One of my boys suprised me this morning with a rather existentialist comment.

So,  this morning we were rolling around in the bed, and I was kind of "tricking" Alex into getting close enough for me to smooch his darling little cheeks (at age 6, they are already starting to get "too cool" for kisses from Mommy).  Anyway, he was on to me pretty quick, and yelled, "Hey!  Stop that Mommy, or I'm telling on you -- I'm going to tell your mom and dad.... in Heaven.... when I get there."

My parents have both been dead for years.  The way my own kids just sort of integrate this information into the fabric of who they are in relation to their "other grandparents" (the ones they'll never meet on earth), amazes me.

I know my mom will be just delighted when she meets her grandsons (hopefully many, many years from now) in Heaven!

Desparation breeds ingenuity!

A big challenge for parents of multiples is how to simultaneously feed more than one 

baby.  As anyone who has breast or bottlefed knows, you need all hands to get one baby  latched on and to support the breast/ bottle and head.  But this afternoon, I saw the most brilliant homemade contraption. 

Our family volunteers with some newborn twins.  While we were there this afternoon, we witnessed Mom set up Twin A in his bouncy chair, sling a thick blanket over the seat and prop a bottle in its folds.  While Baby felt the interesting texture of the blanket, he was happily feeding, allowing Mom's hands to be free to deal with Twin B.

Amazing!

For the past 8 weeks I have been in the company of men.  Twice weekly for 3 hours at a time, I am have been taking a night class where I am the only woman in a group of roughly 18 students. 

I have observed that men tend to behave differently when women are around -- even if the woman is more of a tom-boy than a "lady".  They can't seem to help themselves; they get going in their wild and raunchy way, and then suddenly, inevitably, one of them will seem to remember that I am there, and although I am often the provoceur of the greatest buffoonery of all, the one who remembers that I am in fact not "one of the guys" suddenly seems a little bit, well, uncomfortable, for lack of a better word.  It's kind of cute.

The other day on the way down the escalator, one of them grabbed my laptop bag and carried it all the way to the classroom.  He wouldn't have done that for one of the other men.  I found this intriguing.  And... I kind of appreciated it!  It made me feel special.

Some will no doubt call me anti-feminist when they read this, but I think I like chivalry.  You know, the old fashioned, door opening, "ladies first" kind of nonsense.  I like it!  I think when a man behaves that way, my response immediately mirrors it.  I become more polite, and find myself behaving in a more "lady-like" fashion, rather than acting like the hoodlum I typically engender. 

I think feminine wit and intelligence can still flourish in a such a world.

There is a good deal of talk about how bedbugs and lice are a common urban problem that don't just affect "poor" people, but I so rarely hear the middle class talk about these pests, that I was starting to wonder if

One of my huge disappointments in Education has been the apparent lack of critical thinking in the workforce. Over the decade and a half

I have often raved in the past year about how great it is to live in a tiny apt because it's so quick and easy to clean.  Truth be told, we just don't really clean all that effectively.  A superficial vaccume here and a dust there constitutes the bulk of our weekly routine.... 

Dear little long-haired Simon is no more!  His hair is short like his brother's again, and I suppose I don't need to tell my readers why, lol!  Our daycare has an infestation, and we knew it was only a matter of time before we got caught in the web. 

Weird to see them both looking so much alike again, though.  Quite jarring, actually.  I had forgotten how visually identical monozygotic twins can be!

A few weeks ago, one of my students at the University sent me a link to a video called "The Danger of One Story".  In it, a young Nigerian woman speaks of the misunderstanding she and others develop about her culture, based on the availability of only "one story", in the media and elsewhere.  The young woman's insights struck me, and I wondered about the "story" my own children were developing of the world.

Apparently I am not as cool as I thought I was:  For the past ten years, I have been wearing a blue jean jacket that I don't even remember the origins of.  With the right scarf and boots, I think it's a pretty cool look.  I feel "with it", hip, when I wear this.

Today I had a wake-up call!!!

As we were coming back inbound from the practice area, my flight instructor kind of sized me up and commented, "you got that in the eighties, didn't you?"  He was obviously referring to my apparently not-so-cool-after-all jacket!  OMG, am I really so dated??!!

The irony of the situation is that when jean jackets really WERE cool, I didn't own one!  (In the eighties, when I was 12, my mother said they looked cheap and "American", perhaps the worst insult a European immigrant at the time could offer.  So I was not permitted to get one, being resigned instead to long, warm, servicable and terribly UN-cool coats that would "protect my womanly parts", according to my mom.)

Well, I may be dated, but I still think my jean jacket makes me look cool, to heck with the flight teacher, lol!

Every now and again, something happens that reminds me just how ditzy I can be, and today was one of those times!

I was sitting on the bed with my laptop on my lap; the boys and I were exploring Honduras on Google Earth, when suddenly, a blue screen with an error message came up and