We've been looking hard for places to bring the girls that allow my wife and I to walk around, be involved with the rest of humanity, all the while giving the twins the opportunity to experience life outside the house. To be honest, it actually goes further than that for me. I have a two fold hidden agenda, one, the girls sleep really well while we are walking about. They have a really hard time napping otherwise, but not long after the stroller gets moving they drift off. They'll sleep for a good hour and half while we wheel about, and even if they wake, they are so overawed by different sights and sounds around them that they forget to scream. Two, my wife is very nervous about life with children outside of our den. She's worried about the babies crying, a poosaster or possibly ninja attack...yes, those things are probably going to happen...but so what? We'll deal with what ever occurs.
Convention centers and trade shows make fantastic stroller-bound, kid safe, twin baby outings, especially if you get one appropriately themed like the One of a Kind show. The event is perfectly timed to serve double duty as a family outing and Christmas shopping trip. The irony of bringing twins to an event centered on unique, never duplicated items is hilarious too. Tickets can be stamped at the exit to allow everyone to return throughout the duration of the show, making it a budget friendly location as well. There are special events for children of all ages, a daycare for kids over 2 and feeding/changing room for the littlest ones (free diapers and butt paste!). They even had a separate room off the main area that was labelled "Man Cave". As a stay-at-dad, pushing a double stroller I didn't feel overly welcome in the "Man Cave"; my entrance met with frowns...nor was I fully accepted in the feeding and change area; some breast feeding moms are overly shy. Oh well people...get used to my bridging both worlds, if you don't like it stay at home, because I'm not going to.
Regardless of where we wander, the reaction to the girls is always the same. I don't know what it is about twins that make people think they can step in front of you and and start asking questions or giving advice. Worse are the strangers that jam their heads under the canopy to see the girls close up...oh, how I would love to install a bear trap under there. Or even better, a wood chipper! "How old are they?" "Are they identical or fraternal?" "Do twins run in your family?" "Are they natural?" WTF?!?! Of course they are not natural. I built them in my basement out of old tires...now get out of my way you nut job. Some people even preface their intrusion with "I'm a twin." or "I have twins of my own." One lady at the One of a Kind show actually said "My twins are all grown up now, so I know how annoying it is when people stop you..." She said more, but the rest of it was muffled due to the fact that two thirds of her body was jammed up under my stroller canopy.
Here's my advice to anyone about to have twins or to recent parents of twins...invest in a highly mobile stroller with front pivoting wheels, and limit the number of outings you make with your Snap and Go. A good stroller will allow you to turn quickly and frequently. You can see in a stranger's eyes when they are about to engage you in unwanted conversation, continue walking straight towards them and smile. Wait for the aggressor to lean forward, then feint left. The stranger will alter their own trajectory, at that moment dodge right! Your forward momentum should take you safely passed, while your opponent is still lurching in the opposite direction. Yell your answer over your shoulder without looking back "They are 4 months old!" If pursuit continues, wait for the stranger to charge up beside you...this is where the nimble stroller's abilities really shine, two quick 180 turns will often leave the intruder stumbling in circles...
Good luck!
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Monday, 19 November 2012
Snot Sucker
What's worse than a baby screaming in your ear? Two babies screaming in my ear! Not that I don't deserve it. Both my babies should be quite upset with me. You see, I gave them their first ever cold. Babies up to 4 months old are strictly nose breathers. This allows them to successfully breast feed and continue breathing at the same time.
My girls have looked so sad the last few days; their big eyes staring at me, just begging me to make it all go away. It honestly makes me feel completely helpless, especially knowing that there is very little I can do to make them feel better...if only there was some way to just draw the mucus out of there sinus cavity, I'd gladly do it.
I read a statistic that stated babies will get, on average, 8 colds a year, probably from licking doorknobs (Note...do not google this because apparently it's a thing in Japan). Luckily there are a plethora of products out there to help a daddy out when the snot hits the fan.
First, if your baby is suffering from a stuffed up nose, loosening everything up for quick removal is the first course of action. You can either purchase, or DIY, a saline solution that will be dropped into each of your baby's nostrils. The purchased version, the brand we used anyway, is called hydraSense Easydose. It's basically a number of single application squeeze bottles filled with undiluted isotonic desalinated seawater. Trying to get the little tube in my child's nose without touching her brain was difficult enough, but add in having to squeeze a single drop of liquid from a fragile plastic tube and you've actually got an event where it's appropriate for your wife to yell "You're drowning her!". This stuff works pretty well, even at dosages much higher than a single drop...
Step two, is where the fun really starts. There are actually several products out there specifically designed to literally suck the snot out of your child's head. We have two versions, a bulb aspirator, as well as a Belvital Baby Nose Cleaner. We started with the bulb aspirator, but were not really confident in the results. Basically it's a little squeeze bulb with a tube sticking out of it. You squeeze the bulb then insert the tube into your baby's nostril. When you release the bulb, the vacuum created will draw the mucus through. After the first time I used this device, I excitedly looked inside the reservoir , but was disappointed not to find it filled to the brim with roiling green slime. In fact, there wasn't really anything in there at all. Was it even working? My baby still had her cold, so it wasn't the miracle cure I was hoping for.
On to product number two...the photo on the front of the Belvital Baby Nose Cleaner is awesome. There's this little kid, all smiles, with a clear plastic tube jammed up his nose. On the backside of the tube is a long clear plastic hose, and the other end of that long clear plastic hose, snakes it's way in to the mouth of smiling woman. Everyone is smiling, everyone is having a great time...It's important to actually read the directions for assembling this product. If I had, then I would have found out that you stuff a small amount of cotton, to act as a filter, at the joint between the hose and the tube. Reading the instructions wouldn't have prevented my wife from making gagging sounds when the snot bubbled and oozed it's way through the clear, so you can see it really works, tube, but it probably would have prevented me from being able to accurately describe the taste a baby boogers.
My girls have looked so sad the last few days; their big eyes staring at me, just begging me to make it all go away. It honestly makes me feel completely helpless, especially knowing that there is very little I can do to make them feel better...if only there was some way to just draw the mucus out of there sinus cavity, I'd gladly do it.
I read a statistic that stated babies will get, on average, 8 colds a year, probably from licking doorknobs (Note...do not google this because apparently it's a thing in Japan). Luckily there are a plethora of products out there to help a daddy out when the snot hits the fan.
First, if your baby is suffering from a stuffed up nose, loosening everything up for quick removal is the first course of action. You can either purchase, or DIY, a saline solution that will be dropped into each of your baby's nostrils. The purchased version, the brand we used anyway, is called hydraSense Easydose. It's basically a number of single application squeeze bottles filled with undiluted isotonic desalinated seawater. Trying to get the little tube in my child's nose without touching her brain was difficult enough, but add in having to squeeze a single drop of liquid from a fragile plastic tube and you've actually got an event where it's appropriate for your wife to yell "You're drowning her!". This stuff works pretty well, even at dosages much higher than a single drop...
Step two, is where the fun really starts. There are actually several products out there specifically designed to literally suck the snot out of your child's head. We have two versions, a bulb aspirator, as well as a Belvital Baby Nose Cleaner. We started with the bulb aspirator, but were not really confident in the results. Basically it's a little squeeze bulb with a tube sticking out of it. You squeeze the bulb then insert the tube into your baby's nostril. When you release the bulb, the vacuum created will draw the mucus through. After the first time I used this device, I excitedly looked inside the reservoir , but was disappointed not to find it filled to the brim with roiling green slime. In fact, there wasn't really anything in there at all. Was it even working? My baby still had her cold, so it wasn't the miracle cure I was hoping for.
On to product number two...the photo on the front of the Belvital Baby Nose Cleaner is awesome. There's this little kid, all smiles, with a clear plastic tube jammed up his nose. On the backside of the tube is a long clear plastic hose, and the other end of that long clear plastic hose, snakes it's way in to the mouth of smiling woman. Everyone is smiling, everyone is having a great time...It's important to actually read the directions for assembling this product. If I had, then I would have found out that you stuff a small amount of cotton, to act as a filter, at the joint between the hose and the tube. Reading the instructions wouldn't have prevented my wife from making gagging sounds when the snot bubbled and oozed it's way through the clear, so you can see it really works, tube, but it probably would have prevented me from being able to accurately describe the taste a baby boogers.
Friday, 9 November 2012
It's Poosasterous!
Shit storm
Poonami
Poopacalypse
The girls are going poozerk
Assalanche
It doesn't matter what you call it, it's going to happen. It's going to happen from day one and continue for years, so if you are squeamish about it, get over it now. The key to a well contained poosaster is the correct diaper. Make the wrong choice and find out how far out the neck hole of a sleeper a little girl can defecate.
This is strictly personal opinion, based on my personal experience of dealing with twin girls, so if you've got little boys, then you'll have to do your own experimenting.
The first thing you need to decide is earth vs. personal convenience, cloth vs. disposable. It's not that simple really. There are those that will argue both ways, and honestly, I'm not sure how true it is that cloth diapers are all that much more environmentally friendly when you take into account the delivery, cleaning, collection of waste, treatment of waste water (including facility maintenance, electricity, workers carbon footprint, etc...) and finally the transport of the cleansed water to the nearest lake. Disposable diapers, in my area at least, are composted and used as topsoil on farms and park land. The choice was pretty simple for us, with twins, the mountains of diapers that the girls would produce, we opted for disposable....f@ck this planet! (Just kidding, I love the earth).
First off, bring diapers with you to the hospital. The hospital, at least the hospitals in my area, don't supply diapers. We brought Huggies, newborns with us. We chose that particular brand because of the umbilical cutout. I had no idea how to strap a diaper, on a baby butt to begin with, so having to give consideration to irritating the stub of cord sticking out of my babies' bellies was just something else to worry about. Newborn diapers are good up to 8 pounds, so lots of couples will completely skip this size. I had no real complaints about the Huggies. As newborns the poops are small but frequent and the diapers held up well. Just so you are ready for it, the twins went through 44 diapers in one 24 hour period (that was a record for us).
We moved on to size 1 when the girls were right around 8 pounds. I'm usually pretty brand loyal...actually it has nothing to do with loyalty, I'm too lazy to look for or try anything new...if it had been left up to me I probably would never have tried a new brand, and I would have experienced more wrecked pants, soiled sleepwear and poo hairdos then I could have imagined. Luckily, loving relatives and friends often gifted us with diapers when they came to visit the girls (actually, when asked if there was anything that they, the visitors, could bring me, I always said a box of diapers). We ended up with several brands including: Huggies, Pampers, President's Choice Green Diapers, Shopper's Drug Mart Life Brand, Huggies Natural, Pampers Overnights and Pampers Sensitive. We tried them all, so below you'll find a review of what we discovered. Remember, this is a personal opinion, of our experience with two little girls. I've heard differing opinions when boy parts get involved.
Huggies/Huggies Sensitive: Once we were in size 1 we found these diapers just didn't hold up. Very often we would end with collateral damage, in the form of wrecked clothing, from the poosplosion. If the diapers were put on too loose, crap would blow out the leg holes. Cinching the diapers up a little tighter, closed up the leg holes, but created a perfect escape route for a poo stampede out the topside. Not many things worse than finding crap in your little girl's hair, except maybe the trail that leads back to the source. One box of Huggies Snugglers we had, contained several misshapen diapers. I contacted the Huggies corporation by email to complain. I included several photos of the malformed diapers, and they immediately sent me a coupon for a free large size box as well as a coupon for $8 off any second purchase. I was appreciative of the customer care, and it gave me the opportunity to test out the Huggies Sensitives as well as get more crap on my hands from overflowing diapers.
Shopper's Drug Mart Life Brand: The only crap collector worse than the Huggies was the Shopper's Drug Mart Life Brand. If you are looking for an excuse to bleach everything your children wear, then this is the diaper for you. Typically, when one of the girls would finish her latest masterpiece (my babies are amazing at everything they do) I'd find more crap outside the diaper than in.
President's Choice Green Brand: Are, as the name implies, meant to be marketed to those parents that want to be earth friendly, but are not willing to put up with the inconvenience of cloth (not to mention that bulky cloth diapers makes your baby's butt look fat in those $100 baby jeans that they will wear 1 time in their whole lives). These diapers are supposed to be eco-friendly according to the website. It doesn't say how, whether in the manufacturing, or in the materials used. But they are fragrance free, which is a big plus (one of my wife's passions is researching chemicals in everyday products) and they do have well designed securing strips. I found that this brand did a really good job of pulling moisture away from my girls' skin and was proficient in corralling solid matter as well. The only problem I had with this brand was that you could only buy it in small packages (66 or fewer).
Pampers Swaddlers/Sensitive/Overnights: Our brand of choice, for daily use, is the Pampers Sensitives. They feature a well designed securing strap and can hold a huge quantity of crap. They are excellent at moving moisture away from sensitive skin (which is extremely important, you'll find, when you battle a round of diaper rash). This brand is more expensive than the Swaddlers, but in my opinion, worth the money.
