One Month Birthday, September 1, 2011

Craig is a little miffed with me because I left a huge pile of dirty diapers on his nightstand. The logic of my comeback was unassailable: should I have just left them in the bed?

This is the nightstand in his parents' guest bedroom in Nashville that is currently sleeping us and the twins. We were thankful to have a few days in between to rest. Monday's moving day was crazy busy. The movers showed up at 3:30, opened the back of their truck, glanced sheepishly at each other, and then set about sorting other people's belongings that had settled on the drive over. When at 4:45 they finally turned their attention to loading our stuff, they seemed to do a good job. I hope everything gets to our destination all right, but the fact remains that they finished at 9 pm and we didn't get to Nashville until 1, so I'm a little underwhelmed by their service so far. It was too late and we were too tired to summon the requisite nostalgic emotions for leaving Lexington for the last time. I didn't even look back at our house as we drove away.



Carrie and Melina celebrated their one month birthday on Thursday. Carrie now weighs in at 8.2 pounds, and Melina is 7 pounds. Most identicals have a discrepancy in birth weight, and most keep it throughout childhood. It just grows less noticeable with time to, say, have a 20 pounder and a 21 pounder.



Carrie is still the contemplative twin, and still the bellwether twin. When she wakes up to eat, we put her beside Melina so she'll wake her up, too. Then they both eat at the same time, and we credit their healthy weight gain to Carrie's healthy appetite.



Melina is still the party girl, quick to respond to the feelings of others. When they are both crying and I move Carrie away, I often return only seconds later to find Melina fast asleep. Once she turns her mind to it, she often decides that there wasn't really anything to cry about after all.



The kids had some time with the cousins, and we got a first family picture.



Actually, this was the first family picture. I have to admit, I'm partial to it.



Who rocks, Devon? That's right! We got to celebrate Craig's graduation, too. Poor guy, his major accomplishment could easily become overshadowed by the move, the new job, and the new babies. Laura put it best when she said the only way we could have crammed more life milestones into one month is to have gotten married this month, too.



Craig's graduation party/gift was tickets to the UK season opener in Nashville.



In the words of Jeremy (striped shirt), it was AWESOME!



Ally kitty gets the worst end of the deal this week, being kenneled in her Porta Pet most of the day. We're just thankful that she seems content. During the move from California to Lexington four years ago, she didn't stop squalling for the first 208 miles. We were more worried about moving with the cat than all three kids put together.



So tomorrow we'll leave for Florida, and get there midday Monday. I am looking forward to having things I've taken for granted, like a place to put the dirty diapers. Also: uninterrupted Internet access. Before we left, I placed a free Craigslist ad offering our old couch as a freebie to the first taker. It was gone in two hours. The only problem is, later we took our computer down before I went back through the email and deleted the ad, which listed my cell number.

Who knew? My wildly unfashionable yellow-and-mauve couch is apparently a must-have for UK fall dorm fashion. I've used the opportunity to educate a few dewy young freshman on the virtues of cell phone etiquette.

Word to the wise: if you want to score my free couch, don't wake me and my twins up by calling at midnight.

Not cool.