Breaking out of a hard, crunchy shell

It constantly amazes me how easy it is to live somewhere and never go anywhere or do anything. Our typical weekend is to play around the house or go to the same old park or, if we feel like getting out, to Home Depot or maybe the mall or downtown. During these gettings-out when we have a second to talk in grown-up language to each other, Dada and I occasionally discuss our future and whether it lies here or somewhere else. We have it very, very good where we are, but deep down we are nomads and the thought of leaving will always excite us, especially now that we are total middle-class stereotypes with our 2 kiddos and a house payment. (Break free! Stick it to the Man!) Anyway, the end of every such conversation is to agree that we can't seriously consider leaving Delanowhere until we get out of the house and experience things that our community has to offer. I mean, there's D.C. and New York two hours away, both places I've never been because I am a redneck girl through and through. There are theme parks, museums, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Amish Country, national parks, beaches, the Appalachians, the Poconos, all within easy driving distance. We have made a pact that, starting this summer, we are required as a family to blow some of Dada's hard-earned bucks once a month doing something we haven't done before. My suggestion box is open!

One drawback, of course, are these two highly mobile and opinionated toddler people. You put them on the ground and they run in opposite directions. It's hard for me to imagine testing any waters in the tourism arena on my own. And at this point, I should apologize for my horrible behavior to Jen, who has asked me on numerous occasions to accompany her and her brood to Discovery Point oopsPort Discovery. I keep putting it off, but I am slowly realizing that I do this because I am terrified of taking these two crazy boys anywhere big and exciting on my own. One day I will have to break down and just go places, me and the fellers, but the logistics of exactly how one takes two boys to public places and successfully brings both of them home... how this can be accomplished just doesn't register with me yet.

This is yet another nice thing about having company. If I want to check something out but Dada is otherwise occupied, it is usually not hard to convince our guests to abide by my touristy whims. A low-key whim I had while Uncle Chris and Aunt Jean were in town was to visit a small local dairy that makes ice cream, on the spot, from the milk of their very own jersey cows. They hyped it up as though you would get to visit the cows, but there was none of that going on when we got there, just a lot of people sitting on their beautifully landscaped front lawn eating ice cream. I didn't feel too swindled, since the ice cream was seriously the best I had ever tasted. I think my party agreed.





The boys enjoyed themselves, too. Thanks to Isaac's unconventional ice-cream-eating methods, I had to resort to bleach to get the chocolate out.

Life's a beach

...especially when you have six eyes to watch two boys.

Yesterday Chris and Jean and I took the boys to a small and surprisingly uncrowded beach on the Chesapeake. What could be better than a nice sandy beach and super-shallow water?




We spent a goodly amount of time on the rocky part of the beach, where Jacob liked to point at one rock in a million. "RAH! RAH!" he would say. His favorite thing was to throw rocks in the water, because he's a dude and he's hard-wired like that.

Before we went home we went on the "easy" hike to see an historic lighthouse that was part of the park.


Their version of "easy" was 0.8 miles one-way, which normally I would have scoffed at, but that was before I learned first-hand that the trail was too rugged to bring a stroller. Picture how "easy" it was when I tell you that both boys fell asleep on the way back. Let me tell you, we ALL napped well.

Aunt Jean, that ho-bag, took more and better pictures and published some of them on her blog already.

Yay Flingers!

Yesterday our homies from the West Coast brought their brand-new baby boy home after a week in the NICU. Congratulations, Leslie, Bob, and Lauren!

What? It's Memorial Day?

I have spent this week in a sleepless haze, because Jacob has decided that sleep is for losers. Rage, RAGE against the morning people, he says! Last night he gave me a break -- he only awoke once, at midnight, and went back to sleep after an hour of tossing on my chest, sleeping until 6. And I was relieved, let me tell you, because each other night in recent memory he has awakened sometime in the ungodly middle of the night (1 or 2 or 3 AM) and stayed wide a-stinkin'-wake for at least two hours. The worst was Tuesday night, when he was awake from 1:30 until FIVE O'CLOCK and I finally plopped his squishy butt in the car and drove him to sleep.

