I used to have a normal nose...

I hope my nose looks like this again someday.

Beckham

I love this photo of Beckham--he's such an adorable kid. He came into the world full of charm and an irresistible personality. I visited Utah when Beckham was four months old and my mom volunteered to have all the kids spend the night at her place so Amberlyn and Brent could have a night to themselves. I had the honor of watching Beckham so he slept in a portable crib in my room. I remember hardly being able to sleep because I didn't want to miss anything if he cried or in case something happened. He stirred awake just once and I immediately jumped to his crib and picked him up. I cradled his tiny, warm body and he naturally nestled into my embrace. I wanted to suspend that moment--I had never before had such an intimate experience with a baby and the emotions and feelings that it conjured were mighty and wonderful. He had a wet diaper so I changed him and reluctantly put his sleepy body back in the crib. I look forward to snuggly and sleepy embraces with my boys.

The Gift of Hydrangeas

My visiting teacher Ruth dropped these off for me the other night and they have brightened up my Jamie-less home quite nicely.

My Baby Babes

The boys at 18 weeks.

The boys at 22 weeks. The top photo is of Baby B holding his fist under his chin, it's a very cute and thoughtful pose.

The best part of being pregnant has been feeling the babies move. Sometime between weeks 18 and 20 the boys made their presence very known and the first realization of their movement was so meaningful to me that I basically started to cry. The sensation of babies moving, squirming, kicking, and pushing in my belly is something I absolutely adore. When I feel the babies move I want to stop everything and just concentrate on the beautiful and ticklish sensation. Instinctively my hands drop to my belly because I ache to have contact with them from both the inside and outside. At home when I feel the babies move I peel away my clothes and stare at my belly hoping for the double luxury of feeling and seeing the babies move. I love it when my belly ripples with the erratic movement of fluttering babies. A few days ago I was jerked awake by the boys--it was as if they both conspired to headbutt and kick at the same time. Never had I felt movement in four different places at once! I laughed and reveled in the joy of their existence.

Jamie said that my face lights up when I feel the babies move...thank you. Jamie is a curious observer to the intimacy between the boys and me. When the boys move I always want him to feel them so I thrust his hand to my belly and sometimes they kick him and we are all happy.

The boys and I are growing quite rapidly! At 18 weeks the boys weighed 8 ounces and at 22 weeks they had more than double their weight. Baby A weighed 1.1 pounds and Baby B weighed a whopping 1.3 pounds. Yay for my baby babes.

Six years of WOW!

Ahh, the engagement photos.

He's so cute and fun...

LOVE him.

Wedding day.

Anniversary waffles.

Anniversary cutes.

Fugiversary and pregnant.

Yesterday Jamie and I celebrated our sixth anniversary! What a happy milestone for the both of us. Reflecting on the past we recounted our previous anniversaries:

6/23/02: Shanghai, China! We explored the city and splurged on Thai food.
6/23/03: New to the DC area we went to Harper's Ferry, MD then cruised over to Annapolis, MD.
6/23/04: Movie and dinner...the movie was Napoleon Dynamite at the Dupont Theater in DC, such roaring good times.
6/23/05: Camping trip to Charlottesville, VA. We had feast of fresh bread, cheese, and tomatoes in the middle of a cherry orchard in Crozet, VA.
6/23/06: I made dinner for Jamie and we celebrated our new home with the purchase of deck chairs and spent the evening outside in our new chairs reading and reveling in our happiness.


This year felt special because it would be our last anniversary without kids. Had we not been frantically saving our sick and annual leave for maternity/paternity leave this would have been the year we took a real trip to celebrate our anniversary. Instead we were just happy to be together considering all of Jamie's recent travels. We started the day with a waffle feast since waffles are our new favorite food. Jamie really wanted buttermilk waffles so I tried a new recipe and they were perfectly crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside and fragrant with the sweetness of buttermilk and vanilla. During breakfast Jamie announced his ideas for the day: Go to the mall to check out a musuem or two, see an Imax film, explore the Takoma Park neighborhood and have lunch, go to the pool, grill at Great Falls, and perhaps see another movie. He explained that each activity represented something he loved about me: my passion for learning, exploring, and being outside. I am so grateful for his thoughtfulness. He always plans with great care and creativity and I feel so lucky to benefit from his happy and wonderful ideas.

Marriage to Jamie has been the most rewarding and fulfilling experience of my life. I always tell Jamie that my greatest success in life was somehow attracting him and getting to marry him. I have never known so much love and affection and before meeting Jamie, I only dreamed of being so loved. During one of the periods when Jamie and I were not dating I watched the film, "Mansfield Park" (freaking loved it) and could really relate when Fanny said that she wanted to leave her uncle's house to go home where she could 'feel love and affection without restraint." At the time I somehow knew that Jamie would be that home where I could feel love and affection without restraint and six years of marriage have proved that to be true. Jamie is my home-he is my sense of place and purpose.

