And So On

I asked Steve yesterday if this is how he imagined adulthood. He said, "What? You mean sitting in a bathroom with four other people? Yeah, I guess so."

Caroline and Edward have reached a stage where they are (more or less) constant, albeit passive, participants in the daily whatnot, no longer sleeping it off in a corner all the time like newborn lumps. Last night I was going to have Steve help me give them a bath in my bathtub rather than the crappy little plastic one with sharp edges that I hated with Patrick but saved for some reason and then felt obligated to use since babies quickly outgrow the tubs in a few months anyway and I am remarkably disinclined to spend money on things that... good grief; I dither like an Agatha Christie spinster. Anyway, I thought I would try taking them one at a time into the tub with me, sluicing off the  detritus and then handing them to Steve to dry and pajama. Patrick, like his mother, loves a nice bath (the bubblier the better, which sounds kinda girly but becomes less so when you listen to him play in the tub and realize that the bubble mountains are just so many volcanoes spewing violent molten DEATH everywhere) so the sound of running water was a call to arms, rather a call to de-arm or at least de-robe and before we could say, "Patrick you don't need a bath tonight" he had stripped and slipped like an eel into the water. He was happy, the babies were happy when it was their turn to be wet and equally happy when it was their turn to be dried... so the entire family hung out in the bathroom for an hour.

Rub-a-dub-dub.

I think Patrick snuck behind me while this was taken. It is not the very first time Edward and Caroline have noticed each other (as I mentioned) but it is close enough to melt me.

Caroline's exuberant mood continued into the tub and when Patrick started talking to her in that BIZARRE high-pitched voice that kids use with babies and that babies love ("You're a baaaaaaaaaaaad Caroline aren't you? A baaaaad baby! No? You're a gooooood Caroline? You are? Yes! A good goood goooooood baby!") she started laughing. Really laughing, which she has never done before and it startled me so much I had to check to make sure I hadn't accidentally dropped her in the water. She sounded a lot like she was drowning. Caroline's laugh is less like silvery moonbeams stretched through gauze and more like glue glopping out of a bottle. A slurpy gulpy gurgling thing -  slightly alarming, but sweet of course. 

Speaking of "less like" I no longer think Caroline looks like a young (a very very young) Audrey Hepburn.

More Marlon Brando, no?

Seriously, she must be the fattest low birth weight, tenth percentile baby (maybe. I am guessing. four month appointment on Friday will confirm whether she has indeed breached the dizzying ranks of the bottom ten rather than the bottom three or the bottom bottom, where she started) in the world. She reminds me of a really well done doll house - a perfectly perfect miniature. Although she is really not that small. Just last night -around 2 am actually - I moved her from the 0-3 month to 3-6 month sleeper in the hopes that perhaps her inability to fully straighten her knees was what was preventing her from going back to fucking sleep for the love of god (it wasn't. I wound up sleeping on her floor for three hours because I decided it was easier to just lie down there than get up one more time. Edward, meanwhile, for novelty, slept through until almost 5 am.) Where was I? Oh right, rhapsodizing about Caroline. I spend way more time than I should trying to decide what color eyes she has. Can you see them? I love them, whatever they are. Gray, I think. A wonderful clear gray. Let me see if I can find a better one of her eyes.

Here

Will they stay this color, do you suppose? I have brown eyes and I have written sonnets (not really. that would be fatuous) about Steve's greeny-golden-cognac eyes but Patrick and Edward are definitively, determinedly blue. How long do babies' eyes take to change, do you know?

Hmmm, I had been wondering why I do not just put Caroline and Edward into their respective beds for an afternoon nap. Why I instead perform an elaborate ballet of swing/sling/car rides which only works for about 50% of the babies about 30% of the time. The angry yells that are currently drifting down from upstairs are serving to remind me that I should go rescue my children and transport them somewhere in something so they can get some sleep.

Comments

[Christiana]

I'm told that babies' eye color begins to change around 3-4 months and is set for sure by 18 months.

[Mandas]

I'm struck by how much HAIR your babies have. My son will be 5-months-old (already?!) on Tuesday and is a cue ball. Sure, there's some peach-fuzz-looking stuff growing up there, but nothing like the luxurious locks of Caroline and Edward. How did you manage to get them so much hair?!

[Iseult]

I have 7 year old twins, one with the bluest of clear blue eyes, the other with hard-to-define eyes, like Caroline. When she was a baby, they looked like the darkest blue, almost navy. Or sometimes dark grey/blue. Now they are mostly hazel -- sometimes blue/green, sometimes green/brown, and sometimes almost navy.

Caroline is gorgeous!!!

[Nicole]

OMG, I think I absolutely love your children. They are so incredibly gorgeous and huggable!

[heathersak]

Let me just say that Edward is the most Edward-looking baby I've ever seen. Fantastic!

And Caroline, those eyes, that hair.

Nice work :)

[Katherine]

This will be very out of place here - but I cannot get Redbook comments to work. Summers Lab makes a moisturizing creme that rubs in like a lotion but has the healing potential of an ointment - I LOVE IT and cannot say enough about it for eczema - I agree, don't fear the hydrocoritzone, but once the rash is a bit more controled, try Cutemol!!! Good stuff.

[Christa]

I'm a "brown-eyed girl" - hubby is blue - twins are sky blue. They should stick - we are at 17 months now. My Alya was 5lb 2oz as a 33 week preemie and was bigger at 5 months than her one year old cousin. She is 30 pounds now. Her twin brother has always been 1.5 - 2 pounds behind although larger at birth. My husband thinks Edward even looks a little like Ben and Caroline a little like Alya. I didn't start feeling like a human until abut 6 months.