Friday, October 14, 2011

Graa, Ma & Pa


Claire calls both Grandmas "Graa." Grace calls them "Ma."

And they both call the Grandpas, "Pa." 

Put it all together and somewhere in there we have full-blown names. 

Grandma/Grandpa time is cherished time at our house. (And not only for our sanity.) 

It's so wonderful to see the bonds the girls are forming with both sets of grandparents. Some day, I'll be sure to remind them how incredibly lucky they are to have grandparents who love and care for them so deeply.




Tuesday, October 11, 2011

YA! YA! YA!


Any time we drive by something that even remotely looks like a park, Grace shrieks very excitedly "YA! YA! YA!" as if she is answering a question. 

Sometimes it's actually a park we're driving by. Other times it's a driving range, batting cages or just a random person's house with toys in the yard. 

These kids love, love, LOVE going to the park. 









Claire is partial to the swings, Grace to the slides, but they really enjoy just about everything. 

And it's fun for us, too. I mean, we work from home. In the country. So, going to the park reminds us there is a world outside of our family of four. 

And it really encourages us to shower. 

Which most definitely deserves a YA! YA! YA! 

Monday, October 10, 2011

Survival: On Balancing Work and Life

The scales have been tipped a bit lately, as if you couldn't tell from my falling off the face of the earth.

I'll try and sum it up for you as quick as possible.

Early mornings. Late nights. Long days. All day work meetings out of town. All weekend work meetings in D.C. It's been a fun, but seriously exhausting, few weeks.

Oh ya, and we have twin one-year-olds. Run here, jump here, climb here, fall here, tantrum here. Lather, rinse, repeat. Fun, but seriously exhausting.

Another, more visual, way of putting it:



But the ultimate peak of this craziness was last Friday morning.

We had been working nearly straight from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. for two days. My Mom came early Wednesday and stayed until Scott's Mom arrived on Thursday. They were total life savers.

So, we put the girls to bed Thursday night. Things couldn't have been any more normal as they quietly and peacefully drifted off to sleep.

Exhausted from two straight days of hard work, we passed out at about 10:30.

The next thing I remember is looking at the clock at 1:15 when I heard Grace crying out. I assumed this was one of those times where they cry out for a few seconds, roll over and fall back asleep. Then a minute passed and another, and then an hour. Clearly, she was not going back to sleep.

And she — ahem, we — didn't until 3:30. I crawled back in bed, closed my eyes and laid there wondering how I was going to survive another long work day, no babysitters and less than three hours of sleep.

Fifteen mintues later, I hopped out of bed and got a jump-start on my 4 a.m. wake-up call.

Thanks to a very understanding, very kind boss and our loving mothers, we made it through the day and still managed to hit the park that evening with the girls.

Survival of the fittest.

Update:
So, I had this post ready to go last Monday, but work hit again and it was pushed to the back of my mind. But the biggest thanks goes out to our parents for being so helpful during these weeks (months) of long work days. We really, honestly, genuinely couldn't do it without you.