Month: December 2011

ten months? really??

/ emmykay / 2 Comments

Nothing makes time fly faster than two very mobile little girls.

Carrie has been crawling for a while now.  She’s added pulling up and climbing to her tactics that allow her to get into trouble.  Just yesterday, Frank and I left the girls in their bedroom while we got ready for church.  We heard a thud and went to check on the girls, only to find Miss Carrie in an unusual position:

Ellie was a little bit later in learning how to crawl, but once she had the proper motivation, she can bust a move with the best of ’em! Ellie hasn’t started pulling up on much, but we are pretty sure that milestone is not too far away.

The girls have a ton of teeth in varying stages of protrusion.  Both have at least four teeth with a few more on the way.  They have been teething champs – requiring no ora-gel and muscling through teething like it was no big thang.

Carrie continues to be a vibrant, electric soul.  We love the bright smile she is so quick to flash at everyone. And she has this awesome laugh that just warms my heart. Every morning, when we walk into her room, she is standing in her crib, GRINNING at us. There is, in my opinion, nothing better than that.

Ellie is our peaceful soul.  She loves to snuggle and study books, pictures and anything with intricate detail.  She has two plush, rosie cheeks that are like little apples – just perfect for smooching! She was the first twin to really lock down feeding herself – her fine motor skills are excellent.

Miss Ellie enjoying bath time.

Watching the girls interact is one of the best parts of having twins.  They started laughing at each other and playing together more over the past month.  The other day, Frank’s mom was watching the girls play.  Both girls had pacifiers and were sitting facing each other.  Carrie casually reached over and plucked Ellie’s pacifier out of her mouth, spit out her own pacifier and started enjoying the stolen pacifier. Without blinking, Ellie picked up the discarded pacifier until Carrie noticed and the cycle repeated itself several times. Carrie was remorseless and Ellie was unruffled throughout the entire exchange. The perk of having twins is that they have never had the benefit of an existence without a sibling, so their tolerance for such antics seems to be much higher.

The nice thing about this stage of their lives is that they are eating pretty much anything we eat. This proved to be quite helpful this weekend when Frank and I spontaneously went out for brunch after church.  The girls enjoyed watermelon, blueberry muffins, mac & cheese and a few other items with gusto.  They were perfect little angels, delighting the staff with their sweet selves.  Let’s hope their dining prowess continues and they don’t start doing the screaming thing they do at home. That screaming thing is pretty annoying.

a tuesday night.

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It’s Tuesday night at 8 p.m.  I am lying on the floor watching the twins play.

Carrie, who has methodically crawled and climbed on every piece of furniture I’ve allowed her to crawl to and climb on, is cruising along our coffee table trying to, very nonchalantly, get her hands on the large black remote control.

I am watching her side-step along the table toward the remote, while simultaneously watching Ellie writhe on the floor. Miss Ellie has to be very motivated to want to crawl and, coincidentally, very few things motivate her.  She has crossed about eight feet of floor space in our family room through a series of rolls, pivots and shuffles.  Along her path, she’s stopped to study fuzz on the floor, blinking lights on the receiver and to plant her face on the carpet while sticking her rear as high up into the air as possible, creating a human pup tent.

And at this very moment, watching Ellie give her face rug burn, I am comforted by the fact that I have twins.

When you have one baby,  you compare your child to other children. With one, I imagine you wonder if you’re doing something wrong and, invariably, congratulate yourself for something you had nothing to do with. The joy of twins is that I know I’ve raised both girls almost exactly the same.  They have faced the same challenges, they have had the same opportunities and they share the same genetics (pro or con, who knows). And yet, with so many things similar, they are nothing alike.

Ellie ate first, Carrie crawled first.  Ellie rolled over first, Carrie rolls over most. Ellie is more calm and patient, Carrie is more… um… dynamic?

I’m sure there will be plenty of other times where one child does something before the other. But for those of you out there currently wondering why your baby isn’t crawling/walking/rolling/scooting/cruising as far or as fast or as frequently as another baby, hopefully I can offer you some comfort there are some things (many things, even) that as a parent that are far outside of your control.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Parenthood is of Steve Martin watching his son run headfirst into the walls with a bucket on his head.

Yeah, I expect my kids will probably do ridiculous things like that.  I suspect there will be times that I will be somewhat embarrassed even.  And of course, I am sure I will document those embarrassing moments on my blog because, well, I want my kids to know that what they do has consequences.

So yeah, Carrie is right now screaming at the remote control that magically (thanks to mommy) moved to the other side of the coffee table.  She is slamming her little fists of rage against the coffee table, incredulous that her calculations of distance and time to said remote were so off.

And Ellie, well, she’s been rubbing her face into the carpet for about five minutes now.  I think it’s time for bed.

it’s been a long december…

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… and there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last…

Long December by the Counting Crows was playing ad nauseum on the radio the winter I got my driver’s license.  The winter of 1997.

To this day, when that song comes on the radio, I am transported back to a two-lane road covered by a canopy of bare tree limbs and flanked by mounds of slushy gray snow. I am driving my dad’s 1992 Dodge Stealth.  Nevermind that the car had serious transmission issues and a few dings on the driver’s side: for a 16 year old high school student, being able to drive that car ALONE with complete autonomy over the radio was an excellent gift.

While I was driving that car, the ink barely dry on my driver’s license, I remember feeling that those moments were very, very special. I knew, as I was living those moments driving down that road, that I would remember those moments always.  I was free, but I was safe.  I enjoyed the luxury of driving a wonderful car, without the pressure of having to pay for said car.

At that time, it was hard for me to fathom what life would be like as a grown up. The day-to-day responsibilities and the many things my parents orchestrated in order to keep our home and our lives running alluded me. I had a vague idea that being an adult was complicated, challenging and, oftentimes, messy.

This is my first December as a mom and for some reason, these lyrics keep coming to mind.  Maybe it’s because I hope I remember this time of my life as clearly and as crisply as I remember some of my favorite moments of my youth.

and it’s been a long december and there’s reason to believe

maybe this year will be better than the last

I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself

to hold onto these moments as they pass