On Saturday afternoon we drove to Grandpa and Grandma’s house to visit for a couple days.We arrived about 5:30pm on Saturday, chatted for a while and then had delicious grilled tandoori chicken with rice for dinner. Everett liked it so much he had seconds! That night all three children slept in the same room: the babies were in their pack and plays and Everett was in bed. Chris rolled up bathmats and put them under the sheet on each side to keep him from rolling out. Having them all in the same room might have been a tactical error because they were all awake about 6am the next morning. Granted it was the shortest night of the year, and the sun is bright in that room in the morning, but it was still a rough way to start the day. As a result of getting up so early the babies were down for their nap before 9am. During their nap Everett and Grandpa made brownies.

Once the babies got up and were fed we all packed up and drove the Mall to visit a museum or two. We meant to go to the National Museum of American History but instead ended up at the Natural History Museum.



Afterward we walked through the National Gallery of Art sculpture garden, and then took some obligatory tourist photos.

The babies slept on the way home, but after a while Everett started poking Teddy and woke him up. Once Melissa realized what had happened she told Everett that Teddy hadn’t slept enough, and as a result he was probably going to be tired the rest of the day and the next day as well, and summed it up by saying “You set off a chain reaction of crabbiness!” Chris heard this and couldn’t stop laughing, which took the edge off the seriousness of the offense. it also made Chris recall the time from childhood when he was bored in the morning and wanted someone to play with, so he taught Sean how to climb over the gate that was meant to keep him in bed. Not a popular move with the parents!

As soon as we returned home Everett had a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. You know we are staying at a grandparent’s house when brownies are served in the morning and ice cream in the afternoon :-). Then Chris and Everett found Tripoley in the camper and Chris taught Everett how to play. It’s a lot to learn at once because a round of Tripoley is actually three games: hearts, poker and rummy. Everett quickly began to learn the different games and the art of betting. He relied on Grandpa to help figure out his best poker hands. We played about 5 rounds and then took the babies outside for some play time.

That night we fed the babies first and then had grown up dinner with Everett, followed by three more rounds of Tripoley. Everett won a lot of chips. Unfortunately, all of his lost sleep finally caught up with him and he really started coming unglued so we wrapped up the game and got him to bed around 8:30pm.

On Monday we drove to the NSA Headquarters to see the National Cryptologic Museum.

Chris has been there once before; neither Melissa nor Everett had never been but both were very interested. There was no sign of Perry the Platypus at the museum (Perry is a secret agent, FYI), but there was lots of other interesting code-breaking history. Everett cracked a few codes (all substitution ciphers),

wrote messages using invisible ink, and got an NSA portfolio notebook at the gift shop. Afterward we went back home for lunch and an early nap for the babies. We left around 2:30pm for the flight home.

It took 40 minutes to check in for our Southwest flight (we think this is a record for Southwest), and another half hour to get to the gate. The babies were maniacs for the first hour in the plane (which was spent on the ground). There was really nothing we could do, so in desperation we switched babies. This seemed to help considerably. Teddy settled down in Chris’ lap. Gwen was still moving nonstop but at least she stopped screaming. About halfway to Milwaukee one of the flight attendants walked up to Melissa and said “Are you the Mom with twins? A woman in front of the plane sent this drink coupon so you could have a glass of wine.” All we can say is thank you T Harmann, wherever and whoever you are – that was very thoughtful. We can’t pay you back, but we will certainly pay it forward one day when our children are older and we see another couple struggling with infants on the plane. We note that Dad wasn’t offered a drink coupon, but that’s ok because in fact Mom is the babies’ primary caregiver, and Chris has amassed his own collection of Southwest drink coupons. At one time during grad school he had about 160 of them, which was more than enough to buy a round of drinks for the entire plane.

During the flight home we knew we could occupy the babies for a while with dinner. We fed them each two pouches. Then Gwen chomped on Melissa’s chicken sandwich using her newly grown incisors while Chris fed Teddy little balls of brownies that Everett and Grandpa made the day before. This is one of the first times Teddy has actually eaten a few bites of solid good without scrunching his face and spitting it out.

