….My Brain After Too Many Onomatopoeic Words

It’s a family-events centered kind of weekend, saying hello to one side and goodbye to another.

Keith and Mina and Leif and Skye leave for Hong Kong/Japan in less than a week. This is the trip that we vacillated on for a while but ultimately decided not to take part in because I couldn’t imagine setting up shop for an extended period of time halfway across the world with two one-year-olds. I also can’t begin to imagine the terror that is baby jet lag and the horror that is feeding babies with very capricious food tastes and whims. But now that they are leaving I think “That could have been us too.” My dad lives there and seems to have no interest in returning anytime soon so I imagine we will have another chance to go. Nicole’s brother is also in town from Florida with his wife and their daughter for a golf tournament. They are staying on Long Island so we are going back and forth between families.

I will share this next embarrassing story because I’m an over-sharer, even if it makes me look bad. We arrived at Keith and Mina’s on Saturday afternoon. Mina looks at the girls and laughs. We then had this interesting exchange:

Mina: Oh, so cute. Is Maddie all sweaty? [looking at her hair]
Me: No. Why?
Mina: Oh, her hair [touches hair, her hair is crunchy, not wet]
Me: That’s just food in her hair. It makes it stiff and crunchy.
Mina: I want to give the girls bath now. [She proceeds to give the girls a bath.]

It sounds better if you can hear Mina’s Japanese/English accent and if you were there. But the gist of the story is the girls were so dirty that Mina felt the need to bathe them herself immediately. No playing or eating or anything. Baths first. But in my defense Mina experienced firsthand how difficult it is to bathe two babies the same age at the same time.

In more messy news, the girls have graduated from their high chairs to…. New high chairs. We got two Stokke Tripp Trapp seats, the kind that push up to the table and make you feel like you are all eating together. It is, so far, great having them (the girls, that is) closer to the table and across from each other. And I love even more getting rid of the bulky seats that we were using. And now we can fit eight at our table (six big people and two little ones) for ALL those dinner parties we have (note the sarcasm).

We are also transitioning them to eating from bowls. This has so far been a disaster. They love to take the bowls and turn the contents onto the floor. I bought those suction cup bottoms kind but, well, they aren’t exactly living up to expectations or suction, for that matter. Avery and Madeline can easily break the suction and lift the bowls off the table. I am considering using duct tape till they get past this stage, if they ever get past this stage.

Yes, this post is just one exciting development after anther. It can’t all be drama and strife and wedding news, can it? I had awful awful awful dreams last night. They were so real, these dreams. I am afraid I will have them again. So now I have insomnia because I am afraid to go to bed. Which is why I am writing this meandering post.

Tomorrow it’s back to Long Island, and then Date Night back here in the city. Because I can’t keep a secret I told Nicole we are going to see The Dark Knight. I wanted to get tickets for the Imax showing but they are all sold out till next week (unless we want to go to the midnight show or 1:00 pm show). I wanted to keep it all a secret but then I didn’t want her to get her hopes too high up. How disappointed she could be when I say “Surprise! We are going to a movie!” when she was expecting, I don’t know, a private concert with George Michael or something. But the best I could come up with right now is a movie and maybe something delicious from here. I could so go for some coconut layer cake.

Another surprise: I pushed my Everest documentaries to the bottom and put The Golden Compass on top of our Netflix queue for Nicole. The book was recommended by our esteemed Librarian friend. Nicole loved it. Tore through it in a few days and we went to buy Book Two and Three today. On a disturbing note, our ten year old niece received a notification from her [church] school saying that that book was banned reading. It also said that they couldn’t watch the movie. If I had the energy right now, I would get into the stupidity of t but I don’t have the energy right now. Suffice it to say it is stupid. And now I want to take the book and read it in the back pew in full view of all. At her age I was reading Flowers in the Attic and The Thorn Birds and Deenie and Wifey and all sorts of soft porn geared toward lonely housewives or curious preteens and I turned out just fine. If true faith can be shaken by a mere book, than I doubt said faith was that true to begin with.

Pictured above, just a reminder of what we have to deal with when Avery eats. It is ALL over her. Below that, Skye in the tub. She had second shift bath after the girls. And below that. Madeline in her new seat. She looks quite comfortable, don’t you think?