Grunt 'n' Squeak

Weekend Warriors

Yay for summer and getting out more!

Before we had the boys we tried to have as many adventures as Amy's killer work schedule and my serious lack of ambition allowed.  Last summer, being pregnant out-to-here was a serious hindrance to my mobility and I think one June hike was about all I managed to waddle.  Otherwise, I was spending my summer breaking in the Lazy Boy we bought to rock the babies in, with the A/C set to "indoor icicles" in an effort to keep up my incubating-mama morale.   

Now the boys are on the outside, and while they are a little harder to wrangle that way, we are trying to expose them to all the fun things we liked to do before they got here.  It's still a challenge to overcome Amy's work schedule, and now I work on Sundays while Amy babysits, so Mondays are our day out.  We often find ourselves cramming doctor visits, bank drive-thrus and Costco runs into our Mondays, but the last two weeks were also a chance to get out as a family and do something fun. 

Two weeks ago we went up to one of our favorite hiking trails in Truckee.  Check out the pictures here.  We quickly realized that we weren't getting very far with the munchkins on our backs, but we did enjoy the couple of miles we did get into the day.  Then last week we went to the water park, where the boys had more fun playing on the grass than they did in the water, but you know that they will be unstoppable in the water in just a few short years.  We will periodically be adding more albums , listed on the right there, as we get out more, so enjoy the summer with us!

WWKIP

I can't let the day pass without a nod to World Wide Knit In Public day.  That's today, and since I'm an avid knitter, I at least have to point it out.  I'm not going to pretend to know the origins of the day, if you really want to know, I'll let you utilize your own google powers.  To me, the day is an affirmation of something which cannot be described to someone who doesn't Knit, with a capital K.

Knitting for me is not a hobby, it's a mantra.  It's what makes plane rides and doctors offices an opportunity to recharge my batteries.  It gives me a space away from my children and my wife, and anything else around me, when I just need to breath.  It gives me a sense of creativity, and a chance to pass that along to others.  It allows me to work from home while raising my kids.  It provides an avenue to express my love for those closest to me (I don't knit for just anyone, so if you get something I've made you know you are special, though don't take it personally if I just haven't found the right project for you yet). 

So if you enjoy a yarn art, cheers to you, and if only for a few moments today, take it outside, and feel the collective thread that knits us all together.

 

Bittersweet Goodbye

I made the difficult decision this week to find our Sun Conure Dexter a new home.  It's been a long time coming, ever since the boys were born really.  Dexter came into our family as a baby bird, hand-raised by us, and the nice folks at Parrot Connection, four and a half years ago.  While I had thoroughly researched birds species, I had seriously underestimated the power of a small feathered creature's vocal abilities. And I'm not talking cute "Polly Wanna Cracker" kind of vocalizations.  Dexter is an ear-splitting screamer kind of bird, with a stubborn streak only topped by my own ability to rant at the top of my lungs and stand my ground. 

For four years now we've tollerated the screams and enjoyed some of his endearing qualities.  It was fun learning how to handle our bird, and a joy to watch him learn tricks and talents.  It's fun to have him fly around the house, and crawl in your shirt for a snuggle.  He would kiss you when you kissed him, and make the appropriate sound to go with.  He loved to take baths in the sink, and in the shower with us, and have his head rubbed.  He is a talented dancer, and even has his own favorite songs. 

Once the boys arrived, I started juggling two crying babies on my breast, and two neglected dogs at my feet.  There's only so much neediness that one tired mom can handle at a time, and the poor bird fell to the bottom of the proverbial pile.  Imagine you have one neglected child following you around all day long screaching "mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom mom momomomomomomomomomomomom" at the top of his lungs, and that's what my life with Dexter felt like it had become. 

 

Poor Amy did her best to make my life with Dexter work, moving his cage and taking over all of his care, but neither Dexter nor I felt that it was really working.  He was still neglected, and I was still frustrated and feeling guilty.  He deserved a better life, and the boys deserved to have Amy's full attention when she got home from work at the end of her long days, rather than trying to share her with Dexter, who just needed someone to care about him.

Amy, I'm so sorry that you had to give up your feathered friend, and I hope you take up his new owner's offer to come visit him any time.  Dexter, I'm sorry that there was just not enough of me to go around, and I hope you are really happy in your new home.    

