Four Corners Twinkies

Breakfast

2011-04-09T14:10:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

This is what a typical breakfast looks like in our household. I take this opportunity to do their hair, as they won't sit still long enough at any other time. Doug has taught them to be polite and ask about our days...

2011-04-03T20:13:00.002-06:00

Sandy here:

They love pictures, and thought that Doug was taking a picture, hence the long "cheeeeeese" in the middle of the video:

Happy Birthday!

2011-01-31T22:02:00.004-07:00

Sandy here:

Holy crap--the girls somehow turned 2 when I wasn't looking. Well, actually I was looking, just not believing. Here's a couple pictures from their early birthday celebration just after Christmas:

Tava getting into the whole present unwrapping thing:

And groovin' on the cupcake:

Analee loves the cupcake too!

Analee opening her own present and card:

Tava's Song

2010-12-30T18:54:00.003-07:00

Sandy here:

Okay, so I know I should be posting all sorts of holiday-type updates, and I will--I hope, but this happened the other day and I think it's my favorite video ever:

A couple things of note:

We were up in Denver over the holidays and had an early birthday celebration with Grandma Jeri. We sang the Birthday song twice. Other than that, they haven't really heard it (except for last year and maybe they sing it at daycare, but that certainly can't be that often).

Tava woke up from her nap early, we tried on some long underwear (a Christmas present) and then she decided she wanted to be naked. Although she does have socks on--it is winter after all.

The girls absolutely love their new kitchen--it was a Christmas present from Nama and Papa (my mom and dad)--I'm not sure what gender stereotypes we're reinforcing, but it is cute! And in my defense, they do have a truck with a mechanic.

Yes, Tava's diaper has duct tape on it. Otherwise she takes it off--not just when she's awake, but during her nap and sleep times. No duct tape = something I wouldn't subject non parents to. Duct tape = clean bed.

No, she does not have lip gloss on--she is just incredibly drooly right now (the joy of teeth)--I'm surprised you can't see a sheen of wet on her entire chest.

Indoctrination

2010-12-19T15:03:00.004-07:00

Sandy here:

They have already started to use this against Doug. The other night Tava was sitting in the kitchen, not brushing her teeth (her toothbrush was beside her as she investigated the properties of the random tupperware containers around her), Doug walked in and said "Tava, where's your toothbrush?" She looked startled, paused, then responded "Go Duke!"

It totally worked.

Road Trip!

2010-11-14T21:30:00.004-07:00

Sandy here:

This was taken from our road trip to Albuquerque a few weeks ago (or as the girls say "Abuguhguh"). I like this video because this is the girls' first joke--they came up with it all on their own. In addition, you'll note that Tava is not fully wearing her shirt--any chance she gets she loves to take her arm out of the sleeve and yes, it's usually the left one.

In this next video, the girls are eating bunny crackers. A game we play all the time is "What does the (fill in whatever animal here) say?" They are convinced that the bunny says bop, all because of the bunny foo foo song. Also, they love their babies, and they love undressing them.

It sure was an interesting 3 1/2 hours to Abuguhguh...

Chores

2010-10-03T21:06:00.002-06:00

Sandy here:

We've been trying to get the girls to clean up their toys before bedtime--with varying degrees of success. Some nights they are incredibly helpful and love to take direction, putting everything back where it belongs. Other nights they writhe (yes, literally) on the floor, screaming "NOOOOOOOOO! ! ! ! ! !" and refuse to help at all. Still other nights they think it funny to undo what the other is doing, resulting in a round robin of toys being put away and taken back out.

There is, however, one job that the girls love to do. Tava especially--probably because of her absolute crazy love for Miliya:

Now if only we could get them to do the dishes...

Boom! Ka Pow!

2010-09-30T21:53:00.015-06:00

Sandy here:

In the last couple weeks, we've experienced the beginnings of a language explosion. The girls have suddenly realized that EVERYTHING has a name--they will either name it for you or point to it so it can be named. Our drive home from daycare sounds something like this:

bie (bike)
buh bye bie
woof woof (dog)
car
bie
Hi (to the neighboring SUV at the stoplight next to us)
bie
eye
no (nose)
mou (mouth) (they love pointing to their facial body parts and naming them--on themselves and each other--so far we haven't had any eyes poked out -- yet)
bie
mik (sometimes they get milk in the car)
bie (we are in Durango after all)

I'm exhausted by the time we get home!

About a week ago they also realized that each sister has a name--Analee will point to Tava and say "Taba" (in fact, in the mornings when we go get them, she gets very excited and points to Tava in her crib saying "Taba, Taba, Taba") and Tava will point to Analee and say "Anlee" or sometimes "Alee." Soon Doug and I will be able to eavesdrop on their conversations over the baby monitor when they should be sleeping.

I'm huge into the garage sales these days, and I found this table and chairs for the girls. A little beat up, but they loved it and immediately decided it was the perfect place to read books:

I got some oilcloth and had a home improvement night, and now it's our stylish art table:

As you can see, the girls love stickers. The only thing they love more than putting stickers on the paper? Putting stickers on themselves:

Tava started it:

Analee had to be like her sister:

We went to a real pumpkin patch where the pumpkins were still on the vine. It's on a ranch/farm near us, and the girls got to see goats:

Tava discovered she loves lemonade:

We have also started taking the girls hiking. Not in backpacks (they've done that for a while), but actually letting them hike up the trail. Well, if by hiking you mean managing to get 50 yards or so up the trail...They love it, but it's important to remember when we go that it is in no way about exercise--it's all about the experience.

Analee has a new job with the Rock Relocation Service (RRS) and she takes her job very seriously. I don't think there is a single rock on any of the trails we've been on that hasn't been affected by the RRS. And Tava, well, let's just say that there is no danger of dehydration with her (as evidenced from the photo above). About every ten steps she'll stop and turn to me demanding "Wah wah" (I'm usually the sherpa). She even says "Aaaahhhh" when she's finished.

Tava also has a new job--she loves to clean. She is very demanding after mealtimes asking for "a wie" (a wipe) so she can clean herself and her spot. When she gets out of her highchair she likes to wipe the floor. Recently, she saw me with our portable broom/dustpan and insisted on using it:

And finally, a little bedtime routine craziness--don't you always brush your teeth while playing with a balance ball?

Yet Another Game

2010-08-06T14:04:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

The girls still love peekaboo (I have visions of them being in high school and me saying "Where's Tava?" although then I don't think it will be as funny--there might be grounding involved), and they have a new twist on the classic. Watch carefully and you will also see some crazy dancing (aka jumping). You will also notice a large shoe in the video--that's mine. The girls love to cart our shoes around, sometimes making us wear them, sometimes wearing them as their own handshoes and sometimes trying to wear and walk with them on their feet.

These sorts of games/interactions happen at our house on a regular basis, but usually by the time I try to capture it, the girls have moved on to hair pulling, toy stealing, or their new favorite: "almost" biting.

I especially like Tava's crazy laughter--you sure wouldn't want to meet her in the jungle alone at night!

Teaser

2010-07-30T21:58:00.002-06:00

Ah...vacation. More to come...

They Walk!

2010-06-02T16:18:00.002-06:00

Sandy here:

So, Analee took her first steps mid-April and her sister followed a few days later. Once Analee discovered that walking would allow her nearly unprecedented hoarding capability she was all for it. She quickly decided that crawling was so "last week." Tava on the other hand, took her first steps and decided it was too much work--crawling was much faster and there was no possibility of falling. Don't get me wrong--she loved to walk--just with help. "Fingers" we would call it. She would sit on the floor, stretch her arms up and scream "Uhhhhhh" until we would walk with her. Finally a couple weeks ago she realized she didn't need us after all. As is the case with the 2nd child doing something, it took me a little while to get video of it.

This video is a good slice into the girls' world.

1. They love Miliya--especially Tava. And Miliya does very well with them.
2. You can never just do something with one girl--the other one always likes to get involved.
3. The best toy is WHATEVER MY SISTER HAS.

No honest, 5 seconds after this video was done, they were okay. (I admit though, I did feel a bit like Kate of Jon & Kate plus 8 near the end...)

Impossibility

2010-05-16T20:29:00.004-06:00

Sandy here:

I'm posting this video not only because I think it's cute (the girls both love this yellow chair), but because it shows three important things:

1. The impossibility of filming anything--once the camera is introduced it all changes. (Tava had been sitting in her chair taking apart the plastic ball and putting it together, with some good grunts and facial expressions).
2. The girls outgrew their Duke wear, so Daddy came to the rescue with National Champion t-shirts.
3. Even though our front room is totally overrun with baby toys, we do have them listen to cool adult music.

It's just a matter of time before they demand their own ipod.

Another Fun Game (with Daddy this time)

2010-05-14T11:19:00.006-06:00

Sandy here:

As you can see from this video, Tava loves to control her environment. I love her "hug" near the end. You can also see that we've given up all pretense that the front room is actually an adult room.

Who knew we had such a powerful daughter?

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T19:47:00.013-06:00

Sandy here:

Last year for Father's Day we met another family in town and had brunch. The girls were angels--stayed in their carseats for about an hour (napped a bit) and then sat calmly on our laps when we took them out.

Fast forward eleven months. The girls are at a fun age, but also a challenging one--they are old enough to be very mobile and have very well defined wills, but young enough to not take direction. (I'm sure we'll be able to rely on them taking direction by oh, say, college.) So when these same friends we had Father's Day brunch with last year suggested that we go out to brunch, my first thought was "Great! That would be fun!" and my next thought was "That means we have approximately 30 minutes to sit down, order, eat and converse before the girls decide they're done, squirm out of their highchairs (who designs the highchairs in restaurants?) and throw a tantrum (yes, we're in that fun phase as well)." So instead we had people over to our house. Doug was in charge of everything and I pretty much just had to show up. The day was gorgeous--our first real "summery" feeling kind of day. We even had our friends Jonny and Corey from Denver make an impromptu appearance.

Partway through brunch we realized that it was getting hot and still very sunny--we needed a hat intervention. What's the natural hat to wear on Mother's Day? Sombreros of course.

Even Daddy got in on the hat action:

The girls love their new playground:

During brunch there started to be much talk of our little fiberglass trailer. To make a very long story short, Doug and I purchased a trailer several years ago. It was in horrible shape (think green inside and not from the paint) so we gutted it and started over. Our intentions were good, and we made great progress although it took a long time to get anything done. However, as soon as we found out we were having twins, we realized that the trailer was going to be too small for our family. And so it sat, incomplete and unused, on our driveway. Once it got parked there after the move, it never made it out of the driveway. Until today.

Jonny and Corey are now the proud owners of the little guy:

And I'm reminded of the old saying (modified a bit)--you know the two happiest days in a trailer owner's life? The day he buys it and the day he sells it.

I had a fabulous Mother's Day--best wishes to all the mothers out there!

New Favorite Game

2010-05-06T09:21:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

Just a quick video--this is the girls' new favorite game.

The funny thing is that they don't switch places. It's always Analee outside, Tava inside. They love this game so much that if Tava starts to do the "pop up" thing and Analee is across the room (even if she's doing something fun) she will stop what she's doing and go over to play with Tava. Also, Tava is always the one to end the game. By the way, the sound you hear in the background is our dryer--gotta love small houses!

Swingin' Sisters

2010-04-03T15:43:00.001-06:00

Sandy here:

Bad Bunny

2010-03-27T19:14:00.023-06:00

Sandy here:

We put the girls to bed about half an hour ago. They are really starting to "talk" to each other and there was about 20 minutes of chatting, then Tava fell asleep (she usually falls asleep first and wakes up second), so now Analee has been talking to herself, as well as trying to move the crib and use the wall as a drum. She's not upset, just being really funny. Anyway. . .

Today we went to the mall to get the girls' picture taken with the Easter Bunny. They did well at Christmastime with Santa. Apparently big guy with white beard okay, big white bunny not....

Tava had a complete meltdown, and Analee was fine until we tried to get a photo of her alone:

Then we tested out our new backpacks--it has been a long winter--Doug and I couldn't wait to do something springlike. The girls had a great time--they got to see several dogs (they call them "da" and wave at them). I had Tava and Doug had Analee:

Analee--lulled to sleep by Daddy's gait:

Tava--awake and excited about seeing all the "das":

Recently I acquired a special "twin" set of camp chairs. I finally brought them in and the girls love them. They can kill lots of time getting into the chair, getting out of the chair, getting into the chair, getting out of the chair....

(note the cupholders--they will be perfect this summer for kickin' back in the yard and enjoying a cold one)

Analee can also whittle away hours now that she has discovered books. This is one of her favorite positions:

She goes and gets a book, comes over, climbs into my lap, helps me read it by turning the pages, goes to get another book...We can do this for a long time. In fact, on Friday I kept track of the books I read in this manner (we only had a few available in the front room where this was happening--most of the books are kept in their room):

Maisy Drives -- 10 times
Global Babies -- 8 times
But Not the Hippopotamus-- 7 times
Counting Kisses-- 3 times

Tava isn't as into the books, although sometimes she will listen while I read them to her sister, and she does like the touch n feel ones. What she is into these days is ANYTHING Analee has (with the exception of books). Thank goodness she has a sister around to point out how cool all the toys are. If I could get inside their heads, this is what I think Tava would be thinking:

What should I play with? We don't really have anything fun or cool, or, hey--why is Analee playing with the beep-beep? That's MY beep-beep! Get off of that!

