Day 11

Tuesday
9.13.16

Getting up at 4:15/4:30 has become just another part of the routine now. I managed to get in a 50 minute workout and a shower before getting the littles up, dressed, and fed. If I can keep it up for 10 more days, I'll have myself a healthy habit.

People: My mom met us at the library for story time today. I also got to see my neighbor for about 5 minutes during which time I talked about a mile a minute, trying to cram in as much adult interaction time as possible!

Carts don't cut it for twins...

Places/Activities: What can I say, Puff stole the whole show at library story time today! She gets so engaged in the story time. She laughed in all the right places, did the hand motions, clapped, etc. She is so animated and reminds me so much of Squeak when she was the same age. Avy also enjoyed the story time and was pointing and "talking" for most of the time. It was so awesome and exciting to see how well they did. Their attention spans are getting longer and they just adore books (thank goodness - I think the librarian in me would crumble just a little bit if they weren't book lovers).

After second naps today, I packed up the babies and headed to Wegman's for the weekly grocery shopping trip. One thing that you don't think about as the parent of one child, or a parent of multiple children spaced several years apart is logistics when grocery shopping. I mean, there's two kids. The same age. Under a year old. The grocery cart has ONE spot in the front for ONE kid. What the heck do you do with the other kid? I could wear it in my carrier, but I'll be honest… the only way I can get one of my kids strapped to my back in a carrier is by sitting in a chair. Even then it takes me about ten minutes. I've watched a number of YouTube videos and have seen one of my friends easily toss her 3 year old into a back carrier like she was just slipping on a backpack. Yeah, that doesn't go well for me. Body parts are strapped every which way and I usually end up hot, sweaty, with slobber down my back. Oh yeah, and the baby is usually drooling by then too. Anyway, back to grocery shopping. So, this is how it went down (see above photo). Thankfully my babies are extremely easy going and tolerated the entire shopping trip in this position. But I know I'm running out of time for how long I'll be able to pull this off. Regardless, it was a success!


Good Deeds: Today while at the library, we met a very nice librarian who helped us quite a bit. Having been on her side of the desk for a number of years, I know that sometimes it can be challenging to smile and be super helpful to everyone that walks in the door because about 20% of customers you interact with are challenging (and my library friends can correct me here if I'm wrong). So, when I left I asked for her name and introduced myself. Then when I got home I sent along a nice email to the branch thanking her for a job well done. Wouldn't life be much better if everyone was appreciative? This evening I received a nice email in response which was also super nice.

This morning I tried remaking the zucchini muffins again. This time I used a loaf pan instead of messing around with the muffin tins. And you know what? They came out perfectly! Hopefully the neighbors will enjoy them! Squeak and the babies and I ended up making a couple of deliveries after dinner and before baths.

Lastly, did you know that you can recycle your plastic food bags? Wegman's has a collection bin at the store entrance. So, we save up our bags for several weeks and then all of our clean plastic food bags go back there for recycling. I took in a cartload this afternoon!

Chores: Summer is just about over and the cooler weather is moving in. Today was the perfect day to scrub out the kiddie pool and drag it downstairs. Now that the basement is finished, we are lacking in basement real estate. But I think I found an out of the way place to store it until next summer. I'm thinking that we will keep it another year and then say goodbye to it. Riley has already outgrown it.

Looking out at the pool I need to scrub, I noticed a couple of observers… Can you spot them?

Fits kinda perfectly. Kinda.

I cooked like crazy today (remember this is me we're talking about here - so cooking like crazy for me is mild compared to someone else)! Not only did I bake the batch of zucchini bread, but I also used up several peppers that came in our Hungry Harvest box this week and made an unstuffed pepper casserole. I also had some left overs from a rotisserie chicken and made chicken salad. This is my first attempt. I hope it tastes decent! I'm having a friend join me for lunch tomorrow, so I was hoping we would have it at lunch together. I might have a back up plan just in case. Though it does look pretty good...

Sweet peppers, green peppers, and red peppers. We like all shapes and colors!

I have to say, it turned out pretty delicious!

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread Part Deux

Homemade chicken salad!

Reading books together before bed.

Reading: Tonight was one of those snuggle nights. Squeak was such a good girl today. She ate her dinner (even though she wasn't happy with the unstuffed pepper entrée), she asked to be excused, she cleaned up after herself AND the babies without even being asked, and she even told me "thank you Mama for letting me snuggle in your bed tonight and for reading to me." It's moments like this that help to affirm my choice to stay at home this year. I'm glad that I'm not missing any of this. Tonight we read The Magic Tree House #21 - Civil War on Sunday. I was super surprised as I would turn the page in the book and she would say, "I know what that says - that word says 'play.'" or "That says brown. No, not brown…. hmmm. down." Dang. The kid is really reading now for real. I had unpacked the bags from Wegman's and she looks at the box on the table and said, "you got brown rice?" Why yes, yes I did. She amazes me every day and makes my heart swell. I think my favorite thing about Squeak is that she wants to learn. I hope that is something that she never loses, no matter how old she gets.

Random Thoughts: I'm obviously still just a foodie in training. I realized after plating lunch for the babies that their entire lunch was completely white. I couldn't' believe it. Canary melon, chicken breast, and Annie's white cheddar shells. I'm going to need to make sure that I give a little more of a color variety for these munchkins. Though they really didn't seem to care and gobbled down every bit.

Also, I wonder if Puff has some sort of lethal saliva. She sucks on her sleep sacks at night and even though her mouth is clean (we brush every night) her sleep sacks are completely discolored and I can't get out the stains! But look how cute she is! Such a little sweetheart.