I made digestive biscuits. Yum. Not quite McVittie's, but still, yum!

Hint--they need salt, it doesn't call for any in the recipe. I added about 1/2 tsp., but they needs a little more. And I brushed them with melted Baker's chocolate.

And read this.

More on that later after I recover my mental equilibrium. If you're a scholar and/or a parent, and have ever tried to combine (or even thought about combining) the two activities, read it. It's phenomenal.

Thanks, pal!

Ian wishes for it to be known that he is once more King of the Castle.

Unauthorized pacifier heists, as well as attempts by sisters to inflict bodily harm upon his personage will no longer be tolerated.

Explorations of his kingdom have recommenced with his returning energy.

He also pleads for clemency for any little acts of mischief that might accompany his recently regained good humor.

And then, of course, the guests of honor would be listed in Star-Wars-ish font, receding across the screen.

I mean, what was there not to make fun of? Never mind the fact that the only reason we were seeing the commercials was because we were watching Star Trek reruns.

More recently, Tim and I have seen a Simpson's episode that takes cracks at sci-fi conventions, and a Freaks and Geeks episode that treats the phenomenon quite affectionately.

Well, I've decided to mend my ways and stop making fun of DRAGON CON CON CON con.

It brought us two great things this year. When it happened a few weeks ago, we got to visit from our dear friend Karen, Tim's old college pal. She's a dealer--making and commissioning her own very cool Firefly-related memorabilia. We went to pick her up, and at first watching the people file out of the conference in their sci-fi-themed costumes seemed a little odd. But it was downtown Atlanta--vampires walking out in broad daylight aren't the strangest things you'll see there!

So, we rescued Karen from the Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Legged Beasties, and took her to a little Southern diner.

And, during our discussion with Karen, in which I was poking fun at Dragon-Con a bit, she informed me that Sean Astin was there, and she heard him speak. Sean Astin. Adorable little Samwise.

I am somewhat of a Tolkien geek snob afficionado. I mean, our daughter's named Elanor!

I was actually rather upset when I heard there were movies coming out, because I knew everyone would say that they were Tolkien fans, even if they hadn't even touched the books. I even predicted that in the commercialization of the books, they might even come out with buy-your-very-own-rings-of-power (and unfortunately, I was all too correct in that prediction). But I ended up absolutely loving the movies, and especially Astin's portrayal of Sam.

Karen recorded the session with Astin, and mailed us a copy. He's as endearing, down-to-earth, funny, and transparent as I thought he would be. The perfect Sam. And he talked about his daughter playing Elanor in the film, which made me "awwwww" out loud. So, thanks so much, Karen, for the Sean Astin goodness, and inspiring me to mend my sci-fi-con-bashing ways! Come back to Dragon-Con again next year!!!

Elanor: *plays with toy*
Ian: *takes toy*
Elanor: Wahhhhhhhh!!!!
Ian: Wahhhhhhh!!!!!!

*Reverse roles and repeat*

Act II: "Survival of the Fittest"

Elanor: The Boy is slow and weak. The perfect time to push him over. Plus there's the whole throwing up on my head thing for which I need to exact my pound of flesh.
Ian: *is pushed over*
Ian: Wahhhhh!!!!
Elanor: Wahhhhhh!!!

Act III: "The Nap"

*After Elanor stays up for hours in the middle of the night, and together the twins have exhausted their parents beyond belief with their whining and crying, the two protagonists fall asleep for a nap*

Ian and Elanor: *sleep*
Tim and Joanna: Finally we get some sleep!
Tim and Joanna: *eyes close*
Ian and Elanor: *eyes open*
Tim and Joanna: Wahhhhhh!!!!!

Madison was an odd mixture of the beautiful Old South--it was barely spared by Sherman on his infamous "march to the sea," so much of the lovely Antebellum architecture is still in place--and more disturbing parts of the Old South as well--in antique shop, we walked in to see a Little Black Sambo book flanked by Confederate memorabilia on either side. The incongruity and inappropriateness of the hopefully unintentional combination made me gasp out loud.

The whole town was covered in antique stores and book stores. Once again, we puzzled our heads over the lack of great book stores in the academic town of Athens. One of the antique stores was insane, stuff piled everywhere. But it had great books, a whole section of used children's books for under a dollar. We added a pile to the kids' library, some for now, like a Cheerio's book and a couple for later, like a story written around and illustrated with paintings by Peter Breugel.

It was a pretty, quiet town to walk around with the kiddos. There was a tiny museum, which even included works by Picasso and Rouault in the collection.

I love the reuse of industrial architecture. There was a mall made out of an old mill, and here's a livery transformed into the local lawn and garden store.

We could totally picture aged southern aristocrats drinking iced tea and rocking on the porch of this inn.

At lunch, we were given lollipops for the kids. Just in case it looks like we're negligent parents, I'll let you know we only gave them a few licks. Of course, Ian wanted to do it himself!

Elanor got so excited, she kept her little tongue out waiting for the next lick.

Ahhhhh....purple ecstasy!

Anyways, if you're a reader and have a blog, let me know and I'll link to it! Chances are I already read it. :-)

Tim's better, Elanor's not too bad, but poor little Ian can't seem to shake this. We're taking him to the doctor today. I'm all bleary-eyed from the last few days, trying to take care of three sickies, hoping I won't get sick myself.

You think a mom of twins changes a lot of diapers on a normal day?