This is usually followed by a lunge at her sister, fangs bared, in an attempt to get what Tava perceives as rightfully hers.

I spend a lot of time regulating these days.

And finally, a nod to Doug's team who is alive to fight another day:

Just a Regular Day

2010-03-17T20:51:00.009-06:00

Sandy here:

This past weekend we were hanging out on Saturday morning. We decided to shoot some video--the following three videos are in order and are just a small taste of "hangin' with the twinkies". They were shot within about 15 minutes of each other. Tava was recovering from a cold, so she's not in prime movie form.

Analee thought Miliya dancing was one of the funniest things she had seen:

Even though Analee is the focus of this next one, you get a good sense of some of the chaos in our house:

Tava working with single minded determination. If you pay careful attention to the end, you can just see Doug's foot stopping Analee from running into Tava with the beep-beep:

Phew! I'm tired just watching those!

Future Careers, Scary Version

2010-03-10T20:49:00.011-07:00

Sandy here:

Lately the girls have exhibited a new ability. One they love and are quite good at, although to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this is the career I want our girls to aspire to:

The Bear

2010-01-31T21:16:00.002-07:00

Sandy here:

I know I have to post Christmas and Birthday pictures, but in the meantime, here's a video of the girls with one of their favorite toys. They have had this toy since they were only a few months old.

I can't wait to reciprocate to the bear giver...

Skiing

2009-12-13T19:34:00.008-07:00

Doug:

Did you notice all of my posts involve things that I already like to do that I involve the girls in? That's how I view parenthood, I'm raising a support crew. But for now, I have to push or pull them everywhere.

Saturday's experiment was cross-country skiing. We have a very nice golf course here in Durango that grooms a cross country course/track once the snow flies. It's a good way to stave off cabin fever during the long winter here; in a good year we can get 3 months of skiing in and I can do a good workout at lunch. So when we were looking at buying a jogging stroller/bike trailer, I wanted to get one that could also serve as a cross country ski sled. This way we can ski at the golf course with the girls and even take them on some mellow backcountry or hut trips. So this fall we bought the ski attachment for the Chariot and turned me into a draft animal.

Here are the photos. The girls seemed to have a great time. It was about 25 degrees and cloudy, but no sign they got cold. I don't know how they could have gotten cold wearing everything they were wearing. Tava actually fell asleep and was sleeping so deeply it scared Sandy; she had to check her to make sure she was really breathing.

"Let's do another lap!!!"

Momma didn't have to pull

Parenthood in Durango.

It's a one-Doug open sleigh.

Sandy took some video that we'll try and get up later.

Winter girls

2009-12-09T20:58:00.008-07:00

Hi, Doug here:

Okay, long time readers will remember this picture from last winter when the girls were like 3 weeks old:

However, now that they're a bit older, we can really enjoy the winter and begin the process of training them for the 2034 and 2038 Winter Olympic Games. They have to get used to being bundled up, of course, so we took them out for a jog in the Chariot last weekend in their fleecy hats and Patagucci jackets. The temp was about 25 degrees and overcast, but they seemed to handle it well:

And then on Tuesday we got about 30 feet of snow in Durango (okay, it was 18 inches) and Sandy and the girls got to enjoy a snow day from work. Sandy bundled them up in their "climbing Mount Everest" outfits (complete with goggles for that harsh glare off the snow) and took them out to hang out in the snow. They were kind of like the kid from A Christmas Story that couldn't put his arms down, but they had a good time sitting and checking it all out:

The plan now is to take them cross country skiing in the jogging stroller this weekend. The ski track has been laid at the golf course and we're jonesing to get out on the snow. Look for a follow-up next week.

Look at them go!

2009-12-09T11:03:00.009-07:00

Sandy here:

This morning was so fun with the girls, I had to capture some of it on video. They get so proud of themselves when they accomplish something:

I see even more chasing in my near future.

Inside Outside

2009-11-21T20:04:00.003-07:00

Sandy here:

The other day I was home playing with the girls. Most of the time when they actually play "together" it's about stealing toys or parallel play. In this video though they seem to actually be playing with each other.

They're so mobile that sometimes it's about containment. This was Tava's turn in Pack 'n' Play jail.

Fast Forward

2009-11-11T10:57:00.013-07:00

Sandy here:

I keep intending to write a blog post and upload videos, then a couple days pass, and I realize that what I was going to write no longer applies. Initially, it seemed like someone had hit the "pause" button--our life consisted of feeding babies, changing babies' diapers, swaddling babies, putting babies to sleep, and trying to stop babies' crying. That seemed like it went on forever--we were in a holding pattern. Then one day someone hit the "play" button--maybe right around 3 months. Here we were, merrily going along--recording firsts times two--first smile, first laugh, first rollover, all with plenty of time in between. Then in the last month or so, someone hit the "fast forward" button. Almost every day something new happens. We went from struggling to crawl around Labor Day to zooming around the house, and now both babies are all about the standing up. Analee will use anything to stand up--the couch, exersaucer, crib, sliding glass door, dryer, cabinet. . . Tava had the flu and then a double ear infection (ouch!) so she had a couple weeks where she didn't want to do much of anything but be held. She's making up for lost time though and is not too far behind her sister in her standing prowess. Analee has started "cruising" a bit and I'm sure Tava will soon. They are still an easy audience and think everything we do is hilarious (don't worry, we'll remind them of this when they're 12 and think we're embarrassing and incredibly unfunny). The other big arena where they are turning into little people is with food. We have gone from the strained baby food to self-feeding. In fact, the girls will only tolerate so much food being fed to them before they start to get annoyed and want to feed themselves. They love yogurt, cheese, avocado, carrots, broccoli, chocolate, beer (kidding kidding). But seriously. . . every day I'm not sure what fun and funny thing they are going to do next.

Grandma and Grandpa just came for a visit (again--they were here in September) and the girls love getting bites of Grandpa's banana--pretty impressive that he can wrangle 2 babies, a banana and a spoon (Tava left, Analee right):

Sporting their Brother's Bar t-shirts. Start 'em young!(Analee left, Tava right)

Happy Halloween! With their friend Cypress, the ladybug (this picture was taken right before Analee--on the left--attempted to grab onto one of Cypress's antennae)

There's always lots of rasslin' going on in our house:

Good oral hygiene is very important: (Tava left, Analee right)

Tava says "mmm...avocado"

But would Analee use her powers for good? Or evil?

My new favorite thing they do--both stand up in the crib (Analee left, Tava right)

Will our blog still count as a family-friendly blog now that this picture is posted? (Tava left, Analee right)

Here Piggy Piggy

2009-10-24T15:10:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

So, Doug and I had great plans to update the blog this weekend. The girls have been doing so many fun and new things in such rapid succession, it's been hard to keep up with them! Well, the best laid plans of mice and men. . .

We're pretty sure Doug has the flu. It came on in the middle of the night last night. And not just the seasonal variety, no we're pretty convinced that he has full blown swine flu. So, needless to say, our fun blog will have to wait. Cross fingers that the girls stay well or have a mild bout.

Perfect Fall Day

2009-10-03T19:59:00.002-06:00

Sandy here:

Today was one of those crisp clear Colorado days where you know that summer is gone and winter is coming, but for the moment, you're just so happy for it to be fall. We took the girls to a local park and had some good clean twin fun:

If their career as swimmers doesn't pan out, they can always swing for money.

Future Careers

2009-09-28T21:18:00.005-06:00

Sandy here:

The girls are in daycare these days, so for 3 days a week someone else gets to watch their antics, and we only get reports. Today I picked them up (Doug does the drop off, I do the pick up) and their caregiver told me that both Tava and Analee learned a new trick--albeit different ones.

Analee has learned how to unscrew the tops of her bottles and pour out her milk (my milk!).

Tava has learned to squeeze the liners of her bottles (we use these kind) and make the milk squirt out of the nipple creating a fountain effect.

Needless to say, the girls came home in their back-up outfits and I was handed a plastic bag full of wet clothes.

I think we have a scientist and an engineer on our hands.

Where Did You Go?

2009-09-22T20:50:00.008-06:00

Sandy here:

So, I could give all sorts of excuses about not writing in oh, like, forever, but the biggest one is this--I no longer have stationary babies! You might think the title of this blogpost refers to my lack of blogging, but in actuality it refers to the fact that the girls are no longer where I place them. Gone are the days of cute little chatty houseplants--I now have roamers. They are both crawling (although with different styles)! Video to follow soon (we have filled up the stick that stores our pictures, and getting a new one implies errands, so needless to say that hasn't happened yet), but here are a couple recent pics:

Tava says "Mom, bibs are for babies":

We just woke up from our nap

Look! Babies in the zoo!

Analee, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake:

The Power of the Belly

2009-08-05T08:32:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

Our girls are rolling over, and the funny part is that Analee is better at the tummy to back rolling, but guess who LOVES to sleep on her tummy? Yep, Tava. And guess who wakes up freaked out that she somehow ended up on her tummy and completely can't remember how to get off it? Yep, Tava. So right now several times a night I have to go in and roll her back (and usually feed her because she's gotten so upset).

We are all looking forward to her learning how to roll onto her back without thinking about it.

Anti-Soother No More

2009-07-23T07:05:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

Those of you who are regular readers of our blog may remember that a while ago Doug posted about his less than soothing ability with the girls at bedtime. Well, recently the shoe was on the other foot (Tava is on the left and Analee is on the right):

I don't really sing the boogaly boo song anymore. . .

Swimming!!!

2009-07-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

Doug-

The other day I found out that my friend LaRae's 8 year old son swims faster than me. By quite a bit. I could work my tail off and still not match his 100 meter time. And the thing is, he wasn't even the fastest 8 year old in his swim meet.

Anybody who knows anything about my triathlon hobby knows that the swim is a big challenge for me. I consider it a successful swim in a tri as long as I don't drown. So far, so good. Now this year I have actually hired a swim coach and she has helped me with my technique over the course of 5 or 6 lessons. The result is that I now have a much prettier, more efficient swim stroke in which to cover the exact same ground in the exact same time. It's too bad there are no style points in triathlon.

In an attempt to avoid having our daughters go through this kind of embarrassment when they are 40, we have started taking them swimming at the ripe age of 5 months. Sandy noticed that our rec center offers a "Mommy and Me" swim class for infants and insisted we sign up for June (of course when you have twins, "Mommy and Me" becomes "Mommy and Daddy and Me and Her"). However, when we showed up, we were bummed to learn that we were the only people signed up (they usually cancel classes if they don't get enough participants, but they told us they must have forgotten to cancel on us). So instead we got a semi-private lesson with the swim instructor which was fine and all, but apparently with big groups they do songs and games and lots of fun stuff that just didn't work with 2 babies. Oh well.

In any event, the girls had a great time and they have been going to the pool 1 or 2 times a week since. They have been dunked in the water, have spit up in the pool and even stick their faces in themselves sometimes. They really like the bubbles and the swirling water in the hot tub (never more than 5 minutes!!!!) and think the pool is awesome across the board. I'm just hoping in 8 years they aren't faster than me.

P.S. When I started this post I thought we had more than 3 pictures of them swimming, but it turns out we don't. As Sandy explained, when there are two of us and two of them, it doesn't leave any hands left over for the camera. You can't just let them float on their own, they haven't gotten that good in the water. We'll get some more soon.

Sleeping Again, Redux

2009-07-15T07:40:00.008-06:00

Sandy here:

Since I posted my last entry about the girls and their crib positions, I have captured a few more pictures. All of these are actual positions I found them in when they woke up in the morning:

But this is my favorite so far (maybe they'll be wrestlers when they grow up):

And finally--a bedtime video. They had been changed into their sleepers, but were still in such a good mood I put them into their crib to play.

Watching them interact like this makes all that extra work worth it.

Sleeping, Again

2009-07-07T13:00:00.001-06:00

Sandy here:

So, we haven't written about sleep in a while. At least in our opinion, sleep became the most important thing to figure out. I mean, you can live for a while without food (besides, isn't that what Wendy's is for?) and showering and reading and socializing, but sleep? For the first few months, Doug and I would obsess about sleep -- ours and the babies. The girls had a few reflux issues and got some bad colds this winter so the jiggly chairs turned out to be at the perfect angle for their little digestive systems and noses. Well, this was all great, but we knew we would need to get them back in the crib. We made the transition almost a month ago (right around the time Tava started doing this) and it's been funny, to say the least. We put them down parallel to each other and parallel to the short sides of the crib (can you tell I'm a math teacher?). Tava is always on the left as you're looking in the crib (Analee's right).

