Last Casts

Our T.O. trip went smoothly yesterday. Molly is now definitely in her last casts as her ankles are loosening up nicely and the physio is completely happy. So much so that we don't need to return to Sick Kids in two weeks - we can just remove the casts and put on the boots and bar ourselves. We also saw the Occupational Therapist, who was happy with the progress in her hands. She still keeps her left thumb tucked into her palm, but she freely moves all the rest of her fingers.

Kate went to her first yoga class in when we got home, and the kids slept well while she was out. So we had well-rested kids and a relaxed momma. Quiet day today, although we did manage to get caught in a deluge during our morning walk.

Three Months Old

The kids are 3 months old today. So, I'll try to summarize who I think they are, although I don't think I'm much more certain than I was at 2 months.

Jacob (aka Slim, aka The Jacobian One) is long and lean. All his fat is concentrated in his jowls, although he has some pleasing folds in his thighs. Weigh-in tomorrow in T.O. but he's around 11 1/2 pounds, growing like a weed. He could eat all day, although he puts on a performance, with choking and needing to be burped. He's the drama queen of the two. What he likes most in the world is being "sack of potato'd" by his momma (or distant second choice, me), snuffling into her neck, going completely limp. He has great frown lines on his forehead and he always looks like the worries of the world are squarely on his shoulders. He's very chatty even though his vocabulary is thus far limited to "Agooo". Some people think he's looking more like me, but I can't see it yet. The only resemblance I've seen is to my dad, and it's always disconcerting. I'm burping him and he looks up at me with a critical, disappointed look that I haven't seen since..., well we don't need to go into why or when my dad gave me the disappointed look, but it's been awhile.

Molly (aka The Mollinator, aka Molly Molly Ding Dong) is a more compact build, approaching 10 1/2 pounds. Half the time she looks like a delicate flower (her grandma says like a pansy) and the other half she looks like Brian Urlacher. She looks spectacular in blue and a little off in pink, and I'm sure that's not just my politics speaking. She's sweet and feisty and hilarious (can you have a wry sense of humour at this age?). She beams at you when she's well-fed, and most of the rest of the time too. And then if she is displeased on occasion, then she displays her rage. She doesn't give off sad or mournful cries like her brother; she screams in anger or not at all. She has proven that she, too, can say "Agoo", but why would she say it over and over like Jacob. She prefers these funny little happy shrieks, which if they were more predictable, I would post on video. She is also unfazeable (if that's not a word, then it should be), whether by the feet business at Sick Kids, or anything else. I gave her a bottle of formula this weekend as Kate was delayed at the hospital, and she took it without a blink. She's definitely a trooper.

Three's Company

I'm home alone with the kids as Kate is in the middle of her first 24-hour call shift since the twins arrived. So far, so good. Kate's been home for a few meals and breaks and no disasters have befallen us in between. We'll see what the night holds, but generally the evenings are the worst part of the day. They've been sleeping 5-6 hours at night on a pretty consistent basis.

We went to T.O. on Thursday for Molly's feet. We were hoping she'd be out of the casts, but her ankles were still pretty stiff so they decided to keep her in casts for a few more weeks. On the bright side, the arch that they had been concerned about had loosened up nicely. And the time in these casts counts towards the time she would have spent in the boots and bars, so the overall schedule remains the same. And everyone continues to be confident that the end results will be excellent.

Photos from Camp

1. Grandma and Molly

2. Molly enjoying "Big Joe's Trailer Truck" for the first time. Getting some culturally-appropriate Thunder Bay literary content.

3. Freshly painted camp. Getting a bit fancy methinks.

4. Proof that it really did snow. See the flakes by Lois's leg.

Photos from the trip to T-Bay

1. Twins' first time seeing Lake Superior, during a diaper-changing pitstop. Yes, it's freezing already and we hadn't even reached Thunder Bay yet.


2. Recreating the airplane scene that got me puked on by Jacob. Molly would never do such a thing though.


3. Kate's mom holding a very chubby-jowled Jacob. Note the resemblance to Winston Churchill. You can see why we've nicknamed him "Slim".

4. Kate, her Papa and Molly, all squinting into the sun. Unless that was the glare off the snow, I can't recall.

Jacob's First Word

I'll post Thunder Bay photos ASAP (later tonight twins-permitting), but first the big news. In the past week Jacob started saying his first word. Given that the word is "agooo" it is possible that only his parents are excited. Given that when Jacob paired his word with a smile, his mother pronounced, "Now he's speaking in sentences", it's possible that at least one of us has lost all perspective. Agooo seems to be a multi-purpose word. Since it arose in T-Bay for the first time, I suspect that the original meaning was "holy crap, it's cold up here".

Here's a video of a scintillating conversation between Jacob and Kate.

I won't say how many takes the video took, but here's an example of how lame it looks when Jacob is not participating in an Agoooo conversation.

