The Zoe and Silas Show

1/21/14: Silly gooses getting ready for baths.

12/10/13: Multi-tasking.

10/23/13: Bath time cutie pie!

9/20/13: Today is the 2nd week of preschool, which means it's the 2nd Friday morning that I've had off from work without the kids around. I can't believe I actually considered going back to work since they would be in school. What in the heck was I thinking?! I had the entire morning to myself because Derek had an appointment and then met up with his parents who were at Dana Farber for Joanne's monthly treatment. After bringing the kids to school I headed to the gym. I set a new record on the elliptical, logging over 4 miles in 45 minutes!! After the gym I had a pedicure, and then stopped at the grocery store to grab a few things to make a fun dinner with the kids tonight. I arrived for pick-up about 20 minutes early so I parked the car and walked over to Starbucks to get an iced coffee. All in all, an awesome morning (and a great exercise day according to my Fitbit summary!). Otherwise it was a mellow day, as evidenced by realizing that I needed to snap ...

8/8/13: Scoop it in and pour it out. Over and over and over. ***** Cook's Notes : I am exhausted so I opted for a simple yet delicious dinner for tonight. This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman's "Minimalist" column ( New York Times ), posted on Dinner: A Love Story . Derek is working so I'm going to enjoy this while watching one of my new favorite series, "Orange is the New Black" on Netflix! DINNER: A LOVE STORY Chicken and Rice CATEGORIES   one-pot, chicken INGREDIENTS 2  cups chicken broth 3  tablespoons olive oil 2  medium onions, about 8 ounces, peeled and sliced salt and pepper 2  chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces 1 1/2  cups white rice (such as long-grain, jasmine or basmati - brown rice takes longer to tenderize and you don’t want to overcook your chicken) 1  cup frozen peas, added at the end (optional) handful herbs, chopped juice from 1/2 a lemon INSTRUCTIONS Bring broth ...

5/2/13: Brushing their teeth and making each other laugh by spitting toothpaste on each other. Ahhh, the sibling love. Ew.

3/14/13: Bathtime fun!

3/4/13: After 3+ years of Derek taking care of baths/showers during the day we have finally switched up the daily routine. The kids are increasingly difficult to get mobilized and out of the house these days. In order to make this easier on Derek I now get them dressed as soon as they get up in the morning in order to have them packaged up for whatever is on the agenda that day. They pick out their clothes the night before in order to facilitate the process. Baths are now done on my watch before bed. Lots more bath pictures to come!

3/25/12: Bathtime pals.

1/7/12: Happy boy wearing his new bathrobe.

I'm not gonna lie. It's the end of the day and I'm saving what little sanity I have left by parking the children in front of an episode of Sesame Street. Here's what has been going on with us this week. We've had a total role reversal around here that started last weekend. Perhaps it was inspired by the backwards Halloween costumes . All of a sudden this week the personalities have switched. Zoe is sweet as pie and going with the flow, whereas Silas is being a total pain in the ass. He always "marches to his own drummer" as Derek & I fondly say, but now it's to the point that he is completely obstinate and throws a massive temper tantrum if he can't do whatever he wants in that moment. We have had a week's worth of nightmare bedtime routines. Last night he ended up with back-to-back 2 minute timeouts right before we went in the bedroom for pj's. I'm really hoping this will turn around soon. Going along with Silas' very 2-y...

During the week I take a shower before S&Z wake up so that I'm ready to leave the house once Derek gets home from work. On the weekends, however, I stay in bed until they start making noise and then shower once Derek is home from work. When I woke up today I found out that Derek had been "mandated". This meant that following his 11:30pm-7:30am shift last night, he had to stay on for the daytime (7:30am-3:30pm) shift as well. Thankfully he got released around 10:30am, otherwise he would've worked 16 hours straight, been off for 8, then back there tonight at 11:30 again. By the time I got the news this morning it was too late for me to take a shower before getting the kids up. This left me in the position of showering after breakfast with twenty-month-old twin terrors running around unsupervised. I ended up gating off the rest of the house so that they could only be in the bathroom or the nursery. Of course all they wanted to do was stand by the tub with the showe...

The biggest negotiation around here lately is who is getting out of the bathtub first. They both love the water and they love playing together in the tub. I pulled out the video camera to try and capture their reaction to the question, "who's getting out first?". Typically when you ask them, they both dive onto their bellies and stick their little butts up in the air so that it's more difficult to grab them. Silas is demonstrating in this picture, They were distracted by the camera when I came back into the bathroom, but they did show off some of their goofiness at the end :) We recently joined the Roslindale Community Center, which includes free access to the community (indoor) pool. We are hoping to capitalize on their current love of water and get them comfortable in the pool before our vacation in August!

There are some things that I would love to do more often but it just seems too darn hard with two babies. These are a few things that some parents of singletons might take for granted: -Giving baths everyday (or whenever you want) -Using a baby carrier instead of a stroller -Giving bottles/breastfeeding and snuggling your baby while they eat -Going grocery shopping or Target shopping with your child -Taking your child out-to-eat at a sit-down restaurant With one kid I imagine one has more mobility and flexibility. It has taken us awhile to figure some of these things out with twins, but we have made huge progress over the last few months! Tandem bottle feeding is something we had to figure out right away, and the process has definitely changed over the last 11 months. Over the summer we started having to give S&Z bottles on the floor because even a bed with bedrails is no longer safe! Here is a picture from late May, towards the end of when we could use the guest bed for feedings. ...

My mom was here helping us for two weeks and sadly she left yesterday morning. This is the third trip she has made to Boston in the last 11 months and I can't even describe how much we appreciate her help! Silas & Zoe turn 11 months (!!!) tomorrow, so it's an interesting age for an "outsider" to come into the house full immersion for an extended visit. S&Z are all about Mommy & Daddy right now, so it took them a little while to get used to having another caretaker around. But before you knew it, they were all warmed up and loving having Grandma here 24-7! Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate as much as I would have liked. I took 4 days off from work while she was here in hopes that we could get out and do some fun stuff. It ended up raining the first week of her visit. I needed to get some fall clothes set for S&Z, so we ended up doing some clothes shopping. We also went to visit my friend, Eliza, at her parent's house in Wenham (about 1 ...

Baths have always been a little tough in our house with two babies and parents who have little time together. Derek took charge of baths early on, even when I was home on maternity leave and we used the whale bathtub on the kitchen counter. Now that we have a good routine of things based on our work schedules, Derek typically bathes Silas & Zoe once during the week when he has them alone, and then we do one bath on the weekend when we're both home in the morning. Bathing both babies is definitely easier with two people, because one baby needs to be occupied while the other one gets bathed and subsequently dressed. Because baths have always seemed complicated x2, we have opted to give thorough sponge baths the other 5 days per week. Now that Silas & Zoe are solidly sitting on their own, we got a nonskid bathmat that allows us to bathe them sitting up. I used it for the first time last night after we got home from the Cape. Because they were already up 1 hour past bed...