A Wonderful Kind of Ordinary

As I sat down to write this post, I tried to single out something significant, something newsworthy --a good headliner. What seems most striking to me, however, is that nothing in particular seems striking to me. Don't get me wrong: I have plenty that I can (and will presently) brag and blather about in connection with Jesse and Evelyn. But, the "news" I have to share with you today is pretty much just the stuff of everyday life (with twins). ... We're not in Kazakhstan anymore, Toto. No, we're home, we're settled in together, we're a family and we spend our days occupied with the mundane kinds of things with which any family with young ones is occupied. Still, I must say, ordinary life turns out to be pretty wonderful.

(It also turns out to be loud, often tiring, full of challenges, and everywhere shot through with unbelievably awful smelling diapers.)

Ordinary life with little ones seems to me to fall into 4 broad categories: Eating, sleeping, playing, and doing-new-things-for-the-first-time. So, I thought I'd divide the post accordingly. (I should mention for those of you inclined to quibble that I am fully aware that these categories are not at all clearly demarcated. After all, with babies it's often difficult to distinguish eating from playing with food. Similarly, at least for our babies, the lines between the eating and sleeping categories get fuzzy (e.g. Evelyn has been known to fall asleep in her high-chair in the middle of a meal (especially if she doesn't like what's on the menu) and Jess has recently come to think a bottle at 4:30am is an important part of his sleeping routine). Or, again, things that fall under the sleeping category and the eating category often fall under the doing-new-things-for-the-first-time category--like drinking out of a straw for first time, or starting a brand new routine of crying when put down for a nap. But, since nothing hangs on the my way of dividing these things except the organization of this one post, let's not get bogged down with questions of taxonomy.)

Eating

(Cute Halloween bibs, eh? Thanks to Aunt Sherri and Uncle Bob!)

We've seen the kids go through a number of phases during the last month with their eating habits. At the end of last month, mealtimes with the little people were fraught with fear, frustration, and mystery. Frequently, these sessions ended with tears and tantrums the cause of which we could scarcely determine--except that it had something to do with food. Jess went through a phase there for a while where he simply INSISTED that the food that entered his mouth only be conveyed by his hand. If one of us put something in there, he'd spit it out and return it to his mouth himself. Evelyn wasn't quite so insistent, but still preferred feeding herself. This phase was frustrating for everyone involved since neither of our little ones had a whole lot of hand or hand-to-mouth coordination. Brent came up with the perfect analogy: he pointed out that the twins' way of eating is like that game you see at movie theater's where a player tries to pick up a prize with a mechanically driven claw. Here, let me show you:

Here's Jess and his claw:

Jess considers his options:

 The claw drops...

closes...

Is anything actually going into his mouth?

(Check out Evelyn and her double pincher grip!)

Fortunately, this difficult phase has passed. Not only are the twins much more adept at picking up food and getting it into their mouths, but they also have become much less fussy about eating. In fact, they eat pretty much whatever is offered. This week, the menu included apple-cream-cheese wontons, banana buckwheat pancakes, and broccoli cheese nuggets (all made by yours truly). They loved it all, which makes it fun to cook for them.

Sleeping

We seem to have arrived at some new phase with sleeping patterns too. The picture to the left is fitting since sleeping seems to involve more crying now than it ever has before. When we first came home we would just rock the little ones till they fell asleep (10 minutes or so) and put them down and they would go to sleep (for the most part) and stay asleep (for the most part). Nowadays, however, they seem less inclined to fall asleep in our arms and more inclined to play or fuss for a few minutes before finally drifting off.

Jess has been having difficulty with sleeping. Part of the problem is that he is teething (4 on top coming in all at once!). For awhile there he was waking up twice a night, in pain, needing his Tylenol fix. (Recently, I expressed to Brent a concern that Jess is becoming a baby drug addict --he loves taking medicine of any sort. Brent reassures me, however, that babies can't get addicted to Tylenol, Ferrous Sulphate Elixir (Iron) or Little Tummies Gas Relief drops, and this bit of scientific information has eased my anxiety.) Anyhow, I think he was really beginning to enjoy the middle of the night cuddling and so began waking up even when his teeth stopped bothering him. His proposal, it seems, was that we (well, preferably me, but Brent would suffice in a pinch) should hold him from about 3:30-5:30 while he slept, snug and peaceful, in our arms. He was, in fact, so wed to this idea that any attempt on our part to put him down resulted in cries of fury and, eventually, desolation. Needless to say, it didn't take long before we were both worn out by this routine.
As we were getting ready for bed one night, each of us dreading the night that lay in front of us, Brent turned to me and said: "You know, Susan, I think if we turn the monitor off Jess will stop crying at night." I got a laugh out of that one especially since Brent has, for some time now, been campaigning for a lower volume level on the baby monitor in our room. (For some bizarre reason he thinks we don't need to hear every single mattress crinkle and snuffle the babies make over the course of a night.) This wasn't, in the end, the solution we pursued, but we did have to let Jess know that, nice as his proposal to be snuggled in the wee hours was, we really had to decline. Needless to say, he was initially sad about this. He has, however, accepted the reality of the situation and is now sleeping through the night again. Well, pretty much....

