12

Twelve years ago, Erin and I took the leap. In a little backyard in Park Slope, Brooklyn.


Pictured here, almost twelve years and four kids later, I think we still have it.

If someone would have told me that day, what our future would be and how many wonderful adventures we would have?



I never would have believed it.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."
-1 Corinthians 13

Here's to many, many more, Sweetie.

Fourth vs. First: Hair Edition

I could say a lot about the difference between your first and your fourth child. The other day, for example, I realized that now when I hear a crash, rather than rushing to see what I happened, I wait a beat to hear if anyone is crying before going to investigate. Mother of the Year? Perhaps.

Take first haircuts. Lucy (aka Baby #4), clearly needed one.


Many moons ago, so did Baby #1 (aka Leo). Sidenote: OMG his hair was gorgeous but OMG What Were We Thinking with that hair?

I clearly remember taking Leo for his first haircut. It was at one of those places that specialize in kid's cuts. A lot of pictures were taken (though curiously I can't seem to find any of them). There may have even been a video. Precious, first shorn locks were carefully and lovingly tucked away into a special "commemorative" envelope, sealed for posterity.

Lucy's first haircut? Let's just say it happened around 8 a.m. in our backyard on Sunday morning. I grabbed the scissors on my way out of the kitchen where I'd dashed to grab a bowl of Pirate Booty for the gang to share (what? Isn't that what you crave at 8 a.m.?). I managed to get Lucy to sit for a minute.

Before.

After. She seems pleased, yes?

For the record, I did save those little blond wisps and sealed them in an envelope. I wrote (with crayon of course, because it was there): "Lucy First haircut (Bangs), 4/28/13" (so I don't wonder someday why her first haircut was such a small little swirl). Because you know what? First haircut at Fancy Place? First haircut on the back deck? It's still important.

I may have taken off a bit more than I would have liked but it's growing on me. I look at the new 'do and think: Short and Sassy. Best of all it's out of her eyes. I was a big fan of the long bangs pinned to the side in a barrette. She...was not: "Don't want it! (pointed to adorable purple poodle clip) No!"

Anyway, the new cut seems to suit her. I didn't know someone under the age of two could actually strut, but Lucy can. And she does. Short and sassy, that one is. From head to toe.

According to the Girl With the Yellow Head

After more than a few days above sixty degrees, after a bounty of daffodils and tulips and forsythia and an explosion of cherry blossoms and plum blossoms and I-don't-know-what-they're-called-blossoms, I hereby declare, spring has finally arrived (here).

She turned to the sunlight 
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
"Winter is dead."
-A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

Good weather can make people kinder, more generous.

Have you noticed this?

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."
-Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg

Just ask Harry about the dirt. He is our in-house Dirt Expert.

Spring means the return of dining al fresco.

Goldfish just taste better outside, don't you agree?

The view from inside isn't bad.

The company is pretty good too.

"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people, and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness, except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."
-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Student of the Week, Otherwise Known as Mommy Panics and Feels Guilty For No Reason

In January, a few days after school resumed following the winter break, Ellie came home with a hand-out about  a future assignment: "Student of the Week." Starting that month, each kindergartner would be assigned a week in which they would prepare a presentation (and design a poster board) about themselves and their family, depicting their likes and dislikes, and their family's customs and traditions.

I put the paper aside, relieved that Ellie was assigned a week in April. Nothing like good old procrastination.

Don't get me wrong: I think it's a wonderful project. It's a wonderful exercise for kindergarteners to write about their favorite topic (Themselves!). And what fun it will be to look back someday on a five year old Ellie and her favorite foods and places to travel and activities.

My concern was finding a chunk of time to help her. As much as I love the open floor plan of our downstairs, it doesn't provide a place we can go and close the door and work without the prying fingers of the fearsome twosome Harry and Lucy. Oh sure there's morning nap time, but Saturday Ellie has swimming and then Sunday morning is soccer and blah blah blah. Also, I didn't want to have to rush through this project with her. I wanted to really be present (I know, gag, but you know what I mean) with her while we did it.

I also know what you're thinking. Why did you wait until the day before to do it? Well, in a different world, or, more specifically for me, in a world pre-twins, I'm sure I would have not left it until the last minute. I was, after all, the college student who frequently wrote the essay the week it was assigned (even if I had three weeks to do it), so severe was my anxiety of impending deadlines. Yes, my name is Maya, and I'm a planner.

But those days, as we know, are loooong gone. At least for now.

So there we were yesterday afternoon, Ellie and I, sitting in our sunny kitchen during the twins' 4 p.m. nap(time). Their voices on the monitor started out innocuously enough with Lucy's adorable banter: "Herry! Herrrrry!" And there were Harry's mumblings and garbled babbling. Books were tossed and mattresses were jumped on.