Zoe's Poetry

Uncle Jim, please.

I received a cryptic email my SIL Lisa. It started out normal then transformed into a strange and incoherent stream of consciousness. After reading it a few times I realized tha Lisa must have started the email, been distracted, and my niece Zoe must have politely finished the letter for her and sent it off to me. This realization made me LOL! It was typical Zoe talk and I loved it. Jamie and I often reminisce about the time we drove her to a sleepover and she was talking at a million words a minute about topics so random and fleeting that all we could do was laugh hysterically and revel in her company. I remember lots of "Cookie baker, Jess cookie baker" and something about a dog and lots of 'sleepovers' and 'cools' thrown in. If only we could have recorded that dialogue! She was a typical hyper teenager and what entertained us even more was the crash and burn of the morning after the sleepover. She did NOT want to be bothered with our irritating chit chat. If we tried to engage her in conversation she would hold up her hand and say, "Uncle Jim, please" then retreat to her head phones. Anyway...



Here is the email from a few days ago:



Hey Jess, Thanks for writing and letting me know this by schoolsfinds did nice that yers house in ouerdwers weeks kellys soonyou che tongithersders tonight was and bthers for my homework



That's my girl Zoe!

Exclamationer!

I asked Jamie not to get my face in the shot but he ignored my plea. It's amazing that only two pounds of baby can create that much belly. It was sooo stinking hot outside...can you sense the DC heat?

Recently I noticed that the exclamation point has become my favorite punctuation mark. I wonder if it represents the excitement and glee I feel about being pregnant? I probably use it too often but I feel like my figure as a woman hugely pregnant with twins is a living form the exclamation mark. I love it!

Summer Basil!

Mamma basil and baby basil.

The basil Jamie bought me for Mother's Day has exploded with growth, which means we will have no shortage of basil for fresh summer meals. Tonight we are eating grilled pizza with fresh tomato sauce, fresh mozarella cheese, and of course, fresh basil. Yay!

Father's Day for Jamie, part two

Sporting the messenger bag. He looks great. Can't wait to see two babies strapped to his hips.

Another view of the hubs with the bag.

An inside view of one of the bag's compartments--loads of handy pockets.

Jamie's messenger (ahem, diaper) bag arrived today! Much to my pleasure, he LOVED it and was grateful to receive such a practical yet stylish gift.

Father's Day for Jamie, part one

The waterproof/indoor/outdoor lantern. Can't wait to use it!

Could he be any cuter? He's just over one year in this photo!

I love this guy! He was honored with the face piece.

After much consideration, I decided that Jamie's Father's Day gift tradition would be to pick out a new pice of camping gear each year. I will take him to REI and let him go wild--wild being a reflection of our budget, of course, and next year it could be that he'll only afford to buy one carabeener but still, it will be fun. To introduce the tradition, I bought Jamie an indoor/outdoor camping lantern.

I had two other gifts for Jamie. I collaborated with his mom to get a baby photo image of his transfered onto a cake. I thought it would be stinking cute to surprise him with a 'dad to be' cake with his photo on it. Sally chose an adorable photo of him in a cowboy gear, complete with hat and pistol. The cake read, "Happy dad to be Jamie" and "Hoping for Red Heads!" We picked up the cake in Bristol on our way to Maryville and I simply told Jamie that I volunteered to get a Father's Day cake for the weekend. When I brought the cake out of the store Jamie was certainly surprised and probably a little terrified. He did seem grateful for the cake and I had a lot of fun making arrangements for its creation.

My last gift to Jamie has not arrived yet but It's a very appropriate Father's Day Gift. I am surprising him with a man diaper bag. It looks like a hip messenger bag but comes complete with changing pad, wipes window, bottle pockes, and other neat compartments. I think he will really like it.

Jamie is going to be a great dad and I'm excited for him to have the experience of nurturing and raising twin boys. His personality resonates with a sense of wonder and warmth, both of which will make him a great teacher and parent to our boys. Above all, he is SO much fun and such a joy to be around.

A turn and a wave

Mine cutes.

Thirsk Town Center, York, England

Last year I read for the first time, "All Creatures Great and Small" by James Herriot, and I adored the stories and the humor in the book. I remember my mom reading the Herriot books when I was a child and it is surprising that it took me so long to read them but I think timing is everything and I really clung to the stories and the descriptions of life in the countryside, perhaps because my urban life is so entirely different. I spent a week in North Linconshire in the fall of 1999 and had the pleasure of visiting the village of Thirsk, home of Herriot's vet clinic.