Inevitably, when we go in to get them in the morning, this is what we find:

In fact, some nights Analee has woken up because Tava woke up and started kicking her in the face. Analee deals with this all pretty well though, I think she thinks of it as her "big sister" duty to put up with Tava. For a long time, all Analee would do when we put her to sleep was raise her arms up in a "don't shoot me, I give up" gesture. Now, she's taking cues from her sister:

Some of you might be wondering why we don't just separate them into their own cribs. One night we tried putting them on opposite ends of the crib (since we only have one crib set up right now) and we had potentially the worst night of sleep EVER from Tava -- she was so upset and couldn't get settled. As soon as she fell asleep, she would wake up and be upset again. We speculate that it's because she wasn't touching her sister (and while she's very good at scooching around in a circle, actual forward or backward motion still eludes her), and I just don't have the heart to make her so upset again so soon. Analee is learning the meaning of "sacrifice for the greater good."

My Garden

2009-06-30T11:00:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

So, despite what we post, our life is not all about babies--there's at least 10% dedicated to other pursuits. As some of you might know, I'm a big fan of gardening. For several years my efforts at gardening have been thwarted, but last summer I was determined to start the great "Yard Beautification Project of 2008." The house we bought has a pretty decent size backyard, but it has suffered through years of neglect. The previous owners were very nice, but quite elderly, and the only gardening they would do consisted of having their children mow the weeds and dirt--oh, and collect tires. Every time I looked out into our backyard, I gave a sigh. Last summer, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Nevermind the fact that I was healing from the Great Femur Break of 2008 and had just found out about the Twin Experiment--the garden must be done!

Sandy's Garden

Now, on to the other 70% of our yard. . .

Our Little Lady

2009-06-22T20:17:00.002-06:00

Sandy here:

I can't seem to help myself--almost every day I find myself taking video after video. This latest one was taken a few days ago, and I like that it showcases Tava's incredibly ladylike behavior:

This is how she's going to get all the guys. I know it.

Growing Up

2009-06-18T07:16:00.005-06:00

Sandy here:

I discovered the Movie Maker program on my computer and have been having lots of fun with it. It helps that the girls are getting to the age where they are doing "fun" things.

Behold, Analee:

This is really the first big milestone where there's no doubt about the exact time it happened. Smiling? Maybe it's just gas until suddenly you realize it's not, although you can't really pinpoint an exact time they realized smiling was fun. Laughing? Slightly easier, but some of those first laughs were very subtle. But this! No doubt at all!

Tava is not rolling over yet, at least not on a flat surface, but she has decided that the jiggly chair makes a perfect platform for attempting to roll over:

As a result of Tava's antics, they are transitioning to the crib (for a while they weren't sleeping in the crib due to reflux issues and incredibly stuffy noses--they can't blow their noses when their arms are swaddled!).

And finally, proof positive that Doug really is the funny one:

Is there anything better than baby laughter?

May Slideshow

2009-06-15T09:01:00.001-06:00

Doug-

We haven't done a slideshow in some time, so we are due. (Warning, baby cliches coming in 3 .... 2 .... 1....)

We continue to take way too many pictures to post and the girls continue to get cuter and cuter every day and do new things. May marked the beginning of lots of laughing for one thing, and then at the end of the month they started to reach for stuff, something that is both exciting and concerning. They have developed very good head control and can sit very well with assistance, but they aren't quite able to sit on their own yet. They seem to be a bit away from rolling over, but tummy time is less aggravating to them (quick update--since we wrote this post, Analee has rolled from tummy to back!). And they really recognize us now. Finally, they seem to have recently started to really notice Miliya and like to watch her when she's near. She of course wants to lick them and is very interested, but I foresee the day coming soon when they start chasing after her and she wants a little privacy.

Anyway, here is the slideshow from May:

Tava and Analee April and May 2009

The Anti-Soother

2009-06-12T19:00:00.000-06:00

Doug-

There is a new development in our home that is extremely frustrating to me. Let me begin by explaining one thing that is different about having twins: feedings and bedtime are much more complicated and it really helps to have two players. I didn't realize this was different until we were talking to some friends that have a similarly aged baby. I asked the father if he participated in most feedings and he said, "no, it's not really a two person job." And I think he's right, when you have one baby the second person is kind of superfluous. But with twins, it's not. In fact, feeding two babies is pretty hard if you're by yourself because you need to burp both at the same time or feed one while burping the other or some combination of these activities. It's quite a juggling trick. Putting them down to bed is even harder when you throw in soothing and swaddling; it really is a two person job.

Now Sandy of course is by herself during the day and she has to feed the girls three times and also handle naps all by herself. It's really very impressive how well she does it, you'd think she had four hands or something. Nonetheless, she really appreciates having a second set of hands (mine) to help with the first and last feedings of the day, especially at bedtime. Unfortunately, for some reason we do not understand, lately I seem to have become the ...

ANTI-SOOTHER

That's right, if you have a perfectly happy baby at bedtime, just give her to me and I will manage to make her cry in no time, by doing nothing more than just holding and trying to burp her or soothe her to sleep. It works every time. Quiet baby, falling asleep, give to Dad, crying starts. Give her back to Sandy, and voila ... no more crying. And we can't figure out why, because I do everything just like Sandy does (minus the boob part). It's not like I'm poking them or bending their elbows the wrong way or anything; I just seem to exude an anti-soothe vibe. Here is a visual demonstration:

Daddy is going to soothe you:

No, Mommy is going to soothe you:

Now I joke about this, but it actually is extremely frustrating right now because I feel like I don't really help with bedtime. Right now I'm kind of a placeholder. Sandy gives me Tava while she swaddles and soothes Analee. I walk Tava around and try to keep her from completely melting down until Analee is down, and then I hand her off to Sandy to finish up. It's pretty pathetic.

But they do laugh more with me. I guess it works like this:

Mom = Nourishment + Comfort + Safety.

Dad = Comic relief.

Memorial Day Trip

2009-06-11T08:30:00.001-06:00

Doug-

On the heels of our successful first road trip to Denver in April, we took another trip to Denver over Memorial Day weekend. Usually we stay in Durango over Memorial Day weekend; for several years it was because Sandy's school had their graduation that weekend and I would ride the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. However, this year my friend Diana was getting married on Saturday of Mem. Day weekend, so we thought that would make it a good time to introduce the girls to the pleasures of a 6.5 hour drive through the Colorado mountains. This was all before we had to make the unscheduled trip in April.

Now last time we made the drive in one day, leaving Durango at around 1:00 with the plan to stop for a nursing/diaper stop in Villa Grove, CO, the closest thing to halfway on this drive. As a point of reference, the metropolis of Villa Grove is about 100 yards long and has a population of maybe 50 people. There is a family style restaurant, a bed and breakfast and the Villa Grove Trade and coffee shop. Here is a website that gives you some perspective on Villa Grove: http://www.sangres.com/colorado/saguache/villagrove.htm. The pictures in the website are pretty much all of the town, other than some random houses and trailers. Villa Grove is small and isolated, even by Colorado standards. But the Villa Grove Trade is an awesome little general store/cafe (the "Trade") with an attached coffee shop and three room motel (in the pictures, it's the "Inn at Villa Grove"). Well on the first trip we arrived in Villa Grove at about 4:30 only to discover that the Trade was closed. However, there was someone standing in the door of the attached coffee shop talking on her phone, so we kind of assumed the coffee shop must be open and so we just went barging in with our car seats and babies. Well it turns out the someone was "Jessie" and she and her Mom and Dad own and run the Trade and the coffee shop and the "Inn" and it also turns out the coffee shop was closed too (they close at 4:00 in the winter), but Jessie was great and she let us hang out on the couch and feed and change the babies anyway while she closed down. Her Mom, Amber came over after a little bit and we all chatted about babies and stuff and had a good time. They were so gracious that we have vowed to always stop there in the future whenever they are open. It is a great little place and they have started to recognize us as well (who are we kidding--they recognize the babies).

Anyway, for this trip we decided to make it a two day trip, with an overnight at the Villa Grove Inn. This turned out to be something of a headache when you factor in getting in late, feeding babies and trying to get them down in a strange place, then doing a morning feeding and then getting food for ourselves. It was not an efficient operation for the most part. And of course, as soon as she got done with her evening meal at the motel, Tava decided to have a meltdown. I am very self-conscious about the babies crying and bothering other people, so I got really stressed seeing how we were in a small motel with people on each side of us at 11:00 p.m. I ended up taking her out to the car to cry and, after 15 minutes, found myself driving up a very dark highway towards Salida in my pajamas at 11:30 in an attempt to calm her down. I was looking forward to explaining this one to the state patrol officer if I got pulled over. The next morning we discovered that we were sharing the motel with a big group of kids from Colgate College who were on a trip for a geology class. It was funny seeing a bunch of New York kids trying to get a grip on a place like Villa Grove; they were concerned by the fact that the nearest liquor store was 25 miles away in Saguache and that it didn't really keep regular hours.

We did make it to Denver eventually and, in keeping with the times, Analee refused to take her afternoon nap. That evening (Friday) we went to a BBQ hosted by the wedding couple and this time it was Analee's turn to meltdown, which was a serious drag as it kept us from really being able to socialize much. On Saturday morning I went up to Boulder to ride the bike course for the Boulder Peak Triathlon with Derek. That evening we went to the wedding while Sandy's parents and Scott and Molly babysat. This was the first time Sandy had ever been away for bedtime, but she probably only called home about 5 or 6 times over the 5 hours we were gone. Being the crazy partyers we are, we stayed at the wedding until about 10:00 or so before heading home.

Sunday I spent most of the day hanging out with my Mom and then on Sunday afternoon Scott and Molly hosted a very cool BBQ that allowed us to see a bunch of Denver folks. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and the party mostly took place indoors, but the girls did well and got held a lot. The next day I got up early and ran the Bolder Boulder (see below), and then on the way out of town, we stopped in for brunch with our friends John and Diane. They have twin boys, aged 13, so it was fun to see them interact with the girls.

Anyway, it was good trip, and the girls are great roadtrippers. Here are some photos:

Hanging with Grandma and Grandpa Gilpin.

Aunt Molly and Cousin Audrey.

Uncle Scott

Nate and Di's wedding.

Derek and Jen

Twins holding Twins

Diane with Tava

My Mom with Analee

This Post

2009-06-09T08:07:00.002-06:00

Is brought to you by Analee and the letter "O":

For her next trick, she will sing the entire alphabet...

Milk Wars

2009-06-04T21:00:00.000-06:00

Doug - Point

The photo above is a look at the breast milk stockpile that Sandy has insisted we build up in case of some kind of national emergency or something. I think Sandy is worried that all of a sudden we will discover we actually have triplets and will start running a deficit. Please understand that, at current manufacturing capacity, there is no danger of running a deficit anytime soon. In short, Sandy is, shall we say, very productive. Usually she feeds both babies five or six times a day (it's an impressive operation) and then she also usually pumps an additional 10 to 15 ounces in the morning. This all gets frozen. Now on occasion we may go through 6 to 8 ounces of our stock every three days or so for whatever reason (i.e. late night feedings where I don't want to wake her), but never can I think of a time when we have actually used 15 ounces of pumped milk in a day. And of course on the occasions we have to bottle feed, Sandy's boobs don't know it, so they keep producing. And, you guessed it, she has to just pump an extra time, usually another 10 ounces.

So do the math, and you will see what is happening. In short, very soon now we will have to either give up on having any frozen food in the house or we'll need to get a commercial freezer for the garage. We have milk dating back to early April. I have tried to get her to just get rid of some of it, but you would think I asked her to just get rid of one of the babies. It's truly bizarre, this whole breast feeding thing.

Sandy - Counterpoint

Okay, first off, let me correct something--I am not insisting that we build up this stockpile, it just happens. I have to take care of business from a comfort standpoint, and the result is the lovely picture above. And yes, the entire top of the freezer is now devoted to "my stash." While things are good right now, I do have those thoughts of "What if it all stops? And Doug THREW AWAY the yummy goodness the girls could be eating?!?" Now, I realize this argument has overtones of "There's starving people in Africa, so eat your green beans," but it just seems wrong to get rid of something that for some women is very hard to make.

In addition, I have not been secret about the fact that I would like to have a whole separate freezer (we had one growing up--maybe it's a Gilpin thing, I'm not sure). Not only would it be good for all this milk, but once we buy our quarter grass-fed cow from James Ranch (or some other local ranch) we will have a good place to store him (or her I suppose). Building up this milk supply might help tip things in my favor--I see a scouting trip to Home Depot in our near future.

But the biggest reason I don't want to get rid of the milk is that I'm in training for the Milk Olympics and I'm going to win!

Running and Stuff

2009-06-03T21:40:00.005-06:00

Doug-

The moment I've been waiting for ever since we found out about the Twinkies; I finally got to break out the Chariot and go for a run.

It works very well for the most part, and the girls seem to like it. Only two trips so far, but both resulted in a good workout, sleeping babies and Mom got a much needed break.

