Eleven Months!

Welcome Simon Liese Marenstein, the newest baby in the club. This riotous redhead was born to Dina and Harry on August 16 and is thriving. Congrats to the new parents and we wish you sleep, sleep and sleep.






We've had yet another wonderful month with all sorts of firsts. The first first is to admit that I will not be receiving any mother of the year awards any time soon. The amount of black eyes and other nefarious bruising has risen drastically this month, and in one sad, sad case was the result of my finger hitting a very small and darting face. Poor Liam has of late taken on the nick-name "Black-eyed Bean" for obvious reasons and Oliver just yesterday fell victim to a bicycle tire pump; yet another age inappropriate toy that mommy and daddy didn't realize would be wielded as a weapon in the new baby on baby struggle for supremacy in the Ivers' house.





















Liam surprised us early this month by climbing the entire flight of stairs at Grampa and Gammy Scherer's house in an effort to get to me in a second floor room. Oliver has (unfortunately) also caught on to how much fun stair climbing is and now the boys often seek to escape from their baby cage and race up the stairs at our house. It was really cute and exciting the first few times. Not so much when one decides he's finished half way up the steps and throws himself back into the air. The boys in general have become much more agile- they are speedy and small. When Oliver is in a good mood, he practically stomps around on his hands and knees. Sometimes, he doesn't look up and this occasionally causes him to smash his sweet little head on walls, baby gates, and even the oven. When something gets in his way while he's crawling, he disdainfully throws it aside. He acts as though someone unbelievably daft put the horrible object in his way and he can't wait to see it gone.

Both Oliver and Liam are standing for moments on their own, and each can comfortably cruise around a room. We have had to purchase a "baby cage" to isolate the mischievousness of our boys, and it is the best money I've spent in a long time. (You can see this miraculous device in many of the photos shown.) Sometimes when Chris and I are together and decide it's a good time to "free range" the boys, we are quickly shocked at how two eleven month old, twenty pound, innocent looking children can terrorize a household so quickly. Last week, within moments of a free-range attempt, one had toppled and broken a floor lamp and one was knee deep in the hammock on the back porch. Sometimes they both crawl right to the screen door, stand up, and with their hands pounding on the screen above their heads, yell loudly. Presumably they wish to be rescued from this stifling environment.




We also had many adventures this month including a fun visit from Aunt Nancy, who rocks. When she comes to visit, she kicks Chris and me out of the house to hang with the babies.
We took a trip to the Conesus Lake Cottage to visit with Chris, Cat and Logan Brent and also Marta and her two little ones. So many small children! And if I may, I will take one moment to whine about how much gear one must haul for eleven month old twins: A LOT.

We also had the honor of throwing a baby shower-ish party for our friends Rachel and Tony who are expecting their Lena on Halloween. It was a blast and we even got to see Aunt Lipa who came in from out of town.

In one trip to Buffalo, the boys were able to play with their favorite cousins, Johnny and Andy Scherer. And in another trip to Buffalo, Oliver and Liam were finally able to meet my dear high school friend Leora.

In sad news, stupid library hour started again and I have taken to steeling myself to the agonizing twenty minutes that constitute this absurd club. Why do I go? I don't know. All the other well- quaffed moms sit with their well- behaved youngsters and gently sing the songs and listen to the stories while I work up a sweat dragging my loud and wrestling children into my lap. I've never even listened to a story. The last time, Liam succeeded in escaping my grasp and started poking at a 2-month old who used to be asleep in her car seat. I end up so hot and sweaty by the end I need another shower and certainly a drink.


In other exciting news:

• Chris ran the Oak Tree Conservancy 5K race- his first running race (other than the running portion of the triathlon). I twisted my ankle and had to sit this one out with Scott Giorgis who cheered on Tania running a 1/2 marathon in 8-minute miles. (She's crazy.) Congrats to both of you!
• Happy Birthday to Katie Scherer, Aunt Nancy and "spring chicken" Tania Giorgis.
• I started to teach more Yoga classes this month and am working on making a teen yoga class happen this fall.
• Chris and I celebrated our seven-year anniversary this month! Tia Lu came and watched Oliver and Liam while Chris and I had a nice dinner.
  
  

Finally, I would just like to take a moment to talk about how awesome my life is right now. No, I am not curing cancer like some people we all know (Karen Parker), but I love staying home with these boys. They are such easy and fantastic kids. As much as the first several months were the biggest challenge of my life, it has all been made up for recently. We take our time eating, we play for hours, go on walks and runs, read books and relax. The time is sweetened knowing I return to work in February; for now, I am lucky and happy.
Have a great month!

10 Months

It continually baffles me 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.