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We Have Real Babies Now

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Sebastian’s Blippi Birthday

The past week has kind of blurred a bit as far as day-to-day details go. That happens when you sleep in two-hour increments, I suppose.

At some point in the last week, Tristen took Fawkes and Phonix to her mom’s house. She’s got a baby scale there (my friend Jason asked me if she eats babies) and they’re both over eight pounds now, around the size of full-term babies. So congrats, my boys- you’re real babies now!

Backing up just a little, my nephew Sebastian celebrated his third birthday on Sunday. He’s a big fan of internet sensation Blippi, and Blippi happened to make an appearance at his birthday party. There were a few other kids who also liked Blippi, and they were all super excited about the appearance. The did “Sink or Float” and played in a ball pit and played with his train set. Torrie told me later that Sebastian told her that his favorite part of the party was when Blippi visited, and he recounted all the things they did together.

Fortunately, none of them happened to notice that Uncle Zach wasn’t around when Blippi was. Hate that I missed that, really. A lot of the adults who were there told me that Blippi was really entertaining though. I heard he even hit on Tristen a little.

(I discovered in my research, by the way, that this Blippi guy is a genius.)

Maybe next year Sebastian will be really into Spider-Man. That would be pretty cool.

It was Amanda’s weekend with Milly, but she came over for the birthday party. I took her back to Amanda’s around 4:00 because Karen was going to take her to Richlands for a few days to get in some Spring Break time with her. Milly told me I should say hi to her Nana when we pulled up, so I walked up to the door and chatted with Karen for a minute, told her about Blippi and the like. She noted that I was getting a little grayer and I pointed out that I had just turned 40.

So Milly spent the next few days there. I got her again Wednesday evening. Nonnie took her and Sebastian to the Children’s Museum on Thursday, then on Friday she went to the Aquarium with her friend, Sophie. Sophie is also the daughter of the school librarian. He and I talk a good bit when I volunteer there at Milly’s school. We’re both comic book nerds.

Milly was very interested in helping out with Fawkes and Phoenix. She wanted to help give them baths,

but they’re still rather slippery and squirmy. She held them some and helped us put them to bed though, reading their bedtime stories for us. I don’t know if she’s doing it on purpose or not, but she seems to be developing her own good night tradition with them in the form of a little double-kiss to the top of each of their heads.

For the baby shower, we asked for books instead of cards. One of the books they got was a collection of Shakespeare stories written out in a more easy-to-understand way. I showed that to Milly and she took it upon herself to read Romeo and Juliet. She was pretty moved by it, told me how sad it was and said she shed a tear reading it.

We had a few visitors on Friday. Candace brought Davis, and some lunch from J. Michael’s, over. Dr. Fru and Sophie came over just a little before they left and hung out for a bit. Dr. Fru brought an electric nail trimmer for the boys. I tried it out the next day and vowed never to use nail clippers again.

Milly tried her hand at making pancakes on Saturday morning. It was a mixed thing. The first one was really thin, one was rather undercooked, but the rest were okay. Not bad for a first attempt. I helped a good bit until the last one and it took almost all I had not to direct her with the last one.

Milly and Abigail played a bit on Friday afternoon, then she went to hang out with Miles on Saturday. When she got back from his house, Tristen and the boys had gone to her mom’s house to walk around Hugh MacRae Park. I made Milly lunch and she asked to watch me play Fortnight on the PlayStation.

Sunday was the boys’ first Easter. They’re a bit small to do much, but we did take them to Tristen’s parents’ house for an Easter dinner and a few pictures. Laura wanted to get a picture with them and some chicks, so we put them in a box with a few small peeps. Poop, of course, happened, but we did what we could. The pictures didn’t turn out the best, but oh well. Dinner was terrific, so that counts for something.

Oh, we also took our first walk with the boys on Sunday. That was enjoyable. We walked a little outside of the immediate neighborhood. It was the first outing with the stroller we keep here (versus the one at Tristen’s parents’ house). Damn thing takes up the entire back of her car though, we we discovered after we got back from the walk and tried to put it somehere other than the front closet.

We stopped by Miles’s house. His dad, Nick, was there and we were chatting with him, but Rye appeared after a bit. We also got to meet another neighborhood parent. I pointed out how cool it is that there are a bunch of kids Milly’s age, and then there’s this other group comign up behind them around Fawkes and Phoenix’s age.

The last week or so has, I feel, been more difficult at night. We’re settling on a schedule for the boys as far as sleep goes, but they have this tendency to stay awake for a while after their nighttime feedings, which isn’t so bad except they get really pissed if the paci falls out of their mouth, which happens with some frequency. Fortunately, they seem to be immune to each other’s angry shrieks (which makes me think of Scott and Alex Summers, aka Cyclops and Havok, two brother X-Men characters who, for some odd reason, can’t be hurt by each other’s powers, even though the powers have nothing to do with each other). Sometimes they take turns being upset though, so you think everything is settled but as soon as you pull the covers back up over yourself you have to throw them off to go take care of things. And you can’t let them cry it out because they’re in our room still, so that gets maddening real quick.

They have moved out of bassinets though, and are now sleeping next to each other on a platform in the pack & play. We thought briefly about putting them in the crib in their own room, but since we still have to get up to feed them every three hours or so, we thought it might be a bit of a pain to do that just yet. We’re going to wait until they start to drop a feeding.