So needless to say, my training opportunities this year have suffered due to a lack of sleep and a lack of time. Sandy originally gave me a hall pass to try and do a Half-Ironman triathlon in Boulder this summer (same one I did two years ago) and I have been giving it a valiant try, but last week it became apparent that it probably wasn't going to happen. I just can't get out consistently to ride or swim, at least not at the levels I was hoping for (or need to do for a Half-Iron). So my goals have been tempered somewhat; I am still going to do an Olympic distance tri in Boulder with Derek in July (the Boulder Peak), but that's about it. Should still be fun, and my training volume can be about half.

As for the year so far, I have been able to run a bit, but not consistently. I did a 5K in town in February and ran a 22:03; I was pretty happy with that. Then I did the local sprint tri and discovered that it really does help to actually train on the bike before doing the bike. That was pretty much a disaster. Then I paced Scott in the Cherry Creek Sneak (5 miles) to a 44:12 finish. I followed that up with a local "10K" trail run on Mother's Day. I did that one 2 years ago and was just hoping to beat my previous time of 51:14. I wore Sandy's GPS watch and by the time I hit the 4 mile mark I was pretty pissed off because I was way behind my goal time; I was at 43 or 44 minutes or something and wasn't sure I would come in in under an hour. I started to come up with all kinds of excuses for why I had fallen so far off my form from 2007 when I realized that the course was just about to rejoin the road and there was actually only about .25 mile to the finish ... at 4.75 miles. Turns out the course is actually about 5.1 miles, not 6.1 and I beat my 2007 time by 16 seconds (50:58). Now here's the thing, I know it's a trail run and the distances are not going to be exact, but come on. If its a 5.1 mile course, call it a 5 mile run, not a 10K. Finally, I did the Bolder Boulder on Memorial Day and surprised myself with a 44:58. This was just 6 seconds slower than my PR for that race which I apparently set in 1998. Oddly enough, I have zero memory of that day. Anyway, not bad for a 40 year old, I just wish I had known I was so close; I might have been able to find another 6 seconds somewhere. The highlight of the Bolder Boulder, however, was Derek running it in his Santa suit.

Now I'm trying to decide if I am capable of running a Half Marathon in 2 weeks with the jogging stroller. Thoughts?

Great lines to start a conversation

2009-05-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

Doug here:

So Sandy looks at me the other day and says, "Have I ever told you the story about my dad and the prostitute?"

(It's not what you think, she was referring to the time she heard the word on TV at age seven and he had to explain to her what it meant).

Which was only topped by the time my friend Lisa was interning as a victim's advocate for the Denver Police Department and told me, "I had to miss out on a double homicide because my Dad was graduating from clown school that day."

That one was just like it sounded.

Sisters

2009-05-20T18:00:00.001-06:00

Doug:

So the other night the girls seemed to really start looking at each other for the first time. We were sitting next to each other, each burping a baby, and they just started staring at each other. And then Tava broke into this big grin (we call them Tava-smiles, they take up her whole face). It looked like she was thinking, "Hey, you look fun, we should play sometime."

Analee's expression said something like, "Who the hell are you and why are you in my room?"

I don't know if this is foreshadowing their relationship as teenagers.

Recognition

2009-05-18T21:00:00.003-06:00

Doug here,

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything, I haven't felt like I had much to say. I know most people that know me probably have a hard time believing that, but it's true. This baby stuff all seems so cliche when you talk about it, but most of it is true. The short of it is, the first 8 weeks were hard. Really hard. And I didn't find it all that rewarding. Or that fun. And I don't know how much the twin thing magnified all of this, but I'm pretty sure it was considerable. Our pediatrician (a mother of twins herself) has a great saying: one child is a hobby, two kids are a job (I don't even want to think about three).

Anyway, things got a lot better around week 8. The girls started sleeping better for one thing, and as everybody knows, that helps a lot. But more importantly, they started to get really cute and, even more, they started reacting to the world around them and began to recognize us. Then they started smiling. Then about two weeks ago, we got our first laughs. Well they've got me now. There are still moments, of course, but now I see the attraction.

Anyway, just thought I'd say hi. Here's my new favorite photo:

First Road Trip

2009-05-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

Sandy here:

A couple weeks ago we had to make an unscheduled trip up to Denver. I've learned another important rule about babies--the smaller they are, the more stuff they require. We loaded up our Land Cruiser with just the essentials (clothes for me, Doug and 2 babies, diapers, wipes, 2 jiggly chairs, 1 swing, clock, baby monitor, diaper bag, 2 boppies, 1 twin nursing pillow...) and took off. The girls did great and Doug and I had lots of fun (for the most part) riding with them. Audrey had a good time with her cousins--she sometimes calls them "cousins" and sometimes says "Tavanalee". She helped pick out their clothes every day, and is pretty good at telling who's who (we used to think she just said whatever name she remembered, but when you ask her, she pauses for a moment, like she's thinking, before she responds).

Here's a few gems from our first road trip/vacation:

On the road again....Hey--you gonna drink that bottle? (Tava front, Analee in back)

I asked Audrey to sit behind her cousins so I could take a photo and this is what I got (Tava left, Analee right):

Another pic of all the cousins! (Tava on the left, Analee on the right)

Scott and Molly graciously watched the girls for us one night so we could have a date--not sure who had more fun (Scott has Analee, Molly has Tava):

We took the girls to Music Together (a music class for babies and toddlers) and they had a blast! Doug is holding Analee, I'm holding Tava:

When we were younger, Brother's Bar was the site of much drinking and debauchery. Oh how times have changed (I'm holding Tava, Doug has Analee)!

One thing absent from all these pictures is Miliya. She spent the weekend with our friends Matt and Ambika, who have a dog of their own. Miliya got to go on hikes every day (some around water) and had a thoroughly good time. In fact, when we got home, she looked at us like, "Oh, you again. Where's that other couple? You know, the people who take me to do fun things?"

Family Resemblance

2009-05-08T08:02:00.002-06:00

Sandy here:

Everyone has an opinion about who the babies look like (and no, we don't have a milkman), so I thought I would offer the following:

Analee:

My baby picture:

Need I say more?

So Alike it's Scary!

2009-05-04T10:05:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

Up until now, it's been pretty easy for Doug and I to tell the girls apart. They still have a weight difference, so if all else fails we can heft them to figure it out (won't that be fun when they're in middle school!). Lately though, they've been looking more and more alike. Take this picture for instance--we just took it over the weekend. Who's who?

Recession

2009-05-01T14:18:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

So this recession is hitting everyone pretty hard. Analee recently lost her job, and she's pretty depressed about it. All she wants to do is hang around the house all day, drink beer and watch TV:

Photo Update

2009-04-20T09:11:00.008-06:00

Sandy here:

The girls are getting much more alert and smiley and their personalities are really starting to come out (Doug and I are in so much trouble!). I've been having a lot of fun with them lately and wanted to post a few more recent pictures:

Analee is tired of all the attention when she goes out in public, so she has decided to go incognito from now on:

Tava says, "Daddy, just wait until we ask for the car keys -- you won't know what hit you!"

Storytime is a favorite around our house:

All of this activity can make for one tired Tava:

Analee, not so much:

The Vault

2009-04-17T15:28:00.007-06:00

Sandy here:

So, we've been going through our photos, and I came across one that made me laugh. This was taken just a few days before the girls were born, when I was on "couch arrest." Boy was I large and round!

At least I'm approaching a more normal size now--this was taken a couple weeks ago, when our friends Adam and Elisa and their baby Ethan came to visit (You can read about their trip here)

Amazing what 2 babies will do, eh?

Exercising with Babies

2009-04-13T12:55:00.005-06:00

Sandy here:

The weather in Durango has been typical spring--warm one day, rainy the next, snowy the next, really windy the next...Today is a warm day, and the rest of the week it's supposed to be rainy/snowy. A perfect day to take the girls out in the Chariot. They wake up around 10, have late breakfast, and I begin the "load girls up" process, which because it's just me (and two of them) is a bit involved and takes a little while. Molly got us these infant sling things that are great--basically the babies are riding in a hammock in the Chariot--well, a hammock with a neck support and clip--but again, they take a little finagling to get babies in. I get the babies in their jackets (which they don't like--not sure why), load Analee up, go back in to get Tava, load her up, decide that I'm feeling brave so I'll take Miliya with me, get my water bottle, cell phone, put keys in the door, grab the leash for Miliya, head outside to do the final snap down of the protective cover over the babies.....

Analee has had a massive spit up--all over her face, jacket, onesie, pants, socks, etc. What I find so interesting when babies spit up is that it's usually a quiet thing in that they don't cry or yell--they just get one of those dazed looks on their face like "What just happened?" (Those of you with babies know exactly the look I'm talking about.) Now I have to unload Tava and get her someplace safe (ah! the swing!), and commence the clean up process with Analee. Normally Tava likes the swing, but at this moment she decides the swing sucks and lets me know in no uncertain terms about it. Miliya is following me around, tail wagging, with this expression like, "Are we going soon? What about now?"

I get Tava calmed down (kneeling down in front of the swing as I'm holding a nearly naked Analee in my arms) and go back to washing/dressing Analee. The eternal optimist, Miliya is still following me around.

I decide that I can salvage this walk, so I put Analee someplace safe to go inspect the Chariot and realize the damage is more extensive than I initially thought. The sling is soaked in spit up and there is even some spit up underneath the sling on the seat and floor of the Chariot. By the time I get this cleaned up (with Analee now upset), the sling is soaking wet and there is no way I can put a baby back in it until it dries.

So instead I came inside and ate some chocolate chip banana bread.

At long last--a video!

2009-04-11T15:57:00.006-06:00

Sandy here:

This video is already about 3 weeks old, which in baby time is a long long time ago (they are now demanding cell phones and wanting to wear make up). We have some more recent videos on our camera--someday, they'll make it onto the blog. But for now, without further ado--floor time!

Identical-ness

2009-04-10T09:12:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

Whenever I go out in public, I invariably get "twin" comments. I was at the hardware store the other day (it's never too early to teach the girls the joys of home improvement), and had my favorite exchange yet:

"Twins?"

"Yes."

"Identical?"

"Yes, identical girls."

"My brother has identical twins--a boy and a girl."

What could I possibly say to that?

Sleep

2009-04-02T08:30:00.009-06:00

Sandy here:

So, at 3 a.m. last night as I was feeding the babies, I began thinking about sleep. One could even say I sometimes obsess about sleep--probably because I'm not getting much of it. It's probably similar to the way a heroin addict obsesses about his next fix.

My thoughts were as follows: My life is now divided into 2 distinct sections-- before the babies and after the babies. Here's how my sleep thoughts have changed:

Before: I'm not going to be one of those parents who tiptoes around their kids when sleeping. They are going to learn to sleep with noise!
After: Be quiet! Do you want to wake the babies? (or my favorite--you wake it, you take it)

Before: I really don't want the babies to get in the habit of sleeping with me.
After: If this will buy me an extra hour of sleep, I'm all for it right now.

Before: We've had this mattress for a while, maybe we should get a new one.
After: This is the comfiest bed ever!

Before: My babies are going to sleep in their crib.
After: Is it worth the fight right now to try to get them to sleep in their crib when they will sleep much easier in their jiggly chairs?

Before: I'm getting them on my schedule, not vice versa.
After: I wonder what time they'll let me go to bed tonight and when they'll wake me up to eat again.

Here are a few recent pics, we'll try to get a new slideshow and a video up this weekend.

Helping Mom make dinner (Analee on the left, Tava on the right)

Analee--look at that smile!

Tava looking at her new BFF the jiggly moo-cow

Big cousin Audrey with Tava and Analee

Laziness

2009-03-30T08:55:00.004-06:00

Sandy Here:

We have decided that we're going to stop starting every post with "Sorry it's been so long..." That's just the way it is. We will hopefully get some pictures posted soon--the girls are having more awake time and starting to give you these smiles that just melt your heart (a good thing when they are still awake at 4 a.m.!), and their different personalities are really starting to emerge. Also, they are starting to sleep longer at night, which means I'm starting to sleep longer at night, which means I feel more human and like the newborn fog is gradually starting to lift away from me.

It's actually been a busy couple weeks around here (well, busier than our usual life with Tava and Analee). Scott, Molly, and Audrey were down for a visit, and Molly stayed an extra week to help out with the babies--it was wonderful! Audrey had a good time with her cousins, and it made me more determined than ever to raise good travelling babies so we can continue to go up to Denver regularly. More on their visit later...

As I put the girls down for their early morning nap this morning (really just an extension of night sleep at this point, but I like to call it nap, because then they can sleep wherever they want and I don't feel guilty they're not in their crib), and got my breakfast, I realized that one of the biggest things that separates parents from non-parents (besides the obvious kid thing) is a single word: laziness. As a non-parent, I could say, "Well, I really need to get dressed, do laundry, have breakfast, check my work email and do the dishes. But you know what? I'm feeling lazy, I think I'll watch an episode of "Alias" (my new obsession-thank God for Netflix) instead and do those other things later." As a new parent, the conversation runs something more like this, "Okay, the babies are down, not sure for how long (their naps aren't predictable yet), I have to get dressed, do laundry, eat breakfast, check my work email, and do the dishes RIGHT NOW--and do all those things quickly so I don't leave a trail of half done things around the house--because who knows when I'll get another opportunity to be productive!"

