What happened

I have one question for the world today:
Who took my adorable, sweet twins, and what on earth did they replace them with?

Needless to say, today wasn't the greatest.  There was a deliberate dumping of food on floor incident, there was a tantrum over the presence of strawberries, there was a bit of a screaming session over a certain story...  I'll spare everyone the rest, though really I think I just want to spare myself rehashing it.

One more day, then the weekend!  Tonight I'm watching Seth and Isabella, whom I haven't seen since sometime before the wedding.  It'll be good to catch up with their mom again (occasionally an ulterior motive for babysitting).  Then the twins tomorrow morning, and then friends are visiting and I'm not sitting Saturday or Sunday!

Snippet

V commented earlier, as she sent a letter to a representative (via Freedom to Marry) asking him to support the Respect for Marriage Act, "I've never been this politically active."

My response: "We've never been this discriminated against."

File under "sad but true."

Good good day

V and I took Bug to the zoo this morning.  Highlights:

• We all got a pet a little penguin.  Literally, they are called Little Penguins.
• I had a conversation with a turkey, and we have it on video.
• Bug hugged a goat in the petting zoo and then asked if she could hold it.
• She overlooked the sleeping bears on the big boulders in their habitat, and when I asked her what she saw, she looked around, puzzled, and replied, "Rocks?"
• We rode the carousel!  She rode a tiger, and since I was stuck being next to her, I rode an ostrich.
• There were a ton of gorgeous tulips.  I dangled her over them, as well as let her sniff them, and V got some great pictures.

After Bug, V and I went to visit a friend who just had a baby.  He's four days old now.  Needless to say, I did lots of snuggling the newbie.  It's just been such a good day, and I keep thinking we're heading into the weekend.  We have friends visiting this weekend; it's just taking awhile for it to be Friday.  But if it has to be Wednesday, it was a darn good one.

Hair

I've started putting Lilly's hair up in a ponytail, or occasionally pigtails.  Her dad admits that he doesn't know what he's doing, and her mom has told me that Lilly is already more girly than she ever was (and I don't think Lilly is that girly!).  I bought her some ponytail holders; at first, she wasn't very thrilled, but now she's getting used to it.

Yesterday I did pigtails, which was adorable.  That kid is so cute.  Today, I did the classic Pebbles look: one ponytail, up on top.  As she walked out of the nursery, Patrick looked at her, then me, and said,

"Two ponyhairs?"

Communication

I don't feel like the twins should be old enough that I can have conversations with them when they're upstairs.  Whether I should be yelling up the stairs at them is a different matter, but we'll leave that alone.  I just called from the bottom of the stairs, "Lunchtime!"
Lilly shot back, "Nooo!"  So I said, "Yeees!"
"Nooo!"
"Would you like a few more minutes to play?"
"More minutes!!"
So, I'm going to finish getting lunch ready, and then go try to snag them.

New designation

While walking to the playground...
Patrick: A squillel!
Me: No, that's a chipmunk.
Lilly: Monk.
Me: Chipmunk.
Lilly: Monkey!
Me: No, it's a chipmunk.
Lilly: Chipmunkey.
And that's what she proceeded to call them.

Overload

Every now and then, rarely, I watch the twins on a week night.  This isn't a big deal, except that I also watch them weekday mornings and afternoons.  Today I literally fed them breakfast, played with them, fed them lunch, put them down for a nap...came back, got them up from nap, fed them dinner, went for a walk, let them play (now), and will put them to bed.

Thank goodness I like these kids, though Lilly this morning almost literally drove me to tears.  She's been on edge.  In a two-and-a-half year old way.  It's punctuated by adorable moments like her liking my homemade bread, and coming over to say, "May I have some more bread please?" every thirty seconds.  But there are also fits about five per hour, and screaming, which is a new thing with her.

I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday.  V and I are babysitting tomorrow night for Katie and Sean, who will already be in bed by the time we get there.  Sunday night we have Bug and Andrew, also together.  When we're together, things are manageable.  At least now the twins will go to bed in half an hour!