We picked up a pizza on the way home and were able to relax a bit before bedtime. This was a great visit with Grandpa and Grandma Linda! We hope that next time we can make it to the pool and plan some more visits to museums and monuments, especially now that Everett has reached an age where he is beginning to appreciate them.

We arrived at BWI around 7pm Saturday night, got the rental car and started driving east. Along the way Everett announced “My tooth came out!” This was the first baby tooth that he lost. It has been loose and wiggly for a while, and his adult tooth was coming in right behind it so there wasn’t even too much of a gap.

We arrived in Rehoboth around 10:30pm. Fortunately everyone was still awake. The adults visited for a while while the kids spent some time together and then we got everyone settled down.

Sunday (Father’s Day) was a bit rough, starting with an implausible occurrence: Sean and Kathy were ready for the beach before Chris and Melissa. Later that day there were an implausible number of injuries at our house: both Noni and Everett both fell off the porch; Dillon tripped on the doormat and hit his knee on the door threshold; during a moment of parental inattention, Teddy climbed into the bathtub, landing on his face and cutting the inside of his mouth. While Chris and Melissa were tending to him, Gwen dumped the diaper pail in the bedroom; later she accidentally got whacked in the head with a stethoscope that Aidan was playing with. The only lasting injuries from the day were Noni’s: she twisted her ankle and scraped her arm on the ground. Like we said, rough.

Monday: We got up and went to the beach. Connor got sick a couple times in the morning, so it took a while for Sean and Kathy to join us. We had Thrasher’s for lunch. Later we ate steak and tortellini for dinner. Afterward we went to Kohr’s Custard, which Teddy and Gwen tried for the first time. Not surprisingly they both like it!


Everett got sunburn on his feet and lower legs, most likely due to the fact that Dad didn’t reapply sunscreen early enough. The next couple nights we covered his legs with aloe vera and lidocaine spray and he seemed fine.

Tuesday: Funland is not fun for adults. We went there in the afternoon. Kathy felt sick from going on the Merry-Go-Round backwards. Chris experienced some vestibular problems from the circular car ride that goes forwards then backward. Melissa and Sean experienced similar problems from Paratrooper. All of the parents are feeling old.

Tuesday night: birthday parties for Dillon and Everett, along with cake and gifts from Noni. Both boys got magic sets from Melissa & Doug.

After we got the kids to bed and the boys settled down the adults played a few rounds of Boggle.

Wednesday: We got a lot of help with our sandcastle. Many other children came over to help us dig, and at the end of the day a woman came over and transformed it into a dragon.


Wednesday night was date night for Sean and Kathy. In previous years we would figure out where they were having dinner, track them down and take pictures of them. This year we were too tired to consider the idea.

Thursday: we got to the beach around 9am. High tide was around 1pm, so we had plenty of time to build a sand fort before it arrived. As waves crashed around behind it Connor exclaimed “This is the best day of my life!” That night was date night for Chris and Melissa. They went to Jake’s for happy hour with the babies, then went home and put them to bed, and then went to Fin’s for dinner. We had a dozen oysters between us, first a sampler of six different varieties and then a half dozen Delaware oysters. Then for dinner Chris had Barramundi and Melissa had crab cakes.

Friday: We had some visitors. Eileen Cerne drove down from Massachusetts to spend a couple days with us. Also, Tina and Dennis and Zach made a day trip to see us from Virginia. Zach just graduated from high school – congratulations Zach! He is headed to Texas Christian University this fall. He is much bigger than the last time we saw him, so much so that Chris asked him for a piggyback ride to the beach.

Some observations from the week:
-Many years ago the City of Rehoboth decided to limit the hours that bicycles could be on the boardwalk to between 7 and 10am. This makes sense during high season when there are so many pedestrians, strollers and wheelchairs. This year we were surprised to find that smoking is now prohibited on the beach or the boardwalk, an idea that would have been unfathomable 10 or 15 years ago.

After almost three full days we saw three smokers in the entire town. What a momentous change in the span of one generation.

-For many people, us included, vacation is a time that is synonymous with fun and relaxation. However, the number of children in the beach house has now doubled, and the three older boys are somewhat independent but still require a fair amount of supervision. As a result we would definitely say that our time at the beach has been fun, but hesitate to say it has been relaxing. Back in the old days we would stay up late in the evening, playing games or chatting or watching movies. We often went to dinner as a group. Now we are exhausted by the time the kids go to bed. We struggle to stay awake for a while but soon give up and go to bed so we can start over the next morning. No one has even mentioned the idea of going to a restaurant.