It's a great lesson in productiveness, time management, and those 10 minutes where you can say "Hmmm, I don't have anything to do--maybe I could watch some "Alias"--wait, is that a baby I hear?"

I am a new woman!

2009-03-07T10:52:00.003-07:00

Sandy here:

The babies pretty routinely nurse about every 3 hours (sometimes shorter during the day--you know, they get bored like we all do and decide "might as well eat!"). Sometimes we can get random 4 hour stretches between feedings--but it has not happened regularly. Given that each feeding takes close to an hour, that means if I am really focused I can get a maximum of 3 hours sleep in one stretch (of course, no matter how tired I am, I can't "sleep" on command, so the full 3 hours rarely happens). Also, I have learned to "do the math" every time I wake up to figure out how long it has been between feedings (and how much sleep I got). The girls are also suffering through their second round of colds (they're not so good at blowing their noses yet, but I keep trying!), so getting them to sleep for long chunks of time has been challenging.

All this is background information for the other night when, about an hour after their last feeding (at 11:30 p.m.) Tava started crying. I went in to help her out (with this cold she sometimes needs to sleep upright, but has decided the swing and jiggly chair are evil at night and won't sleep in them), and shortly thereafter Analee started crying as well. I hauled both of them on the futon couch with me and we all went to sleep. I woke up at about 4:30 a.m. and my thoughts, in this order, were:

1. These clocks can't be right
2. I must not know how to "do the math"
3. Doug must have snuck in, taken them away, given them a bottle, and replaced them on the futon with me.

They slept until 5 a.m.-- 5.5 hours between feedings. It may not happen again until they go to college, but there is now a light at the end of the sleep tunnel.

Quick update

2009-02-23T20:40:00.006-07:00

Doug,

Not much to report, we're just plugging away. But I thought I would put up some pictures:

Tava, upset about the Paparazzi

Analee, pushing 8 pounds now

After one particularly satisfying feeding

Testing the washing machine as a bouncy chair

Me and the girls watching the Duke-UNC game

These Duke onesies are way too big for them...

But we anticipate a run deep into April...
They'll grow into them by the Final Four.

And a new slideshow:

Tava and Analee Week 6

Update

2009-02-11T11:27:00.008-07:00

Doug-

Sorry the posts have been so infrequent lately, Sandy and I are discovering that this baby thing is actually pretty time consuming. It turns out they need to eat every three hours or so, and with every feeding taking an hour or so (with burping and diapering and then cleaning up spit-up or poop and then changing diapers again and then finding a new outfit to replace the now soiled one and then changing the changing pad cover and then finishing the feeding now that they are ready to finish and then changing diapers again and then trying to convince them to go to sleep after all of the above activity), we get about 2 hours of downtime (that's if we don't try to play with them for a bit after the feeding, which we do three or so times a day). So you have to really think to yourself: What do I want to do with that 2 hours? Usually its sleep. Sometimes its shower or eat. Occasionally its watch TV. But very rarely is it write pithy observations about having twins on the blog. Sorry about that.

Anyway, just a couple quick updates. No, we haven't gotten rid of them. Yes, they are doing well and gaining weight like champs. At today's weighing (4 weeks tomorrow) Analee had gone from her birthweight of 5 pounds, 11 ounces to 6 pounds, 10 ounces. She seems like such a chunker to us its hard to believe she's still smaller than most newborns. Tava is up to 5 pounds, 5 ounces from her birthweight of 4 pounds, 11 ounces and has almost outgrown her first outfit. I never remember how tall they are, so I won't comment on that. They aren't particularly fussy in general at this stage, but when they decide they want to eat, you know about it. And one thing about twins, all it takes is for one of them to get fussy and your life is shot. Interestingly, we think they sometimes plan to tag team us in advance because Tava will refuse to go down after a feeding and then, after 2 hours of groveling, she will go right down after the next feeding. Analee will sleep like a rock though all of this, but then she will decide she doesn't want to go down after the next feeding. Rarely do they ever fuss at the same time. Now you tell me, is this just coincidence, or is there an evil plot at work?

Tava developed a cold about 2 weeks ago and had to get an antibiotic shot and have blood drawn; that was not good times. Then she developed a nasty yeast infection on her butt, so she has been fighting that for about a week and a half. Its been a rough start for her, but she eats well and otherwise seems fine. They each lost their umbilical cords last week and have each managed one diaper blowout so far. Other than that, not much news to report; they are doing well and keeping their parents on edge much of the time.

I will leave with this. I always secretly suspected that there was a grand conspiracy among parents to lure unsuspecting non-parents into parenthood with tales of how great it is to be a parent, largely for the purpose of spreading the misery around. It goes like this:

New parent: Trust me, you don't even miss the sleep, the free evenings, the night's out, the money, the lost time, the ability to dictate your own schedule, the easy vacations or the ability to leave the house without investing 30 minutes of prep time and lugging 30 pounds of stuff with you because it so rewarding.

Now that I'm a new parent, I know it's true. There is a conspiracy. We get the newsletter and everything now; even learned the secret handshake. And every one of you who doesn't have kids yet, you can expect to start getting some phone calls from me talking about how rewarded I feel.

Here are some photos:

Floor time

First night out

Tava

Analee

Miliya and Analee

Miliya and Tava

Just Desserts

2009-02-09T09:09:00.006-07:00

Sandy here:

We have a great pediatrician who has twins herself (although hers are older now--about 10ish), so she's already been a great resource when we go to the doctor. The last time we were there, she shared her reasoning with us about why people have twins. In her case, she said the powers that be realized she would micromanage one child to death, plus her husband would not have let her have another child once he went through everything with the first one, so boom! She got two at once. Perfect.

My friend who is super organized and on top of things that if she only had one set, her husband would not have had anything to do, so boom! She got 2 sets. Perfect.

And us? A lot of our friends have already had kids (some have had 2 or 3 already) and Doug has kept saying "We'll just watch what all of our friends have done and then we'll know what we should (or shouldn't) do. This baby thing is going to be a piece of cake."

So the powers that be looked down and said "You think you've got it all figured out?" Boom. Have two.

And now, a couple pictures of the girls. Soon they'll be a month old! My parents have been in Durango helping us out since they were born. The great thing about twins is that you never have to fight over holding a baby! Tava is with Grandma and Analee is with Grandpa. This picture is a week or so old.

Grandpa reading to Analee:

The Log

2009-01-26T08:26:00.003-07:00

Sandy here:

So, one of the things I read about in my twins book was about keeping a log of feeding, pees, poops, spit ups, etc. I thought it somewhat interesting and mentioned it to Doug. Of course, this was back when I hoped my babies would be bigger and didn't think we'd need to do this for very long. What I've since learned is that it's apparently part of some secret twin parent club initiation--almost everyone I've spoken with who is a twin parent kept one of these, and many twins I've spoken with talk about how their parents kept a log. And now, especially since Tava and Analee were born early, we are in the club--Doug and I have meticulous notes (would you really expect anything less?) we take with us to our pediatrician visits. In our defense, I don't know what I would do without the book--I can't keep track of my own life these days, much less when the babies ate.

Plus, it will hopefully make some good blackmail fodder when the girls are old enough to date.

Week 1

2009-01-23T18:19:00.007-07:00

Doug,

All week I have been thinking of pithy observations about having babies in the house. However, I have now found that sleep deprivation makes it hard to write down pithy observations. The main thing that has ruled this week (despite the lack of sleep): Poop. Baby poop is an amazing thing. It tells you so much, and when it doesn't come, you worry. When it does come, you just worry that it will come on the changing table in the middle of a diaper change at 2 in the morning.

And about the "black tar poop." I had heard about the black tar poop, I had seen pictures of the black tar poop, I knew about the black tar poop. But nothing truly prepares a person for the reality of the black tar poop.

Finally, just to clarify any confusion, it's Anne-a-Lee and Tah-vah.

Pictures from week one:

Analee is on the left, Tava is on the right.

Tava and Analee

Tava showing her early allegiance to Duke

Miliya the protector

Miliya the protector

And a slide show:

Tava and Analee Week 1

Some more pics

2009-01-17T09:12:00.002-07:00

All is good. We will probably be in the hospital until tomorrow so the Twinks can get a good handle on nursing. Here's a few more pics.

Skiny little Tava:

Analee with the chubby little cheeks:

They will only sleep like this:

First Pictures

2009-01-16T06:06:00.003-07:00

Doug-

Okay, the first night went well. The Twinkies spent some of it in the nursery and let us sleep a few hours, but they also took a crack at nursing with some success. Everybody is doing remarkably well.

Sandy wanted everybody to know that Tava is the baby we used to call Ethel, and Analee is the baby we used to call Myrtle.

First pics below. Tava is to the right, Analee to the left.

More later.

Babies are here

2009-01-15T21:11:00.002-07:00

We are proud to announce the arrival of Tava Marie and Analee Ruth at 4:15 today. Tava was 4 pounds, 7 ounces. Analee was 5 pounds 11 ounces. Mother and daughters are all doing very well and the babies are not in the NICU. Pictures and more tomorrow.

Nobody picked January 15; it kind of took us by surprise as well. But Brian was the closest. Yay Brian!!!!

Arrival date contest

2009-01-12T10:06:00.001-07:00

Okay, Sandy's "twin" due date is January 25 (most twins come at 37 weeks, not 40).

Take a guess in the comments about when you think the Twinkies will arrive. The person that gets the closest will win .... well nothing, but they will always be able to say that they were the person that guessed the closest. No repeats, all days are first come, first served.

Bump Update - Week 34

2009-01-10T17:47:00.004-07:00

We're a week behind (these are from last week), so without further comment:

And a bonus photo of the rug we got for the Twinkies' room:

Miliya is having to learn to share the backseat with the baby seats.

NST

2009-01-04T10:08:00.016-07:00

Sandy here:

Thnking back to when Doug and I first found out we were having twins, we knew it would change the nature of the pregnancy. For one thing, I got this label slapped on me "high risk"--especially when they found out the twins were identical. Sometimes it's impossible to tell without testing whether the twins are identical or fraternal, but in our case the babies are monochorionic/diamniotic (basically they are in one big sac with a membrane separating them and that only happens if the babies are identical).

As everyone who has been reading our blog can see, one of the differences is that I have the pleasure of getting huger quicker. Another fun (albeit potentially a little bit stressful) thing is that we get to have regular ultrasounds of the babies to track their growth. A third thing that started the beginning of December is that I have to go to the birthing center at the hospital once a week for a Non-Stress Test. Assuming they can "lock onto" the babies heartbeats quickly it should only take about 30-40 minutes. I've had 5 of these done so far. (The picture below is from my most recent one--notice the hugeness.)

For the first one, the girls were still small enough that they could hide behind each other and it took 2 nurses an hour and a half to try and find them and get a lock on their heartbeats. It was a busy day with lots of labor and delivery going on in the Birth Center, and the nurses had to leave me for a little bit. So I sat on the edge of the bed and spoke directly to the girls in my belly--telling them that it had been funny at first, but they needed to settle down so we could get this test done and go home--I wasn't looking forward to hanging out in the hospital all evening. When the nurse returned, she was able to lock onto the babies immediately and the whole thing was over in about 25 minutes.

It was my first "Mom discipline moment."

Thanksgiving and Durango Baby Shower

2008-12-30T16:30:00.001-07:00

Doug-

Ho, ho, ho!!! It's the week after Christmas (and Chanukah for our Jewish friends), but I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'm going to try and get a little caught up by talking about Thanksgiving. I should get to Christmas sometime in March or so at this rate, so come back then if you want to find out about Scott, Molly and Audrey's visit.

Okay, Thanksgiving. Sandy had determined in October that she wasn't making any more trips to Denver in her pregnant state so we decided instead to have some people come to Durango for Thanksgiving. My Mom's friends John and Diane volunteered to make the trip up here and bring their twin boys and Mom along for the ride; they also said they would take care of most of the work so that Sandy could relax so of course we said yes. Their boys, Josh and Justin are 13 (I think, sorry John and Diane if I'm off a year) so they were happy to spend the bulk of the weekend camped in front of our TV playing with their X-Box.

Diane and Sandy talked a lot about having twins and Mom and John just had fun being in Durango with us. They did bring up a bunch of food, but despite their offer to do everything, the control freak in me came out on Thanksgiving and I pretty much took over anyway and handled most of the actual cooking. The big thing I learned this year about cooking turkeys: Brining. We used an Alton Brown recipe for brining and roasting the turkey and it came out awesome; we are sold. Then on the night before they returned to Denver we opened presents with Mom because we knew she wouldn't be able to make the trip up for Christmas. All in all, it was a great time and we appreciate John and Diane's help in bringing Mom up for a visit.

