On Being Unique

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." 
~Dr. Seuss

When It Rains, It Pours

Claire had a rough weekend. It started with a case of the measles. (Or some kind of viral infection that has similar symptoms to the rage virus.)



And then yesterday mid-morning, Claire stumbled and hit her head hard twice on the side of her crib. The fall left two welts and bruised up a nice purplish color.

Then when it was time to lay down and take a nap, she just stood in her crib and screamed. Mostly atypical for that time of day. It took a car ride to finally get her to zonk out.

Then mid-afternoon, she stepped on her pant leg and fell straight over (like a tree being chopped down) and took a bite out of the bottom shelf on the changing table. Our first ever injury with blood.

After she finally settled down, and I promised her she was going to be okay … that she could let go of my shirt … that I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her, she relaxed a bit.

I got up to change Grace's diaper and made sure Claire was stable as she stood next to me. I cleared all the toys out so she wouldn't trip. I laid her pillow pet behind her in case she tipped over. And I gave Grace my phone to look at while I changed her diaper.

Claire was just standing there, recuperating from all of her bonks and bruises and tumbles and trips and rashes and fevers and missed naps, holding on to my pant leg, knowing that I was there to save her if something bad was going to happen, when out of nowhere, a cell phone conks her on the head.



Some days, you just can't win.

Pictures of the Week: Jan. 7

What a week! It was topped off last night with both girls getting fevers and a rash all over their bodies. So, this morning when they also (loudly) refused to eat, we gave in and called the doctor. The doctor said he thought all of it was a reaction to the immunizations and although he chose his words carefully, he basically said they have a slight case of the measles. Awesome.

We're hoping this reaction is gone by Monday and to help us make it through, we will be hitting "refresh" on these cuties all weekend.

Snot, Vomit And Other Fun Parenting Stuff

We are one sick household. Scott is sneezing and coughing up a storm. Claire has a perpetual runny nose that is causing her to snort while drinking her bottle. Grace threw up twice yesterday. And I'm downing Vitamin C like it's my job and crossing my fingers I can stay healthy.

Oh, and two nights ago Claire woke up crying at 11:00 p.m. and I wasn't back in bed until 12:45 a.m. And when I got in bed, my arms felt like they were ready to fall off. Just imagine what your arms would feel like after holding a 20-pound bag of flour in the exact same position for an hour and a half. Now imagine that your bag of flour has arms and legs and a head and if you move your bag of flour so much as an inch, it will start screaming at you. Scary thought.

So basically, my point is, it's lots of fun around here.

Got milk?

Last week, I mentioned that we saw the doctor for our one-year checkup. I also mentioned how terrified the girls were of, well, everything. But what I didn't mention was how terrified I was when I left the office.

The doctor said it was time to switch from formula to cow's milk. If this change doesn't seem scary to you, you must not have a Grace. I have a Grace.

And Grace hates change.



She fought us when we changed her from preemie formula to regular formula.

She fought us when we wanted her to eat baby food.

She is currently fighting us on table food.

And yesterday when I tried to get her to drink milk, she looked at me like with eyes that said, "Are you drunk? You know I'm not going to drink that. I don't know why you even try."

But I tried anyway. And she gagged on it like it was the most foul substance I could give her.

I immediately went to the internet for help. Just about every site I went to said to gradually transition them with bottles of part formula, part milk. That made complete sense to me. The Internet's smarter than doctors, right?

Tempting fate

**The following post was written by Scott.**

I really screwed up yesterday.

Like...bad.

If you're a West Wing fan, perhaps you remember Toby's rant from season 1 about tempting fate. That's what I did.

I tempted fate.

Yesterday, when conversing with some co-workers, I said two things that would come back to haunt me.

1) My girls sleep through the night and have since they were four months old.

2) When one wakes up screaming, they go back to sleep on their own within a minute and never wake up the other.

Fate 2, Scott 0.

Last night, Claire woke up round about midnight, which isn't altogether unusual. She has this thing she does where she cries out for 10 or 15 seconds randomly several times a night and then goes right back to sleep.

Surely that's what she was doing this time, right? Right?

Well, after a few minutes where that obviously wasn't working, Grace starts crying in a "Claire-why-don't-you-shut-the-hell-up-so-I-can-sleep" sort of way.

This is not a drill folks. We have a full-on, two-baby, middle-of-the-night wake-up. This is what we've trained for. And by we I mean Katie.

You see, I don't know how it happened, but we have developed pretty clearly defined roles in this whole parenting thing. Some of them are good allocations of responsibility, others aren't. This is one of the ones that isn't.

When babies wake up, Katie tends to them. Not because I'm not willing to or don't want to or anything like that. It just sort of happened.

And while I'm sure it's a burden she'd rather not have, there's a problem: she's really friggin' good at it.

So while Katie spent 45 minutes rocking Claire back to sleep last night, I laid in bed, wide awake, crossing my fingers so hard they were starting to cramp.

Obviously, my position is infinitely better than hers. She can't go to the bathroom. She can't get a drink. She can't blow her nose. If she makes one wrong move, she'll wake *it* up.

But I can't shake the feeling of complete and total helplessness. I can't go in to check on her, because that would wake Claire up. I can't bring her a glass of water, because that would wake Claire up. Not to mention being unable to help my screaming kid.

After what seemed like forever, Claire did finally go back to sleep (and stay back asleep) but the whole ordeal has given me a newfound appreciation for how awesome my wife is and a newfound reliance on superstition.

Next time someone asks me how my kids sleep, I need to come up with a better answer. One that doesn't tempt fate.

But, next time someone says to me "Wow, twins. How do you do it?" I know exactly what my response will be.

A Noteworthy Event

So, Claire took three completely unassisted steps this weekend. No hand-holding. No walkers. Just Claire. Taking her first steps on her own.



And although I'm a lame mom and didn't have my camera ready, I was beaming with pride.

I've tried to get her to do it again, but she just isn't quite ready. She stands there, considers it and then decides she'd rather be safe than sorry. I can't really blame her. It's a dangerous world out there.