-The babies love the beach! Teddy is like a baby turtle who is following his instincts and trying to make it as quickly as possible to the ocean. He often crawls straight toward the water, and as far as we can tell he will not stop.

Gwen is more circumspect. She doesn’t like to sit in the surf, but she does think the waves are pretty funny as long as she is off the ground, standing or sitting on Dad’s leg. Both of them will sit for extended periods of time in the sand with a buck of water and a shovel.

-The water is about 68 degrees, which feels great on hot days. Later in the summer it does warm up a few degrees, but with the warmer water comes jellyfish.

-Eating: We now have enough experience with children to realize that it’s difficult to ever get into a routine for more than a couple weeks. However, we have managed to get to the beach early each day and have Thrasher’s french fries for lunch. It turns out that Gwen likes them! Not a surprise really, but brings back memories of Everett when we were at the beach with him at almost exactly the same age.

-2014 is the first year we attempted to make a plan before arriving at the beach. It wasn’t much of a plan by Barber standards, but it was pretty elaborate by Butson standards, so perhaps this is a happy medium. The plan included: a grocery list; a meal plan for each night, including a date night for each set of parents. It worked so well we are already talking about improving it for next year.

-On Thursday Chris and Melissa went to the grocery store. At one point a man walked up to Chris and said “So you like bananas, eh? Here’s a trick: peel it from the bottom. That way almost all the strings come off.” Thanks for the tip!

-One morning Chris took the three older boys to the beach, and after spending some time listening to them argue about how they were infringing on each other’s digging area he said “Boys, this beach isn’t big enough for the two of us.” They all looked quizzically at Chris and said “What are you talking about? This beach is big enough for a bazillion people!” Clearly they still do not grasp the concept of irony.

-One morning at the beach Chris caught some dolphins on camera. This is a rare occurrence – Chris has been going to the eastern shore beaches his whole life and this is one of a handful of times he has seen dolphins, much less caught them on camera.

-Both Everett and Dillon lost their first tooth during this trip. Fortunately the Tooth Fairy was closely monitoring the situation.

The complete gallery of photos from the trip is here.

Today Everett turned six. When he went to bed last night he said “This is your last chance for some 5 year-old sugar!”. And during the day today he jumped on Chris and said “There’s your first six-year old pounce!”

His birthday celebration started yesterday (Friday) at school. Chris and Melissa stopped by his school around 10:15 in the morning to observe the school tradition: everyone sits in a circle while the birthday child holds a globe and walks around a sun in the center, one lap for each year. The children sing “The earth goes round the sun tra la la, the earth goes round the sun…”. Then the birthday boy walks around the circle and shows everyone one picture from each year of his life.

Finally they sing happy birthday. That is usually the end of it, but Everett also asked if he could put his brother and sister in the show-and-tell basket. Ms. Tierra nixed that idea, but she didn’t object when Everett asked us to get Teddy and Gwen out of their car seats. We did, and the babies were a huge hit!

They both scooted over to the table in the middle of the circle and started to play with the globe. The kids thought they were hilarious, and Everett was so proud to be their big brother. He is indeed a great big brother – he is very loving and playful toward them, and they often start giggling as soon as they see him. Melissa and I have often commented that Everett gets more responsibilities simply by virtue of how responsible he is. He cares for the babies a lot, and this could come in especially handy over the next 6 days when Chris is out of town and Mom is flying solo. More on this later.

On Saturday Everett got up around his normal time. Chris was at work in the morning, finishing up some things before his trip. Around midday we were frantically getting ready for Everett’s party and for a house showing. Molly came at 1pm and took the babies during the house showing until 3pm. Then we went to Wild Card Gymnastics to get setup. We were thankful that Everett still felt up to having a gymnastics party because he hurt his knee at a birthday party about a week earlier – he was running and collided with a concrete pole. He has been limping and complaining about it ever since then, but it doesn’t really prevent him from doing anything so we haven’t looked into it further.