Then on the second Saturday in December, our friends Brian/Leslie and Ambika/Matt threw a Durango baby shower for us. Unfortunately, we were an hour late to our own baby shower due to some car troubles. To begin with, Rachel, Sandy's friend from Denver, flew in to visit for the weekend that morning and we planned to go straight from the airport to the shower. Now, the night before we went to pick her up Sandy noticed that a few "idiot lights" had lit up on the dashboard of the Landcruiser and asked if we should be concerned. I handled it the way I usually handle such car issues: if the car is still running, just ignore it. I figured we just had a short or something in the dashboard lights because how else would the brake, battery and transmission temp lights all come on at the same time? What are the chances of all of those things actually going out at the same time? However, as we were making the trip to the airport, I noticed that the dashboard lights seemed to be actually getting dimmer. Then I hit the windshield washers and got the most pathetic stream of washer fluid imaginable out of little nozzles and I realized, wow, the battery really is going dead. Well I figured a car can probably still run quite a while on a discharging battery, so we continued on. We made it to the airport, but the car died there. I got a jump from one of the hotel vans, but the car only made it about another mile back to Durango before dying again. Bummer. Okay, call tow truck, call Baby Shower, tell them we are going to be a little late. Sandy and Rachel had a great time laughing about the whole thing as we stood on the side of the road waiting; I was just irked that my vehicle diagnosis skills seemed to have slipped so far.

Anyway, the tow truck finally arrived and took us to the dealership. Now this was actually pretty cool; Sandy got to ride in the guy's truck but Rachel and I got to actually ride in the Landcruiser as it was being towed. I asked the tow truck guy if this was legal; he said not really, but we promised to duck if we saw any cop cars. I have to say, if you ever get the chance to ride in a car or truck being towed by a tow truck, I highly recommend it; it was great fun. Kind of like an amusement park ride, but much faster. The steering wheel even turned on its own when we went around corners. We eventually made it to the shower, although a bit late and had a great time with all of our Durango friends. Too many people to name them all, so I made the little slideshow below. Thanks to everybody for being there and being patient with our late arrival.

Durango Shower

In any event, it turns out that the battery, brake and transmission temp sensor had all gone out at the same time; go figure. The plus side to this was that winter arrived in earnest in Durango right after the shower and we had 5 or so days of snow and ice and locusts and the like to drive through with just our little Ford Escort station wagon (very fuel and space efficient in the summer, but crap in the snow).

Bump Update - Week 32

2008-12-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Doug-

Okay, it's getting serious now. Not only is Sandy well along, we now have snow to deal with. Last week we got about 15 inches of snow over the course of 2 or 3 days and our backyard is on the north side of our house, so the snow goes away very slowly. Nonetheless, Sandy insisted on making the trip out to our usual location for this Bump Update. Now of course I had to lace up her snow boots, but she still made the trip through the drifts.

As for the bump itself, not much I can say.

Miliya doesn't know what to think.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-21T20:37:00.012-07:00

Doug-

Okay, between the pregnancy, the trial, finals at the College and hosting Thanksgiving, we are very behind when it comes to Christmas plans. So if any of you are hanging out at home and checking your mailbox and thinking, "Hey, I sent Doug and Sandy a really funny/heartfelt/cute/meaningful Holiday Card and I don't think they've sent me one," you're right, we haven't. And to be honest, I think I can say that if I were you I wouldn't spend too much energy going out to the mailbox looking for such a card going forward either. It's just one of those years. We didn't put up outside lights either.

We did go get a tree, although this year we just bought one at the grocery store instead of going up into the mountains to cut one. We have cut our own the last 3 years, so that's a bummer, but one of those things. We'll re-initiate that family tradition next year. As you can see, this year's tree is apartment size.

The other thing we did this weekend was go to Farmington and get the rest of the baby stuff we need. Because she is carrying twins and is at 32 weeks this weekend (but measuring at about 43 weeks for a single), the doctors have told Sandy she needs to limit her activity going forward. However, Target was beckoning, so we came up with the solution you see to the right. Sandy will tell you that those carts actually don't handle very well and she spent the afternoon knocking into displays and running over little kids feet. The best part is that the cart actually did that "beep, beep, beep" thing when she put it in reverse, just like she was driving a fork lift or something, so she was always easy to find.

Oh, and by the way, if you usually get a present from me, it's going to be late this year. Sorry.

What Comes Around

2008-12-19T08:10:00.003-07:00

Sandy here:

Since last Sunday, we've been receiving snow here in Durango. Not enough to shut down the town, but certainly enough to make things messy and a bit stressful. On top of that our ginormous Land Cruiser broke down on Saturday (that's another blog post altogether) so it has been in the shop, and we became a one car family. I'm also getting huger and huger. I'm the size of a post 9 month pregnant woman (no wonder it's hard to move around!) and I'm probably carrying somewhere between 7 - 8 pounds of baby already (we'll find out for sure at our ultrasound appointment next week). As a result of all this hugeness, I've been put on "minimum walking, minimum stairs"--not bedrest, but my marathon training has been put on hold.

As some of you may recall, I started out the New Year with a broken femur. The repercussions of which were: I had to be driven everywhere, it was hard for me to move around the house--carrying things and bending down were out of the question, I was on minimum outside walking because there was so much ice and snow outside it wasn't safe, I couldn't help shovel snow. I spent a lot of time on the couch watching movies.

Now that the end of the year is here, I am ending the year by: Having to be driven everywhere (since we're down to one small car, I'm too large to comfortably fit behind the wheel), moving minimally around the house--thinking carefully before I bend down or pick things up, walking minimally outside because of all the ice and snow out there, and letting Doug shovel snow because I can't really exert myself like that right now. I spend a lot of time on the couch watching movies to help my swollen ankles.

Ah, the irony.

Twin Room!!!

2008-12-15T16:49:00.012-07:00

Doug:

Okay, after much delay, the update on the Twinkies' Room. I think the most exciting thing to Sandy about having babies (other than the weight gain and the inability to roll over and all) is that it gives her a reason to re-decorate a room. As most of you know, we moved into our house about 18 months ago and it was a bonanza for Sandy; plenty of wallpaper and shag carpet to remove and a blank canvas for all of her artistic vision. Then this summer she had a new garden to put in (complete with retaining wall), but nothing is as fun as a baby's room.

Anyway, the selection of cribs and dressers was a critical part of this operation, but when you live in Durango, it can be hard to find a good selection. And if
you're Sandy decorating a baby's room, you need
a good selection of cribs to choose from. Have I
mentioned that my wife can get very particular about things? Well after much gnashing of teeth, we finally found a very nice store in Farmington, NM and Sandy found the perfect cribs. Not too big, not too small, right color, safe, suitably expensive (oh, did I say that out loud, sorry hon).... The next issue was getting them delivered, a trick when you live at least 4 hours from the nearest Interstate. Its a good thing we ordered well in advance, because it took a good 4 weeks from the time the decision was made until we finally got them. The baby store actually felt bad about this and brought them up to Durango for us, saving us a trip to Farmington.

About Farmington, NM. Farmington is the closest
larger town to Durango, about 1 hour South and 30,000 people. It is where you go if you live in Durango and desperately need to go to a Target, or a Chili's, or a mall or a big box store. However, a cultural paradise it is not. Farmington exists mainly to serve the oil and gas industry's natural gas operations in Northern NM and Southern CO, and also to serve as a trading center for the Navajo and Souther Ute reservations. It's a bit of a dump with a high poverty rate; a land of very big diesel trucks and significant methamphetamine problems. It's about as different from Durango as you can get, so it's always an interesting trip. But you know, they do have a Target, so they have that on us. Anyway, always nice to skip that trip whenever possible and we really appreciate the people at
"Baby and Me" delivering the cribs.

Anyway, we only put one crib together for now; the Twinkies will share for the first few months until they get too big, and then we will put two cribs next to each other (we've been told twins like to be together). Sandy's parents helped me put it together and Sandy hovered and told us not to scratch anything. In any event, I think the room looks pretty good, and Sandy gets all the credit.

No Tucson Marathon for me

2008-12-08T09:41:00.002-07:00

Doug:

Some people have asked about how I did in the Tucson Marathon, which some of you may remember I was hoping to run as a Boston Marathon qualifier. The short answer: I didn't even end up going. About 5 weeks ago, my motivation to train took a severe hit for some reason I am not totally aware of. It could have had something to do with the arrival of cold weather (I am a warm weather runner) or just getting really busy at work or a busy training year with the Ironman, but all of a sudden, I just didn't want to run anymore. Nentheless, I got a few more long runs in and still planned to make the trip. However, I then spent all of last week in a trial that ended up turning out badly (and spent the bulk of the week before that getting ready), so by Friday I was totally demoralized, sleep deprived and thoroughly unmotivated. Add to that the fact that the bad trial result dictated the need for a client meeting today, and I just bagged the whole thing.

Bummer. Maybe next year.

However, it did give us a chance to get some good baby room work done. Pictures to come later this week.

Too Much of a Good Thing

2008-12-07T15:57:00.002-07:00

Sandy here:

Let's be clear. I LOVE egg nog. And right now, since I'm not drinking any caffeine or alcohol (or shooting heroin, etc.), I think it's perfectly in my right to drink a little nog now and then. I'm also trying to eat a lot of calcium--not for the babies--those little suckers will just take whatever they want from me--but so I don't get osteoporosis later on because the little girls took all my calcium.

This afternoon I thought--what better way to get some calcium than to drink 8 oz. of egg nog?

Turns out that's not such a good plan after all...

I've Seen the Future

2008-12-01T09:51:00.002-07:00

Sandy here:

One of the things that Doug has started doing is reading to the twinkies at bedtime. I've read that by now babies can hear things outside the womb, and it's good for Dad to talk to them. I really think they are recognizing the sound of his voice, because even if they've been quiet once he starts to read such classics to them as "That's Not my Teddy!" or "Maizy Drives" they start moving around and kicking. It's pretty cool.

Well, last night--he picked out 2 winners--Touch and Feel ABCs and Touch and Feel Animals. There was a small amount of movement, but nothing significant. After he finished he started reading Rule 901 of the Colorado Rules of Evidence (Authentication) to them (he has a trial starting tomorrow) and they started moving and kicking!

I'm going to be surrounded by lawyers.

Inside the Uterus

2008-11-26T08:59:00.011-07:00

Sandy here:

On Monday, I went back in for an ultrasound. We're at 28 weeks (7 months for those of you who have not done this whole pregnant thing--I used to get annoyed when pregnant people would tell me how many weeks along because I'd have to Gulp! do the math--but now I get it) out of 40 weeks.

Doug and I are so spoiled--we have gotten to see the babies tons--I guess it helps make up for the fact that apparently I'm close to as big as I might get if I was just carrying one baby--and I still have about 10 weeks to go! The girls are getting bigger, so in some ways it makes it harder for the tech to get "good pictures" of them. We go in every month so their growth can be tracked. One is a little smaller, but she's been like that from the beginning--they're watched to make sure they each track along their individual growth curves. I learned a couple interesting things when we went:

1. Baby B (whom we have temporarily named Myrtle) actually has chubby cheeks and a big belly! The first picture is her--it looks like she's laying on her side, and you can see one of her sugar cheeks, her nose, mouth and an eyelid.

2. Baby A (whom we have temporarily named Ethel) is head down--and I mean waaay head down (not like ready to come out or anything) but apparently pretty low which is what is contributing (along with the whole pregnant in general thing) to making me feel somewhat uncomfortable. The second picture is of her--it looks like she's laying on her back, with her head at the bottom of the picture, and yes, those are her legs above her--she might be a future gymnast.

3. The babies now have a combined total weight of over 5 pounds! That's a lot of baby for 28 weeks along (if you read the book "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" apparently a single baby should only weigh around 2.5 pounds).

4. Myrtle apparently thinks she's alone (except when she kicks her sister) because she is currently in the 55th percentile (and that's for singles--they don't have a special twin chart). In layman's terms, it means she's big!

5. Ethel is in the 33rd percentile which is also good--especially for twins.

So, what's the summation of all I learned at the ultrasound?

I am a super gestator.

Bump Update

2008-11-20T20:49:00.005-07:00

Doug:

28 weeks!!! Wow!!!! Not much I can add to this:

Okay, I can add this. The other night Sandy woke up and had to go use the bathroom. She went to get up and about halfway between the laying down position and the sitting up position ..... she got stuck. Really. She had to ask me to give her a little push to get up. Oh, the things to come.

She's awfully cute, isn't she?

House Update

2008-11-16T09:21:00.001-07:00

Doug-

Quick update on the house. First, we finished painting the Twinkies' room (with low VOC paint, it's supposed to be healthier) and also got a lot of stuff handed down from one of my bosses, Lindsey. Lindsey's kids are now 4 and 6, so she's done with baby stuff and gave us a pack-and-play, a baby bjorn, a bouncy chair and a ton of other stuff.

As I mentioned before, we need two of pretty much everything, so these kind souls like Lindsey, Scott and Molly, Todd and Brenda and everybody else that has handed stuff down have been a real lifesaver. Now we're just waiting for the cribs and dresser to arrive.

