Real Instagram Captions

I am a compulsive documenter. My iCal is not just a way for me to stay organized for the present and future, but a record of how I’ve spent my time in the past. Before the digital age, I kept handwritten journals. I have four boxes of them in my closet. I also have an entire binder full of correspondence from my father.

Instagram is one of my favorite documenting tools. It combines two things I truly enjoy: taking pictures and telling stories. And being stranded here in Utah, far from most of my friends and family, it also gives me an opportunity to share liberally with my far-flung tribe. 

As we all know about social media, though, it’s a heavily curated form of self-expression. It can give people the impression that your life is very different than it is. For instance, that you know what you are doing and managing to keep it together.

The reality is that having twins is nuts and definitely shaving years off my life. For every sweet, cute, funny picture I take, there is a harrowing story behind it that doesn’t make it into the caption.

For instance, this cute shot from our dinner at a pizza place on Sunday:

No, she was not drinking Coke. At the pizza place, they gave me ice water in a Coke cup with a straw. The girls love drinking out of straws, and they’re crazy about ice. 

1.7 seconds after I took this shot, Eliza hurled her drink on the floor and I spent the entire rest of the meal trying to prevent her from crawling around under the table, eating ice off the floor.

Number of pieces of pizza I managed to
eat while at restaurant: 1/2.

Number of pieces of pizza I ate in bed much later,
while drinking a gin and tonic: 3.

Before dinner, we went up to the top of Mill Creek Canyon to get out of the oppressive Salt Lake City summer heat:

Lovely, right? So sweet that Eliza is taking a stroll down a shaded verdant path with her dad! 

Not really. I’m not even sure how I got this shot. At no point was she walking down a path, of her own free will, like a reasonable person. We spent the first half hour we were there trying to direct their attention away from a bubbling brook they happened to sniff out from yards away. My children are human divining rods, FYI.

We finally had to pick them up and carry them about a quarter of a mile elsewhere to break the obsession. That’s when we found this sweet wooded trail. Which, just so you know, is bordered by a very steep, treacherous drop off the right-hand side. They reaaaaaaaaally wanted to tumble headfirst down this precipice, but they traded in that compulsion for a willingness to sit down in the middle of the trail (mountain bikers everywhere, FYI) and shove dirt by the handful into their pie holes.

Which is why we looked like gypsies at the pizza place.

Here we have a craftastic breakfast I made the girls the other day—banana with almond butter and a dried cranberry flourish:

The girls loved this! After they ate it, I had to hose off the deck, their table and chairs, and them. And change their clothes. Like after most meals. The dog still needs a bath.

Another fun snack: yogurt, honey, and fruit pulsed in my Magic Bullet for a few seconds. It’s basically like Yoplait but, you know, not gross.

This one is pretty accurate.