Our Dirty Laundry

Abraham: Yesterday Mommy decided that since I was the oldest (maybe it is only by one minute, but you just sit there and pretend you're at work and do nothing for one whole minute and see how long it is), that I could start helping out around the house. Now she and Daddy have a really great relationship and agree on many things. One thing they both agree on is that folding laundry is no fun. In fact, Daddy says the dryer makes a great closet. So Mommy gave me folding clothes as my first chore. It wasn't the most fun thing I did all day, but it was okay... except for not being able to find that one sock.

Night Night... Not

Koh: Tonight Daddy read us a book. He was trying to get Abe and me to go to sleep. I think he was going to sleep (note the half empty glass of wine on the table). It was real fun and I hope he does that again.

Naked Tummy Time with bed bugs

Koh: So mommy and dad won't ever let us sleep overnight with them... not in their bed and not even in their room. But on the weekend we get to go play in their bed in the morning and all 4 of us just chill out for a long long time. They call it "naked tummy time" because everyone's naked and it feels so nice and warm next to all that skin on those flannel sheets which are way nicer than that hard cold bad sheet in the crib. We can tell they love it because they just lay around like time is standing still... and normally we make 'em jump around 24x7 to take care of us.

Vapor Lock at the 8-week doctor visit

Abraham: Yesterday we had a doctor appointment where we got 4 shots each in our thighs! Let me just tell you how much that hurt. Koh and I both screamed so loud and for so long, Mom said we were in vapor lock. In fact, the nurses paused before giving Koh his next shot to be sure he was going to take a breath. Mom didn't like it much either. Seeing us so upset made her upset and she got tears in her eyes too. We were really fussy when we got home because the appointment took so long we were missing a meal and our legs hurt from the shots. But we made up for it by having our first night ever where we only got Mom up to feed us once. This is big! Mom thinks its because of the baby Tylenol we had. I better hide that stuff or Mom and Dad may want to give it to us every night if it makes us sleep that much.

Oh yeah - for those interested... I weighed 10 lbs. 14 oz. and Koh weighed 10 lbs. 13 oz.

Momma Lattes - our favorite drink

... and it's a good thing we like 'em since it's all we get, and Mommy serves 'em to us 6 or 8 times a day for 20 minutes at a time. Unlike the Starbucks lattes she and dad like, Mom says her natural lattes are really good for us... we get all we want and she likes being our barrista very much. She almost always serves us "in tandem" because she still likes to sleep and do a few other things during her 24/7 duty.

Graduation Party #1

Abraham: You don't think moving up a size in diapers (from N-newborn to 1-chubby boys) is a great reason for a celebration? Well Koh and I do and we wanted to mark the occasion with our first family dinner out. We invited Nana Jo, Aunt Susan to mom and dad's local favorite... Salvadore Mollies for some pirate food and house special "Pain Killer" drinks, which really make mom feel good since she hasn't been drinking much lately...

Smoking Jackets

Koh: One of our favorite gifts was these cool smoking jackets from Irene Dawson. After watching Dad smoke all those cigars we wanted to try, too, so we had this little party today with some nice brandy that we found in the booze cabinet. As you see, Abe fell asleep early, but boy was this a fun time!

Grandmas get buzzed

Koh: So the first time we have dinner with both our grandmothers at once, they had so much wine they got red-faced, almost fell down and still wanted to hold us. I tried to escape, and so did Abraham, but they had us trapped. Geez Oh Pete, grammmas... could you go a little easier on the wine next time?

Nana Jo and Aunt Susan visit

Koh: We got to meet our Nana Jo (dad's mom) and Aunt Susan today, who travelled from Pennsylvania to help change diapers and entertain us for a week. Susan is doing something when she holds us that mom and dad never do.... singing! ...very cool and soothing to our brains.

Our first SKI LIFT ride

Abraham: ...so Dad wanted to take us up to Mt Hood and ride a ski lift until I reminded him that we're only 6 weeks old and our heads still flop all around... plus I don't think Mom would have approved. But bro Koh and I really like rides, so Dad found us this very exciting brand new ski lift that we could be carried onto. Better yet, it's only 3 miles away from our Portland home. WOW what fun... the new Portland Aerial Tram!

Dog Gone Big

Abraham: Today we took a trip to Mom's office to meet her coworkers. There were a lot of people there that wanted to see and hold us, so we had real fun. Koh was alert and flirting with the girls almost the whole time. For some reason I was more mellow and slept quite a bit. Except for the time Dad tried the "Kilroy was here" pose over the cubicle wall and bonked my nose. Since it is a veterinary practice, there were a couple scales there to weigh dogs and kitties. Mom and Dad weighed us and were surprised to discover that we're BIG BOYS. I weighed 10.0 pounds and Koh was 9.8. I guess my beer belly and Koh's double chin hadn't clued them in to our massiveness.

Happy Birthday

Abraham: Today is our one-month birthday. Happy birthday Koh!
Koh: Hey happy birthday to you brother Abraham. Look how happy Mom is!

Abraham: She looks tired to me. You must be keeping her awake a lot.

Breakthrough: bottle feeding

Boy oh boy, we now get to dine on breast milk via bottle - and we love it...FASTER, MORE MILK, MORE POOP. And Mom loves it, too, cause now other people can help with the feeding.

Required Gear

Renee: In adventure racing, you have "required gear". This is equipment that you must carry on you during the race. If the race officials catch you without it you are assessed a time penalty and in other cases are unable to complete a section of the race because of the missing piece. In baby raising there are a couple pieces of required gear too:
-- BDUs (baby display units) or better known as bouncy chairs - these soothe the boys when they are fussing, often better than Mom or Dad can do. The penalty for not having these available is extended wailing that can get very hard to deal with.
-- Pee Blockers - our friend Sharon introduced us to these while we were still in the hospital. These are folded up paper towels or napkins that you IMMEDIATELY place over the boys' wee wee when removing a diaper. Everyone (Mark, Renee, Grandma Jan and Kate our Doula) have all been showered by forgetting this required gear. This penalty isn't pleasant.

Question for our fan club: Just who's teaching whom?

Abe & Koh wonder: Do you think we began life like blank flipcharts, each day mom and dad and everyone else adding to our brains to make us smarter, or.... that we were born with all the knowledge in the world and each day those people subtract from what we know, until we become just like them? I mean will we really have to start paying attention to them or can we just keep fakin' it and keep up this fun game where we cry and watch them jump into action? Please comment... what do you think?