how to date like Frank and Emily

/ emmykay / 2 Comments

You might be asking (although, probably not) how Frank and Emily keep the love alive after nearly 8 years of wedded bliss.  Although, you are more likely asking yourself what is for lunch, dinner or when the next season of Mad Men will start (sometime in 2012, sorry folks).  While I can only answer one of your other pressing questions, and I can suggest a myriad of restaurants and delicious recipes for your first two questions, I am able to give you a glimpse into a romantic interlude between my Romeo (Frank) and me.

First, let’s describe the setting.  While many of you are probably used to having dates that take place in the fading light of a romantic sunset (read: best lighting for making everyone look attractive), Frank and I enjoy seeing each other in the stark, raw honesty of late morning sunshine.  We scoff at all of you who fight for reservations to a hot restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night.  Fools!  You can get any table you please on a Thursday morning, as long as your desired restaurant serves breakfast items.

Surrounded by men in business suits having important breakfast meetings, catty middle-aged women gossiping about their non-present friends and elderly couples, Frank and I feel that the mood is ripe for romance.  And, oh, is it!  In between bites of hash browns smothered in onions and cheese and over-sized egg-beater omelettes stuffed with jalapeño peppers, we both come to terms with the fact that our food selections suggest that there will be a pious good-bye kiss at the front door.

But it is between being seated and paying the bill that the real magic happens. Dates are not just about having delicious food and wearing clothes sans spit up stains.  Dates are about the meaningful heart-to-heart conversations that, deep down, we all desire.

Me: So, yeah.  Not such a bad night with the girls, right?  I think this acid reflux thing is behind us.

Frank: Yeah, I think so too.  Thank goodness, I was tired of wearing a rain coat during feedings.

Me: So.  There’s that.  Hey, did you hear about the new animal that was born that is like half giraffe and half zebra? It’s called an okopi.

Frank: Really?  (Gets out his cell phone to verify that I am not pulling his chain.  We have a long history of telling each other things that aren’t true, just to see if the other one repeats it.)  Well, how about that.

Me:  Yeah, it even has the tongue of a giraffe, which is blue.  And super long.

Frank: A giraffe’s tongue is blue?

Me: Yep!  See?  (Now my cell phone is out and I’m showing him pictures of giraffe tongues.  He is impressed.)

If you really want to get hot and bothered, keep reading because our discussions about the logistics of taking care of twins are practically rated PG-13.

Me: OK, so you’re going to go running at 11 and then I’ll pick up the girls at the sitters and then I’ll go running and then you’ll watch the girls and then you’ll go up to the airport for work and then I’ll watch the girls.  But I need $30 (conveniently, I know that is all the cash that Frank has in his wallet at the moment).

Frank: That’s all the cash I have at the moment.

Me: I know.  (Sly smile)

Frank: OK.

(Ten minutes later Frank tries to hand me the $10)

Me: Um, you’re about $20 short.  Wait, why are you giving me the money?  Aren’t you picking up the girls?

Frank: No, you’re picking up the girls.

Me: I am?

Frank: YES!

Me: Oh, yes, you’re right.  You’re still $20 short.

Frank: Grrr.

And lastly, because every moment can become a fun game that annoys your partner to no end, I use these tactics (among many others) to keep our marriage fresh and exciting.  But, brace yourself, we’re getting into NC-17 territory

Scene: Getting ready for a mid-morning nap sans kiddos after our hot brunch date.

Me: … and so then in my dream last night the hotel wasn’t really a hotel after all, it was the house I grew up in and then there was…

Frank: uh huh…..

Me: (not missing a beat) a big picnic set up in the backyard but it wasn’t really a picnic because there wasn’t food there were PICTURES of food and my first grade teacher was there, or, at least I think it was my first grade teacher but she looked like my 7th grade English teacher with shorter hair.  You know, a pixie-type cut but a little shaggier in the back – kind of like a mullet, but not.  So yeah, my first grade teacher was there and she was like, “Um, Emily, you still didn’t turn in your homework.  You can’t graduate from college.” And then I was like, “What?” and then my mom was there and she was mad and my sister pulled my homework out of her MOUTH…

Frank: uh huh… are we almost done?  I really wanted to take a nap.

