Cute things Glory and Gracie are doing now.

So, I have this made up word that I use with the girls.

Aye, aye—official definition: to soothe, by patting gently or cuddling.

When they are rough with the kitty, I tell them, “Aye, aye, kitty,” and they pet the kitty nicely, instead of slapping. Last night Glory fell over backwards on the floor and Gracie stood there watching her cry in surprise. I told Gracie, “Aye, aye, Glory. Go say aye, aye Glory.” Gracie toddles over to Glory, bends down to rub her belly, then grabs her hand to help her get up. So, sweet!

Both the twins like to slap their own belly when I strip off their shirt. It’s really cute.

The girls are using the word “owie,” a lot. When I change their diaper it’s, “owie.” When I change their clothes it’s, “owie.”  Their food is owie. The cold is owie. So, last night as I was changing Glory’s clothes it was owie again. And since she was bare, I slapped her playfully and said, “owie.” Then, I slapped her hand and said, “owie.” Then I slapped her belly and said, “owie.” She caught on right away and giggled contagiously as I slapped her bare skin everywhere. Glory has a very acute sense of humor and a contagious giggle.

Along with the owie theme, Gracie has been batting her mouth and crying, “owie” for the last 3 days. The drool is running like a river. She is teething something fierce. Almost nothing will relieve the pain of teething bicuspids.

Last weekend, my sister Kimberly offered to run to the Just Between Friends sale, in my stead to score snow pants, winter coats and snow boots. She saved me much time and headache. I was so grateful. I was also surprised by my little girls’ reaction to her purchases when she got home. Glory and Gracie were all eyes and ears when we got the purchases out of the bag. They very much knew that these were their clothes. Gracie lifted the hangers of sweaters and tops, inspecting the items and talking about them. We put on their new coats and they walked around the house looking down at them, talking in their baby chatter. Even the next morning Gracie went to pick through her new clothes again, holding them up, looking at them and chattering about them.

On occasion I have had the battle of the wills with Glory about what she should and should not be doing. She looks at me. I look back at her. She looks back at me and I stare her down, evidencing disappointment in my face. Sometimes it is just too much to stare back at in defiance, so she just closes her eyes.

The days when it is easier to switch to autopilot.

There was the day, my first Mother’s Day as a mother. I didn’t want to think about it I didn’t want to celebrate it. I just wanted it to pass like any other day. While I loved being a mother and loved my newborn twins, I didn’t want to commemorate—which was only a few small steps from—commiserating my predicament as a new mother. Yet, I felt a spark of joy when my sister-in-law came over and delivered flowers.

Days like today when I’ve got a fierce headache and just want to sleep. I will go to daycare and just pick up the twins, go home and feed them whatever they want to eat and will try to sleep on the couch as they play around me throwing toys and household items alike onto the floor and into the garbage.

There are the days when I miss my husband so badly, I could turn into a mournful wail. Instead, I quickly divest myself of the longing dreams and visions of companionship, pop some ibuprofen, drink a tincture of cramp bark and count the items on my to-do list and the money in the bank. Two nights ago I called him at 2 am, after waking. My thoughts spinning in circles, next to two babies snoring through noses full of mucus. I paid $2.50 for a 5 minute call. I told him I just wanted to hear his voice but really, I wanted so much more.

New developments

1. My sister might be moving into my upstairs in like a day. I am entirely unprepared for this since I am in the middle of two projects and have entirely neglected housecleaning in a way no Mennonite ever would. The fear of someone seeing it feels not so great. Honestly, it's like when you read the tragic stories in the newspaper, where some child gets forgotten in the car and the police come to find the parents at their address and they report the cleanliness of the house to be substandard to filthy. It's not ideal. But I'd rather keep my job than to clean my house. It's a shame that it has to be a choice between the two.
2. I got a new job starting on Monday. Yes, I know. Why am I starting a new job when I'll be so soon leaving it. Well, that is the cut-throat in me coming out, looking out for myself and not so much the company. (Hey, it's time for punching it out like the big companies.) I want benefits for the next few months and I would like a paid vacation to use for a packing day or something. My temp company was giving me paid holiday for Christmas and Thanksgiving Day. 2 days--that's it. I was considering skipping family Christmas and Thanksgiving just so I could work on packing and or a house project. I was grateful for the nearly $3/hr raise my current company was willing to pay me to keep me. But the new company was offering the same payrate and they are located a mile from my home and they have benefits and perks and all that good stuff employees get. I also got the job with a cold application, 20% chance of this occurring. 