Now that the girls are sleeping for long periods of time (they will sleep 12 hours through the night if we let them) we've got them wearing Pampers Overnights to bed. These things work. By morning (we put them on at 9:30pm and take them off at 8:30am with a check during their dream feed at 5:00am), they are the size of a balloon and weigh as much as a bowling ball...but the girls are never in discomfort, nor have they experienced a re-occurrence of their diaper rash. Please note, to any terrible parents out there, this is not an opportunity to further neglect your children. These are meant for overnight use, not all day use. Change your babies whenever they are dirty...
So that's it. My recommendation is Pampers Sensitive for day use and Pampers Overnights when your kids are old enough. Take it for what it is, one guy's opinion. Feel free to experiment...just keep a steady supply of extra sleepers for those poosasterous situations.
Poonami
Poopacalypse
The girls are going poozerk
Assalanche
It doesn't matter what you call it, it's going to happen. It's going to happen from day one and continue for years, so if you are squeamish about it, get over it now. The key to a well contained poosaster is the correct diaper. Make the wrong choice and find out how far out the neck hole of a sleeper a little girl can defecate.
This is strictly personal opinion, based on my personal experience of dealing with twin girls, so if you've got little boys, then you'll have to do your own experimenting.
The first thing you need to decide is earth vs. personal convenience, cloth vs. disposable. It's not that simple really. There are those that will argue both ways, and honestly, I'm not sure how true it is that cloth diapers are all that much more environmentally friendly when you take into account the delivery, cleaning, collection of waste, treatment of waste water (including facility maintenance, electricity, workers carbon footprint, etc...) and finally the transport of the cleansed water to the nearest lake. Disposable diapers, in my area at least, are composted and used as topsoil on farms and park land. The choice was pretty simple for us, with twins, the mountains of diapers that the girls would produce, we opted for disposable....f@ck this planet! (Just kidding, I love the earth).
First off, bring diapers with you to the hospital. The hospital, at least the hospitals in my area, don't supply diapers. We brought Huggies, newborns with us. We chose that particular brand because of the umbilical cutout. I had no idea how to strap a diaper, on a baby butt to begin with, so having to give consideration to irritating the stub of cord sticking out of my babies' bellies was just something else to worry about. Newborn diapers are good up to 8 pounds, so lots of couples will completely skip this size. I had no real complaints about the Huggies. As newborns the poops are small but frequent and the diapers held up well. Just so you are ready for it, the twins went through 44 diapers in one 24 hour period (that was a record for us).
We moved on to size 1 when the girls were right around 8 pounds. I'm usually pretty brand loyal...actually it has nothing to do with loyalty, I'm too lazy to look for or try anything new...if it had been left up to me I probably would never have tried a new brand, and I would have experienced more wrecked pants, soiled sleepwear and poo hairdos then I could have imagined. Luckily, loving relatives and friends often gifted us with diapers when they came to visit the girls (actually, when asked if there was anything that they, the visitors, could bring me, I always said a box of diapers). We ended up with several brands including: Huggies, Pampers, President's Choice Green Diapers, Shopper's Drug Mart Life Brand, Huggies Natural, Pampers Overnights and Pampers Sensitive. We tried them all, so below you'll find a review of what we discovered. Remember, this is a personal opinion, of our experience with two little girls. I've heard differing opinions when boy parts get involved.
Huggies/Huggies Sensitive: Once we were in size 1 we found these diapers just didn't hold up. Very often we would end with collateral damage, in the form of wrecked clothing, from the poosplosion. If the diapers were put on too loose, crap would blow out the leg holes. Cinching the diapers up a little tighter, closed up the leg holes, but created a perfect escape route for a poo stampede out the topside. Not many things worse than finding crap in your little girl's hair, except maybe the trail that leads back to the source. One box of Huggies Snugglers we had, contained several misshapen diapers. I contacted the Huggies corporation by email to complain. I included several photos of the malformed diapers, and they immediately sent me a coupon for a free large size box as well as a coupon for $8 off any second purchase. I was appreciative of the customer care, and it gave me the opportunity to test out the Huggies Sensitives as well as get more crap on my hands from overflowing diapers.
Shopper's Drug Mart Life Brand: The only crap collector worse than the Huggies was the Shopper's Drug Mart Life Brand. If you are looking for an excuse to bleach everything your children wear, then this is the diaper for you. Typically, when one of the girls would finish her latest masterpiece (my babies are amazing at everything they do) I'd find more crap outside the diaper than in.
President's Choice Green Brand: Are, as the name implies, meant to be marketed to those parents that want to be earth friendly, but are not willing to put up with the inconvenience of cloth (not to mention that bulky cloth diapers makes your baby's butt look fat in those $100 baby jeans that they will wear 1 time in their whole lives). These diapers are supposed to be eco-friendly according to the website. It doesn't say how, whether in the manufacturing, or in the materials used. But they are fragrance free, which is a big plus (one of my wife's passions is researching chemicals in everyday products) and they do have well designed securing strips. I found that this brand did a really good job of pulling moisture away from my girls' skin and was proficient in corralling solid matter as well. The only problem I had with this brand was that you could only buy it in small packages (66 or fewer).
Pampers Swaddlers/Sensitive/Overnights: Our brand of choice, for daily use, is the Pampers Sensitives. They feature a well designed securing strap and can hold a huge quantity of crap. They are excellent at moving moisture away from sensitive skin (which is extremely important, you'll find, when you battle a round of diaper rash). This brand is more expensive than the Swaddlers, but in my opinion, worth the money.
Now that the girls are sleeping for long periods of time (they will sleep 12 hours through the night if we let them) we've got them wearing Pampers Overnights to bed. These things work. By morning (we put them on at 9:30pm and take them off at 8:30am with a check during their dream feed at 5:00am), they are the size of a balloon and weigh as much as a bowling ball...but the girls are never in discomfort, nor have they experienced a re-occurrence of their diaper rash. Please note, to any terrible parents out there, this is not an opportunity to further neglect your children. These are meant for overnight use, not all day use. Change your babies whenever they are dirty...
So that's it. My recommendation is Pampers Sensitive for day use and Pampers Overnights when your kids are old enough. Take it for what it is, one guy's opinion. Feel free to experiment...just keep a steady supply of extra sleepers for those poosasterous situations.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
When the Zombies Come
We faced a "scare" here in Toronto recently. The same problem that the entire East coast of North America faced...hurricane Sandy. The chances of the storm reaching this far inland with any strength, in my opinion, were pretty remote. Yes, there were some power outages, but it was not worth all the panic spread by the local news stations. There was a run on bottled water and other basic supplies at the stores. Basic supplies being things like beans and canned pig product. People were afraid that their power would go out and all the food in their fridge would spoil...it's 0 degrees outside...put your perishables outdoors for the few hours you don't have lights. While many others were standing in line at the grocers, I was filling various containers with fresh tap water, boiling the eggs we had in the house (yes, I guess I could have eaten them raw) and cooking up a big batch of rice. That simple prep would have taken my family through several days without electricity or at least long enough for us to drive far enough west to find a hotel with hot and cold running water. In fact, I took that opportunity to look through the cupboards of my kitchen to see exactly what I had available should the lights go out forever. There was easily enough food to last a couple of weeks, if one was willing to eat stale ice cream cones (without the ice cream). The whole Sandy hurricane scare got me thinking though, now that I have children, what will I do when a real threat looms, like a zombie apocalypse?
There are several stages to a man's life, and really, only the first is ideal when that meteor carrying zombie infection hits the earth. As a young man, single and childless, you are in good shape physically for survival. Maybe a little brazen, with extra machismo thrown in. Sure, that could be dangerous when fighting zombies. The smart guy will survive and prosper though. All a young man needs do is look out for himself...unless of course he meets that special lady, a sexy survivor perhaps? That throws him into the second stage of manhood. Now sure, he's got a reason to live, a beautiful woman, but still, if it comes down to it, the dude is going to sacrifice himself to make sure his lady friend can make it out alive. If, however, the couple live through at least one night (and then 9 months on the run) they are probably going to have sex in the safe room of an abandoned millionaire's mansion or a fortified church. The offspring, if not zombified in utero or immediately after birth, will bring on the third and final stage of manhood...that of being a father. As a father you are most certainly dead. If you've made it this far though, you can count on a few more good years. You'll need to train your offspring to forage for food and weapons as well as teach them to kill zombies. If you are lucky, then you still have your wife by your side to help with the training...but the chances are at least 50/50 that you had to kill her when she died in childbirth and came back as the living dead, so you might very well be doing all the schooling on your own. Not long after your children become teenagers, you'll be killed unexpectedly by a zombie, after an argument with your daughter ("you are not leaving this house with your pistol tucked in your thigh-highs like that missy!"), causes her to storm out of the stronghold, carelessly leaving the backdoor unbarred.
Unfortunately for me, I missed all the easy survival years and am now firmly set in stage 3. (Looks like learning to perform a c-section through that internet course was pointless) Twin girls will probably train faster too, competing against and learning from one another, so my time is pretty limited. I, like all of you, am expecting zombie destruction in December, 2012 as predicted by the Mayan calendar. That gives me a little bit of time to put together a good survival kit and breakout bag. The chances of my wife allowing me to construct or purchase a survival shotgun are slim...so I'll have to come up with something equally cool...I may take up archery...she probably won't complain about that. The age of the children in your party is something equally important to consider when putting together your survival gear. In a few months mine will still be helpless babies and completely useless in helping survive the walking dead. Besides additional food (breast milk supplies maybe low if my wife is on the run and suffering from a lower calorie diet), I have to try and find some type of soother or muffler that can convert my babies cries to nature based sounds, like running water or something...or possibly something that can convert baby screams into zombie moans...zombies are attracted to the sounds of a baby crying, to them it's an easy to grab snack, so some type of baby muffler is key to survival. Thanks to the still functioning internet and my forethought in looking into this before the zombies do start to crawl out of the earth, I was able to find this fully functional baby muffler as well as this patented crying baby muffler. Go eat some other baby's brains zombie!
So it looks like this stay-at-home dad is in pretty good shape to survive the upcoming apocalypse. Our girls are old enough now that my wife and I can get back to the gym once again. We'll be in good fighting and running shape in no time...so bring it on December, 2012!
There are several stages to a man's life, and really, only the first is ideal when that meteor carrying zombie infection hits the earth. As a young man, single and childless, you are in good shape physically for survival. Maybe a little brazen, with extra machismo thrown in. Sure, that could be dangerous when fighting zombies. The smart guy will survive and prosper though. All a young man needs do is look out for himself...unless of course he meets that special lady, a sexy survivor perhaps? That throws him into the second stage of manhood. Now sure, he's got a reason to live, a beautiful woman, but still, if it comes down to it, the dude is going to sacrifice himself to make sure his lady friend can make it out alive. If, however, the couple live through at least one night (and then 9 months on the run) they are probably going to have sex in the safe room of an abandoned millionaire's mansion or a fortified church. The offspring, if not zombified in utero or immediately after birth, will bring on the third and final stage of manhood...that of being a father. As a father you are most certainly dead. If you've made it this far though, you can count on a few more good years. You'll need to train your offspring to forage for food and weapons as well as teach them to kill zombies. If you are lucky, then you still have your wife by your side to help with the training...but the chances are at least 50/50 that you had to kill her when she died in childbirth and came back as the living dead, so you might very well be doing all the schooling on your own. Not long after your children become teenagers, you'll be killed unexpectedly by a zombie, after an argument with your daughter ("you are not leaving this house with your pistol tucked in your thigh-highs like that missy!"), causes her to storm out of the stronghold, carelessly leaving the backdoor unbarred.
Unfortunately for me, I missed all the easy survival years and am now firmly set in stage 3. (Looks like learning to perform a c-section through that internet course was pointless) Twin girls will probably train faster too, competing against and learning from one another, so my time is pretty limited. I, like all of you, am expecting zombie destruction in December, 2012 as predicted by the Mayan calendar. That gives me a little bit of time to put together a good survival kit and breakout bag. The chances of my wife allowing me to construct or purchase a survival shotgun are slim...so I'll have to come up with something equally cool...I may take up archery...she probably won't complain about that. The age of the children in your party is something equally important to consider when putting together your survival gear. In a few months mine will still be helpless babies and completely useless in helping survive the walking dead. Besides additional food (breast milk supplies maybe low if my wife is on the run and suffering from a lower calorie diet), I have to try and find some type of soother or muffler that can convert my babies cries to nature based sounds, like running water or something...or possibly something that can convert baby screams into zombie moans...zombies are attracted to the sounds of a baby crying, to them it's an easy to grab snack, so some type of baby muffler is key to survival. Thanks to the still functioning internet and my forethought in looking into this before the zombies do start to crawl out of the earth, I was able to find this fully functional baby muffler as well as this patented crying baby muffler. Go eat some other baby's brains zombie!
