Fun with Sleep Deprivation

Not to belabor the point, but I'm constantly amazed at what sleep deprivation can do to the human brain. See if you can guess which of the following scenarios has happened to me and Kathy over the past four sleep-deprived weeks of our lives:

1. Baby cries in the middle of the night. Kathy wakes up, turns on the light, and prepares to feed the baby. Baby stops crying. Kathy falls asleep, but dreams that she is feeding the baby. Dave wakes up and asks Kathy why the light is on. Kathy starts to say "Because I'm feeding Riley," but then realizes that she is not holding a baby. Dave laughs at Kathy.
   
2. Baby cries in the middle of the night. Cat is sitting on Dave's chest. Dave wakes up and has a panic attack because he thinks the cat is a baby and that he has accidentally fallen asleep while bottle feeding his daughter. Kathy laughs at Dave.
3. Baby cries in the middle 0f the night. Dave and Kathy wake up. Dave asks Kathy whether she thinks it's time to feed the baby, and Kathy gives Dave a confused look and says "But I just finished feeding her!" Kathy then sheepishly realizes that the feeding was just a dream. Dave laughs at Kathy.
4. Baby cries in the middle of the night. Dave and Kathy wake up. Kathy says something to Dave. Dave's brain, technically awake but incapable of deciphering the English language, does not comprehend what Kathy said. Dave says "Huh?" Kathy repeats what she said. Dave again says "Huh?" Kathy repeats what she said. Dave again says "Huh?" Kathy says "Never mind." Dave says "Huh?" Kathy curses Dave.
5. All of the above.

The answer for those of you playing at home is #5 -- All of the above. Thank you for playing.

Today, of course, is Halloween. Kathy and I are sort of undecided right now on whether to try to dress up Leah and Riley in some way for the occasion. If we do, I'll post some a picture or two this weekend. In the meantime, a couple pictures to tide you over. First, here's Leah:



And, finally, here's Riley, giving a shout-out to all her homies:

Patent Pending

For the past couple days, Leah has basically decided that she doesn't like sleeping all that much. She stays awake for long periods of the night even though she's fed, changed, burped, etc. In this state, she's perfectly content as long as one of her parents is holding her, but the moment we try to put her back in her bassinet, she starts screaming her lungs out. This makes her poor sleep-deprived parents most unhappy.

So, here's my brilliant invention idea: it's a crib that fools the baby into thinking it's being held by its mother. It could be shaped like a woman's arms and have a heating mechanism that keeps it at body temperature. It would have to bounce around a little bit like mommy does when she's holding the baby. And maybe you could slip the mom's robe over it so that it would smell like mommy too.

So, any inventors/product design people out there want to fix us a prototype? I haven't discussed this yet with Kathy, but I think I speak for her when I say that we would be willing to pay, oh, approximately a hundred thousand dollars or so for one of these.

In the meantime, a couple pictures of Riley being held by mommy and Leah being held by daddy...

I Resemble That Remark

The popular opinion now from our friends and family seems to be that Leah looks more like me, and Riley looks more like Kathy. It's kind of funny, because right after the babies were born, the nurse staff were all saying that Riley looked more like me because she looked more "Asian". Later, Kathy and I realized that the only reason the nurses thought Riley looked more Asian was because she had jaundice, which is a liver ailment that makes babies' skin turn yellow. Now that the Riley's jaundice has cleared up and her skin is nice and pink, somehow she doesn't look all that Asian, and somehow nobody says that Riley looks all that much like me anymore:


The only conclusion I can draw from this is that maybe I have jaundice. Hmmmmm.

I've always been bad at seeing the resemblances between infants and their parents anyway -- I think I'm missing that part of the brain that can see the common characteristics between babies and adults. So people say things like, oh, Leah has your mouth but Kathy's nose but your cheeks but Kathy's eyelashes but your hair but Kathy's fingers, and all I can think is "Huh? Really? My cheeks look like that? And I'm not sure, but aren't Kathy's fingers bigger than those?"

