A Typical Morning with Sam and Claire

At about 4:45, Sam wakes up and starts to howl. We stay in bed listening to him, hoping that he will just give up and go back to sleep. At 4:59 it we who give up. Lynn gets up, grabs Sam and takes him to our bed. He whines and sobs until he is presented with his bottle. He grabs it and greedily sucks its empty cuddling in the warmth of our comforter. About midway through his bottle we hear squeels from Claire. She is sitting up in her bed with a big smile on her face. She joins us in bed and eagerly grabs her bottle. When Sam finishes he squirms onto his stomach and then onto all fours. He crawls to the headboard and moves the frame of the picture above our bed. Sometimes he pats Claire's bottle or her face or her eyes. We try to discourage this. Claire tires of her bottle midway through and joins Sam at the picture frame. I pretend that I can get a few more minutes of sleep while two one year olds bounce and squeel just inches from my head. I mumble something about how its time for them to go back to bed. Lynn says they are not ready quite yet. Sam screams his agreement as he starts to pull the picture back from the wall. I think about taking a shower before they go back to bed, since it would wake them afterwards, but I don't. We change them and finally we put them back to bed. They offer only symbolic protest and sleep for another hour, sometimes an hour and a half. We sleep as well. As they wake I shower and dress. The babies and Lynn go downstairs to eat breakfast and I go off to work.