It continually baffles m
e to think that you need a license to drive a car but not to care for and maintain twin 10 month olds. I suggest a series of mandatory classes. Titles of said classes may include "How to keep calm and breathe deeply in the midst of crawling babies each going a different direction and pulling things over that their parents didn't realize were potential hazards and are kind of expensive until too late" or "How to clean a mix of mashed yam, egg, avocado and beet out of babies' hair without bathing" or even "How to accomplish one thing per day while caring for baby."Oliver and Liam are progressing in their quest for individual mobility much more quickly than their mom is capable of handling it. They are quick, agile and sleek little monkey-worms who wriggle and crawl at unprecedented speeds. Their aptitude for movement dived ahead this month like Michael Phelps in the 400 IM. They began crawling on July 17th and within a week were pulling up to standing. By August both boys were moving while standing with assistance (the official name for this in the books is "cruising" but I think that is something entirely different.) The boys also enjoy climbing things like stairs and Mount Dad. In addition to this terrifying mobility, Oliver and Liam have made a few other exciting strides this month. At the beginning of the month, Oliver started clucking (this is what Aunt Judy calls it and I like it) like a little Kalahari Bush Baby. By the end of the month, he was also making abbreviated raspberries - just with his lips. Within a few weeks, Liam was also clucking contentedly away. It seems to be the boys' happy noise. Often when Oliver nurses he stops, looks up, clucks, and then gets back to eating. The cutest is when they click back and forth to each other. Both Liam and Oliver have four teeth on the top and two on the bottom jaw, and both seem to be saying mama and dada discriminately. Or at least I think they are.
We had another busy month and some exciting firsts for the boys. We had a nice visit from our friends Al Baby and Christie from DC and had a lovely time at Chris, Cat and Logan's house to swim and eat.The next weekend, we packed up the car and traveled to NYC to see the Marensteins who were still DINKS, albeit pregnant DINKS (double-income-no-kids). Our visit was fantastic and we had huge amounts of fun hanging out with our friends in their beautiful new home, and meeting their new cat Rufus. While there, the boys went in the ocean for the first time at Brighton Beach, had their first walk through Central Park, and even got to nurse in FAO Schwartz. It was a bit frightening how excited Harry and Chris got about the train sets. Dina was a trooper during the heat wave at eight months pregnant following along with the rest of us and even allowing Harry to cook meat in the house. (Her little Simon turned her into a vegetarian. But I did catch her sipping out of a bottle of hot sauce from the refrigerator, so she hasn't gone completely normal.) Dina and I even got a chance to shop in SOHO and Dina's mom babysat while we went out for some Nepalese food- yum.
The following weekend, Zio Jonathan came into town to watch Oliver and Liam while Chris, Tia Lu, Uncle Ick and I did our Triathlon (see last blog for details.)
The first weekend of August, Aunt Megan came into town and we got to spend some excellent bonding time with her. It was wonderful to see her, especially since she came bearing gifts for the boys. Olibear and Liam love her and were glad she returned a few days later with her logger dude Eric. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting him and hope he comes back to the East a lot. He's originally from Wisconsin like my BFFF mom Tania so clearly he is awesome. While Meg was in town, we had a retirement party for my favorite Aunt Nancy at the Greece Brent's house. Everybody swam and ate and drank and had a wonderful time. Congrats Aunt Nancy!Speaking of Tania, she FINALLY came home from her stupid vacation (well, SHE had a good time) and we were able to start hanging out again.
The final weekend of the boys' 9th month was spent in the Catskills with the Ivers family. Luckily the weather was stinky so we got to watch the Olympics!!! Don't you love Nastia? We put a hiatus on the No TV for Babies Policy and became couch potatoes. We also had a lovely time visiting with Babcia, Grampy, Zio Jonathan, Aunt Pat, Aunt Judy, Aunt MaryAnn and Lauren and Erik. Also, Lauren and Erik's new puppy, Pickles!
Some other things the Boys did this month:
- Went to the Eastman House with Tia Lu- their 1st museum visit!
- Went to see Bat Man at the drive in movie theater with Tony and Rachel and Tia Lu. Okay, they were asleep but they probably would have enjoyed it if they weren't such babies and had stayed awake.
- Saw Lipa and Chris Perry when they stopped in before a trip to California.
- Saw Jeff Difranco who came to visit from Seattle.
- Attended a pool party at the Gambill's house thrown by Aunt Nancy.
Some other Exciting News from this month:
- Happy Birthday to Joe Scherer, Grampy Ivers, Aunt Judy Bohen and Dominick Giorgis!!
- Congrats to Lauren and Erik Reinert who bought a new home and got the cutest stinking miniature greyhound/lab puppy in the world! Her Name is Pickles.
- Congrats to Chris Perry who got a teaching position in Binghamton.
- Please note the lovely photo of Matt and Mimi O'Connell who are awesome new parents.
- And evidently, Logan Brent is also Yoda. I wish my children doubled as Star Wars characters.