Me:  Oh, OK.  Fine.

Frank: Great.  Shhhh.  Sleepies.

Me: SHHHH.

Frank: Shhh.

Me: Sh.

Frank: Sh.

Me: (waiting a few seconds) sh.

Frank: (waiting a few more seconds) sh.

Me: (very, very quietly) sh.

Frank: (trying to be even quieter) sh.

Me: (even quieter than Frank) sh.

Frank: (laughing) OK!  C’mon!  Sleepies!

Me: (giggling) OK… (waiting a few seconds) Shhh.

Frank: ARGH!

Me: And then my DAD was in my dream yelling at my sister for eating my homework.  But it wasn’t my sister any more, it was Gwenyth Paltrow…

Frank: I can’t win.

So yeah, in a nutshell, that’s how you keep the love alive.

Smooches!

the twins in pictures – 3 months!

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Lots of pictures of the girls!  Carrie is on the left, Ellie is on the right.



A few solo shots of Ellie:



Don’t adjust your monitor – the color of Ms. Ellie’s hair is definitely RED.  How, you may be wondering, could two brunette parents have a child with such brilliantly red hair?  It’s all in the genes.  My dad’s beard came in red when he was younger, as did my mom’s dad’s beard.  Plus, my dad’s family is Irish and my great Uncle Frank was a red head.

And Ms. Carrie:

What is hard to see with Miss Carrie is her hair… and that’s because she has very little up on top!  Most of her hair is in the back and is very dark brown.  Looks like she got her mom’s dark hair and blue eyes.

i like to move it, move it…

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After having the twins, I was secretly worried that I’d never want to work out again.

I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.  I was worried that I’d lose all motivation.  That I’d become one of those people who are just so overwhelmed by my children that all I can do is sit on the couch and hold them and pray that they wouldn’t cry.

Don’t get me wrong – when they were brand new preemies, there was a lot of sitting on the couch, holding them and praying.  Although I was generally praying they wouldn’t vomit on me.

But now that the girls are three months old, sleeping a little bit more consistently and generally not vomiting as much as they had been (praise God!), I feel like I can indulge in jogging again.

Mentally this is going to take a lot of effort on my part.  Let’s assess the situation.

First, I am carrying a bit more weight than I had been carrying over a year ago when I had been running.  I haven’t weighed myself in a while (ah, the mental anguish of the scale), but I estimate that I am still carrying about 10 lbs from my pregnancy.  I had also gained about 30 lbs during fertility treatments in the two years prior to conceiving the twins.  Oh, joy of joys.  That all being said, jogging will likely require a lot more mental stamina than it had in the past.

Second, because I don’t know how jogging will go, I am a bit afraid to do it.  Even the first few jogging steps that I will take will require a lot of focus and determination.  I have to re-learn my body and I have to re-learn the skill of mentally pushing myself further than I feel like I can go – without injuring myself.  Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I am injury-prone.  And no, I am not someone who “pulls a hammy” – I am someone who gets distracted, trips over my own feet and falls super-man style on my hands and knees.  Yeah.

Third, I am going to put myself on a running schedule after today.  It’s going to require a lot of time management coordination since I go back to work full time after Memorial Day.  We are considering buying a jogging stroller, but I don’t think I can even put the girls in the stroller until they are 6 months old.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  I’m looking at you, Runblondie!  If I am going to be committed to running again, I want to make sure that I have the right baby gear so that I can’t use it as an excuse!

I will post an update after my afternoon run…  This will be interesting…

the girls: a three month update

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It’s been three months since we had the girls.  It’s hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly!

Because the girls were nearly two months early, their development hasn’t been quite as speedy as most three month old babies.  That being said, they are working very hard to catch up to the babies that were born full term in February.

Both Elliana and Carrigan are smiling, cooing and even giggling at some times.  They are getting good at holding their heads up and are awake a lot more during the day.

In the past week or so, they’ve started sleeping longer stretches at night.  Elliana has made it through the night twice, while Carrigan only got up once a night.

Their acid reflux continues to be an on-again, off-again problem.  We have a few days where we think we’ve kicked the puking habit and then, bam, one of them has a streak of puking that makes me wonder if it would be more efficient just to pour the formula directly on myself, the child, our couches and floors.

