Lately

The boys are curious about EVERYTHING, surprise! They both continue to love books and finding out about everything you tell them is in there... regardless of whether or not it actually is, right Barry? ;)

Their OT, Brenda, was here today. You can tell when a person is good. They boys hadn't been able to see her and "play" for well over a month with the holiday's and us being sick and her being sick and you would have thought Christmas was here all over again. They both went to her right away with great big hugs and oh, the stories they had to tell her! It was a cuddle fest, yes, cuddle fest, for the first 15 minutes she was here. Anyway, we went through their progress since we've been working together and they are doing all of the things (with one small exception) that they expect a 10-13 month old to be doing. Their chronological age is 13 months... but their adjusted age is only 11. Their such great babi... uh, toddlers! And I'm such a proud mom!

Anyway, the even bigger news around here though, is Simon taking steps!

He started last week with Grammy, he looked a little like he was keeping his feet under him while he was falling forward, but still keeping his feet under him! He practiced some during the week but I think being moved up to the Toddler 1 room wore him out quite a bit and by Friday neither of them were in any mood to anything but whine... oh my whine and whine... oh, I digress (they only get one nap, scheduled meal times, organized structured play - which will all be great for them... some day!)

Anyway, by Saturday and Sunday he was going back and forth between mom and dad, taking real steps!

He'd get to one person and then hurry to get back to the other. He was so proud! We all were, after he'd reach one of us we'd hoot and holler and clap... Elliott included! It was so cute, Elliott would look at Simon with that great big grin and clap for his brother. Aw.

And Elliott is still finding all kinds of ways to move so that we find yet another thing that has to be put away. He's always looking to entertain and loves the camera. So much so that he sometimes doesn't even realize the cat he's always chasing is actually chasing him ;)

We're having more fun than we knew we could and they continue to surprise us every day. Watching the world through their eyes really is a wondrous thing.

Christmas in Pictures!

(Christmas Eve 2009)

Last year everyone came to us so that we could spend the majority of our time at the hospital with the two most important people in our lives.

(from 1st bday photo shoot)


Christmas card picture 2010 :)

This year we traveled... and I think the boys fared a bit better than their parents! ;) We had Christmas with the McKay's on the 12th in New Baltimore, near St. Clair Shores. Went to Peacock to visit Santa the next weekend. Went to Grammy and Grampa's Christmas Eve, celebrated with the Main's Christmas morning. Went to Grandma and Papa's for Christmas afternoon and evening. Then went to Troy Sunday for the Maier Christmas! Got all that? ;) I can't wait to stay home for the New Year weekend!

Anyway, here's a few pictures to tide you over


Tree picture with the McKay cousins


Conner and Somer playing with Simon


Ahh, Christmas present chaos


Grammy helping Simon open his present


New "just our size" radio flyer wagons from GG!


Elliott and Grammy being silly


Simon, wiped out with Aunt Erin


Elliott and Aunt Sandy checking out Grammy's tree


Papa and the boys! :)


Uncle Brudder's new shirt!


Grandma's "I love Grandma frame"!


Break time on our new... pillows? Cute anyway!


Smothering Auntie Julie with kisses!


Daddy and Simon reading their new book


Adorable Jake and Auntie having fun... of course!

*Edit - I want to make sure to say that I wouldn't have changed a thing about our Christmas. I loved being able to see most of our family. Yes, it was ragged, yes it was exhausting, and yes it was tons of fun! I'm not one of those keep Christ in CHRISTmas... I'm just not. I do know that where the holiday stemmed from, but we've always celebrated Santa Claus and Rudolph and presents, oh glorious presents! ;) But I think the thing that stays constant no matter who you celebrate - the biggest celebration in all of it being together with friends and family. So yes I am looking forward to staying home this weekend, but I'd travel across the state three more times for Christmas with my boys!

