pictures from the last couple of weeks

Here are some pictures of the little darlings. . .





such an easy-going kid. . .



He looks sweet here, doesn't he?

Leaving Curious George Live with dad. . .

Another day of dress up with Till. . .

@ Curious George. . .

runaway child in aisle 3

And. . .we're back. Somehow Bill managed to place in front of me, my trusted old computer. Complete with all my favorite little photos and files and habitual places to visit with a cup of coffee. Everything but the sound. . .but I'll take it.

And just in time to tell you this whopper of a story. . .

I've never been grocery shopping with both kids. I was actually going to tell you this last week but was too embarrassed to share that I'm afraid of going out in public with my children. My fear is real and justified now. . .

Eventually I had to go out because yogurt for dinner gets old quick. So we did.

The plan was to wear Tilley in my Ergo Carrier (my absolute new fav!) and push Cole in the cart. This was bad decision #1 followed by a quickly made bad decision #2: to let Cole ride in the shopping cart with the little race car in front.

Rounded out by bad decision #3: I decided to use the scanner to scan and bag my own groceries as we shopped. I realize that on a good day, this is a bad idea. . .and sort of a tricky way the store gets me to do their work. My thinking was that I didn't want to be bending down to load the belt at checkout while I had Tilley on me. . .and that scanning as we went would be better in the end. Uh. . .no.

We head in. And we shop. And I scan and bag food. I give Cole a piece of cheese from the deli. He's "driving" and beeping the horn and waving a happy hello to every shopper we pass. Things are good. Tilley falls asleep. This having two kids thing might just work. . .

We get all the way to the frozen food section until we see our neighbor and her little girl. The one Cole likes to share juice with behind the fence. Fantastic.

She, of course, is sitting nicely in the seat of the shopping carriage and Cole immediately hops out of his. Story break: the seat belt in the cart I had chosen was broken. I didn't realize this until we'd gotten into the store and at that point, I figured it didn't matter. Bad decision #4.

We exchange our pleasantries and keep going. But not Cole. He goes limp in the middle of the frozen food section and won't get up. He's wailing to play with his friend. Saying "no no no go". . . loudly. I calmly ask him to stand up and get back inside the cart.

It's really not until this very point that I realize I'm helpless. . .and that my previously made bad decisions are culminating into a gigantic problem. I can't pick Cole up because I'm wearing Tilley. Even if I could I've got no where to restrain him in the cart. And because I've chosen to bag my own groceries. . .I've got three or four of those gigantic reusable bags full of mismatched, poorly bagged groceries. I try to reason with the two year old a little more. . .

He looks at me. Smiles. And takes off running.

He's laughing. . . pure giggles straight from the belly. He's grabbing groceries in a sort of supermarket sweep kind of frenzy. He picks up a yogurt. . . giggles. . .throws it at me. . .and keeps on running! I'm dodging deodorant. . .cheese sticks. . .bags of pretzels. . .paper towels. . .

And if you can picture it (because I wished you would). . .I'm chasing him in a speed walk. One hand holding Till's head from flopping back and forth, the other waving wildly in front of me trying to grasp any part of Cole that I might come close enough to grab.

Other shoppers pull over to the sides of the aisle when they see us coming. Some give me looks of sympathy. . .most give me that. . ."get your #$%@ together, lady", sort of look. I try to make jokes, too. "Thank goodness the seat belt was broken." . . . and. . ."Geesh. . I gave up work for this?" They don't seem to work.

Finally, he stops in front of a NASCAR display selling Little Debbie cakes. We don't eat Little Debbie cakes. He starts grabbing boxes of these cakes like it's the apocalypse and throwing them into my cart.

Like a ninja (well, in my mind anyway) . . .I grabbed his arm, swung his body behind my back and grabbed underneath his legs with my other arm. The only place I could contain my flight risk was in the basket of my carriage. . .along with my poorly bagged groceries. And that's just what I did.

He spent the rest of our time in the grocery store stomping on my groceries. Wonderful. And to top it off. . .when I got back to the car and opened the trunk. . .I realized it was full of strollers and I had no where to put the groceries anyhow.

