Birthday

It has been almost a month since the boys had their Birthday, and I must admit I feel like a pretty rotten mom.  Well, maybe less rotten mother and more of what Anna calls an “alligator mother.”  I did nothing for the boys really.  This place looks like a toy store after Christmas, and I couldn’t fathom the idea of Birthday gifts piling up less than a month later. 

A friend of Will’s had a little girl about a month earlier than the boys were born (let me insert here, “OH THANK GOD (or whoever) we didn’t have girls!!!!”).  That mother planned out a gigantic party for a child that has no idea what a dog is yet (let me also state here that both boys not only know the word dog, but the sign for it, as well as the sound the dog makes…and the names of both of our dogs…such smarties).  This mother sent me a link to a party supply place…and I was horrified.  I hadn’t even begun to think of a party for the boys, let alone a thematic, coordinated, catered todo.  In fact, when the time came for the date to register in my brain as “coming up rather quickly,” I realized that I had class that night, and a ”Buffy” night the next.  I put Buffy in quotes because we actually still have yet to sit down and begin watching. 

So, I did nothing.  I felt so bad on their actual Birthday (Tuesday) that Mom and I went to the Gourmet Grocery store (Wild Oats and Whole Foods are still better…we just don’t have them here), and bought them a small cake.  I still felt badly for them by Thursday.  A friend and I spent the whole night driving out into the deepest darkest parts of Florida to another friend’s house in what would have been a blizzard if we had winter, and I felt like a total heel for being away from them…so I built them a cake too. 

A nice family gathering turned into waiting for Will’s mother and brother to arrive (brother brought dinner), waiting for brother to warm and put dinner together, and waiting for the awkwardness of having our families together, to be over.  When it finally came time for cake (and Momma Will was complaining about driving in the dark and just generally being in my company or at our house), Liam decided that I was trying to kill him with the strange new food.  Finn ate it, which is a marvel.  Liam, who eats everything, decided that it was poison, and that I was actively attempting to do him in.  Then I realized that it must have been my genius choice of a lemon filling.

I am still feeling guilty, as I now hear about all of the Birthday parties other parents had, or are planning.  I never had parties for my Birthday, and I have never thrown one for anyone else…so, I just don’t think of them as very important…usually.  However, I was looking back at photographs and ultrasounds, and thinking about how absolutely amazing it is that nothing went REALLY wrong, that they were born seven weeks early, and yet they are outsmarting and outgrowing many term babies.  I guess that does deserve a really special celebration.  So, maybe they will get two Birthdays a year…  One on their actual date of birth, and another on what was their anticipated date of birth.

Also, I don’t think I had ever witnessed a baby attempting to walk before.  Wow, that is funny.  The animators for Ren and Stimpy got it exactly right.  It looks just like that Ren and Stimpy cartoon where they become baby imposters. 

Extra Weight

Since I don’t get out of the house much, and the boys are still pretty easy to impress, I have decided to grow my eyebrows out.  Is that a New Year’s Resolution?  No.  I never make “New Years Resolutions,” in fact, the idea just offends me.  However, and not surprisingly, I have a few extra pounds I would like to vanquish, and everyone assumes that it is my New Year’s Resolution to do so.  This is also not so.  I would be putting myself through this if it were August.  It has been almost a year now, and I am getting pretty tired of the extraneous flesh. 

I was just getting ready to load the boys into the jogging stroller when a friend called, and said, “well, you do know that you will never get back to your pre-pregnancy size, right?”  Well, that just makes me irate (particularly since it comes from a friend who is highly competetive and has no children).  Now, it is a huge challenge to prove that I can have twins and still look better than she does.  I only really have about ten more pounds to go, AND I have the super power ability to stick to a “no-food” diet.  Plus, I am no longer attempting to nurse, so, I have decided to increase my running distance, and push it up to six days a week.  Will it kill me?  Possibly.  But I will be thin, and the boys will get to be outside a whole lot more.  I could call it training for the Gate River Run, but I don’t think I like running with large crowds of people…and it is too difficult to pace myself with a group. 

That’s not an unrealistic dream, is it?  I think I know plenty of moms who have lost all of their weight, and even look better than they did before…  I think. 

Sometimes, it’s better to buy the pie.

I baked a great many pies this season, and loved every minute of the stress of it…  But for over a month now, I have been trying to figure out a holiday schedule where I can escape to the kitchen, have some friends over, and bake in a leisurely style for folks who appreciate the art of pastries (who will enjoy a crumbly Madeleine and recall Proust)–and have a glass or four of wine.  Seeing as how the holidays are completely gone and a new semester is barreling down upon me, it appears that I have exceeded the time when that would be a joyous though frantic occasion.  Now, it would simply be frantic, and frankly, the pie season has expired.  So, it appears that the next step is to relax, allow myself to purchase a damn pie (even if it has no literary value), and have that glass of wine!

The holidays have completely disrupted any manner of schedule/control that I pretended to have.  Breaking our schedule, however, did allow me to finally see “Mike the Headless Chicken!”  That was a thrill.  No, really, it was.  http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/cookin.html

Because there are so many tourist destinations in St. Augustine that I have still never made it to, Will decided we would take my brother and his girlfriend to all of them in one afternoon.  The Old Jail was interesting, but I would have liked to see more torture devices…more dead-looking mannequins.  The boys thought it was pretty interesting to watch all of the other tourists (and there were billions of them), and Liam tried to entertain the whole group.  He waved, and nobody waved back, so he did his zombie impersonation…and when nobody laughed or responded he didn’t give up.  He clapped for himself.  That’s my boy. 

After the Old Jail, it was a hike to the Fountain of Youth.  I am still trying to figure out what the heck that place was…  It has the vague feel of a highway attraction, yet, it is more gardens than attractions.  I have no idea what it was.  In the end, we simply used their space to change some diapers and let the boys ruin a speech (well, they ruined it for us, as we had to leave rather quickly) some employee was giving about the water (which tastes amazingly like the tap water). 

Our final stop was my Ripley’s.  The house that the, er, “museum” is in is amazing!  I kept trying to reconstruct what it must have looked like when someone lived there (the houses are really my favorite part of St. Augustine).  I can do without the two-headed, six-legged animals…just makes me sad, but Mike the Chicken is something special.  I actually considered purchasing a toy Mike for the boys…But Uncle Jon intervened.  He explained to the boys that I am trying to turn them into Nerds, and it’s no good to have someone explain one’s evil plans to their victims.

At the end of the very long day, I was completely amazed by how well the boys did.  Those guys were great.  No real complaining, unless they were hungry.  It made me feel bad for making them such shut-ins, and it made me realize that they are only ever really bad for me.