Friday, January 29, 2010

The Blue Bed

Stella's nocturnal migrations have been going on for a couple of years now. They ebb and flow. But they continue. Marni's evolution into person-hood has created a problem with this though. She's no longer content to stay behind downstairs as Stella snuggles in with mom and dad.

Lately, she's been joining Stella in middle-of-the-night escapes from their bedroom. Instead of one kid and two adults in our queen-size bed, there are now two kids and two adults. This just doesn't work. And someone (daddy) ends up sleeping on the sofa downstairs.

Enough.

Enter the blue AeroBed. Originally purchased in 2006 upon Marni's arrival, the air-filled bed has never been pressed into duty. Until now.

Earlier this week I unpacked and blew up the bed in anticipation of an overflow crowd that night. Indeed, the nightly migration took place right on schedule, but this time the girls were confronted with a new option.

The blue AeroBed greeted them at the foot of our regular bed. After a short revolt, the girls quickly accepted their new upstairs sleeping accommodations and fell fast asleep next to each other. And so it has been every night this week.

The future is murky. Of course we are breaking every rule of child rearing by letting the girls sleep in our room. But it's pretty cute having a couple of sweet girls sleeping at the foot of our bed like a pair of pooches.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Overheard #29

Marni to everyone while Stella drew and Marni ate at a restaurant:

"Stella's a good artist. I'm a good eater."

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Era of Skype

About a month ago I was instant messaging with friend Theo. Half way through the "conversation" Theo began berating me for using primitive IM when the world had moved on to Skype. An hour later I had signed up for an account, installed the software and video camera, and was having my first video Skype session with Theo.

Over Christmas I purchased and installed webcams for Natick, Brooklyn and my laptop, and the era of Skype was upon us.

The girls immediately took to it, and almost as quickly became jaded. But they've enjoyed the video calls with daddy's Nana and Papa and with me at the office. Stella already uses the word "Skype" as if it was the first word out of her mouth 5 years ago.

The big test came this past week while I was away in San Francisco. Not only did we have nice chats from my Moscone Center office, but I took the girls and the notebook for walks in the hallways, into other offices and up into the Yerba Buena Gardens. Stella and Marni got to chat with all the NASFT staffers. They were quite a hit.

Skype will now settle into a routine until summer when it will get a workout between Old Orchard and New York City.

And the girls will probably never remember a time when they couldn't see who they were talking to on the computer.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Overheard #28

Stella was watching a little bit of a Three Stooges Marathon with me on New Years Eve. First time for her.

After a while she turned to me and asked, "are those the Jonas Brothers?".