I have no idea what is going on, but it could be one or more of a billion things. He could be hungry, since he was used to nursing one or three times through the night. When he gets in these sleep-fighting bouts, I usually offer him a cup of milk first. Sometimes he takes it; sometimes he takes it and hurls it to the floor. Another thing -- he is most definitely getting his two upper bicuspids simultaneously, so that could be bothering him. Sometimes, when I give him Tylenol, it seems to help, but it could also be that I resort to that after and hour and a half of him thrashing and screaming in my arms, and he's just tuckered himself out at that point. It could be allergies, which seem to have sprouted in Dada this spring -- for the first time ever in his life -- we suspect this may be what is causing Jacob's nonstop but mild runny nose. And of course, it could be his bum ankle. This part is improving, but slowly. If it's wrapped, he will walk on it, limping, if it means locomotion can help him reach a ball faster than his brother. Unfortunately, everyone but me seems to think it's a little swollen relative to his intact ankle. If he's not back to normal by Monday, I really want to call the doctor, but I don't know what more she can do.

Somehow, powered by coffee, we made it through the week. And what a reward awaits us this weekend! Uncle Chrissy and Aunt Jean are in town! (apologies to Jean for the horrible framing on her pic.)




Today we relaxed and hung out around the house and walked to the park and to the slushie mart. Tomorrow we are going to try out a (hopefully) lesser-known beach at a state park nearby, which additionally boasts an old lighthouse and a playground made from recycled tires.

But really, it doesn't seem to matter what we do, because these boys are madly in love with Chris and Jean. And we all know how Mommy feels about having extra pairs of eyes and hands around the house. I will be showering tomorrow, oh yes.

Baby brother, take note

Here's Isaac demonstrating how to descend a slide without injury.



It's very simple, really. When you go down the slide, don't take your mom with you.

Jacob the future yogi

In my rapid-fire shooting at the park, I caught Jacob in these funky poses. He is clearly demonstrating the toddler Sun Salutation.

Gimpy O'Neal

Yesterday I took the boys to a new park in a different neighborhood. Mommy was sick and tired of Turtle and Dolphin park. "You're sick, Mom?" asked Isaac. "No, buddy. SICK AND TIRED." We found yet another of the bazillion city parks here in town that advertise the presence of play structures. To our delight, this super-cool new one we found had not one, but TWO play structures, and also two sets of swings. The boys wore themselves out for about twenty minutes climbing up this strange 5-foot-high vertical thing that resembled a floppy ladder-wall. What was most amazing (but perhaps should not have been) was that Jacob could climb it without help. Mind you, I was standing right there with my hands hovering next to his sides the whole time he was scaling this contraption, but I was impressed.

The point to climbing this was to get to the slide at the top, which was both twisty and fast, an unusual combination. Jacob loves sliding, though I insist, as I did with his brother before him, that he go down a slide only while sitting on my lap. As we went down together for the hundredth time, his sneaker slipped slightly between my legs. Did I mention this was a fast slide? Before you could say "Holy Ace Bandage, Batman!", the tread on his sneaker caught against the plastic of the slide, causing his shoe to bend his ankle outward and to be dragged under my leg like that for several feet. Then he hurled his head backward in pain and bonked his skull on the side of the slide.

I saw he had twisted his ankle as I removed it from underneath me, but I didn't really think it was bad until I saw him limping, and then falling as his joint refused to support his weight. We played at the park for quite awhile longer to observe how bad it really was, with me schlepping him about when he got tired me wanting to test his ankle again. "Does it work now? How bout now? And now?" It didn't seem like it bugged him too badly at that point -- he was content when he wasn't trying to walk on it, and when he was, he seemed less like he was in pain and more like he was frustrated that he couldn't walk. Of course I looked at it, and it didn't look discolored in any way, though the swelling was anybody's guess because his cankles are already so fat.

At naptime I took them home and called the doctor, who suggested some rest and watchful waiting, but told me that, if he wasn't putting any weight on it by the next day, he should come in. Yesterday he actually seemed to enjoy his situation, since I commanded him to stay on my lap the entire afternoon and watch Thomas. The horror! But when he woke up this morning and wouldn't even try to walk on it, we went to the doctor.

To make a long story short, after an inconclusive half-hour at the doctor and about an hour-and-a-half at the radiologists' office (including an x-ray with so much screaming that it required a mommy and a technician to expose themselves to a minor amount of radiation), we now know conclusively that his ankle is neither broken nor sprained. His doctor suggested we wrap his ankle for a bit to help support it. RICE, anyone?

