How to annoy your children

Step 1:  Make them stop whatever they are doing, and tell them to get dressed.  Now, now, now!!

Step 2:  Take them out into the bright sunlight, and attempt to take pictures facing into the sun.

Step 3:  Realize that step 2 was a bad idea, and then change locations.  Make sure to pose the children, and force smiles -- that always works.

Is it just me, or does this picture look like it's from the 70s?

Step 4:  Review pictures, and note the incredible number of pictures where (1) eldest son looks like he wants to kill parents while they sleep,

(2) middle son is uncooperative,

Stopping to take a Samantha-kissing break

This was what happened when I tried to take pictures of Samantha and Conor alone (Zachary was telling Conor to smile)

Another Samantha-and-Conor picture crashed

and (3) eyes are closed,

and announce that there was not one good picture, so pictures will be taken again next weekend and there better be natural smiles next time, dammit.  And no blinking!

 Step 5:  Abandon all others to mess with daughter, until she must take evasive action and spit up on outfit to discourage further picture taking.

It made me sick to see that this was so badly out of focus

Alas, not all was lost -- before the puking, I captured this picture of my girl, looking like she is from a different time.  Beautiful.

Getting out

We rarely go anywhere as a family anymore, because the babies generally hate their carseats, and I think I must have the only children in the world who hate riding in the car.  Conor hates having his shoulders strapped down, and Samantha just can't get comfortable enough to sleep.  So traveling anywhere necessarily involves screaming children, at least for part of the ride.

They do, however, love their baby carriers.  Now that the weather is cooler and they won't overheat while strapped to our chests, we've been able to go to one of Roar's home football games (that still involved so much effort that, of course, I forgot to take a camera), and this weekend, we walked to a park about a half mile away.

Zachary drove his car to the park.

Another child attempted to abscond with it.

Zachary was horrified.  All he could do was stand there and say, "Heeey! What's he doing?"  Luckily, the boy's mother intervened and the car was returned unharmed.

The weather was gorgeous and the kids were mostly cooperative (Roar was none too happy about having to lug the dog and bags of poop). 

It was really just good to get out, get some exercise, and breathe fresh air. 

For some reason, before he would climb up to go to the slide, Zachary kept asking, "Mommy, can I go up there?"

When it was time to go, Zachary asked to go down the big slide one more time.  Once he finished, he got into his car and buckled his belt.  No meltdown.

Yay for successful family outings!  Hopefully, there will be much more of these soon.

On sleeping through the night and getting the money shot

As you know by now from all of my whining, there's not much sleeping going on in our household.  But "they" say that children start sleeping through the night (defined as a 5 hour period, usually from midnight to 5 am) around three months.  So when Samantha and Conor turned three months last week, I fully expected a good night's rest - that night.  It didn't happen.

However, on Friday and Saturday nights, something changed.  Conor went to sleep around 8 and didn't get up until around midnight, and Samantha slept from around 8 until 2 or 3 in the morning.  Now, if Zachary hadn't been sick and up every couple of hours, we could've gotten some rest.  Regardless, we were optimistic that things were headed in the right direction.

As you may know, however, there is one way to end baby-sleeping streaks, and that is to talk about them when they happen.  And I told enough people about these long periods of rest that it was really no surprise to me that last night, both Samantha and Conor woke up every three hours.

*sigh*

Before it all ended, because of some good rest, both babies were cooperative for a Sunday morning photo shoot.  I think I got a few money shots:

I LOVE this picture.  Isn't she just so angelic?

I finally was able to capture a smile from my sweetie pie!!  (This photo was taken about 45 minutes after the last.  It's interesting to me how much the lighting changed in my room during that short period of time.)

These ones are Conor outtakes, but I still love them:

Look at that sweet face!

This is typical Conor.

And my poor sick boy decided to crash another shoot, but I just couldn't say "no" to those big, tired eyes and runny nose:

Samantha is completely fascinated by her big brother.

Photo shoot (mostly) fail

To date, I've been horrible about taking pictures of Samantha and Conor.  To be fair, there have been few opportunities where I've either had two happy babies or one happy baby and one sleeping baby, AND good lighting, but that's hardly going to comfort me when I am struggling to remember how tiny they once were, just how much hair Samantha really had, and just how sweet of a toothless grin Conor had. 

But the stars aligned somewhat this weekend and I was able to capture my baby girl's big, beautiful eyes:

However, when I tried to take Conor's picture, someone had other plans:

(Month 3 sessions may have to occur during that someone's naptime...)

And although the quality of these next ones stink, I do love that I got some pictures of mom and dad acting like they've done this sort of thing before.

They left this morning to go back home.  We miss you already, Parti and Parta!  Come back soon!

So I guess it wasn't that big of a fail.  But I'm still hoping for better next time!

Ice, Ice, Baby

Although Roar will never admit it, I'm a cool mom.  I base this assessment almost solely on the fact that, much to his chagrin, we like the same music.  I am secretly giddy (because to be outwardly giddy would be, like, so not cool) when I see him picking through my CDs or downloading music that I listened to in high school and college.

After I returned to the car after filling it up with gas the other night, I found him playing my old Vanilla Ice CD.  There's something cathartic...and surreal...about driving down the street on a cool night whilst rapping with your teenaged son, especially when you have def lyrics such as "cookin' MCs like a pound of bacon."

As he's grown older, I've learned to accept as fact that connecting with him will no longer be as easy as pulling out Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  But music may help keep the tie that binds us from becoming too painfully long.  And that, my friends, is a very comforting thought.

Word to your mutha.

Back at work

My maternity leave officially ended on Monday.  I went into my office that day, but I didn't experience that returning-to-work anxiety that I did the last time my maternity leave ended.  While I missed my babies, I also really loved taking in the DC scenery on the short walk from the Metro to work and chatting with my boss and coworkers.  And although there wasn't much of it, I also enjoyed working.  I felt very lucky to have such a great job in this economy.

Things were a little different, however, because my senior attorney position also ended on Monday.  I knew my replacement -- had recommended her to my judge in fact -- so it was nice to see her as well.  I felt good about stepping down, and about being able to hand over some tasks that I didn't like to do.  I felt so at ease that I surprised myself by creating this awkward moment:

Replacement:  So, when will you be coming into the office?
Me:  Just one day per week.
Replacement:  Oh, that's great!  I thought you'd have to come in more.
Me:  No, that's why you have my job.
...
(chirp chirp)

Oh well.  I guess I'm not completely okay with the change.  I hope she fails miserably.