Hair

Kate got her Cameron Diaz-in-The Holiday-haircut yesterday and looks gorgeous. The Holiday - terrible movie, fabulous hair. Not sure if Diaz herself had to come all the way to T-Bay for the cut. Got me thinking, what are the rules on a guy going into a barber with a photo of a celeb and saying, "I want to look like him"? In which case, for my current haircut, I may have mistakenly requested a cross between Colm Meaney:

and Farmer Ted from 16 Candles:

Photos to follow if I can upload on this dial-up connection.

Possible Flurries!?!?!?!

We left for our big road trip after watching a couple of sets of the Federer-Djokovic (we're big Djok fans, although it's hard to cheer against classy Roger, even when he's wearing his dorky tuxedo shorts) final and made it as far as Sudbury after getting stuck in traffic - who knew there were that many cottagers heading north to Sudbury? We pulled into the motel at 10:30pm, fed the kids and they were asleep by 11pm. They slept until 4:30am with barely a peep. We may sell our house and move into a motel. After a feed, we hit the road at 5am and made it to Thunder Bay by 3:30pm. With Kate pumping and feeding from bottles in the back seat, we only needed stops for diaper changes and leg stretching, so it wasn't bad. The kids didn't get restless until the last hour or so. And we had a beautiful day for the very scenic drive along the shores of Lake Superior.

Upon arrival here, the kids turned pretty crazy. They were both pretty inconsolable all evening and slept restlessly last night. Even this morning, they're both still a little off kilter. Our morning Mariposa coffee was replaced with a stop at the Robin's Donuts, where I had the T-Bay donut specialty - a Persian (which were a big hit at our wedding - I love that Wikipedia actually has an entry on the Thunder Bay Persian!).

Definitely a lot chillier up here, getting down to around freezing at night, and drizzly. The weather report says there's a chance of snow flurries later in the week. And Kate doesn't understand why I never wanted to move here.

Photos before we hit the road

Here's a big smile from Jacob. They don't give out these smiles willy-nilly, which makes us work all the harder to try to "earn" them.



Most of their affections are reserved for chandeliers. Particularly this one in their bedroom. They stare at it, entranced and in love. It gets more smiles than Kate and I combined. It's not even a very nice light fixture. I can't believe I'm feeling jealous pangs of rivalry towards some tacky, Ikea chandelier.

Road Trip

We're off to Thunder Bay tomorrow on the kids' first big road trip, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post over the next week or so.

Revenge is Best Served Curdled

After the infamous "milk incident" described in the previous entry, apparently Jacob has been harbouring deep resentment. This morning I was lying on my back and picked him up into the airplane position. As I said "zoooom", he launched a geyser of digested milk on a direct trajectory down towards my open mouth. Only my deft reflexes saved me from a mouthful - instead he doused my cheek and neck. Now we're even.

The reinforcements arrived late on Wednesday night, as my parents are here until Sunday. We have taken great advantage of them thus far. We got a night out on Thursday (in lieu of our anniversary) - dinner on a patio in the sweltering September heat, followed by a walk for ice creams. Plus, we've had numerous breaks and naps with the extra coverage. So much more civilized.

And speaking of revenge, dad exacted his on the golf course this morning, cruising to an easy victory.

Crying over Split Milk

After a fairly sleepless Monday night, I barely limped through Tuesday, was still quite groggy for my fantasy football draft (yes, I have nerdy hobbies too), and then we tried to put the kids down for the night. We favour bottle-feeding for the night feeds as it tends to be calmer and easier to put them down afterwards. So, I took my full bottle and flipped it upside down to head towards Jacob's mouth. Only, I'd failed to tighten the lid, so the entire contents poured out on his head, clothing and bed. Now he was squawking and I had nothing to feed him. Fortunately, Molly shared hers until we could get some more warmed up, but it was general bedlam. And precious, pumped milk had gone to waste.

Here are two photos of Jacob and me, in more peaceful times, watching the US Open on tv.



Today has been significantly calmer, as we all slept well last night (despite the histrionics described above). The kids had their two-month shots at the doctor and after a few outraged wails, both settled right down for peaceful naps in the stroller. Jacob is now 50th percentile for length and head circumference, and just a smidge below 50th for weight. Molly is above the 10th for weight and length and 25th for head. Considering that last month he was 10-25th and she was 3rd percentile, they're both growing very well. As can be discerned by Jacob's increasingly chubby cheeks, as pictured above.

Labour Day . . .

. . . but fortunately not "go-into-Labour-day-while-in-Orillia" for visiting 38-week pregnant Tara. We had a great visit and picnic down at the waterfront. Visitors may be noting a trend of picnics, which don't require any food preparation, just a whirlwind tour of the grocery store's deli section. Their little guy, Zaiden, is coming up to two years old and is fascinated by ducks, dogs, bikes and pianos. All things that our really little ones have yet to notice. The rest of the day has consisted of me trying (and failing) to get in a nap.

Five Years

It's our 5th wedding anniversary today and we're celebrating with . . . twins! Plus Chinese takeout dinner. I think we'll go out for a meal once my folks arrive later this week.

Here's a photo of Molly in her new casts. You can sort of tell that her feet are pointing in the right direction post-surgery.