starting early this year

I'm not sure how I'm not making myself clear here

evening walk, this evening

looming b-movie monster
if you are going to be in this picture with me you WILL smile

channeling molly shannon

mush!
aaand back to your regularly scheduled sulking resentment
and a little more resentment, from the little one

help our towels are digesting us

Here is another thing that is new with Ollie: he wakes up between 9 and 11 every other night to poop. The other nights he's just grumpy.

what's up, internet?

I am now 5+ weeks in and I have yet to be the direct cause of anyone's demise! A rousing success!

The main thing I have learned: Aaron has been holding out on me lo these many years. I walk in from work and having successfully gotten the children to and from daycare he's got them scrubbed* and flowers on the table** and is serving a little something he whipped up from the pantry* wearing his oven mitts and apron.** Which reminds me, I never told you about how on his trip in May he was openly mocked by his fellow plane passengers for drinking diet coke. Hm, I started out trying to say something nice back there at the beginning of the paragraph, didn't I? Who can remember at this point?

*true
**not true

Ollie. Has learned NO. He had it in him all along, but now he can SAY it. This is looking to be a more discipline-heavy toddlerhood than that of other children we have spawned.

He does have an appreciation of nuance though. If your question does not provoke an unequivocal NO he is the first to admit his ignorance, in a gesture passed down from generation to geeky generation.

Here he is at the air show ("par broil your children with a hint of jet fuel") prior to the tragic moment when our path diverged with that of the yellow line. He's got a touch of the family OCD, that one.

Dylan learned that I was holding out on her and have the capability and equipment to make hair straight.
While I do not personally think young children require all that much grooming, my personal young child REALLY wants to be groomed.

It is weird to have dropped off the face of the internet to this extent. I'll be around more this month since I have a lighter schedule and a backlog of pictures.

never happier than mealtime

doughboy

note cookie monster shirt

proud mentor. qualifications include four years of intercepting 50% of all dough before it hits the cookie sheet.
they seem sweet, but they'll turn on you the minute you cut off their sugar supply.

a minute in the life

day off

A fire truck passed by the house and suddenly Ollie popped up wearing that hat.

15 miles. We biked 15 miles with the childrens. There was ice cream involved.

Birthday: t+1

Thanks for all the birthday stuff and whatnot yesterday from many of you (for the rest, i got paranoid and took my birthday off facebook so no public announcement, unlike the THIRTY DAY countdown from last year). I have to say though, you were all outdone by the car dealer where we bought the minivan. E-mails, cards, phone calls. I think they may be stringing banners in the other room right now. Sorry guys, it was YESTERDAY.

***

Intern year tally: one week down, all the other weeks to go. No patients were harmed in the posting of this entry.

Fathers Day

slippery slope

"Dylan, they just changed the law in our state so girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys!"

"What about people in your house?"

"Do you mean like your brother?"

"Yes!"

"Uh, no."

Street Cleaning

We've doubled our workforce

And again with the child labor

Ollie, phoning it in

a few things, before i start

Well...orientation has been more intense than predicted. I thought I wouldn't drop off the face of the earth just yet, but next thing you know we've done so many activities that I'm one sandwich short of an orientation picnic. Neither Aaron nor I can keep track of what day it is and Ollie's taken to getting up at 5am and we haven't had access to the kitchen in three days or the shower in a week, as I required tile work to start residency.

You know what is surprisingly convenient? Having all the toiletries in the kitchen.

***

Ollie has always been an eater. He has never willingly stopped nursing, he inspires Dylan to try new things, and I'm pretty sure he can detach his jaw when needed to fit more food in. Give him a banana and it's like a spaceship docking, with one slow relentless path into his face. We were at a restaurant recently, with a long wait because they had dropped our dinner on the floor and started over without mentioning it, so we fed Ollie a lemon slice to entertain ourselves because: ha! He made an amusingly puckered face, shrugged, then ate the rest of it.

***

I have had the worst time finding Dylan underwear in the correct size. It was mystifying to me (hi! I'm your new doctor). The options are: 4-5T, 4, or 6. The 4-5T were too small, and the 6 was way too big. Turns out, it's 4. Sounds so simple, when I say it there. It's just...she's a size 5! Why would I think to try a 4? I was wrong though, I know that now.

***

Ollie: is a HAM. He is hilarious, with an on-purpose awesome silly sense of humor at 19 months. We're so proud, except for the part where he PRETENDS to put all sorts of random stuff in his mouth just to mess with us.

He also says EEEEEEEEEEE ("cheese") whenever I get my phone out, and now says EEEEEEEEEEEEEE whenever he wants: cheese.

***

These kids! just get an endless kick out of each other. They are really opposites in a lot of ways and it works for them.

***

Dylan has ALWAYS been very clear when she is going through a developmental spurt, much more than Ollie usually is. She's clingy, klutzy, and generally high maintenance, then: she's not. It's harder as she gets older because she can verbalize her irritation in a much more excruciating manner. Anyway, the point is: now she can swim like a fish. It was sort of weird.

I know kids are mostly concrete thinkers at this age, but she can't wait to not be. She's always telling me she feels like she might not really exist and asked the other day if maybe we were just a dream (after she said something about rowing? a boat?)(not really).

***

Starting in the hospital Friday...