BEH! . . .

Taking care of twins is easy. (Famous last words.)

Last night, I "officially" babysat for the Noodles, so Camp Capio and some visiting friends could go out for steak dinner (cue: growling stomach here). They left as I was feeding some nasty looking barley cereal to a grunting MJ and a completely disinterested CA, who promptly removed a spoonful from her mouth and started playing with the mess with both hands. I came thiiiiiis close to tasting it, but I just couldn't bring myself to. MJ has this new thing where he strains forward, emits a prolonged grunt without breathing (so that his face and neck turn completely red), and waggles his tense little fingers at some unknown, unreachable goal. I can't decide if I need to give him CPR or laugh at him ... but I digress.

As is customary, and as I have seen M&C do, I wiped the Noodles all clean (it's amazing how barley cereal can get all over a baby's face), then sat them down for supplemental bottles of formula. CA, the formerly picky eater, has now taken to guzzling down an entire bottle all by herself ... in about 4 minutes. It's frightening, really. MJ strains and waggles his fingers, then snaps his head around to look at you, the feeder, which causes a zillion droplets of formula to spray in a wide arc, striking not only the kitchen table and the floor, but you, your sweater, your jeans, and your right sock. Ew. Then he grins and resumes his meal. Evil, evil child.

I played with them on their scary, multi-colored play-mats (doesn't anyone make baby toys in muted earth tones?!), rubbed their itchy gums, tickled their full bellies (thank you, MJ, for puking on the play-mat and not on me, for once), sang them some children's hymns (should I be ashamed that I only remember the first verse to "Jesus Loves Me"?), changed their diapers, changed CA's diaper again after discovering a massive and mushy poo (her coo of relief at being cleaned was worth it), put a sleepy MJ down to sleep, fed piggy CA some more, then put her down to sleep.

9:00pm. Freedom. "The Apprentice." One would THINK. But no, try screaming baby, natch.

Poor CA. For some reason, that girl just could not bear to lie down and sleep. I fed her some more (she sucked down almost another entire bottle, struggling to stay awake the whole time) and rocked her in the darkened nursery. She nodded off, startled awake, nodded off, startled awake. The moment I started to move her away from my body, she started screaming like the hounds of death were upon her. She only felt soothed when I held her close to me, rubbing her back, and whispering sweet nothings above her droopy head. The one funny moment in this agonizing saga: MJ waking up because of all the racket, peering over the top of his crib rail at his screaming sister, blinking a couple of times, then dropping his head back onto his mattress, rolling over and promptly falling into a loudly-snoring deep sleep. Ahhh, men!

In hindsight, methinks CA just wasn't all that tired, for Camp Capio, et al. soon returned home (in time for the second half of "The Apprentice" -- damn that evil wench Omorusa!!! How does she have a book deal and I don't?!?!?!) and she stayed up, playing with her mommy for the next hour. Or maybe she just needed some boob milk. Sorry, but my store's closed for now ...

Anyway, I realized that twins -- BEH! Easy as pie! It's just a matter of making sure one of them is securely inside a crazy-colored Exer-Saucer chewing on a building block when you go off to change or bed down the other one. Positioning them accurately to do the double-bottle-feed is also key. Additionally, if you're going to let them do their backwards faux crawl, just move everything out of the way -- they don't move that fast yet, but they get royally mad if a chair gets in their way. And really, how do you tell a six-month-old to just maneuver around it? You don't. You move the furniture. Finally, if you suspect a doody in their pants, do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- pat them on the butt or carry them with your arm under their butt. It just mushes everything around ... and that's gross.