sticks and stones... are awesome

    Rowan and her bits of bark - bliss is written on her face
                   Genevieve with her prized walnut
                    Mommy made it into a picture

We had a seriously tiring weekend -  totally booked, and hardly any rest.  But we did manage to have some really nice family time.  We attended a birthday party for another pair of twin girls, 3 year olds, which was at a gymnasium, and the babes had a blast in the ball pit, jumping on the trampoline, and just running around in a really big space. Then we came home and ran around outside for a while. This is so much easier with Dan!  And the girls just love it so much.  I can't wait until it's consistently warmer outside so the two stinkers can go outside every day.  Our place is so tiny, they get stir crazy sometimes.  Poor noodles.

on identity

Sometimes it feels that once I became "mommy" I lost the rest of the things that made me Emily. 

It is hard to see past all the duties and joys of being a mother to twins (or to any baby or child - I would never devalue any other mom's job, I'm just coming from a particular place here).  I know that in reality I didn't lose the other things, they just got put on the back burner while I learned about this new addition to my repertoire.  The only problem being that a lot of the other parts of me require some maintenance, and if I leave them on the back burner too long, they could burn, or maybe I will just have to relearn the steps (excuse the mixed metaphors). 

It's just that, while cooking, cleaning, and mothering can be rewarding (especially the last one), I spent almost 30 years developing a sense of self that had nothing to do with these things. Although, in all honesty, anytime I was asked about my ambitions and plans for the future, my first response would invariably be about becoming a wife and mother.  So thanks be to God, he has granted me my deepest desire. Only... I never envisioned how all-encompassing it would be.  It is hard work, very hard work for an unmotivated procrastinator, to try to fit in the other parts of me. However, when I do, there is nothing more satisfying than stretching and flexing the muscles that so often get neglected, and also keeping up on the family stuff.  I haven't yet learned how to keep that balance - at this point, I am squeezing the artistic stuff in with little bursts of industry here and there, but not consistently.  When it becomes consistent, I start to get behind with everything else.  I think that with time, and effort, and some compromise, I will learn this new dance... it's just that the steps are so complicated, and I have always been so awfully clumsy!   

you haven't lived...

until you have had a small child sit on your neck and comb your hair with a medicine dropper, all the while patting your face with her free hand and babbling high-pitched sweetness to you.  on second thought, you probably have lived, it's just that my life has been relatively uneventful, until a certain double event a little over a year ago.

The Joy of Socks

mystery solved! my first pair of baby socks for my unborn niece or nephew... I am very pleased to have finally worked out using 4 double pointed needles and a grafted toe - yeehaw!  My mind is brimming with sock and bootie ideas, and it's a shame that they take so long to do, because winter is coming to an end! oh well, at least I know how to do it now.

put that in your blog!

getting ready for the bath.  stripping babies down to bare bottoms.  very enjoyable, until I realized  that somehow, Rowan's diaper came off with a big stinker in it, which I never noticed, and it ended up in a giant poo slab on my leg.  never even saw it, distracted by tiny dimpled butt cheeks, until I laid my arm in it.  awesome.  but that's not all.  oh, no.  have you ever watched a turd (terd?) be birthed into water?  apparently Rowan had not finished, and once the bath was underway she leaned forward, and out pops a little poopling.  followed by a number of others. more awesome.  out of the tub come the wet babies, out come the toys, calls for help to Daddy, scoop out the poop, scrub the tub, start the bath back up.  Dan laughed shortly, and said "blog about that!"  so I did.  sorry.

