First, the basic schedule from the last few days:<\/p>\n
Thursday: I spent the day writing a bit (during naps) and finishing preparations for my friend’s arrival. He got here about 5:30 and we hung out for the evening.<\/p>\n
Friday: My other college friends arrived and we spent the entire day eating, talking, playing, and generally catching up. My parents and Karen & Jason came later to say hello, as well. Everybody went home between 8:30 and 9:00 and we went to bed.<\/p>\n
Saturday: We did nothing to speak of. I worked on pictures in the morning. And we did leave the house to run errands for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Oh, and Eric finished a Persistance of Vision ‘toy’ (think something like this<\/a>) he was making at his brother’s request for their church’s VBS. <\/p>\n Sunday: We drove to the farm (and back) in one day to deliver the aforementioned POV ‘toy’ which ended up being a huge hit. And we spent the day with grandparents, which was also a huge hit. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next…funny things from the last few days:<\/p>\n 1. The twins have pacifiers but only for sleeping. A little bit ago, they climbed the stairs from the kitchen, each with a pacifier in their mouths (and oddly, each had the ‘correct’ color based on gender). They found them in the bag we took to the farm yesterday and brought them to me…in their mouths. It made me laugh.<\/p>\n 2. Yesterday, we were out on my MIL’s front porch. The twins were running back and forth, while Eric and I sat on the porch swing. Alex had a large flat rock which broke a piece off when he dropped it. He brought it to Eric who ‘fixed’ it for him by giving back only the large section. He went to surreptitiously throw the little piece over his shoulder off the porch so Alex wouldn’t know. Instead, it hit the main chime of the windchimes hanging right above us, making a very loud “GONG” as it disappeared. I laughed really hard.<\/p>\n 3. Karen came over with Jason on Friday evening to see our college friends. Until last Friday, Jason has never voluntarily touched me (he’d hug me if asked to, but wouldn’t do it on his own). On Friday, he seemed to want to be closer to me than even his mom! It was really funny because he’s just never been like that with me before. I guess I’m just too lovable to resist!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Also….the not so fun things from the last few days:<\/p>\n 1. The twins were fussy like I’ve never known them to be this weekend. Some of it, I know, is sheer exhaustion. They’ve been running and busy for days on end, and though they’ve been sleeping pretty well, they are tired. Sunday morning, especially, absolutely NOTHING made them happy. And they are starting to throw more fits when I tell them ‘no’ about something. I think we are beginning the adventure of the Terrible Twos. Oh joy…<\/p>\n 2. A one-day trip to the farm is typically hard and tiring anyway, but yesterday, the drive itself was ridiculous. It took us a full hour to get from the west side of Columbus to the east side (normally, it’s less than 30 minutes) because of construction. And then it took us longer to get home because of torrential rains. Also, we had little-to-no air conditioning again. And the twins were not inclined to sleep. So they got pretty fussy about having to be in their seats for that long. Thankfully, I discovered that singing songs with them is a good distraction, and Eric is a good driver. So we managed to survive!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And finally…other random pieces of life:<\/p>\n 1. I finally ordered pictures of the twins again. It’ll be fun to hang up current pictures of them in the near future!<\/p>\n 2. Right now, my favorite room in the house is the guest room. After my mom came up (last Tuesday) and helped me clean it out, make the bed and organize it, it’s this oddly clean and peaceful room. I have no idea how long that will last, but it’s just nice to walk into a room like that in the midst of the lived-in look of the rest of my house!<\/p>\n 3. We bought some books from a college student who came to our door on Saturday evening. He told Eric he’d give him his car if Eric could correctly guess which European country he was from. Eric had already pieced together (accent + blond + a name with a double vowel) that he was from Estonia. Priit (pronounced Preet) was floored that he got it right. And was even more floored that we had both been to his country (it’s about the size of Ohio). It was funny to share such a random connection! And the books (which are for the kids) are pretty neat. Most are too old for the twins now, but it’ll be fun to have them in the future. <\/p>\n 4. I finally signed us up for a one-day birthing class. I’ve been meaning to and suddenly figured I had better get us registered or we’d be out of luck before New Baby makes her arrival. We didn’t do a class the first time because we knew it would be a c-section. But since I’m hoping to try a VBAC this time…I figured some information might be helpful. For those of you with kids, out of curiosity, did you do a class? Was it helpful, or that just wishful thinking on my part?<\/p>\n 5. My parents brought Anderson’s Frozen Custard back with them from Buffalo when they stopped in for supper on Friday night. To transport the frozen yumminess, Anderson’s uses dry ice. So Eric and my college friends got to play with the stuff that was left once my parents arrived. Go figure: my husband (the physicist) and my friends Tim (the former science teacher), Mike (the engineer), and Aaron (who likes big bangs) really enjoyed blowing up a water bottle with dry ice. They did then also make it bubble for the kids to play with, which was also a big hit. Nothing like a little science to keep the party going!<\/p>\n 6. We had plans on 4 of the 5 days of last week. This week, we have only one day with plans, so far. This is probably a good thing so we can all recover. Or I’ll get bored. We’ll see which it is…<\/p>\n 7. Eric is seriously considering buying a laser engraving system. It’s a neat little tool that can basically “print” from your computer, using a laser, onto all sorts of materials (wood, glass, acrylic, etc.) or cut out pieces of wood, paper, or fabric. We are sort of thinking of it as an investment for a small side business. No firm decisions yet, but I think he’s going to be scheduling a demo to see it work IRL pretty soon. Should be interesting…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And I guess that’s all I can think of right this minute…so happy Monday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First, the basic schedule from the last few days: Thursday: I spent the day writing a bit (during naps) and finishing preparations for my friend’s arrival. He got here about 5:30 and we hung out for the evening. Friday: My … Continue reading