State of the Family

Things are looking a little clearer today. We met our nanny elect. She is awesome. Work experience, time abroad, all the languages we could use, knows the community, etc., etc., etc. She's been doing the work of helping moms who are doing their (post pregnancy) month of sitting, which is hard core (basically 24-7 nannying). So we think she can handle twins, and she'll be giving us daytime (9-5 ish) coverage. In the long run it will be a bit pricey, but everyone has told me the goal for the first two years is survival. And we will survive, we will not break down and cry.... (Can you tell I'm up late?)

My mother in law is here for another two or three weeks. There will be a ten day gap between when she leaves and the nanny starts. By the time the nanny arrives, no doubt we'll be especially grateful. I think mother in law (MIL) is handling things pretty well with us. Emily's family has been truly heroic. They've helped us move twice in the last three years and now we've had three months of care for the twins. Not easy. I also know that our life must seem very strange to them. We are (1) religious (2) academics living (3) cross-culturally. Each of these things is probably baffling to them by itself. Throw in the fact that most of her family is artistic and involved in some combination of architecture and design, and that Emily and I are a bit of a mess, and you can see how we're probably trying our guests' patience. However, we are all making the best of the situation and hopefully will laugh about it the years ahead (ideally in a very tidy house with three grown children). Sometimes I can't believe how far we've come in the last nine years of marriage, and others times I have a glimpse of how much farther we have to go.

That's our news here. Yesterday we had an English teacher friend over. The twins both have slight colds, but are doing well. I've just come off the frustrating 10pm-midnight period where they are hard to keep down. We skyped with Aunt Kacey earlier and she gave some advice on tummy massage and dealing with gas pain (which is a big problem for Eli). I had language class today and have it the next two days. Things are coming along. I still have a fair amount of work I need to be doing, and both Thursday and Friday are pretty hectic meeting days. But things are still looking up.