Snippets

A few people have sent me this super interesting article on identical twins, and nature vs nurture vs epigenetics. Incidentally, this also reminds me how much I loved National Geographic as a kid, and kinda makes me want to subscribe to it again.

Yesterday I pretended like I was shooting a perfume ad for my 365 project. Clearly I would be terrible at this since you can't even read the entire product name on the label:

I'm currently reading The Gunslinger for the first time. I love me some Stephen King, so why have I never read this series before? Also, why aren't they making this into a movie with Viggo Mortensen as Roland? (By the way, have you heard that Ben Affleck will be directing The Stand? I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, Gone Baby Gone was excellent. On the other hand...IT'S BEN AFFLECK.)

Texture

No story to go with today's photo. I just like the way it turned out. Sometimes it's just enough that it looks pretty, eh?

Lethal weapon

This little wooden hammer is the single most abused toy in our house. And by "abused" I mean "used for an unintended purpose" - i.e., whacking your twin brother on the head.

It's pretty much permanently in toy jail at this point since I can't give it back to them for longer than two minutes before it's used as a weapon. Who knew fratricidal urges started at such a tender age?

Heresy

I will never get used to the fact that Aussies (and presumably Brits) sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider song as "Incy wincy spider".

Ever have one of those days where you just want to photoshop the shit out of a picture? Wheee! Look at all the fun stuff I can do!

Heretics. ITSY BITSY 4EVAAAAA!!!!11!!!1!

Carpe Kairos

Yesterday I sobbed to a group of friends about what a terrible mother I am.

It was a bad day. To give you some idea, in just one hour short hour, Dash bit Will twice, the boys managed to get into the pantry and spread flour all over the floor, Will nearly got his finger broken in a door hinge, they wouldn't stop fighting over every.single.thing on the planet, and in the 30 seconds I was in the bathroom, they tore apart a set of window blinds. I was reduced to screaming at one point, and crying a few minutes later.

I felt so frustrated and alone. A lot of parents don't talk about this stuff, and you certainly don't read about it in discipline books or on blogs -- or if you do, it's with a disclaimer about how the parent didn't care because they love their adorable snookums soooooo much that they cherish every precious moment no matter what is happening, because that's what good parents do.

Cherish? Every moment??? Some days it's a struggle just to get from breakfast to bedtime, and there isn't a whole lot of cherishing when you spend half your time breaking up fights and the other half trying to stop your maniacal twins from demolishing the house, and all you can think is that there must be something wrong with you because you're supposed to be enjoying this time and instead all you want to do is run screaming down the street.

My friends bolstered my confidence, told their own war stories, and my dear friend Jaime sent me this article, which is the single best thing on parenting that I have ever read. If you're a parent having a bad day, go check it out. It will help. I promise.

Lamington

Today's shot is for all my Aussies out there (and my dad, who fell so in love with lamingtons on his last visit that he asked me to ship him a box of them for Christmas):

It is bugging the shit out of me that the lamington isn't totally centered on the plate. But since Ben has eaten it, this is the best you're going to get.

If you haven't tried them, lamingtons are squares of sponge cake dipped in chocolate sauce and rolled in coconut. They're not my all time favorite Aussie treat (actually, I have no idea what would be), but they're still pretty good!

Shirty

Before the Pirates were born, people warned me that babies came with a lot of laundry. After they were born, I laughed at those people because it really wasn't much more than we already had.

But these days?

One of 5146852 piles of shirts I folded tonight.

I feel like I spend half my life doing laundry.