Picture(s) of the week: 14 weeks

We're all smiles this week. But because they have already learned defiance, it's next to impossible to get them to smile at the same time. So, you get double the pictures. Lucky you!

Nerd farm

I'm sure most parents think their children are the funniest, cutest, most precious babes on the block. But we're cornering the market on the smartest. That's right. I said it. We're going to have baby geniuses.

Each night when we put them to sleep (in their own room), we turn on the classical music. We've all heard the studies proving the effects of listening to classical music as a baby. And then there's the hard evidence collected by Scott during a fourth-grade science experiment involving genres of music and plants (How do Plants Rock and Grow, 1993). So, already, our girls are on track to being intelligent.

But I know what you're thinking. A lot of parents play classical music for their babies. How do you expect to have the smartest babies?? Here's our secret weapon:

NPR.

Every morning when I walk in to get the girls, the evening's classical music has been replaced by the soothing voices of NPR's Morning Edition. The babies are getting the exclusive on the recently formed interim government in Kyrgyzstan or the arms treaty just signed between the U.S. and Russia.

So, do we have the cutest, funniest babies? I think so. But will we have the smartest babies? I'd bet our newly signed arms treaty on it.

(Editor's note: The preceeding blog was tongue-in-cheek. We're really not THAT arrogant.)

A Spring In My Step

Spring is by far my favorite time of year. Flowers blooming, trees blossoming (ACHOO!), birds tweeting. After such a long, cold, snowy winter, I am so ready to see those green blades poke up through the ground.

But Spring also means we're approaching our worst season of lawn care. I could blame our lawn mower's occasional breakdowns, but then I would just be lying. The honest truth? We suck at mowing our grass.

I'm ashamed to admit that in the three summers we have lived here, there have been multiple times where the grass has reached my knees.

And yes, I recognize that I'm short. As a random man in Lowe's pointed out, I'm "knee-high to a grasshopper."

But enough about my height. Back to what I was saying.

We suck at mowing. And weed-eating. And just about everything lawn care.



But I'm determined that this year we will do better. Are you reading this Scott?

It's all about the baby steps. Last year, we planted a tree and did not kill it. This year, we will mow our grass. At least on a semi-regular basis.

Scott and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Yesterday sucked.

And apparently I'm supposed to blog about it. NOW! Our readers are waiting! (This is what happens when you marry your college newspaper editor and then agree to start a blog with her.)

I wanted to do two things yesterday.

1. Take a nap
2. Watch the Royals' game. Potentially at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys that asks the crying baby to get out of the way so he can see the TV. Really, I'm not.

But for serious, is it so much to ask to time the sleeping schedule from 3:10 p.m. to 7?

Claire's response? "What is this sleep of which you speak?"

Neither Claire nor I did a lot of sleeping on this day. Ok, neither Claire nor I did any sleeping on this day.

Mr. Mom (Gender roles be damned) spent his day pausing the Royals game (thank you DVR) to attend to -- not a fussy baby, not a crying baby -- a SCREAMING baby.



From 1:00 until about 7:00, Claire did not downshift from SCREAMING to crying or even fussing for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Burp? Check. Walk around for 20 minutes? Check. Change diaper? Check. Feed? Check. Well, sort of, apparently this bottle of formula didn't taste very good. Binky? Um....Claire doesn't really "do" binkies. Change her position/sleeping surface? Check. Change the position of Saturn relative to the Moon? Check.

Nothing worked.

And then...she stopped crying. And continued to stop crying. The silence was deafening, and it lasted all evening. No explanation. Certainly no apology. She just stopped.

I give up.

Oh, and so do the Royals.

Parents' Day Out

It's been three months. 98 days. 2352 hours. 141,120 minutes since Scott and I have done anything fun without the babies present.

We love our babies, as I'm sure you can tell, but that's a long freaking time. In fact, it's even longer than that. Go back to the last trimester.

"I can't eat there. It will give me heartburn."

"I can't stay up past 8 p.m. I'm too tired."

"I can't go to a movie. It's too sunny out."

But this weekend, we broke that streak. (Thanks to Grandpa Rod and Grandma Sue for babysitting!)

And it was awesome — like a high school girl sneaking out to see her boyfriend. I haven't felt that carefree for, well, about a year.

What did we do on our date? We ate at HuHot. Because there are no relationship woes that can't be fixed with a Mongolian buffet. And then we went to Lowe's. Because in our late(r) 20s, we've become excessively cool.

Picture of the week: 13 weeks

Thanks to Uncle Cook for these sweet bunny hats. We'll be celebrating Easter in style.

Runner up picture for this week:

April 1, 2010

Today is a big day.

And not just because it's April Fool's. Or because it's the day before my birthday. (Wink, wink to all of you who forgot).

Today, the girls started the transition to their own room.

So far, so good. At least for them. I have butterflies in my tummy thinking about them being out of arm's reach at night, but I know it's time. And if I'm saying it's time, that probably means it was time about two weeks ago.

Think of the possibilities. We can watch TV in the bedroom past 7 p.m. We can talk above a whisper after they have nodded off. And when Scott's alarm goes off at 4 a.m., I won't have to stew angrily for a few hours because it woke the babies up.

No angry stewing? Today is a big day.