Parental Privilege

I realize that all of my blog posts lately (as few as there have been) are about my boys, but I can’t help myself. I know every mom knows this feeling, and it’s totally indescribable – the way that you love your child. I constantly remind myself that they are mine. Those angels are something that Barry and I made and achieved perfection – in ways only a mother can see (or seems fathers and grandparents too!)



Last night I had the opportunity to lie on the floor and watch them play. I thought for a minute about getting the camera and thankfully realized that it wasn’t anything I could capture on camera so I just lied there and soaked up every second I could. They played independently and then Simon would watch, and smile at Elliott crawl to a new toy and discover it like brand new. Simon would watch from the gate that he had just successfully walked the entire length of, hanging on, studying and having no idea how his mom was marveling at a little boy that only learned to crawl a few weeks earlier. At one point they were both playing with the same musical book – we have two, they each had their own – and they would both steel both from the other, back and forth, back and forth. When I did follow them and start to play a game of chase I was amazed that as soon as Elliott even thought that I might be chasing him he crawled as fast as he could behind the swing were I think he was sure I couldn’t “get him” :)

STOP! Stop time now!

I can’t believe that my BABY boys turned 10 months old this weekend. They’re still babies (very much so in my head), and yet every day they do things to the contrary. I’m sure I’ve said it before but you can’t know how fast it goes until they’re your own. My heart almost aches to think I’ll have two one year olds in less than 2 months. LESS THAN 2 MONTHS? How did that happen? I started thinking about their birthday party, feeling a little silly, like I was jumping the gun but they reality is that it'll be here before I know it.

We’ve had busy days, they attended their first tailgate. Mommy went on her first overnight trip away on her own, girl’s weekend if you will. We had a fairly big Labor Day party, where the boys hung with the best of ‘em. Just yesterday they had their first trip to the cider mill so we could have dessert to celebrate Grammy’s bday a bit early. Of course to them it was just another place to bang on a table, but for me it was another instance where they’re gaining their independence in leaps and bounds. They’re eating all kinds of foods, lots they don’t like and some they love. They thought they were such hot shots when we gave them sweet potato “fries”, eating “real people food”! And they have lots of teeth!! Elliott has his four front teeth and just this morning I could finally feel Simon’s bottom left poking through. They’re both mobile. Elliott a bit more than Simon, but he won’t be far behind, I’m sure. Simon is holding his own bottle! Just this morning he looked so big when I was leaving – Grammy had him laying in the boppy feeding himself. Elliott prefers if you do it for him… sigh ;) We just went through all their clothes again (thanks Mom!), and actually put them away… I put sleepers in their drawers that I was sure would be a little loose… Simon’s legs were too long to “wear” the feet!

And on Wednesday Barry and I will celebrate our 3rd year of marriage. Talk about time flying by! But in some ways it seems like a lifetime already. And I don’t mean that in the funny, cliché sort of way either. I did marry the guy so of course I feel about him like I never have another, but we just seem to fit. I feel so completely open and free with him, that I don’t even think of it as such. With some people you keep yourself guarded, and you’re aware that you do… with my husband I don’t keep anything from him and I don’t worry about telling him too much, or seeing too much, or anything really. Our life is not a fairy tale, but some days I have to remind myself of that, it really is that good. I believe it’s because we’re happy. I will admit that sometimes with the bab, er, I mean boys L I get distracted from being a wife. It used to be that I would dilly dally going home so that I didn’t have to be there long without Barry. Now, I can’t get home fast enough because I know I have two (most of the time) smiling boys waiting for me. But I also know that’s because their dad isn’t far behind and he’s made a home for his family, where we all want to be, one full of love, generosity, compromise, caring and fun.

I love my family and I'm so lucky to have them!

(Hoping to add some pictures a little later!)

