2012 Holidays

Back in Munich after celebrating Christmas 2012 at Oma and Opa's oasis in Heidelberg.  We ate like royalty and were spoiled like brats.  Seeing my parents show their love for my kids is one of my favorite things ever.  The way Elise leans away from my chest as I hold her and softly puts her arms around Oma while smiling so sweetly when it's time to say good night.....Paul walking towards Opa's voice whenever he hears it and slightly cocking his head and looking at him at an angle and a sly smile....Paul saying "mmmmmma" which I think is him trying to say Oma.....Opa presenting Lily's new bike from Christkind with such enthusiasm and energy (see video in attached link) that it makes me just stop and remember how much I love my Dad.....Oma thinking about my kids so much that it comes through in all the perfect gifts she finds for them, the new food she wants to make just to see if they would like it makes me stop and remember how lucky I was when I was a kid and not realizing enough at the time how good I had it.  

I'm more emotional than usual these days.  I'm super excited for my newly engaged sister that I get giddy at times thinking about how happy she is.  I'm so proud of how far we've come as a family, but bummed that "easy" things like getting out of the house as a family, turning off kids mode and turning on relationship mode with Nate, and not letting the small challenges of the day drain me so much....can be so hard. I'm nervous about Elise's first surgery in 2013.  I'm excited and scared of being mom to 1 year old twins and a very independent minded 3 year old.  My breastfeeding career is now over and it's bitter sweet..... a bit more on the sweeter side.

Here are pics from our festive December.  Prost.

December 2012

Two x One Year = Party Time

Wow, that was fast.  Somehow a year has whizzed by since Paul and Elise made their exciting entrance into the world.  That night and morning at the hospital is burned into my memory, with Elise making a relatively easy entrance and Paul deciding he just didn't want to come out yet so he had to get yanked feet first.  Only when he was about nine months old did our pediatrician ask if we knew that his collarbone had been broken.  Nope, but it must've happened on his way out.  And now we have two vocal, energetic, on-the-go one year olds.  That could be read as whiny and fussy, but also as happy and playful.  We get our doses of both, try to forget the former and remember the latter. 

We threw a party at our place for the big occasion on Friday and of course afterwards found out that we made a faux pas by celebrating before the actual birthday.  Oh well, it was a fun party and the babies got to enjoy their first cupcake.  In true non-identical twin form, Paul was interested in his cupcake right away while Elise turned up her nose, then Paul's interest quickly faded while Elise was re-energized and ate or crumbled away all of hers. 

We invited everyone we thought was a big help during the first year.  We really needed help and got lots of it, so between babysitters, friends, and Oma & Opa, hopefully everyone was feeling our gratitude.  Oma and Opa were also a huge help with the party itself, between helping with the baking and cooking and shopping and clean-up, they made it about ten times easier on us than otherwise. 

Even since the last blog post things are changing fast.  Paul is a full-time walker now, toddling wherever he wants to go and gaining confidence every day.  Elise is still crawling like she's in a race, but is also finally enjoying pushing the push walker around the apartment.  Actually, reminiscent of Lily she enjoys it until she runs into something, at which point she gets really upset.  Both of them are "talking" more, with Paul saying "dat" for pretty much everything while today I caught Elise talking calmly on her new toy phone, and when she saw me she tilted her head and gave a shy smile.

I'm sure their second year will be full of new challenges but lots of cool changes too, I can't even imagine what I'll be writing about a year from now.

On the full family front, my two months of work travel from Turkey to Mallorca to Darmstadt to Ulm to Helsinki to Stockholm to Dublin to Nuremberg  is complete, with one last day trip to Nuremberg this week (only an hour away on the fast (175 mph) train) before taking the last two weeks of the year as vacation.  Lily enjoyed St. Nikolaus visiting school and church, and she's telling more and more stories like how she learned how to drive a real car at school the other day.  And Nicole is looking forward to weaning and the additional bit of freedom that brings which I'm sure will mean more tennis and get togethers with friends new and old.