Little Crab Claw
The boyos and I had a great day Wednesday. We were booked to see their physical therapist at Humongous HMO at 10:30 (they are still receiving therapy for the torticollis, or "wry neck"), and I had been getting flyers all week for the EnormoGinormousBonanzaWhingaDinga Sale (Buy one, get fifteen free! or something like that) at Gottschalk's (a local Macy's knockoff), and I had been further thinking that the boyos just don't get out enough... so we made a day of it.
By some small miracle, and with a little help from D., who doesn't teach until evenings on Wednesdays, we got out of the house on time and arrived at Humongous HMO with ten minutes to spare... where we found that half the population of Sonoma County had apparently discovered a burning need to hang out at our HMO. The parking lot was buzzing like a termite hive with SUVs crawling the aisles, looking for a spot to fold their wings. Giving up after a moment of that, I headed for the parking garage (which I dislike because it is a looooooong walk, especially pushing a slightly heavy stroller, to the other side of the campus where I inevitably need to go)... where I found that the garage was officially and signfully Temporarily Full.
The boyos may have picked up a few new vocabulary words as I continued to circle the parking lot looking for a place to alight. The good thing about having twins is that you usually end up with doc appointments booked back to back, and so we finally got into the building at 10:55 -- just in time for the second twin's 11:00. The upshot was that the PT only had time to work with one twin, so I chose Gus, who is still being rather charmingly floppy.
Just to fill you in, we saw a pediatric neurologist in Oakland a couple of weeks ago for said floppiness, who examined Gus and Sam and listened to our tales about them. She said she thought Gus was probably just fine (though she invited us to bring him back in January or February if he hasn't caught up with Sam yet). She didn't use the word "lazy," since it has pejorative overtones, but the word seemed to be hanging in the air. Sam is a busy, busy baby, with people to see and things to do and let's hop to it, sistah! Gus is just... well, if I had a nickel for every time someone has called him "laid back," we'd have a fair lump already for his college fund. Gus has clearly bought the line that the adventure lies in the journey, not the arrival. Sam not only wants to cut to the arrival, he wants to know where we're going next? and how about a party afterward?
The good news from the PT was that the boys are both doing much better holding their heads in midline (i.e., straight up rather than lolling toward the left), and she said she thought they wouldn't need to see her much longer. She also said their heads already looked much rounder to her.
Following the PT appointment, we wandered into the Patient Relations office, since it was across from the PT offices. I had intended only to ask for the proper address to send a nastygram regarding the problem we had with Dr. Wacko (whom we never actually saw) -- the pediatric neurosurgeon who wouldn't see the boys for their plagiocephaly without them first having a cat scan. (Hmph. As if!) I ended up talking with a very sympathetic Patient Relations, ah, person (no idea what they call themselves) who said that she would write the nastygram for me and not only that, send it to Dr. Wacko's boss for a reply. Hah, so there! (I must say this was above and beyond what I expected.)
In the course of our 20 minutes in her office, Gus decided that he liked this woman, and started grinning and ducking his head and flirting with her, culminating in -- gasp! -- a wave! A real wave! My neighbor down the street had told me she thought Gus had waved at her a couple of weeks ago, but I never saw another one so I chalked it up to imagination. Then a few days ago, he raised his arm toward me and made kind of a grasping motion. I thought that he was trying to grab my hand, and didn't think anything more of it.
But the PR lady said, "Oh, look, he's waving!" And viewed in that context, I had to admit, she was right! It was darling -- his little arm was raised in some sort of stiff Sig-heil-looking movement, and his little fingers and thumb opened and closed like a little pink crab claw. So from a purely aesthetic point of view it wasn't much. But the grin on his face told me he was trying to communicate, and what else could it be but a wave? How wonderful! (Update: When D came home tonight, Gus gave him a wave too! Still the crab claw thing. Adorable.)