Herriot was deeply in love with his wife Helen and they had a little routine each morning that I thought was embedded with affection and commitment. After eating breakfast with Helen, James would leave the office for work and as he left the front door he would pause to look up at the window where Helen would always be waiting. They exchanged smiles and she would wave her handkerchief at him. I loved that routine and it made me realize that Jamie and I have one of our own.

Jamie always drops me off at the metro, an act of kindness I could never repay. We say our goodbyes and I exit the car. Before I cross the street to the metro I turn and always find him waiting, so we exchange waves and then we can go our separate ways. I love those quiet, deeply shared moments when we pause to wave at one another--expressing an unspoken desire to see one another again and a hope that the work day goes by quickly so we can be reunited. I love my Jamie.

Morning of Sweetness

I can gauge my timeliness to work by my location on the road when Garrison Keillor's 'Writer's Almanac' comes on the radio. I was on time today when his voice entered the sound waves. Today's poem was particularly sweet and even made my eyes moist.

Poem: "Baby Girl Found" by Francette Cerulli, from The Spirits Need To Eat. © Nine-Patch Press, 1999. Reprinted with permission.

Baby Girl Found

He found her wrapped in a brown towel
Beside the highway department dumpster.
She was so cold she was blue, so new
her umbilical stump still drooped softly
from her belly like the limp stem of some fantastic fruit.

He picked her up in his huge gloved
highway department hands and
carried her to his truck. Inside the cab
he turned on the light, peeled the damp towel
from her body and held her
under the blast of the truck heater.

Giant midwife bent over her in the frozen morning,
He watched for the smallest sign.
It was her second birth.

Minutes after hearing this poem I was greeted happily by the security guards at work, both of whom upon seeing my belly exclaimed, "Good Morning Mamma!" They asked when I was due and I told them I was having two boys in October. They gushed with enthusiasm and declared my pregnancy a blessing and wished me a good day.

Already feeling happy and grateful, a co-worker of mine stopped to say that I looked wonderful, and she really meant it, which deepend my sense of happiness.

I am thankful for kind people who don't hesitate to compliment others or who can transform a mundane morning into something truly special with kind words.

Kemp Cutie Cutes

Amanda's first babies: Pixie and Arla Mae!

Rebecca and Mary Gail when they were tiny, tiny babes.

Miss Mary Gail!

Rebecca in her onesie from me, so sweet.

My BFF from high school Amanda had twins last November. I never would have imagined that we would both have twins within one year of each other! Amanda's girls were delivered three months early so they started life very fragile and precariously. Rebecca LaRae and Mary Gail Darleen are both growing quickly and doing wonderfully PLUS they are stinking cute! In March Jamie had the pleasure of holding Mary Gail, tubes and all, and afterwards he announced that he would be happy if we had a girl! Jamie is also proud that he knows their names (he's so cute all the time).



Amanda, you are doing a great job with your girls!

Clawson's Carolina

Natalie and Sophie in the sunny living room.

Craig taking a Saturday afternoon snooze...

This past weekend I took my pregnant self on a road trip to see my stinking cute friends the Clawsons: Craig, Natalie, and Sophie Sophs. The place where they had been living for nearly a year was quite stunning! It looked as if it had been gently placed in the middle of a forest because it was surrounded by mature and voluptuous trees. The walls were mostly windows, allowing beam after beam of natural light to permeate the home. Cardinals and squirrels danced and leaped from tree to tree, which provided comical entertainment. The guest room where I stayed had more windows and I went to bed and woke up with the quiet of gentle trees. As if the home and surrounding couldn't be matched, Craig and Natalie were splendid hosts offering nothing but kindness and warmth.

Friday evening we went to dinner and I requested Mexican. They described a place that served sweet potatoes in their burritos and I was thrilled! When we pulled into the parking lot of Carburritos, I had a forceful flashback of my honeymoon six years earlier. On our way to the outer banks, Jamie and I stopped in Chapel Hill to visit his friend David and he took us to that very restaurant! I ached for Jamie and missed him desperately while marveling at how much our lives had changed since that day six years earlier... My burrito with black beans, mashed sweet potatoes, and carmelized onions was superb but the nachos with sweet potatoes were superlative. Thank you Craig and Natalie!

On Saturday Natalie, Sophie, and I had brunch at Fosters, a local eatery exploding with charm and flavors. I lamented that there was no such place in Alexandria. Fosters offered baked goods, sandwiches, salads, confections, sauces, cookbooks, and heaps of charm. Natalie ordered the blackberry bread pudding and I had a roasted veggie omelet with goat cheese pesto--delish!