There were 20 kids at Everett’s birthday party including a special guest: Margaret brought Mary from Indiana just for the party! The first hour was gymnastics and the second hour we were in the party room.

The theme this year was Perry the Platypus and Frozen, two of Everett’s favorite shows/movies. We had two cakes: the Perry cake was a complete disaster (see below); the Frozen cake was, appropriately, an ice cream cake on top of which Chris and Everett built the North Mountain out of Rice Krispies and then built an ice castle out of rock candy.

It was beginning to melt when we got into the party room so we sang Happy Birthday right away and served cake and juice. Then we opened presents, and finally we played pin the tail on Perry. Success!

In the afternoon Mary came over to our house with her Mom (Margaret) and her younger sister Lucy. Everett and Mary made yard-stew in a bucket. We had pizza and salad from Balistreri’s, and around 6pm they got on the road home.

Cake Disaster
Let’s just come out and say it: the Perry cake was a disaster. We are submitting it to Cake Disasters and are expecting an award. Keeping with his background as an engineer, Chris feels it is important to perform a failure analysis when things don’t go as planned. The following account points out some critical flaws in the construction process, and some lessons for future years.

Background: Chris and Melissa have a lot going on. Just this week we attended a funeral for Chris’ grandfather, bought a house in Utah, had several showings for our house in Milwaukee and planned Everett’s birthday party. This is in addition to the huge amount of work that Chris has going on right now and the incredible effort that Melissa puts in to take care of the twins, who are becoming more mobile every day. These aren’t excuses, just an accurate portrayal of the circumstances right now.

Despite this level of activity Chris still wanted to make a Perry cake and a Frozen cake for Everett’s birthday. He started by trying to create a rock candy castle from a super-saturated sugar solution, which he setup a week before the party. By about Tuesday we realized this failed, probably because he mis-measured the ingredients. Ok, on to the next task. Chris kept fiddling with different designs until Wednesday, at which point Melissa used her Wife Intuition and suggested that he may not be able to bake two custom birthday cakes from scratch before Saturday. First she suggested that Chris use box cake, and then that we just buy a sheet cake for one or both of them. Chris was going to so no to both of these ideas, but then used his Husband Intuition (if there is such as thing) and decided to listen to his wife. He bought cake mix for the Perry cake and we ordered an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins for the Frozen cake.

On Thursday night Chris baked the Perry cake using our giant cupcake form. At Everett’s request the bottom of the cake was vanilla and the top was chocolate. Problem 1: the cakes would not release from the pan, even though it’s made of Teflon and we used cooking spray. Chris managed to pry the bottom half out, but the top half was pretty badly damaged. He set things aside to cool until Friday. This is not the first time this has happened with this cake pan. Perhaps in the future we need to use butter+flour.

On Friday night things really started coming unglued, so to speak. The bottom half of the cupcake was Perry’s head, which Chris cut into a cylinder shape. Then he mixed up some Perry blue icing and made a beak out of Rice Krispies. The top of the cupcake was going to be Perry’s hat, but because it wouldn’t release from the cake pan it was more of a lumpy chocolate crumble, so Chris cut a circle out of galvanized steel to support it. Problem: fluffy box cakes are not dense enough to support steel and other structural elements. Chris tried to support it using wood skewers through the bottom of the cake, but these slid to one side and then the entire top slid off the bottom. At this point Melissa came in the room and lamented that the cake was a complete loss but congratulated Chris for his effort. However, Chris was not ready to quit. He re-iced the head and made marshmallow fondant for the hat, reasoning that it might contain all of the lumps. Problem: fondant is smooth, but it doesn’t hide underlying structural problems. The final product resembled a hat full of golf balls rather than a sharp-looking fedora. Chris decided to leave the hat off until the last moment before it was served. He used the remaining fondant to make the eyes. Chris and Melissa were delighted and agree that it was unmistakably Perry! Unfortunately we do not have a photo of the cake at this stage.

