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The girls are starting to merge into the same face. For the longest time we would answer the question, "are they identical?" with, "they are supposed to be." But it seems like everyday they look more and more alike. The main differences are the hair and the cheeks right now. Rachel has more hair, Anya has more cheek. I haven't really ever thought the girls looked like me until recently. The other day, I saw a picture of myself, last year this time, in London. I look so carefree in those pictures. And I got this sort of deja vu of the future. Like I was reminded of Anya, but not my current Anya, but of a future Anya when she will look like her mom. Which is me, which is weird.
It has been 4 months, but it is still hard to process that I have two daughters. Me. When do you fully emotionally understand this, I wonder?
We had a few good weeks there. The girls were eating well and sleeping through the night and generally happy. All the while, there were 6 of us living in our apartment. Me, Jeff, Rachel, Anya, Archie (dog) and the newest member of our household, Claude. Claude was, we hoped, a mouse. We never really saw much of him except for his tail as he ran behind the stove. We watched him for a few days to make sure he wasn't a growing baby rat, because a mouse is one thing, but a rat is surely another thing all together. So, we would spot Claude late at night running along the counter rim in the kitchen or catch a glimpse of him running on the floor. In general, we weren't sure about Claude's stay with us. We didn't want to put out poison becuase of the girls and we weren't sure about murdering him. But things started to get out of hand. Droppings were found. Then, big hunks were eaten out of bread. I actually had to be told that Claude wasn't taking pieces of bread away with him, but had actually sat and eaten off of a piece. Boy, I am naive.
Then, one day last week, I saw Claude twice in one hour. Once in the kitchen and another time, running from the living room into the solarium and under the crib! So, we premeditated the murder of Claude. Old fashioned mouse traps and peanut butter were our weapons of choice. Jeff set out two traps in case Claude had friends. He set them out right before we left for Thanksgiving weekend to visit Jeff's mom.
Part of me wants to believe this and part of me doesn't want to believe this... but I think the murder of Claude (and yes, he is indeed dead, but we will get to that), has brought a curse on us. Remember how we were having a good time, all easy eating and sleeping and happy happy girls. That all ended at around 1 am Thursday night. Perhaps just as Claude met his fate. Anya woke up with a fever and it has all gone down hill from there. I am envisioning Claude checking out the yummy peanut butter at around that time and wap! Snapped in the head with the trap. Blood splattered on the refrigerator. When we found his tiny grey body, he seemed so small. I thought, I can't believe we killed him. He wasn't a rat or 2 mice, but just one little Claude. And so Karma sends us something new to deal with. Teething.
Yes, Anya's 99.8 degree temp. made way for Rachel's drooling and chomping. There are also bouts of crying while trying to bite our hands as well as their own. Basically, it is terrible. Our tools for this mission are baby orajel, baby tylenol, rubber teething rings, our own fingers and lots of singing ("Forget all your troubles. Forget all the pain. Blah blah, something about getting teeth.") We also cracked out the first Baby Einstein DVD last night to divert their attention. It worked for Rachel, but Anya was more interested in me as I repeated what the puppets were telling them about hands and eyes and feet.
In general, Rachel is handling the teething much better than Anya. I feel so bad for both of them, though. All the crying and waking up every 30 minutes and needing to just get something in their mouths. Poor little ladies! This morning, I found Rachel with her dress in her mouth. Rachel has also had this sort of awakening in the past few days. She is desperate to sit up on her own. She grunts and grunts until she can and then plops back down moments later. Her vocalizing has also increased. This morning, Jeff was holding her and i was holding Anya and Rachel looked over and just started babbling at Anya. Anya looked at me with wide eyes as if to say, "what the hell did she say to me?"
I have been hearing over and over today that my girls are too young to be teething already. They are 4 months old today, but less if you adjust it considering they were born 3 weeks early (which we never do). All I have to say is that it is karma for killing Claude.
This Washington winter has begun. I was already wearing my wonderful orange scarf from the lovely Edie. Now, I have cracked out the best hat in the world. Made by Heidi at mypapercrane.com, this hat is big and warm and orange and white. I had been thinking of going blue (hair) for the winter, but the pink hair looks so nice next to this hat that I may stay pink.