We visited good ol' Turtle and Dolphin park tonight to enjoy the weather and kill some time, and, while he still insisted I carry him from place to place, he crawled up steps by himself and even stood up a few times on his busted ankle. I think he's just using his gimpy status to get the chicks. "It's an old football injury, ladies."



Anyway, may you, like me, be struck by the ridiculousness of the situation. Here is the world's most mobile baby who nearly kills himself trying to fall off everything in our house daily, but it takes his mother and her infernal carelessness to actually cause serious injury.

Out of the mouth of Isaac

Some recent Isaac-isms to amuse you...

*I think he got this one from Mamaw. He squinches down his eyes and says, "Mom, I'm giving you THE EYE." As in, the Evil Eye.

*Every night, Isaac begs someone to lay down and "sleep" with him as a stalling tactic. One night this week, I told him no (as usual), that I had to do the laundry.
"No, Mommy, I need you to sleep on the floor, here next to my bed," clarified the Isaac.
What? I'm not sleeping on the floor, and I told him so.
"No no no, Mommy. You sleep here on the floor. Like MEEMAW."

I should explain that, when we stay at her house, I usually make Meemaw put Isaac to sleep. He sleeps on a crib mattress on the floor, and she lays next to him, on the floor, until he falls asleep.

Back to the new house... I laughed. "Isaac, your Meemaw is CRAZY. I am not crazy. I am not sleeping on the floor."
But that only gave him further amunition. "Yes, yes! You are crazy like Meemaw! Sleep here on the floor!"

*And my favorite. Last night Isaac informed me, as he does, that he needed "to go poop on the potty". As he is increasingly interested in doing, once I sat him on the pot, he asked to be left alone. I played with Jacob in the next room until I heard Isaac calling for me. "Mommy, come and see! It's a POOP FAMILY!"

Those O'Neal Boobs

I knew something was wrong with my boobs when I woke up Wednesday morning and they were STILL gigantic, swollen, and painful. But unlike the past week when they'd been that way, I started noticing that the pain was not just a general one, but was also more intense in several ducts that were swollen enough to look like they could explode through my skin at any minute. I was pretty sure I had at least one plugged duct, and was not willing to mess around. After my friend's ghastly breast-abcess experience, I was totally headed to the doctor ASAP.

During all this it became painfully (ha) obvious to Isaac that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the murderous shrieking coming from my mouth anytime he would try to give me a hug. I also couldn't lift my left arm without screaming. "What's wrong, Mom?" he asked. I figured I should give it to him straight, in language he could understand. "My boo-boos hurt, buddy. They're sick. I need to go see the doctor about them."

As my 11:00 am appointment approached, I started feeling seriously woozy. My temperature went up, from 97.5 at home, to 99 at the doctor's, in an hour and a half. As I flashed the doctor, she confirmed my worst fears. Mastitis, it was!

Not that mastitis and I are total strangers. I contracted it when Isaac was 3 weeks old. I had read a bit about it, and I was more than fairly sure it was upon me when I woke up at 2 in the morning with a 102-degree fever, and, despite the mild spring night, putting on three layers of pajamas couldn't stop the shivering. Luckily for me, my fever broke before I got to the doctor the next morning, but she still put me on antibiotics. I got better and haven't had any boobie issues whatsoever until now.

When I mentioned my failed attempts at manual expression to Dr. L, she basically jumped out of her chair. "No! Don't do that!" No more expression for me, she said. She wrote me a prescription for antibiotics and told me to keep ice on my boobs as much as humanly possible, until all the swelling disappeared. And, with a bit of a wink, she decreed, "No one in the house is to touch your nipples for a week."

As we were packing up to go, Isaac piped up. "Mom, can I ask the doctor a question?" "Sure, buddy. Her name is Dr. L." Isaac then politely informed her, "Dr. L, Mommy's boo-boos are sick." Dr. L agreed. "And we are going to make them all better!" Isaac's face lit up as though it was the best news he'd heard all day. "YAY!" he cheered. Thanks, buddy.

Since then, everything has receded so quickly. My boobs are deflating rapidly towards their eventual, droopy National Geographic-style resting state. All of my plugged ducts have even gone away, except for one pesky one that I hadn't been putting ice on, in favor of its more painful sisters. Now all that remains is for me to adjust to this crazy, unfettered life where I can drink, dye my hair, and whiten my teeth. Oh, the joy!