The next day we picked up the ice cream cake and built North Mountain on it, complete with the ice castle. When we arrived at the gymnastics center we put it in the freezer and Chris took it out about 40 minutes before it was time to serve. Problem: it was hot in there, and by the time we served the cake it was oozing liquid chocolate out the sides. In the future we should move it to the refrigerator before serving rather then room temperature. We also discovered that in the warm temperatures the eyes and icing had started sliding off Perry’s face. To make matters worse, the entire Perry cake tipped over during transport. What the hell – let’s serve it anyway! Here is the result:

Everett was bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. This is a metaphor that Chris said once a few months ago and that Everett thinks is hilarious. Sometimes he tells us that this is indeed how he feels; other times he tells us he is dark eyed and smooth tailed, especially if he senses that we expect the contrary.

Dada and the Momma Bear were very tired this morning. Everett got up early but was surprisingly patient, waiting until after 7am for Chris to get up and make him breakfast. Eventually we were all up and spent the morning unpacking the car and cleaning the house. Everett went for a short bike ride with Melissa to Wilson School. Then he wanted to go for a longer ride to the playground at Hart Park. So when the babies woke up from their morning nap we put them in the stroller, which Melissa pushed while Chris rode Melissa’s bike. Everett rode down Kavanaugh, then Portland, and then Honey Creek Parkway to Hart Park. We took the bike path through the park and crossed 70th St to the new playground by the band shell. Everett seemed to enjoy the sense of safety he got from having Chris at his side and Melissa behind him with “the auxiliary children”. The poplar trees are blooming and they are producing so much cottony fluff that at times it looked like it was snowing.

Melissa fed the babies at the park while Chris and Everett played tag. This isn’t the conventional tag game that most of us know from childhood. Rather, it’s an adaptive form of the game with the following rules:
-Dad is “it”. He must chase and tag Everett without cheating, which is defined as doing anything that might help him achieve his goal.
-Everett is “on base” anytime Dad gets within striking distance. Almost anything serves as base, including air. When Everett is on base there can be “no puppy guarding”.
-These rules are not reciprocal when Everett is “it”. In fact, arguments almost always ensue after Everett is tagged. So it’s not very fun if Chris is hoping for a regular game of tag, but it is fun for Chris to try to outsmart Everett and catch him despite significant odds. Of course, the problem is that Everett is rapidly getting smarter.

The babies were a bit sunburned from camping (please don’t judge us – we live in Wisconsin and this weekend was our first real exposure to sunlight this year) and there is no shade at the playground, so we packed up and headed home after they ate in order to limit their time in the sun. It’s a gentle uphill almost the entire way home, and Chris was surprised that Everett pedaled the entire way. What a change!

Everyone took a nap in the afternoon and Chris left for Houston about 4pm for his grandfather’s funeral.

It’s Memorial Day weekend and time for our annual, multi-generational, multi-family camping extravaganza at Clifty Falls State Park. We left Milwaukee about 7pm on Thursday night just moments before a house showing (our house has not sold yet – please pray that we sell it soon!). We followed tradition and stopped for dinner at Steak ‘n Shake in Gurnee, Illinois. We ate dinner in the car, and Gwen seemed very agitated about the fact that Everett wasn’t sharing his food with her. She is getting to the point where almost all she wants to eat is table food! We drove to the La Quinta at the south end of Indianapolis. One big difference on this trip was that Everett was so tired he barely woke up as Chris carried him in and got him settled into bed. The babies did not make the transition as smoothly. Teddy was pretty upset, then he was in bed with us for a while, but eventually everyone got settled down.

On Friday morning we got up around 8:40am and scrambled to get to breakfast before it closed at 9am. The woman who was serving it told us to take our time, and that she wasn’t taking any food away. She was really nice and accommodating, even as Gwen was throwing handfuls of Cheerios on the floor. We got on the road and a couple hours later stopped at Walmart in Madison for snacks and treats, then at The Red Pepper to pick up Vampire Slayers for the adults and a PBJ for Everett. We made it to camp about midday.

Everett experienced a high degree of independence this year compared to previous years. He is a responsible kid, and he is diligent about letting us know where he is going, but even so we repeatedly realized that we didn’t know exactly where he was. One obvious cause is the amount of time and energy that the babies require. Melissa and Chris recently acknowledged the feeling that our job is only half done when we get one baby calmed down, fed and clean. We also acknowledged how often we tell Everett he has to wait for our attention because of the babies’ schedule and needs. However, both the babies and Everett benefited from the older children at camp. The babies got lots of attention from adults and children alike. We spread the red blanket on the ground and they did something they never do at home: they stayed on it for long periods of time. Many of the children including Everett, Trinity, Anna and Amelia sat by the blanket and played with them.

