A Day at the Backyard Beach

The first day of even close to hot sunny weather is in July? How is a child supposed to learn to swim? Well, we'll make what we can of this.

Playing in sand is a different matter. Yoram said they would eat it. Nana said they might eat it once, but then they would figure it out. Guess who was right? Well, how could a small portion of sand each day really hurt you? Georgia's approach to the aftermath of a small taste of sand is to ask for something else to eat -- maybe to wash it down with. If she were speaking my language, I would know better what she had in mind.

It was a busy afternoon, ending like most busy days.

Thanksgiving

Although neither Odessa nor Georgia pitched in to cook anything, they were a big hit at our belated family Thanksgiving in Rhinebeck.   They were warmly appreciated by the Weintraubs.  And they did not violate the rule "if you don't cook, you don't eat" because they did not eat.  Next year will be a different story... tiny cooks coming up!  

Plus ça change

The babes are changing madly... Stand them in the Jumperoo and they're whole new people with real person faces, cooing strange and beautiful whale noises at anyone who'll listen: plastic roos, spinning gears, clacky beads, singing frogs. Lots of photos here and hopefully more to come -- including the video of Odessa finding her feet -- from Bethany.

The constant attention of many cooing aunts, uncles, grown cousins and baby cousin, all gathered at Myrtle Beach, seems to have the babies growing and waking faster than ever.
They're getting Habits now. Odessa is no longer willing to go out to dinner no matter what's on the menu. She wants to walk around, and better yet, to just leave out of the restaurant. (If you try to come back in, the lip starts to quiver and curl and you're in trouble all over again.) Georgia, if you lean her back, slams herself forward in a sit-up... a trick she first unveiled for Great Grandma Dot. And she seems to have learned how to eat. Amazing!

The beach itself may have been incidental -- who knows what a baby takes in, when so little of it is remembered? But they looked devilishly cute in their stripey kits... which are more for the mothers, as we found out when we dipped everyone in the ocean. Really, the baby bathing suit is not the issue. Naked would be fine. The bigger problem is the sopping gelatinous diaper mess. (Although plastic diapers, grossly, don't seem so wet once the outside dries off. Chh! Feh.)

The funny part is that, the more conscious the bubelehs get, the more they look alike... till finally we took a picture and found, for a second, that we almost couldn't tell the difference.

P.S. What's with all the French? Don't know. Staci thinks all dogs are boys and all cats are girls. Maybe all babies are French. They certainly wear a lot of very daring horizontal stripes.

First Wedding

Nathan and Maki
were wed on Bremen Island.
A beautiful step forward
for them and us too.


Odessa and Georgia
attended as tenugui girl
and lemon meringue girl
delighting everyone.

Cousin love

Bethany said...

My ploo for the "threesome" pic:

One of us questions
the camera's strange purpose
unamused with the bright light
Silly mommy's fun

The other content
go ahead flash away more
I'll be my sleepy wee self
Teddy bear will watch

Where are they now?

Because moms like to be scolded about our child-rearing practices, we like to take the babies directly to the strangers who make themselves available to berate us. Apparently 1am is too late to have the babies on Metro North, even if they've been asleep for the previous 6 hours at Aunties Lili and Leki's house (while their mothers have gone, for our sins, to see Cry Baby and do some off-duty boozing.)

So our latest round of photos is mostly road shots. (Here's the link.) Google doesn't let you write captions, so maybe it'll be fun to guess where they are.  Here are your choices:

1. With Cousin #3 at the Daily Planet in Poughkeepsie

2. In the hospital after a scary post-vaccination seizure (which the doctors tried to pawn off as "an incidence of severe acid reflux!")

3. On a first country outing to Rhinebeck, with Nana and Him

4. In the Upper West Side pied-a-terre of Yossi, attaining a level of glamor generally unknown by their parents

5. At the Working Families Party office, attaining the more usual level of glamor

6. Riding Metro North at 1am
 

7. In Odessa

8. On the Bronx balcony, enthralled by rustling willow leaves

Things that matter, things that don't.

Things that matter:

Georgia weighs seven pounds, and Odessa weighs almost EIGHT.

They're growing faster than zucchini in July, but more delicious (and unlike zucchini, we don't wonder what in the name of Britney we're going to do with that much baby.)

They eat four thousand times a day. They no longer sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. When they wake up crying, they wake up the other one too. Also, we've taken to calling them "that one" and "the other one." We're tired.

(Photo: Odessa at Odessa (the diner) with Aunties Lorna and Mary Ann)

Things that don't:

Everyone is very concerned with whether the babies are boys or girls. Staci has taken the brunt of it... She got yelled at by a lady who thought we were creating traumatic confusion for them by not draping them in pink. Another person was upset because they were wearing blue (which is mostly all there is besides pink) but then realized that there was a pink blanket in the stroller and calmed right down.

It boiled over this weekend. Previously, an old queen had called to congratulate and inquire about gender, but was adorably addled and ended up asking "what's their sexuality?" Which seems no weirder or more intrusive than the demand to know what bits the babies are sporting Down There. I said "they're queer, haha!" and we shared a little guffaw.

But then this weekend at Bob Kohler's memorial, we were loitering by the pop'ems when Penny Arcade asked the boys-or-girls question, and I had just had enough and reverted to "they're queer!" Penny freaked out.

- How do you know?! Did you do The Test? The Test that the whole country is hoping for, so they can abort the gay babeeees!!?!

- No, I'm pretty sure it's nurture.

- I thought we were about freeeedommm!

Flotilla was nearby, and whispered to her "No, it's good -- then they'll be on our side!"

(Photo: Baby O with Aunty LaurieWen at Bob's memorial.)

Later, during her eulogizing of Bob, she performance arted us in retort. Penny repeated the conversation we'd had 20 minutes earlier, but shriekier, even more accusing, over twanging guitars. I'm not sure how it was related to the eulogy...

Anyway, turns out that babies' gender coding is a topic that seems to strip onlookers of all decorum and erase strangers' sense of boundaries between themselves and our family. No such thing as just letting the babies be -- people want you to graffiti their grown-up identity onto them right now. And if they think you've written it wrong, you're in for an all-out intervention. Yikes! I was thinking I just wanted the babies to experience the exciting breadth of the world, but now I've gone all protectionist. Kindly step away from the babies.

Zeroeth birthday.

This weekend, May 3rd or May 4th depending whether you heed doctors in Boston or New York, was the babies' zeroeth birthday. Their 40th week since hatching as little twin pre-zygotes. Their due date. We took them out for crepes. All the Brooklyn aunties came...

Big Kids

It's good times in the Bronx, as the babies bring Villagers, Brooklynites, Jersey girls and Irish jet-setters uptown like flies to honey. Did youse ever think you'd spend as much time in transit?!

Our friends (and our parents) have brought us great food, sang songs to the babies, preemie-sat, listened to our stories about poop and brought us back to the grown-up world with a firm hand when we've gone too far. Thanks, lovelies!

xoxo

(Photos of the friends are here. If anyone has more, we want them, please send!)

Shower at Denise and Wendell's

Celebrating baby A and baby B at four and a half months gestation. I know several people asked to see pictures from the fabulous shower over the holidays, so here they are.

Pictures should be accessible at: http://picasaweb.google.com/eustacialeigh/BabyShowerAtDeniseWendellS