Guus Bosman

Three more evenings, and then we won't be the three of us anymore. We are very happy to welcome to expansion to our family -- but it is also a moment of reflection. We've had three great years with Nora so far.

Her life, and ours, will certainly change -- especially in the first few months. We're enjoying the relative peace and quiet together.

A milestone I want to remember is Nora going on the stairs by herself. She's been doing this for a few weeks now and it makes her more independent in the house.

We have wooden stairs and we set the rule: no socks or PJ's on the stairs. So bare feet or shoes are okay.

Nora listens well and sometimes when she wants to go up or down the stairs and we're not around, she'll take her socks off to make the trip.

Several friends asked us if twins run in our family. The answer is: yes... but only on the paternal side. The tendency for twins is passed on through the maternal line only so the fact that we're having twins is pure chance.

Nevertheless, it's fun to look into our family history. My greatgrandfather Johan Jacob was born in 1891 in Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands. He and his brother Marinus were twins. Johan Jacob's son Gerrit married Johanna. Their first child was my father. Four years later my grandmother learned that she had carried twins only when she gave birth! One of the twins, my aunt Ria, later gave birth to my dear cousins -- again, including twins.

Through my uncle Harm I recently got in touch with descendants of my grandfather's brother Joop. Three of my second cousins had twins also.

Like I said, it's highly unlikely that there is a biological reason for this but it is fun to find out about other twins in the extended family.

It's February today so when the boys are born we will have four birthdays in February.

We weren't quite sure if we would have this weekend for ourselves so it was a bit of a bonus weekend. We tried to rest as much as possible to prepare for the crazy next few weeks and months.

After lunch Nora and I went for a walk together. To the library and then back over Fairfax. She walks so well that we've officially retired her stroller now and I put it in the basement.

Last night Nora and I had an 'argument'. She said she "didn't need her water bottle in bed". I said that I expected her to wake up later that night and then call me to find her water. And of course that's what happened -- around 1.00 am I had to bring her the water. She'll tell me to store it "in the kitchen" but I secretly keep it around the corner of her door so I don't have to go downstairs in the middle of the night.

Still, not ideal of course so tonight we had the discussion again. "No no, I don't need the water and no, no, I'm not going to cry". Yeah, right. I told her I would laugh at her if I had to bring the bottle at night and that seemed to have worked, because after I closed the door she yelled that she did indeed want her water. And meneer prascho.