TWINS!!
Well, as promised, I'm going to ponder the concept of my brother & sister-in-law's having a two year old and then twins. Here's a picture from this weekend. From left to right are: Ian (2-1/2 yrs.), Aaron (8 months), Aunt Lou Ann, Will (8 months). By the way, all three nephew outfits were Aunt Lou Ann Christmas gifts.
Now, I have been rather amused by this concept of their second "child" being twins. I'm sure that the things that I find amusing, they don't! But still I'll share. First of all, consider this ... when most couples have a second child, they use all of the "stuff" from their first child. The same stroller, car seats, high chair, bouncy seat, bassinette, crib, etc. Well, because their second "child" was twins, they had to get a 2nd one of most of everything. Except bouncy seats. The funny thing about the bouncy seats is this: with one child, it's rather easy to carry child and bouncy seat up and down the stairs and around the house. But with two, you'd have to leave one child alone and carry the other child in his bouncy seat to the next place. SOOOooo, my brother and sister-in-law have two sets of two bouncy seats (my brother said three sets of two, but I never saw them). They have an upstairs, a main level and a basement ... and supposedly have bouncy seats for all three places. That is funny!!
My brother and his wife also have a mini-van. With one child, it was easy ... the mini-van can carry three adults and a child in a car seat. Or two adults and two children in car seats. All of this while not using the "way back" bench ... and having lots of storage space to carry stuff (like the dog!) When the twins were born, my brother went out and bought a Suburban, because there are very few mini-vans that can give you room for two adults, three child seats AND storage space (or dog space). Now, in the Suburban, if they have to, they can put three child seats in a row and take out the way-back seat and use the space for storage. Ugh!!
Another thing I noticed was feeding time. The twins are just now starting "solid" food (it doesn't seem all too "solid" to me!!) When Danielle asked if I wanted to feed them (of course I did!!), she handed me one bowl and spoon. I was informed that, until they can hold their own fork/spoon, they will be eating out of the same dish with the same spoon. She figures that they share all of their germs anyway ... so why bother with separate utencils!! So ... one spoonful for Aaron, one for Will, one for Aaron, another for Aaron, one for Will, two for Aaron (he eats about twice as much as Will) ... and EAT they do ... a LOT!!
Well ... those are the most notable things I came up with. There are the expected things, like the fact that when you have three in diapers, your life consists of changing, feeding, cajoling into naps, and then more changing, feeding, and lots of crying in between. Oh - and SPIT UP ... yup ... it took me about a half hour to find and treat all of my laundry from the two days I spent there for all of the spit up stains (and one mysterious katsup stain which I'm not sure where it came from since I ate absolutely no katsup the whole time I was there!!)
More pictures will be forthcoming sometime over the next few weeks.
Realistic or Insensitive?
I'm typing this in the whopping town of Big Flats, New York ... while visiting my brother, wife and their three sons (all under the age of 3 years!)
I just wanted to blog in short about my drive up here yesterday. Most of the drive is US15 north, and a good part of that folllows along the west bank of the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, PA through about Williamsport, PA. Well, there were some heavy rains here in the East over the past few days, and the Susquehanna has REALLY overflowed her banks. The water was almost to the edge of the road, and I saw SEVERAL homes (and cars!!) that were in 5 or 6 feet of water. It was SO sad and scary at the same time (especially seeing all of this on a day with gorgeous blue skies!)
I stopped at an Amish farmer's market (which had been recommended to me by a friend) about 10 miles north of Harrisburg, and while I was there, I asked the woman who waited on me about the flooding. She had a lovely Pennsylvania Dutch accent, and her response left me with my mouth hanging open. She said, "It's their own problem for building too close to the water!" That was it. She didn't have the slightest look of sympathy on her face. None whatsoever. Ugh!
Now, my initial response to her was annoyance. (I didn't show it ... just paid for my stuff and got back in my car.) I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this while I was driving the rest of the trip. I mean, yeah, these people probably were foolish to build so close to a river that could overflow at any time. Yup. But I have made MANY (and I mean MANY) foolish choices in my life. MANY!!! And it's nice when someone who recognizes that I made a foolish choice will forego pointing my foolishness out to me and just help me out with the mess that I've created. If I were left to clean up after myself every time I made a poor decision, I'd really have a horrible life. But, thanks to the grace and mercy of the wonderful people around me ... my poor choices have not ever immobilized me. And, on an infinitely grander scale, God has shown more grace and more mercy in response to my horrible choices than any human has shown ... and He is MOST in a position to respond to me with, "It's Lou Ann's own problem that she ______________. Now she has to deal with it herself." (A plethera of situations could be inserted into that blank!)
Thankfully, I'll never have to face a day where God's response to me is so cold. It doesn't mean that I will make poor decisions on purpose. Just that I have the freedom of knowing that He will work with me when I make a mess.
