On Second Thought...

One of our twin books says that you should avoid dressing your twins in identical outfits. The idea is that you should dress your twins differently so that each child retains his/her own identity and sees him/herself as more than just "one of the twins". You're even supposed to avoid referring your children as "the twins" -- it's apparently degrading to refer to them as anything other than their actual names.

Kathy and I have generally been resisting dressing the twins in matching outfits, but not really because of the whole "keeping their own identities" stuff. (We're not all that concerned about Leah and Riley having their own identities. I mean, have you seen them? They don't even look like they have the same ethnicity, for God's sake. I think we can safely say that they'll be able maintain their own identities.)

I guess the reason we resist the identical outfits is because we're worried that it might be a little too in-your-face, just screaming out "Hey! Look at these babies -- they're TWINS! Aren't they a-MAZ-ing!" Not that we want to hide the fact that we have twins, but we also don't want to hang a neon sign on their stroller that says "See Twins Here".

However, we've come to the realization that there are times that you have to throw all those thoughts out the window. And one of those times is when the identical outfits are just too freaking cute to resist:


Besides, it's Christmas, dammit.

And here's one more picture of Leah and Riley, which I include not because they're wearing matching outfits, but because - hey, I like the picture.


Happy new year, everybody.

Flashback: The Birth (Episode 1)

For months now, I've been meaning to blog about the actual birth of Leah and Riley, but I've never really gotten around to it. For some reason, I haven't been able to muster much enthusiasm. I guess, as a guy, I've never really been all that interested in the intimate details about people's water breaking, or how they were such-and-such centimeters dilated after four hours, or how the baby's head got stuck in their such-and-such. As a rule, us guys really just don't wanna know. Trust me.

But hey, the year's running out, and I'd better write something about my daughters' births before the whole experience vaporizes from my brain. So here goes. I promise to stay away from the gruesome stuff. Okay? Okay.

For those that don't know, Kathy had our twins vaginally, which is apparently getting less and less common with the increasing popularity of c-sections. Surprisingly, although having twins seems to be all the rage right now, it's apparently still rare enough that doctors and nurses still get all excited and giddy about getting a chance to witness the vaginal birth of twins. While Kathy was giving birth, there were by my count, four OB/Gyn doctors, two nurses, and four pediatricians in the room. That's ten people. Or about five times the number of people that I see in the delivery room in those birth scenes in the movies.

I guess the point of having all those people in the room is so that they can take quick action if things go wrong. But in our case, things were going well, so what we had here was one doctor standing there ready to catch the baby, and about seven other people sitting there watching Kathy push, feeding her ice chips, and saying encouraging things like "You're doing great! Keep pushing!"

Of course, the fact that there were seven people feeding Kathy ice chips and saying encouraging things meant that there wasn't much left for the dad to do. I think the whole ice chips and "you're doing great" thing is pretty much all that the dad's got, isn't it? So I sat there mostly silently, awkwardly stroking my wife's head occasionally from my spot wedged amongst the seven other people around the bed. Once in a while, I would report to Kathy that the baby was almost out, although honestly, I wasn't entirely convinced that big ol' head was gonna fit through that little hole.

But fit through that hole it did. Twice apparently.

Intermission.

Sorry, Leah and Riley, you'll have to stay tuned for Episode 2...

Not to Play Favorites, But..

People ask us a lot whether we notice any differences in Leah and Riley's personalities.

And the answer, I can safely say, is -- um, heck yeah.

Leah is a very dominant personality. She's very energetic, happy (most of the time), and extremely curious and eager to do new things. She's already smiling all the time, cooing, making faces in reaction to her mommy and daddy's faces, playing with her rattle, rolling over repeatedly.

Riley, on the other hand, is pretty darn reserved. She's stingy with her smiles and will only flash one for you if you really earn it. Most of the time she has one of three looks on her face: (a) pensive introspection, or (b) vague uneasiness/fear, or (c) inconsolable terror. Ah yes, there are the night-time freakouts, where for an hour she goes absolutely bonkers, shrieking in terror as if she thinks her mommy's trying to smother her to death with her breast.

I guess you could say that Leah's a bit more fun than Riley right now.

I actually thought about this situation a lot when Kathy was pregnant. I worried about whether the fact that one daughter might be more advanced or more fun might make me somehow favor that daughter ever so slightly over the other. And the "neglected" daughter might somehow develop a complex about not being "good enough" for daddy.

