Ode to the end of maternity leave.

No photos, but what a milestone day! June 24 marked Liam and Coralie's first day at daycare, the official end of my long and blissful maternity leave, and my first day back at work (not to mention, my first day working in an actual office since December 19!). Fortunately, we can rest easy knowing that they are in the care of a wonderful and loving woman - and the hard part is juggling work while counting down the hours each day until we can see our babies again!

But, we knew it was inevitable, and I suppose there are some good things about the situation. For example, I've been reminding myself of something I read once, which said that one of the best things you can do for your kids is show them you are something other than a parent. So that will be my mantra! There are also some signs that the time had come to go back to work... like the fact that my feet have a Chaco tan not seen since the days of Peace Corps, and that I have now watched every season of America's Next Top Model, and have caught up on all of the old episodes of The O.C., One Tree Hill, and Beverly Hills 90210 (the '90's version). Yes folks, it's true: I have become a bona-fide Soap Net junkie. So if the mild case of brain rot I've developed isn't a sign for me to go back to work, then I don't know what is! Plus the fact that I've now seen a full cycle of The O.C. and One Tree Hill, and have lost interest in 90210 now that we are on the ho-hum college years. (Did anyone else realize just how long that show went on?!)

Which brings me to the things I will miss most about maternity leave... other than spending my days with the babies, of course! Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Being able to do any old errand any old time I feel like it.
2. Taking walks with the babies and Mika at any hour of the day.
3. Daytime playtime with my good friend Anne!
   
4. Being able to wear stretch pants and Target tops without shame.
5. Taking naps with the babies... when they let me nap, that is. :-)
6. Having the luxury of shuttling Joe to and from work. Oh wait, that's what Joe will miss most!
   
7. Not having to get up at particular time every day.
8. Being able to breastfeed and not having to pump round-the-clock at work. It's only been one day, and already I am thinking, "Eight and a half more months of this... really?

So, I guess I'm back into my old routine, but as a changed woman. And now, living my Soap Net-free and pumping existence!

Father's Day fun!

Sunday was a big day... it was Joe's first Father's Day! We began the day with brunch at Harry's Tap Room in Clarendon, and then
spent the afternoon at Dumbarton Oaks and enjoying gelato while touring around Georgetown. It was the perfect end to a wonderful weekend with Grandma & Grandpa Crites! Liam and Coralie were showered with affection all weekend long and enjoyed lots of strolls and stories with their special visitors - and even a venture out to their favorite Mexican restaurant, Guajillo, where they were on their best behavior yet again!

Three months old!

Can you believe it?! As of June 7, it has been three months since our two little Snappers came into our lives. According to Dr. Harvey Karp (of Happiest Baby on the Block fame), this means that Coralie and Liam have now made it through the "missing fourth trimester" and have reached the stage in which babies are truly ready to be born. Indeed, we are so amazed at how much they have grown and changed in that time. They are so much more alert and curious about the world around them... they smile, they make cute little sounds (even the occasional giggle), roll over, and lift and turn their heads. Which may not sound like much, but they've come a long way! Their lives have been filled with all kinds of excitement from meeting their family and our friends, seeing the nation's capital, going wine tasting and to the occasional party, enjoying their first Easter, having their first shots, and nearly doubling their weights. Not to mention, they've become pros when it comes to breathing, eating, sleeping, and pooping - which seem like the basics to us, but are no small feat for newborns!

Here are a few commemorative three-month photos of our sweet little ones:

Coralie trying to suck on Liam's foot... apparently, she got bored with his hands.

Liam, as usual, continues to be unfazed by his sister's torture.

Still linking arms...

... and now linking legs, too!

Oh, they crack us up to no end. Bye for now!

A wet weekend

This past weekend was interesting. On Saturday morning, we woke up to do some laundry, when lo and behold - we discovered about 3 inches of water covering half of our basement. Yikes! We spent about an hour sucking up water with the shop-vac and running buckets up and down the stairs before realizing that at that rate, we would be dealing with it all weekend. So, Joe went out and rented a pump so we could pump the water out, which was much more effective. :-) However, despite pumping all of the water out, water still continued to fill up the basement as soon as we stopped running the pump. Except we could not figure out where it was coming from, as there were no apparent leaks in the walls or pipes. (And, it didn't smell - thank God!) On Monday, our plumber came out and discovered that the flooding was caused by a combination of factors - the water table was saturated due to all the rain we've had (topped off by Friday night's strong storm) and our basement drain was clogged - so all the excess groundwater around our house was coming in through the backed-up basement drain.