So it looks like this stay-at-home dad is in pretty good shape to survive the upcoming apocalypse. Our girls are old enough now that my wife and I can get back to the gym once again. We'll be in good fighting and running shape in no time...so bring it on December, 2012!
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Full Night's Sleep
Hello all...
I hope you'll forgive me for stepping away from the blog for such a long period of time. I won't even call this entry a return. It's more of an update then an entry.
For the last month we've been sleep training the girls. We successfully followed the famous, in multiples circle anyway, book, "12 Hours Sleep in 12 Weeks". The book has been republished under a new title "The Baby Sleep Solution: A Proven Program to Teach Your Baby to Sleep Twelve Hours a Night". The title is almost longer than the book. It only takes a few hours to read. The writing will actually insult most people with a normal IQ, but as the title promises your babies will be sleeping 12 hours a night. (or maybe it's written for parents experiencing a lowered IQ due to lack of sleep). The program took us just under 11 weeks. We've been giving the girls their last feeding at 8:30pm and getting them out of bed at 8:30am.
I'll summarize the book for you in just a few sentences, all you are missing, if you don't buy the book, is a couple of examples that belabor these points.
1. For the first 6 weeks, don't create any bad eating/sleeping habits. Make sure your babies are sleeping in the crib rather than where ever they may drop. Avoid the use of vibrating chairs, etc, to put your babies to sleep. Don't allow your children to become dependent on some weird activity to be able to eat or sleep.
2. Between weeks 6 and 8...this is a period of growth so expect your babies to be extra fussy. Do whatever you need to do to get through this time with your sanity intact. Try not to form any bad habits.
3. Step three is actually the bulk of the program. Up to this point, as you can see from above, you really haven't done anything. The book should probably be entitled 12 hours in 4 weeks...There are several stages to this step: 4 hour daily feed schedule, eliminate night feeds, stretch crib time, 3 hours of nap time during the day. The requirements to begin training is that your babies weigh 9 pounds and eat 720 mls in a 24 hour period.
A. Move your babies to a 4 hour feed schedule during the day (12 hour period). To be honest, I don't really understand the purpose of this stage, other than for the parents convenience and to allow better naps. We had previously been on a 3 hour schedule. The book suggested that feeds be increased by 15 minutes (up to 30 minutes) until the desired feed period is reached. It actually gives several examples of what the a 3 hour schedule should be: 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and then gives several examples of what a 4 hour feed would look like: 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm. The author does, at one point, suggest that the start time could begin on the half or quarter hour, but that an example might just be to confusing to her readers. She doesn't, however, other than to indicate that the feeds should be made 15 minutes longer suggest how a 3 hour and 15 minute feed divides evenly in 12 hours (the total day period). Your guess is as good as mine. You don't want to put your kids to bed for more than 12 hours, but if the day period is not divisible by the feed period, you are left with some additional time. We increased the interval as suggested and then elected to "top up" the girls just before they retired. The book suggests that the babies should be allowed to remain at the increased time for 3 days, meaning that for 3 days they have 3 hour and 15 minute feed period. 3 days, it is suggested, creates habit. If you were to follow this advice exactly, it would take 12 days to move your children from a 3 hour schedule to a 4 hour schedule.
B. Eliminate Night Feedings. The order suggested for elimination is second to last feeding, last feeding, first feeding. So, if your last day feeding was at 7pm, the first night feeding at 10pm, then 1am then 4am, and 7am is once again your first day feeding, eliminate 1am, then 4am, then 10pm. Each feed is to be reduced by 15 mls for 3 days until it has been completely eliminated. Our girls were eating a fair bit at night. They actually only had 2 night feeds, one of which was 120 mls while the other was 60 mls. To eliminate the 60 mls, in 15 ml increments should require 12 days. To eliminate the 120 mls in 15 increments should require 21 days. So 12 days from step A above and 33 days from this stage is a total of 45 days...4 weeks, the time that the author indicates this portion of the program should take, is 28 days...simple math suggests that her book is inappropriately named. However, one of the rules in her program is that should the baby self-reduce a feeding amount, or self-increase the time until the next feeding, then don't step backwards. This actually reduces the time required, because babies do seem to self-extend and self-reduce. In fact, after we had eliminated the second night feeding, our girls practically slept through the first one. There were a few nights, that they required a couple of mls, but the first feeding disappeared very quickly.
C. Extend Crib Time. Basically the book suggests that your babies should be in their cribs of 12 hours. They are not necessarily sleeping, they maybe playing quietly or self soothing, but they are in the crib for that full amount of time. Once again, the book is inappropriately titled, because the author suggests the babies may not actually be sleeping. Stage B and C seemed to go hand in hand for us. Our girls just stayed in the crib...maybe it's because they can't do much more than lay where we put them...but nonetheless they stay in their cribs.
D. 3 Hours of Scheduled Nap Time. This section says to put your babies in their crib for 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. During this time they may not sleep, but they, once again may self-sooth or play quietly. There's no real advice here, just put them to bed. Again, for us, this step required no real work on our part. Our girls sleep well during the day.
Now, after reading through the above, you might be asking yourself, "Hey, I took all that food away from my babies at night, aren't they going to be missing out on the appropriate nourishment?" As you may have figured out already, the missing mls need to be added in during the day. A 15 ml drop spread over 4 day feeds is trivial. But our girls dropped over 100 mls in only a few days. Adding 25 mls to each feeding, not to mention the fact that the girls are gaining weight and have different intake requirements from when they began the training, is just to much for their bellies to take in. A baby requires 2.5 ounces (28-30 mls/ounce) per pound. Our girls are about 11 pounds, so they need 27.5 ounces or 825 mls in a 24 hour period. 206 mls during each feeding, is a drastic increase from their previous day feedings. Right now our girls take in about 170 mls comfortably, 185 is the top end. I think if there had been a longer reduction period in the night feedings their little stomachs would have stretched to take in extra each day, but to suddenly increase each feeding by more than 30 mls, just didn't work. We were putting the girls to bed at a deficit each night. We honestly didn't even realize it until we did their weight based nutritional calculation. The girls were sleeping fine, we were getting plenty of sleep, everyone seemed happy. Sure, the girls weren't getting all they needed to grow healthy and strong, and their little brains weren't going to be growing at a rate that their super genius genes should allow, but everyone was well rested. Our first idea was to simply increase, appropriately, the amount of food they were getting during the day. The results were not spectacular. We faced increased, LARGE volume, spit ups from one of the girls...and when I write LARGE, I mean scary big...maybe just first time parents scary, but scary just the same, and a refusal to eat from the other. Their little bellies just couldn't handle the sudden increase in volume.
There are those reading this that are going to think that my wife and I are crazy, but we decided to add back a night feeding. We added a 5am feeding of 100 mls, that we will eliminate at a slow pace, while simultaneously increasing the daily feed amounts. We've decided to reduce the 100 mls, by 20 mls every 5 days, and increase by 5 mls each of the four daily feeds. We are hoping that this will give the girls time to adjust to the increased volume. It's no real hardship for me either. The girls are down by 9:30 (after their 8:30 pm feeding) and I immediately follow. We wake (to a phone alarm) at 5am, dream feed the girls (about 15 minutes) and then my wife heads back to bed. I will be staying up and writing to you fine people,or working on one of the additional projects I have going on now. I still get 7 hours sleep and then 3 hours of alone time while my girls sleep until 8:30am.
I'm sure there will be those who have had a different experience with the "The Baby Sleep Solution: A Proven Program to Teach Your Baby to Sleep Twelve Hours a Night" book. There are those that won't even think about the amount of food their children are getting, because there are no visible signs of distress from their babies when the night feeds are quickly eliminated. It might even be that I'm uptight and overly nervous (I bought a scale so that we could weigh the girls after each breast feeding to properly calculate their daily intake), but all I want is for my girls to be the happiest and healthiest they can be.
I hope you'll forgive me for stepping away from the blog for such a long period of time. I won't even call this entry a return. It's more of an update then an entry.
For the last month we've been sleep training the girls. We successfully followed the famous, in multiples circle anyway, book, "12 Hours Sleep in 12 Weeks". The book has been republished under a new title "The Baby Sleep Solution: A Proven Program to Teach Your Baby to Sleep Twelve Hours a Night". The title is almost longer than the book. It only takes a few hours to read. The writing will actually insult most people with a normal IQ, but as the title promises your babies will be sleeping 12 hours a night. (or maybe it's written for parents experiencing a lowered IQ due to lack of sleep). The program took us just under 11 weeks. We've been giving the girls their last feeding at 8:30pm and getting them out of bed at 8:30am.
I'll summarize the book for you in just a few sentences, all you are missing, if you don't buy the book, is a couple of examples that belabor these points.
1. For the first 6 weeks, don't create any bad eating/sleeping habits. Make sure your babies are sleeping in the crib rather than where ever they may drop. Avoid the use of vibrating chairs, etc, to put your babies to sleep. Don't allow your children to become dependent on some weird activity to be able to eat or sleep.
2. Between weeks 6 and 8...this is a period of growth so expect your babies to be extra fussy. Do whatever you need to do to get through this time with your sanity intact. Try not to form any bad habits.
3. Step three is actually the bulk of the program. Up to this point, as you can see from above, you really haven't done anything. The book should probably be entitled 12 hours in 4 weeks...There are several stages to this step: 4 hour daily feed schedule, eliminate night feeds, stretch crib time, 3 hours of nap time during the day. The requirements to begin training is that your babies weigh 9 pounds and eat 720 mls in a 24 hour period.
A. Move your babies to a 4 hour feed schedule during the day (12 hour period). To be honest, I don't really understand the purpose of this stage, other than for the parents convenience and to allow better naps. We had previously been on a 3 hour schedule. The book suggested that feeds be increased by 15 minutes (up to 30 minutes) until the desired feed period is reached. It actually gives several examples of what the a 3 hour schedule should be: 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and then gives several examples of what a 4 hour feed would look like: 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm. The author does, at one point, suggest that the start time could begin on the half or quarter hour, but that an example might just be to confusing to her readers. She doesn't, however, other than to indicate that the feeds should be made 15 minutes longer suggest how a 3 hour and 15 minute feed divides evenly in 12 hours (the total day period). Your guess is as good as mine. You don't want to put your kids to bed for more than 12 hours, but if the day period is not divisible by the feed period, you are left with some additional time. We increased the interval as suggested and then elected to "top up" the girls just before they retired. The book suggests that the babies should be allowed to remain at the increased time for 3 days, meaning that for 3 days they have 3 hour and 15 minute feed period. 3 days, it is suggested, creates habit. If you were to follow this advice exactly, it would take 12 days to move your children from a 3 hour schedule to a 4 hour schedule.
B. Eliminate Night Feedings. The order suggested for elimination is second to last feeding, last feeding, first feeding. So, if your last day feeding was at 7pm, the first night feeding at 10pm, then 1am then 4am, and 7am is once again your first day feeding, eliminate 1am, then 4am, then 10pm. Each feed is to be reduced by 15 mls for 3 days until it has been completely eliminated. Our girls were eating a fair bit at night. They actually only had 2 night feeds, one of which was 120 mls while the other was 60 mls. To eliminate the 60 mls, in 15 ml increments should require 12 days. To eliminate the 120 mls in 15 increments should require 21 days. So 12 days from step A above and 33 days from this stage is a total of 45 days...4 weeks, the time that the author indicates this portion of the program should take, is 28 days...simple math suggests that her book is inappropriately named. However, one of the rules in her program is that should the baby self-reduce a feeding amount, or self-increase the time until the next feeding, then don't step backwards. This actually reduces the time required, because babies do seem to self-extend and self-reduce. In fact, after we had eliminated the second night feeding, our girls practically slept through the first one. There were a few nights, that they required a couple of mls, but the first feeding disappeared very quickly.
C. Extend Crib Time. Basically the book suggests that your babies should be in their cribs of 12 hours. They are not necessarily sleeping, they maybe playing quietly or self soothing, but they are in the crib for that full amount of time. Once again, the book is inappropriately titled, because the author suggests the babies may not actually be sleeping. Stage B and C seemed to go hand in hand for us. Our girls just stayed in the crib...maybe it's because they can't do much more than lay where we put them...but nonetheless they stay in their cribs.
D. 3 Hours of Scheduled Nap Time. This section says to put your babies in their crib for 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. During this time they may not sleep, but they, once again may self-sooth or play quietly. There's no real advice here, just put them to bed. Again, for us, this step required no real work on our part. Our girls sleep well during the day.