This is them just before bed. Hard to believe from their sweet faces
that they might be about to cause us grief in just a few hours.

Playing

Here, the pictures for themselves.

Look at Evelyn's face in the picture below, I just love it!

Playing outside

Taste Test

We love it when dad carries us around in a laundry basket!
Meeting (and playing with) Aunt Janice, Uncle Jeff, and Ruby the dog for the first time!

and cousin Ellie...

and Lucy!

At the botanical Gardens with our Meemaw who stayed and played with us for 2 whole weeks! Yay!

New-Accomplishments

It seems to us that Jess and Evelyn do something new each day. It is an exciting time.Perhaps most significant, is the development we've seen in Evelyn this last month. Before now she was, as I mentioned in previous posts, resistant to eye contact, not responding to our voices, not really babbling or making any kind of sounds beyond squeals and cooing. The strides she's made in the last month are amazing: she not only makes eye contact with us but does so on command. I say, "Evelyn, look at Mama." And she does, every time! She also responds to her name and "talks" up a storm. Indeed, she is now pretty much exactly where Jess is now in terms of her language development. The main difference between them is that whereas Jess prefers to say "dadadadada" she likes to say "mamamama" (and I think she even understands the meaning of that one--though I might be biased).

Other recent feats:

Jess has taken a few steps without the aid of his lion king truck. And he can also balance on his own two feet with no help for up to about 15 seconds! He climbs stairs (his record is 6), "reaches high" above his head, gives kisses on demand (where this means licking your face), and waves bu-bye.

In addition to beginning to drinking from a straw, Evelyn shakes her head 'no' (though she doesn't necessarily mean 'no'), she waves, claps, reaches high (they both do this on command, we can have a baby wave at our own dinner table), pulls to standing, and cruises around holding on to furniture.

In the fashion department there are many--indeed, almost daily--achievements, but I include just a few.

The outfit Jess is wearing in the next picture is one his dad wore when he was a baby!

So, all in all, ordinary life as we now know it is, well, pretty great. I must say there are still many days where I look at this new "ordinary" life of ours in utter amazement. I still cannot believe we did this--traveled across the globe to Kazakhstan, lived there for a whole summer, and then came home with TWIN BABIES! Isn't that wild?

Isn't it cool?

Fall Together

It is fall in Saint Louis--a beautiful time of year. The leaves won't change for a while yet, but the weather is glorious. Life is good here in the B-T house, and seems to get better by the day. In my last post, I reported our having settled into a routine, which we have. But the routine expands weekly and we've been able to add more and more to it. For instance, because Evelyn has finally begun to enjoy riding in the double-jogger stroller (for the first month or so she'd cry just as soon as she was put in it) I now get to go outside with the kids almost every day. I've even begun to jog some of that time too! It's so beautiful right now, it's a treat to get out of doors.

Weekends together with Brent home are lots of fun too. We go to the Farmers Market in Tower Grove park every Saturday morning, where we nearly always meet up with friends. The cool thing is we never have to coordinate such meetings since lots of the people we know also go regularly. We've gone to the zoo a couple of times, and have enjoyed evening walks in Forest Park (complete with a beer on the dock at the Boathouse). All four of us also continue to enjoy our tradition of happy hour on the porch--continuing our tradition from Kazakhstan.

Like father like son.
He gets so much joy out of just holding an empty beer bottle, 
just imagine how much he'll enjoy the beer itself one day!

Enjoying her exersaucer on the patio!

This is the first trip to the zoo.
You can see how very interested they were!

The second time they at least took notice of the goats!

We've been able to hang out with friends more and more, which is great. Since a lot of these friends 
have kids, Jess and Evelyn have lots of new playmates. There are new friends for them on the horizon too as I've just organized a playgroup with some other moms I know. (That last sentence, by the way, is one I never expected to utter. How surprising life can be...) So, that's all by way of saying life is good. Things are falling into place and we're enjoying our new life together as a family.

Jess and Eves continue to grow and change and impress us (and drive us crazy sometimes too)! I'll tell a few stories about each just to give you a picture of life with them. Let's start with...

The Jess-ter

He's a wild and crazy guy!

