Thursday, December 20, 2007

But wait, there's more!

More teeth, that is! Woo hoo!

Sam and Gus both have FOUR teeth coming in on top, not just two. Actually, this state of affairs has been in place for several days, but I've just been running around here like the proverbial decapitated chicken, and so haven't updated. But oh, those teeth are coming in fast and furious! I can't tell you how beautiful those literally pearly white tiny teeth are. (Okay, or rather, the very tips of said teeth. But they are pearly, and extremely white.) And it won't surprise you to hear that the boys are chewing on pretty much everything in sight.

The boyos are really looking more and more like little boys these days rather than babies. They are FAST little buggers when it comes to crawling (especially Sam, whom we have dubbed Mr. Beeline, for his habit of making a swift and brutally direct line to whatever has caught his fancy at the moment, usually the open refrigerator door or a fleeing cat). They are both working hard on standing unassisted. (Gus gets up on one knee, the other leg straight out at an angle, and spreads his arms wide -- for balance, one assumes -- in a way that makes him look like he's either doing that Russian dance with the bottle on the head or else auditioning for a remake of The Al Jolson Story. Sam is more traditional, also getting up on one knee but grabbing whatever vertical item he can find -- often my knee -- to balance with. He hasn't quiiite figured out the full-fledged pullup move yet. However, I had to remove Sam's mobile from his crib tonight -- sob! -- because he has figured out how to get up far enough to actually grab the mobile, which has choking hazards on it. And by the way, I ask you, what freakin' genius designed a BABY MOBILE with choking hazards?! Good gravy.)

Another less charming habit that they've both acquired is doing the Locomotion when we are trying to change their diapers. People, you haven't lived until you are changing a VERY poopy diaper and suddenly have your squirmy, fairly strong little nine-month-old roll over on the changing pad and start to blithely crawl away. Trailing you-know-what behind him. Ick, to say the least. Wrassling the boyos is like trying to change a very expensive, dear and wonderful little freakin' octopus! Not fun. D and I have taken to calling in reinforcements for diaper changing if the other one is home. (Of course, I do almost all of the poopy diaper changing, since the poopy diapers literally make D sick at his stomach. Curiously, scooping the cats' litter boxes -- D's job since my pregnancy days -- doesn't have the same effect. I haven't pointed out the discrepancy since I have no desire to ever scoop a litter box in my life again!)

Oddly enough, Gus and Sam have very different poop styles. (I know -- who knew there were styles of pooping? Live and learn.) Gus produces big wet extravaganzas of medium-brown poop that sometimes seep up his back, past the diaper and onto his clothes. (Fun for the whole family! Especially when Mommy gets some on her clean new shirt!) Also, Gus is a "stealth pooper" -- he poops quietly and doesn't cry or otherwise make a fuss, so you might not notice until he's been sitting in it for a while, by which time he commonly has a headstart on a bit of diaper rash. I have taken to sniffing my blond boy frequently! Sam, by contrast, produces very adult-looking, compact, dark brown turds that are much, much easier to clean up -- but smell like he's taken up Dumpster-diving and eating garbage as a hobby.

In Total Cuteness News, Gus learned (and taught his brother) how to play peek-a-boo with Mommy by peeking around the corner of the couch or the bathroom door -- any kind of architectural feature, really. Seeing and listening to them dissolve in gales of giggles as we play is, literally, one of the joys of my entire life. I just had no idea. I knew I would love my children, yes, but this.... This love I have for them sweeps all else before it. I have to keep a firm rein on myself not to become an Obnoxious Mommy. (You know what I mean. I don't have to detail this for you.) But at least now I understand the cause of Obnoxious Mommydom. These boys, these tiny twenty pound-ish people who literally did not exist before 17 months ago are the most wonderful beings I have ever met.

