This is a nightmare.

A couple of weeks ago, my phone rang.

On the other end was best friend, wanting to know if I'd watch her kids so her and her husband could have a date night for our town's annual celebration.

Of course, I said.

She has two kids that are adorable. Her 3-year-old daughter, A, is the same age as one of my nieces, and I get a huge kick out of hanging out with her.

Once her Mommy and Daddy left, we started talking about best friends. Little A told me about her best friend in school. Then I explained to her that her Mommy and I have known each other since we were little girls.

Little A was interested in that conversation.

"Do you love my Mommy?"

Well of course I do, I told her. I've known your Mommy for a really long time. We grew up together and played together when we were little.

"Do you love my Daddy?"

I wasn't expecting this question, so I tried to play it off as cool as I possibly could. Of course I love your Daddy. He makes your Mommy really happy.

Little A would not let go of this conversation.

"You love my Daddy?"

Well, little girl, yes. He takes care of your Mommy, you and your little brother.

"How much do you love my Daddy?"

She asked various forms of this question to me about 82 times that night. This warranted an immediate text message to her Mommy, warning her that my love for her husband might be taken out of context from a 3-year-old.

In my head, I'm sitting there thinking to myself that this adorable little girl is going to go to school on Monday and tell everyone that a woman came over to her house, without her Mommy there, and told her how much she loved her Daddy.

This is a nightmare.

And then A's little brother started to fuss in his crib. I turned on the baby monitor, only to discover a child with arms and legs, but no head showing on the screen.

I turned on the flashlight app on my phone and peeked in his room, and my only goal was to make sure the child still had a head.

I wish I was kidding.

The baby gave me a weird look, I patted him on the back and told him it was okay, then shut the door.

A few days later, my friend told me that her daughter overheard a conversation in their house. Her husband was going out of town for work, and little A had a question for them. She wanted to know if her Daddy was going out of town "with Monica?"

I'm glad I made a lasting impression on her. But secretly I'm just really just happy that both kids have heads.

Cerveza

I don't remember the conversation exactly, but it went something like this:

I went to a Mexican restaurant with my friend and her 2-year-old daughter to eat dinner. Said daughter's name begins with an "A" and the daughter recognized the letter on the table cloth.

Then the 2-year-old recognized the letter "A" all over the table cloth.

My comment: Congratulations, friend. Your kid is going to learn to spell "cerveza" before her name.

Then, the inevitable struggle to get a 2-year-old to eat started. There were threats made that if she didn't eat, she wouldn't get a candy and a ball. (In the end, she got a piece of candy and a ball.) There were negotiations and more threats.

I tried to keep my mouth shut and not laugh at the struggle between Mom and daughter.

Good luck when she's a teenager, Mom and Dad!

We talked about sentences we say to kids that make no sense. Friend's example: Yesterday I told her to not put milk on her foot.

It happens.

At the end of dinner, my friend made two comments.

First, she told her 2-year-old that she just gave Monica a blog post.

Second, she told her 2-year-old to tell Monica thank you for sitting with them and watching them fight over food.

2-year-old: Thank you.
Me: You're welcome. Anytime.

When I got to work this morning, I got a text message. Kid had tacos and rice for lunch, and apparently was not interested in eating the same thing for dinner.

At least she got a ball and a piece of candy out of it.

Perfect.

Picture this.

There's a 1-year-old sitting on my front porch, wearing an outfit I bought for her, sans pants. Because, you know, who wants to wear pants in August in Kansas?

She's holding a pink plastic fork, picking my flowers, and dancing even though there's no music playing.

She likes the song "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys.

This morning, we danced to "Barbara Ann," we sat on the front porch with no pants on with pink silverware (even though we weren't eating), and we were just chilling out.

I wanted a house for these kind of memories. No matter how old she gets, I'm always going to remember her on my front porch, her hair a mess of curls, wearing a diaper, and picking my flowers.

It was perfect.

(For the record, I had pants on.)

Very Important Update

Conversations I've had this weekend:

We don't eat shoes.
No, don't eat it.
I'm serious. We don't eat shoes.
Stop!
(Baby keeps eating the shoe.)

Don't shut the door. Don't do it!
I mean it. Keep the door open.
(Babies shut the door and laugh on the other side.)

Say 'Aunt Monica.' Say it! Say 'Aunt Monica!'
Baby: Bob.

Why aren't you wearing a shirt?

Why are you eating your toes?

Excellent life advice.

Things I've said over the past few days:

"I don't give Jesus money very often."
"That's okay, he's dead."
"No he's not, he rose again!"