About two weeks ago Jess went on a food strike. Out of the blue, he simply decided that really meals are a form of baby-torture. So, he'd scream violently (as if having been beaten about the head and neck) if we managed to sneak a spoonful of (my lovingly-prepared) food in his mouth. Even if we doused everything with yummy yummy apple sauce--it was child abuse. This went on for several nights. What we eventually figured out is that he was just rejecting pureed food. As soon as I cut up some fruit, potatoes, pasta, etc. the strike was over and he once again joined the world of solid foods. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me: the guy only has two (partially grown-in bottom) teeth, cannot pick up much of this food himself, and has never even had any finger food before this...nevertheless, out of nowhere he has the wherewithal to decide that such items MUST be on the menu. If they are, then he is willing to tolerate some pureed food too.
He continues to pull himself to standing using every object in sight. Pulling up on stable objects has become something of a bore, however, so he's taken to finding as unstable an object as possible for the job: the oven (which is never on, but still), the cabinets (which while child-proofed still open a bit and so can pinch fingers), empty laundry baskets, the walkers and ride-on cars (which roll or tip over), his sister, his rocking horse, etc. To add a further challenge, he is really into pulling up while gripping a toy in one or both hands. Not only is there the challenge of accomplishing the feat with one hand, but the added bonus of having something play with once he's standing (and something to fall on).

I've propped the horse in a corner so it can't rock and he call use it to pull up without as much chance of injury. Below is Jess in Evelyn's crib. He likes to stand up, turn on the mobile, and then pull the animals as they go by.

He sometimes says "mamama", but that inevitably slips into "nahnahnah" (--sounds like cross between no-no and nite-nite--could there be a connection?). I could swear, moreover, that he says (and means) "Hiiiiii!" He said that while looking at Abby today.

Evie-Girl

Evelyn is emerging from her shell and just flowering before our eyes (I guess that's a mixed metaphor). It's a wonderful thing. She's showing herself to be less serious and much more goofy and fun-loving than our early days together seemed to indicate. We're enjoying discovering this little creature.

This outfit is a hand-me-down from cousins Alley and Claire. We think that Evelyn is channeling the spirit of Claire here--her expression is so like some goofy expression that one might find on Claire's face.

Since Jess has, of late, become obsessed with clapping, we've been trying to get her to clap too. It is clear that she knows what we're asking her to do, but has had some difficulty doing it. Initially, when we asked her to clap she'd pump her arms in the air spasmodically a few times and then clasp her hands together. And when she did actually try to clap, her hands would miss each other. Now she really enjoys it when we clap her hands together for her, and I'm convinced that the experience of us clapping her hands for her gave her an idea. Last weekend when, once again, we were saying "C'mon, clap Evie" she grabbed my hands and clapped them together. So cute! And, really, it works well for her--it's like having a pair of cymbals. Our hands are so much bigger they don't miss and they yield a much more satisfyingly loud clap-sound. This is her new favorite thing--though she does also keep on practicing with her own hands.
She now has six teeth. While she could take or leave the finger foods, she does enjoy taking a good chomp on human flesh now and again. At night, instead of sucking on my arm as she used to, she will bite me instead. The first few times it took me by surprise, and when I yelped with pain, pulling her quickly off of my arm, I'd almost always find her smiling broadly. Indeed, whenever she scores a bite, she smiles in obvious delight! I worried a little at first that maybe we were raising a little baby sociopath. I was relieved, however, to read in a baby book that this is normal. We're following the instructions of saying "No biting" firmly and then distracting her with something else. I just get the feeling she's not taking us seriously as she simply grins at us whenever we make this correction. Like this:

Meet Fang.

The last news about Evelyn is that she has expanded her vocabulary. Whereas most of her vocal repertoire to this point has consisted in sounds resembling some ancient proto-bird (we affectionately refer to her as "the Pterodactyl"), she has now officially begun to make human baby sounds. She now says "Bababababa". Isn't that exciting? For our part, we are in awe.

Oh, and just this very second, she waved at me for the first time! So, you see, they are doing new and exciting things by the moment.

Well, I'll end the narrative portion of the post here. Here are a few last pictures.

Here he is: the amazing clapping boy!

Happy little bed-head.

A Different Life

So, I went in to my office the other day after 10+ weeks away. After greeting me warmly and catching up a bit, the administrative assistant asked me "So, is your life different?"

I was at a loss for words. The only thing I could think to say at that moment was "Well, sometimes I go to bed at 8pm!" Lame response, I know, but where does one start? (For those of you that know Brent and I from our previous life, this bedtime does signify a great deal. In that life, we would typically get home at about 8pm and so only just starting to get dinner underway.) So, anyhow, I thought I'd use this first real post from home to give you a sense of the shape our life is taking these days.

So, what can I tell you about life at the Brower-Toland home?

• We have now settled into a pretty consistent routine, which is good for all of us. The babies sleep, wake, eat, and even poop at pretty much the same time each day. Thankfully, time and our routine has all but erased the ravages of the post-traumatic stress we suffered from the 28 hour trip between Almaty and Saint Louis (for a while there Jesse's crying could induce painful flashbacks).