As we worked, the sounds over the monitor became more urgent. Playful banter dissolved into whining. Then crying.

I did my best to block out the noise. They're fine, I told myself. They need the "quiet" time even if they don't rest and there's no way on god's green earth we can get this done if they're downstairs, what with Harry's prediliction for stealing pens and running crazily through the house, not to mention Lucy's insistence on sharing a chair with Ellie and scribbling on whatever her big sister is drawing/writing.

Then came the wailing. It was mostly Harry, who can cry so loud it's as if he himself is two babies. I can only liken him to an ambulance-and once he starts, he doesn't stop and only gets louder and louder.

Ugh, I thought to myself. This stinks. I wish I could do something, ANYTHING in my life right now wherein I didn't feel like I was rushing to finish it, where I felt like I could never do the best job possible since at any moment the babies would need something. Oh sure, it's no where near what it was like when they were newborns, the needs are less constant but still omnipresent and these days, involve safety: there is Harry climbing onto the window sill. There is Lucy, teetering off the edge of a chair. It's a constant challenge, trying to balance the big kids' needs with the needs of the babies. Ellie must be so annoyed. And frustrated. They always need something. So much of the time they take attention away from her and her older brother.

Ellie picked through the stack of pictures I'd presented her with, to illustrate her "All About Me" poster and paused on a picture of Harry and Lucy from our trip to Disney World, more than a year ago. The babies looked like different people, so squishy and little-they both had the telltale chunky thighs of babies who are not yet walking.

"This one," she said, a satisfied smile spreading across her face.  "This is my favorite part of my family," she said quietly, gazing at decidedly baby versions of Harry and Lucy, rosy-faced and flushed, hair poofy from the Florida humidity.

Ellie reached for the tape and started to make little tape donuts.

So much for annoyed and frustrated.


Ellie drew and wrote and cut and taped. I helped with some layout ideas and suggested we add some stickers to fill in the negative space. But Ellie basically did the whole thing herself.


My Family (pictured)
Favorite Place to Travel: Disney World
Favorite Food: Cake with chocolate frosting
Favorite activity: Bike riding
Favorite animal: Rabbit
Favorite television show: Ninja Turtles and Care Bears
Favorite color(s): pink and blue


(She also brought her favorite books to school, along with her favorite toy (Stuffed animal, a pink teddy bear from Build-a-Bear) and will instruct her class on how her family lights the menorah during Hanukkah).


And yes, she picked the color of the poster board (I'm sure you're simply shocked to learn this).

We bought it last weekend at Target on one of our excursions with the whole gang while Erin was away in London (Last weekend. See?! I am capable of some advanced planning!). I was so proud that I'd remembered it and of course we got it toward the end of our shopping trip and of course someone was fussing while we looked through the poster board options. I'd wished we'd had more time to ponder the selection but I felt hurried by babies, anticipating (and hoping to avoid) the proverbial cash register meltdown. Once again, Ellie rallied and seemed completely oblivious to my concerns.

As we lay in bed that night talking about our weekend (it was the second one with Erin away, so things were hectic, to say the least), I asked Ellie what her favorite part of the weekend had been.

"Buying my poster at the store!"

Kids can be remarkably, almost heartbreakingly easy.

And oh so very forgiving.

After the Din

Lucy, mid-run; Leo with his ever-present ball, mid-flight. They are in constant, constant motion.

I'm coming off of almost 72 straight hours of children. My children. Whom of course, I adore. But dang. I'm spent.

You know how when you go to the beach and you're there all day and then you come home and you lie in bed and you hear the ocean, the waves crashing? You're not actually hearing the waves, it just seems like you are because there has been that constant din of waves. That's a little how I felt as I collapsed onto the bus this morning, en route to work. Though not there, I heard the hum of little children. The shrieks. The commands. The demands. The crying. And of course, the laughter. The actual silence that followed was almost disorienting.

My (unplanned=Monday=sick nanny) long weekend. To say nothing of the ten days Erin was gone for work. It was the best of times, with just a couple of "worst" thrown in. I feel a bit like a contestant in the parenting olympics and think I at least scored a silver. Ellie might say it was more like a bronze. But all in all, I'm very proud of everyone, including myself.