Somebody else enjoys their first stint at infant-induced insomnia

You may recall I told you Dada and I recently visited our old friends Matt and his wife Susan, who was basically ready to pop at any time. I went to college with both of them; I also went to high school, and prom(!) with Matt; Susan and I studied abroad together and she was my college roommate for 2+ years. Because I was also hot and heavy with Dada during college, he joined our circle as well and we together with others (Evan! Kurt! Liz!) played so many games of Trivial Pursuit, Euchre, and Taboo that we should not be challenged by any unsuspecting fool, ever, lest the challenger wish to run home with his or her tail firmly planted between the legs.

The Powers That Be must have sent out a Mother's Day weekend memo to the gestating babies, because we are pleased to welcome a brand new girl into the universe. Matt called us last night to tell us that their daughter Annabelle was born Sunday afternoon, and was 7 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches long. We love them all and wish them nothing but the best. Unless they don't send us pictures soon, in which case a pox will rain down on their house.

Where walking is a crime

Today was yet another simply glorious spring day, perfect for walking, playing, and generally enjoying the sunshine on our shoulders. We spent the morning at the park playing with some buddies. I didn't take pictures, but if I had they would look a lot like a playdate we had last Tuesday morning:



I showed Dada the bottom picture. "Who's swinging the boys?" he asked. "Me." "What about the other one?" "That's me, too. I do them both at the same time." I charaded for him my little Vishnu-mom method of simultaneously swinging two boys who both have different swinging height preferences. He was impressed, but really, it's not hard. I love that they like to swing so much, and for so long. It beats having to cleave yourself in two to keep up with them running in opposite directions.

Yesterday we had a special errand to run -- we had to take George the Green Car to the doctor to replace his ball joints. Now, any repair to George poses special challenges, as he is our only car-child. Lots of people offer to drive us home in their shuttles, but I am not interested the chaos and time involved in relocating two car seats, twice. Luckily we live 0.6 miles from the friendliest Chrysler dealer in town, as Google Maps tells me. It's actually across the street from the drug store we walk to when we get really bored and in need of Twizzlers.

You can only imagine the looks I got from EVERYONE in the Chrysler dealership as they carted George off and I whipped out my double stroller. "Going for a walk?" the service manager inquired. "Yes, walking home. We live less than a mile away." The color actually drained from his face. "We have a shuttle! We can take you!" The same from the driver who checked us in. "You're going to walk all that way? Will you BE OKAY?"

Geez, dudes, come on. I mean, I realize their livelihood is made from people who refuse to walk anywhere, but when you can't schlep your tush for a mile when you really need to -- that may be a sign that things are really wrong with you in more than just physical arenas, don't you think? And the boys were so enamored of their trip in the stroller that I ended up walking almost 3 miles roundtrip to take them to a nearby park before we went home. And do you know what? I didn't die. Can you imagine?

That's the nice thing about being centrally located in a college town. There's so much available to you if you just have the mindset that your legs aren't broken.

Famous last words

I am pleased to report that, five days later, Jacob still has not had a boobie. While he seems to be fine other than the screaming with an extra side of screaming in the middle of the night, I am still living with these ginormous, painful boulders hanging from my chest. Well, those who know me might scoff at the "boulder" comparison. Perhaps "really hard dirt clods" or "larger pebbles" would be more apt. They're not even symmetrical -- I had a vague notion that I nursed him more on my left side than on my right, and I think all you'd have to do is take a sideways glance at me now to see that "notion" blown up to Macy's Day Parade proportions.

There is no relief in sight from my poor engorged state, either. I tried expressing a little this morning and nothing would come out, especially of my seriously balloonified left one. Of course, it could be that I was trying in the shower while Jacob was standing just outside the shower curtain loudly reminding me that I should have been holding him instead of bathing myself. He makes it so easy to relax, that one. Grandma Jane, I realize you suggested there might be some drugs out there to help, but I think I'll tough it out a little more au naturel. I do feel that the pressure is not really getting any worse, and that's my totally scientific sign that the milky tidewaters are receding. I think I'll head to the grocery store tomorrow to buy some cabbage leaves. Apparently that is all the rage, according to Dr. Google -- some chemical in cabbage helps to decrease milk production or something.

