Today we went to LOBSTERFEST and saw Bodies of Water play. We also watched several of our friends consume fishy tough $17 lobsters, but since Wren and I had spent about 30 minutes watching some lobsters frolic around in a tank earlier, and since we recently saw the "Pinchy" episode of the Simpsons, Lazlo and I decided on the $5 fish and chips.
Lobsterfest was fun, with lots of people dressed up, sort of like Renn Fair but for pirates. The highlight for Wren was the "jumpy kids!!!" on the bungee cord thingy, and the highlight for Jane was when we finally got home and she got a diaper change and a decent meal. Both girls passed out in the car on the way home (with intermittent waking/screaming by Jane) and Lazlo and I thought longingly of Sunday afternoon traffic in Austin, which usually doesn't involve bumper-to-bumper gridlock for roughly 28 miles of a 30 mile commute.
We've been thinking about Austin a lot lately, and about how great it will be to move closer to our families, and how wrenching it will be to leave our wonderful family of friends out here. Wren so loves living with our housemates- and she frequently reminds us to call our friends if we haven't seen them in a few days- "Davib? Mer-ner's House?" Dudestorm was absent for part of the last week, and our house felt kind of empty without them. (strangely enough, the sink was also kind of empty... a connection?) Poor Lazlo is so social- and he's so used to just wandering out to the living room if he wants to hang out with some dudes, I don't know what he's going to do in Austin... set up some sort of dude colony in our yard?
The absence of the guys allowed for potty-fest 07 (please God let there be no potty-fest 08) in which we stripped Wren down for most of every day and constantly asked her if she'd like to go to the potty. The answer was always no, even if as we asked, she was squatting in the corner of the utility room, peeing on the floor. Potty-fest was a failure. I guess she'll let us know when she's tired of sitting in her feces. In the meantime, I will continue to sneak M&Ms from her jar of potty-bribes when she's not looking.
The lack of housemates also allowed me to stop carrying a blanket around all the time, and hunching furtively to nurse poor ALWAYS hungry Jane. She is a laaaaaazy but frequent eater. She like to lounge around, burp every 5 minutes, break for a good ceiling staring session, and then come back for round thirteen. I get the feeling she'd prefer to have been born on an island in the South Pacific, where the breasts are always completely accessible and she could just stay latched on eternally. By comparison, Wren nursed for about 7-12 minutes, once every three hours. I may have been a bit spoiled. It's funny that the real Lactation Consultant term is "latch on." It sort of forces me to think of the baby as a moray eel.
Anyway, we're all doing fine. Lazlo is in his second week of half-time, and I'm so grateful to not be on my own yet. We are still adjusting to the whole "there's 2 of the them!!!" thing, and we don't totally have our rhythm down yet. (That might be the first time I've ever spelled rhythm right on the first try. I'm not even going to check it. It just feels right. If it's wrong don't tell me.)
Wren is still having some problems, but happily seems to direct her emotions at us (her betrayers) rather than at her new sister. When my mom was visiting she heard Wren say, "I love you big sister," while holding Jane's hand, which is incredibly sweet, even if it's slightly grammatically off. We're playing a lot of games where Wren is a "tiny baby" and that seems to help. She's such a kind person; I'm so grateful to have such wonderful daughters.
