Cause For Concern

Cecilia went to a birthday party on Saturday for twin boys, and once again she turned out to be the only girl in attendance. This is not a problem for our girl, of course, and she played hard and came home filthy and sweaty and happy.

AND...

With the phone number of a boy from the party that she just met. She asked him for his number because she thought he was nice and wanted to, AND I QUOTE, "Hang out some time." So he gave her his phone number.

Whaaaaa?!?!

Somebody hold me while I weep softly to myself.

A Bird Came Down The Walk

Last night Ruby threw a fit for reasons related to being the younger, smaller sister (who gets tired faster on a run with Dad than Cici does), and got herself pretty worked up. It became my job to get her back from the edge, and we spent some time talking in bed about how throwing fits doesn't often get you what you want. Once she was calm and we were talking quietly about other things, I grabbed a book of Emily Dickinson poems and started to read aloud. And without fail, this was the exchange after every poem:

Mom and/or Ruby: I don't get it.
Mom and/or Ruby: Yeah, me either.

And then the cat came in the room and I pretended that he was talking to us by doing a cat voice and saying funny things, and Ruby laughed until she was nearly crying.

We speak the same language.

The Gas Man Cometh

Ruby is sitting alone at the dining room table, eating a bowl of cereal.

Ruby: There goes the gas!

Adam: What do you mean? What gas?

Ruby: You know. HUMAN gas?!

Back to School!

The girls have been back in school for three days now, and I have to admit that I'm enjoying the quiet. The last few weeks of summer they bickered constantly, and I'm glad that they are with their peers again instead of at each others' throat. If I get to missing them, I just look at these photographs and think, "Oh, yeah." And I feel better.

Doctor Pepper

Last night we attended a little gathering to celebrate my cousin's recent engagement (yay Kari!), and there was the usual spread of food that comes with a Martinez family gathering. This includes a bowl of sliced jalapenos, and at some point Cici and Adam agreed on a dare that Cici would eat a jalapeno slice for $5. She bravely ate the pepper, chased it with a large glass of milk, and happily collected her money.

And then Ruby got involved.

I didn't actually see it go down, but the next thing I know my baby is in the bathroom howling. It seems that the pepper never actually made it in her mouth, but she did manage to get it in her eye. It took several minutes of eye-flushing (and the clever idea of just giving her a bowl of water for her to dunk her eyeball into) before she settled down. With her eye submersed in water she was still able to ask if this effort qualified her for the $5 reward, and given the situation, Adam obliged.

Oh, Ruby. Only you.

Twins!

I recently found this photograph of me circa 1982. It's my 1st grade school picture and I swiped it from my mom's house (don't worry, Judy, I'll bring it back), so that I could compare it to Ruby's school photo from this past school year. This is what I found:


Kinda fun.

Partners in School

In about a week the girls will finally be in the same school together, and both are experiencing some anxiety about the new school year. Cecilia is a bit nervous because, this year, she moves upstairs where all the "big kids" are, and away from the familiar turf of the 1st-3rd grade classrooms which are all downstairs. Ruby has a little bit of the new-school jitters, but she takes great comfort in knowing that her big sister will be there to show her the ropes. In fact, the other day Ruby informed me that Cici promised to kiss her every day. When I asked her for clarification, she told me that Cecilia had said she would give her a hug and a kiss every day at her classroom before Cici goes upstairs to her own classroom. And even though Cici hollered from the other room, "ONLY for a few days until she gets used to school - NOT the whole year," it still warmed my heart to know that this arrangement had been made. This summer the bickering has reached new heights (or are they lows?), but at the end of the day they are best buds and have each others' backs.

This is how it should be.