It is 10pm on a Saturday night and my life is strange. I jsut got finished listening to Jeff argue a bit about foriegn policy with someone we had never met in person until this evening. Cyber-friends. That's right a cyber friend of Jeff's and his wife were in town for a wedding and they, too, have a 4 month old, so they came by. It must be weird for Jeff to meet people he plays Halo with. It was pretty cool, actually. But you wonder what life will be like in 20 years... I mean, 20 years ago there was no internet (not really) and meeting a cyber-friend would never have happened. What will our girls' adult lives be like in 30 years? Will their record collections be implanted!? I hope so. I want to be 70 and get seasons of Buffy implanted. Or perhaps my favorite movie. What will that be then? Rosemary's Baby or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
I just got finished rocking Anya to sleep for a total of two hours. Oh my. This baby kicks my ass nightly. Sometimes when I am rocking her to sleep, I think about those horrible nanny shows. What did those parents do wrong? Did they love their babies and rock them to sleep. Did they let them cry it out? How did those kids get that way? Too much sugar?
Will Anya be a complete jerk when she is 5? Oh, I hope not. "Give me a boy of seven and I will show you the man." That line is from the 7UP documentary series. I think about that too... if I can just get her to 7 without having to call some TV nanny in to wrangle my kids, we will be fine.
Sometimes I think about the girls' organs. About how I made them and grew them. I haven't thought about this in a long time. Not since I was still making them and growing them. I remember thinking early on in pregnancy, are their organs done yet? I remember how happy I was when I knew that they were indeed done and the girls just needed to grow from then on.
Rachel has some trouble breathing at night, so she sleeps in her car seat on the bed between us. I think it is mostly congestion because of her cold, but I worry it might be more. Perhaps she is allergic to Archie? I don;t know. She woke me up in the middle of the night, coughing a little. I held her close to me until she settled back to sleep. Then I dreamt that I travelled in through her white terry cloth pajamas into her lungs. And there I was, looking around at my finished product's insides. It was a comforting dream. Not at all gross like it sounds.
Anya laughed in her sleep at about 4 this morning. I wonder what she was dreaming of. I reached over to see if she would hold my finger and she did. And I feel back to sleep, dreaming again of terry cloth pajamas. But this time, I got to wear some. I also dreamt of boy twins. Adults. Sandy-haired and thin. They were fighting in a super hero-y way. Then one jumped from a window and parachuted onto me. This is my fear of getting pregnant with twins again.
I am thinking of organs again. And about how I can make them. I can't wait to toss that one at a girl when she is 7 and being a pain and hating mom for some silly injustice. "I made your organs! Be good!"
Nedra just commented on my blog and I followed her website link. You should to as she has some lovely handmade bags and hats that are really nice. http://www.divinetrash.com/store/bags.html I really like that lollipop purse.
Anyway... this is reminding me that along with a new template for this page, I am working on a new links page. Wanna trade links? If so, please comment below with your web address. I want to have a giant page of crafty links and life-y blogs. Also! I am going to add little ads on my shop, too. If you would like to send me a little advert for your website, please email me (tina@ilikeseamonsters.com). The size of the ads are 125 pixels wide by 125 pixels. Remember to send me the link the ad should go to. If you send me your link or ad, remember to add mine to your links page to ensure a proper trade!!!
OK. that might have been boring for some of you to read. But i am interested to know what you peeps out there are making!
Here is a new picture of Jeff reading to the girls. As you can see, they are a captive audience.
With the cold weather, a new activity has been added to our daily things to do list. Along with the feedings and the diaper changes and the daily baths, now we have to deal with congestion. And I like to call it boogie management. There are other names, too. Boogie shopping. Boogie catching. It seems like I am constantly removing wonderful nostral shaped clumps of boogies from tiny tiny noses. At first, we were just using the little blue bulbs to get them out. Then we added saline drops. Oh my, saline drops are amazing. A few drops of saline and everything just pops to the surface, like a bouy. Pop! Here come the boogies, I say to the girls. Sometimes the saline is a little tramatic for them, but most of the time once that is done, the retrieval of the boogies, the collection if you will, is pretty fun. They smile and smile. I also sometimes use a q-tip to gentley get some of it out, this they love also. It must feel really good to have someone clear your nose for you!