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mama's out there, (and that includes moms of various pets of all kinds as well as houseplants, cuz if you can keep houseplants alive, you should get some credit). 

This was our first official Mother's Day.  Or should I say Mothers' Day?  Or is there actually no apostrophe at all?  I dunno, does it matter?  Anyone who has been pregnant during a Mother's Day knows that THAT is their real first Mother's Day, because from the moment you know you are pregnant, you start worrying like a Mother, and damn it, you deserve for someone to make you breakfast and tell you that you are beautiful.  So I believe this was our second moms day. 

The boys were sweet and let me sleep soundly until just after 6 am.  What dolls!  I didn't get any breakfast in bed, but Ben and Grayson did, letting me nurse them while cuddling in the blankets, and catching a few extra winks, how lovely of them.  Let's face it, breakfast in bed is highly overrated anyhow, what with the trying not to spill, and the balancing your juice and eggs on the biggest cookie sheet your partner could find, because who really owns those cute trays that they have in the movies when they are showing idyllic scenes of scones and tea amid the downy white comforter?  Not us, anyway.  Then you have to hope the two dogs don't come tearing into the room and pounce like romping bulls into the bed, throwing everything askew.  Not worth it, I say.   I had my strawberry waffles with brown sugar and sour cream hunched over the coffee table in the living room, like a normal person!  (Oh, our kitchen table has been storing crap in the garage since Christmas when we moved it out the bring in the giant Christmas tree.  It never made it back in, because two high chairs took its place.)

To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how this Mother's Day thing was supposed to work in a household with two moms.  No one gets a day off when you are both supposed to have the day off, and when there are two little helpless munchkins depending on you.  Not really knowing the proper way to celebrate, I decided to just go to work, and take my six blissful hours off from being a mom.  It was a good call, taking that time away from the boys.

Before I left for work I was properly showered with several cards including hand prints from the boys, and two gifts.  The first was a cute pair of sock monkey slippers that I'd seen a while back at Target and liked.  Way cute.

The second gift was pictures that Amy had taken in secret while I was out of town.  Best other mama ever!  I know they're my own kids, but I can't get over how freakin' cute they are!  And by the way, Ben isn't really that much bigger than Grayson, he just sat up straighter and ended up a little to the front of every picture, exaggerating the difference.

Sanity Saver

I love my boys beyond reason, as I'm sure most parents would say about their kids.  I love that I get to spend every day with them, and I don't take them to day care (no judgements on moms who do, it's just that we can't afford day care for two infants).  I get to watch their milestones and discoveries.  While I'd love to say that every moment was like parenting magic, it's a joke to put on rosy glasses and make people believe that I'm a smiling ball of bliss all day long.  Most of my daily moments with the boys are filled with slopped baby mush.  I get up in the morning to get processed baby mush off the boys bums, and sometimes my hands.  I then go to the cupboard to pick out which baby mush they will eat this morning...spoon spoon spoon...slop slop slop...wipe wipe wipe....times two.  Repeat for lunch and dinner.  It's a lot of goo, all day long.  And it can sometimes turn me into goo.  Just ask Amy, who has become accustomed to coming home to a wife who is herself, now baby mush.  She does her very best to revitalize me, usually by making dinner and keeping her mouth shut about the outrageous messes around the house, and the mountain of laundry living permenantly in the hallway. 

This weekend, I got to get away for a sanity saver, all by myself, with no babies, and just one small suitcase and a knitting bag.  When Amy, Grayson and Ben dropped me off at the airport on Saturday afternoon to fly to Salt Lake, I kept finding myself looking around to see what I was forgetting.  There was no diaper bag spilling toys and spoons all over the floor.  There was no stroller, no car seats, no baby in my arms or being carted off for an emergency change of clothing.  The only babies crying were not my responsibility.  I marched into the airport to check my one tiny bag feeling possitively, rediculously giddy.

I got lots of knitting done while I flew to Salt Lake.  My mom and Jenny picked me up at the airport, and we went to out to a piano bar.  Jenny and I had a grand time requesting nostalgic 80's songs, and making fun of mom because the only songs she recognized were the Neal Diamond ones. 

