Walk This Way

So, the big new development of 2010 is that Leah and Riley are now full-on walking. Leah started walking on January 1, and Riley, not wanting to be left out, starting walking on January 2. And of course the day after each of them started walking, each of them came down with the mother of all stomach flus. The stomach flu rendered poor Leah and Riley too weak to do anything but lie limply in mommy's arms and once in a while barf all over her. So walking was put on a short-term hiatus, but it quickly came back with a vengeance once the girls got their strength back up. Now, they're both pretty much walking machines, although for some reason Leah walks with her arms up in front of her, like Frankenstein or a sleepwalking guy in a cartoon or one of those chubby kids who's too fat to lower his arms to his sides:



Meanwhile Riley's gotten so prolific with the walking that she's moved on to playing soccer:



Anyway, we basically jumped almost overnight from having a couple babies crawling around to suddenly having two toddlers walking about. It's quite a transition. Nowadays when I'm reading a book to Leah and Riley and they start to lose interest, instead of gazing longingly around the room for something more interesting like they used to, now they'll just get up and walk out of the room like unsatisfied patrons at the movies. And then I'm left sitting there like an idiot reading "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" aloud to myself. Those girls can be tough critics.

The real challenge is being at the playground when there's just one of me and two of them, and they seem to want to walk as far away from each other as humanly possible. I've done this a couple times in the past week, and I found that I'm constantly prioritizing - okay, should I keep Leah from stealing that kid's toy or should I keep Riley from eating that cracker she just found on the ground? Should I keep Leah from trying to climb that fence or should I keep Riley from stepping on that baby's head? Because unless I can turn into Plastic Man here, I can't do both things at the same time.

And even the act of just keeping an eye on both babies becomes a major strategic challenge. I try to stand somewhere that's (a) about the same distance from each daughter so I can intervene if something horrible's about to happen to either one of them, and (b) a spot where I have an unobstructed view of both girls at the same time so that I can actually know if something horrible's about to happen to either one of them. It's like some kind of weird ninth grade geometry homework problem, except it's a homework problem that you've got to do over and over again every three seconds because apparently these girls don't stay in the same place for more than three seconds.

And then I glance at all the other parents with their kids. They hover right next to their child! And sometimes there are even two parents hovering next to just one child! What a strange and novel concept, I think to myself as I try to play Triangle Prevent Defense about 15 feet from each child. And then suddenly I'm off and running toward Leah to keep her from stealing that kid's dump truck.

And meanwhile Riley contentedly munches on that cracker she just found on the ground. Because crackers are yummy and daddy had to prioritize.