Now, after reading through the above, you might be asking yourself, "Hey, I took all that food away from my babies at night, aren't they going to be missing out on the appropriate nourishment?" As you may have figured out already, the missing mls need to be added in during the day. A 15 ml drop spread over 4 day feeds is trivial. But our girls dropped over 100 mls in only a few days. Adding 25 mls to each feeding, not to mention the fact that the girls are gaining weight and have different intake requirements from when they began the training, is just to much for their bellies to take in. A baby requires 2.5 ounces (28-30 mls/ounce) per pound. Our girls are about 11 pounds, so they need 27.5 ounces or 825 mls in a 24 hour period. 206 mls during each feeding, is a drastic increase from their previous day feedings. Right now our girls take in about 170 mls comfortably, 185 is the top end. I think if there had been a longer reduction period in the night feedings their little stomachs would have stretched to take in extra each day, but to suddenly increase each feeding by more than 30 mls, just didn't work. We were putting the girls to bed at a deficit each night. We honestly didn't even realize it until we did their weight based nutritional calculation. The girls were sleeping fine, we were getting plenty of sleep, everyone seemed happy. Sure, the girls weren't getting all they needed to grow healthy and strong, and their little brains weren't going to be growing at a rate that their super genius genes should allow, but everyone was well rested. Our first idea was to simply increase, appropriately, the amount of food they were getting during the day. The results were not spectacular. We faced increased, LARGE volume, spit ups from one of the girls...and when I write LARGE, I mean scary big...maybe just first time parents scary, but scary just the same, and a refusal to eat from the other. Their little bellies just couldn't handle the sudden increase in volume.
There are those reading this that are going to think that my wife and I are crazy, but we decided to add back a night feeding. We added a 5am feeding of 100 mls, that we will eliminate at a slow pace, while simultaneously increasing the daily feed amounts. We've decided to reduce the 100 mls, by 20 mls every 5 days, and increase by 5 mls each of the four daily feeds. We are hoping that this will give the girls time to adjust to the increased volume. It's no real hardship for me either. The girls are down by 9:30 (after their 8:30 pm feeding) and I immediately follow. We wake (to a phone alarm) at 5am, dream feed the girls (about 15 minutes) and then my wife heads back to bed. I will be staying up and writing to you fine people,or working on one of the additional projects I have going on now. I still get 7 hours sleep and then 3 hours of alone time while my girls sleep until 8:30am.
I'm sure there will be those who have had a different experience with the "The Baby Sleep Solution: A Proven Program to Teach Your Baby to Sleep Twelve Hours a Night" book. There are those that won't even think about the amount of food their children are getting, because there are no visible signs of distress from their babies when the night feeds are quickly eliminated. It might even be that I'm uptight and overly nervous (I bought a scale so that we could weigh the girls after each breast feeding to properly calculate their daily intake), but all I want is for my girls to be the happiest and healthiest they can be.
Friday, 21 September 2012
Let's See if I Can Schedule You In
Before having kids I had no idea why some parents were so adamant about baby naps or their children's bed time. I would find it outrageous when I'd ask a friend to lunch only to have them say they could only meet me between 1:30 and 2:30 because little Johnny's nap time is at 3:00. It's lunch, I'd think to myself, you sit around all day watching your baby yawn, with loads of free time while I'm at work...lunch is at 12:00. I've never said that, of course, just thought it. Now I know. Now my eyes are open. Without a schedule there is no way to survive twins.
When the girls first came home we were strictly reactionary and I was desperately trying to hold on to my old way of life. Before the twins, I'd stay up to until 12:00 or 1:00, as was my custom, and wake at 6:00AM, to spend some quality time alone while my wife slept in. The thought of being in bed while the sun was still falling never entered my mind. If, in the past, by some accidental slip of time I was still in bed when the sun came up, I would have considered the day wasted and not bothered changing out of my pajamas (obviously I'm not referring to a work day). After living this way, on 5 or 6 hours sleep, for several weeks, my body would eventually give in and I would fall asleep early one evening to rejuvenate...early being, maybe 10 PM. Even when completely exhausted, it was a fight between body and brain. On those evenings, I would awake on the couch to the end credits of Aliens or some other film that I've seen a million times, but will still watch all the way through when it comes on TV, and be disappointed that I missed the bulk of the movie. I would then, begrudgingly, walk up the stairs to the bedroom for a few more hours sleep.
That was life before the ladies. Like I said, I tried to hold onto it but that only resulted in episodes of sleep deprived, zombie walking and periods of time completely filled with blurred reality and imagined happenings. One day I looked around the living room, the floor, piled high like a dragon's hoard, covered in vibrating chairs, bouncy chairs, play cribs, floor pads, Baby Einstein tummy time mats, several breast feeding pillows, TV trays, clothing the girls wouldn't fit into for months, gift bags, stuffed animals, unbreakable mirrors, baby carriers, car seats, burp cloths, soothers, change pads, extra diapers, swaddle blankets, warming blankets...every where I looked something had been stuffed. We had turned into one of those families you you see on TV, the ones you see on the house cleaning reality shows on the Women's Network or Home and Garden Channel. Our home was direction reflection of our lives. My wife and I are organized people, we plan things, we study and prepare. This wasn't us. We had been completely overwhelmed by the twins. Worse, we were not being fair to the girls either. Why were we reacting to their needs instead of anticipating them? That was the moment that put everything back on track. I stripped off my puke stained shirt and put on a new fresh white one. I coiled the Moby Wrap around my body and strapped on a baby. Then I went to work. Organized house, organized lives. We were missing routine. It wasn't going to be the old routine that we had been so comfortable with as married couple without children, but it would inject order into our lives.
My wife sorted all the clothing into "now" and "later" piles. The "now" pile was folded neatly into drawers in the nursery while the "later" disappeared into the basement. We tiled our basement floor in play mats and arranged the play chairs that the twins were not currently in love with about the room. We did the same with the main floor living room, tiles, 1 vibrating chair, 1 Baby Einstein Tummy Mat and a Pack-n-Play. All the toys were sorted, into piles, stuffed animals, rattles and things to suck on and finally, toys that made noise if you so much as looked at them. I removed all the batteries from the noisy pile and then boxed them up along with the rattles and suckie things...the girls are still a month or so away from using even the simplest of those toys. The stuffed animals filled a little pink toy box, which was brought into the nursery. We set up a diaper change station and filled it with the essential for cleaning babies. Burp clothes and little face towels were organized and placed within easy reach in the compartments of the Pack-n-Play. Blankets were folded and placed in a stack beside the couch...our physical space was organized!
With that complete we scheduled our time. We are lucky, we have help, my wife's mother has moved to the city and comes by each day. My parents live only a few hours away and stay over the weekend every 2 weeks. Their help is invaluable; they look after us while we look after the kids. With the idea in mind that we should never have more than 1 adult looking after 1 child, we came up with the following schedule:
Four, three hour feeding blocks during the twelve hour day period:
Block 1 - feed the babies. Helper arrives. When helper is ready remaining time before next feed is split between mommy and daddy. This is our self grooming time. Clean up and be ready for the day. I put on a clean shirt that usually makes it about 15 minutes before getting puked, crapped or peed on.
Block 2 - feed the babies. After feeding the helper takes charge of one child and mommy or daddy get personal time. 1.5 hours of personal time to be used however that person wants. I personally head to the gym to try and fight the flab that I have packed on over the last several months of eating prepackaged meals and baked goods.
Block 3 - feed the babies. Personal time for whomever didn't get any in block 2.
Block 4 - feed the babies. Afterward, it's baby bath and scream time or we head out for a nice walk as a family. Once which ever activity we have chosen is complete, my wife and I get completely ready for bed.
The next 12 hours is broken up into 3, 4 night hour blocks:
Block 5 - depending on how badly the day shift slipped, this is either a full feed or simply a top up. Either way, we feed the babies and then everyone crawls into bed. This is the longest block of sleep we, my wife and I, will get all night. Because we were ready for bed at the end of block 4, including breast pumping, we can expect about 3.5 hours of consecutive sleep...AWESEOME!
Block 6 - feed the babies, wash baby butts, wash bottles, breast pump (my wife doesn't breast feed at night). We are on a sliding sleep scale here; at this time there is 3.5 hours between feeds because that is all that the hungry girls will allow. By the time we get to bed, we can expect 2 hours of sleep.
Block 7 - feed the babies, wash baby butts, wash bottles, pump breasts. Now the girls are getting tired of being in bed so we are looking at 2.5 to 3 hours between feeds. Most nights that means 1 hour sleep for us after all is said and done. When the girls have sucked their fill it's extended play time until our helper arrives.
It doesn't sound like much, but 6.5 hours sleep is an infinite amount more than we used to get.
So that's our scheduled lives. The key to keeping our sanity has been the 1.5 hours of personal time and being absolutely ready to pop into bed after the girls first night feed.
This of course is all going to change by the time the twins are 3 months old. Experts and anecdotal evidence alike has promised me that by 3 months the girls will be sleeping 12 hours through the night and 3 hours of naps during the day. There won't be so much of a need for personal time at that point. We'll be able to take time for ourselves while the girls sleep. Sleeping through the night will actually allow mommy and daddy, mommy and daddy time.
I hope this helps anyone reading this blog that is about start a new life with new twins. Good luck, and stay organized.
When the girls first came home we were strictly reactionary and I was desperately trying to hold on to my old way of life. Before the twins, I'd stay up to until 12:00 or 1:00, as was my custom, and wake at 6:00AM, to spend some quality time alone while my wife slept in. The thought of being in bed while the sun was still falling never entered my mind. If, in the past, by some accidental slip of time I was still in bed when the sun came up, I would have considered the day wasted and not bothered changing out of my pajamas (obviously I'm not referring to a work day). After living this way, on 5 or 6 hours sleep, for several weeks, my body would eventually give in and I would fall asleep early one evening to rejuvenate...early being, maybe 10 PM. Even when completely exhausted, it was a fight between body and brain. On those evenings, I would awake on the couch to the end credits of Aliens or some other film that I've seen a million times, but will still watch all the way through when it comes on TV, and be disappointed that I missed the bulk of the movie. I would then, begrudgingly, walk up the stairs to the bedroom for a few more hours sleep.
That was life before the ladies. Like I said, I tried to hold onto it but that only resulted in episodes of sleep deprived, zombie walking and periods of time completely filled with blurred reality and imagined happenings. One day I looked around the living room, the floor, piled high like a dragon's hoard, covered in vibrating chairs, bouncy chairs, play cribs, floor pads, Baby Einstein tummy time mats, several breast feeding pillows, TV trays, clothing the girls wouldn't fit into for months, gift bags, stuffed animals, unbreakable mirrors, baby carriers, car seats, burp cloths, soothers, change pads, extra diapers, swaddle blankets, warming blankets...every where I looked something had been stuffed. We had turned into one of those families you you see on TV, the ones you see on the house cleaning reality shows on the Women's Network or Home and Garden Channel. Our home was direction reflection of our lives. My wife and I are organized people, we plan things, we study and prepare. This wasn't us. We had been completely overwhelmed by the twins. Worse, we were not being fair to the girls either. Why were we reacting to their needs instead of anticipating them? That was the moment that put everything back on track. I stripped off my puke stained shirt and put on a new fresh white one. I coiled the Moby Wrap around my body and strapped on a baby. Then I went to work. Organized house, organized lives. We were missing routine. It wasn't going to be the old routine that we had been so comfortable with as married couple without children, but it would inject order into our lives.
My wife sorted all the clothing into "now" and "later" piles. The "now" pile was folded neatly into drawers in the nursery while the "later" disappeared into the basement. We tiled our basement floor in play mats and arranged the play chairs that the twins were not currently in love with about the room. We did the same with the main floor living room, tiles, 1 vibrating chair, 1 Baby Einstein Tummy Mat and a Pack-n-Play. All the toys were sorted, into piles, stuffed animals, rattles and things to suck on and finally, toys that made noise if you so much as looked at them. I removed all the batteries from the noisy pile and then boxed them up along with the rattles and suckie things...the girls are still a month or so away from using even the simplest of those toys. The stuffed animals filled a little pink toy box, which was brought into the nursery. We set up a diaper change station and filled it with the essential for cleaning babies. Burp clothes and little face towels were organized and placed within easy reach in the compartments of the Pack-n-Play. Blankets were folded and placed in a stack beside the couch...our physical space was organized!
With that complete we scheduled our time. We are lucky, we have help, my wife's mother has moved to the city and comes by each day. My parents live only a few hours away and stay over the weekend every 2 weeks. Their help is invaluable; they look after us while we look after the kids. With the idea in mind that we should never have more than 1 adult looking after 1 child, we came up with the following schedule:
Four, three hour feeding blocks during the twelve hour day period:
Block 1 - feed the babies. Helper arrives. When helper is ready remaining time before next feed is split between mommy and daddy. This is our self grooming time. Clean up and be ready for the day. I put on a clean shirt that usually makes it about 15 minutes before getting puked, crapped or peed on.
Block 2 - feed the babies. After feeding the helper takes charge of one child and mommy or daddy get personal time. 1.5 hours of personal time to be used however that person wants. I personally head to the gym to try and fight the flab that I have packed on over the last several months of eating prepackaged meals and baked goods.
Block 3 - feed the babies. Personal time for whomever didn't get any in block 2.