Bffs shouldn't sit by each other in church. Ha, ha.

On babies:

Me: "We don't play with our potatoes."
Mom: "Some of us do. Didn't you get the memo?"

"Let's not eat a shoe."

Mom: "We don't throw our potatoes on the ground."
Me: "Well, some of us do. You didn't get the memo?"
Mom: "I wrote the memo."

Words of wisdom on Easter Sunday:

Mom to Penny Pug: "Don't bark at people who bring food."

I think that's excellent life advice.

Baby Update: The First Year

The babies are one year old.

Technically, they're 14 months old. I have a feeling I'm going to be that obnoxious aunt that answers with a specific number when people ask me how old they are. Like, 24 months old, or 27 months old.

I used to hate it when people did that.

Back to the topic at hand, these kids are pretty awesome. They give high fives. They try to feed you their food, and sometimes the food has been in their mouth first.

Today, one of them tried to give me a high five after eating mac and cheese with her hands. No thanks, baby, an air high-five will have to this time.

These babies are fun. They laugh. When they smile, their little teeth show through.

One of my favorite things to do is lay on the floor and let them crawl all over me. Who knew that aunts were just human jungle gyms?

I'm not sure what else to say, except the only thing better than babies is babies who are growing up.

One year olds are pretty cool. I wonder what the next year is going to be like.

You have green beans on your tutu.

Things I said in the span of about 15 minutes today:

"You have green beans on your forehead."

"You have green beans on your tutu."

"We don't eat shoes."

Oh, babies. I love them.

A Christmas story

Christmas in my family often involves people being sick.

Last year I had bronchitis and spent the entire week of Christmas coughing up a lung. I also got tested for the flu on Christmas Eve last year, which involves a nurse sticking a Q-Tip up your nose so far it probably reaches your brain.

Note to self: I don't like things being stuck up my nose. I was not in a good mood last year on Christmas.

This year my mood is better. I'm healthy! People in my family, though, are not.

The Crap is apparently going around. I haven't gotten it yet, and I think I've done a pretty good job of quarantining myself from those who have it.

Except one cute little 11-month old girl.

One of my nieces is sick. I picked her up today and rocked her. I rubbed her back, shushed her whimpers, and told her it she would feel better in a few days.

Sick babies become cuddly when they don't feel good. She laid her head on my shoulder, put her arms around me and fell asleep.

Aww. We were having an aunt-baby moment. 

Since she was sleeping anyway, I decided to put her down for a nap. I laid beside her, rubbed her tummy and talked sweetly to her, hoping she'd fall back asleep.

She slapped me in the face five times and stole my glasses from my face.

Oh, well, I guess cute cuddly moment is over.

I don't blame her. That's what I feel like doing when I don't feel good, too.

This kid rocks, by the way.

(This was written yesterday.)

Hint, hint.

I was eating lunch today, watching my nieces take turns trying to eat my purse, when something funny happened.

One baby came up to me and pointed to my lap.

Aww, she wants me to hold her! That's adorable, I thought. I must be the best aunt ever!

Then I looked down.

Said baby didn't want to be held. She was pointing at Pug hair on my pants.

After she pointed it out, she went about her baby business in another room.

I took the hint, lint rolled myself, then went back to work.

Babies.

Aunt 1, Baby 0

One of my nieces doesn't like wearing clothes.

When her dad is changing her, he has a talk with her about how big girls have to wear clothes.

When he tells me that story, I laugh. I've also never really experienced said dislike for not wearing clothes until this week.

My dad (baby's grandpa) was changing said baby into a sleeper earlier this week. I came in the room, told the baby hello, and noticed that my dad silently left the room.

He'll be back, I thought. I started playing toys with the baby. I showed her how they make noise. She mimicked me and played with the same toy. I kissed her chubby little cheeks. I told her I had her toes. She laughed and was pretty happy.

My dad never came back into the room.

Hmm. What's an aunt to do with a baby wearing only a diaper? Her sleeper was right beside her. I should probably dress her, I thought.

I tried. She cried. (I should write a poem about this.) My dad came back into the room, smiled at me, wished me good luck and then left the room again.

The aunt thing is a hard gig sometimes.

The baby who doesn't like wearing clothes won't work with you at all. If I put her foot in a sleeper, she'll kick it out. If I want her to put her little hand into a fist to go through a long-sleeve shirt, she'll flex her fingers out as far as she can.

Kid, work with me here!

I bent over her to work on her sleeves. She started kicking me. I'm pretty sure her goal was to kick me in the face.

