BIG Steps

I often wonder if I baby the girls too much. Am I just being overly cautious or are other parents not cautious enough? Unfortunately, I know that bad things can happen. I've lived through that. When you are five days past your due date and you go into labor, you expect your baby to be born alive.

We've had a few scary experiences with the girls and I think the worst was with Anna. When she was first learning to pull herself up, she slipped and fell on her back, slightly hitting her head. I picked her up to soothe her and realized that she was limp in my arms. I put her on the couch and watched her eyes roll up into the back of her head. She recovered quickly and it was determined that she had held her breath long enough to pass out.

Friday night, Rich read in the local paper that there was going to be a children's "story hour" at the library on Saturday. We decided to bring the girls. No strollers, no choo choo wagon. They walked into the library holding our hands. That's a big step for us. Now, we don't plan on doing this at very many places. The girls know that when we are in a store, they have to stay in the stroller or shopping cart.

Story hour ended up being this semi-crazy lady who sang interactive songs and played games with the children. For example, she blew out all these colored feathers to the kids and the kids blew them up into the air and then picked them all up and brought them back to her bag. The girls were absolutely fascinated with the whole show. Rich and I sat on the floor with them in our laps. Strangers often comment to us that the girls are so well behaved. I think part of it is that they are so shy and they don't interact with that many other children that often. They've never been to daycare so for them to see all these kids together is a big deal.

Back to me being an overly cautious parent. The floor of this meeting room that the show was being held in was really, really hard. Anna is not that steady. Lucky for us, the girls didn't want to roam around so I didn't have to worry about one of them falling down. My main concern was the fact that there were older kids there, six to seven years old, and they could have easily knocked one of the girls down without even realizing it. During one of the pick up games, I witnessed a six year old crack his head against the head of a three year old. That would have been great for Anna's shunt!

The girls had a great time. They were still talking about it today. "Lady, hat. Balloons up. Kids."

Now, the girls have too many clothes. As I type this, I think I might have to do a post on their clothes and their closet. Whenever we go somewhere, I try to dress them somewhat nice and usually that's not an issue because there are so many options. It was a little on the cool side yesterday morning and I didn't want to dress them in anything too nice as I knew that we would be bringing them outstide to play later on. I picked out these oatmeal colored "sweatsuits" and thin blue turtlenecks to match the trim and the inside of the hood of the sweatsuits. I come out of the shower and Rich informs me that the pants are too big for the girls. He already had the turlenecks on them. We didn't have all that much time so I just grabbed these other sweatpants for them to wear.



They ended up looking like rag-a-muffins. You can't really see it in the picture but they are wearing lime green socks. And the pants are kind of too short for Em and Allie. Well, in this picture, they don't look too bad but you should have seen some of the outfits the other little grls were wearing. Ah, what it would be like to have singletons!!

This week was also big for us in that two of our "safety" home improvement projects were completed. The fence was installed and the carpet runner was put on the stairway. We have hardwood floor stairs leading up to the second floor. They had become a bit of a safety issue for the girls and for adults carrying the girls up and down.



I broke out my zoom lens from my old film camera and attached it to my D50.



After testing it outside, the girls were up from their non-nap and wanted to pose for some pictures with their Easter stuffed animals.

Em with the duck.



Allie and Anna. I love Anna's smile here.

The chilly days are still plentiful here in New England but yesterday was fairly nice with temperatures in the low 60's. After the girls' nap, we were only able to play outside for twenty minutes or so before it started raining. We ignored the random rain drops for as long as possible. The girls were mad, especially when we packed them up into the van to head to Old Navy.

When we were finished shopping, Rich suggested that we eat dinner out with the girls. I actually thought that we could handle it, including the girls . Rich checked out the nearby burger joint but it was crowded with a wait and I could see only three highchairs. As I was waiting for Rich to come back out, a waitress came over and took one of the chairs. That was a big step for us - simply considering going out to eat dinner in a restaurant. I told Rich that I wouldn't be opposed to trying to eat dinner out with the girls but we would need to plan better. It was time for Anna to be catheterized and the girls looked really raggy at that point. Their clothes were filthy from playing outside.

Because the girls are on the small side and don't have that much hair, everyone assumes that they are so much younger than two years old. I almost ripped someone's head off last night as we were heading back to the van and I heard, "Look at the cute little babies." I'm so tired of strangers calling them little babies.

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They're not little babies!!

I was checking out these two other little girls at the story time thing yesterday. I heard their moms say that they were two or just over two. They were much taller than the girls and one of them had a bob haircut. If I cut the girls' hair right now, they'd be bald. I told the girls that they need to grow and start acting like naughty two-year olds in public!