Block 4 - feed the babies. Afterward, it's baby bath and scream time or we head out for a nice walk as a family. Once which ever activity we have chosen is complete, my wife and I get completely ready for bed.
The next 12 hours is broken up into 3, 4 night hour blocks:
Block 5 - depending on how badly the day shift slipped, this is either a full feed or simply a top up. Either way, we feed the babies and then everyone crawls into bed. This is the longest block of sleep we, my wife and I, will get all night. Because we were ready for bed at the end of block 4, including breast pumping, we can expect about 3.5 hours of consecutive sleep...AWESEOME!
Block 6 - feed the babies, wash baby butts, wash bottles, breast pump (my wife doesn't breast feed at night). We are on a sliding sleep scale here; at this time there is 3.5 hours between feeds because that is all that the hungry girls will allow. By the time we get to bed, we can expect 2 hours of sleep.
Block 7 - feed the babies, wash baby butts, wash bottles, pump breasts. Now the girls are getting tired of being in bed so we are looking at 2.5 to 3 hours between feeds. Most nights that means 1 hour sleep for us after all is said and done. When the girls have sucked their fill it's extended play time until our helper arrives.
It doesn't sound like much, but 6.5 hours sleep is an infinite amount more than we used to get.
So that's our scheduled lives. The key to keeping our sanity has been the 1.5 hours of personal time and being absolutely ready to pop into bed after the girls first night feed.
This of course is all going to change by the time the twins are 3 months old. Experts and anecdotal evidence alike has promised me that by 3 months the girls will be sleeping 12 hours through the night and 3 hours of naps during the day. There won't be so much of a need for personal time at that point. We'll be able to take time for ourselves while the girls sleep. Sleeping through the night will actually allow mommy and daddy, mommy and daddy time.
I hope this helps anyone reading this blog that is about start a new life with new twins. Good luck, and stay organized.
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Baby Dreams
I don't actually dream at night, or, more likely, I don't remember them. Not right now anyway, I think I'm just to tired. I sleep the sleep of the dead. I'm dead to the world, with any and all sensory connection disabled. That is, with the exception of two sounds, my phone alarm that tells me to get up because I have 15 minutes until the girls will eat, and the girls wailing cries that tell me "daddy I should have eaten 15 minutes ago!" It's a toss up which I will actually hear in any given night feeding block.
Regardless of why I wake the same process occurs in my brain...I immediately give consideration to the baby I am holding. We don't actually co-sleep with the twins. We follow Canada's sleep guide and have our girls in a crib, free of toys, blankets, comforters, etc, right next to our bed where they can wake us whenever they'd like. But still, for some reason I wake up looking for the little girl I was just snuggling. It takes a few moments for the fog to clear and to come to the realization that both girls are safe in their crib. Clear headed, I give my wife a little shake and tell her it's time to feed, to which she slurs "I can't get up until you take the baby from me." We go back and forth for a bit, until I mime taking a baby out of her arms or she fully wakes and realizes that both girls were and are safe in the crib.
Mommy's Dreams
My wife and I are not alone in our newly acquired dream habits. In fact, a variation of this type of dream is so common that it has been well researched in sleep labs. A quick internet search comes up with a long list of moms suffering from our same waking dreams...or similar imaginings at least. The common thought upon waking is not that one is simply holding a baby, which I think occurs because I have been toting around a child, none stop, for the previous forever, but that one's baby is lost somewhere under the covers of the bed and dying slowly of suffocation.
One such study, completed here in Canada, interviewed 275 women and found that between 88% and 91% of women who were either pregnant, or were new moms, had the "baby in bed" dream in which the baby was lost in the bed. The result of which is a frantic search through the covers for her missing child.
Baby's Dreams
It has been observed in studies (where is the research money coming from to study baby dreams?) that babies spend 50% of their sleep time in REM sleep (the state associated with dreaming). That's 100% more time than adults. Experts suggest that because infants have no language, their dreams consist solely of imagery, and that because infants are without fear, with the exception of a wariness of strangers, they don't actually have nightmares. 100% more dreams and all of them good? Sounds nice to me.
How one becomes an expert in baby dreams I have no idea. I asked both my girls separately about their dreams and all each of them said was "WAAHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA". If, however, the so called experts are correct then the twins are dreaming about the things within their realm of experience...a big breasted woman at their beck and call.
Daddy's Dreams
Daddy's dreams are simple. We dream of world in which our children are safe and happy. A life for our babies filled with joy and excitement...also, like our babies, big breasted women at our beck and call.
Regardless of why I wake the same process occurs in my brain...I immediately give consideration to the baby I am holding. We don't actually co-sleep with the twins. We follow Canada's sleep guide and have our girls in a crib, free of toys, blankets, comforters, etc, right next to our bed where they can wake us whenever they'd like. But still, for some reason I wake up looking for the little girl I was just snuggling. It takes a few moments for the fog to clear and to come to the realization that both girls are safe in their crib. Clear headed, I give my wife a little shake and tell her it's time to feed, to which she slurs "I can't get up until you take the baby from me." We go back and forth for a bit, until I mime taking a baby out of her arms or she fully wakes and realizes that both girls were and are safe in the crib.
Mommy's Dreams
My wife and I are not alone in our newly acquired dream habits. In fact, a variation of this type of dream is so common that it has been well researched in sleep labs. A quick internet search comes up with a long list of moms suffering from our same waking dreams...or similar imaginings at least. The common thought upon waking is not that one is simply holding a baby, which I think occurs because I have been toting around a child, none stop, for the previous forever, but that one's baby is lost somewhere under the covers of the bed and dying slowly of suffocation.
One such study, completed here in Canada, interviewed 275 women and found that between 88% and 91% of women who were either pregnant, or were new moms, had the "baby in bed" dream in which the baby was lost in the bed. The result of which is a frantic search through the covers for her missing child.
Baby's Dreams
It has been observed in studies (where is the research money coming from to study baby dreams?) that babies spend 50% of their sleep time in REM sleep (the state associated with dreaming). That's 100% more time than adults. Experts suggest that because infants have no language, their dreams consist solely of imagery, and that because infants are without fear, with the exception of a wariness of strangers, they don't actually have nightmares. 100% more dreams and all of them good? Sounds nice to me.
How one becomes an expert in baby dreams I have no idea. I asked both my girls separately about their dreams and all each of them said was "WAAHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA". If, however, the so called experts are correct then the twins are dreaming about the things within their realm of experience...a big breasted woman at their beck and call.
Daddy's Dreams
Daddy's dreams are simple. We dream of world in which our children are safe and happy. A life for our babies filled with joy and excitement...also, like our babies, big breasted women at our beck and call.
Saturday, 8 September 2012
When you grow up, I hope you have kids just like you...
I'm not going to mention any names in this post, knowing that years from now, while surfing the web archives, my daughters will stumble upon my writings. One of my little girls got the "bad girl" gene combo. It's a recessive trait, so will only be expressed if both the father and mother pass it along. As a good boy, I'm obviously carrying the "bad girl" and "bad boy" gene sequence, neither of which are expressed because both are recessive, resulting in a male with a pleasant attitude. Based on my wife's demeanour on most mornings of our 20 years together, she is carrying a double dose of "bad girl" gene. There was a 50% chance we were having a bad girl, and we did.
In their earliest years a double bad girl gene carrier will show a tendency towards grumpiness when hungry or tired (this will continue to be the case throughout life making mornings difficult for any man married to a bad girl). They will cry whether boob or bottle is at their lips. She'll cry harder if she is removed to burp. A bad girl decides at the spur of the moment if putting her down will elicit angry screams or picking her up is far worse. When hungry, she'll arch her back, head to the sky, eyes squeezed shut and she'll howl with the pitiful cry of the truly starving. A bad girl waits for you to finish her diaper change before releasing another torrent of urine, not all at once for certain; she makes the decision on just how much to allow to flow to prolong the butt wash game late into the night. Soothers won't sooth a bad girl, nor will daddy's stories before bed.
The bad girl is known by many different names: drama queen, attention seeker, squeaky wheel, diva, prima donna or future actress. The thing is, between little moans and bellowing cries, there are moments of calm filled with big eyes and fluttering lashes. When fists unclench and legs stop bicycling she'll strike a pose of serenity or wrap her body around yours in an all over hug. No matter what you call them, or how late they keep you up, you love them so much it hurts.
Please note, that I don't actually believe in a bad girl gene, nor do either of my little girls demand any more attention than I am willing to give. I am thankful for every moment I have to spend with them, whether those moments are filled screams or laughter. The truth is, the melodramatic, over the top, attention seeking attitude runs in my family. I have fallen victim to a much repeated saying around our dinner table "When you grow up, I hope you have kids just like you..."
That said, if there is a bad girl gene, they definitely got it from their mother...
In their earliest years a double bad girl gene carrier will show a tendency towards grumpiness when hungry or tired (this will continue to be the case throughout life making mornings difficult for any man married to a bad girl). They will cry whether boob or bottle is at their lips. She'll cry harder if she is removed to burp. A bad girl decides at the spur of the moment if putting her down will elicit angry screams or picking her up is far worse. When hungry, she'll arch her back, head to the sky, eyes squeezed shut and she'll howl with the pitiful cry of the truly starving. A bad girl waits for you to finish her diaper change before releasing another torrent of urine, not all at once for certain; she makes the decision on just how much to allow to flow to prolong the butt wash game late into the night. Soothers won't sooth a bad girl, nor will daddy's stories before bed.
The bad girl is known by many different names: drama queen, attention seeker, squeaky wheel, diva, prima donna or future actress. The thing is, between little moans and bellowing cries, there are moments of calm filled with big eyes and fluttering lashes. When fists unclench and legs stop bicycling she'll strike a pose of serenity or wrap her body around yours in an all over hug. No matter what you call them, or how late they keep you up, you love them so much it hurts.
Please note, that I don't actually believe in a bad girl gene, nor do either of my little girls demand any more attention than I am willing to give. I am thankful for every moment I have to spend with them, whether those moments are filled screams or laughter. The truth is, the melodramatic, over the top, attention seeking attitude runs in my family. I have fallen victim to a much repeated saying around our dinner table "When you grow up, I hope you have kids just like you..."
That said, if there is a bad girl gene, they definitely got it from their mother...
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
Everything I Wanted, Nothing I Expected
Maybe I was just naive, but I was in no way ready for twins as I thought I was. Many of my friends have had children and from the outside their lives hadn't seemed to change much. I still saw them often for a many of our usual activities; just sometimes they had a little person with them. Back then I had no interest in babies so, maybe I was to self-absorbed to notice their tired eyes and blurred speech. None of my friends had twins, so that might be the difference in what I saw and what I'm experiencing. Honestly I don't know. Whatever it was that blinded me to other's baby woes, it made me think that having a child would require only a slight lifestyle adjustment.
Nothing has been easy about having twins. We waited a long time before even deciding to have children. Then it took quite some time to actually conceive. That was my first wake up call. Based on every movie I'd ever seen, getting pregnant was going to be easy. I assumed I was so virile that if I simply walked passed a woman while I was supporting an erection she ran the risk of becoming with child. I was so worried, in my early teens, that I wouldn't go swimming if there was a female in the water, for fear that by dunking my testicles I could achieve long distance conception (I tested each pool by opening my eyes underwater. If they burned terribly, then there was sufficient chlorine to sterilize my super potent sperm.) It was not until after we started trying and we were not immediately successful, that I did some research and found that even at the optimal age, there is only a 25% chance of fertilization and then, only 2 days out of each cycle which conception was even possible (thanks nun taught catholic school sex education classes). Eventually, though, it all worked out...
Having twins didn't change anything in my mind; my girls would have the perfect playmate to keep them occupied. My wife and I had many discussions concerning our future...she being the ever planner and worrier began her quest to convince me that our lives were going to be very different. I being the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, answered with a "Whatever...it's going to be easy." In my mind things were going to be easy. I had these daydreams of my wife and I playing tennis, the girls sitting comfortably in their Baby Bjorn chairs babbling with delight and watching the yellow ball fly back and forth. This scenario allowed my whole family to exercise, my wife and I physically and the babes strengthening their necks and perfecting their tracking abilities. After we would all dine by the water on a blanket in the grass (the girls shaking their turkey drumsticks like a rattle before taking a big bite). Or another, often imagined situation; I, at my computer, working on an indie film or video game while the twins rest comfortably (again self soothing in the Baby Bjorn chairs), amusing each other with "twin speak"...can you believe it? Only a few months old and they are already communicating with each other.
I'm not disappointed in my reality, the girls are everything I wanted. Obviously the twins are not yet self sufficient, nor is there opportunity to spend time on independent works of film and games. There's no time for anything, really, other than care of the girls. That's something else that was completely unexpected. In all my classes, readings and conversations with others concerning newborns, sleep deprivation was always mentioned. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of sleep, so I was prepared for that. A topic never breached, however, is the tedium of routine that envelopes your life. Hours and days blur together in a string of feedings and dirty diapers. The tedious existence is far more taxing for me than missed sleep.