All in all, a definite pain-in-the-butt situation, but thankfully, one that was not terribly complicated nor expensive to resolve. And on the plus side, at least it forced us to finally pare down some of the things we've let pile up in the basement! But enough of all that - obviously, you did not come to our blog just to hear all about our basement troubles! So while we were working away, here's what Liam and Coralie were up to:

Coralie learned how much fun it is to put her fingers in Liam's mouth:

... and that when he turns away because he's had enough of that, his head tastes pretty good, too:

They learned that it is possible to fall asleep while linking arms... (so CUTE!):

... that their crib mobile is endlessly fascinating... (just look at those faces!) :

(Outfits courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Snapp, btw... we were happy they were finally able to fit into them!)

... and that 12 weeks is not too young to try sitting up in the Bumbo chair. They were totally into it! They may be little, but they are strong!

Though after a while, this whole sitting up business does get pretty tiring:

Is it tummy time again?

Whoever invented tummy time for babies must have been an evil genius. Sure, it is a necessary step in infant development, helping them build their strength, sharpen their vision, turn their heads, and get ready for crawling, et cetera, et cetera... all kinds of good stuff. But the babies do not like it. Not one bit. I guess when you don't exactly have any biceps to speak of, it must be an awkward feeling to be stuck face-down on the floor. Back time isn't always much better, either, even despite being on a totally fun play mat, as you can see from the chagrined expressions above. So as much as we hate upsetting our babies so much, we do want them to crawl and even eventually walk someday! Fortunately, the babies recently received a great tummy time mat which they don't seem to entirely hate, which allows for a somewhat less frustrating tummy time. So naturally, we had to capture these rare calm tummy moments on camera! Liam is on the right, and Coralie is on the left (circa 9 weeks - and pardon the poor quality of my camera phone). Aren't you impressed with the head control on these little guys?!

The babies go wine tasting

Guess what? This weekend we discovered a new baby-friendly activity: wine tasting! Who knew?! Auntie Julie was in town for the Memorial Day weekend, and made us promise to figure out something fun to do other than sitting at home playing with babies... and as much as we love doing that, we had to agree that it was high time to venture out on a bona-fide family excursion (discounting our excursions to Trader Joe's, Target, and Babies 'r' Us, of course :-). Little did we know that in as quickly as 40 minutes from our house, you can find yourself in the quaint Virginia countryside, surrounded by horse farms and wineries. And thanks to a recommendation from our good friend Anne, we paid a visit to the Swedenburg Estate Vineyard in Middleburg, Virginia. After all, since the babies are now 11 weeks old, we figured there was no better time to take them wine tasting for the first time. :-) We spent a lovely afternoon sampling the vineyard's five varieties of wine, before settling on a bottle of rosé to sip under an umbrella in the sun. The babies enjoyed themselves immensely, and created as much of a spectacle among the visiting wine connoiseurs as the actual wines themselves. We ended the day touring around historic Middleburg, a charming little gem of town that seems almost too picturesque to be touched by the real world. Naturally, we couldn't resist taking tons of adorable photos of the babies at the winery - including some of our favorites of "Super Buddy" - a.k.a. Liam - soaring above us with his bib as a cape, and our junior gymnast/yoga instructor Coralie showing off her legendary backbends. (And no, I am not just dangling her in the air like that... she actually gets herself into this position to stretch!) Click here to check them out!

Birth announcements have arrived!

As you probably know, we finally sent out our birth announcements last week. And yes, we know what you're probably thinking... even though the babies' birth is not news to anyone at this point, we figured it was only fair that they receive an "official" announcement in paper form. Unfortunately, it just took two months to make it happen!

To the left is the front and back of the announcement proof. You like?! We found this great design shop to do it for us - Paper and Ink Studio, at http://www.paperandinkstudio.com/. It was such a challenge to find a design that had enough space for info for two babies, so we were really happy when we came across this one. We have a few extras, so if yours somehow did not make it to your mailbox, or if we don't have your address and you would like us to send you one, just send me an email to scrites -at- gmail -dot- com.

We also wanted to share some of the funnier photos of the babies from the photo shoot which did not make the cut for the birth announcement. Keep in mind that these were taken when they were 5 weeks old, so they are definitely bigger now!

Liam: "Are you listening to me?!?!"
Coralie: "What? I can't hear you!!!"

Clearly, this must be a fascinating conversation that they are having.

It's official. Too much photo-taking has clearly pushed Coralie over the edge, and has turned Liam catatonic.

Simultaneous yawns. Nap time!

Now, isn't it amazing that we were able to capture a photo of two calm babies to even make this birth announcement?!

That's right. This is how we roll.