Sunday afternoon was the whole reason I planned the trip in the first place.  I wanted to go see humor-writer-and-fabulous-knitter Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka The Yarn Harlot, speak on her new book tour.  I brought my mom along for the ride, and made her get there early.  We were surrounded by incredible knitting talent, including Miriam Felton who was spinning something lovely in the seat in front of me, and sock genious Nancy Bush was just a few seats away.  I made a complete fool of myself telling Miriam that I thought she was pure genious, and decided that I should just keep my mouth shut and admire Nancy from afar. 

Stephanie was everything you'd expect her to be...funny, entertaining, inviting, down-to-earth, and brilliant.  Then I made my mom hang around the library while I waited in line for her to sign my book.  I brought a pic of the boys, and she even invited me to hold the traveling sock for a blog pic.  Wohoo!  If you don't get it, that's ok.  If you do, you'll know it was the highlight of the trip.

It was an ideal weekend, and a good recharge for my soul.  I missed my boys just enough to make coming home a joy, and I got lots of knitting done, including finishing these socks for my mom (happy mother's day!!):

  Oh, and Knittyotter?  That bag you gave me was a huge hit with the Utah knitters, I was making them all jealous with my fabulous bag.  Best bag ever!  (you can kinda see it, right there, with the Yarn harlot! in that picture of me, with the yarn harlot! ha ha)

Dear Grayson

Dear Grayson,

You are only 10 days away from being 8 months old, and you are shooting up by leaps and bounds.  When you and Ben were brand new, it seemed like Ben was hitting all of his milestones just a little ahead of you because he was born a little bigger.  Now you are leaving Ben's shadow and finding new things to do all on your own.  You are certainly learning to stand all on your own terms.

You love movement of all kinds.  If anyone is nearby to offer a hand, you pull your little self up to stand on your legs, and look around from your new tall-boy perspective.  You love jumping up and down, when your moms toss you in the air, zooming around the room like Superbaby, and kicking your legs every moment you aren't standing on them. Not only that, you love to watch movement of all kinds.  The ceiling fan offers you an endless source of entertainment, the dogs are fascinating, especially if their tails are wagging, and the mobiles we have hanging around the house are sure to make you smile if mama blows them around.  You love watching whatever is going on, and moms sometimes have a hard time keeping your attention on them for much conversation or eating dinner. 

You are a great sleeper, and have been sleeping through the night for several months now.  We only have to give you a blanket and turn on your "TV". The crib-side music maker that lights up keeps your attention until you can't fight your drooping eyes any longer.  This month you have decided that learning to crawl is more important than sleep sometimes.  We often find you in strange places in your crib, sound asleep on your tummy with your knees tucked under you and your little tushy poking straight up in the air.   You aren't quite there yet, but as soon as you can stay up on both your hands and your knees at the same time, you will be off like a rocket. 

While it takes quite a bit to get you to laugh out loud, you are quick with your smiles and will offer one up to anyone who wants to say hello.  You love making friends, and seeing new people.   While you sleep well at night, you take short naps during the day because you just don't like missing out on the fun. You love your brother, and are very patient most of the time.  You seem to understand that your mommy can't always get to you right away, and you pleasantly wait your turn without protest, sometimes more often than is fair.  When you do cry right out loud, it's the saddest sound in the world, and great big crocodile tears run down your face...no fake crying for you, you really mean it.

You are an amazing baby and I can't wait to see what kind of little kid you grow up to be.

Love forever,
Mama

 

Dear Ben

Wow, my little guy.  I can't believe you are already nearing your 8th month.  How fast time flies!!!  You are growing so fast, and becoming such an incredible little person.  You have beautiful blue eyes, and an amazing smile that lights up your whole face.  Well, really you have two smiles.  One is your wide-eyed, laugh-out-loud, couldn't-be-happier smile that takes over a room.  The other is your narrow-lipped, squinty-eyed grin that doubles the size of your cheeks, and reminds me of the cheshire cat, though not quite so toothy. 

