M's soccer team, the Pflying Pfrogs. Yes, we concocted the name ourselves. Go Pfrogs!
Here we are at our first game...Well, the first camera-worthy game. L & M were a little overwhelmed last Saturday when, upon getting bumped, London came running to me in the sidelines, crying--"Someone bumped me and didn't even say sorry!" Maddie was soon to follow. Don't worry, this week went a lot more smoothly, though of yet the twins are still too polite to steal the ball!!


Fan club.

Liv's insulted she can't play, however she does partake of the team snacks.

Dolphins:

First time I brought a camera to Sea World. The girls loved feeding the dolphins!


Lorikeet:

Sea World has this really cool Lorikeet exhibit. You actually go in the atrium and walk around holding a cup of nectar...


and wait for the birds to flock.


Note: Lorikeets, not as shy as we had expected!
Lorikeets perch on Ryan's, and Liv's heads! A self-portrait.



The girls held amazingly still as they give Chester, Bianca, can't remember the other six birds' names, a little snack.


I thought this red one was so pretty!


Um, make yourselves at home!
It felt like a scene from The Birds upon first entry, what with them flapping directly in your ear and swarming your baby and the like. However, by the time we reached the end of the nectar L & M were pretty sure we could take the Lorikeets home, just like every other animal and potato bug that would love their bed.


Penguins and sisters.
Sisters and penguins.



Little Monkey:

Liv's first steps! Mostly practiced with the back row of the Relief Society as her audience. At this rate, she'll be keeping up with her sisters in no time...


Yikes!!

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

So Ryan has spent the last four eventful days at a trade show in Chicago. On Tuesday, day two to be exact, I was reminded of the time when upon coming home to our closet-sized apartment in Logan, I was hit directly in the face with a moose. Attached to the ceiling, the moose must have been calculated exactly at Leslie Barlow's eye level. The sentiment was simple: I miss, make that moose you. I kept the moose and this week the sentiment of missing, or moosing, has hit me in the face as though -again- stapled to the ceiling with pupils parallel to mine.
Our conversations this week have been totally mundane. I have been assured, make that guaranteed I will be coming out to the windy city next year, recovering from spinal taps or not. We've even discussed taking the twins out to the trade show, dressed like Kangaroos, to act as makeshift mascots and hand out fliers. At any rate, I'm sort of jealous that every time I talk to Ryan he's like--
"I'm on my way to grab some Thai food."
"I'll call you after I'm done sight seeing downtown-man, you would love it here."
"Sorry I can't hear you, I'm at a Jazz Club."
(From which I have been promised a souvenir.)

and every time he asks what I'm doing.

You know the drill, it's wiping, feeding, cleaning, carpooling, refereeing, punishing, something, someone, three little someones. Luckily with the help of "who's your favorite aunt?" (some people nickname themselves) Jocelyn. Honestly, what has the windy city got on Jocelyn?

In the midst of a rainstorm and a couple of really bad migraines and two four-year old temper tantrums that were inevitable this week we set out to conquer the world by way of the kitchen. Who knew we could concoct our own recipe for organic Beef Stew? Chicken Stir-fry? Oven-bake homemade french fries to compliment a rotisserie chicken? And finally in a crowning event for which we are still patting ourselves on the back, Magelby's carrot raisin muffins with secret caramel nut topping, equally as satisfying as finding the perfect Halloween costume.


I'll bet you can't guess what it was.

Experimenting in the kitchen has trickled into other areas, like what would happen with a little hair gel and this girl?




Don't you think pigtails should come with some kind of warning? After careful thought I have devised it: do not attempt pigtails unless you are fully prepared to see your baby turn into a toddler before your very eyes. This day was a doozey because I put her in this outfit the twins wore, like yesterday.


A pigtail silhouette.

And a whole bunch of other Ryan-proof things: Gilmore Girls marathons, shopping expeditions, cozy afternoons with Little Women, chatty chatty nights with no mention of technology, and, finally, circa 9 pm tonight, the realization that why yes, we could in fact put nuts in the muffins without suffering the wrath of our test group. Even more ironic, while consuming said muffins and watching said Gilmore Girls, the following phrase entered our muffin-numbed minds:

"All I'm saying is, sometimes eating a walnut is preferable to getting hacked to death or set on fire during dinner."

I think I will commit that one to memory.
See you tomorrow Tiger.

Phobias, Revisited

Ryan and I sit in a room the size of our master closet. How does a person, let alone a physician, get any work done in this space? we wonder. On every wall a different diagram of the brain and central nervous system. I remember when I wanted to go into this stuff; to in fact be the person about to enter the room and not the person waiting. And waiting we were indeed, for over an hour. The last place on earth you'd take your spouse if given an afternoon of free babysitting, but yet. How about another game of hangman?
I thought back to the very first moment I knew I'd be in this office. The second trip to Sea World of the summer, making use of our season passes, in the height of Austin's heat wave. Suddenly my limbs were tingling, burning like frostbite, and it wasn't the first time. Just like that, Liv and I jumped in the fountain.