Traditional camp activities included the piñata, a hike to the pool, making bubbles, Saturday night barbecue and listening to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio.


We also celebrated several wedding anniversaries: Jenny and Matt (20 years), Julie and Bill (17 years), Grant and Judy (45 years this year), Matt and Katy (1 year).

This was the babies’ first time camping and the tent seemed unfamiliar to them but they adjusted to it after a while. Going to sleep was not quite as smooth as it has been at home. Cress lent us the super-deluxe tent that he and Amanda often stay in. This allowed us to have our entire family in one tent, including a pack and play for each baby.

On Saturday night at bedtime Chris asked Everett “Did you guys hit it pretty hard today?”. Everett replied “We hit it super, super soft.” This is an interesting interpretation because as far as we could tell he hadn’t stopped moving since we arrived the day before. The kids were constantly in motion: running, bicycling, having water fights, making bubbles, etc. Everett told Chris that he felt cold the night before, so Chris gave him the down sleeping bag and got him tucked in, then showed him how to put your pillow into the pocket at the top of the bag so it stays put during the night. Afterward Chris asked “Wow, it looks pretty cozy in there! Can I have some cozy?” Everett replied “No!”, then “Hold on.” He opened an imaginary jar, put it in his sleeping bag and made glug glug glug sounds as he filled it up. Then he poured the jar on Chris’ sleeping bag and said “There! And here’s two drops of love.” That kid cracks us up!

There have been many firsts over the last week or two, some of them on this trip:
-Everett started riding a bike! Ross and Kiersten lent us a pair of training wheels, which Chris put on Everett’s bike on Friday morning. Everett seemed upset by this at first, but soon his curiosity took over and he gave it a try as Mom walked alongside him.

By Sunday morning he and Chris went on their first ride together!

-On Friday Trinity took Everett and several other of the younger children to the playground without any adults.
-On Sunday the babies got in the baby pool for the first time and seemed to love it. They also both realized at the same time that our bodies are not designed to breath water.
-A few days ago Gwen spontaneously started playing peek-a-boo. She picked up a napkin with both hands, held it over her head for a few moments and then threw her arms down to uncover her face. Of course, our enthusiastic reaction made her keep doing it over and over.
-Gwen and Teddy both wave to us now. They have different styles, and Gwen has been doing it much longer, but they both know their names and will sometimes wave if you call them.
-Teddy has discovered his voice. He often opens his mouth and makes sounds that can best be described as battle cries. He doesn’t appear upset, rather he seems to experience delight about this newfound power. Similarly, he seems delighted with his ability to stand. We mentioned before that he started pulling himself to a stand almost as soon as he learned to crawl. Melissa recently saw him standing in his crib while holding on with one finger and looking very pleased with himself. A few days later he started trying to stand in the middle of the floor with nothing nearby, or pulling himself to stand and then letting go for a few moments. Yes, times are changing for us.
-Gwen has started crawling, though only for a few moments at a time. More often she uses a transportation style that we have never seen: one leg is curled around behind her, one is curled around in front of her, and she slides her bottom along the floor with her arms. She and Teddy have both had a lot of face collisions with the floor while learning to crawl. These look very painful but the babies seem to recover quickly and keep trying almost immediately.

After a few years of raising Everett we have grown accustomed to his level of maturity and development, and in doing so it’s easy for us to forget all of the small accomplishments that children achieve along the way. These new abilities that the babies are developing are no less amazing with the second and third children than they were with the first.

On Saturday Chris received news that his grandfather had passed away the day before. This was not entirely a surprise – Chris’ Dad had called when we were driving down on Thursday night to tell us that Grandpa had an aspiration pneumonia, and that he probably was not going to make it much longer. Normally we drive to Cincinnati for a day after Clifty Falls, but Chris had to fly to Houston on Monday for the funeral service on Tuesday, so we drove straight home Sunday night. Everett was sound asleep within about 10 minutes and he slept pretty hard for the next two hours. So much for hitting it super soft!