Speaking of teeth, you have three of them now, and probably three more on the way.  They are creeping in slowly, and they make you cry sometimes.  You are learning how to use them with skillfull practice on anything you can put in your mouth, including your mama.  It brought as many tears to my eyes as yours the first time you tried out those little chompers while nursing.  I cried not so much because you hurt me, but because I responded so quickly with your first ever firm reprimand and harsh "NO!" that you looked at me like I'd turned into a beast, and began to cry out of fear.  It broke my heart a little that I'd made you feel so scared, when I'm the one you are supposed to trust beyond all others.  For that I'm so sorry.   

Luckily you are still my little mama's boy, despite my occasional growl.  I'm your favorite person in the whole world, and you'd be content to stay in my arm all day long if I'd let you.  You have started becoming wary of strangers, and the little smile you used to flash at everyone is now reserved for your moms, little kids, and your grandma when she calls you on the web cam. 

You learn something new everyday, and I'm always surprised by how far you've come.  Your favorite thing to do is try to feed yourself.  You are a champ at getting Cherios into your mouth, sometimes fistfulls at a time.  You have now moved on to trying to steal the spoon out of my hand when I'm feeding you baby food, and you try to pick up the resulting gloppy drops on your high chair tray like they are cereal too.  When it doesn't quite work, you make beautiful pea and carrot finger paintings that we have to wipe off the tray, your face, the bib, and mama's shirts.  Today you even managed to finger-paint my hair with rice cereal and applesauce. 

You are excellent at blowing raspberries, rolling onto your tummy, grabbing everything you can reach, jabbering non-stop, smiling, splashing in the bathtub, crying when I leave your line of sight, and bouncing in the jump-a-roo. You love your naps, and being rocked in the rocking chair.  You do not yet have any interest in the dogs, crawling, blowing kisses, drinking from a cup (sippy or otherwise) or sleeping all the way through the night without some reassurance that your moms are close by.   

I love you more than I ever thought I could.  I pray that you will learn how fun a little independence can be, though I miss you when you don't wake me up at night.  I love that you still like to lay against my chest, and rest a while, and I hope you will always let me hold your soft little hand in mine, even when it's not so little any more.

Love unconditionally,
Mama

This is Chipping Away....Really

Ok, so if you were looking for Chipping Away, this is the same place....sorta.  I made this my new default blog, mostly due to the advent of Ravelry.  If you stop by my blog for the boys, and life in general, that's still here.  If you wanna see the latest project on my needles, I'm "twinspiration" over on Ravelry.  If you are a knitter who hasn't discovered Ravelry, go check it out.  It's amazing!

See, once we had the boys, I didn't need to blog about trying to have them any more, so Chipping Away became my knitting blog.  However, I've discovered it's far easier to track my knitting projects and log them on the wonderful Ravelry site, so why do it twice.  Frankly since having the twins there are plenty of things I have to do twice, and blogging about knit projects shouldn't be one of them.   

Bye bye dream car

All I have ever wanted to drive is a Subaru Outback.  I know, how Lesbian-ic of me.  Cliche, but true, it was my dream car.  Finally, I'd talked Amy into letting me get it (well, I coerced her into a test drive, where I let the dealer talk me into signing a lot of paper work with words like "interest" and "principle" sprinkled heavily throughout).  And that was it, I owned a modest, pre-owned version of my dream car.  I loved it.

One month after I got it, I inadvertantly kept moving forward in a line of traffic that had suddenly ceased to be moving forward.  I should have known it was a bad sign, but this was my dream car, damn it, and I wasn't going to give it up.  It was a little blemished, but family came to visit eventually and they saw the new car, and the damage from the accident was so minimal on the surface (I'm sure there were hidden problems that I chose to ignore) that they never even knew I had been in a fender bender.

A short time after the first fender bender, I can't remember how long exactly, but I do know that the sting of the first accident was still burning a bit against my love for my car.  We were leaving a parking lot, going really slowly, when a car backed into us, and mangled the back right panel and bumper.  I promptly had that damage fixed, and it was nearly good as new, but I was beginning to believe that my dream car was cursed.