Ah, well. I'm a nutcase. Blame the Tylenol that I've been mainlining since yesterday. In other news, I have a wretched cold. Rivers of mucus running down my throat and out my nose, to the point where if I have both hands full of baby or what-have-you, I have actually dripped onto my own clothing. The disgustingness of this makes me want to make the noises that Bill the Cat used to make. Ack. Gick. Worse, though, is the sneaking suspicion that where Mommy leads, the boyos will not be long to follow. I called up Big Humongous HMO today to get tips on how to take care of little boyos with horrific colds, and it was all the old stuff my mom used to inflict on me -- lots of fluids, a vaporizer at night, a little infant Tylenol here and there.

I hope to heck they don't catch this cold. We'll see if our luck has run out.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Triple tasking

Well, it's 1 a.m. and I am sitting here pumping and simultaneously shopping on the Internet for new dress pants for D for Christmas (he wears a 35 waist -- nobody but L#nds End seems to carry those!) and I am about to drop ... does that make this shopping till I drop? ... but I had to pop by here to report that ... drum roll, please ....

Masters Gus and Sam once again have coordinated the acquisition of new teeth!

Just found 'em today. Gus has one new top tooth (the left front one) which has fairly well sprouted -- maybe with 1/4 inch visible -- and Sam has both top fronts visible, but only just barely. This coordination of teeth cracks me up. They apparently reached into the gene pool and got different eyes (Gus's are powder blue still, but Sam's are veering toward green or hazel), different ears (Gus's are a replica of my dad's big ones, and Sam has D's pointy little elf ears), and different hair (Gus's hair is lighter than Sam's, though they both seem to be working toward a reddish brown), but they are definitely sharing the teeth gene. Too cute.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Tough day


When I went to bed last night, I found that Georgina had made it up from her little nest, but collapsed only a couple of feet away. When I picked her up, I noticed she was twitching all over, and she also seemed not to be able to walk at all. I ended up sleeping all night with her lying on my chest.

This morning, she still seemed not to be able to get up, so I knew it was time. My lovely neighbor Grandma D came over and watched the boys, and D drove Georgina and me to the vet. On the way, I told Georgina how much I loved her and how I'd miss her, and reminisced about the fun times we had, like when D and I spent a semester in southern France (he had wangled a job teaching at a school there) and took Georgina with us, since France is fine with people bringing pets in. We had an apartment with stairs, which she had never seen before. It took her a couple of days to get used to the stairs, but then the fun began! She spent the rest of the semester charging up and down the stairs at lightning speed, often dragging along a little pink sock she had found somewhere. We often woke up there to the sound of her chirping to the sock at 3 a.m. and then ricocheting up and down the stairs a time or two. When she wasn't running up and down, she would crouch on the stairs, peering between the bannisters, "spying" on us in the living room below. I've never seen anyone have so much fun with stairs.

They gave her the drug in an I.V. in her front leg. She went easily, barely perceptibly, since she was only hanging on by a thread anyway. I can't tell you how much I cried today. I don't think I've cried this much about anything since we lost my mom back in 1996.

Tough day.

But in better news... and thank God, there is always better news as soon as I turn my attention to the boys... Gus actually clapped today! His first clap! Of course, he only did it once, but it was unmistakeable. I was whistling "Running on Ice" (it's a fun one to whistle; try it sometime) and clapping along, all for the entertainment of the boys. Both boys were grinning, and then Gus actually clapped his hands together once! What a milestone.

Then later in the evening, apropos of nothing, as far as I could tell, Sam waved at me! Or maybe he was trying to signal me to pick him up. Not sure, really, but it was something. While looking right at me, Sam held up his right hand and kind of cupped his fingers -- an inverted wave, I guess -- and then made a fist and slammed it down over his heart. Then he repeated the whole thing, grinning all the while. Meaning? Who knows? D suggested that our little guy was really attempting a Sig Heil (and I must admit it looked like that!). Too cute, whatever it was. Of course I grabbed him up and smooched his little cheeks, so now he probably thinks it's a signal for that.

Thank God for the boys. In so many ways.