If anyone had told me two years ago that I'd be able to take four children, alone, to two separate stores, I would have been shocked. But there we were, bright and early on Sunday morning, my little gang and me at Trader Joe's. It was there that I discovered if I let Leo push the shopping cart? He makes it his Mission and Does Not Stray. Perfection. Oh yes, with Leo pushing that cart and me trailing behind with the giant stroller and Ellie tailing us, I got the usual looks of pity/horror/bemusement. "Four kids at the store? You win!" came the greeting by a Trader Joe's employee when the gaggle of us walked through the door. Later, we went to Target for a (fruitless) quest for curtains. And would you believe I even remembered everything on my list? (Money saving tip: bring four children with you to the store and I guarantee you will not spend much--two word: In and Out).


No child labor laws were broken here. Ellie actually asked if she could mop. I KNOW. I knew these people would earn their keep some day!

The last time Erin was away for two weekends (and the weekdays between them), my sister and brother-in-law came to visit for that second weekend (I'm ok for the first weekend. By the second? I am definitely losing steam and possibly some patience. And brain cells.). Of course it was wonderful to see Norah and Ryan when they visited, but they were also extremely helpful. Extra grown-up hands allowed us to do things we can't normally do when it's just me and also provided me the opportunity to do something absolutely crazy like, oh I don't know, leave the house without four children in tow? Or maybe with just two?

So this time on my own was a little different. But you know what? We made it. And had plenty of fun
(as well as some tears and ok, fine, I may have lost my temper once or twice (but not my mind! Yay!). At the end of the day, bedtime always comes and there's always coffee in the morning (except for when your coffee pot breaks, ahem).

Over the weekend, Lucy discovered the joys of seltzer in a cup. Harry remains unsure about that whole thing.

And when the text came in yesterday with the news that my nanny was sick (meaning I couldn't go to work, she only works weekdays) I was too tired to have an emotion about it. Part of me couldn't believe I didn't get the "break" of going to work. But part of me is always a little grateful to have a few hours of just Baby Time. Harry and Lucy are growing up so fast, growing and changing every day and it's hard to pick up on the little intricacies when I'm alone with all four.

I haven't been alone with "just" the babies for about a month and yesterday I was shocked by how much they'd changed in a just a few weeks. For one, they're starting to play together more. There's the ever-popular close the glass mudroom door on your sister and then open the door on your brother and Squeal! You're still there!

Lucy steals Harry's trains and he pads after her furiously, tackles her and she rolls over onto him and there is breathless laughter that turns from giggling to crying, back to giggling. I reach for the camera but it's all over almost as soon as it's begun. And I'm nearly frozen with indecision: should I intervene? Is it ok for one baby to sit on another baby's head (they're light, right?), even if the baby on the bottom is giggling and clearly enjoying himself? Mostly, I just can't believe all of this bustle, that these two tiny twin people are here, in my house. That I get to be witness to them.

Photo taken by Uncle Ryan, a little over a month ago (note the snow). The babies already seem so much more giant than they appear here.

I'm experimenting a little with the naps (Lucy is definitely trying to drop that afternoon snooze) and yesterday Harry went Against The Plan and fell asleep after morning errands in the car, which meant no after lunch nap, which meant incredibly rare 1:1 time with the Hare-Man. Which meant for thirty blissful minutes yesterday, I lay on the couch while Harry played with his two new Thomas Trains (we'd gone to the store (again) in search of new curtains (again) and ended up spending the bulk of our time in the toy section trying to soothe a fussy Harry, which meant guess who scored two new trains?). This boy loves his Thomas trains (but not just any Thomas trains, they have to be the "real" (metal)) ones, not the flimsy plastic ones. He is perfectly content to line them up on the couch and chatter away at them. Unless he's lining them up on the top of the kitchen garbage can, where he can see himself, where he can alternate between lining up trains and kissing his own reflection or cackling at himself as he dances around. And no, I'm not kidding and yes, I almost died from the cuteness.


Amid the exhaustion and the relentlessness and the "Look Mommys!" and Lucy's whines and Leo's roaring "NO's" and Ellie's "It's your fault!" there are these little blisssful pockets when being home just feels good and right and unbearably brief and fleeting. And then of course, there are the loooong weekend afternoons where I begin watching the clock at 4:30. Is it bedtime yet?

But it's not every day I get to pick Ellie up from school and, upon discovery that I brought the dog with me, see a look of pure joy and happy surprise wash over her face as she shrieks: "You brought Ruby?! I didn't expect to see Ruby!"

There are times, when I sit next to Lucy in her high chair as she plays footsy with my arm as she drinks her after lunch milk, eyes half closed with a contented sleepiness, those are the times that I get that Pang and feel like I'm missing so much by not being home with them every day. There are countless little moments that I miss when I'm not with them every day. But the fact that I'm not home with them every day, I think, gives me the ability to see the specialness of the little moments. Nothing is perfect.

Ellie's homework yesterday: Draw the number of family members you have and illustrate. 

