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Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

You should blog

I don't know very many bloggers. I know people who I wish had blogs, but don't. You know who you are. Lara.

What do you see?

A few days ago I went walking with Mia around our neighborhood. There's a huge hill behind our house, and as soon as Mia saw the hill, the first notion in her brain was to climb it. She wasn't satisfied until we reached the top; "Higher! Up, up and up!"

While we were climbing I was thinking- she's not alone in her instinctive drive to go up the first climb she saw. Why do we all have that same drive as my two-year-old? To climb up things that are bigger than us? Today, I'm thinking the reason is perspective. Maybe we want to see more than anyone else. Maybe we just want to see for ourselves.

We got to the top and turned around. She immediately wondered which home was hers. (Isn't that another thing we all do?) I tried to figure which one, so I could point it out to her and maybe make her feel a little more comfortable about being so seemingly far away.

Coming up on one year with the twins, I feel like I just rounded the corner on the foothill, turned back to glimpse my house, and can't make it out. I know my memories of the twins' newborn days are there, and if I wanted to it would just take a minute to recall. But it's not so easy as before. I need pictures to really remember. These babies aren't babies anymore. I can't hold both of them peacefully under each cheek with room to spare for little Mia on my lap. I miss something about that smallness. But I don't think I'd trade going back to stay in that sweet moment for the knowlege and experience all five of us have gained since. The last year has set me on the beginning of a path that for the first time, I can honestly see myself following for the rest of my life.

I was feeling the soft skin on their hands today and lamenting that someday their hands will look like mine, and they won't be around to hold whenever I happen to reach for them. I'm hoping when it comes to that time, I'll still feel the same way that I did on that walk. That I wouldn't trade seeing the house for the skyline.

Give my kid a Kick

So I guess Cheerios are the culprit. When you drop one, you call it a Cheerio. On our way out to the park this afternoon, Mia felt something in her shoe, and upon further examination we discovered a little peice of Kix cereal had found its way in there. "I got a Kick in my shoe!"

So it begins...

We are watching the televised General Conference of our church. We're between sessions now. When it started, there was a long period of sustainings, which consists of the reading of names, raising of hands, and a few long pauses while newly sustained members move to sit in their designated places. Right after hearing read a long list of foreign names, and during one of the long pauses, Mia spoke up, "This show is annoying."

I'm thinking of drawing big Diego and Dora heads to stick on the screen for the next round.

April Fools

For the first time in over a month, we got a "babysitter" (Van Wagoner dictionary: impose on one of the very few people we trust with our kids, Maury Bevan) and took the twins to their nine-month check-up. Yes, they are 11 months, thanks for noticing. We finally got around to calling the pediatrician during office hours a month late, and the earliest they could get us in was a month later.

So, we get everyone all ready and out the door. This takes an hour and a half. But we are pleased with the results; the babies look cute in their coordinated, but not exactly matching outfits, Mia is full of all her breakfast, clean faces, bums, and hands, diaper bags packed, only two aggravated miscommunications between Mom and Dad, and we're out the door on time.

We sit in the waiting room for about twenty-five minutes, the twins beaming at all the congratulatory passers-by, and spend a couple of minutes packing everything back into the stroller when we get called back into the office. We get Anya half undressed by the time the nurses bring up the fact that we are supposed to bring them in less than a month for their 12-month check-up. Oh, and no- we aren't late on our immunizations- they don't have shots at nine months.

They kind of look at us with pained expressions, waiting for us to be frustrated at having come all the way out with our two bundles of joy. We just kind of felt stupid out loud. So they paid for our parking, and we went to breakfast. Hey, date night- can't complain!

Oh- and tonight Zach called his mom and told her we were pregnant again. "Nooooooooo!" He let her in on the joke before it got too bad, though.