It’s fun to see their personalities emerge as they get older.

Elliana seems to be our more thoughtful child.  She doesn’t smile as much as her sister, but rather seems to study things very intently.  She loves to be put on the floor on her activity mat.  She looks around at her toys and bats at them with her arms and legs.  She has big, luscious cheeks and perfect little bow lips.  Her eyelashes and eyebrows are coming in a pretty shade of red and her hair seems to get redder with each passing day.  She is not as impressed by my singing and playing with her, but I think I am starting to grow on her.

Carrigan is a very expressive baby. She smiles, laughs, coos and even raises just one eyebrow to show her delight and interest.  While her sister will stare at things intently for a long time, Carrigan likes interaction.  Carrigan has smaller, more delicate features and while her sister is more of a fair complexion, Carrie has a little bit darker skin tone.  The little bit of hair that is coming in around the sides of her head (she is totally bald on top), is a dark brown.

Both girls have pretty blue eyes and are still sporting the cute button noses that most babies have at infancy.

We’ve gone for lots of walks, trips to the mall, visits to the grandparents houses and outings to see friends.  They’ve had all of their shots, which they took like champs at their two month appointment.  Carrie was 9 lbs 2 oz and Ellie was 10 lbs at their two month appointments, so it will be interesting to see how big they’ve gotten at their four month appointment.

I’d write more, but both girls are crying at the moment.  Duty calls!

mother’s day

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When we were going through infertility treatments and struggling to get pregnant, this day was so bittersweet. I have a wonderful mom and a great mother-in-law. But the pain of feeling excluded from this day, because of the challenges we faced having a child, weighed on me.

This year is different for two obvious reasons and I am beyond grateful for our twin girls. They are smiling, cooing and starting to develop a little bit of personality.  It definitely helps make the long nights worthwhile.

But since I had the twins, a realization that had started to take shape when we struggled with infertility has continued to become more clear to me.

Motherhood does not happen to you, it happens in you.

Yes, it sounds totally cliché and trite, but bear with me. I did not magically become a mother on February 19th of this year. There was not a moment in the delivery room where a rush of hormones released a locked part of my brain, making me a mom.

Becoming a mom started a long time ago when I watched my own mom care for my sister and tried to imitate her with my doll I named Karen. It started in preschool when I pretended to be the mom when we played house. It continued to develop when I would babysit my siblings and neighbors. In my career, my instincts to mother grew as I learned how to nurture my coworkers and help those who reported to me achieve their goals. In volunteer work, I practiced and developed mothering skills with teenagers – one of the toughest and most rewarding groups to work with.

That being said, on February 19th when the doctors gave me my daughters to hold, I was filled with the requisite awe and wonder at our infant daughters. And while I loved them immediately, the moment was not transformative as I had previously imagined it would be. Sure, now I had the title, but it occurred to me that I had been doing the job, in one way or another, my whole life.

Am I saying that being a mother isn’t full of responsibility, challenges and difficulty? Certainly not. After being up most of the night with the twins, I have new appreciation for my own mother. I also have an even greater appreciation for my husband who was up with me, changing diapers, making bottles, rocking and burping.

But I also have a great appreciation for all the women in my life that have mothered me without having the official title. From teachers, bosses, mentors and friends, I have been fortunate enough to have a fantastic biological mother in addition to an army of women who have come alongside me and used their mothering skills to help me grow and flourish.

Mothering is encouraging, growing, nurturing, challenging, comforting, loving and caring for others, with little to no reward.  For the women out there who feel excluded from this day because they do not have children, I hope that this realization affirms the wonderful women that they are. It may not take away the pain and heartache of not having a child in your arms, but I want you to know that the amazing work you do in the lives of others is not, and will not be, forgotten.

And for everyone out there that has had the great fortune of having an army of mothers as I have had, I hope that you can take some time today to thank some of those outstanding women.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the women who mother – you are all a wonderful treasure!

fuzzy logic…

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Anyone who tells you that they operate just fine on less than five hours of non-consecutive sleep for days at a time is a liar.

But there is a remedy for the no-sleep baby blues: Diet Coke.

