Time flies...

In just one weeks time I will be enjoying my last day of parental leave before returning to work. DoT will then start his leave and will be off work until the end of April. I can't believe it's been 5 months since we got the girls in China (exactly five months tomorrow). The time has flown by. I remember how, when I first started my leave, December 11th seemed so far away. And now I'm thinking I was an idiot to agree to let DoT take the second half of the leave. What was I thinking?!! I could be off work until May! Aargh.

While the weeks have flown by, I must say that some days just don't. By the time DoT walks through the door at the end of the day, I'm exhausted. Mostly from hauling around 40 pounds of kid for what feels like hours. I know that I don't have to hold them or carry them nearly as much as I did when we first got back to Canada, but now that they're crawling they seem to get up the stairs in record speed, and then need me to carry them back down. Could be worse I guess -- it could be the other direction. Up until now I've been carrying the two of them at the same time, but now that they're pushing (or past) 20 lbs each, I'm thinking that may soon have to change. It seems so inefficient though... making two trips for everything. DoT's brother's wife (how's that for a mouthful) has the same philosophy, if I remember correctly. DoT's brother once told me their nickname for her was "one-trip Tam".

Aside from all the hauling, I'm also spending what seems like a huge portion of my days picking stuff up. The girls have not yet grasped the idea of putting away one toy before taking out another. So several times a day I pick everything up, if for no other reason than self-preservation. With all the toys spread out everywhere I'm at a real risk of tripping. And if that happened while I was carrying the previously mentioned 40 lbs of kid, that would be bad. I also pick up utensils off the kitchen floor at least 40 gazillion times a day. Both E and A feel the need to have their own spoons or forks when we're eating, even though we feed them using ours. And both of them like to hurl them onto the floor and exclaim "uh oh". Telling them that they can only say "uh oh" when it's an accident doesn't seem to make any impression with them. And then once the utensil is on the floor they become quite agitated if you don't immediately pick it up and hand it back to them. It's quite the fun game. For them.

Wednesday nights I have my piano lesson. So at some point during the day on Wednesdays I clue into that fact and realize that I haven't really practiced much, if at all, during the past week. And I make a last-ditch attempt to do some practicing that day. Well, this past Wednesday I sat down at the piano and about 10 minutes later I heard the girls laughing. That should have been a warning to me. And it kind of was, but the piano non-practicing guilt outweighed it, and I ignored the laughter. Well, five minutes later when I checked on them, they had emptied an entire Kleenex box all over the family room. There were Kleenexes everywhere. When I picked them all up, I also found a box of cheerios that they had figured out how to open and they'd both had their fill.

The latest accomplishment for both of them (aside from emptying the Kleenex box, which they seemed to think was quite an accomplishment and something to be proud of)is standing on their own. They will now both stand up from a squatting position and remain balanced for a little while before sitting back down. They both get a big grin on their faces when they do this, particularly if they last for more than a couple of seconds. If they are distracted by something, they seem to do better. E averages 10 seconds or so, I'd guess, and A is probably about 5 seconds.

Well, I think I better end here. The girls are napping and I have a lot to accomplish during nap time. Have a great weekend, y'all.