So the moral of my story is that something as mundane and housework-y as doing the groceries has turned into one of those things that mommy has to do by herself. Another task to get out of the house. Long gone are the days when a massage would get me out of the house. Now, it's groceries and wholesale club runs.

Sigh. I'm sure it was a sight for the other shoppers at least.

Have you missed us?

Well, I miss you! And I can't wait to get this computer fiasco cleared up!

Bill managed to rebuild our computer but we still are having problems getting it online. Of course it will require a call to the cable company, which I despise, so I'm procrastinating.

The kids are doing well. Cole continues to test me daily as we've entered the terrible two phase for sure. I used to chuckle at the stories I'd hear about children who were only nasty for their mothers, but sweet angels when they were in anyone else's care. Not my sweet boy, I used to think. My sweet boy loves me and loves being with me and won't act like that at all.

He acts like that. all. the. time.

Now that Tilley's hit the scene, I'm able to really see their personalities and how different they are. Cole is my high maintenance baby. . .needing constant attention and praise. (And no. . .I'm certain I had nothing to do with that!) Tilley is already a fly-by-the-seat kind of gal. She'll sit anywhere for any amount of time as long as she can watch the action.

She was giving us quite the headache a few weeks ago by refusing to take a bottle at all. I'd go to work for sometimes 10 hours straight and she would refuse to eat. When I'd come home, Bill and Tilley would both have swollen eyes and obvious headaches. But she's recently taken to eating from a bottle. . .thanks to some good suggestions from my local lactation consultant and a good buddy (thanks T!).

Big happenings this weekend. We go see Curious George Live on Saturday night. Just a Bill, Cole and I trip. Tilley's not invited. ;-) I think it'll be important for Cole to be out with just his dad and I. Maybe a quick early dinner out (I still can't get used to a 4:30 p.m. dinner. . .even if it is nicer to those around us!) and back home by bedtime. Score. It's just another sobering reminder how life has changed post-babies. ;-) Secretly. . .I'm the one excited! I'll be sure to take pictures.

Tilley has already changed so much and Cole so desperately needs a haircut that I wished I had pictures of both for you. I'm dreading our first professional haircut but I did such a hack-job on the first one, that it's getting tough to bring him out in public without his Sox hat.

Besides that. . .keep your fingers crossed that I'll actually get someone on the phone from Comcast that can help and not just put me on hold for 20 minutes!

the blue screen

I just wanted to let you all know that our computer has finally gone to the big computer graveyard in the sky. We woke up last week to the blue screen of death one morning and after many attempts (by professionals too!) we were unable to revive our aging computer.

The good news is that we invested in an external drive to back up our files and pictures. . .but the bad news is that I hadn't backed up in awhile and we lost all our pictures of Till.

Good thing we have this blog and what I've posted on Facebook. That will at least give us something to retrieve. And in the meantime, we're using a loaner from my folks.

So I'll be sure to post more pictures and updates as soon as we square away what we're going to do about a new computer.

I don't really have any updates except that Cole has been getting outside with this nice weather quite a bit and playing with the little girl next door. It's good for him to have to share and think about another kid every now and then. I do have to remind him often that he can't take things out of her hands. And it's so funny to me that even though they have the exact same toys. . .they always want each other's. Cole just has to play with the pink shovel. . .and she the blue. Go figure.

I've also been on the craigslist hunt for a new double stroller. I am refusing to pay full price for a double stroller because I know there plenty out there with more love and life to give. Folks don't use them for long. . .and you know how I feel about buying new if you don't have to.

On the other hand...I'm a gear snob. And I don't want some piece of garbage just because it's used. So I've been pretty picky about what I'm looking for and have finally found what I think will be good for us. I'm heading for a 2 hour trip tomorrow morning to pick it up. . .and I think I may have just found the only double stroller in the world that will fit in the trunk of a Subaru. ;-) It'll also let the kids face each other (seems like a bad idea), away from each other. . .or to take a seat out and make it a single.

Here's a picture if you're interested. . .