For anyone who knows me at all, you know that have had a love/hate relationship with Diet Coke.

I hate all of the nasty stuff in it.  I am positively certain that Diet Coke is probably one of the worst things I can put in my body.

But!

I LOVE how much work I get done while drinking Diet Coke.  I love how zippy I feel.

I’m not addicted, though.  I can quit whenever I want to.

Sure, you might snort at me and say, “Sure, Em, I believe ya.”

But really, I can stop whenever I want.  I don’t get headaches when I am off The Sauce (my pet name for Diet Coke).

And I’ve stopped before.

Cold turkey.

But for now, I am worshiping at the alter of The Sauce.

For as cute as the twins are, these sisters are not fond of long stretches of sleep in any consistent pattern. So if I’m going to be useful during a work day, I need Diet Coke.  Preferably in a 32 ounce container.  And, if I’m being picky, I like a wider straw – it gets the Diet Coke in faster.

I’d do an IV drip, but the IV accessories don’t really go with my outfits.

I have my priorities.

in the middle of the night…

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In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep
We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We’re all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night

~Billy Joel, “River of Dreams”

I loved that song when I was in high school.

And now, 12 years later, I find myself walking in my sleep through the land of diapers to the babies in their cribs.  And when I get there?  They are usually crying.  Sometimes, for added bonus, they are covered in puke.

I love it.

I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I love holding them and rocking them and praying feverishly that they will NOT throw up on me (or Frank or Grandma) and that they WILL go back to sleep easily after their middle of the night feedings.

When I am rocking the girls and NOT praying for positive digestive results (“Dear God, please help Ellie move her bowels so that I won’t have to do that thing with the thermometer that the doctor told me about that sounds so terrible!! And dear God, please do not let Carrie puke down my shirt again.  If she pukes on my shirt, that’s okay, but if she pukes down it, I’m going to have to shower and I really, really just want to go to bed…”), I try to sing to the girls.

Ahem.  I try to sing because I am not a very good vocalist.  I have no ear.  And I have no memory for songs.

So in the middle of the night, I try to remember songs I liked growing up.  And I try to sing them as best as I can.  It usually goes like this, “In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep, to the river of dreams, in the middle of the night, I go walking…” and I realize I am in a death loop with the lyrics and heavens, I don’t even think I have the right lyrics!

When I come to the realization that I am about to permanently lodge a song in my brain with completely incorrect lyrics, I then make up songs for the girls.

“My name is Carrigan, I went to the fair again, I won a bear again, who has no hair again, just like me, I’m Carrigan.”

And Carrie doesn’t really seem to care much.  Singing a song that makes sense or doesn’t make sense does not seem to impact the likelihood that she will puke on me.

For Elliana, sometimes I sing to her, “My name is Elliana, I have a friend Gianna, we went to Tia-juana.”  But that’s as far as I get before I start thinking, “Well, I think it’s Tijuana, not Tia-juana.  And isn’t that where they used to race the horse they made the movie about?  Not Secretariat, but the other horse movie.  The other recent one.  The horse who won all three.  Gosh.  Who was that?”

And so you will find in my Google history that I have googled “Lyrics for Billy Joel’s River of Dreams”, “clumpy baby spit up”, and “horses that won the triple crown.”

By the way, Seabiscuit, the horse I was thinking about, did not win the Triple Crown.  War Admiral did.  But Seabiscuit won more races that year overall and more money.  So, I guess I can tell the girls that little factoid when I am singing to them in the middle of the night, when I go walking in my sleep.

To the river of dreams…

why I didn’t call Meghan back…

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My dear friend Meghan called at about twenty minutes to five today.  Oh, the joys of receiving a phone call from an adult!  And, as luck would have it, I just finished changing and feeding the girls, so there was a happy calm over the entire house.  Ahh…. the calm before the storm.

At 4:50 p.m., Frank announced that dinner was ready and I told Meghan, “I’ll call you right back, we’re just going to have dinner.”  Yes, that’s right – it wasn’t even 5 p.m. yet and we were ready for dinner. To say that our biological clocks are a bit off would be an accurate assessment of the situation.

