The Kaplan House

In recent days the progress has been ... anything but boring. On Friday the boys showed clear signs of developmental progress. Usually, a walk puts them to sleep instantly. This time, they stayed awake, squawking periodically, for he first 25-30 minutes. Since they were not screaming full blast, and not directly into my ear, I was OK with that - which is more than can be said for my walking partners, a nearly one year old and his father. Then teamwork kicked in. Benjamin fell sound asleep, while Zev began yelling regularly. Not at the top of his lungs, but just loud enough to annoy me and still keep his voice to keep going indefinitely. After another 25 minutes or so Zev fell asleep. Little more than ten minutes later Ben woke up and started his shift. At this point I bid goodbye to my partners and headed home. Only right next to our house did Ben finally fall asleep as well. Total walk time: 75 minutes. Time both boys slept at the same time: about 12 minutes.

The following 24 hours were impressive. While the boys do sleep better now that their bed is inclined (mad props to Alla, the real engineer in the family), they took turns demanding a lot of attention. Eventually, one reaches a final state... Beyond frustration, beyond anger, beyond rage and desire to inflict severe pain on fellow (adult) human beings. Beyond that there is numbness, when one does not care about anything, hardly noticing even the piercing screams of a baby who is hungry and dirty and won't eat until clean and won't quit yelling while being changed. There is nothing there, and only a weak, distant glimmer of hope for a sweet release of death. Death here is defined as a state where no one can pee, vomit, or shit on you. Nor can they vomit or pee all over their suit and diaper, right after you got done changing both. A state where no one wakes you up. Ever again. Doesn't sound that bad, does it?
The help of family nearby (thank you grandparents Rita and Tolya and aunt Vika, and all else who allowed them to help us!) and a few hours of sleep drown out the seductive, whispered promise of a 124 grain hollow point. One feeding at a time. Some food, a cup of coffee, and one feels almost human again.

Our nanny, and now Alla, both claim that the boys smile socially (ok, have done so at least once) and track contrasting objects with their eyes. I am not sure, I suspect they are both a bit biased. The boys do look at the face of whoever feeds them rather intently, and tend to look away if you do - for sure. They also had their first skype session, to the delight of the Boston grandparents. Yay technology.

Today, much ahead of schedule as we were told, we put each of them for a few minutes into the play area.

Ben, exploring the psychedelic colors around him

"This is kinds kewl..."

After about 5 minus Ben decided he had enough and started hollering. Naturally, no pictures of *that*. We figured, 5 minutes was too much. Zev got about two - long enough for me to take a few shots.