One of the (many) things nobody told me before I became a parent was that one of the joys of parenthood is getting to experience your own childhood all over again, or more accurately, getting to experience all of your childhood illnesses over (and over) again. In the past 17 months I have had innumerable colds, two ear infections, two or three sore throats and the stomach flu. I feel younger already.

Now I can check yet another childhood illness off my list; I have pinkeye. Oh, lucky me!! I look like I spent all night crying over a bad breakup. Or at least my right eye does. My left eye is just fine. It obviously knows that he was a no-good loser and I’m better off without him.

On the up side, I’ve so far managed to avoid both colic and diaper rash. And I’m fairly certain that I’m done teething, too.

I guess I’ll just go and replace my mascara now…

Do you know your personal color? I don’t know about you, but until a few days ago I was blissfully unaware that I even had a personal color.

One day last week I was mindlessly following links researching something very, very important, when I stumbled across a link to Pantone’s® Colorstrology® site. It’s a pretty clever little Flash animation that lets you select a date, presumably your birthday, and then returns your Personal Color.

In the interest of wasting more time on the Internet furthering my research I looked up both my birthday and the Cupcakes’ birthday. I now know that my Personal Color is Chinese Red (Pantone® 18-1663) and the Cupcakes’ Personal Color is American Beauty (Pantone® 19-1759).

Make of that what you will.

The Cupcakes love bubbles. They love bubbles with all of their little hearts. Bubbles make them hop and giggle and clap with joy. When your child loves something that much, with such purity of heart, it’s utterly charming.

All we have to do to get the girls to overflow with delight is to bring out the bubble stuff. Cries of ‘Bubbles!’ ring out throughout the house. Their only disappointment comes when they try to blow the bubbles themselves. No matter how hard they blow they just can’t manage to make the bubble wands work.

Yesterday I was shopping at Target (they have everything). What did I find lurking in the Beach Toys Aisle? Bubble Bellies, that’s what. According to the package:

This cute Clarabelly Cow™ has an easy-grip handle, and a trigger opens its mouth to activate bubbles. The easy-fill spout has a soft vinyl plug and is spill resistant. It has a clear belly for endless bubble fun! Each includes 8 fl. Oz. Little Tikes® bubble bottle. Requires 2 AA batteries (not included). Ages 2 & up.

I came home with a cow and a pig and visions of joyous toddlers hopping in my head. What fun they would have making bubbles all by themselves! With two bubble-makers there would be no fighting. Instead they would play together happily and harmoniously for hours, or until the bubble liquid ran out.

I underestimated the Cupcakes. I present to you…

Bubble Wars!!!!

Sadly, the pictures of Daddy getting blasted in the face whilst changing a dirty diaper are forever lost to us due to a technical malfunction.

Well, after two days of snow it is very clear that we have tropical girls. Yesterday JaJa and I took the girls sledding down to the neighborhood park. Children were sledding. Dogs were frolicking. Adults were sliding by on cross-country skis. (Video will be forthcoming, as soon as I figure out how to edit it.) The girls, they were not thrilled by any of this. Stoic would pretty much cover it. After about 20 minutes Heike had had enough, started crying and wanted to go home. NOW.

We tried again today, with decidedly mixed results. They agreed to go outside.

Heike insisted on bringing Puppy along; there’s safety in numbers, you know.

Lucky for Heike Oma knitted them nice warm hats.

By now Sarah is already looking a bit anxious about all this snow.

Leaning for a closer look.

When you’re two gloves are just an annoyance.

From here we managed to walk down the driveway and around the corner. We made it about 25 feet up the road when, without warning, Sarah decided that she was done. She turned on her heel and tromped right back down the road, turning around twice to shout “Heike! COME!’. (Yep, Sarah is the dominant twin. Most of the time.)

She proceeded to march right back to our house and up the driveway, pausing only once to fall in the snow. After I opened the back gate they went directly to the back door and started beating on it to get back inside.

Final Snow Day Score:
Snow - 2
Girls - 0

My brain is fried. I’m on my fifth day of being home alone with the girls. While there is a lot going on around here I’m not quite with it enough to write about it, so. . . I decided to lift a meme from Baggage and Bug. I hope I’m not breaking any important Meme Rules. I guess that technically I’m not, since she sort of tagged everyone.

The meme works as follows:

1) Find the nearest book
2) Open to page 123
3) Type lines 6-8 of said book
4) Tag three others

Unlike the ambitious Ahmad Shah, Zahir Shah had never wanted to be king and was only nineteen when the throne was thrust upon him, just four years after unexpectedly becoming crown prince. He was born into a side-branch of the Durrani dynasty in November 1914, a time of particular turbulence in Afghanistan which prepared the ground for may things that were to happen later. his father General nadir Shah was commander in chief of the forces of King Habibullah, who was said to have taken a wife or concubine from each region as a way of keeping all the different ethnic groups under control, and had more than thirty-five sons. When Zahir Shah was five, Habibullah was assassinated, murdered in his sleep while on a hunting trip to Jalalabad. Nadir Shah was arrested in the initial round-up but then released and again made commander of the Afghan army by his distant cousin Amanuallah, one of Habibullah’s sons, who had taken the throne and many believed had plotted his father’s murder, spurred on by his ambitious mother.

Ok, my fingers are tired now. And I have thoroughly confused spell check.

The book I found is The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb.

Now for the tagging. Random Thoughts, J. LeRoy and a bicycle built for three, consider yourselves tagged.

Now I’ll know if you’re really reading my blog.