I'm not sure what else I have romanticized in my imaginings. I'm a dreamer, so probably a great deal will not match reality. Whatever the future holds, expected or not, I know that I have everything I have ever wanted in these two little girls.
Nothing has been easy about having twins. We waited a long time before even deciding to have children. Then it took quite some time to actually conceive. That was my first wake up call. Based on every movie I'd ever seen, getting pregnant was going to be easy. I assumed I was so virile that if I simply walked passed a woman while I was supporting an erection she ran the risk of becoming with child. I was so worried, in my early teens, that I wouldn't go swimming if there was a female in the water, for fear that by dunking my testicles I could achieve long distance conception (I tested each pool by opening my eyes underwater. If they burned terribly, then there was sufficient chlorine to sterilize my super potent sperm.) It was not until after we started trying and we were not immediately successful, that I did some research and found that even at the optimal age, there is only a 25% chance of fertilization and then, only 2 days out of each cycle which conception was even possible (thanks nun taught catholic school sex education classes). Eventually, though, it all worked out...
Having twins didn't change anything in my mind; my girls would have the perfect playmate to keep them occupied. My wife and I had many discussions concerning our future...she being the ever planner and worrier began her quest to convince me that our lives were going to be very different. I being the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, answered with a "Whatever...it's going to be easy." In my mind things were going to be easy. I had these daydreams of my wife and I playing tennis, the girls sitting comfortably in their Baby Bjorn chairs babbling with delight and watching the yellow ball fly back and forth. This scenario allowed my whole family to exercise, my wife and I physically and the babes strengthening their necks and perfecting their tracking abilities. After we would all dine by the water on a blanket in the grass (the girls shaking their turkey drumsticks like a rattle before taking a big bite). Or another, often imagined situation; I, at my computer, working on an indie film or video game while the twins rest comfortably (again self soothing in the Baby Bjorn chairs), amusing each other with "twin speak"...can you believe it? Only a few months old and they are already communicating with each other.
I'm not disappointed in my reality, the girls are everything I wanted. Obviously the twins are not yet self sufficient, nor is there opportunity to spend time on independent works of film and games. There's no time for anything, really, other than care of the girls. That's something else that was completely unexpected. In all my classes, readings and conversations with others concerning newborns, sleep deprivation was always mentioned. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of sleep, so I was prepared for that. A topic never breached, however, is the tedium of routine that envelopes your life. Hours and days blur together in a string of feedings and dirty diapers. The tedious existence is far more taxing for me than missed sleep.
I'm not sure what else I have romanticized in my imaginings. I'm a dreamer, so probably a great deal will not match reality. Whatever the future holds, expected or not, I know that I have everything I have ever wanted in these two little girls.
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Captain of My Own Ark
I know exactly how Noah felt on his ark. For those
unfamiliar with the christian, old testement story of Noah, it's about a
man who was warned of an impending flood of such magnitude, that would wipe out
all life upon the planet. Noah built an ark (boat) that was large enough
to pen two of every animal on the earth. When the flood waters receded
the animals were set free and allowed to repopulate the lands...except
the unicorns, of which Noah had accidentally saved two males (the torrid, gay
unicorn sex that occurred after the great flood caused all mention of the
beasts to be stripped from the bible). Anyway, I know what that ark must
have sounded like at night...
Our evening
routine is pretty straight forward right now. We do a final day light feeding at
around 8PM and then transition into our night time activities. We dim or
close the lights throughout the upper level of our house. We swaddle the
girls, tightly, and lie them in the crib in the bedroom. The sound
machine is turned on, beginning with a heart beat rhythm; the volume is turned
all the way up. Many new parents think the sound machine is a waste of
money and elect to use a radio, tuned off channel so that it is producing static
(white noise) instead. I personally like the variety of the sound machine
and actually use many of the settings. We then close the bedroom door and
leave the girls to calm down and begin to sleep. For those that are thinking
we are terrible parents for leaving the girls alone, unattended, we watch them
through a video monitor (Summer brand with night vision). That gives my
wife and I a few moments to ourselves (and I mean moments). When we
return to the room the girls are usually asleep. The sound machine is
switched over to ocean waves, so we can pretend to be somewhere in the Caribbean.
That's when the fun begins.
Most experts
recommend that your child sleep in your room until the age of 6 months.
That works fine for a singleton, or multiples if they have their own
sleeping space. Our girls are in a single crib next to our bed.
They'll stay there until they discover each other and start to do things, like suck each other's feet, or pull each other's hair. For now though,
they are in our room. What the experts neglect to tell new parents is
that babies are not quiet sleepers. They make some of the weirdest noises I've ever heard. The moment the lights go out and my head hits the pillow
they start in with their animal imitations. Primal grunts and snorts fill the darkness. I've heard monkeys, birds and
elephants. One of them even makes this hyena sound, a laughing bark
that is so distinct. Whenever I hear the sounds starting up, I leap out
of bed in an attempt to catch the boisterous party in the act. I have of
yet been able to do so. By the time I am crib side both girls have
arranged themselves into the picture of peace and quiet. So back to bed I
go. I drift off to the sounds of the ocean, as well as animal cries of every sort (even of those romping unicorns!) and dream that I am the captain of my own
ark.
Sunday, 26 August 2012
It's Mostly Hushed Up
As I've said before, I want my writings to benefit those that maybe following along in my footsteps. This is going to be another one of those entries that is aimed at dads-to-be (and the moms too).
Taking care of twins is hard. Mine are about 2.5 weeks old now and since they arrived, I've been living in just two rooms of my house. We walk from the bedroom, where we have had, if we are lucky, two hours sleep, to the nursery where we are trying to interpret baby screams into some useful course of action. There are brief, foggy intervals in which I roam to other locations in my house, usually to nap on the couch, or for sustenance that will hopefully keep me running through the next baby crisis, or maybe even to do a little etc...I've written etc because my wife thinks it's more appropriate than saying personal hygiene or take a crap...but you all know what I mean (based on the statistics of my readership provided by blogger, chances are some of you are reading this on your iPhone while performing just such an act).
Anyway, as I was saying, taking care of twins is hard. I'm sure taking care of one at a time is difficult too, though I don't see how, really. If I only had one it would be so much easier...and there you have it. If I only had one. You start to say things like that to yourself and it makes you feel awful. It makes you question your ability to cope with what is to come. You consider life with only one child, when the two you actually have, are both screaming. When you haven't had enough sleep or enough to eat, and you have no idea what else to do to calm your twins. I haven't gone as far as to pick the one I'd keep. In fact it's not even like that, it's not a this one or that one way of thinking. It's just a daydream about the freedom of having only one child to worry about.
Worse of course is when everything is quiet. The few moments in your house when everything is at peace and it's almost like it was "before". You might even get a few minutes to watch TV or if you are like me (and I'm assuming you are because you are reading a blog) surf the social pages to see what your friends are up to. That's when the question really hits you..."What have I done?" I see all the fun my friends are having. Doing all the things we used to do. My wife and I had an awesome life before we had children. That's why we waited so long to actually expand our family. We travelled when we wanted to, sometimes just packing a bag and flying off to Europe last minute. Honestly, we were living hedonistic lives, do anything you want any time you want kind of lives. But something was missing. We actively decided to have children. It wasn't something we stumbled in to. It was something we planned. It was something we looked forward to it. We were desperately disappointed each month when it hadn't happened yet.
The "What have I done?" question is not something that stays at the forefront of my mind; nor is the "What if we only had one?" question. But the fact that those thoughts ever surface make me feel terrible. Make me question my ability to be a good dad. I kept it hushed up, hidden from everyone else. I was embarrassed to mention it to anyone. Whomever I told, would call child services and have my babies taken from me. I eventually confided in another recently made father of twins, and he in turn confided in me. Surely it wasn't just the two of us holding this terrible secret. I asked a few more people. Everyone (even the parents of singletons, with there easier, almost laxidasical lives...what if I did only have one?) admitted to having the same thoughts. The last person I spoke with was my wife. I asked here while we were feeding the girls. The whole house was quiet. I asked "Do you ever think...what the hell have we done?". I saw the relief in her face and she answered with "or what if we only had one?"
So to the new parents reading this blog, or for those soon to be new parents, don't be ashamed of those doubts that creep in. Everyone has them, just no one is talking about it.
Taking care of twins is hard. Mine are about 2.5 weeks old now and since they arrived, I've been living in just two rooms of my house. We walk from the bedroom, where we have had, if we are lucky, two hours sleep, to the nursery where we are trying to interpret baby screams into some useful course of action. There are brief, foggy intervals in which I roam to other locations in my house, usually to nap on the couch, or for sustenance that will hopefully keep me running through the next baby crisis, or maybe even to do a little etc...I've written etc because my wife thinks it's more appropriate than saying personal hygiene or take a crap...but you all know what I mean (based on the statistics of my readership provided by blogger, chances are some of you are reading this on your iPhone while performing just such an act).
Worse of course is when everything is quiet. The few moments in your house when everything is at peace and it's almost like it was "before". You might even get a few minutes to watch TV or if you are like me (and I'm assuming you are because you are reading a blog) surf the social pages to see what your friends are up to. That's when the question really hits you..."What have I done?" I see all the fun my friends are having. Doing all the things we used to do. My wife and I had an awesome life before we had children. That's why we waited so long to actually expand our family. We travelled when we wanted to, sometimes just packing a bag and flying off to Europe last minute. Honestly, we were living hedonistic lives, do anything you want any time you want kind of lives. But something was missing. We actively decided to have children. It wasn't something we stumbled in to. It was something we planned. It was something we looked forward to it. We were desperately disappointed each month when it hadn't happened yet.
The "What have I done?" question is not something that stays at the forefront of my mind; nor is the "What if we only had one?" question. But the fact that those thoughts ever surface make me feel terrible. Make me question my ability to be a good dad. I kept it hushed up, hidden from everyone else. I was embarrassed to mention it to anyone. Whomever I told, would call child services and have my babies taken from me. I eventually confided in another recently made father of twins, and he in turn confided in me. Surely it wasn't just the two of us holding this terrible secret. I asked a few more people. Everyone (even the parents of singletons, with there easier, almost laxidasical lives...what if I did only have one?) admitted to having the same thoughts. The last person I spoke with was my wife. I asked here while we were feeding the girls. The whole house was quiet. I asked "Do you ever think...what the hell have we done?". I saw the relief in her face and she answered with "or what if we only had one?"
So to the new parents reading this blog, or for those soon to be new parents, don't be ashamed of those doubts that creep in. Everyone has them, just no one is talking about it.
Thursday, 23 August 2012
It's Slipping In!
It's not like we've seen on TV and in the movies. It must have once been though. Mom in the delivery room doing all the work, and dad pacing in the waiting room with other expectant fathers; cigars if the doctor says it's a boy, and disappointment if it's a girl. Depending on how important he was, maybe dad wasn't even at the hospital during the birth. He may have been at work waiting for that teletype from Japan...or something (I don't even know what a teletype is, but it was important enough at one time to make you miss your child's birth). He'd get a phone call after the delivery informing him he was now a father. I think that was the 50s. I'm glad that has changed. I, of course, was thrilled to see both my little beauties enter the world. Was overjoyed to actually be allowed in the OR while all the action went down. That's different too. The girls were born in an operating room, and it wasn't a surprise that we were having twins. My grandmother told me that when her twins were born, the doctor caught the first one, the second yelled "Surprise!" as she tumbled out and hit the floor.
After they made their debut, the girls stayed in our room while my wife healed. Family came to visit the girls directly, not view them lying in a nursery with dozens of other babies. We had 3 days in the hospital, which I guess isn't bad seeing as how some mothers were discharged the same day they came in. If my wife had given birth in the 50s she would have lounged in the hospital for 2 weeks, leaving me to eat TV dinners and de-lint my own fedora at home alone (or if Mad Men is to be believed, with my busty secretary). Honestly, I think the 50s have us beat there. Not the parents segregation part of it, but the time in convalescent care. My wife would have loved to take more time in the hospital while nurses swarmed and fussed over her babies. Throwing us all together right away and forcing mom and dad to take care of newborns when mom can't even sit upright was really, really hard. Health care cut backs, I guess. Nurses only came by if we pushed the panic button, which was not to be used for such things as diaper changes or re-swaddling.
