It turns out the probable reason for the bad night the twins had is that they’re coming down with fresh colds! Yay! Because we’ve had nowhere near enough colds this year!
Elizabeth was up again last night with a pre-croupy sound: crying on the exhale and making a soft bark sound on the inhale. I got her up and snuggled her and gave her some cold medicine and a little drink, and then rocked her in the recliner for about an hour because she was so snuggly and it was nice to be able to pay attention to just one baby for a change. Also, I had a book handy (History of Love) so I wasn’t dying of boredom. Holding a sleepy baby fulfills my very soul and is everything I need in this world–but only for about 5 minutes.
Then I put a vaporizer in her room and she went to sleep, and then I went to sleep and had a good night: it was shorter than usual because of the snuggle, but I felt more comfortable than usual, and whenever I woke up in the night I had that good “I get to go back to sleep” feeling rather than the “oh, shoot, I’m wide awake at 3:00” feeling.
Still, it was hard to wake up this morning, and it is another day in danger of dreariness: the trash was overflowing and there’s still laundry to do and the dish-drying rack was full and I still don’t know what to say to my pinehole father-in-law’s stupid email. I took out the trash and I’m working on laundry again, and then William and I made cookies, because cookies fix many problems. (Yesterday we made muffins, because I remembered it was his turn to bring snack to kindergarten.)
Then I totally screwed up the cookies. I was doubling the recipe (it makes a small batch), and after the first tray had been in the oven for two minutes I realized I’d forgotten to double the oats and the coconut. I took the tray out, and the dough looked only a little melted so I thought I’d just scrape the lumps back into the mixing bowl, add the ingredients, and voila. But it turned out all the chocolate chips had melted, which turned the batter brownish and also meant a shortage of chocolate chips. Plus, I dropped one melty dough lump on the stovetop and another on the counter, and the cookie sheet was all smeary and gross now, so I was getting kind of crabby.
I went ahead with my plan, and added another handful of chocolate chips, and the cookies are out of the oven now and they’re…fine, I guess. Cookies that LOOK like chocolate cookies but are NOT chocolate cookies are NOBODY’S FRIEND. But they’re edible. And the house smells cookie-ish. And I spent some time with William so now I can shoo him away and sit at my computer. He’s playing with the twins, which they love and which is one of the reasons why having more kids is not necessarily harder than having fewer: the older ones can entertain the younger ones. Although, I just heard William making some exasperated crabby growling sounds, and when I said, “What’s the matter?” he said, “The babies are ALL OVER ME!” I went in and saw this:
He’s four years older, but together they outweigh him.
too cute! I love that shirt, I have it for D and it is one of my favorites.
I’ve screwed up cookies before. We just scraped them to a big pile of batter and picked at it before I finally had enough and threw the whole thing out, dish and all.
Messing up food really sucks, I think. In danger of sounding like a fifties housewife, I completely ruined a meatloaf the other day and was truly very upset about it. One, it seemed wasteful to throw away a whole pound and a half of ground beef, but I had no choice, as the stuff refused to harden to a loaf-like consistency and was instead bubbling. Meatloaf should not bubble. Two, I have been very proud of myself since attempting meatloaf about six months ago, realizing it was not nearly as hard as I had thought, and adding it to my meal repetoire about once every two weeks. Never has one failed, until that fateful night last week. A real blow to my ego.
Hope the cookies tasted all right and didn’t have to be thrown away!
What a precious picture!
Jen– I love that shirt, too! When I bought it I thought it seemed a little thin and I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I reach for it every time it’s out of the laundry. Now I wish I’d bought it in the other colors, or in bigger sizes.
D.H.– I feel the same way about things like that! It’s the waste of time, the waste of ingredients, and the blow to the inner spirit–and also, dishes still have to be done even though there was no good result.
he wasn’t kidding when he said they were all over him! Too cute!
Sounds like you salvaged the cookies. I’ve done that before too. Not that long ago actually.
And the kids…adorable as always.
Glad you got a good night of sleep. And it’s always better when the kids do too.
Hee! A kid pile-up on the floor.
OH. MAH. GAH. That is the cutest dogpile EVAH!
Kid-pile cleanup on aisle 3!
They are so adorable! It makes me wish I had siblings to pile on.
I love that picture!!!!!
Your cookie story is precisely why I don’t bake. I baking impaired.
how do you like History of Love? I have it on my to-be-read pile, but haven’t gotten to it yet.
The kid-pile picture is so cute!
GJR– I like it so far. I’m only 82 (out of 253) pages into it, so it could still go either way. The writing pleases me so far, although I’m already tired of reading about an old man going to the bathroom.