Extraordinary

The babies are getting so fun . . . and funny. Tonight Carmen looked up at me and laughed as we lay together in the bed. She kicked her legs and rocked side to side.

I was trying to put her to sleep. I always have Carmen duty at night; Matt takes David. This started a long time ago, when the babies were small and Carmen needed to be soothed, rocked and walked repeatedly before falling asleep. Because David fell asleep for the night more easily than she but woke up earlier, the boys started sleeping on their own in the back room.

Perhaps because of their natural temperments, or perhaps because of some subliminal reinforcement from their parents, the babies--like their parents--still have different internal clocks. Matt and David fall asleep easily while the summer sun still shines, and wake up before it rises. Carmen and I tend to resist sleep until the sun has gone down, and sleep in until six or six thirty.

And we still at least begin our nights in separate rooms. That way we don't disturb one another as we enter the land of our Dreams, because both C&D often sing to themselves as we rock them to sleep. As he relaxes on Matt's chest, David talks in long, open-mouthed vowels and hums, insisting he is not sleepy. Carmen sings a similar song, gargling and warbling bedtime arias to me and the cat and the mobile above the swing. Sometimes she wakens several times within the first couple of hours of the night, annoyed that she was tricked into falling asleep once again.

When David wakes up at night for a snack, usually sometime after Carmen and I have settled into bed, he and Matt join us. I sleep with a baby on either side until morning.

So tonight Carmen and I lay together, tummy to tummy, and she laughed and clapped her hands together, and I appreciated just how happy the babies always are. Even when they have played and jumped and laughed past the point of exhaustion, they are quick to smile and to laugh again. The routine becomes remarkable. At the changing table they marvel at each other, reach their hands out to touch. With eyes wide, they open and close their hands in anticipation every time the cat, always perched on the ledge above them, twitches his teasing tail. Walking through the grocery store today David smiled as I kissed his forehead, and then waited for another. By their happiness, they make an ordinary chore into an extraordinary event.






Later in the afternoon I steamed and pureed our sweet potato stash. I gave Matt a lick of the spoon. I told him liked the butternut squash more--it was sweeter. "Hey," Matt said, "let the babies have a taste." C&D looked like babes in sleep Purgatory--too late for a nap, too early for bed--and badly needed a diversion. I came back with a plate and a dollop of sweet potato puree. I placed it between the two babies and stood back. Immediately their gaze gravitated toward the blue-rimmed plate, but they ignored the orange goop in the middle of it. Matt gave Carmen a taste. She raised her eyebrows and grabbed Matt's hand, then she grabbed the spoon itself to lick it clean. I guess she liked it?



David was a little more cautious. He still prefers his fingers.



We'll be watching their cues to see when they would like some more.

Speaking of extraordinary, Carmen has been asleep an awfully long time without noticing I'm not next to her. I'm going to wash up before she notices and wakes up.