Grunt 'n' Squeak: January 2009

The boys turn 16 months old today. Not really a milestone date, I know, but their mommy did call them from work to sing them happy 16 month birthday on speaker phone while they ate breakfast. I, on the other hand, am marking the occasion by running the self clean feature on the oven for the first time, well, since I've owned the thing. We've lived in this house for 5 years. Yes, I am terrible at keeping things clean. I'm crossing my fingers that the whole house doesn't burn down because of it. And I'm in another one of those trade-off dilemmas where I have to decide if we should start it and leave, because it smells really yucky, or if I should stick out the smell as punishment for never running it, and stay close by with the fire extinguisher in hand for the next 4 hours just in case. I've opted to stay here and suffer. Ok, I didn't exactly wake up and say Happy Birthday! Let's make the house stink! But it is a good time to think about my sweet boys and all they've accomplished (and a few things they haven't).

Ben is an amazingly sensitive little man, who will cry at the drop of a hat. He will let you know with piercing screams if you've slighted him in the least. He will also crawl into your lap to read books, gives excellent kisses by planting both hands on your cheeks and bringing you in close for an open-mouthed peck, and loves letting his brother roll over the top of him for fun. For the last month he has been determined to get this walking thing down, and though there wasn't a magical click, he did seem to go from primarily crawling to primarily walking in just two days. He has an infectious laugh, and is the only person I've ever know that deliberately puts your hands right on his ticklish spots so he can squeal and squirm.

Grayson has also mastered walking, and along side his brother switched from crawling to walking in a single day. He has taken his walking skills one step further, and uses them to push toys and furniture against tables and shelves so he can climb up and make mischief on a whole new level. Nothing is safe from his little grasp. He finds it delightfully funny to be told no, and even funnier if you scoop him up and tell him to knock it off. His light red hair is finally growing in, and all our friends comment on how red it's become recently. We ssay no, it's not just now red, it's just now he has some and you can see it. He's got the cutest smile and the longest eyelashes, and loves to be charming when he thinks it'll get him somewhere. He also loves giving kisses when he's in the mood, and tends to put his whole body into them...watch out for the teeth.

Neither one of them has figured out the talking thing yet, and we still wait for them to call us mama, or call us at all. Ben watches your mouth intently when you talk, and Grayson will follow commands, so we know their language gears are turning in there, they just haven't made the connection to their own lips just yet. Any time now, I'm sure...

I love you little guys! Happy un-birthday!

Parenting twins causes certain logistical challenges, especially when one parent is on duty most of the time while the other wonderful mom is off keeping this crazy raft afloat with a real job. I just thought I'd share a random melt-down of my otherwise efficient system. It was one of those moments where I could either laugh, or cry, and I couldn't decide which at the time. If you are a bit soft in the stomach over child bowl movements, stop here. Otherwise read on, and have a little laugh at my expense. Or if you are my mother, howl with laughter, choke because you can't breath, wipe away the tears, and promise to tell everyone this story over and over again for years to come.

I had just finished up feeding the boys one evening a couple days ago, and they were their usual messy selves. Food in their hair, on their face, all over the floor, between fingers and toes. It was bath night. The boys are down to an every-other-night regimen, enough to keep them clean but not dry out their baby soft skin. Bath night is a two person job, really. Not because giving them baths is all that hard, but there is this whole goat-in-the-boat dilemma at the end of the tub time. (You remember that brain teaser from school days? How do you get the fox and the goat and some other duck-like animal across the lake without leaving one of them to get eaten by the fox? No? Only I had to figure out that stupid brain teaser in school? Hmmph). Our little trick is how to get two boys out of the tub and dry and dressed without leaving one boy alone in the bathwater to drown, or dripping, naked and freezing while the other gets dry and dressed. You can see how it's just much better to have a spare set of hands at the end of a bath.

I get the boys into the tub, do our normal soap and splash routine, play play play, splash some more, soak mama, and giggle wildly the whole time. Bath time is over, and Amy is nowhere near coming home from work. So I do my best with the two hands I've got. One boy comes out of the tub and gets dried off while sitting on the toilet lid so I can keep an eye on the other child in the bath. I futilely wrap up baby one in the towel and set him to his own devices on the bathroom floor, where he immediately flings off the towel and starts rolling in the dust and dog hair. The second boy is then retrieved from the tub for his toweling off. The tub is drained for safety, and both boys are hefted up, one under each arm, and carried without an ounce of grace into the bedroom for diapers and jammies. If only I had larger bathroom counters, the diapering would go on in there, but I don't.

I put Grayson on the changing table and set Ben down naked on the floor to play for a second while I get a diaper on Grayson. Ben takes off like a shot out of the bedroom and down the hall. I can hear him cheerily slap slap slapping his bare hands and knees on the kitchen floor, and racing up and down the hall as fast as a naked little boy can crawl. I figure he is otherwise safetly occupied so I decide to put Grayson's pj's on while I have him on the table. in the twenty seconds it's taken to do that (you have to dress the kids fast, otherwise they grow bored and move on to other activities, and no amount of man-handling them will force them to hold still while you shove lotioned toes into footie pajamas) it has gotten quiet out there where Ben was formerly carousing. I put Grayson on the floor of his bedroom, and go to retrieve Ben. Here's where the evening goes south. I find Ben in the middle of the living room, proudly poking a fresh pile of poop that he's recently deposited sans diaper on the carpet. He looks strangely perplexed by the whole thing, as this is the first time he's really witnessed his handywork close up. I've been very careful not to let accidents happen thus far. Disgusted, I scoop him up, take note of the messy bum and legs he now has, and in a panic of not really knowing what to do next, I put him into the empty tub and leave him for a second. I have to snatch up Grayson who has left the bedroom and is following me around, and put him in his crib before he gets into the mess. Both boys are now saftely contained, but screaming their heads off because neither is happy to be where they are at.

I go back into the bathroom to get some tissue for the mess in the living room, and return to the living room to find that the poop is gone. Gone! It has been eaten by the dog. The nice dog that normally doesn't do disgusting things like eat baby poop. That's something I'd expect out of our other dog, but nope, it's the sweet one that normally doesn't piss me off. She has eaten the poop. I grab both dogs by the collar, and throw them outside the back door. I frantically call Amy, with a declaration that all is lost, this ship is sinking, and she assures me that she's at least 20 minutes away from becoming my life raft, so I'll have to pull it together and keep swimming. Bummer. I wrestle the poop-maker through one more bath, get him dressed and smelling of roses once more. I calm the other boy down, who's been screaming in rebellion of being put in his crib one hour too early for bedtime. I clean carpet, brush baby teeth, read stories, and keep my shit together (only figuratively at this point) until Amy walks through the door, when I throw up my hands in defeat, and declare my mom shift to be over. At least I got a good laugh out of it....the next day.