I'm also curious about when I'm going to actually feel like a dad. When does that happen? Right now, I still kind of feel like I'm part of some elaborate experiment or test and have been given a couple babies to take care of for a few weeks just to see if I'm ready to be a parent. And after a month the hospital's going to come to our house and say "I'm sorry -- you're clearly not ready to be a parent because you keep putting Riley's onesie on backwards."

On that note, Leah says bye for now:

No Ankle Tags Needed

Leah and Riley are not identical twins, which we're pretty happy about at this point. On the day they were born, though, they looked pretty darn identical to me. Truthfully, I have to admit that most newborns look pretty much interchangeable to me. So, when Leah and Riley were born, there were some physical differences, but it wasn't really easy for me to tell them apart. Not knowing for sure which daughter was which without consulting the little tag on their ankle was pretty disheartening for a new dad. I had assumed that I would have an instant paternal connection to each baby and that I would "just know" intuitively which one was which. Nope.

Now, of course, I find it pretty easy to tell them apart:


So, that's Leah on the left with the hat and the zen expression and that's Riley on the right. Kathy and I have this weird obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes us usually lay down Leah on the left and Riley on the right (L on the left and R on the right -- get it?), so if you're ever at our house visiting the babies and have no idea which one's which, you might as well guess that Leah's the one the left. Chances are, you'll be right.

Some other ways to tell them apart -- Leah's the one with the chubbier cheeks and has a dimple on one of them. Riley has the bigger eyes and the more alert expression most of the time. Leah spits up more and also has an adorable smile that she shows off from time to time (which I've yet to capture on camera). Riley can go from totally happy to monumentally pissed-off hysterical and then back to totally happy in about half a second.

I think having fraternal twins means constantly comparing the two kids and looking for distinguishing characteristics. Kathy and I are constantly pointing out our daughters' differences to each other and to visitors. I think if we had identical twins, we would constantly be celebrating their similarities rather than their differences. And I like having two different daughters, especially since it means that I don't have to make sure that Leah stays on the left and Riley stays on the right for the rest of their lives, just to tell them apart.

Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.

Sure is Foggy in Here

So, before having Riley and Leah, I read a lot of blogs and books about raising twins, and the one thing I remember reading pretty much everywhere is that the first month of raising twins is a complete "blur". I think they all pretty much use either that word or "fog". Or maybe "haze". Okay, I think I've run out of synonyms now.

When I was reading those descriptions, I wasn't really sure whether it was the parents' memory of the first month that was foggy, or if the parents' actual experience of living that first month was like being in a fog. It seemed to me like maybe the writers were just being lazy -- can't they write anything more descriptive about the first month of your parental experience than saying "it was a blur"? So, now, finally I'm here to give you a first-hand account of the first two weeks of raising twins, and I have to say:

It's a freaking blur.

That's really the only way to describe it. To be honest, I'm not sure where the last couple weeks have gone. I look back and see a blur of feeding, burping, diaper-changing, meltdowns (babies, wife, and self), attempting to sleep, semi-panicked trips to get the doctor on time, quickie trips to Babies R Us/Target/Safeway. And so on. When you're sleeping intermittently during the day and during the night, each day kind of blends into the other and so the last two weeks seem almost like one extremely long, busy, blurry day.

So, when you get a moment to just reflect and enjoy your daughters, it's pretty darn precious and you enjoy it while you can. And of course you take pictures. Because otherwise you might not remember the moment later, on account of all the fog, don'tcha know:


And finally, Riley signs us off for now:

In Celebration of the Return of Our DSL...

...here are some more photos I uploaded:

Here's Leah, satisfied after another superb meal from her mommy:


And here's Riley, showing off excellent couch potato form:


And here's Leah, trying to comfort Riley after beating her up again:


The struggle to raise our twins is about to be raised another level tomorrow, as my parents, who have been helping us out the past two weeks, head back home and leave Kathy and me on our own. At times it has felt that we were barely scraping by with four sets of hands and now it will be just the two of us versus the two of them. Wish us luck.

