Happy Birthday! August 1, 2012

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Carrie and Melina celebrated one year of life on Wednesday.  Grammy's side of the family, the Meths, would also call this birthday their Golden Birthday, meaning that their age (1) equals the day of their birthday (August 1st). That means their birthday celebration is supposed to be extra special.  I can't imagine how much more special you can get than my sweet girls crawling pertly around in their pink tutus and "I'm the Birthday Girl" cupcake shirts, squealing like they know that today is all about them.

We tried for some good pictures of the girls in the morning light, but they weren't feeling very poseable.  No surprise there.  Although they aren't walking by one like Devon was, they're getting more and more mobile all the time.

Melina, especially, has put horizontal progress on hold in favor of vertical.  This past week she's amazed and alarmed us by scaling the rocking chair, the coffee tables, the toy keyboard, and the ottoman.

Devon got to pick out the cake at Publix with Grammy and Grandpa.  We proposed waiting until the evening to dig in.  He respectfully expressed his disagreement.  Apparently you can't tell a two-year-old that we're going to look at the cake and not taste it yet.  Everyone decided that a cupcake after lunch wouldn't hurt!

 Craig texted me a "Happy Birthday Melina and Carrie" right on the dot to commemorate their entrance into the world at 2:11 and 2:12 respectively.  What were we all doing at the time?  The girls were napping and I was cleaning the kitchen like a madwoman in order to get the crumbs and sticky spots up so we could celebrate in a clean house.

Craig asked me at dinner what I was doing at the moment they turned one and I said I was mopping the floor.  "Hmm." he said.  "In a way, that's totally appropriate!"  I had to think for a moment before I figured out what he meant by that, and when I did I was so shocked I almost dropped my fork.  Not only has Craig never talked about my c-section even when I ask him about it, but he also NEVER talks about anything medical while people are eating. 

The fact that he made a joke about it and I could laugh just shows how much people can heal in one short year.  All the scary parts have been wallpapered over in my mind and I can honestly say that all I feel about that day is peace, love, and gratitude that my babies are here and so healthy.

After dinner we gathered around them in their high chairs for some pictures.  Carrie and Melina held court like royalty, looking from one smiling face to another.

"Oh!" said Carrie.  "Party?  Cake?  Pictures?  For me?" She still starts every morning with a gasp of interest and pleasure, looking like she can't believe her good fortune.

"Yes!"  said Melina.  "I love this!  Keep it coming!"  She's still the party girl, starting every day with her trademark wide-mouth smile.

That's right, sweet girls.  Today is all about you.

Craig, Grammy, Grandpa, Devon and I made a semi-circle around them, smiling and cooing, offering one toy after another to make them smile for pictures.

People often say they have the same smile, but they rarely have the same smile in any picture.

 

Devon got to get his beloved step stool and join the fun.  This was a big deal.  For obvious reasons, Mommy doesn't usually let him carry it around the house and stand on it to reach for things, even though he really enjoys it.

"Carrie-and-a-Weena!"  he shouted.  "Carrie-and-a-Weena!"

We're still waiting for the day he can tell them apart.  Every once in a while he comes out with "Carrie!" or "Weena!" and we clap with surprise, thinking he's finally realized that they have individual names just like he does.  Then he points to the other twin with the same name.  He does this for every set of twins he knows, too:  Kaywee-and-a-Wywee, Wobber-and-a-Wyann, Cowee-and-Addison, etc.

Weena got a birthday kiss...

 ...and then it was time for cake.

When we put the cake on the table, all three kids started shrieking and reaching for it, looking like a pack of hyenas reacting to a haunch of venison tossed in their midst.

We sang to the twins, Craig singing "Happy Birthday, Melina and Carrie" and me singing "Happy Birthday, Carrie and Melina" to even things out.  Then we mouthed a count of three and placed a cupcake in front of each child.

Carrie and Melina prodded them skeptically.

Devon dug right in.

 On his first birthday, he took a cautious handful of frosting, wiggled his fingers, and started to cry. He and cake have really patched up their relationship since then.

It was as if he showed his sisters what to do.

They went for the tops first,

Melina sucking rhythmically on her fingers like she was nursing.

Carrie decided that was a good approach.

Then Melina discovered the soft, spongy vanilla cake underneath.

I've never seen this happen at a one-year-old party.

They 

ate

the 

whole

thing!

When we finally took them down from their high chairs, only a small smear of frosting remained on each tray.  Carrie managed to get a lot of cake on herself.

Melina kept her outfit pretty clean but managed to spread cake on her high chair and sprinkle it on the floor. The general consensus was clear: life will never be the same now that Carrie and Melina know that there is cake in the world.  Every meal since then they crane their necks avidly around as if looking for more cake.

It seemed like a good time to give them their baths and clean the kitchen again.  Then, we sat around opening presents.  Carrie and Melina seized the tissue paper and flapped with delight.

By this time it was getting late, dark even on a long Florida summer day.  Did that mean we put the kids to bed and promised to continue tomorrow?  Not a chance!

We began celebrating with those who wanted to be part of the celebration via Skype: Mama and Papa in Nashville, Great Auntie Esther and Auntie Naomi in North Dakota, and Uncle Tim and Auntie Bojana in California.

Everyone sent gifts and cards for each of the girls. One special present was scheduled to arrive in another week, but a noon doorbell announced its arrival, giving Mommy and Grandpa enough time to sneak it in the house and put it together for a surprise unveiling. Their new wagon was an instant hit.  All three enjoyed climbing in and out, in and out.  Then they realized that it wasn't just meant to sit on the living room floor, but to take them outside on their nightly walks.  Even better!

