The Many Faces of Liam

So far so good - Emmett is in D.C. again for work and this time (knock on wood) things are going much more smoothly than the last time. I hired a very experienced twin babysitter/nanny who is coming in the evenings so that I can catch my breath, go grocery shopping, or, like tonight, spend a little 1:1 time with Thomas, who has been having an especially rough week. (He's been acting out a lot and I think it's being home from all his travels with his grandparents and having to share the attention.) I feel really lucky to have found this babysitter. Her name is Melissa (as if we didn't already have so many Melissas in our lives haha), and she is from Michigan - Emmett thought this was a reason that I liked her, but I swear I didn't know until she was already at the interview! Anyway, she has quite a bit of twin experience, has been a live in nanny for a couple of families, is the daughter of a daycare owner, is a postpartum doula, and is training to be a lactation educator. Whew! Needless to say, she is pretty capable and I feel very comfortable leaving her with the babies while I get some time away. This was tougher than I imagined, the twin experience is such that I feel a greater need to get away - also probably because this time with Emmett working and traveling for work, I'm a lot more of the primary caregiver than I was with Thomas. In any case, I both feel a great need to get some downtime, but also feel nervous about leaving them with a sitter this soon. I never felt this way with Thomas, mostly because I was so unsure of myself as a mother that I figured anyone that babysat for a living would be more qualified than I was...I was SO new to babies when Thomas was born. I think I'll probably be an old pro by the time these babies aren't babies anymore HAHA.

Oh, but I am digressing...I should have used my time with the babysitter to take a nap instead of taking Thomas to Fresh Choice, but I couldn't stand to let him down, so now my eyes are burning from lack of sleep and I'm not entirely sure any of this will make sense when I read it later, but I've got another 25 minutes before my last pumping of the evening.

Well, we've hit a very fun milestone...we are getting real smiles from both babies! I think their inherent personalities dictate that we tend to get a lot more smiles from Lillie than we do from Liam, but for whatever crazy reason I haven't managed to get a good photo of Lillie smiling yet. She has such an amazing smile, it really lights up her whole face. I am going to really try to get a photo because I want so much to be able to share her beautiful smile with everyone. Liam is a little more of a serious type to begin with and his smiles, while gorgeous, are softer than her big cheesy grins.

I did, however, get some good photos of Liam on July 22nd. I got some smiles and also some of his most common facial expressions. So here they are - enjoy!





My beautiful boy with his sweet smile...


Liam has a very intense stare, we call it his "penetrating gaze"
Last, but not least, Liam frowns a lot...I hope it just means that he has amazing powers of concentration, haha