Tonight was Everett’s first piano recital. The theme was The Olympics, and the children chose pieces by composers from around the world. In the entrance procession, each of them made a flag from their composer’s country of origin. Everett chose to play A Little Night Music by Mozart. He was amazingly calm and confident the whole time, and we were very proud of him!

Fortunately Gabby and Grandaddy were also in town and got to see it live.

There are two quotes that come up often in our household. The first is “put it on my tab”, a la Steve Carrell in the movie Dan in Real Life. As expected, this is used to acknowledge anything that is likely to have a cost in terms of time and/or money – the demands for both seem to be increasing steadily as our family has grown, and especially now that we are now planning to move. The second quote, “livin’ the dream”, is one that we attribute to Melissa’s friend Carrie who brought it up once in the context of an implausible-sounding yet common situation that parents get into when raising children. Everett has started using it as well. For example, last year he started showering by himself and when Chris asked once how he was doing he replied “I’m livin’ the dream baby!” For Mother’s Day this year Chris made a big batch of crepes the night before, and he gratefully accepted Melissa’s supervision and helpful comments while doing so. Also, Melissa got five minutes of uninterrupted bathroom time on Sunday. Livin’ the dream, baby!

Other highlights from Mother’s Day:

-We have a rule in our house that children are not allowed to be up before 7am, but no one really follows it, especially this time of year when the birds start singing at 4am and the sun is shining brightly by 6am. Everett woke up about 6:15am and stayed in his room as instructed, but was singing Away in a Manger loudly enough to keep us awake. Then the babies woke up and we were all out of bed before 7.

-Everett had a strawberry and Nutella crepe and we went to 8:30am church where Everett sang in the children’s choir.

-Sitting in church with the babies (or anywhere really) is getting more and more difficult because they are getting so strong and wiggly, and they never stop moving while they are awake. There was a time when Gwen wasn’t interested in moving much. That time is over. Both of them continuously twist their bodies and roll around while we are holding them. It’s exhausting. Chris took Teddy into the children’s room a couple times and he practiced standing.

-Following church, Everett went to Sunday school while Chris and Melissa had ham and Gruyère crepes along with mango mimosas.

-Around noon we went to Kettle Moraine State Park for a hike and picnic. As we were getting the babies in the stroller we ran into Vicki, Chris’ coworker and our family friend, who was there with her daughter. The hike went ok – the temperature was about 77 degrees and our entire family was almost incapacitated by the heat. During our picnic lunch Teddy crawled over to Melissa and seemed very interested in her orzo salad. Until today Teddy has refused to eat anything but pureed food (though not for lack of trying by us). Anyway, Melissa put a spoonful of orzo in his mouth. He ate it and wanted more!

-We got home and Skyped with Noni while the children performed a Brownian motion demonstration in the living room.

-All of the children took a bath. Gwen and Teddy are getting over a case of hand, foot and mouth virus. Their bodies have been covered in sores, particularly around their bottoms, so after bath they had some naked time to let their skin breathe.

-We had Goetta and pecan french toast for dinner.

-Kids went to bed early (7pm).

Happy Mother’s Day Melissa!

Teddy and Gwen have been quite different from the moment they were born. For starters they have very different eating habits. According to Everett:
“Gwen is like a goat – she gives everything a chomp.”
And: “Gwen loves to eat! That’s why her thighs are so meaty.”
As far as we can tell the only thing she doesn’t like is bananas. In contrast, Teddy is a pretty fussy eater. He won’t eat anything with texture or chunks; instead he wants everything smooth and pureed. He also prefers sweet flavors to savory. It’s been a challenge to get him to eat very much at all even though food is plentiful. If you give him a bite of something he doesn’t like then he opens his mouth, points his head down (to get some help from gravity) and then proceeds to retch and gag. Fortunately we have been able to find some sources of regular yogurt (i.e. non-non-fat yogurt, also known as just yogurt, that defies the current trend in the US of making everything non-fat). We now call it fat yogurt and we give it to Teddy often as a source of fat and protein.