Sigh.

Once her sleeper was finally on, I zipped it up, handed a clothed and pissed off baby over to my parents, then returned the favor and left the room.

Aunt 1, Baby 0.

Nothing better

I haven't written about the babies in a while. They've changed a ton over the past few months. My favorite thing about babies who are almost a year old versus just-born babies?

They actually interact with people now.

When I smile at them they smile back. They laugh if you make a silly noise. They really like books. They have attitude. They talk and say "Mama" and "Bada."

We have no idea what "Bada" means, but it's pretty cute when they say it.

I walked into my mom and dad's house one day and one baby was following my dad around everywhere.

This is how their conversation went:

Baby: "Mama!"

My dad: "I'm not your Mama."

Baby: "Mama!"

My dad: "Your Mama's working. I'm not your Mama."

Baby: "Mama!"

My dad: "Stop calling me Mama."

Baby: "Mama!"

It was really funny.

I don't know of anything else that causes so much happiness as these two little ones do. There's nothing better than babies.

Overheard in my casa

Don't you read Yahoo News?
No. Who reads Yahoo News?
What do you read, Fox News?
Do I look like a person who reads Fox News?

-----

From a couple weeks ago:
It'd be cool if the Royals played the Cardinals in the World Series.
That's what happened last time. You don't remember that?
No. I was six months old.

-----

Please don't eat my scarf.
(Baby niece eats said scarf, then makes a really sour face because yarn doesn't taste good.)
Well, I told you not to eat it.

-----

Please don't eat my toes.

-----

You may not eat my finger. I need that.

(Oh, babies.)

An adventure

I wrote this a few days ago. Since then I read the babies a book for the first time. It was a riveting story about pumpkins and ghosts. They paid attention until the end.

You have to start them early, you know.

-----

I haven't seen my nieces in a week. I swear they grew about 28 feet since I saw them last.

I spent a lot of time with them last night. Around 7 p.m., I asked my Mom if she wanted to go shopping with the babies.

My parents were game, loaded the kids up in the car, and I met them at the store.

The babies love shopping. We showed them Halloween and Christmas decorations, they laughed at a piece of glittery scrapbook paper I showed them, and one baby grabbed a pink feather boa and held onto it for a while.

Before we left, I changed one baby into a clean outfit. As I was changing her diaper, she screamed at me so hard her face turned red.

Like I told my Dad last night: Shouldn't I get a 'thank you for changing my diaper' instead of screams?

I guess babies don't know how to say thanks. They should, but they don't.

:)

"Sometimes you have to break the rules and have fun."

At lunch today my mom was feeding one of my nieces. We sit them on the table in little chairs and feed them fruit and some kind of meat and noodle mixture for lunch.

Today, one twin was acting especially ornery. She would take a bite of food, think about it, and in the cutest way imaginable, spit it out at us.

Then she would look at us and laugh.

Now, she's only seven months old. Does a baby that little know what she's doing?

My answer is yes. Yes, she knew she was spitting food out at us and she thought it was hilarious.

Honestly, I thought it was pretty funny too. Some baby food got on my arm. Damn, kid, you can aim!

Like I just told my mom over the phone, the only thing we taught her today is that you can spit on people and people will laugh and love you anyway.

Normally that isn't acceptable behavior. But dammit, it was adorable.

Oh well. Like my mom just said: "Sometimes you have to break the rules and have fun."

Please don't eat my scarf.

Things I've either said or overheard in the past few days:

- Please don't eat my scarf.

- You may not eat my finger. I need that.

- Do you hold your toes while you eat? 

Context: Life with two 7-month-olds is pretty interesting. Today while eating lunch, one of my nieces barfed right in front of me and the other one barfed on me. 

I have a life tip for you. If you're wearing nice work clothes, it's okay to hold a barfy baby as long as you hold them with their mouth away from you.

While she did technically barf on me, a change of clothes wasn't necessary because she wasn't facing me. I didn't exactly picture myself typing that sentence pre-babies. Ha, ha. 

There was also some multi-tasking going on today. One of the babies was eating lunch and holding her toes at the same time. 

Hey, why not?

Baby Crafts

The babies and I had fun on Friday night creating their Father's Day presents for their Daddy and Grandpa.

It started with a plan that my newly-married friend thought up: Do something that involves paint and baby feet for Father's Day.

Sounds fun, let's do it!

The fun technically started on Thursday night, when I bought all the supplies and did a test run to see how messy it would be.

I tested out everything outside. The first step to any baby craft project, of course, is to make sure the Pug approves.