Carrigan was in the bouncy chair and I put Elliana in the swing.  About three seconds into eating, Elliana started squawking.  Frank picked her up to comfort her and discovered that she was all wet.

This was curious because she wasn’t wet when I put her down and she didn’t have any signs that she had spit up. Frank decided to check her diaper upstairs in the nursery.  Mistake number one.

While I was still seated at the kitchen table, I heard Frank discovering the horrors in our daughter’s diaper.

“Oh-oh-ohmygosh!  It’s a blow out!!”

“Do you need help?” I called up the stairs.

“No. But, ohmygoshohmygosh! Oh, ew… eww!!  Ellie! Oh, that is just – that is just EVERYWHERE!  You have got to be – ohmygosh – Ellie!  What did you do??”

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“Maybe.”  Silence. “Yeah, yeah, I need help.”

I thought I would feel differently about our first blow-out diaper.  You know how you imagine the romance of being proposed to, the joy of your wedding, the bliss of giving birth to your children, etc?  I thought that there would be mass hysteria on the streets below, a soundtrack of terror in the background and some sort of angry monster banging on our front door.  Instead, I could hear birds chirping outside the window, the sound of children laughing as they played soccer on the field behind our house and the roar of our neighbor’s engine as he peeled out of his driveway.  But in front of me was a nightmare of poop covering my child, her changing table, my husband and an escalating number of diapers.  Every time Frank attempted to put a new diaper on it, the stream of baby nastiness spewed forth.

“Ah, um, what can I do?”

“I don’t know – it’s everywhere!  It’s on her clothes!  It’s on my hands! EMILY! IT’S ON MY HANDS!”

And just then, as he was taking off her third diaper, Ellie stopped crying.  I cocked my head to the side.  Time slowed down.  When Ellie stops crying during a diaper change it usually means one thing…

“PEE!” I yelped.

And indeed, there was pee.

For. The. Win.

Frank and I looked at Ellie and she looked at us.  And she started crying again.

“Well,” said Frank slowly, “I think she’s going to need a bath.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”

Now, this is where I should’ve cut our losses and done what we knew worked.  I should’ve just given Ellie a sponge bath upstairs and thrown everything in the hamper.

But no, that is not what I did.

My mother-in-law suggested that we give the kids baths downstairs on the washing machine.  Initially I balked at the idea – I’d heard that washing the kids on a counter was dangerous because the tub could slip off the surface.  But after thinking about it, I figured that I could put towels over the washer and dryer and get a nice little bath system set up.

So, I lugged a bath tub, towels, soap, new clothes, a new diaper and a screaming, half-naked Ellie down to our finished basement.  I put Ellie in the pack’n’play and started getting the bath ready.

But her bath tub didn’t fit under the faucet of our slop sink very well.  I thought about using our floor-washing buckets to fill up the tub, but I felt that sent the wrong message to Ellie.  I went upstairs and grabbed our extra-large red tupperware salad bowl.

Frank, who was attempting to finish his dinner, saw me with the red salad bowl.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked mid-bite.

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath.”

“What?”

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath,” I repeated.

“Why?  Don’t you have her tub downstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you doing with the salad bowl?”

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath.”

“In the salad bowl?”

“NO!  I can’t fit her tub under the faucet so I’m using the bowl to fill up the tub.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I went downstairs with the red salad bowl, filled up the bath tub, undressed Ellie and put her in the tub.

Ellie looked at me and I looked at her and then I heard the ominous sound of farting in a bath tub.

I looked down and saw that Miss Ellie had pooped in her bath water.

“CRAP.”

She cocked her head to the side as though to say, “Well, now what?”

“FRANK!  She pooped in the bath tub.”

Now, it’s worth saying that Frank does not like giving the girls tub baths.  He feels like he can give them a more thorough sponge bath than a tub bath.

He came downstairs and saw Ellie cold and screaming in her bath towel and me looking at the bath tub and announced he was going to give Ellie a spa sponge bath.

“Whatever.”

I cleaned up the bath tub (lots of antibacterial spray) and started the laundry.

When I made it upstairs, I found Frank and Ellie in the nursery.  Frank had turned on zen spa music and was carefully cleaning Ellie.