Anya has started to notice the dog. She gets excited when she sees him and wiggles and wiggles to get to him. She could stare at him for hours. Oh my god, she is going to terrorize my poor old Archie as soon as she can move on her own.
Everyone tells me that the first 3 months with twins are the hardest. That it gets easier. Well. This is true and not true. Yes, things are getting easier. We sleep from 11 to 6 am. This is better than before. But I can't help but think that once they can crawl and walk, we are totally screwed. Right now, if I put Anya in the baby papasan, Anya stays in the baby papasan. This will not be so in about 3 months. They will be less easy to contain. Crap! I am torn because I really want to see them grow and change and learn, but crap! I want to survive this.
Hi to everyone who talked to me at the Counter Culture Festival last night at Dr Dremos. It was nice to meet you and I am glad I made you laugh or smile with my silliness. Since my template for this site isn't done yet and there is still no real obvious link to the store, here is a link:
I lIke seamonsters store!.
Also, I just realized my email address isn't listed on here. If you saw somethign that you liked but would like to order a size that I didn't have, please email me: tina@ilikeseamonsters.com
It was nice to be out without the babies, but I did keep showing Jeff pictures of them. Funny. I got to come home smelling of smoke like I wanted. Thanks to all that smoked around me. You made me feel young again. :)
More later. Breakfast is calling.
I am the Washington CityPaper's craftiest bastard this week. So an ad with a picture of my panda shirt is running in the paper in full color!
You can buy this shirt in the store, by clicking here!
You can see their crafty classifieds here:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/class/craftybastards.html
This weekend, I will be selling my stuff at the Washington DC Counter Culture Festival at Dr. Dremos in Arlington. Tables with stuff to buy are from 4 pm to 7 pm and then there are independent movies and bands after that. I believe it is all free. And at a bar! I havne't been to a bar in ages! I can't wait to come home smelling of smoke. It will remind me of the old days when Jeff and I were hipsters. Do you remember your scenester days? Anyway, you can get the full information on this flier:
DC counter culture fest.
I just walked too far in the cold windy sun to get a burritto. All I could think about were those black beans and guac! Yum. Speaking of which, I have lost two more pounds. I have no idea what is going on, though. I am hardly eating anything, and walking my ass off. I think I am making muscle as my legs look thinner.
This morning I saw my little brother on the street. I knew he would be there when I turned the corner, but it was still weird. Mikey has gone from working at an Ice Rink to running a nonprofit only 2 blocks from my work. It is like he is a new character on my sit-com. He has been added to save the series. I crack myself up. That was funny.
Tomorrow, Jeff has his first day at home alone with the girls. Pray for him.
This always happens to me. I swear it. My universe is this certain balance of good and bad and it rarely is mis-aligned. And I need to remember this. I need to always remember that when something bad happens, something good is around the corner.
Yesterday, there were these bright pink fliers in the girls' bin at daycare. The fliers informed us that starting January 1st, the price of daycare would be increasing by $75 EACH per month. That is $150 on top of the insane amount that we already pay. It is already barely worth it for me to work considering my pay and what we pay for daycare. But as with everything, it is a delicate balance. Daycare is a little more than 2/3 of my pay. But fate has it that we need that other third of my pay to live where we live and survive in general. So, the girls go to daycare. And daycare is so good for them. This morning, we put Rachel down on the floor and she smiled and smiled at another baby in the class. It was so great to see her interacting with someone other than us and her sister. She gets to watch babies roll over and crawl and walk all day long. She gets to listen to music and look at all the colors and be in the world. At this stage, with just me at home, I would be barely managing their feeding needs, much less other things. Anyway, I didn't know it would be, but this daycare business is good for my girls so far. Not to mention good for me because I get to live in the world. I am not a career-y girl. I don't care too much about the professional world that is Washington, DC. I work to use my brain and get paid. I am a crazy multi-tasker and I love that part of my job and it keeps me happy all day. Anyway... this situation is good for everyone. Then, yesterday, increase in price. Damn it!!!!
I was totally bummed all last night. Worrying about where we will get the extra money. How we will ever get ahead with this crazy situation. How people with our types of jobs and lives be so stretched thin for cash. It was depressing. I wondering if I should go back on Prozac and let the magic pills wash it all away.