Of course I say all this, and my friend AnthonyCarlos's mom just had boob surgery for an abcess that happened while she was gleefully nursing (not weaning) her six-month-old. SO! Let's hope my boobie business shows some major improvement here by the end of the week, and in the meantime I will be praying to the mastitis gods for mercy.

Big Boobies for Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there, but especially to our moms, Mamaw O'Neal and Meemaw Ross. Dada and I have an insane appreciation for both of you now that Isaac has evolved the 'tude of a 13-year-old. I am sad to say we deserved this, having both tortured our moms with the same act when we were little.

We also want to give a shout-out to little Simon, who made his debut on Friday to fellow Mid-Atlantic seasoned-pro mom Erin. Excellent timing on his part, no?

My Mother's Day was relatively uneventful. I was treated in the morning to an extra hour of sleep as Dada took the babies to fetch me some Starbucks. Then Dada gave me the best present a mommy could ever ask for -- he picked up the house. Not a small feat by any means, especially since we still have our Indy vacation gear spread from here to kingdom come.

The weather was beautiful and we spent most of the day in the backyard playing together and burning sticks in Dada's latest and long-desired acquisition, a chiminea. You can see the stress dissolving away from his face as he sits in his plastic lawnchair, breaking sticks from the gazillion trees around our house and tossing them into his fire. This stress is magically reincarnated in me as I have multiple royal cows about how this new toy surely means that there is some kind of skin graft in our children's future. So far they are both easily redirected from the fire by allowing them to dump water into the sandbox, and at the rate Dada is burning sticks, there won't be much fire in our futures at all unless he starts chopping down trees for fun.

The biggest news to report is that I think we can consider Jacob to be officially weaned. He hasn't had a boobie since 11:00 pm Thursday. He is doing pretty well, considering. He doesn't even notice it during the day, and is stepping up his cow milk intake a bit to keep up with the loss in calories. He is not coping too terribly well at night, which really is to be expected, considering he's nursed himself to sleep probably 80% of the time for his entire life to date. The past two nights when he's awakened at 1-ish, it's taken about an hour of solid screaming to convince him that he should just shut up and go back to sleep already. While that sounds terrible enough, most of that hour is spent wrestling him in the rocking chair, on the couch, in our bed, walking around. Trust me, dude will have NONE of being left awake in his crib -- that is a project for another day entirely. And the entire time he's screaming, he's thrashing about like a rabid alligator. Normally, this would be annoying, but with 72 hours elapsed since his last drink at the momma-trough (and with him previously nursing 3 or 4 times a day. He's a wakeful man.), it is additionally extremely painful in the chest-al area.

My bosoms are just plain scary. I'm almost ready to lop them off, they hurt so bad. They are like aching, alien balls of mutant concrete. It's awful. I never went through this with Isaac because he cut himself off so gradually. How long can I expect my throbbing Hooters boobs to stick around? The only thing that seems to help is ice packs, and because we are spending much time enjoying the outside, it's not like I can walk around with those things on. Not that I have some sort of classy reputation to maintain or anything. Does anybody have any other suggestions? (I've also tried expressing a little milk once a day, but I lent all my pumps out and apparently I have no talent for manual expression)

These are my Turkey Burgers posing in Mamaw's jungle gym

Meet Mr. Spanish Inquisition.

In the past two days, Isaac has entered the infamous "why" phase of toddlerhood. Everything that comes out of my mouth apparently deserves further explanation. A sample conversation from this morning when the babysitter left:

Isaac: Where's Meghan?
Me: She's going home.
Isaac: Why?
Me: Because she has to go to school.
Isaac: Why?
Me: Um... because she wants to get her diploma.
Isaac: Why does she want to get a poma?
Me: So she can get a job.
Isaac: Why does she want a job?
Me: So she can make money.
Isaac: Why?
Me: So she can buy toys.
Isaac: Oh!

While this phase has a horrible reputation, I find that I am (so far) enjoying the constant "why" onslaught. Perhaps it is the inner grad student in me who likes being put on the spot. Perhaps it's that we have actual back-and-forth conversation through the entire day. Or perhaps it's that, at the end of his lines of questioning, you can tell he has a eureka-type moment where he really gets it and is learning more about the world. In any case, it is way cool.

Meet Mr. Daredevil Dingleberry.