Plus, Elanor pulled her whole "I won't go down without a fight" routine last night. Think of that as a sort of Patton-esque statement, dramatic, persistent, and loud enough to keep the whole house up. Thankfully Tim was better enough to give me a hand, spelling me out when I would get to the end of my rope.

At 2 AM, I gave up and took Elanor for a morning drive. She fell asleep, and even though she was woke up when we came into the house, she was at least calm enough to be rocked back to sleep.

They're all whiny, too, poor babies. Their endless pacifier and toy heists now result in tears of despair. "I'm...too weak...to...take...the...block...back........"

I'll just leave that story at "ewwwwwww."

A lot of things have gone into the laundry today. Unfortunately, not even bilingual bunny escaped the fray, and I don't think he can go in the washer. Gave him a good scrub, and hope that'll take care of it.

This is not a shining day in the annals of parenthood. Or babyhood, at least for Ian, poor, wee man.

Before we moved down south, our dear church in Pittsburgh gave us a gift certificate for the babies. After buying the necessities, we still had enough left to buy a few fun things for them. Every couple of months, we'll go to the store and get a fun toy for them--this time a shiny, new, red car. Thank you to anyone from Grace who's reading this!!!

"A car. For me??? Thanks mom and dad!"

"Whee........"

And this one makes me dread Elanor's sixteenth birthday.

Beep, beep!

On the way there, we drove past a teeny little Ethiopian food store. I casually mentioned to Tim that I had always wanted to make Ethiopian food--so he spontaneously (!) turned around and dropped me off. I didn't know enough about the spice mixes (decided to go home and research that first), but I saw a bag of enormous (I'd guess about two feet in diameter), crepe-like injera and bought a package.

I found a few recipes online--here and looked at a couple of other sites as well. I kind of improvised from there, making it less spicy for our tastes, and using what we had on hand. There are some recipes for injera there.

We also realized that since Ethiopian food is such a communal thing, it would be more fun to have someone over, someone who wasn't afraid to experiment a little bit. Which turned out to be our good friend and budding musicologist, Carrie. The kids like her, too. Though our esoteric conversation seemed to be a little too much for Elanor.

So, here's what I made: a beef stew (siga wat), lentil salad and a vegetable stew (yetakelt w'et), all piled onto injera, with more injera on the side with which to eat the food.

It's complex and spicy like Indian food, but more earthy. Definitely something I want to make again. It took awhile (basically for the beef, you start by cooking the onions until they practically melt), but I think I could tweak things to use the slow-cooker for some of it. And we had enough to eat for days and days afterwards.

Actually, once we can get them up, I think some videos will give you some ideas of life these days. For now, enjoy the Box Collage!

The Sticky Cheerio of Reconciliation proffered.
Accepted.
Tranquility.

Ian: Ist good ja!
Elanor: Ja! Ja! Ist good!
Ian: Und yummy!
Elanor: Ooh ja! Und yummy ja!

Tim: So the twins are ten months old now. Their main preoccupation these days seems to be food. As far as Ian goes, Joanna refers to him as a "social eater." Anytime we have food near us, there he is waiting for a bite. In the last few weeks he has been going to Joanna, pulling himself up on her legs and begging until he gets some, but more recently he's been accosting me with his cute puppy look as if he's saying "Look how cute and little I am. Why don't you give me a little bite of that."

Elanor can't quite pull herself up yet so when she sees we have food, she frantically crawls towards us and implores us with her "starvation wail." If the "starvation wail" doesn't cut it, she lays her head down in her hands in an attitude of despair. Unfortunately, her chubby little thighs belie her protestations of ravenous hunger.

Their favorite things to eat these days are corn puffs, rice puffs and Cheerios. To keep Ian occupied, we line up a row of these finger foods on the couch and he works his way from one end to the other. We do this with Elanor too but we put the Cheerio trail on the floor to encourage her to crawl more.

We should start calling them "Hansel und Gretel" and write a parody of the Grimm fairy tale. Even better we could write a parody of "Bewitched Bunny," a parody of the Grimm fairy tale. A parody within a parody. And we'll leave you with this...

Along the way, we stopped at a specialty foods store, M&I International Food Store. The pastries were decadent. We gazed for a long time, wondering how many people were hired just to make desserts.

We each bought some Russian chocolate as gifts. Unfortunately, since I don't know Russian, I have no idea why Napoleon is galloping across the chocolate bar.

We then continued our quest for coffee. Now, here's where things got a little weird. Even in Europe, if a restaurant is called a "cafe," you can stop there for coffee, even if it's one of the fanciest restaurants in Paris. In Little Russia--not so much. After being turned down at a couple of places where we asked if it were okay to just get coffee and dessert, we stumbled on an unassuming little place.

A couple sat next to us who treated us as if we were guests in their home. They moved chairs for the bulky double-strollers, commented on our food, smiled at the babies, and greeted us as they left. Old men chatted at another table, and then offered blessings on the little ones. Along with our coffee, we had a plate of crepes with chocolate sauce and fruit. I love the red in this picture.

The light was getting dim, so we headed back for one last stroll along the boardwalk. We got the kids out to wiggle before the long trip home and watched a community volleyball game on the beach.

Finally, we watched the sunset over the beach, silhouetting Coney Island in the distance.

Our kids love, love, love swings.

Unfortunately, Ian seemed to be getting a little green by the end, so swing fun was over.

Which leads us to the final installment: the rest of the day!