Dat lip.

Pug on a picnic table.

Penny didn't have a problem with it, and I discovered that it wasn't too messy and the paint dried pretty fast.

The original plan I had involved baby handprints, too, but that plan quickly changed.

Baby hand prints don't work out so well when the babies for four months old and have their hands in a fist all the time. I turned to Plan B and settled on baby footprints instead.

First, I painted their little feet with black tempera paint (washable paint, people, no babies were harmed in making of this). Then, not very gracefully, I leaned them over onto the kitchen table, and tried to press their feet onto scrapbook paper.

The first one didn't turn out so hot, but there's only so much you can do when babies are that little. I did two sets of footprints for each baby, then called it good.

Baby feet!

They might have gotten paint all over their legs and shirts, too, but oh well.

The final product turned out really well, I think.

I thought the babies would be excited about it - I thought there'd be some kind of reaction. They didn't really care what I was doing to them, and they both farted on me a few times during this project.

Oh, babies.

Side story: When you go to a certain craft store the day before Father's Day and hope and wish that the frames you want will be half off, they most certainly will not be half off.

I justified using a 40 percent coupon on one of them, but I wasn't going to pay full price for the other one. Instead, I browsed the clearance section and found a the perfect sized frame for $5.

Go me, I just saved $20! Or so I thought.

It turns out that when you add in a matt board, a back, glass, and probably some other stuff, that $5 frame turns into a really expensive project

It would have been cheaper to buy the frame already made.

While I worked in that craft store for a few years in high school and college, I never worked in the framing department.

Oops.

Anyway, that was my stupid tax for the week.

I think the baby feet project turned out pretty cool. My thing lately is giving gifts that money can't buy. Even though there was a price tag attached to this, you can't buy baby paint footprints anywhere.

And if you want to, well, you have problems.

Baby moments

There were a lot of great wedding moments that I don’t want to forget from the weekend. Today I'm going to talk about the baby moments.

I peeked out from the room the bride and the bridesmaids were getting ready in, and I saw my family in the crowd. I immediately noticed that my nieces were wearing cute headbands with flowers on them.

Aw! Baby headbands and baby flowers!

I melted into a big pile of mush. I'm going to buy these kids anything they want when they're older. Don't tell them I said that.

In no particular order, my other favorite baby moments include:

•             I rocked one of my nieces to sleep during the song Cotton Eye Joe. This makes me smile, because everyone knows that's the most soothing song in the world. Ha, ha.
•          I looked at my parents during the ceremony, and the word sour best described the look on their faces. My first thought was, well, shit, I guess they don’t like my dress. When the photos were done after the ceremony, I asked them what was going on. They were making faces because the babies were farting and stinking up their section of seats. I specifically told the bride the babies would fart and cry at her wedding. As usual, I was right. This also makes me smile. Silly babies.
•             I went up and told the babies hi after the wedding. I looked pretty different, with my hair curled and different make up on. They looked at me and smiled. They're very smart babies.
•          The babies also liked watching the kids play, they liked looking at the lights during the dance, and they watched people dance. I told them that maybe next year they’d be big enough to play and dance.

On babies and Reddit

Reddit is one of my favorite ways to waste time.

I saved a Reddit comment the other day that I liked.

It said:

Infants are the drill sergeants of parenting bootcamp. They give you four basic tasks - diapers, burping, feeding, and napping - and then scream at you when you do them wrong. There's no encouragement, no smiles, just crying and quiet. And they give you tasks at any time, day or night. Just finished changing my diaper? Change it again. Good job, now change that one.
After a few months of breaking you down, they build you back up. They smile at you. They sleep through the night. They hold their head up, so you don't have to.
And after it's over, the tasks you learned - swaddling, diapering, bottle prepping - are tasks you will likely never use again. But the skills you've gained - patience without sleep, calm in the face of screams, moving your hand into the shit instead of recoiling - are skills that will serve you the rest of your life.

I agree with that.

I messed up.

I screwed up yesterday afternoon. It was a pretty major screw up.

Before I get to the part of the story where I messed everything up, I need to tell you the story from the beginning.

My birthday was yesterday. On Wednesday night, I mentioned to my brother and his family that I took vacation days from work on Thursday and Friday. I could pick the twins up from daycare on Thursday afternoon and they could hang out with Aunt Monica all afternoon.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, yesterday afternoon rolls around. I've never picked the babies up from daycare, I've never loaded car seats into my car, and I've definitely never driven with babies in my car.