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, or maybe I'm just cranky

I woke up ok this morning, but after about half an hour, I realized that not only was I not ok, I was in fact feeling like a nasty old lady who has been disappointed in life.  This mainly due to the fact that the girls woke me up 5 times last night, crying and carrying on.  The phrase "carrying on", I think,  was inserted by the old lady in my soul.  So I put them to bed about 15 minutes early, to save them from cranky mama.  They seemed to understand, poor dears (there's that old lady again).  So I will hearken back to yesterday, which was wonderful, and try to realign my misshapen sense of well-being.   Yesterday was lovely.  we played in patches of sunshine, and the girls experimented with pulling their hair clips out (with a few hairs), and begging me to put them back in.  While they slept, I sat in another puddle of sunshine and knitted, while listening to Iron and Wine.  If anyone is in the market for some sweet, sleepy, poetic mellowness, have a listen.

So...

I knit a sock.  It is hideous.  I am too embarrassed to post a picture.  It can only get better from here.

outside! or: let's eat some dirt.

The peanuts and I went outside today... this was their first ever real walk, where they got to walk, no stroller.  Is that terrible?  It has been cold.. that is why, and they can't really move too well in their puffy coats... anywhoo, they LOVED it.  I wish I could have gotten more pictures of their gleeful faces, but they were studiously avoiding me.  They were 
afraid that I would make them go back inside or something. Also, they were shoving everything they could get their hands on into their mouths, so they wanted to hide from me a little.  But they were laughing in excitement, and swinging their little arms, and just exploring their butts off.  This will be easier on a weekend, when Dan can come too, and help keep the dirt eating to a minimum.  They are now exhausted and fast asleep in their beds.  Ah, nature.

tidbits

• Rowan put 2 words together last night - she said "duck please" (she sleeps with a stuffed duck)
• it's too hot to be knitting a fatty scarf like this!
• the girls are thrilled to be in the middle of a 4-way hug; they look like their smiles might explode off of their faces
• this is really for my benefit
• starting fresh with a brand new checking account is sooooo nice; my checkbook is balanced to the cent for the first time in years, literally
• does anyone think my kids look identical?  I can't figure it out - they look so similar in photos, but then I think Genevieve looks like a Costa and Rowan looks like a Cisneros
• I thought high-pitched, fakey laughs were really annoying until my babies started to do it - now I am a big fan
• I'll tell you what does annoy me:  having a desire to learn how to knit a sock, and no 5th double-pointed needle.  having a desire to start a little painting, and no accessible gesso.  having a desire to read some literature, and no functioning brain.  sucksville.

reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic

reading:

I am currently trying to read "Wings of the Dove".  I did not expect it to be so difficult... I am barely getting through!  As soon as I get in the swing of how Henry James writes, it's time to quit, and the next time I sit down to read, I have to go back over what I read.  It's not the time period; there are plenty of authors from that time, and earlier, too, which present no problem... I feel very slow.

I recently finished "The Glass Castle", which was really crazy - a memoir about growing up with parents who were such free spirits, that they allowed their 3 year old daughter to cook on the stove by herself, and skipped town whenever the bill-collectors came knocking.  It's worth a read - very interesting.

writing:

This.  It's self explanatory, but I guess writing, blogging, whatever, about things that are close to my heart makes me feel more alive.  Taking a pen to paper has always been cathartic for me, and it is the best way, sometimes the only way, for me to organize my thoughts, and figure out where I am.  Talking and thinking seem to spin me in circles, but writing is technical and visual and tactile, and that is how I learn and remember best.

arithmetic:

There's really no math here, but I just like the "three r's", they make me think of Anne Shirley as a schoolteacher. However, I am making a list... that's an activity involving numbers... sort of. I am making a playlist on my ipod.  It has been in process for a few months now... I'm compiling songs from about the last 15 years that make me remind me of the feeling of being in love.  They aren't all love songs per se, they just somehow take me there.  It's proving difficult to arrange old and new songs in a way that doesn't jar my senses,  but this is fun and sentimental.  Can you tell I used to make piles of mix tapes in high school? 

Now that I think about it, knitting can come under the arithmetic heading - lots and lots of counting.  And a little tedious while learning... but I LOVE it.  It is my newest obsession.  I am too easily obsessed.