A month to the day of getting my car back from second accident, I was rear-ended at a stop sign.  Damage was minimal, but enough to have the car in the shop for about a week being repaired for a third time.  The writing was on the wall, THIS particular Outback was NOT the car for me...it had been tainted and ruined forever, and I was pretty sure that there was a hex on the thing making me invisible to other drivers on the road, who longed to run into me willy nilly.  There were not only the actual accidents, but countless other incidences when it seemed that other drivers simply had not seen me at all, and if I hadn't learned to drive so defensively after the accidents, I could have been seriously injured.  The scary part was that by the second and third scuffles, I was pregnant with the boys.  My dream car was an inexplicable death magnet.  What's a girl to do? I decided that I hadn't had the car long enough to really find something new, so the sour taste I had in my mouth for it would just have to be swallowed, and I would just have to find a way to make peace with this piece-of-shit car.  Besides, how many accidents could you statistically be in, if they were two-thirds not your fault, and you'd never been in an accident once before this when you were driving?  Odds were the accidents were over, right?  The accidents did seem to be over, but only because I became hyper-vigillant to crazy drivers, something that really only does me good, and everyone should be on the alert for.

Then the boys arrived.  We added two car seats and a double stroller to the standard features of our Outback, and promptly realized that we had far too little automobile real estate.  We had none left to be shared with guests, or even our own legs, and this was just not going to work.  We searched long and hard, and after 7 months of babies and their stuff, and several cramped road trips, we decided enough was enough, and the car had to go.  It simply was not our dream car for the here and now.

We may have gone a little too far in the opposite direction, but we will never complain about wishing we had just gone bigger.  We are now the proud owners of a Mormon Assault Vehicle aka the Chevy Suburban.  Come on over and party, we have room in the car to drive you all home, and we can even watch movies in there.  Stretch out and enjoy the ride!

Adoption Day!

Ben and Grayson have two mommies! Well, we already knew that, and so
did y'all, but now its officially on record as legal and binding. So
if Amy ever tries to claim she doesn't have to pay for their college
tuition, don't let her weasel out of it. He he.

We had an 8:45 am court appearance (don't these schedulers know how
hard it is to get twin boys out the door before 11 in the
morning?!?). Our lawyer wasn't there any too early to give us a
heads up of what to expect, but her assistant called us the night
before to let us know that she would be asking us a lot of questions
and it would be more involved than the guardianship hearing. This
made us a little nervous, but we knew we would do fine. We even had
to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth so help us God. There was a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo
requesting the adoption, under which Nevada laws, blah blah. We
couldn't help but feel a little maverick mom-ish, since there are no
actual Nevada laws specifically allowing same-sex parent adoptions.
But there aren't any that prohibit it, either. So to cover our legal
tooshies, there were lots of questions for us, going on record,
stating that we do in fact have a real relationship, that we clearly
planned to have these children and raise them together, and that Amy
is the best darn mommy two cute boys could ever ask for (ya know,
along with their other best darn mommy), so lets just make sure the
rest of the world is on the same page too.

We are very grateful to our Family Court Judge, as she had to
personally decide that she would grant these kinds of adoptions, when
her other colleagues had chosen not to (not based on moral grounds,
but their interpretation of the vague Nevada statutes). We were
again given the chance to say whatever we wanted on official court
record, and the only thing I could think of was just "Thank You".
And of course I cried through the whole thing. While we face a daily
uphill battle against unfair social and legal policy, it's not very
often that people get to go on record in front of God and everyone
(and a judge, bailiff, lawyer, and court reporter) more than once to
state that you love your family, you are committed to your wife, you
are blessed to have your children, and that you are truly happy.
Then you get to hear her say it in return. Pretty cool.

After all the legal and obligatory stuff was completed, the judge
came down off the bench to hold the boys and tell us how cute they
were. She even gave each of them a little kiss, and granted us some
pictures (which unfortunately all turned out a little blurry, cuz if
you want it done right you just gotta take the pics yourself, ha
ha). Ben and Grayson wore their cool new big boy outfits, and played
very quietly through the proceedings. They were charming and smiley
at all the right times, and made it very easy for Amy to decide that
when it came right down to it, she still wanted to be their mom. :)

Thanks for all the love and support from all of you, we are grateful
for all of our wonderful friends and family that have always treated
our little family with respect. You have all been so kind and made
us feel so...boring. Ha! We really are just the family down the
street with two cute kids, and bills to pay, and lawns to mow, and
play dates to attend, and that's really all we ever wanted.