It's probably no surprise that most activities with twins are quite a production. Going for a simple stroll through the neighborhood is no exception. Since it is pretty funny to us, we just wanted you to see how we look on a family walk. Yep, we've got the double stroller, a dog, and one (sometimes two) adult chaperones. Needless to say, we occupy most of the sidewalk wherever we go! Surely the neighbors must love us. :-) Case in point: on the left are the kiddos in their stroller, and on the right is my mom with the stroller and the dog, just returning from a walk a few weeks back.

Rare sleeping moments.

One of the most amusing pieces of advice we've received as new parents is to "sleep when the babies sleep." Well, easier said than done, my friends. While this sounds like a reasonable suggestion, there are a few reasons why it's proving to be next to impossible. First of all, it is rare that they both are sleeping at the same time. In fact, we can probably count the number of times when they have napped at the same time during the day on five fingers. Instead, there are many times when one baby will nap and the other baby will fuss... and that is when it occurs to us, "Gee, if we had just one baby, we probably would be sleeping a lot more." However, if they ever do nap at the same time, it is hard to resist using the quiet time to get our million other things done, without feeling guilty about leaving a baby crying in the other room. (Like writing this post right now, for example. :-) I think this might be why God gives twins to obsessive multitaskers. :-)

Now, this is not to say that we have fussy babies. They are just babies, and babies fuss... that's just what they do! And since there are two of them, the odds of fussing are even greater. We are lucky, however, that they have not problem falling asleep at night... but those daytime naps we've heard most newborn babies are so fond of just don't seem to exist in this house. That's why when the two rare sleeping moments you see here occurred, we just had to capture them on camera to prove that they actually did exist!

Oh, thank God. They are smiling!

What a relief! At six weeks, we've begun to see the first glimmers of what seem to be smiles from the babies. And the timing could not be better... after all, it is nice to have the validation of a smile to balance out the screaming and crying, and to reward us for all our labors as parents. Some might say it's just gas, but we refuse to believe it. It seems like the real deal to us!

Coralie

Liam

Silly babies

Though Liam and Coralie may be just six weeks old, we've decided that their distinct personalities are very much evident. Well, to us, at least... after all, as their parents, we do spend countless hours staring and them and pontificating the meaning behind every movement and expression! We've decided that Coralie is an alert, decisive young lady who knows what she wants, and isn't afraid to ask. Liam, on the other hand, appears to be a future comedian in the making, and constantly entertains us with his expressiveness. Coralie (right) has recently taken to sticking out her tongue (she seems quite proud of it), while Liam (left) likes to pretend he's whistling while being burped. The "whistling" seems to have replaced the "drunken sailor" pose that he was exhibiting up until last week, which you see to the left. So of course, we just had to share!

Our first Easter

The twins celebrated their first Easter this weekend... and naturally, we couldn't resist dressing them up in matching Easter outfits. They were on their best behavior (well, for part of the day at least), and slept through most of Easter brunch at the Hamels' house. Easter baskets, and perhaps even a first taste of chocolate to come for next Easter!

We took about a million photos of the babies in their Easter outfits, so please pardon the excess. They are so darn cute, we just couldn't resist! :-) (And if you scroll through them really fast, it looks like Liam is doing karate! Pretty funny!)

Click Here for More Easter Pictures

One month old!

It's hard to believe Liam and Coralie are one month old already. Between adjusting to life with newborns and visits from our families, the time has flown by like we can't believe! My sister happened to be here again, just in time for their birthday... and naturally, decided that a birthday cake was in order. And who are we to say no to cake?! But the twins will have to wait for their one year birthday for their first taste of frosting, of course. :-)

Click Here for More 1st Month B-day Photos

The twins' first cherry blossoms!

It's cherry blossom time here in the DC-area, and the twins have been happy (so we think) to see these fluffy pink wonders for the first time. My mom happened to be visiting during the Cherry Blossom Festival, so we wedged our way through the crowds of spectators to muster up a few photos with the babies by the Tidal Basin.

Click Here for More Pix of us Enjoying the Cherry Blossoms

Really, they were happy at one point, I swear - we just didn't happen to capture those happy moments on camera. :-) Ah well, we'll try again next year for their one-year-old photos!

First bath!

Good news! The twins' umbilical cords have fallen off, meaning that the time has come for their first bath. Given their small size, we opted for a kitchen sink bath. It went somewhat well - we started with Coralie, who was relatively agreeable and even seemed to enjoy the whole experience. Isn't she a little bathing beauty?!

We think Liam was a little jealous that his sister went first, so he was somewhat fussy by the time it was his turn to hop in the bath. We promised him the first bath next time, though, and that seemed to stop the fussing long enough for us to get a few decent photos. :-)


Click Here for Pictures of Bath Time