One thing I had never fully understood before until now is that babies have a seemingly infinite capacity to poop. Each of our daughters pooped nine times today. I know that pooping is a normal part of the digestive process and all, but, c'mon, nine times each? That seems excessive, almost like the babies are showing off or something. Today, by my count, our two daughters went through 24 diapers. Projecting that out, that comes out to be 168 diapers per week, or yowza, 8,736 per year. I think we're going to need our own landfill.

Okay. I promise I'll stop talking about poop now. I really need to get out of the house more.

..So Very Sleepy..

The twins are 8 days old today. Everybody's healthy and happy, although I'll have to wait to post new photos until our DSL is repaired. (Damn you, Earthlink!)

Twin parenthood so far feels like we're some sort of test subjects in an evil experiment about sleep deprivation. I haven't been truly sleep deprived since my college days, and I had forgotten what it feels like to try to get through the day on 2 to 4 hours of sleep. Kathy and I have found that we're not quite as good at dealing with sleep deprivation as we were back in the day. Of course, in college, we were sleep deprived, but we didn't have the fate of two little human beings in our hands at the same time.

So far, the consequences of the sleep deprived parental brains have been pretty minor -- things like:

• We accidentally call the babies by other names, like Chloe (our cat), or the names of our friends' kids (like Hailey and Sofia).
• We have periodic meltdowns caused by incredibly minor provocations, like the condescending voice of a DSL customer support representative (I say, damn you, Earthlink!)
• We do things like accidentally tucking in Riley's shirt into her diaper, resulting in unpleasant surprises when we next change her poopie diaper.
• We accidentally start leaving the doctor's office room after making sure we have everything in hand (purse, diaper bag, car seats, stroller), but alas, not our youngest daughter.

By "we", of course, I mean "I". I guess, similar to college, Kathy's a little better at dealing at sleep deprivation than I am.

when riley met leah...

Sorry for the blog silence. Taking care of newborn twins takes a lot of time -- who knew?

When Kathy was pregnant with twins, one of the things I liked about the idea was the thought of how great it will be for them as they go through life to have a built-in "best friend" to share experiences with. So I was really curious how they would react to each other as babies. They spent nine months together in the womb, but for the first few days of their newborn lives, they each were pretty confined to their own cribs and never really saw each other. But on Tuesday, we put them next each other on the examining table at the pediatrician and waited for the magic to begin. And what magic it was, as recorded on my cell phone camera:

There you have it folks. Leah is a big, 6-pound bully. Kathy and I are now working on bulking up Riley so she doesn't have to take that crap.

More baby photos from a slightly more peaceful session together yesterday:


And in this photo, Riley says "Fight the Power":


And finally, Leah basks in the glory of her first round victory over poor Riley:

Reporting to You From In-Between Late-Night Baby Tantrums...

I'd like to introduce you all to some new friends of mine:

This is my new buddy, Leah:


And this is her older twin sister, Riley:


Here's a picture of them together (and their dad's ancient Cat in the Hat T-shirt):



They were born on October 2, at 12:15 and 12:39 pm, at a healthy weight of 5 pounds 10 ounces (Riley) and 6 pounds even (Leah), after an awesome and super-human effort by their mommy. I'll post more about the birth later, but it was truly incredible.

Having twins makes me think of that vaudeville act with the spinning plates, and the guy who keeps running around twirling each of them to keep them from crashing to the ground. I picture in my head two plates with the words "Leah" and "Riley" on them, and a third plate that says "sleep" on it, and then a bunch of other plates that say things like "showering" and "brushing your teeth at night". Except in my vision, Kathy and I are amateur vaudevillians who have never done this act before and so we run frantically around like chickens with their heads cut off, and all of the plates except Leah and Riley keep crashing to the ground.

Okay. Maybe not the best analogy. You get the idea, though.

More soon. Got a plate I need to go spin.