And Ellie was not crying.

“See?  Zen baby,” said Frank.

Frank taking care of our zen baby!

Zen baby, indeed.

Meanwhile, sweet Carrie was sitting quietly in her bouncy seat, staring out the window and plotting.  I’m sure she will not let herself be outdone by her sister.

Carrie staring out the window and plotting ways to out-do her sister.

Send help.

Even the stuffed animals in the nursery were appalled by the diaper disaster!

And that is why I didn’t call Meghan back.  Or answer Sue’s phone call.

Sorry ladies!

the one about “The Entity”

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Haunted house, much?

Oh, where to even begin?

I suppose that first of all I should preface this post with a warning that my family is just a few bananas short of a full bunch.

That being said, we think our house might be haunted.  Or maybe we’re crazy.  Or maybe it’s a little bit of both.

I submit the following items to you as evidence:

Evidence A: For a long time, I’ve said to Frank that I think we have electrical issues in our house.  I’ve changed the same light bulbs multiple times in a few short months – and then haven’t changed them since in over a year.  Our dishwasher started on fire.  Our built-in microwave stopped working the first two weeks we lived here (and is now the happy home for our tortilla chips and breakfast cereals – don’t judge – we make due with what we have!).  We have light switches that go no where.  Well, that last one is probably more of “user error” than anything else.  Whatever.  Is it electrical or is it… a haunting??

Evidence B: The night I came home from the hospital, but while the girls were still in NICU, Frank had a very strange dream.  In his dream, he heard the bells on our front door jangle, which means that someone opened the door.  Still dreaming, he thought it was me coming home, but then he became aware that I was still in bed with him.  Starting to get concerned, he heard footsteps climb our stairs, walk through our bedroom door and stop at the foot of our bed.  Frank says that in his dream, he felt like someone was menacingly standing over our bed, staring at us.   Before Frank could do anything in his dream, he heard the ice-maker in our freezer start producing ice.  In his dream, he went downstairs and there was ice pouring out of our freezer and filling the kitchen.

Evidence C: My mother-in-law and my mom have been staying with us to help with the girls when Frank is on trips.  One of the first times my mom stayed here, she had a vivid dream of someone standing over her bed, watching her.  I’m not sure whether the “someone” was evil or not – but it doesn’t matter.  It’s always creepy to have someone staring at you while you sleep!

Evidence D: We had a chandelier installed in our kitchen about a year ago.  Within a week, four of the six bulbs burned out.  Sure, this is more of an addendum to Evidence A, but the lights didn’t start burning out until I came home from the hospital.  Perhaps I brought an entity home with me from the hospital?  Never you mind that I was staying in a brand new wing of the hospital, but hey, you never know.

Do I think we have a ghost living in our house?  Eh, probably not.  I think we have some electrical issues and some family members with vivid imaginations.  But just for fun, we’ve named this creepy people-watcher “The Entity” thus ensuring that no one will ever want to babysit our children.

So, who wants to sleep over and find out if I’m right??

the shortcomings of the interwebz

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The interwebz is a great tool for communicating sight and sound.

The girls at 2 weeks.

You can see our twins and observe how cute they are (I’m biased, I know).

You could hear the twins, too.  If I was cruel, I would record all of the twins grunting and crying so that you could enjoy their vocal stylings.

But I am not cruel.

But, oh, how sad I am that the interwebz is not a great tool for sharing smells.

Frank bathed the girls tonight and put on some yummy nighttime lotion on their tummies and legs.  He brought them down to me, all fresh and swaddled and smelling like delicious little babies.  And I thought, I wish I could post this glorious fragrance on Facebook.  People would check my status just to enjoy it.

Side note, I wish that the TV had smells, too.  I’ve been watching copious amounts of the Food Network (and by copious amounts, I mean, I haven’t changed the channel except to watch E!) and have often lamented that I cannot smell the dishes that are being created.  Even worse, I cannot taste them.  But I digress…

Alas, I cannot post smells on Facebook.

Although, it’s better this way.  While my girls smell fantastic right now, these young ladies can toot with the best of ’em.  Toots are not something that you would probably enjoy smelling as my Facebook status.

Maybe the interwebz is smarter than I thought…