Christmas, New Years, and General Updates

It's been about two weeks since there's been a blog entry. I'll fill y'all in on the holidays and then post some other stories next that have come up over the last couple days.
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The babies first Christmas was nice. They didn't get anything. It's really not my fault, they didn't ask for anything. And besides, they were too young to see Santa this year. The holidays are tiring, moreso than I remember them being. We have several sets of family, and seeing all of them takes a lot of energy. It's totally worth it, it's just tiring.
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New Years was more like a "Wednesday" around here. My parents came over. We had a little champagne. Wife was in bed by 10:30 and I was coaxing a screaming daughter when I heard the firecrackers and determined it must be 2009. I had one of those weird reflective moments where I thought back to 2001. I think of things in terms of presidential cycles because I'm a little bit of a political dork. Anyway, I thought back to January of 2001 when I was lying on my couch in my apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina watching George W. Bush get sworn in on my (then new) TV. I remember thinking how much I hoped that he would surround himself with smart people and help repair the divide of the hyper partisan Clinton years and continue the positive growth of the country. Now it's eight years later. A new President is about to be sworn in, and I have the same hopes for him. Except for that "continuing the positive growth of the country" part -- that kinda got screwed up over the last few years. This time I'm far more hopeful than I was in 2001. My life has changed so much over the last eight years since I lived in that apartment in North Raleigh. I can only imagine how different things will be in January 2017 when the next new President is sworn in. The thought of the kids being eight years old blows me away. It also blows me away realizing that our TV is eight years old. Time for an upgrade!
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Forgive my brief political diatribe, this isn't the intent of this blog. So if you're one of those 20% or so of Americans who still thing George W. Bush is "A-OK", then I apologize. Everyone else, just nod in a reflective moment of understanding.
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Vitals

The kids are somewhat regular with their eating and sleeping habits. We're really starting to see the daytime schedule of eat-play-sleep. That's nice. Night is still hit or miss. When we hit, it's really beautiful. They can go for six hours, sometimes even longer, sleeping at night. That's just awesome. Then, of course, there are nights like last night where Lilly decided to scream for no reason and Nolan didn't want to shut it down for the night. Still, we're pretty lucky. We know parents of single babies (as if that's normal -- gahhh) who had problems at night for many months.

Supernanny is still around, but not for much longer. She's sorta outlived her usefulness and my bank account, so in about a week she's going to open up her umbrella and fly away. It's still nice knowing there are certain days where we can eat, watch a 30 minute TV show, and sleep for 8 hours guaranteed.

The babies are much bigger than they were two months ago. Imagine that! Nolan is about 11 pounds, and Lilly is close to 10 pounds. We're going to weigh them again today at bath time. They're a couple of chunky monkeys.

Reflecting back on what I wrote at the beginning of this blog, I'm amazed and a little embarassed about how much we've learned and how far we've come in just the eight weeks since the kids were born. I feel like a fool for even having a small fleeting thought when the kids were five days old that I somehow had this sleeping thing licked. I didn't. I didn't know shit. The truth of this realization is that I still don't know shit, I just don't know that yet. Eight weeks from now, I will undoubtedly look back on what I wrote at the beginning of 2009 and laugh at myself again.