Gus's little wave made me giddy with adoring him and Sam. It was absolutely the highlight of the day. (Actually, I feel giddy much of the time, whenever I contemplate my great good fortune in being their mommy, and how narrowly that came to be.) We buzzed by the hospital cafeteria (which, amazingly enough, has quite tasty lunches), where I picked up a chicken sandwich and a diet Pepsi and then looked around for a nonexistent place to alight. (I have to reiterate here something I've mentioned in earlier posts -- which is that whenever I go anywhere with the boyos, I feel like the chauffeur to a pair of rock stars. Heads literally swivel as we go by, and murmurs of "Oh, twins!" and "How adorable!" waft behind us. People stop me in my tracks to inform me how lucky I am and to tell me all about their family histories of twins. I'm not exaggerating. Rent a pair of same-size babies and try it for yourself, if you don't believe me!)
A nice woman named Susan invited us to share her table, and we had quite a nice conversation while I fed the babies and myself. She told me a sad story about her brother's child, a little girl who (years ago) contracted polio from the live virus oral vaccination, and ended up dying at age nine, her body wracked by the various ravages of the disease. Yikes. Poor child.
Following lunch, we decamped to the mall, where we trolled Gottschalk's for a solid two hours, tried on some Seven7 jeans (which used to be all the rage and commanded prices over a hundred bucks but now were slashed to a mere $39.95 -- how low have the mighty fallen!) which fit all right, but I decided my still-carrying-baby-weight ass is a bit large to waste $39.95 on. Instead we bought and brought home a sum total of two Christmas ornaments. (Both kitty ornaments, of course!) The boys were good as gold and left still more middle-aged women swooning in their tracks.
I don't know that this blow-by-blow account of our day is terribly interesting to anyone but me, but I wanted to record it since although it was an ordinary day, it was also a great day because I was hangin' with the boyos. I do get very tired and sometimes quite stressed, just because caring for TWO infants at once is pretty exhausting ... but I really can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be.
And the crab claw slayed me. Oh, you kid!
By some small miracle, and with a little help from D., who doesn't teach until evenings on Wednesdays, we got out of the house on time and arrived at Humongous HMO with ten minutes to spare... where we found that half the population of Sonoma County had apparently discovered a burning need to hang out at our HMO. The parking lot was buzzing like a termite hive with SUVs crawling the aisles, looking for a spot to fold their wings. Giving up after a moment of that, I headed for the parking garage (which I dislike because it is a looooooong walk, especially pushing a slightly heavy stroller, to the other side of the campus where I inevitably need to go)... where I found that the garage was officially and signfully Temporarily Full.
The boyos may have picked up a few new vocabulary words as I continued to circle the parking lot looking for a place to alight. The good thing about having twins is that you usually end up with doc appointments booked back to back, and so we finally got into the building at 10:55 -- just in time for the second twin's 11:00. The upshot was that the PT only had time to work with one twin, so I chose Gus, who is still being rather charmingly floppy.
Just to fill you in, we saw a pediatric neurologist in Oakland a couple of weeks ago for said floppiness, who examined Gus and Sam and listened to our tales about them. She said she thought Gus was probably just fine (though she invited us to bring him back in January or February if he hasn't caught up with Sam yet). She didn't use the word "lazy," since it has pejorative overtones, but the word seemed to be hanging in the air. Sam is a busy, busy baby, with people to see and things to do and let's hop to it, sistah! Gus is just... well, if I had a nickel for every time someone has called him "laid back," we'd have a fair lump already for his college fund. Gus has clearly bought the line that the adventure lies in the journey, not the arrival. Sam not only wants to cut to the arrival, he wants to know where we're going next? and how about a party afterward?
The good news from the PT was that the boys are both doing much better holding their heads in midline (i.e., straight up rather than lolling toward the left), and she said she thought they wouldn't need to see her much longer. She also said their heads already looked much rounder to her.
Following the PT appointment, we wandered into the Patient Relations office, since it was across from the PT offices. I had intended only to ask for the proper address to send a nastygram regarding the problem we had with Dr. Wacko (whom we never actually saw) -- the pediatric neurosurgeon who wouldn't see the boys for their plagiocephaly without them first having a cat scan. (Hmph. As if!) I ended up talking with a very sympathetic Patient Relations, ah, person (no idea what they call themselves) who said that she would write the nastygram for me and not only that, send it to Dr. Wacko's boss for a reply. Hah, so there! (I must say this was above and beyond what I expected.)