Breastfeeding...that's changed. Well, changed, then changed again. Women have breasts. For a long time they were used to feed babies. There were no books or classes or lactation consultants. You were on your own, maybe with a goat or cow if for some reason your milk never came in. Later, science stepped in. Formula became the rage and breasts (which were relabelled tits for marketing reasons) became the jiggling, bouncy, play things of the free love era. Now, once again, breastfeeding is being touted as the best method for feeding the little ones. There are posters scattered throughout the maternity ward claiming that breast milk increases immunity to disease, cancer, improves IQ and strength...basically creates little super humans. But there is a catch. It's no longer as simple as lifting an infant to your chest. There are hundreds of books, seminars, and classes. Lactation consultants come to the hospital bed to mash and squeeze mommy's breasts before slamming baby's face in to the battered flesh. Information is so confused on this subject that each consultation we've had (always with a different lactation expert) leads us in a new direction. Burp, don't burp, sit the baby upright, make sure the baby is reclined comfortably, football hold, cross-craddle, tandem feeding, mommy should use pillows, no pillows, hand pump the breast while feeding, only kneed the breast when the baby is not suckling, hand pumping upsets the baby...so much information just leaves mommy's head spinning and baby frustrated. There's a lot of pressure for everyone involved. Many women who wish to breastfeed are unable to do so and feel this sense of failure at being unable to provide the best brain-boosting, super human creating option for their babies. So I have no idea whether this is a good change or a bad change, and I have no idea what information to believe. All I know is we need to feed our babies and we are going to do it however we can.
There is one thing that I think everyone can agree is an improvement in childcare; the thermometer. I had to take one of the twin's temperature the other night. I have a digital ear thermometer for this purpose. I placed the soft tip of the instrument in the baby's ear and in 1 second, I had a temperature measurement. When I was a child we had 2 kinds of thermometers: oral and rectal. Oh god, how I hope there actually was two types...The only reliable method, as far as hospitals were concerned, of taking a temperature was rectally and my mother, as an emergency nurse who followed the hospital code. There were very few "stay at home from school sick days" for me. If I complained about not feeling well, my mom shoved a lubed glass rod up my butt. This occurred long after I was an infant. I remember being old enough to yell "It's slipping in!" To which my mother would reply calmly, "No it's not, I've got it." It didn't matter how firmly her grasp was though, I could feel my bottom gobbling up that glass rod, dragging it deeper into my core where it could properly measure my temperature. There was a benefit to that torture...I rarely get sick now, and won't complain about not feeling well unless I am very close to death.
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Basic Life Choices
I'm not sure what time my day begins. There's no real start
or end to a day currently. I rarely get outside, so I can't judge the
time, as normal people do, on the position of the sun. Each of my
"days" is a simple cycle of waking and feeding my new twin digestive
tubes. It's been recommended over and over, that the girls should be on a
feeding schedule in which feeding occurs in a block of roughly 3 hours.
There are 8 blocks in any given 24 hour period. At least one and half
hours of each block is actually spent preparing, feeding, cleaning, and calming
the girls. If all goes really well, I will have the 1.5 hours remaining
in the block to do something else. Theoretically, that leaves the parents
of twins (I don't say multiples because I have no idea how people with
triplets+ possibly survive) some really basic life choices. Do I sleep
for 1.5 hours? I've been trying to choose this option at least 4 times a
day, preferably consecutive blocks. That of course doesn't lead to
consecutive hours of sleep, but does give me 6 hours of interrupted snooze time
to recharge. Next is personal hygiene, and fuel consumption.
Food usually wins out. I'm surprised how hungry I get when all I'm
doing in toting around little 6 pound bundles. I might be burning more
calories simply because I'm getting so little sleep. I do my best to
brush my teeth sometimes, and showering is a rarity...even before I had kids
shaving was something I only did in passing, so no real loss there. I
haven't had the chance to shave my head, which I did every three weeks
previously, as of yet. It's growing in, nice and patchy and salt/pepper.
When I was a kid I had nightmares about my parents dying, not of an
accident, simply of old age. They were ancient...must have been in their
early to mid 30s at the time. I remember crying during the late night
hours, lamenting about their approaching death. If my kids have inherited
my childhood fear of mortality, they are going to flip out when they see their
furry faced, white haired, out of shape (I can't workout or run because the
girls demand so much time...thanks for hastening my death ladies) daddy.
Anyway...showering has fallen pretty low on the priority list. Even
further down is clean clothing. I tried at first. Cleaned my self
up, fresh clothing, smelling good, just to have one end of a new digestive
tracks spew some foul smelling, liquidy mush all over me. It was such a
regular occurrence that I asked my father to make a run to the store
to buy me a dozen oversized white t-shirts. I just leave the pile at the
door of the nursery and throw one on when I cross the threshold. I asked
for white, because based on some of the patterns the girls are able to
produced, we may very well have birthed the next Jackson Pollock. (One of
a kind butt painted t-shirts will be available for purchase in the
lobby.) Way, way, way down on the list is personal time, activities like
writing this blog, or watching TV. It's taken me about 6 feeding blocks
to get this far...and I don't really go back and read what I wrote, so this may
be terribly incoherent, rambling jibberish.
So basically my
life comes down to this:
1. Feed
babies
then pick one (in order of my own personal importance):
2. 1.5 hours
of unsatisfying sleep
3. Use the
bathroom
4. Eat
6. Personal hygiene
7. Change my
clothes
8. Personal
growth
9. Personal
grooming
Now there are some
of you out there thinking, "hey, living life in 3 hour segments, 1.5 of
which is your job and the other is do whatever you want time...that's not so
bad." Well during many of those 3 hour blocks, work time bleeds into
personal time. The girls don't just eat and pass out (well not always).
Often times eating is followed by a period of alertness. So my
actual personal time is influenced by the "fussy factor". It's
simple mathematics* really.
The girls have 2
states, alert (A) or asleep (S). At any given moment they will fall into
one of these to states of being. Therefore:
Fiona
Emilia Result
S
S Both girls
asleep, 1.5 hours of personal time
A
S One twin alert,
loss of personal time
S
A One twin
alert, loss of personal time
A
A Both alert, complete
loss of personal time, edge of insanity, no bathroom break
So as you can see,
there is a 75% chance that some or all the time that the parent's of twins have
for personal growth will be stolen away from them by their offspring.
So when you have a
chance to visit with the parents of multiples, try to ignore their stained
clothing, and fetid body aroma...they probably haven't used the bathroom in
days.
*This is in no way
an accurate mathematical solution to determining the probability of my girls
being in a state of wakefulness.
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Baby Cute
The word "baby" is synonymous with
"cute". If one is baby faced, they are young, fresh and cute
looking, Who amongst us can look at baby feet or hands without an
"Aww! How cute." escaping us? And big baby eyes...come on! So you'd
think that "baby fart" would be right up there. All the benefits of
"baby" with all the comic genius of "farts". Well, you know
what? They aren't cute and they most certainly not funny at all...they are the trumpeting herald of abominable
foulness!
Sure, I laughed the first time I heard one of my
daughters toot. My wife giggled from her hospital bed at the funny little
sound; something like an over ripen tomato being thrown against a wall. But the
matronly amongst us went straight faced and the nurse on shift just turned and
fled the room. I should have recognized the look on some of the faces. It was
one that I'd seen many times before in old monster movies...the look that the
villagers get when they have to choose a sacrifice to appease the creature
terrorizing their island. But I didn't catch it...I only had eyes for my
babies.
We had been told in our pre-natal class to open
just one of the tabs, and peer through the opening to verify the condition of
the diaper before beginning a change. Truly, I was not ready for the horror of
that first peek. I now understand the definition of "pant load". I
instantly feared that the garment had been designed to small to contain the
roiling ocean of black goop that now inhabited my daughter's diaper. Looking at
the contents, my first thought was that I had not been given a newborn human at
all, but that my daughter was some sort of machine, now leaking a viscous,
sticky oil. I later found out that the substance is called meconium, and that
it is a perfectly normal product of babies only a few days old (it's made up of
amniotic fluid, mucus and other goodies ingested in utero) and that it paled in
horror in what was to come.
In the past few days I have learned to fear the
baby fart, I no longer find it funny (unless someone else is holding one of the
girls). By far the least amusing time to hear this almost cartoony noise is in
the middle of a diaper change, when you are at your most vulnerable. I am very
seriously considering renaming one of my daughters Crap Fountain, based on her
ability to defecate with the force of an ever-flowing tube of toothpaste,
stomped upon by a heavy booted man, each and every time I remove her diaper.
Her sister has earned the name Crap Shotgun. I felt an moment of pride just
prior to being pelted by buttshot, at my baby's ability to calculate trajectory
(that's high school level calculus right there) given only the angle of her
back to the change pad and the height her legs. At least the warning bark of breaking wind allowed me to close my
mouth before my face was splattered.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Behind the Curtain
I left all the gory details out of the last post,
so today I'd like to describe what occurred during the actual delivery. I say
gory, but honestly I didn't see anything of the actual operation. I hope this
post will allay fears for anyone who may soon go through this experience.
My babies were delivered at Mount Sinai hospital
in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We chose that location because of its excellent
neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), our girls being twins may very well have
needed to spend time there. I'm assuming that, in general, a c-section at one
hospital will be very similar to another, but keep in mind that the events I am
describing took place at Mount Sinai.
Upon arrival at the hospital my wife went
directly to the 7th floor triage (followed closely by the orderly with the mop
and bucket). After getting her situated I was sent down to admitting where I
handed over the required documents to an admin who was more interested the
Olympics (which were being piped over all hospital TVs in non-critical areas)
than in my situation. My arrival, being very early, took a silver medal, to
obtaining coffee. Once she returned to her desk, still droopy eyed, but
carrying her stimulant, she informed me that we had just won a metal (I'm still
not sure if it was Canada or Granada that had won, though I had her repeat it
several times), handed me the admitting docs and sent me back up to the 7th
floor.
By the time I returned, my wife was resting
comfortably. There was the steady rhythmic beat coming from the heart monitors.
Thin wire tentacles snaked over my wife's belly ending in connectors that were
secured by baby blue and pink straps (it was completely irrational, but I was
annoyed with the use of blue straps). Nurses ran in and out checking a
multitude of things, re-arranging the heart rate connectors, because the twins
were so active, going over my wife's medical history, probing her while
simultaneously pressing down on her belly (an uncomfortable action that was
need to check her cervical dialation) all the while assuring her (and me) that
everything was going well. Before to long she was wheeled out of triage, with
me in tow. I was handed a gown, hat, and cloth booties then deposited in a nook
while my wife was carried through the OR door. I was informed it would only be
a matter moments. I put on my booties (grateful for them because I had
mistakenly worn my good sneakers to an operation), and my hat. I removed my
t-shirt and put on the gown. It was not necessary to remove any clothing,
however, I was planning on skin to skin time with the twins which could have
been accomplished by either removing my shirt or just slipping the girls under
it (also I had mistakenly worn a nice shirt which would have been transformed
into the Shroud of Turin if I had tried to hold a little one against my skin).
After about a 20 minute wait I was invited
through the door. The scene that greeted me was controlled chaos (to my eyes).
There were dozens of people in my view all gowned and talking quietly to one
another. My wife lie on a table shaped much like a gingerbread man. I could
only see the top half of her body, the lower half was hidden from view by a
large sheet strung between two IV poles. She was gowned, and wore the same little
cap as I did. Her arms were spread and strapped to the arms of the gingerbread
man. To me she looked very pale. She was numb from the waist down. I knew she
was scared. There was a stool placed for me by her head, positioned at the edge
of the curtain. If I had had the desire I could have peeked around the edge,
but chose not to. The partner, is in fact permitted to watch the birth, but I'm
not sure if it was simply by leaning around or if you stood at the surgeon's elbow. The patient can also
watch the birthing process in strategically placed mirrors, or so we were told
in our prenatal class. Neither my wife nor I asked where the mirrors were
located. Though it was an effective line of sight blocker, the sheet did
nothing to block sound. I could hear the doctor speaking of where he would cut.
I spent every moment after that whispering encouragement to my wife, or
discussing banal topics, anything to keep her from hearing the doctor's
conversation. The spinal eliminates pain, but my wife could still feel tugging
and pulling. Eventually, through the din I heard someone say here comes the
first. Then I heard a baby scream, my wife did too, because she said
"Oh!" and started to cry. Our first visual of twin A was of an open
mouthed little girl who looked as if she had been submerged in a mud bath. Her
arms and legs were spread as wide as hey could go and she was screaming louder
than I thought would have been possible from such a small thing. In my mind I
remember her dangling by one arm from the nurse's grasp and carrying a spear in
her free hand (though I looked for it afterwards I found no evidence that she
had been carrying a weapon at birth). The little, noise-making package was
placed upon my wife's chest for immediate skin to skin time (half naked dad was
denied) and then whisked off for assessment. Twin B took her place seconds later.
Where A was crying and angry, B was quiet and searching. She was so quiet in
fact that I worried she was not well. She, too, after a brief moment with mommy
(again daddy was denied) was removed for assessment. I told my wife how proud I
was, how beautiful she is, and what beautiful babies she makes.