• Brent has become a morning person by force of necessity; he gets up at 5:30am each day so he can beat the traffic and get to work by 6:30am (this also gets him home by 3:30pm to relieve me for a few hours).

• I find that parenting involves every ounce of energy I have and every bone in my body. I have even discovered that my feet are a wonderful resource. Not only do they carry me up and down the stairs a million times a day, but while I hold and feed one baby, I often use my feet too grab and shake toys for the other baby while s/he waits for his/her turn. Sometimes I have to use both my feet to grab and pull Jess away from whatever dangerous endeavor he's embarking on. Brent has been known to gently and lovingly pat Evie with his foot. (We're still trying to feed them one at a time in order to maximize things like eye contact and closeness during feedings.)

• My wrists hurt a good deal of the time, I wear a Ben-Gay patch on my back at night, I have hickies (from Evie) on my left arm. Brent frequently complains of "bottle neck" (i.e. a kink in the neck one gets from looking for long periods down and to the left at babies while they drink their bottle).

• I am constantly doing laundry. How do two tiny little bodies change my routine from doing laundry once every two weeks (OK, I procrastinated on this chore before) to doing it every single day.

• I get up a lot at night to go in the nursery and check on the little people. The other night, Brent--probably tired of being awakened by my coming and going--followed me into the twins room whispering: "WHY ARE YOU PESTERING THOSE BABIES?" I don't pester them, though, I just touch them a little to see if they seem too hot or too cold...and that they're breathing.

• Whenever I leave the house without both babies in tow, I feel like there is an invisible rope around my waist. The farther and longer I'm away the more the tension increases--I feel nervous. When I turn back home, however, the tension begins to let up and relaxes fully when I reach the door. (When does that go away? I find it incredibly distracting!)

• We have musical hour often in the afternoons. I have an iTunes playlist for them which they really like (been playing the same play list since visiting them in the children's hospital in Kokshetau). Sometimes, I dance for them, sing, and clap. They, in turn, stare and smile as if seeing a circus monkey for the first time.

• The other day, I caught Brent doing an interpretive dance for the babies to the classical music on the mobile in their crib.

• We are using cloth diapers (and a diaper service). Our life now involves swirling nasty poopy diapers in the toilet before slopping them into the diaper pail. (Hey folks, I'm just trying to paint a complete picture for you!) And, I tell ya, when you open that pail toward the end of the week you just about die on the spot from noxious fume inhalation.

• I hear phantom baby cries all the time. If the kids are asleep, I'm always thinking I hear them crying. (I begin to suspect that they have begun a conspiracy they are crying but have agreed to stop right as soon as I reach the top of the stairs.) Brent, on the other hand, says he hears the catchy music from baby toys in his head all day while he is at work.

• Facebook seems to be a thing of the past for us.

• Our dogs, Tess and Abby, have now been relegated to the status of...dogs.

• Although to this point in our lives Brent has done all the cooking for us, I'm now stepping up to the plate. I am a baby-food chef. It's cool because you can hardly go wrong. At first, I poured over recipes. But now I get the hang of it. Steam, puree, mix at will. Butternut squash-cauliflower-apple is the specialty of the week. Jess and Eves like that one. Not so much, however, with the rice-spinach. Jess (who will eat whatever you put in his ravenous little mouth) actually started crying quite hard when I gave him a second bite of the spinach concoction. Thankfully, Brent--ever the culinary improvisor--takes my carefully pureed foods and mixes them to trick the little people into eating the less popular items. The spinach has been successfully mixed in with potatoes and oatmeal to make a potato-spinach-rice-oatmeal mash that was, apparently, a real hit.

So, upon reflection, I guess I'd express the change this way: it's not so much that our life is different as that we now have a different life. And a very wonderful one at that.

As far as Jess and Eves go, they are growing and changing by the day. Sometimes I feel a bit sad it's all going so fast. Evelyn now has four teeth coming in. She still does the army style crawl, but is becoming quite adept at that. Just the past few days, she's become very interested in following Jess around. Following him, involves pulling up on everything in sight. She attempts to pull herself up, but really can't do it yet. If possible, though, she'll pull him down. Jess, on the other hand, not only pulls himself up, but frequently claps for himself once he's up. Initially, that meant falling down immediately (since clapping required both hands) but he's now also learned to let himself down. Brent claims Jess can wave too, but I've not yet witnessed that. I'll keep you posted. He has two teeth coming in, and both his and Evie's hair is growing like crazy. The longer their hair gets the wavier it gets too. It's very cute. We're working with Evelyn lots on making eye contact with us (and other people too) and responding to our voices. She's definitely improving, but there's more work to do. Her personality emerges a bit more each day. It's so fun to discover her. She shows herself to be something of a wild child--for example, she loves to rock the house in her jungle jumper (see below).

So, without further ado, here are some pictures.