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.