Sophie's Choice

Leah's crawling pretty well now, which means that we finally have two mobile babies in the house. I had been kinda dreading this situation a little bit, mainly because I had this recurring vision in my head of Leah and Riley swiftly crawling away from me in opposite directions, one crawling toward a pile of broken glass and the other simultaneously crawling toward a nest of poisonous spiders. And there's not enough time to save both girls, so I've got to decide which one to save, and time is running out! What to do?

I'm not quite sure why I'm not allowed to save one and then the other, nor am I sure why there are random piles of broken glass and spider nests in my house in this vision, but hey, nobody said my visions made any sense.

Anyway, this vision has not come to fruition because so far the girls never seem to go in opposite directions - they're pretty much always going in the same direction. Or more specifically, Leah's always going in Riley's direction. If Riley's "reading" a book off in a corner, Leah will crawl over to where Riley is and either (a) try to take her book away, (b) try to use Riley as a prop to lift herself up to standing position, or (c) sit obtrusively right in Riley's personal space, effectively boxing Riley into the corner like a trapped rat.

Leah and Riley have also become quite fond of climbing on mommy and daddy, which would be awesomely cute if one baby was climbing on mommy and one baby was climbing on daddy. Unfortunately, this never happens. Leah and Riley always want to climb the SAME parent at the SAME time, usually mommy. And of course while they're always climbing on mommy at the same time, they don't really like to share mommy's attention, so as they start climbing, they're giving each other the stink-eye and making this screechy, complainey whining noise that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

It's quite a sight - Kathy sitting there helplessly trying to manage to these screeching babies crawling all over her with arms and legs flying everywhere. She has to try to sit sorta still so that she doesn't accidentally knock the girls off of her, but she also has to keep the girls from biting or hitting each other while also being ready to catch the girls if one of them falls. And meanwhile I sit there, feeling like I should be trying to help somehow, but if daddy tries to reach in and grab one of the babies and separate her from mommy, the screechy whiny noise volume goes up to eleven.

And so I usually just sit there and enjoy the show. Sorry, mommy. Look at the bright side, though -- it's better than having to protect your daughters from broken glass and poisonous spiders.