The babies are also different with regard to mobility. Teddy is very mobile – he is on his way to mastering crawling and has already started to pull himself up to stand. Gwen just doesn’t seem as interested in moving. Until recently she was pretty passive. Over the last month she has become more and more wiggly, to the point where her continuous alligator rolls make her a bit difficult to hold, but she hasn’t yet taken in interest in crawling.

One thing the babies have in common is that they both find Everett very amusing. Often they will start laughing while watching him, even without any particular effort on his part. And thankfully Everett is very good at cheering them up when we ask him to. In fact, we have often acknowledged that he gets more responsibilities simply because he is so responsible. We try to consistently catch him being cooperative and helpful, and provide him with plenty of rewards. We had to get into some heavy bargaining with him while we were in Salt Lake City and we were able to maintain his cooperation by mixing in visits to the playground and the yogurt shop.

We are moving to Utah. This has been an incredibly difficult decision. Chris turned down offers from Hogwarts and The Barrow Institute, and finally chose to join the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah.

We are excited about the move but also sad to leave Wauwatosa. As we have said many times, we love it here and don’t want to move.

When we tell people that we are moving to Utah we get very mixed reactions. Utah has an image problem that it just can’t seem to shake: most of the time when the state is in the national news it is for reasons that, at least to outsiders, sound crazy. This is a little curious because there is plenty of crazy news that comes out of nearby states such as Arizona as well, but they don’t seem to have the same image problem. Anyway, we feel it’s best to get some things out in the open from the start:
-Yes, we are moving to a red state. It is extraordinarily unlikely that we will register as Republicans (though Independent might be an option).
-We don’t plan to join the NRA unless they change the R to rutabaga.
-We are not becoming teetotalers. Contrary to popular perceptions, alcoholic drinks are available in Utah. Honestly, the liquor laws in Montgomery County, Maryland where Chris grew up are more restrictive than the laws in Utah.
-Chris will not be seeking additional wives to add to the family. It just seems messy and complicated, and Melissa probably wouldn’t allow it anyway.
-We are not Mormon, and we don’t plan to convert to Mormonism. There is nothing wrong with being Mormon – Chris has several Mormon friends and colleagues who don’t fit the outdated stereotypes that are applied to the members of that church.

Now that we got those things out of the way, here are things we are excited about:
-We get to buy a new house. This is something we would need to do even if we stayed in Wauwatosa because with the arrival of the twins we have outgrown our existing house. We are looking forward to finding something that has more bedrooms and more space for children.
-We are moving to an area with mountains and spectacular scenery.
-Chris is starting a new job with an excellent group of colleagues.

We recently took the entire family to Salt Lake CIty to look at schools and houses. It was tricky to pull this off with the three children in tow, but we had a great realtor who was very accommodating and as a result we were able to see about 30 houses over five days. Everett was very cooperative for the first couple days. His job was to count bathrooms and tell us what he liked about each house such as areas that seemed to have good roughhousing potential. He was also patient as we took him to look at a couple of schools. However, by about day 4 his patience was running out. He woke up that morning and said “I am done looking at houses. I am done looking at schools. I am just done!” So we minimized the amount of time he had to spend with us and took him to the home of one of Chris’ new colleagues who has three children who were also on spring break. The babies had similar ups and downs as their nap schedule was pretty disrupted, but we were able to make it work by having one adult in the car while they slept while the other two went into the houses.

The next few months are likely to be very challenging as we move our family and Chris moves his lab. We will do our best to keep the blog up to date as we make progress…

Recent big news stories in the Butson household:

We recently took the family to visit friends in Austria (I’ll post those blog entries soon). A couple days after we arrived Gwen had a toy in her mouth when she seemed to wince in pain. Chris saw it, but she recovered quickly and he didn’t think any more of it until later that evening when Melissa noticed there was blood coming from her mouth. Gwen is getting her first tooth! Her bottom left front tooth is just breaking through her gums.

On a similar subject, Everett told us yesterday that he has a loose tooth, and later that day during his visit to the dentist we learned that two teeth are loose! He is very excited about losing his teeth and getting new ones. He is curious if it will hurt or not, and naturally he can’t resist wiggling them from time to time.

This morning during breakfast Everett exclaimed “Teddy just sat up!”. Teddy has been working hard at crawling and figuring out how his body works, but today is the first time any of us has observed him sitting up on his own.