Stop. Throwing. Food.

Mealtimes are annoying. The girls throw their food off their highchair trays at nearly every meal. If they don't like something, off it goes. We've tried saying "We don't throw our food." Or we take their tray completely off until they chill out. In an attempt at "positive discipline," I tried saying "We keep our food on our tray." The dropping continued. Is it the age? Or are we just not saying the magic words that will stop them??

Another thing to phase out?

Last week, I had several nights of semi-sleepwalking (semi- because that's not exactly what happens). It happens every so often, though not much anymore, thankfully, now that we no longer live next to a power transformer (a dear friend told me there's a connection between dreams and electromagnetic waves, so that makes sense). I wake as I'm walking around at the foot of the bed, or in the living room, convinced that I'm looking for something and I can't find it. Or I jolt upright in bed, panicked about something, eyes open, talking gibberish (Side note: seriously, how does Zazie stand me?).

Those nights last week were pretty intense... I woke up in a panic and found myself out of bed pacing at least 3 or 4 times per night. I'd had either take-out or something commercially prepared that may have contained MSG and I wondered if there was a connection.

Well, I think there may have been. What do you think? MSG Side Effects. Now all I need to avoid is anything on this list... shouldn't be hard right? Hah.

Cuteness

The girls love these eggs. They love to open the container, they love to put the tops and bottoms back together, they love to squeak the little chicks inside. This morning, though, was the cutest...

R. took the shell off of one egg, said "Hello", then put the shell back. Then she took the shell off the next one, said "Hello", and then put the shell back. She did that for every single one of the eggs.

Cutie.

Day two

I don't know... I think the cutting out caffeine and reducing booze is making me lose my mind. Or maybe it's spring. I've been cleaning closets, giving and throwing away stuff. Now I'm on day two of this: How to Quit Shampoo Without Looking Disgusting. We'll see how that works out... I'm just hoping to free myself from the must-shampoo-everyday chains.

So. Annoyed.

I wrote a really long draft post about my feelings on being in contact with the donor's family, but it appears to be disappeared. Think B.logger had problems this morning, so we'll see.

This is day 4 of a caffeine slowdown. I've been a major consumer of caffeine since I was a teenager. I'm now down to 1 cup a day, though cup is more a description of the container than the amount- the lines on the side of the coffee pot say I'm drinking more like 4 cups. :) The goal is to cut out entirely in preparation for the fall. I feel like I definitely noticed jitters after this morning's cup, so I may cut it out entirely very quickly instead of slowly tapering off like I'd planned.

Day 4 of no alcohol either. I'm not a big boozer, but I have been in the habit lately of at least 1 glass of wine a night. Aside from my creeping dependence issues, it makes me bloated, it makes me lethargic. And do I need another regular source of sugar in my diet? Though I might have to have a mimosa at brunch this weekend.

We're Baaaa-ack...

We had a fabulous trip to Florida!

We started with two days with my grandmother, which was a horror show. My grandmom is lovely and I enjoy her company, but, well, she's 83 and her house is absolutely not babyproofed. We turned her living room into our fortress, moved the furniture around, kept all the doors closed, put the knick-knacks away. We bought those Pea.pod travel beds for the girls just before the trip and they HATED them! Bedtime had them hysterical... they'd start to fall asleep, but the zipper on the top was so loud that zipping it would wake them up again. We were ECSTATIC to go to Zazie's sister KT's house. The girls had room to run around and a very patient dog to obsess over. Plus it was nice to hang out with all the sisters and husbands too.

And then...this happened:

The promised meetup with the girls' half-sibs and the donors family happened! We stayed with two of our favorite families for an entire week (the rest of the families came Thursday-Sunday). We first explored these connections because we wanted to foster them for our kids as they get older, but N & A and their 3 1/2 year old b/g twins, and A and her 2 1/2 year old daughter are friends. It was so nice to hang out with them and their kids this past week. Sweet kids, awesome parents, similar parenting styles.... everyone in our house was a joy. I just wish they all didn't live so far away. Of course, we enjoyed hanging out with the girls' grandmother and their aunts (donor's mom and sisters). The other families were nice to see too, though we probably won't go the extra mile to see any of them unless there's another big group meet up.

Our situation is so crazy unusual and I love it. The girls' aunt brought home videos featuring our donor and the rest of the family growing up. Their grandmother told us about growing up and told us lots of great stories about our donor. Toward the end of the weekend, we talked with their grandmother about trying to have another baby in the fall and she gave her blessing. We really weren't sure how she'd feel about it, though we were pretty sure her reaction would be positive- it's been a year since his death and there are still babies being conceived! She said that her son didn't get to be an organ donor, despite his wishes and her pleas at the hospital, because of the circumstances of his death (vehicular homicide), but she's happy that he will continue to help people.

We are sad to be away from our peeps, the sun, and the relaxation. We feel like we left NY with babies and came back with little kids! The girls seem to have gone through a developmental growth spurt. E. is almost caught up to R.'s number of words. Last night in the bathtub, I started to count to three... I said One.... and E. piped up with TWO! I even got her to say Three with coaxing. Seriously. Love my girls.