Okay ... enough philosophizing. Look for an upcoming post on the beauty of having twins the second time around (I'm making a list of the fun things that I'm noticing around here). There will also (eventually!!) be more pictures of the three of them. For now, you'll have to be content with the ones already posted.
Summer 2005 ... the UNRoadTrip!!
Yes, I'm going to Europe this summer. I know, I have already posted that I was planning a Southwest USA road trip this summer ... but that's on hold for now. Maybe for the summer of 2006 or 2007. What happened to that plan is this: One of my colleagues has, for several years now, been talking about renting a chateau in France for a couple weeks and splitting the price by renting out each bedroom. Well, due to other circumstances, she wasn't able to pull it together until this summer. But ... it is definitely happening this summer ... and I can't wait!! The cost of the bedroom will be much less than a week in a hotel anywhere else in Europe. And I'm going to expand on the opportunity to be in Europe with an unstructured schedule and extend the trip to a few weeks.
Here are my current ideas (in skeleton form):
- Fly from DC to Paris during the last week of June (that gives me about a week off after school is out).
- Spend a day or two wandering the banks of the Seine, taking a bunch of photographs of Paris, and seeing the Mona Lisa (because the first time I was in Paris, I was so young and stupid that I chose to go shopping the day that the rest of the group went to the Louvre. Well ... I'm not so young any more, so I would like to enjoy seeing the Mona Lisa and forget about shopping.)
- Rent a car in Paris and drive to the Southwest of France, specifically the Dordogne River Valley, near Bergerac.
- Spend a week enjoying my colleagues and the farmhouse (when you click on the link, it's the picture nearest to the top of the page ... it's technically a "farmhouse", but it's still in the chateau network) and exploring the land: seeing the pre-historic cave paintings at Lascaux, tasting some wines and cognac, enjoying the steep cliffs along the banks of the Dordogne River ... and so on!
- Drive back to Paris, return the rental car, and either take the train through the Channel-Tunnel (the "Chunnel") or take a train-ferry-train route to London. On the way, possible stops that I'd like to see are the beaches at Normandy and the white cliffs of Dover (I've been enthralled with the idea of the chalk cliffs at Dover since I was a little girl and my mom would sing that song with us: "There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover tomorrow ... just you wait and see.....")
- Spend a week in London (using the Underground, aka "The Tube", as I have no desire to re-learn how to shift gears in a car or to drive on the other side of the street). I've never been to London, so I want to see the standard tourist-y things, as well as the Oxford University campus, the new London City Hall, and so on. Oh - and the newest Harry Potter book will come out while I'm in London, so I'll probably pick up the British version of it while I'm there!! :-)
- Make my way back to the mainland, eventually ending up in Copenhagen. I was in Scandanavia about 21 years ago and remember simply falling in love with it, especially Denmark. I'll hopefully rent a car in Denmark and spend the better part of a week meandering the Danish countryside, especially a small seaside village called Skagen. Possibly take a ferry over to Sweden and/or Norway.
- Finally, making my way back (via train?) to Paris and my flight back to DC (I'm hoping to find (and afford) an "open" return ticket so that my plans can be more flexible. I'm not good with travel that's been planned to the day!!)
- Spend about a WEEK sound asleep, seeing as my jet lag is ALWAYS worse when I travel west.
Pictures of the Nephews, as promised!!!
Well, Carrie has hinted at wanting to see pictures of my nephews. :-) And I have finally created the galleries and put them online for all to see.
My nephew Ian is going to be three years old in April.
My twin nephews, Aaron and Will, are going to be one year old in May.
So, have these pics whet your appetite? Here are more pictures, some from July (yeah, I'm behind on pictures!) and some from Thanksgiving (including the twins' baptism).
I'd love to hear your thoughts! :-D
Life is just not fair!!
Indonesia and UN Fear Child Trafficking
It's difficult enough to process the concept of a giant wave taking the lives of over 150,000 people. I sat in my church last night at our orchestra rehearsal, contemplating what the sanctuary looks like when full. It seats just over 1000 people. So ... that would be 150 full church services to SEE that many people. That's a LOT!
But what they've been talking about for the past day or two is the idea of child trafficking. Children in Indonesia and other places affected by the tsunami who have lost their parents, either by death or by failure to be reunited are feared to be in danger of being stolen by child trafficking gangs who are selling them into forced labor or sexual slavery. Isn't it bad enough for a child to lose his or her parents? But to be sold into slavery for whatever horrible purpose is unthinkable. Apparantly it happens in that part of the world all the time, as the "child trafficking gangs" are well-established. Indonesia has even put great restrictions on travel by children under the age of 16.
This grieves me more than I could even describe to you. I know that we are never promised that life is fair. But it is so difficult to process the fact that not all children get the same start at least. I was put up for adoption before I was even born ... and was adopted by a wonderful family who love each other and who have always loved me and provided for me everything tangible and intangible that I could ever imagine. Why is it that other children who don't have parents can't have at least the same chance?