Then today, a few cool things happend. Jake pretended to have to show me something with a server, to which, I said, "you are talking me to a party, right?" And yes. My work had a baby shower for me. They couldn't do it before I gave birth cause of my bed rest. So, I got all these presents including a gift card, clothes and books. There was cake and food (enough to take home for dinner!!!). It was so so nice. Then i came back to my desk to find that I will be the featured Crafty Bastard in the Washington CityPaper this week. Rock on! Then Jeff won free lunch for his office. It is like the world saying, "Dude. Don't dispair. There is a certain balance to things. You will always come out on top." I mean, those things don't take away the fact that we might not be able to pay this increase and that things are going to get even more tight in my house. But they do remind me that the world is good.
I might sound like Oprah, but really. I do believe in the balance. Delicate. Certain. And maybe even fair in the end. There are some people I know whose lives don't have this balance. And I wonder, is it because they don't believe in it? Or is their balance coming? I hope so, because everyone deserves balance.
I don't believe in God. But I do believe in something else. It doesn't have a name. It is a feeling that no matter what, everything will always be ok.
And if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, this post will be total crap. :)
I have said this before. But there are some days or minutes with twins when you are just like... oh my god when will this be over? I think this is the first weekend where I haven't felt that. Sure, we still can't do everything we want to do and the girls aren't totally managed at all times, but things went really smoothly this weekend. On Saturday, we took the girls for their first trip to Target. They slept through the whole thing.
Of course, I will never ever get used to the on-lookers. The women who ask me how I get them both to sleep at once. The questions from every grandmotherly type in the world. How old are they? Are they twins? A boy and a girl? Are they identical. Well, they don't look alike to me. Then there are the women who say, "oh, i always wanted twins." As if twins were something that someone would choose for themselves. I always wanna say, "that is nice, but really naive." I also get the question, "are they yours?" alot. I mean alot. I wonder why that is? Is it my hair? My non-mom attitude? I shouldn't complain about all the questions. People truly do get a lot of enjoyment out of asking them. And in the future, it will most likely help the girls to not be shy if they get to talk to stranger so much.
Then yesterday, things weren't too bad, either. The girls are going through a growth spurt, so they wanted to eat and eat and eat. But that was ok. Between feeding and bouncing and playing with various bunnies and bears dressed in bunny suits, Jeff and I each got to do things that we wanted to do. He got to read and play Xbox. I got to add items to my store. I even set it up so that you can write reviews of my silliness. During all those feedings, we were watching Arrested Development Season Two on DVD. Comedy always makes life easier.
Last night, I was watching the new Ricky Gervais show, Extras. I got so into it that even though I was holding a baby, I forgot for a while that I even had babies. This is good and bad and kinda mixed me up a bit. I had been thinking that I couldn't be wowed by art or televison or movies anymore. But this proved that wrong. That show is so funny and touching all at once. It took me away from my responsiblities for just 30 minutes. Thank you, Mr Gervais.
You never know if someone actually likes you until they make something for you. My friend, Edie, made me this amazing scarf. I mean amazing. It is long and warm and ORANGE! And soft and orange. Oh my. It is the best present I have ever gotten. See:
Anya's outfit on Wednesday was a tour-de-force:
And you already saw my dragon girls, but these faces were too good to not show:
Not sure why I uploaded this picture sideways... will have to fix that tonight.
I have been withholding this information for some reason. I don't know why. It isn't anything big. Just that i had my reunion with my street grandma. It was a day later than it should have been, because, I am ashamed to say, I avoided her once. I didn't have the time it would take to update her on the past 5 months, so I didn't walk down the street where she stands. I saw her, there, though. Something in me also made me feel a little guilty. I think it is about my real grandma and how I don't visit her in the nursing home. She doesn't remember anyone, I tell myself, so it is ok. But it really isn't ok. These things rarely are. Last time that I went to visit, there was a terrible stomach flu raging among the inmates. I didn't get to see her, but I did get the flu. Pregnant and with the flu. Now, Jeff and I agree that a nursing home is too dirty for infants. So, odds are that I may never see her again. This is what made me avoid Lydia, my street grandma, the other day. This sadness and yearning to see my real grandma.
