Friday
After five days in Chicago, Friday was our first full day back home. We decided to hang out at home and play with the kiddos and be silly. Gray wanted to play some baseball while Ellie was busy innovating a new activity. She set their scooters next to each other, placed a foot on each and tried to move any direction she could. Which resulted in the splits half the time. She called it skateboarding.
I took the twins with me to grab some food so my wife could get 20 minutes of silence. On the way there, while listening to a CD of songs they like, Ellie asked me to turn the volume up. And I caught her doing this.
The 14 second mark gives me warm fuzzies each time I watch it.
After showers, Ellie came crying to me from the hallway.
“Daddy hold you,” she whined. That’s how she asks to be held.
I sat her on my lap on the couch and asked what happened. While still very upset, she said Gray messed up her hair. This is about five minutes after I finished brushing it and putting her pajamas on. It looked kind of disheveled, but barely.
“But baby, you still look cute,” I replied, trying to comfort her. Because looking cute IS ALREADY A BIG DEAL FOR HER. She’s 2. Ugh.
“NO, I DON’T LOOK CUTE!.” She was sobbing. Completely heart-broken. Gray popped in to check up on the action, Ellie bailed to find mommy, and I had to explain that she didn’t like it when he messed her hair up, and that it made her sad. He kind of smirked at me, as if to say “Fucking serious, Dad?”
And this gets worse in 11 more years?
Saturday
Gray caught The Lone Ranger commercial during breakfast.
“Pirate,” he said. “Jack Sparrow.”
“No,” I tried to correct him. “It’s an indian.”
“Captain Jack Sparrow,” he countered. “Pirate. And cowboy.”
He’s no dummy, Disney.
Ellie being bizarre on ride out to her great grandpa’s.
My wife’s family is visiting from Arkansas and Texas, so we went out to Pico Rivera to meet up with them. For most of their lives, the twins have been the youngest children in any group we’ve been in. They’ve been the babies. My wife’s cousin has a 16-month-old boy, so I explained to them that there’d be a baby around. Ellie was excited, while Gray wanted nothing to do with a baby. He seemed worried the baby would take his toys. (Which is the same concern Jax had the minute our twins came home from the hospital. And which is why he holed himself up in his room with the door closed like a 16-year-old trying to get some privacy).
We spent the entire day and night visiting, catching up and watching the kids play. Gray enjoyed finally not being the youngest. He would warn the baby about anything he thought was dangerous. Which really was just a way to keep the little one away from Gray’s interests.
Sunday
Visiting relatives somehow wiped us all out. I woke up a few minutes before 10 a.m. while the twins didn’t start yammering until 20 or 30 minutes later.
I was overdue for a hair cut so the twins and I allowed my wife some free time again as we went up to Great Clips for a trim. Ellie wants her hair cut so badly. While Gray threw a fit, Ellie rushed to get her sandals on and tag along with us. Mom won’t allow her thin blonde hair to be cut yet. And since I know nothing about a toddler girl’s hair, her decision goes.
My wife let Gray take her iPod touch, which at least got him in the van. But once his butt hit the booster seat inside the salon, he freaked. He cried, he tried to escape. All this despite falling in love with the hair stylists during our last trip. A few minutes after he got started it was my turn. Ellie sat and watched with a tinge of jealousy in her eyes.
Gray finished first and joined his sister in an empty chair next to me. I paid and tried to hustle the pair back out to the van, but Gray refused. I pretended to leave him, but he didn’t care. He’d hang out with those stylists all afternoon if I’d let him.
Anything to hang with the chicks, even at 2. And this too will get worse in 11 more years? Double ugh.