It was finally daddy's time to shine. I was lead to a small warming tables where our babies rested, and invited to
cut the cords. I'm not sure if it was purely symbolic, because neither of the
babies were attached to mommy any longer. With a pair of scissors I cut what
looked like a double clamped, short stub of sausage casing sticking up where my
little girl's belly button would some day be. After both were snipped, I was
asked to diaper the girls...then I was asked to diaper them again, only this
time properly. One of the nurses was kind enough to show me a proper diapering
technique (no I was not using cloth diapers, and yes I was unable to strap on a
disposable the first time through). With those duties complete, I remembered my
job, and asked about the APGAR scores for each.
The rest of the procedure lasted about 40 mins
and was uneventful (from our point of view, the doctors all still seemed to be
doing things however). We were eventually wheeled into a recovery room...and
finally to the private room where we would complete our stay.
I'd love to tell you more, but I honestly don't
remember. The days in the hospital afterwards are all a blur of sleepless
night's spent staring at the girls, fearful that they might simply disappear at
any moment. Now that we are home, with feeding every 3 hours, we still are not
sleeping well (though at least I am in a bed now and not on the hospital
floor), but we no longer worry that the girls were just a dream, I can actually
walk out of the room they are in now, and I'm no longer worried that they won't
be there when I get back. That's an improvement...small, but a definite
improvement, and it's proof positive that everything will eventually be ok.
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Splish Splash I was Taking a Bath...
The following blog entry was written the night that my children were born, but I am posting it nearly 5 days later. Sorry if I have ruined the surprise for those that did not already know, but the girls have arrived. I'm leaving what I wrote unedited, so please forgive it's rambling pace and inclusion of unnecessary information. I had planned to write each evening that I was in the hospital, but it pretty quickly became apparent that was not to be the case. At the time of writing I had been awake for nearly 24 hours...and that was the most rested I was during my entire stay.
Actually, I
was watching a french zombie film, called The Horde, on the main floor of our
house when my wife called down to me from upstairs. There were signs of impending labour. Nothing to drastic, no contractions, her water hadn't broke, but
there were subtle signs. I called the
emergency number and described the symptoms (I guess I should say it so that
others in the same circumstance will know...there was some light bleeding), and
was told that we should come to the hospital to be checked over. There was no need to rush, because there had
not been any additional symptoms to indicate a need for urgency. This pleased my wife, it would give her and
I time to quickly rinse off, maybe have a bite of breakfast (I not her. A woman should not eat before a c-section),
and to me most importantly...poop.
Gross, I know, but that was going to be my last chance for quite some
time. I grabbed a bowl of cereal and
went upstairs. Nerves were already
taking hold of my wife, and she didn't want to be alone for even a second. I had only just sat down at my desk, and
began to lift that first bite of breakfast to my face when my wife
shouted..."My water just broke!"
And then, in the time it took me to drop my spoon, "I found a mucus
plug!"
The drive
to the hospital was relatively uneventful, it being 6:30 AM there were few
commuters, and therefore no traffic delays.
This was it...the big event that we had been training for, for nearly 9
months (37.5 weeks actually). There
would certainly be those that would be interested in sharing this day with us,
so, to ensure they could find us, my wife was nice enough to leave a trail,
that started at the hospital roundabout car driveway and ended at the birthing
triage; a simple to follow pathway of aromatic, amniotic fluid for those that
were to come later for a visit.
Unfortunately our first visitor was an orderly with a mop and bucket.
My wife
went in to the OR/delivery room (multiples are always delivered in an OR
because the likelihood of an emergency c-section is extremely high, even if one
of the multiples is born vaginally) at about 9:00, August 7, 2012, a full 24
hours earlier than her planned section.
A warning to the women out there who may need this done. We were told in our multiples prenatal class
that you would have your partner with you during the procedure, and this is
mostly true. You do face the initial
anesthesia procedure alone, and your partner is brought in about 20 minutes
later. The girls were born at 9:24 and
9:25 weighing in at 6.9 pounds and 6.2 pounds.
Both were healthy, and received APGAR scores of 9/10 (a 10 out of 10 is
extremely rare, because almost all babies are born with slightly discoloured
extremities).
I am
writing this blog entry at 1:22 AM August 8th, but I doubt it will be posted
for a few days (we don't have a wireless connection here in the hospital). I am sitting between two little, swaddled
pink bundles of noise who are allowing me to write a single sentence before
deciding to explode once again. In just
the few short hours between their birth and now, I have experienced so much
that I am looking forward to sharing with you...if my girls actually allow me
to do any blogging.
I'm excited
about this adventure and I'm happy that you are all sharing it with me.
As I mentioned, in the beginning, this was written on the evening the girls were born. There are many details about the process which I will describe in subsequent entry, so for those that feel let down by this poor description of the event, fear not. I will go into far greater detail describing what I saw, heard, smelt and did during that initial day, all in hopes of helping to prepare those that are following in our footsteps.
Oh, and just as a side note, I seemed awfully worried about going to the washroom before the kids came into being, my advice, MAKE SURE YOU DO IT, because if the last few days are any indication, that might very well be the last satisfying bowel movement you have for months.
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Mother of Dragons
My beautiful wife, mother of Dragons...
With only a week left to go it looks more and more like my wife will make her due date of August 8th, 2012 (an auspicious date in the Chinese calender related to long life and good fortune). We had our final ultrasound last week, and everything appears to be going well. The twins are estimated at 5.5 and 6 pounds, significant numbers in that they are no longer considered low birth weight.
Regardless of whether they arrive today, or next week, these girls will be born under the astrological signs of the Dragon (Tibetan calender) and the Leo (zodiac sign, between July 23 and August 22). I don't put much faith in astrological signs, (I'm a Metal Pig and a Pisces and I don't really match either description) so I don't need the stars to tell me that I'm in trouble...I know it already.
According to the Tibetan calender everyone born after Feb 22, 2012 is born under the Chinese zodiac sign of Dragon...further this is a water year, an event that only occurs once every 60 years, so my little girls will be Water Dragons. To the Chinese, the Dragon is a very desirable sign, ruled by luck. After reading through various descriptions, however, it doesn't seem very lucky for the parents (especially already worried dads of little girls)...
"Force and power are the symbols attributed to the Dragon. There is a decidedly exotic air about Dragon people, especially among the women, who fairly exude sexuality. Indeed, whether male or female, Dragons are libidinous and score quite a hit with the opposite sex."Great! At least the twins will have each other in the tower I'm building in my backyard, so they won't be to lonely.
The Dragon is considered the luckiest of the Tibetan signs, the people of which are considered shrewd, healthy and full of life. They are intuitive, artistic and strangely lucky (which they'll get from me) but also irritable, stubborn and impetuous (which they'll get from their mother).
A lot of the sites I read listed Dragons as hot-headed and quick-tempered, sometimes casting aside logic to follow their heart. They are enthusiastic, idealists and perfectionists, capable of soaring to great heights or crashing to the deepest depths. They are charismatic, independent and resourceful. Whatever they do, win or lose, they do big. Luckily 2012 is ruled by the element of Water, which is supposed to have a calming influence on the Dragon's fiery nature. Water Dragons are said to have more patience, be more sensitive, and better able to relate and work with others. They are less impetuous and make wiser decisions.
I know earlier I said I don't believe in this stuff, but come on...an enthusiastic, loud-mouth that is sensitive, works well with others and makes good decisions...that is exactly how anyone who knows my wife and I would have guessed our kids would turn out.
The description for Leo doesn't give me any real comfort either. They are described as attention-loving and ambitious, with a flair for the dramatic. They are often creative, idealistic and natural leaders (maybe, from what I've read, it's because they won't let anyone else take charge). Like the Dragon, this sign is associated with passion, and great drive for success. Almost every site suggested that Leos make excellent lovers and are very popular with the opposite sex...(sigh...really? Why are they doing this shit to me?)
There are a lot of similarities between the Tibetan Dragon sign and the zodiac Leo sign. If for some reason these ancient methods of personality prediction are accurate...I'm in big, big trouble. When their passion smashes up against my already overwhelming desire to give them everything, I predict a pony stable in the backyard...
These little girls are going to eat me alive.
Saturday, 28 July 2012
You Know Who to Blame
With only 2weeks left, 11 days from now to be more precise, I am in a constant state of readiness. Readiness to run from my wife's wrath. With so little time remaining, she's ready to have it all over with, but she's torn. Every day the twins stay with her, is a another day of fattening up (this not in reference to my wife's waist, as she will assume, but is in fact referring to the size of the twins). But every night the twins stay with her is another night of lost sleep...and my wife is an angry bear without sleep.
A few mornings ago she woke up (got up I should say because I don't know if she slept at all), stumbled through the living room, walked passed me, and sat down at the kitchen table, without saying a word. I put on my most welcoming, sunshine face and in a cheery voice wished her a good morning. There was no reply. On closer inspection, I noticed she had bright orange, silicon plugs stuffed in her ears. Her head slowly rotated until I was centered in her gaze, her brows a deep furrow and her eyes squinted. She removed one of the ear plugs and said, "It's best if I don't see you or hear you today." I ran upstairs and hid in my office. She did speak to me once more, late in the afternoon, to demand lunch, which I made as quickly and efficiently as I could.
I don't blame her. Her current condition is my fault. She's doing all the suffering and I'm just waiting for the rewards. I try to keep that in mind each time she looks at me accusingly. In fact, I more than try and keep it in mind, I actively do everything I can to make her life easier.
We've been going out for dinner fairly regularly, trying to keep a sense of normalcy about our lives. It get's my wife out of the house and out in public (where it's more difficult for her to kill me) and some relief from the confines of our small home. She prefers to be seated in a booth whenever one is available, that is, until recently. A few evenings ago we went out to a local fish restaurant (fish is important nutritionally in the third trimester) where my wife requested a booth. I knew even before we arrived at the table that we were headed for trouble. Both the maitre 'd and I waited while my wife lowered herself sideways onto the booth bench. It was clear that there was no possible chance that her new belly would allow her to swivel her legs under the table. Unless she was planning to eat her meal riding sidesaddle, then her booth dining days needed to be put on hold. Once again, she turned on the "this is your fault" glare which snapped both the maitre'd and I out of wide eyed stare (that pregnant lady look is a weapon against any man), sent him running to prepare a nice table by the window and me scurrying to help her up.
Honestly, I'm teasing her with this blog entry. And though the above anecdotes are completely, mostly true, she is doing a wonderful job. Our twins appear healthy and to be growing well. My wife is organized and well prepared for their arrival. If you are reading this and you are a dad-to-be, then I'm warning you, that the last few weeks are difficult. Your wife will barely be able to get around, she'll be living on very little sleep and probably stressed about the future. All she wants is for the baby(ies) out of her and healthy. Of course she's going to have days when she's upset, and when she does, just keep one thing in mind, dad-to-be, this is all your fault.
A few mornings ago she woke up (got up I should say because I don't know if she slept at all), stumbled through the living room, walked passed me, and sat down at the kitchen table, without saying a word. I put on my most welcoming, sunshine face and in a cheery voice wished her a good morning. There was no reply. On closer inspection, I noticed she had bright orange, silicon plugs stuffed in her ears. Her head slowly rotated until I was centered in her gaze, her brows a deep furrow and her eyes squinted. She removed one of the ear plugs and said, "It's best if I don't see you or hear you today." I ran upstairs and hid in my office. She did speak to me once more, late in the afternoon, to demand lunch, which I made as quickly and efficiently as I could.
I don't blame her. Her current condition is my fault. She's doing all the suffering and I'm just waiting for the rewards. I try to keep that in mind each time she looks at me accusingly. In fact, I more than try and keep it in mind, I actively do everything I can to make her life easier.
We've been going out for dinner fairly regularly, trying to keep a sense of normalcy about our lives. It get's my wife out of the house and out in public (where it's more difficult for her to kill me) and some relief from the confines of our small home. She prefers to be seated in a booth whenever one is available, that is, until recently. A few evenings ago we went out to a local fish restaurant (fish is important nutritionally in the third trimester) where my wife requested a booth. I knew even before we arrived at the table that we were headed for trouble. Both the maitre 'd and I waited while my wife lowered herself sideways onto the booth bench. It was clear that there was no possible chance that her new belly would allow her to swivel her legs under the table. Unless she was planning to eat her meal riding sidesaddle, then her booth dining days needed to be put on hold. Once again, she turned on the "this is your fault" glare which snapped both the maitre'd and I out of wide eyed stare (that pregnant lady look is a weapon against any man), sent him running to prepare a nice table by the window and me scurrying to help her up.
Honestly, I'm teasing her with this blog entry. And though the above anecdotes are completely, mostly true, she is doing a wonderful job. Our twins appear healthy and to be growing well. My wife is organized and well prepared for their arrival. If you are reading this and you are a dad-to-be, then I'm warning you, that the last few weeks are difficult. Your wife will barely be able to get around, she'll be living on very little sleep and probably stressed about the future. All she wants is for the baby(ies) out of her and healthy. Of course she's going to have days when she's upset, and when she does, just keep one thing in mind, dad-to-be, this is all your fault.
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