When Karen’s at yoga, Aaron and I take turns cook­ing din­ner and play­ing with Ryan and Ruby (read: keep­ing them occu­pied and out of trou­ble). Then we gin­ger­ly con­vince them to eat what they can (good days involve uten­sils), make sure they’re bathed, and put into bed with a sto­ry if they’ve been good. Everything is man­age­able as one but eas­i­er with two, espe­cial­ly when the sim­ple act of get­ting rice into a child’s mouth can turn into an ordeal.

This is when I get to expe­ri­ence the joys of hav­ing chil­dren in man­age­able dos­es. That means not hav­ing to deal with dia­per changes, and read­ing the same 30-word book only four times instead of 400.

The new lap­tops were presents from Nana and Papa at Christmas. Now they can send/receive e‑mails, and blog about the awe­some poop they just took.

Ryan used to be par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ed to see his Uncle Jeff, leav­ing Aaron and Karen to won­der what got into him when I was around. Now that he’s a bit old­er, his face does­n’t car­ry the same glow when I arrive any­more, and he’s hap­pi­er to see the mar­bles I brought. But Ruby is begin­ning that phase of enam­our, and con­stant­ly clam­ber­ing into my lap to involve her­self in what I’m doing. Recently she start­ed ask­ing me to car­ry her (which I’m told means mem­ber­ship in an exclu­sive club con­sist­ing of her par­ents and me), even though she’s just learned to man­age stairs by her­self.

They seem to grow by inch­es every week, and they’ll soon be old enough to take care of them­selves. I’ve learned to appre­ci­ate the lit­tle chances I have to be tru­ly part of a fam­i­ly like this, espe­cial­ly after decid­ing last year against ever hav­ing kids of my own. And I don’t feel the need for chil­dren any­more cause this will always be enough.