"Just hang in there until they turn one," so many people have told us.  "Everything will get so much easier!"  I suppose there were a few high-fives and shouted "We made it!"'s today, as well as a few nostalgic sighs.  This year they've each quadrupled their body weight, sprouted hair that still refuses to lie flat, and smiled at Mommy and Daddy for the very first time.

Now they're getting so big!  Sometimes during playtime they each decide they want the same toy, gripping it and rolling over and over each other in a struggle like cats.  It makes me wonder how I survived nine months with that going on inside of me, but it was worth it.

Now in the morning I go in to get them and find them standing up in their cribs.  I reach for my girls, calling to them in my delighted Mommy voice:

Carrie!  Melina!  My sweet girls!  My two babies!


For me?

Bear Country Rules: July 21, 2012

My most vivid parenting memories often don't get captured on film.  Carrie and Melina got their first taste of caffeine this week, which I can only assume is to blame for my calmest child's wild eyes.

Thursday morning Devon ran around the corner and shouted to me: "We need to get some more paper in here!"  It wasn't his words that made me jump from my chair and run to see what he wanted.  As I learned last week, Devon gets flustered in emergencies and says things that you wouldn't expect because he can't make the right words come out.  When he uses a certain tone of voice I drop what I'm doing.

 I followed him into the kitchen and found Carrie and Melina crouched over a used coffee filter they had just dug out of the garbage.  They were grabbing fistfuls of the grounds and lifting them to their mouths to taste, eyes round with discovery.  As you can imagine, I ran for a wet towel instead of the camera.  I pinned one twin between my knees and held the other on my lap as I swabbed out their mouths, shucked off their crumbly sleepers, and wiped their stained fingers.

Devon got treats for helping Mommy protect his sisters.  He sat on the coffee table lining up his five M&M's and eating them one by one.  I could see the thoughts running through his mind.  So... if the babies do things they're not supposed to and I tell Mommy, I get treats?  This "big brother" thing could turn out to be a pretty good gig!

Devon's favorite word this week is "treat".  He's learning how to eat a fruit pop without making his mouth too cold and always begging for a sip of Mommy's tea.

Ahhh, I wish a fruit pop was all it took to make everyone feel that good.

Devon shouts "Pizza!" every time we pull into the Sam's Club parking lot.  He knows my weaknesses.  I'm such a sucker for sitting on a little plastic table and serving him pieces of questionably nutritious food as a part of my weekly shopping ritual.  It's just so easy to hustle him  right into the house and down for a nap when he's full and drowsy from the hypnotic ride home instead of putting away the groceries, drawing out the ritual of dinner, and getting out the wet rag and broom to clean up the inevitable mess on the floor.

The other reason we're such big fans of Sam's Club is the double-passenger carts.  My diaper runs to Target have been pretty hectic lately as I try to keep two unbelted girls from standing up.

We get a lot of comments on the adorable way their feet hang out of the cart in a jumble.  Melina (left) is wearing the white shoes with the bright pink bottoms.

We observe Syrup Saturdays a few times a month.  Devon picks away at his pancake, digging out blueberries like a strip miner. Slurries of syrup and flecks of pancake slop down the sides of his Big Boy Booster and end up on the floor.

"I found a ball!" he says for each one, breaking them so they stain his teeth and fingers with black juice.  It's amazing how much of my day is spent on food: going to the store to buy it, putting it away in the kitchen, getting it out, preparing it, serving it, and cleaning it off the walls, floor, and dishes.
 

The hard part of parenting is not that it takes all day and sometimes all night.  It's the number of tasks you're expected to accomplish effectively at once. Yesterday, Devon flung his spoon on the ground just for the pleasure of asking me politely to pick it up for him.  I unstrapped him and told him to get it himself and looked up in time to see Melina arching her back in another attempt to climb out of her high chair and a bored Carrie deciding to remove her clothes.  I felt a tug on my leg and heard a voice say "Go potty!  Get treats!"  The fifteen seconds it took to unstrap the girls and put them in a safe place were unfortunately too long for Devon to wait.  The ten minutes it took to change Devon's clothes and clean the mess off the floor was long enough for a hundred tiny Florida ants to find the mug of baby cereal on the kitchen table and go nuts.  The minute it took to wipe up the ants was all it took Carrie and Melina to make it to the kitchen garbage and find the coffee filter. 

 I don't think people like to admit that they're struggling with a pest problem because it implies shoddy housekeeping.  I do my best to clean up after everybody after breakfast, lunch, snackies, and dinner.  I wipe the counters twenty times a day.  I make Devon pick up all his dropped food and put it in the garbage after every meal, watching to keep him from deciding to slip a stray Cheerio into his mouth. 

Every ant in Citrus Springs has still decided that stopping by my kitchen to cruise the leavings on the walls, floor, and counters is a more reliable source of food than waiting around near the sidewalks for dead bugs and dropped ice cream cones.

A month ago, Craig came back from Home Depot with some ant bait.  I don't even get emotional anymore when I think of the ants feeding our poison to their children and dying in agony.  This is war.  It's either us or them. 

Since it's Craig's job as a researcher to control insects without harming humans, he knows which bait will keep the pesky bugs away without risking harm to anybody else that happens to be crawling around the floor. We're now on our fourth preparation, some of which he mixed up in our kitchen.  None of them have been able to keep the ants at bay for more than a few days.  I find ever more creative places to store our food and they outsmart me every time.  I even caught them crawling into the microwave to find the leftover breakfast rolls.

Even with all of his knowledge, Craig's best advice to me was pretty simple:

"Ants are attracted to food.  No food, no ants.  If we want a clean, ant-free kitchen, we have to pretend like we're trying to keep bears away from our campsite.  Every crumb of food and every sticky spill needs to be cleaned up and wiped immediately."

Wow.  Easier said than done.