Baby Squared

Browse by Tags

• A cousin for Clio and Elsa

  I'm pleased and proud to announce that yesterday morning at 3:09 am, my brother's wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Deklan Patrick. He's my first nephew and the girls' first cousin. That is, the first cousin they've ever had. (Who also happens to be their first cousin.)   I'm all for cousins. I have seven of them myself, varying in age from ten years older than me to eighteen years younger. I saw them all on a fairly regular basis growing up, some more regularly than others. Family get-togethers were always so much more appealing when cousins were involved. Adult relatives were all well and good, but not terribly exciting. Cousins, on the other hand, were this cool cross between a sibling and a friend. They were (sometimes surprisingly) different from you in terms of appearance and personality, and yet you had a sort of conspiratorial connection: you were all from the same crazy family, with parents who grew up in the same house, and you a shared set of grandparents. (Although, actually, in the case of one of my grandparents, this last fact made me jealous sometimes: She's my grandma! Not yours!)   I am glad that the girls will have a cousin not too far apart in age from them. It seems like a big gap now, but it's almost exactly the age difference between my brother and me, and we have always been good friends. I'm looking forward to bringing the girls up to meet the little guy, hopefully in a few weeks, once we're in the clear from a recent H1N1 scare. (A kid in the girls' preschool class was diagnosed last week, so we've been on symptom-watch, but nothing so far....unless holding in your poop so you don't have to go on the toilet because you're scared and then letting it rip in your pants counts as a symptom, in which Elsa's had H1N1 for two weeks now.)   Read More... Posted Oct 22 2009, 09:10 AM by Roper with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: Milestones, twins, nostalgia, twin toddlers, cousins, swine flu, H1N1

• Top 5 Cutest Vacation Moments

  So, we've spent the last few days at my aunt's house on the Jersey shore (Ocean City), along with lots and lots of relatives. It was very sweet to bring the girls to a place that is the source of such fond childhood memories for me. My family used to go down every summer for a few days or a week, when it was my grandmother's summer house. Time spent there consisted of long, sunburned days at the beach, playing in the sand and trying to catch the perfect wave on a boogie board; late afternoons reading or playing cards with Grandma on the porch; nights playing miniature golf and arcade games (Skeeball, anyone? Paperboy? OutRun?) and going on rides on the boardwalk.   I'm tired of complaining about how vacations aren't relaxing anymore. They aren't. And it sucks. Indeed. But it's also a whole new kind of rewarding to introduce your children to...well, everything. And, to be fair, grandparents and cousins and aunts were all very helpful with the girls, and A. and I actually did get to sneak away on our own a few times.   Unfortunately, Alastair's got the camera with the pics, and he's on tour in DC while I'm up here in NY at the in-laws' house for a couple of days, so I can't provide a pictoral summary of our adventures, but will do so as soon as A. and I are both in the same state again. In the meantime, I give you the top 5 cutest vacay moments....     5. Elsa repeatedly running down the wet sand on the beach toward the ocean, squealing with glee, and then, any time a wave approached, turning around and running in the other direction, saying, "No! No! No!"   Read More... Posted Aug 01 2008, 08:50 PM by Roper with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: twins, Twins on vacation, vacation with twins, traveling with twins, beach parties, summer, Ocean City New Jersey, cousins