My sweet baby boys

They’re 9 months old now. Wow. They couldn’t be more different. In a lot of ways (well more than one!) we’re lucky to be experiencing two babies, for the first time mind you, the same age. I keep thinking, wait, he’s doing that so he should be doing it too! No, they’re two different babies! Then I wonder how odd it must be when you have the second after you’ve had the first. I know I would go back to when so and so was 9 months old and compare everything the new baby is doing to what they were doing then… and worry, or wonder, or be sure I had a genius. But we get to watch them be completely separate and learn from each other at the same time.

Elliott is a spit fire. When he was almost two months old and still in the hospital one of the mom’s once told me “I feel sorry for you when you take him home…” after he’d had a screaming fit just before I got there. He’s not terribly temperamental, well ok, maybe he is. His mood changes with the wind, but 9 times out of 10 he has an irresistible grin… the other times he’s just mad you’re not entertaining him. When he’s sitting on your lap at night, when it’s time to go to bed he’ll sit and wait for the chance to catch someone’s eye and grin until he can’t anymore. He just likes to be… well, just to be! He’s (army) crawling everywhere! Especially if Simon has anything! It just seems to be that much more interesting if his brother has it and he makes a bee line for it. He never stops moving, or talking. He rarely takes naps and we’ve not been successful in putting him in the swing to sleep for quite some time. He figured out that’s what it does, puts him to sleep, so he fights it with all he has! He’s quite a charmer, in every sense. He knows he is but there’s something terribly innocent about it. He loves food. I can’t say he’s loved everything we’ve given him so far, but he eats it anyway! He’s got his first two teeth too, with hardly any complaints. When he was sick you’d barely know it. He still had to see everything that was going on, and be part of it too. He was still bouncing around, despite his terrible cough. One of his favorite things to do is watch cars drive by… he’ll be in the middle of something, hear a car and have to crane his neck around to see it whiz by!

My sweet Simon is just so sweet! He’s very much the observer. He’s content to watch and learn and take it all in. I think he’s got us all fooled. He’s willing to let us be cautious of Elliott and then once he’s got it all figured out… watch out! The other day my mom said he studied the tage on one of their toys for a good 15 or 20 minutes! When we brought him home he had some sensory issues, an immature nervous system that really was quite a big thing to overcome. And now that he has, he’s a totally different baby, my little courageous lion. Like Elliott, when he was sick he didn’t complain. He had an ear infection and other than the fever you never would have known. He was a little cuddlier than normal, which is quite a bit! He’s so laid back. I love when he just wants to sit on my lap and watch what’s going on and snuggle in… then I love those times when he wants to sit on my lap and jump around and sing and yell too! He’s so easy to go to sleep too. On a bad night he’ll whimper for a bit and then fall right asleep. Sometimes he’ll just lay his head down and before you know it almost, he’s asleep. He’s always been our eater, rarely leaving a drop leftover in the bottle. Food however has been a different challenge. Bananas, nope. Avocado, no way. So far sweet potatoes have been… OK. But he’ll sit in his chair and clamp his mouth shut before he’ll let you “put that glop in my mouth!” He’s not easily fooled either, it’ll take him 2 or 3 bites of cereal before he’ll give you a wide open mouth if you’ve just tried to sneak something else “yucky” in. He’s so funny. You never know what will make him laugh, and he has the best laugh! A great big belly laugh!

I could go on and on, and I’m sure I’ll edit this 10 times before the end of the weekend but I have to get this out there now, I don’t want to forget any of these special quirks or times with these amazing gifts! I'm also sure that they'll change ten times over the course of the weekend too and this does little justice to describe them. You have to know them and know them you have to spend time with them.

I take special solace in knowing that no one will ever know them like I do. Like their Mom does. The special way they look as if to say, it's OK Mom, or I need you Mom, or to know what cry is real and what cry is a test to see how far they can get. Of course I'm sure I won't know them the same way their Dad does, or their Grandma's. But then I suppose that's the miracle of having children.

For now, I’ll leave you with a couple pictures of them that kind of speak for themselves!