When my parents told my real grandma that I was pregnant with twins, she didn't really remember me. But to the news, she said, "better her than me!" Ah, that is my Margie. Always with the quippy. When my dad told her that she had two new great grandchildren, she looked at him and said, "mike's daughter, right? she had them." All the while, not even knowing that she was talking to Mike. So it was with all of this in my little head that I seek out my street grandma for the first time in 5 months.
Lydia is right where I left her 5 months ago, next to the smoothie place where I get my lunch. As I walk up, she reaches into her giant silver purse and pulls out a pair of pink gloves. She hands them to me without even saying hello. "For you," she says. "They match your hair." To this I wonder how long this woman has had these gloves in her purse. How many times did she search the streets for my pink hair. How much did she worry about me. And this breaks my heart. I am heartbroken at what I have put her through. I am heartbroken at what we put all grandmas through. They don't deserve this.
She tells me that she got my card announcing the birth of the babies. To this I am happy because it means that she indeed does live somewhere and not outside. She also tells me that around July she thought I might not make it. She worried that I was going to die. I came close, I tell her. I give her another picture of the girls and she is delighted. She asks a lot of questions about daycare and seems worried that I am leaving my daughters somewhere unsafe. "And at night," she says. "You have a place to stay at night." To this, I feel so ashamed of my lovely 7th floor apartment with its solarium overlooking the park. I wish she didn't assume that I am poor, but she worries about me.
Lydia wants to buy a present for the babies. She wants to buy them gloves. I tell her I already have some, but they always could use socks. "I know a lady who sells socks," she says, delighted. I tell her to please not buy too much, as I look down at her cup nearly empty except for a dollar and some coins. I offer to buy her lunch, but she smiles and scolds me. "You know I am trying to lose weight and you offer me food!" I see Margie in her smile. I hear Margie when she speaks. And I am heartbroken. And so, I will avoid her corner for a few days until the pain is dulled.
Anya loves color. This shouldn't surprise me. But she is only 3 months old! In the past week, she has shown us her love of color by being mesmerized by the t-shirts of whomever is holding her. It started with my Belle and Sebastian shirt. The one with the members of the band shaped like Russian dolls. Lots of reds and blues and oranges. She just stared and stared.
Then it was Jeff's Saatchi Gallery shirt. This time we knew it was the t-shirt because he was wearing a v-neck sweater and only the top of the image was peaking out. To this, Anya put her hand on his sweater colar and gave a big tug. "She wants to see the whole thing," I said to Jeff's surprise. And when Jeff pulled off his sweater to reveal a giant red image, Anya's eyes got big big big.
Then came Edie's Pacman ghosts. Anya was mostly fond of the orange ghost. Not sure which one he is, but she loved him.
So figuring that she is ready for images, I sat with her and read picture books last night. I had been doing this a lot while I was home alone with them, but no one ever even looked in my direction. But last night, Anya was all "gaaas," while reading "Peek a Who?" And so we enter a new world.
Rachel has become equally aware of her surroundings, but in a different way. She likes moving things. She spent 30 minutes! in the bouncer the other day watching the fish move and water bubble. We also caught her looking back and forth from her daddy to the television during a match of Battlefield 2 for the Xbox. Speaking of which. We know all the warnings about babies and television/video games. But I am wondering if we are planning on ignoring them. Obviously, we have so far. Is it just that children who watch tv and play video games don't interact with their parents as much and thus are less smart? What if Rachel and Jeff form some sort of crazy team and play age appropriate games together? I don't envision a day when we would put our girls in front of the Xbox and leave them to play on their own. What on earth would Jeff be doing that would be more important that playing video games with his girls?
Anya slept through the night last night, again. While calming her sister down at 5 this morning, I found Anya quietly sleeping, sucking her thumb. And when I went to get her to feed her at 7, she smiled at me from around the thumb in her mouth. I thought, she is the best baby in the world. This Anya of mine. And I want to do everything that I can make her the happiest person in the world. Every day. Every minute. And I get to start with color. How lucky am I?
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Copyright © 2005, Tina Henry-Barrus, all rights reserved.
Design by Jeff Barrus, 2005. |
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