What kind of ailment would produce these symptoms?
If not already apparent, my doctor is pressed for time. He is brisk, calling out commands as if following the rules of a game, hop on one foot, close your eyes and touch your nose. (You didn't say Simon Says). I follow.
Inside this maze of a doctor's office, I play along. Reminded of the time my sister and I tried out 'expert level' at dance dance revolution when we were merely beginners I am scrambling to keep up with the game. MRI, lumbar puncture, encephalitis survey, locate a lab to run this bloodwork, wait for them to call you, don't eat for four hours and come early for-- what was that again? I am jerked into consciousness by the question of one nurse:
"Are you claustrophobic?"
Claustrophobia, the phobia that trumps all phobias except needles sucking out cerebral spinal fluid. It appears my new coach, the one who has barely explained the rules of the game, has ordered it all.
"Yes...I don't even really like hugs." I say, and wonder how I am going to do this.
At least he is thorough.
My mom has this theory that doctors with poor social skills make the best doctors, something about how an abrupt and tactless personality type makes good decisions in a crunch, and we'll see. I think he demonstrated a little bit of compassion in his own way, after thoroughly examining my symptoms shaking his head and saying,
"At twenty eight years old you are just a baby...just a baby."
We schedule the procedures.
I feel a strange sense of deja vu, thinking back to just three summers ago in Hawaii, upon learning the swimming with the dolphins experience was closed, we found ourselves in route to the next resort: sky diving. Within minutes we were signing our lives away, lawsuits and accountability need not apply. It's the same feeling in my stomach now.
M.D. delivers the final speech on his way out, almost as an afterthought.
"There's a population of people in the world who float around, sick as hell and not getting anywhere. They eventually make their way here."
A sentiment of hope, I'll take it. After Friday, we'll talk again.

Garden Fairies

Last week, two episodes of Angelina Ballerina made their way onto PBS. The effects, in our house, were life changing, to say the least. It seems that said episodes are responsible for our two little twins twirling around the house refusing to wear anything but ballerina outfits, oh and yesterday London asked me if she could in fact change her name to Angelina.
Which behavior can only be chocked up to the eccentricities of four-year-olds, and double if there are two of them, but now why didn't I think to capture it on film. Isn't it part of our job title as moms to be on the lookout for the perfect photo opportunity? Sometimes my best efforts to get my girls bathed, color coordinated, not to mention happy backfire into a series of painfully staged winces. But yesterday, upon rounding the corner on yet another load of endless dishes, I looked out the window and saw this scene--
weeds in the yard
tangled hair and all.
It was perfect.





I have never met a little girl who loves flowers as much as London. She interrupts every event-bike ride, soccer game, or trip to the library having spotted another one. We have had talks about only picking the weeds.


She always gives them to me.




Madelyn twirls and twirls...
Who doesn't love their very own swing in the backyard?
I chuckle that you never switch swings, even for a minute. Every new toy that comes home, every new song you learn in school has to be tried out on the swing. And if you forget the words, insert a makeshift version of 'part of your world,' the chorus of which is sometimes deafening.




Sometimes before you notice I sit for a minute and listen to your conversations. Livvy's face print on the back door tells me she does the same. The swings that now blow empty in the wind remind me you have places to be. Liv crawls from room to room in the house, the self-appointed search party. After one week of similar, self-appointed paranoia, I know exactly where you are now:
you
are
thriving.

There's a Sister for That

Tonight I packed two little lunches into specially chosen Tinkerbell lunchboxes. Made sure each was the perfect mixture of health and unhealth (already fallen for the Halloween treats, to be counterbalanced with extra carrots). Tucked two little girls with hair still damp from their bath into bed. Confirmed that yes, they would indeed like to match outfits tomorrow, and endured the gruesome process of choosing which outfits would suffice. Tasted the cough syrup from London's goodnight kiss all the way down the stairs. Even more potent than a kick of grape splash came the thought: will they remember to save dessert for last? Before I reached the last step I knew the answer: nutrition, the least of my worries. Every mom knows lunchboxes always come back with the child, providing perfect evidence of peanut butter and jelly corpses or lack thereof. It's what I am unable to inspect I worry about.
I can't believe you are already old enough for your first day at Pre-K.
Separated for the first time since birth. I wonder if the first few moments in separate classrooms will not be unlike the moments, fresh from birth, in separate incubators.
We thrive together.
Yesterday in the car you both asked me if you could stay four forever, and I think it had something to do with this separation. Surely if we work together we could indeed take the battery out of the clock that pushes time forward. I love that your logic works that way. My words of comfort are instead, a sharp dose of reality that bursts what hope I had attempted to inflate. You'll see each other at recess, you'll have twice the friends, you'll have lots to talk about...
and while I was at it, I wondered what other words of advice I should send with their lunches.
Don't put your mouth on the drinking fountain.
Remember who you are.
Don't worry what anybody else thinks.

And finally, in a post-dinner pre-bath moment of watching one headlock her sister and attempt to rip her hair out for the second time today, realized we have entered the setting in which these wrestling moves may -finally- come in handy.

Kick the mean boys in the shins.

I zipped up the polka dot backpacks and put them by the door.