This week, we’re off to the east coast, the land of my ancestors. I haven’t been back since 2007. This time, I’m bringing a husband and two babies to meet my grandparents, who are in their 90s. My grandfather is 95. They are also meeting aunts, uncles and lots of cousins. They all have curious [...]

Have I mentioned our nanny is a photographer? Do you want to tell me to shut up already? But do you see these photos? You SEE these little faces? I’m mentioning it again because Xilia is running a special on photo shoots for the next few weeks. And I cannot recommend her enough. She is [...]

Our twin boys are nine months old. I know they are getting bigger, but I am somehow surprised whenever they achieve new milestones. Or when they learn something new. Or when their babbles start taking on a conversational articulateness. I see them getting bigger, but my inside reaction is always, “They don’t st

Need a good laugh? Here you go. I wasn’t doing anything tremendously amusing. Just making faces. For some reason right then, it was the funniest thing in the world. Thanks, kid.

Yes, again. It’s a yearly thing. It’s a tradition. Since I moved to Portland, and since Dave and I have been together, we have moved five times. This will be our sixth move. In five years. We have never renewed a lease. I realize this sounds exhausting and maybe a little silly. Isn’t moving a [...]

You know this already, right? You know it intuitively. If you put your hand on anything while on a bus, or reach out to steady yourself, you can be assured that thousands of other people have also had their hand where ever you are putting yours. And who knows what may linger on the surfaces of [...]

Did I mention that our nanny is a photographer? Did I mention that she is awesome? Through the course of the day, she sends me photos of the guys. There are times I feel like I might just burst because THE CUTENESS. All photos by Xilia. I’m telling you, seeing these little faces gets me [...]

I had been contemplating writing about parenting and judgy-ness. I have been thinking about “judgement” for a while, and the sport we make of it. It’s a national past time. Someone, somewhere, is doing something wrong. And boy, someone, somewhere else, is pissed about it. I’m no different. I have opi

Five years ago, I was new in Portland, and I met a guy for a beer. Not to sound like a ridiculous cheesy cheeseball, but I was in a new city, I had just gotten a job, I had just moved into my own apartment and it felt like the world was full of possibility. [...]

I got a job. I mean, a job away from home. I was sort of, maybe, perhaps, thinking about going back to work, but I figured it was going to take me a long time to find a job that would suit our purposes. I wanted a job that I would enjoy, otherwise it wouldn’t [...]

Ignore, if you can, my voice. This is the voice I use to talk to the babies. All day long. Every day. I imagine it will not be much longer before my voice is frozen like this and my “baby voice” becomes the only way I know how to speak. We are reading Baby Led [...]

This is the reason why people have babies, right? Also. I left the room for five minutes, and somehow, Loyal found a way out of his pants. The kid does not like pants.

I have lived in Oregon for five years, as of yesterday. In that amount of time, I had not gone skiing. In the beginning, it was because I didn’t have the greatest health insurance, and if I broke something, it would be stupid. Later, I realized I was just getting older, and my need for [...]

This is a post about boobs. And not about sexy boobs. This is a post about milky, leaky boobs. If you’re not into that sort of thing, feel free to back away slowly and pretend you didn’t mean to come in here. Me and all the other leaky boob people will pretend we didn’t see [...]

This past weekend, my sister and her family visited for a belated holiday gathering. And the cousins were reunited. Elli is a few months older than our guys, plus Cask and Loyal were five weeks early. So they are not quite as advanced as their cousin. Having Elli visit means we got to see where [...]

Since having babies, I always scrutinize other peoples’ babies to see how much bigger they are. We have friends with twins boys that are a month older than our guys. And I looked at their babies and thought, Our boys will never get that big! I saw monstrous chubby kids, drooling and smiling and screeching [...]

This is the post I meant to write yesterday. But I realized I hadn’t explained the whole new car thing. Which is a thing. A big thing, for us. For as little as we use the car, being a so-called “car lite” family, getting a different car was a BFD for us. And it was [...]

Okay, so I have a huge mental backlog of stuff to write about. Basically, half a year’s worth of stuff that has happened while babies have been happening. Like when Dave got locked in our bathroom. Or when our fire alarm went off while I was in the shower. It has pained me not to [...]

Huh? Wait! I wasn’t ready for my closeup! I am not amused by your amusement.

So one year ago today, Dave and I learned we were going to have twins. It was maybe the most monumental, shocking, earth shattering, terrifying and thrilling day I have ever had in my life. It took weeks, maybe months, for us to fully comprehend how much our lives were going to change. But a [...]

  This is our holiday card this year, which I am still sending out. At the rate I am going, they will be St Patricks’s Day cards. Please still act surprised when you open yours. Merry Christmas to all! Thank you for reading, and thank you for following along as these little guys grow. I [...]

Tummy time is total bullshit. Such bullshit.

Like many people this time of year, we have a lot of packages arriving. I have seen UPS packages delivered to our door in U-Haul trucks, and charmingly, by bicycle. Yesterday, an unmarked truck pulled up outside our apartment, and I saw a man approach our door with a package. As I have done with [...]

This is a review of our lovely friend Tammy’s book You Can By Happiness (And It’s Cheap). This book has been out for a few months and I’m sort of late writing this review. But trust me, I do think you should go out and get this book, especially in this season of culturally-enforced consumerist [...]

I have an Instagram account, and somehow I lost the password. Which is endlessly frustrating to me. Because of stuff like this. THIS. Perfect. This is outside our bedroom window, but it is closer to our neighbor’s front door. And since our neighbors sometimes keep us up late with inane prepubescent screeching, I am in

Look at how cute we are! Mama wants booze and an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep for Christmas!

This kid could not be more like his dad. The pediatrician said to get the boys an exersaucer to practice keeping their heads upright, and for keeping them contained and amused. Exersaucers, like play gyms, sort of offend my delicate sensibilities. Not to mention my delicate retinas. So I got one of these. It’s a [...]

Sometimes we are quiet. Usually while sleeping. Otherwise, we are not usually quiet.

Did you order some cute? Here’s a double batch. Extra smiles, free of charge.

A few weeks ago, we got a cabin at Cape Lookout. The only way we were able to get the cabin was because it was available mid-week. The yurts and cabins at Oregon State Parks are often booked as soon as they are available for reservations, usually six months in advance. Dave had some time [...]