Basil, chicken and cheese ravioli soup

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 sweet red pepper
• 2 carrots cubed
• chicken broth
• chicken
• 3 pieces bacon, chopped
• sweet cheese ravioli
• 2 T. flour
• lots of finely chopped or puréed basil

Fry the bacon or finely chopped salt pork. Grill the garlic, onion and red pepper. Set aside. Boil the carrots, chicken, in the chicken broth and water till soft. Ensure broth is seasoned with a pinch of paprika, salt and pepper. Add ravioli, bacon, grilled onion, garlic and red pepper. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Mix a cup of cold water with 2 T. flour and add to soup. Add puréed basil till soup is a nice green color. Simmer till thickened. 

Aesthetic tip. If the color isn't green and the basil flavor is sufficient, likely the "grilled" aspect/color of the soup is overpowering the green basil color. So, don't grill your veggies in the soup pot and add the grilled aspect of the soup as late in the process as you can.

Other thickeners can be used. I will be trying green split pea or potato flakes.

To add flavor, my "cheater" ingredient for soups is this bullion I get from the Asian store. No MSG in it. I'm not sure what it is called.

My twins approve this recipe. They were born with their father's palette. It must be savory before they eat it. They ate a few pieces of chicken, then protested. So I fed them the broth and they loved it. I even slipped them the veggies in the broth!

Another weekend.

Recently, Ibuprofen and Advil have become my friends. I can't seem to deal with the muscle pain otherwise. After a long weekend of very physical activities, my body feels like its been hit by a truck. I got a lot of crack sealing done this past weekend. And since I was using the caulk gun, I decided to finish caulking the windows on the west side of the house. The weather was great for it. The caulk was super hard to squeeze out of the tube. Therefore, I'm having some difficulty typing.

The twins loved the outdoors for the most part. While I was sealing cracks in the back yard, they ran around playing and inspecting, while a Hmong ceremony took place in the house immediately adjacent to my back yard. The rattles, gongs and chanting, wafted down to us like the smell of lemongrass and barbecued meat. Their kids played hide and seek all around us while I caulked and the twins played, until they cried in protest.

The have's and the have nots.

Last year at about this time I was working at NMDP. I was a bit unambitious. It was a contract job, purposed for replacing a maternity leave. And I knew I didn’t have it quite made yet but I had little energy at the time to pull all the heartstrings and impressive feats for the company, while I breastfed two infants and kept the household running. I landed the job at the interview and I knew I had. I charmed the socks off of the two ladies that interviewed me and I intended to. But because of the overload outside of the job, and likely the level of wellness attained after birthing twins, I wasn’t impressive enough to stay with the company.

Such is the nature of finding a good company to work for and keeping your job with it in today’s market.

As I have just learned a good Seminary education no longer needs experts in hermeneutics and Church History. That seems about as foreign and bizarre to me as eliminating the Old Testament department at a Bible Seminary. It seems that is the nature of today’s economy. Everything, gets worked over and cut. I have come to see and understand what positions in a company are the “fat” and will get cut. I see it through more calculative eyes and I toss aside my emotions, when looking at company practices and structures.

All that is to say that I have, as an employee, become more calculative as well, not to the point of cruelty but to the point of survival. I think it will take more than 3 years of suffering to bring me to cruelty.

In today’s job market, cut-throat does not describe it fully, although that is the case also. There is this element of the “haves” and the “have nots.” Once you have a job or your spouse does, you rule the world and the have nots have no impact or argument toward you. There is no obligation to the have nots as they struggle and toil away. There is a sense of entitlement for the haves, concerning all that they have. A salary. Benefits. Paid vacation. They feel they have earned it and the folk who’s jobs got eliminated or downsized—well, somehow the don’t deserve the salary or benefits of everyone else.

Somehow, this mentality feels really OFF to me. A bit like the silence about the disparity between a CEO's annual compensation and the lowliest worker in his company. Sure, that is an extreme disparity, begging for criticism. However, I'm not so sure those who currently bask in their benefits on a 5 figure salary, would behave much differently than the CEO, with an 8 figure salary.

Pushing their weight already.

Glory didn't even need instructions. She just picked up the shovel like she knew what she was doing. Wow, baby! Who needs to fight to get a handyman out? For me it's proven to be more expedient to birth children then wait a year. LOL.