After a busy day of sight seeing, graduation parties, and apartment hunting we settled down for an evening of pizza. Natalie made an excellent pizza sauce from scratch and we put ricotta flavored with lemon zest and sundried tomatoes on one pizza and they had pepperoni and green peppers on the other. I made a salad of fresh mozarella, grape tomatoes, loads of fresh basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. For beverage refreshment, I made virgin mojitos with Natalie's fresh mint. What a feast we had! Just as we sat down to eat light splashed across the windows and thunder roared and I could not have been happier! A southern storm in that home with those friends and such food? Bliss.

My Pregnant Mug

My entire body has decided to get pregnant...even my nose!

A Roman in the House!

My sis announced a new member of the family yesterday: Roman, an eight week old Cocker Spaniel pups. I was dubious of the acquisition, considering she already has a house full of children and adding a baby animal to the mix just means more work for her. She welcomed the puppy because her husband really wanted one so hopefully he and the kids help with the puppy chores so she isn't stuck with all the work.

The kids are ecstatic about the puppy...except for Beckham! He is terrified of Roman and has spent all day on the couch, begging for others to carry him from room to room to avoid any possible interaction with the menacing puppy. Such drama...and I LOVE it.

Jamie's first F-day

Annika and Jamie

Hannah and Jamie

Isabel, Jamie, and Hannah

Jaren and Jamie

Annika, Isabel, Jamie, and Hannah

The kids haven't arrived YET but I do think Jamie deserves to be celebrated this Father's Day. He insisted that I get recognition on Mother's Day this year and started a tradition of taking me to the nursery and letting my have whatever flowers or plants I desired! His creativity and kindness made me swoon...I'm such a lucky woman. I haven't decided how I will celebrate him but in the meantime here are some photos of Jamie being the best uncle a kid could want! He's so stinking cute!!!

This I believe, a few favorites

Yestereday I went to the library in hopes of finding more books on twins and as I was perusing the stacks I found a compilation of essays from NPR's "This I Believe" series. I know that the essays can easily be found online but to physically hold a book is to hold creativity and the sensation of reading a computer screen does not satisfy in the same way. I left the library with no books on twins but a DVD on multiples in the womb, a DVD collection of Martha Stewart's wedding episodes (I love the cakes and flowers of weddings soo much!), two books on embroidery stitches, and the book of 'This I Believe' essays.

I was hoping that my two favorite essays would be in the compilation and they were. if you haven't read or listened to Isabel Allende's essay, "In Giving I Connect with Others," you must because it is richly beautiful. I'll share a few of my favorite quotes.

"The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential. Because of Paula, i don't cling to anything anymore. Now I like to give much more than I receive. I am happier when I love than when I am loved. I adore my husband, my son, my grandchildren, my mother, my dog, and frankly I don't know if they even like me. But who cares? Loving them is my joy."

"It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world, and with the divine."

My other favorite essay is written by Dierdre Sullivan, "Always Go to the Funeral." I'll include the entire essay here.

I believe in always going to the funeral. My father taught me that.

The first time he said it directly to me, I was 16 and trying to get out of going to calling hours for Miss Emerson, my old fifth grade math teacher. I did not want to go. My father was unequivocal. ''Dee,'' he said, ''you're going. Always go to the funeral. Do it for the family.''

So my dad waited outside while I went in. It was worse than I thought it would be: I was the only kid there. When the condolence line deposited me in front of Miss Emerson's shell-shocked parents, I stammered out, ''Sorry about all this,'' and stalked away. But, for that deeply weird expression of sympathy delivered 20 years ago, Miss Emerson's mother still remembers my name and always says hello with tearing eyes.

That was the first time I went un-chaperoned, but my parents had been taking us kids to funerals and calling hours as a matter of course for years. By the time I was 16, I had been to five or six funerals. I remember two things from the funeral circuit: bottomless dishes of free mints and my father saying on the ride home, ''You can't come in without going out, kids. Always go to the funeral.''

Sounds simple -- when someone dies, get in your car and go to calling hours or the funeral. That, I can do. But I think a personal philosophy of going to funerals means more than that.

''Always go to the funeral'' means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't really have to and I definitely don't want to. I'm talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex's uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.

In going to funerals, I've come to believe that while I wait to make a grand heroic gesture, I should just stick to the small inconveniences that let me share in life's inevitable, occasional calamity.

On a cold April night three years ago, my father died a quiet death from cancer. His funeral was on a Wednesday, middle of the workweek. I had been numb for days when, for some reason, during the funeral, I turned and looked back at the folks in the church. The memory of it still takes my breath away. The most human, powerful and humbling thing I've ever seen was a church at 3:00 on a Wednesday full of inconvenienced people who believe in going to the funeral.