And It Happened on Friday the Twelfth

This is, um, not what a typical cup of coffee looks like at my house, but hey, a girl can dream, right?

Though not a coffee snob, I take my morning beverage seriously. I've been known to actually fantasize about the first cup of the morning--the clink of the cup, the splash of the cold cream, the toasty warm mug and the feel of the soothing steam as I raise it to my lips. It's not just something I look forward to, to start my day, I require it. 

But mornings at our house are just a touch circus-like (imagine!) and so making coffee is never the first thing I do (though it probably should be, to protect the innocent from harm HA HA). If I were really smart I'd program the coffee pot the night before (because what's that old saying? Put on your own oxygen mask first?), but unattended appliances make me irrationally nervous. And so I hurry through my to-do list as quickly as possible: Breakfast, milk for the babies, get the big kids going on getting dressed. More often than not I have a baby (Hi Lucy!) on my hip as I rinse the pot and filter out and grind the beans. But as long as I'm that much closer to coffee! Coffee! What's a little company?

I'd sensed something was off about the coffee maker the other day. Was it the odd smell of burning plastic that tipped me off? But it worked just fine on Wednesday, so I forgot about the plastic smell. Then, this morning, as I breezed through my check list and finally paused to pour that long awaited First Cup, it happened. There was no coffee. The pot was on, plugged in, little red "power" light on, but alas. Dead.

Ellie watched me tinkering with it and muttering and when I told her I thought it was broken she said, "The coffee of living? You can't live without coffee!"

Between that and the red Annie dress? Seriously, my work here is DONE. (Side note: New gummy grin: this child lost two teeth in one week and now has almost a whole row of just gum).

Meanwhile I'm wondering how much I'm willing to spend on same day shipping on a coffee pot. Because, another morning without it? Just, NO.

Harry clearly hasn't had that first cup of coffee either.

Tuesday Snippets

Rare, blissful moment of calm. Exhale.

Erin has been traveling a lot for work. Which means I have been even more outnumbered than usual. It has made for some intense, exhausting, but of course, hilarious moments.

And if I ever hope to blog again, for now we'll have to make do with some snippets of life, because right now, that's all I got:

Me: OK Ellie, you're going to help me this weekend right? It's just going to be Mommy and I need everyone to work together and be good listeners.
Ellie: Right! So...let me get this straight. There's gonna be one grownup and four kids, and two of them who just  mess around.
Me: Who messes around?
Ellie: The babies!

And speaking of hilarious: I'm slowly unloading (via Craigslist) a bounty of baby items that have been cluttering our basement (swings, exersaucers). On Friday a very pregnant woman came and bought my remaining swing. She took one look at barefooted Leo and Ellie zooming around the front yard and Harry and Lucy, pounding on the glass storm door (Let! Us! Out!) and asked me, stone cold serious, "Is this a daycare?"

I mean. You have to laugh.





We've been the benefactors of some recent delightful spring weather (high 70s today--as Ellie would say, what the what?). Of course that means I throw everyone outside as much as possible. On Saturday, Leo and Ellie concocted a new game called Worm Town, in which they found worms and made a tiny village out of found objects (plastic containers from the recycling bin, old chalk, rocks and sticks) for them in the dirt (see one of the residents above, along with a Harry photo bomb).

Ellie lost her second tooth on Sunday, rather dramatically, as we were walking into Costco. Later that night after a lot of discussion about how the tooth fairy gets the tooth, what she does with it, why you have to give your tooth to her (you don't, I assured her), Ellie announced that she did not, in fact want to give her tooth up. The reason? Ellie has "enough money."


These babies are doing their darnedest to drop their afternoon nap and I am doing my darnedest to prevent this from happening. I still put them in their cribs around 4 p.m. and usually there is a lot of chatter (Lucy: Harry! Haaaarrrry! Ellie! Ellllie!).  In other news, did you see what those babies did to my beloved tree mural? It used to look...different. Sigh.

Here are my teenage girls watching a little TV after school. Honestly, doesn't Lucy look thirteen? Sometimes I see these two girls and how their relationship is growing and I'm not going to lie...I'm absolutely teary. Happy teary.

The babies are seeming more giant and kid-like every day. Dare I say they are listening a little better and are slightly able to be reasoned with (emphasis on slightly--and don't get too excited, they still take great glee in ganging up on me by climbing onto the kitchen table at precisely the moment I'm trying to cook dinner).

Evidence of said giantness: One little girl thinks she is too big for the high chair and prefers dining at the table. Ai Yai Yai. Mommy prefers the security confinement of the high chair, thankyouverymuch.



When in doubt? Wear a big hat.