And finally, Sandy filled the yawning hole in our life that was a missing kitchen curtain; her handmade handiwork is to the right. As you can see she is very talented. If I can talk her into it, she'll do a blog post about all of the baby things she has been knitting.

Fame and Fortune

2008-11-13T07:59:00.003-07:00

Sandy here--

I'm not sure how my life is going to change, but I'm sure dramatically, now that my husband is a famous attorney dealing with far-reaching issues:

http://www.durangoherald.com/sections/News/2008/11/13/Bearproof_trash_rules_introduced/

If you come over to our house, hopefully I'll see you behind all the paparazzi.

Birthing Classes

2008-11-12T21:45:00.002-07:00

Doug-

Tonight Sandy and I went to our second birthing class. The class we are taking is one night a week for four weeks and they do it at the hospital in the conference rooms. There were 3 other couples tonight as well as last week, but one of the couples was different tonight. One of the couples looks to be about our age, another couple is probably late 20's-early 30's, and the third couple .... well let's just say that we have dubbed her "Juno" and she is accompanied by her boyfriend "Jeff Spicoli." Seriously, its a bit amusing. I was wondering how she gets her homework done if she has birthing class on a school night.

The first night they had us do a relaxation exercise where we closed our eyes and imagined being in a quiet place. The instructor gave us a little narrative to follow, and during the narrative she had us imagining ourselves approaching a peaceful lake in the mountains and then climbing into a boat that was under a tree and slowly drifting out onto the lake in the boat. Sooooo peaceful and relaxing.

When we were driving home, Sandy started laughing and said, "you know, when she had us get in the boat I actually got a little nervous because I was thinking of a canoe and I was worried it was going to tip over." I started laughing too because all I could think of when I was in the boat was how cold the water probably was and what it would be like to swim back to shore if the boat leaked.

So we made a decision about relaxation techniques during the birth; during the visualization stage, we're going to skip the part about the boats.

First Snow

2008-11-10T20:25:00.010-07:00

Doug-

Exciting morning here in Durango; Miliya and I woke up to our first snow of the season. Well actually, we got a little snow the night of the election, but it barely covered the cars so it didn't really count.

Now living in Durango, snow is a very big deal!!! Most people that live here like to ski or do other snow type activities (we are in the mountains after all), so the first snow is exciting. Pictures to the right. It snowed pretty hard for about an hour or so and then stopped; by mid-afternoon the sun was out and about half of the snow melted off.

Last year we had crazy snow in Durango, and it quit being fun after the third storm of 15+ inches in 5 weeks. This was at the same time that Sandy was laid up with a broken femur, so it was particularly not-fun for me. We are hoping to avoid a repeat this year because the only thing I can imagine that is worse than having big snows and a wife with a broken femur is having big snows and a couple of newborn twins.

Our lowlight of the weekend was Sandy suffering through a bad cold. Colds and pregnancy kind of suck, but she soldiered through with a lot of hot water with honey and lemon and some quality naps. On Saturday night we went to see Loudon Wainwright III at the college. Loudon is a pretty obscure folk singer that does some very funny songs; I originally stumbled across him working at the college radio station in Gunnison, CO in the late 80's. You may know him from some cameo acting appearances he has done; originally as the singing surgeon in the comedy MASH and lately in a number of Judd Apatow movies and TV shows (he was the doctor in "Knocked Up"). It was very fun, but my only disappointment was that he didn't play the following song, which has taken on some special meaning for me:

Bein' a dad isn't so bad
Except that you gotta feed 'em
You gotta shoe 'em and clothe 'em
And try not to loathe 'em
Bug 'em and hug 'em and heed 'em

Bein' a dad can sure make you mad
Man it even can drive you crazy
It's as hard as it looks
You gotta read them dumb books
And you end up despising Walt Disney

Bein' a dad starts to get radical
When they turn into teenagers
You gotta tighten the screws
Enforce the curfews
Confiscate weapons and pagers

But a daughter and son
Can be sort of fun
Just as long as they don't defy you
They'll treat you like a king
They'll believe anything
They're easy to frighten and lie to

Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad can make you feel glad
When you get paperweights and aftershave lotions
Yeah it feels pretty great when they graduate
That's when you're choked with emotions

But bein' a dad takes more than a tad of
Good luck and divine intervention
You need air-tight alibis
Fool proof disguises
Desperation's the father of invention

So sometimes you take off
For a few rounds of golf
And you stay away for half of their lifetimes
The result of it all is
You're captured and hauled up
Before a tribunal for dad crimes

Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad (bein' a dad)
Bein' a dad can make you feel sad
Like you're the insignificant other
Yeah right from the start
They break your heart
In the end every kid wants his mother.

Okay, its not as funny to read it, so go to Itunes and listen. Besides, this is a family blog, so I couldn't put up the lyrics to "Rufus is a tit-man."

Denver Baby Shower and Marathon

2008-11-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

Doug-

Okay, we're trying to get caught up here, so bear with us. Two weeks ago we made the drive to Denver (6.5 hours) for a baby shower for Sandy and I and also so I could run the Denver Half-Marathon with Scott. Because we know so many people in Denver, in the past we have usually made this drive every 2 months or so on average. During one particular wedding heavy period in 2005 I actually did 3 trips in 5 weeks, but that's not this story. However, we expect that once the Twinkies get here, our trip frequency will decrease significantly. At least that's what Scott tells us having done this trip a few times with Audrey in the last year or so.

On Saturday morning we had a very nice shower that was hosted by Scott and Molly. Sandy's parents, Doug and Kathy drove out from Missouri to be there, and we were also joined by my Mom, her friend (and ours) Diane, our friends (and Scott and Molly's neighbors) Adam and Elisa and our friends Derek and Jen. It wasn't a big crowd, but that's okay as we were excited to see everybody that was there and it kept the house from getting too crowded.

Saturday afternoon Scott, Adam and I went to the Marathon Expo and talked to our buddy Johnny who was working the Clif Bar booth. Johnny is a guy Scott and I each know from our Chili's days some 15 years ago; he's actually 3 years older than me, but you wouldn't know it most days (except for the gray beard). He tends bar, plays saxophone in a touring band and works for his girlfriend Corey at the Clif Bar booth at these kinds of events (she is a promotions rep for Clif and even though she is about 15 years younger than he, she is the mature and responsible one in the relationship). I told Scott that it's funny that in 15 years our lives have sure changed a lot; Johnny's has not. Anyway, Johnny is actually one of the greatest persons I know in the entire world and he's one of my best friends, so it was good to see him and walk the expo with him. If you know anything about Johnny, it will not surprise you to know that he knew just about everybody in every booth (Johnny is also a twin, so he is very excited about our twins).

Sunday morning Scott and Adam and I ran the Half-Marathon. I did the full marathon last year on an absolutely abysmal day; 40 degrees and rain. It was awful, I couldn't feel my hands for days afterwards. This year was much nicer, in the 40's to start but clear and sunny. Scott had never run a Half-Marathon before and we were hoping to get him across the line in 2 hours or so. We started off a little slow, but between miles 3 and 9, Scott turned the jets on and by mile 9 we were pretty close to where we needed to be for a 2 hour finish. Unfortunately, the finish was still 4 miles away and right around that time it became clear Scott did not have the miles he needed in his legs that day to hit the goal. Our time faded a bit, but we still finished without walking in right around 2:05. In any event, it was a lot of fun and Scott has every reason to be proud considering the fact that he used to declare very adamantly that he is not a runner. Well he is now. Anybody that does a Half-Marathon without walking is a runner.

The best part of the day, however, was packing the car for the drive home. We were taking home all of the stuff from the shower, a lot of hand-me-downs from Scott and Molly, our bags, a dog and, best of all, a TON of stuff Sandy bought at her regular run to Costco (this is a Denver trip tradition). Sandy's dad had the best line of the day when we were loading the Costco stuff:

"I know Sandy likes Costco, but I didn't know she was planning on opening a branch in Durango."

Suffice it to say there was considerable skepticism about whether I could get everything in the Landcruiser. Suffice it to also say that I am a packing wizard.

Here's a slide show of the trip:

Denver Shower and Marathon

Getting Really Pregnant

2008-11-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sandy here:

A couple weeks ago when we were up in Denver, I had to go to the maternity clothing store (those books and doctors weren't kidding when they said that women carrying twins get bigger faster). I was approached by one of the employees who asked if I needed any help and when I turned to her she exclaimed "You look ready to go!" After wandering around the store a little longer, I learned that it was only her 3rd day on the job. I'm pretty sure that the extensive training program does not consist of "pregnant woman sensitivity training."

This was on a Sunday. Then on Monday I had a doctor's appointment (I get to go every 2 weeks now--twins again). At the appointment, the doctor measured my fundal height (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundal_height for an explanation) where she informed me that I was the size of an 8 month pregnant woman. For those of you who have been following (or not)--at this appointment, I was only 5 1/2 months pregnant! I also like the doctors to compare the size of my uterus to something I would recognize (it sure was cute when the doctors would say "plum" or "grapefruit") and without pausing the doctor said "There isn't a fruit big enough for you!" Although she later recanted and told me I was probably watermelon sized. No wonder I have a hard time bending over! Try shoving a watermelon in your pants and tell me how easy it is.

I'm almost afraid to ask for a comparison when I go to the doctor again.

Surprise!

2008-10-27T21:21:00.004-06:00

Sandy here:

So, we've had a pretty busy last couple weeks, and we'll update on that soon, but for now (and all our clamoring fans) just a brief story.

Scott and Molly have very kindly given us some of Audrey's old baby things (she's almost 21 months old!), and we are very excited. One of those things was a carseat and a couple of bases. Doug tested them out in our small car, and we figured out that we can make it work--certainly around town.

Tonight, my job was to search for a second car seat. Now, I could have just gotten any seat, but back before Audrey was born, Molly spent a bunch of time figuring out what would be the best, lightest-weight carseat. And I figure--how much can the technology really change in a couple years? So I flipped the carseat upside down to find the make and model number so we could order one. As I did that, I heard a couple somethings fall to the floor. I looked down, and found....

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/68331/product_review_gerber_fruit_puffs.html?cat=5

I can't wait to be a mom.

Obama

2008-10-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

Sandy here:

Barack Obama is running a new campaign ad. In light of all the recent vitriolic discourse by McCain and Palin, it was refreshing to see this uplifting ad. I can't find a direct link to it, but it is embedded on this page.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/obamas-childhood-in-ad/

I'm not posting this as a campaign message, but as a follow up to Doug's Pooh Bear post. After watching this ad, I can no longer look at Barack without tearing up. In fact, watching the ad gets me all teared up (in a good way, but still...).

The list of things that don't make me cry is slowly being whittled away.

Pooh Bear

2008-10-15T10:00:00.000-06:00

Doug:

So we're running errands the other morning, it's raining a bit and I'm driving when we notice something laying in the middle of the road. We come up on it and realize its a stuffed Winnie the Pooh toy looking a bit sad and soggy laying there in the middle of the road. At this point, Sandy has a bit of a breakdown. "It's a Pooh" she cries out in a very distraught voice and starts to cry. "It's so sad," she says,"some poor little kid just lost his Pooh." I tried to calm this emotional onslaught by suggesting that maybe the kid threw him out the window. This did not help. "That's even worse," she says, "the Pooh was just abandoned out there in the road."

Luckily I was able to distract her somewhat by suggesting we go get her a snack.

Pregnant Brain and Always Read Ahead

2008-10-12T20:09:00.003-06:00

Doug:

Sandy does a lot of reading about having babies. She has about 20 or 30 books about pregnancy, and she actually reads most of them. Luckily as a guy I only have one book to read, "The Expectant Father." It has big print, it's not too long, and it's organized into 9 chapters, one for each month of the pregnancy. Pretty easy stuff; I spend about 30 minutes once a month reading the book and I'm good to go. This "parenting" thing is easy!!!

However, I did learn a valuable lesson about the importance of reading ahead before sharing stuff with Sandy. If you remember, I posted earlier about what we call "pregnant brain" or Sandy's new tendency to forget things. We've had a lot of good laughs about this, so I was amazed when I read the following:

"If your partner has been forgetful lately, or seems to be losing a lot of things - including her memory - it may be because her brain is shrinking. Yep, Anita Holdcroft, an English anesthesiologist, found that during pregnancy, women's brains actually get 3 to 5 percent smaller."

Wow, I thought, that's interesting. So I shared it with Sandy, as I thought she would be interested too. Unfortunately, I didn't read the next couple sentences until after I told her. Those sentences:

"Now that you know this, it's probably best that you keep it to yourself. After all, there's really no nice way to tell someone that her brain is shrinking."

They were right. Sandy didn't find it to be nearly as "interesting" as I did.

Week 21 Bump Pictures

2008-10-11T10:18:00.005-06:00

Updated Bump Pictures to your right.

The big news this week was that Sandy felt the Twinkies for the first time on Weds. morning. We were wondering when this would happen as a lot of people said they should start kicking at around 20 weeks. Our Twinkies are probably a little bit smaller than most babies at their age, so its probably not surprising that they were a little later.