In the course of our 20 minutes in her office, Gus decided that he liked this woman, and started grinning and ducking his head and flirting with her, culminating in -- gasp! -- a wave! A real wave! My neighbor down the street had told me she thought Gus had waved at her a couple of weeks ago, but I never saw another one so I chalked it up to imagination. Then a few days ago, he raised his arm toward me and made kind of a grasping motion. I thought that he was trying to grab my hand, and didn't think anything more of it.
But the PR lady said, "Oh, look, he's waving!" And viewed in that context, I had to admit, she was right! It was darling -- his little arm was raised in some sort of stiff Sig-heil-looking movement, and his little fingers and thumb opened and closed like a little pink crab claw. So from a purely aesthetic point of view it wasn't much. But the grin on his face told me he was trying to communicate, and what else could it be but a wave? How wonderful! (Update: When D came home tonight, Gus gave him a wave too! Still the crab claw thing. Adorable.)
Gus's little wave made me giddy with adoring him and Sam. It was absolutely the highlight of the day. (Actually, I feel giddy much of the time, whenever I contemplate my great good fortune in being their mommy, and how narrowly that came to be.) We buzzed by the hospital cafeteria (which, amazingly enough, has quite tasty lunches), where I picked up a chicken sandwich and a diet Pepsi and then looked around for a nonexistent place to alight. (I have to reiterate here something I've mentioned in earlier posts -- which is that whenever I go anywhere with the boyos, I feel like the chauffeur to a pair of rock stars. Heads literally swivel as we go by, and murmurs of "Oh, twins!" and "How adorable!" waft behind us. People stop me in my tracks to inform me how lucky I am and to tell me all about their family histories of twins. I'm not exaggerating. Rent a pair of same-size babies and try it for yourself, if you don't believe me!)
A nice woman named Susan invited us to share her table, and we had quite a nice conversation while I fed the babies and myself. She told me a sad story about her brother's child, a little girl who (years ago) contracted polio from the live virus oral vaccination, and ended up dying at age nine, her body wracked by the various ravages of the disease. Yikes. Poor child.
Following lunch, we decamped to the mall, where we trolled Gottschalk's for a solid two hours, tried on some Seven7 jeans (which used to be all the rage and commanded prices over a hundred bucks but now were slashed to a mere $39.95 -- how low have the mighty fallen!) which fit all right, but I decided my still-carrying-baby-weight ass is a bit large to waste $39.95 on. Instead we bought and brought home a sum total of two Christmas ornaments. (Both kitty ornaments, of course!) The boys were good as gold and left still more middle-aged women swooning in their tracks.
I don't know that this blow-by-blow account of our day is terribly interesting to anyone but me, but I wanted to record it since although it was an ordinary day, it was also a great day because I was hangin' with the boyos. I do get very tired and sometimes quite stressed, just because caring for TWO infants at once is pretty exhausting ... but I really can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be.
And the crab claw slayed me. Oh, you kid!
posted by Hetty Fauxvert at 11:39 PM
2 Comments:
I love your day!
Thanks for the support on nap resistance (you made me laugh) and about Piper, who I am so torn about. He is SUCH a good boy. I wish wish wish I could take him, but I can;t. I have too much now. 2 dogs, a very elderly cat, and the BABY sic Jerry Seinfeld.
Anyway Thanks for the good thoughts.
I recently found your blog and I enjoy reading about the boys, they are so handsome and talented!
My girls were born on 03/17 and we also have a household full of kitties; I feel like we are your East Coast counterparts!
I love the stories as many of them mirror what my girls are up to. The crab crab claw story is great as one of my girls also just started doing a signature move. She holds her palm-up, and wags her fingers. We haven't figured out if it means "Gimme", "More", "Hi/Bye", or the more worldly "Ciao".
Isn't amazing how much are children can entertain us?
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