Symphony of Shrieking

A riddle: If a baby cries in a bedroom and Daddy is in the basement doing laundry...  does it really make a sound?  I'm pretty sure it doesn't until you get in the doorway where the baby can see your face and THEN it starts to really "make a sound" after five minutes of quiet whining.  They are starting to recognize when I am here and when I am gone, which also means that when I leave the room they take notice and let me know how they feel about it.  This coincides with Ellison's discovery of her ability to make high-pitched shrieking noises for "Come get me" minutes five through seven.  Minute one to two are arm flailing, pacifier removal. Minute three to four are lower pitched whining.  Then after shrieking it's full-fledged screaming-crying with a focus on flapping her arm on the side closest to her sleeping brother until minute ten at which point Henry wakes up and the cycle starts over. It becomes like one of those awful, campfire songs that you sing in a round, except Henry is that super sonic only dogs can hear it soprano that sits behind you every week that you go to mass, no matter where you choose to sit. 

And now that Ellison has started to reach arm flapping point, I'm going to go get her dressed and ready...  today is one of those interesting days when Mommy has an important meeting at work and Daddy scheduled a doctor's appointment. The good news is even though they don't like when I walk out of a room and leave them, they still prefer the company of any super, smiley stranger that makes squeaky sounds in their face to any toy or bottle or parent in the world...  for about five minutes anyway.  Then their eyes start to dart around until they finally find my face from across the room and smile in this relieved, contended way that makes me forget that I haven't slept right in five months, teething gel, 3am baby tylenol, and 500 loads of cloth diapers.

Farmer"s Market

Back in September we went to the the Farmer's Market in downtown Bloomington, just like we intend to do every Saturday in the summertime...  except this time we actually woke up, got ourselves AND 2 BABIES dressed, fed, and out the door and downtown before it ended.  Okay, so we only had one hour before it closed, but it still counts.  You'll notice the stylish Baby Bjorn that I'm wearing and the single stroller, which indicates we had not yet bought the monstrous double jogging stroller that I now love with all my heart. At this point, Henry had finally gotten big enough that there was no longer hope for both of them to lie side by side in the stroller and share a seat belt. For some reason, this particular day I chose to attach the 3lb heavier baby to my shoulders and spinal column.
  We also made it out another Saturday but drove there because the weather guy said it would rain AT 1PM. We got the double stroller out, loaded 'em up, walked over to the row of vendors, and it instantly started pouring down rain.  We jogged a block over and took cover in CVS pharmacy where we shopped for junk we didn't need for a half hour before it stopped raining.  At that point, I was completely content with my shopping finds for the day and ready to head home.  Alas, CVS did not have fresh basil so we pulled the shade over their heads to block any remaining sprinkles and headed back our to finish our shopping.  This time, only one person stopped us to ask, "Are they twins?" to which I always want to say, "Who? Henry and I? That's very kind but I'm his father."