I got the car seats loaded just fine, and the babies loved the car ride. On the way home I stopped and got some food to go, since I was too lazy to wake up early and cook something for lunch.

I got home, loaded the babies and the food into the house, and that's when disaster happened.

I wasn't really paying attention to the babysitter when she told me who ate when and who got changed when. I was too nervous about the car ride to pay attention.

One baby was awake, and she was not happy. I warmed a bottle up, and she fell asleep. Fine, I thought, I'll put the bottle in the fridge and sit down to eat my lunch.

Nope.

The same baby started crying again.

I warmed a bottle up, then the same thing happened. This cycle repeated itself a few times, until the awake baby finally decided she was hungry enough to stay awake and eat.

My lunch was sitting on the table and was cold at this point.

The baby ate half a bottle, then I decided to burp her. We didn't even get into the burping position when she barfed all over me, and her.

Who barfs on their aunt on her birthday?

It took that baby an hour to drink that half a bottle that just came back up. And then she had no milk in her, and she was crabby again.

You guys, this baby stuff is hard work.

She finally ate the other half of her bottle, burped without barfing, and then drifted off to sleep peacefully.

Meanwhile, her sister woke up and she was not happy.

I told them that I was hungry too, but I wasn't crying or throwing a fit about it. They didn't really care what I had to say.

Something I now know about twins: they are never on the same schedule. They don't sleep at the same time, eat at the same time or poop at the same time. That would just be too easy, you know?

Anyway, sister woke up and was pretty crabby. A diaper check revealed absolutely nothing, so I decided she was crying because she was hungry.

I warmed a bottle up, but she was crying bloody murder so I took the bottle, which was mildly lukewarm at that point, and gave it to her.

She spit it out and cried even louder.

What the hell, kid? I thought you were hungry?

She cried a few minutes, she fell asleep, then she woke up again screaming in agony. I did the same thing. I took a bottle from the fridge, warmed it up a little, then gave it to her.

She spit it out.

This cycle repeated itself more times then I'd like to admit. I finally just gave up, decided she wasn't hungry and let her cry.

I called it tough love.

Something about this kid you need to know is that she doesn't give up. That poor baby was so heart broken and pissed off at the world that something had to be wrong with her.

I did a diaper check. I told her I was impressed her farts stunk so much. She was not happy and was still screaming.

And then baby No. 1 woke up and started crying. I just couldn't do anything right yesterday afternoon.

This time, I took the bottle out of the fridge for baby No. 2 and warmed it up for a long time. Like, 10 minutes.

By the time I tested it on my arm, it was almost too warm to give her. I held a crying baby in my arms and told her that she had to wait at least two minutes to drink her milk.

I timed it. At the two-minute mark, I stuck that bottle in her mouth and heard silence for the first time in three hours.

It was then that I realized my mistake. One of the babies likes her milk warm, the other baby doesn't really care.

I gave cold milk to the baby who likes warm milk.

Oh my God! I've known that about this child forever. I messed up, starved the kid for an hour and created a temper tantrum so loud and dramatic it almost caused another world war.

By the end of the afternoon, my dog and I laid down to take a quick power nap before dinner. My dog was as exhausted as I was from all of this.

At dinner, both babies basically slept through everything in the restaurant.

They were perfect little angels.

The good thing about babies is that they're babies. They won't remember that I got their preferences mixed up and completely screwed the milk situation up.

I'll try harder next time, babies.

And if you care, my lunch is still sitting in my fridge.

At least some of us ate lunch!

Phase of life

Back in November I made a visit to my alma mater. I was in Wichita picking up a bridesmaid dress, and my old stopping grounds are within driving distance.

My former boss said something that day that stuck with me. I’m paraphrasing here, but it was something along the lines of: “Each phase of your life is better than the last.”

I have to agree with that.

After high school, I knew I’d go to college. After college, I knew I’d get a job. After I got that job, I knew I wanted another job. After that job, well, you get the point.

I never realized that all of the dots eventually connect and lead to something bigger and better down the road.

No one told me what that road would be like 10 years ago. No one told me what it feels like to hold your nieces. On a related note, no one told me that when you burp them, you better turn their head away from your face.

Take my advice on that one.

Also, no one told me what it would feel like to see one of your childhood friends – your best childhood friend of more than 20 years – in a wedding dress.

Yes, I should have expected all of those things to happen. People grow up and move on to bigger and better things all the time. These are the little things that I wanted to be a part of when I moved back to my hometown.

I’m happy that I get to be a part of these people’s lives.

It’s true. Each phase of your life is better than the last one.