He had the misfortune to inherit my horse teeth, as you can now plainly see. Jacob enjoys inventing new and exciting ways to kill himself daily. His new favorite is that he refuses to eat from his high chair. Why should he be the odd man out, sitting on this piddly chair for babies, when everyone else sits in a normal Big Boy chair? He will sit in his high chair while his food is being dished out, but then he will take a bite or two and suddenly realize that he is being slighted. Of course when you move him to sit in a Big Person chair on his own, he tries to stand up or climb on the table or scoot around or otherwise fall off and concuss himself. So far this has not happened, thank the sweet Lord. But between that and his equal insistence that sippy cups are for losers (and his brother's Ghandi-like attempts to subsist solely on air), mealtime is enough to make me lose my mind.

Jacob is also a psycho clinger monkey Mama's boy. That is changing at least in part today, because I am weaning him as we speak. You heard me, no more boobie. As I write this it has been 22 hours since his last nursing, and he really didn't care that much about it. For probably the last three or four months, I have been only nursing him to sleep. Last night I realized how hard he was playing me in that respect when he woke up at 11, nursed, and then wouldn't return to Baby Slumberville. Because that wasn't the first time such a thing had happened, and because he slept 7 straight hours after I did get him to sleep (by snuggling up with him in the Big People bed -- some morbid fascination with all things Big People for him going on here), and because it's Friday and if there's lots of screaming in the middle of the night no one will have to suffer at work from lack of sleep -- all these things together mean NO MORE BOOBIE, yo. And though my left boob feels like a hot grenade, I am a tough lady and I realize that I am ready to reclaim my body for the first time since, oh, 2003.

Back home again from Indiana, Spring '07 edition

We spent most of the last week on a whirlwind trip to Indiana. Dada had a sudden collaborative opportunity arise with these guys at the University of Illinois, which meant that, according to Isaac, "Indian Necklace" was on the way, and along with it the dynamic duos of Meemaw/Poppop, Mamaw/Dadaw, Uncle Chrissy/Aunt Jean, and Uncle Joe/Aunt Robin (well, the latter being less of a duo since their three entertaining children tend to come along with them).

We drove, and it was okay. Jacob became seriously unhappy being in the car after 11 hours of our 12-hour trip home, but for the most part they were both content to look outside, play with toys, listen to the Wiggles, or watch any of our wide-ranging Pixar library on the portable DVD player. Perhaps not surprisingly, their attitudes seemed to mirror those of Dada and I -- when we got sick and tired of being in the car, so did they. Who can blame them?

This was our first road trip with a fully potty trained toddler, and it came with two special adventures. We cut across Maryland to avoid the tolls on I-70, and although the residents along I-68 are keen to rebuild Noah's ark or to erect a massive lighthouse that is supposedly a beacon to the Lord, places with quality bathrooms are few and far between. So firstly, it is perhaps not surprising that Isaac peed on a mountain in Maryland in the dark of an evening. If he could have waited for one more mountain, he would have peed on the Eastern Continental Divide, meaning that his pee would trickle slowly down into both the Chesapeake and the Ohio River. Secondly, just to make sure our potty experience was complete, Isaac had his first on-the-road poop, at a gas station in Mount Airy, Maryland. This was mostly hilarious because Isaac refuses to poop with his pants on. If you were a fly on the wall in the ladies' room, you got a show, lemme tell ya.

Our time with family went by fast. With Mamaw and Dadaw, there was lots of playing in the backyard and the Children's Museum. With Meemaw and Poppop, there was lots of playing with Aunt Jean and Uncle Chris, reading books, and frolicking about the sunroom. Some photo highlights:










We also got some no-baby time. Obviously Dada had lots of that, traveling to Illinois by himself on business for three days. While he was gone, I got some, too. Meemaw and Poppop watched the babies so I could go out with Chris and Jean and their buddies for beers in Broad Ripple. This adventure is briefly chronicled here and here. And then the night before we left, the greater O'Neal clan watched the boys so both Dada and I could visit our old friends Matt and Susan, who are expecting their first child any second now. We enjoyed overwhelming them with lots of unsolicited advice.

It was all luscious. I can't wait to go back for another visit, for two reasons. First, both babies are old enough now that they can really enjoy the grandparents. Secondly, both babies are driving me completely insane. More on that later.