It was very funny because I always get up first, feed the dog and let her out, then I get in the shower and wake Sandy up when I get out of the shower. Let's just say that she does not usually have a hard time sleeping through all of my morning activities. However, Weds. morning as I was heading for the shower a VERY awake Sandy suddenly called me to come back to the bedroom. She wasn't completely sure what had happened, but after a few more times, we knew the girls had let us know they were there. They've been kicking like crazy every morning since.

At all costs

2008-10-05T17:10:00.003-06:00

Sandy here:

A couple weeks ago, Doug and I went to the grocery store. We got ready to check out and, as one does, we tried to pick the shortest line. Well we ended up behind a woman with many many groceries. We did not notice that we chose a line without a bagger. AND, to complete the trifecta, the checker was very slow (normally she works in produce, and was only checking because the store was so busy--not that I know her--she was telling everyone this information).

I settled myself in for a good dose of "let's see what this person is buying." She had a cart full of every type of organic and natural product possible--I didn't think that many products were stocked at our local City Market!

The woman buying the copious amounts of food had reusable bags with her. However, when the checker asked her how many bags she had, her response was "I don't know--can we count them at the end?" The woman refused to help the checker at all--she did not move from her post and would not help bag any of her groceries. In her defense, I do think she needed a rest for her left hand--outside of movie stars, I don't think I've seen a rock that big in person.

Her bill came to 401 and some change and she wrote a check. Now, apparently, if a check gets written for over $400 a manager has to come do an override (maybe to combat fraud?). So, we're waiting and waiting (and then still waiting). Finally we get the override, the receipts are issued, Doug and I get ready to spring into action (if Doug ever wants a career change, he makes a heck of a bagger), when the woman turns to the checker and says--"Did you put my bag credit on?" Turns out the checker had forgotten. In case you think the bonus for bringing bags is significantly larger here in Durango, let me disabuse you--it's 5 cents a bag. 5 cents! Of course the checker didn't know how to open the register to get 45 cents, so that was another ordeal. Finally the woman got her hard-earned money and left.

My theory is that she puts all that bag money into a special "ring" fund...

House Rearrangement

2008-09-30T20:00:00.001-06:00

Doug:

So the last few weeks have been filled with (a) trying to figure out what the hell we need to buy (Sandy has covered that already) and (b) doing lots of re-arranging of our house. This post is about the latter.

Anyway, not much commentary, just some pictures for those of you that are curious. First, the room that used to be known as the "Craffice" is being converted into the Twinkies' room. To date, we have pretty much managed to clear everything out of that room, but haven't done much more. I think the plan is to next paint it yellow (I say I "think" because you know who really gets to make these decisions.) A picture is below:

So if you were wondering what happened to everything in the "Craffice," well we now have a room known as the "Guoffice." This is short for Guest Room/Office. First, we (Sandy) got rid of the big desk and Sandy found a smaller desk from West Elm to replace it. Here's a picture:

Then we moved the futon from the craffice to the guoffice and put the old guest bed in the garage for now. Sandy also painted the futon black so it would match the new desk (a pregnant woman buying spray paint; what could the clerk at the hardware store have thought?):

Anyway, if anybody comes up to visit us, you will now be welcome to stay in the Guoffice.

The other part of this equation is the garage. But I don't even want to go there...

Girls!!!!

2008-09-28T14:00:00.001-06:00

Doug:

Okay, so in our household, we currently have:

Me: Male

Sandy: Female

Miliya: Female

And soon to come, the Twinkies: Both Female.

That's a 4-1 ratio.

If we get another dog, its going to be a male. And I'm not neutering him!!!

Finally Really Pregnant

2008-09-28T08:00:00.001-06:00

Sandy here:

There's been something missing from my pregnancy (well, morning sickness, but I'm supergrateful the barf fairy passed me over) given that I am a modern 21st century woman. Starting Wednesday I will no longer be "fake-y" pregnant--I'm going to start prenatal yoga! While I love living in Durango, sometimes it does have its drawbacks. One of those is the difficulty of finding a prenatal yoga class in the evenings or on the weekend--well, honestly, finding a class period. If you went by the number of prenatal yoga classes offered here in Durango, you would swear that no one is having babies in this town. However, off the top of my head, I can think of at least 5 people who are having babies right around when I'm due (we toured the Birthing Center at the hospital recently and there are only 10 rooms--I may have to sweep the legs of some pregnant woman to ensure I get a room!) and that doesn't include other women I know who are due before/after me or those I see walking around on the street or in the store.

Maybe they are all too busy hiking and biking and running and rock climbing...

Garage Sale-ing

2008-09-27T21:11:00.003-06:00

Doug:

Okay, now that we know we're having girls, Sandy feels like she can safely start to buy baby clothes. And today, oh boy, she hit the motherload. One thing about Durango, it probably has more yard/garage sales per capita every weekend than any other place on the planet. I think that's a consequence of living in a place where the average house costs about $450,000 but the average annual income is about 50 bucks (its those damn second home owners from California and Texas, I tell you). Well today, Sandy stumbled across a great yard sale with tons of baby clothes, all little girl clothes. I don't believe I have ever seen her so happy as she was when she was going through and picking out all of the cute little baby girl clothes. We spent like 30 bucks on baby clothes, which is a hell of a lot of baby clothes at a yard sale!!!!

Anyway, she stacked everything up in a little pile at the yard sale and made sure I looked at everything. Then we drove to the bank and she went through everything again while I was driving. Then she went through and looked at everything again when we got home. Finally, this evening we went out to see our friends Kirsten and Andrew and their 2.5 year old daughter Lucy for dinner, and on the way home, Sandy insisted we stop at the grocery store so we could buy some "Dreft" and she could wash all the new baby clothes. They're in the dryer as I speak. Now keep in mind, the Twinkies are not due until January, but I guess its never too early to be prepared.

There was one thing I picked out at the yard sale, the pink camo Durango Fire Rescue outfit to the right. How could I resist. I imagine this is how Sarah Palin dressed her daughters when they were newborns.

It's a Girl!!!!

2008-09-24T20:23:00.004-06:00

And another girl!!!!

All is well with the girl Twinkies and we are now stocking up on barrettes, dolls, Duke cheerleader outfits and little dresses. Oh, and uh .... trucks too, definitely trucks. But, you know, cute trucks. Cute little pink trucks with flowers on the side and stuff.

Unfortunately, there was a tie in the reader contest. Vanessa, Matt, Kathy, Scott and Eric all thought it would be girls. Go figure; who would have thought that so many people would pick girls? Well in light of this unexpected tie, we have had to retract the prize; besides, its not like we can name a couple of girls Matt, Scott or Eric. Come on!!! Instead, we will be presenting all of you with some lovely parting gifts.

The Uterus

2008-09-23T12:00:00.001-06:00

Sandy here:

Shortly after Doug and I "came out of the pregnancy closet" my good friend Brian came out to visit. He lives in Portland, but I managed to convince him to come to Durango. Brian and I have a long history of debauchery and I knew I would have to come clean about not being able to be his partner in drinking crime as soon as he arrived. We had just been to the doctor for our first ultrasound (this one had nothing to do with twins--it came because I'm of "advanced maternal age" and as a result I won an early ultrasound) and had some of those funny black and white photos. The nurse was able to get a good shot of the twinkies, and I had to show Brian. He made the comment that we went back many years and had a long history, but this was the first time he had seen my uterus.

The more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed. In some senses, the uterus is a very private place, but once there's a baby in there, people (including me) don't seem to think anything of showing those pictures to anyone who will look.

So, this is an old picture, but one of my favorites. I was 6 weeks along--I don't think they were even seahorses yet.

Animas Mountain Mug Run

2008-09-21T19:00:00.002-06:00

Doug-

Today I ran in a local trail race, the Animas Mountain Mug Run. They call it the "Mug Run" because, instead of giving out t-shirts, they give you a handmade coffee mug (see the picture to the right). It's supposed to be 6.6 miles (Sandy's Garmin said it was 6.1) and has about 1500 vf of elevation gain. But first, a quick update on my running progress:

Ever since Imogene I have pretty much felt like crap whenever I try to run kind of hard. I had a disastrous tempo run the Weds. afterwards, and then last weekend I went for a long run on Sunday. This was another disaster; I got through 10 miles okay, but then my stomach fell apart and I bonked severely. I had to visit the restrooms at the park at about the 11 mile mark and then I walked/slow ran the last 4 miles to get home. I can only describe the way I felt as "fluish," and I felt the same way the night before after doing a short, easy 4 miler. Then I went to do speedwork with the local running club (http://www.go-dmt.org/index.html) at the high school track on Wednesday evening and felt okay (1200/4:40, 1200/4:50, 800/3:00), but during the last repeat I had to pull up to take a "pit stop." I don't know what all of this is about, but I wonder if I was actually fighting a bug of some sorts. The Mug Run was a "C" priority race for me, so yesterday I decided to do a "semi-long" run in the late afternoon. This was the first time I actually felt pretty good during a run since Imogene, so I did 11.5 miles in 1:42. This was probably a bit long for a run done about 14 hours before a race, and I felt it today.

Anyway, I learned a few things today during the Mug Run. First: If you're doing a trail run that is largely on single-track, be very careful where you place yourself at the start. I started way to close to the front, and the problem on a narrow, uphill trail is that once you get slotted in a place, you feel compelled to keep up with the people around you because otherwise you're holding people up. This meant I went out way too fast on the steep first mile and would pay for it the rest of the way. Second: The one thing that has been missing from my training this year is sustained anaerobic threshold work. In short, I did my first mile too fast, and then was smoked because I haven't had to sustain that kind of effort for any races to date. Three, and finally: Stay away from chocolate donuts the morning of a race. I know better than to try something new on race day, and really should know better than to eat a donut anyway, but you know, they just looked so good (http://www.durangodoughworks.com/) and I thought, "what the heck, its 2 hours to the race start." Well, apparently my system does not digest a donut in 2 hours.

Final time: 1:08:45. I was 30th out of 53 males, but I beat most of the women!!!! I was hoping to break an hour, but just felt tired from the day before. However right now, I need the miles from Saturday more than I needed today's race, so I think I made the right choice.

P.S., This time, Sandy and Miliya actually made it to the finish line in time to see me. Picture to the right.

Pregnant Brain

2008-09-20T14:30:00.000-06:00

Doug-

We don't know if all pregnant women go through this, but Sandy has recently developed a tendency to lose stuff. We call this "pregnant brain," because it really is a new thing. For example, she washed, dried and folded some shorts a few weeks ago and quickly proceeded to completely lose track of them. Yeah, I know, where else would she put them, but no, they are not in the drawer or any typical place in between there and the dryer. We still haven't found them, but I fully expect to open some random cabinet in the garage or something in a year or so and ... hey, there they are!!! And then of course she'll be like "of course, I was headed for the drawer but then I decided to get a rake from the garage first but then I needed to free up my hands to unwind an electrical cord so I could plug in the circular saw and I put them in that cabinet." Now the difference here is that usually she can retrace these kind of non-sequiter steps, but lately, everything just disappears.

But last night topped it all. Sandy totally lost track of the tape measure she uses for her knitting. She had a long day at work and was very tired and came close to having a complete meltdown when it disappeared. I imagined us looking all through the house for it, checking kitchen drawers, taking the cushions off the couch looking under beds, climbing down into the crawl space (I would have had to do that one by myself, Sandy does not do the crawl space), etc... Finally, after a long and arduous search I found it:

Yes, that's it, the round, white thing with the little red dot. And it was on the top of the coffee table cube that sits in front of the couch where, you know, she keeps her knitting stuff. Although I will admit it was kind of camouflaged against that sheet of stickers.

Reader Contest!!!!!

2008-09-19T21:38:00.004-06:00

Okay, the moment at least a few of you have been waiting for a long time is quickly approaching. Yes, that's right folks, next Weds. we are going to get the 20 week ultrasound and hopefully find out .....

The Twinkies Gender!!!!!!

(Personal note, I hate to call it the twinkies "sex." Maybe its just me, but I don't like to think about babies and sex in the same sentence. I prefer the lawyerly term "gender," but I am apparently the only one that feels this way because everybody else refers to it as the babies "sex.")

Anyway, here is where you, the avid reader come in. We want everybody to chime in with their guess as to whether the Twinkies are boys or girls (and for those of you that missed it, they are identical, so there's none of that one boy, one girl thing going on). The winner will have the great honor of having one of the Twinkies named for them.* The results (of the ultrasound) will be announced here on Wednesday night. If nobody guesses, we aren't telling. Think of it as us holding the Twinkies hostage.

By the way, Lisa's 4 year old son Owen has already predicted we are having boys, and he is apparently 4 for 4 in predicting baby gender to date.

Give us your guess in comments (this is really just a sneaky way for us to find out if anybody is reading this stuff).

* If there are any ties (say two people pick girls and it turns out they are girls), then we reserve the right to change the prize.