SO grateful

We have so much help. I think I’ve mentioned it before. I hope I have. I know I have when I talk to people and they ask how we manage being new parents with twins no less. I often reply with, “I’m not sure we know how to be new parents… fully”. When both boys were in the hospital we had TONS of help and guidance from the wonderful staff at the RNICU. Then when Simon came home both Grandma’s were there on a moments notice if needed, and most times just knew to be there. Mostly for comfort for me, I think.

At first when Elliott came home, the first couple nights we had both babies we’d wake up and I’d look at Barry and say “what are we going to do?!” I was terrified that we’d never sleep again, wouldn’t be giving the right one the right thing at the right time. He’d look at me and simply say “we’re doing it…” It didn’t take long for me to realize he was right once again, we just had to do it, and we were.

But really I suppose I always knew that when we needed advice or a nap, someone would be there. When I went back to work, the Grandma’s stepped in and covered the whole week, while the boys were still gaining immune systems and we were waiting out the dreaded cold and flu season. Then when they went to daycare, we had the benefit of still having Grandma’s at the house every week. You see, they don’t just watch babies, they do dishes… and laundry… and pictures… and are so hands on, you wouldn’t believe. So much so that I almost start with anxiety when Wednesday rolls around and I know we have four whole days when we’re on our own (as if any of the grandparents wouldn’t come running if we needed)! How will we manage, do we know what to do?!? Do we know how to be parents? Can we take care of a household?

Then we have a night like last night. All four of us, just the four of us, lay on the floor; talking, laughing, goo-ing and gaga-ing, rolling, playing, and resting. The bottles got washed, the babies got fed, and they even had baths. The laundry stayed in the dryer to be folded later, mom and dad ate separately, and we managed. We had fun. So while I’m ridiculously grateful for the help we have, I relish in rolling on the floor, with just the four of us!

I also have to add, our boys are surrounded by so much love - I’m astounded by it literally almost everyday. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a few others than their grandma’s! I think there’s been 3, maybe 4 weekends that Papa Maier has missed visiting with the boys; their GG makes sure to see them at least once a month (and I’m sure that Great Uncle Terry and Great Aunt Sandy aren’t far behind that); and of course their cousin Jackson, although he doesn’t get to decide on when he visits, he always showers the babies with attention and love… and fun! Not to mention all the other family and friends that are always asking about how they're doing, even if they can't visit; like Grandpa Cook and Great Aunt Terri. We're so lucky, and our boys are even luckier!

Half Birthday!

I had this written a month ago, but I wanted to add the pictures. Then the computer I've been using quit working, so my lovely husband brought home a brand new (bigger) one, I've loaded pictures so now I'm posting!

Whew, what a weekend! The boys got threw another two days of daycare, seemingly unscathed. Elliott showed his true colors and had to get a new outfit… twice. Simon fell asleep at about 6 Friday night after I got them home, and beside two bottles, slept until the next morning!

I was still recovering from a head cold, and Barry came home Friday afternoon not feeling well. Of course he had something completely different than I did. By Saturday afternoon I had to cuthim off from the boys, finally realizing how bad he was. I was glad I had called off the “half birthday party” I had planned for Saturday afternoon. Barry and I had taken turns taking naps up to that point.

Unlike my previous post, I was bound and determined we were goingto have “half cakes” to celebrate. Truth is when I made them Thursday night I fully intended to have the party. Since they were alreadymade I figured I had to frost them, what’s a cake without frosting?!? And by the time that was doneand they didn’t turn out (I promise boys, I’ll order cakesfor your 1^st bday!) it didn’t matter much what the writing on them looked like…

So when my dad came over Sunday afternoon (the first company we had all weekend) I quick wrote on them for photo opps!

Here they are with Papa and Grammy (who had arrived for her sitting duties the next day)

So now they have pictures for their scrapbooks and something they can torment me with when I’m old and gray… ah, memories!