Week Nine From This Day Forward Will Be Known As Irate Leader

Babies, this week you got your first shots. Grandma Heather ominously warned that your father was never the same after his first shots, that he went from a jolly baby to an infant betrayed by the cruel universe, which is exactly what I wanted to start worrying about in addition to the risk-benefit analysis of a conventional vaccination schedule, the skyrocketing cost of health insurance and how being exposed to to the foul language of Deadwood might be affecting your little brains. Luckily you both came through it fine. Alex screamed bloody murder, as we expected, and even though he went first, I was still soothing him after Anya got hers and Grandpa Mike calmed her down and got her dressed. But it was Anya who had a harder time later in the day: you slept for hours then woke up filled with rage and pain. By the next morning, the storm had passed, and you both cooed and smiled at me in the early light of dawn.

This week you both found a new goal: To thrust your little fists completely into your mouths. I've been trying to get a shot of it, but you are both totally on to me and stop doing it whenever the camera is out.

We also started spending some quality time with music this week. Anya showed a preference for Cee Lo Green, proving that she is in fact my daughter:


While Alex, after sitting motionless through such classics as "You" and "All I Need" gave up some deadly serious baby dance party moves for Mos Def:


I can't wait till you guys can dance around the house with me!

Me as a Vidiot Mom

And now for Alex's turn:



I like this cause you get to see Alex's constant state of spazzy motion and high-pitched narration of his life.

Sick, so very sick. Babies crabby, only willing to sleep on top of me, leaving me pinned by a mass of squirming slightly sick baby flesh. Throat sore, exhausted.

Luckily Demetria arrived this afternoon and was instructed by Danielle that she'd better be holding a baby or doing a chore at all times.

Screaming in stereo, must go.

My Camera Can Do Video?!

Back In Black

One post for my entire pregnancy? Damn. There goes the detailed memory of that life-changing experience! It's all become a haze of ultrasounds and backaches and the ten minute process of rolling from one side to another during that last enormous, lumbersome month.

And now, now I have Anya Isabel and Alexander Darwin.



I thought that I would not bond instantly, but I love this motherhood thing, and I fell in love with the babies as soon as I heard their first screams. Alex came first, through hours of pushing, and was whisked away to the NICU because he was floppy and having trouble breathing. Anya flipped over and had to be sliced out, but she was golden once she was out, amazing the nurses with her wide eyes that seemed to study everything. She was nursing like a champ before I was even wheeled out of recovery. Alex joined us the next morning and we've been a happy family ever since.

They are eight weeks old today, and it all seems like a blur. They've already outgrown the outfits that they wore home from the hospital. I can't believe how fast it is going.