Now that I'm a real parent and am faced with the actual situation I had envisioned, I find that what's happening is almost the opposite of what I had feared. This situation is starting to bring out my tendency to root for the underdog, and that if anything, I find myself subconsciously favoring Riley. It's as if my subconscious mind realizes that Riley might need me more than Leah does right now, and that I might need to give her that extra bit of support to help her be as outwardly happy as her sister.

Or maybe I just favor her because I think pensive introspection is cool. Or maybe it's the fact she has more hair. Or the fact that her daddy got to pick her name.

Or the fact that she looks really cute sitting in her bathtub.


Although I gotta say, that Leah is pretty cute herself:


That's enough parental gloating for one night.

Our Divided Attention

Here's another good news/bad news aspect of twins:

The good news: Two babies equals twice as many milestones -- We just got two "first smiles", and in the coming weeks and months, we'll get two first crawls, two first steps, two first words, and so on and so forth.

The bad news: Since each parent can really only pay attention to one baby at a time, mommy and daddy each have at least a 50% chance of missing each of these milestones.

Exhibit A. Leah rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time yesterday. At the time of this momentous occasion, daddy was bottle-feeding Riley and mommy was en route to the bathroom. Luckily, daddy was facing in Leah's direction at the time, so he was able to divert his attention from Riley just in time to watch Leah push off the ground, then sort of fall on her side with enough lopsided momentum to roll her over on to her back (narrowly missing crashing into our coffee table, but that's another story.) And then there she was, lying on her back with a triumphant "look what I did!" grin on her face.

What Kathy saw (rushing into the living room after hearing me scream "WHOOOA!"): Leah lying on her back with a triumphant "look what I did!" grin almost faded from her face.

Sorry, mommy.

But the fact is, we're probably missing at least 50% of what each of our babies do each day, simply because we're paying attention to the other baby at the time. For all I know, what I thought was Leah's "first smile" could have been her third smile, and I just happened to miss the first two. Maybe Riley's been rolling around our living room like a steamroller while I've been occupied cleaning up the vomit that Leah keeps spewing on me. Actually, for all I know, Riley could've been reciting Shakespeare while Leah was rolling over yesterday -- I may not have noticed.

I really need to work on having my eyes move independently, so I can keep one eye on Riley and one eye on Leah. I think that's the only way I can avoid missing things. Except there'd still be the stuff I miss while writing in a certain blog.

And on that note, here are Leah and Riley demonstrating their look of disapproval:

Flashback: Finding Out

"I bet we're going to have twins."

Yep, I predicted it. On February 2, 2008. Kathy and I were walking down Divisadero Street, weeks before we actually found out she was pregnant, and, out of the blue, I predicted it. Just call me Nostradamus.

Okay, so it was one of those off-hand, "wouldn't it be funny if" kind of comments that I made without actually believing it was going to happen. But still.

We found out Kathy was pregnant a few weeks later. Almost from the beginning, Kathy kept saying that she thought she might have twins. Her clothes stopped fitting her even though she was only a few weeks pregnant. Plus she was totally exhausted all the time, falling asleep at 8 pm every night. The pregnant symptoms were strong, she MUST have twins. Ha ha - twins! We would sit and think about what it would be like, but I'm not sure I really believed that it was going to happen. I think maybe we thought that if we talked about it happening, then it couldn't possibly really happen.

Right.

Anyway, we were at the doctor undergoing our first ultrasound, and the doctor looks up at the screen and gleefully says:

"Well, here's ONE baby...."

And right then, just from the way he said "ONE", I knew we were going to have more than one baby. And the first thought that went through my head was "Oh dear lord -- we're going to have triplets!"

"...and here's ANOTHER baby."

And I looked up at the screen and saw two sea-monkeyish looking things, side by side. Twin A and Twin B, the doctor called them. I looked at Kathy and saw on her face a weird mix of fear and joy. Mostly fear. Our doctor, on the other hand, seemed positively giddy, flashing a huge grin that contrasted sharply with the stunned looks on our faces.

And so it began.

Oh and incidentally, the calculated day of our twins' conception: February 2, the day of my fateful prediction.

Hey, at least God has a healthy sense of humor.

Uh oh

A couple weeks ago, on one of our walks around the neighborhood, we ran into another set of parents pushing their twins in their double stroller. Whenever this happens, you are essentially required to stop and talk to them. I think it's in the twin parent guidebook or something.

They had two-year old twin daughters, so we asked them the question that is always foremost in our minds, which was "It gets easier, right?"

They exchanged a look, and paused. One of them replied -- "Well, it definitely gets more rewarding."

We talked a little longer about how we were doing and how they were doing, and then as the conversation was wrapping up we gave the question one more shot -- "...but I'm sure it must get easier, right?"

Another pause. A nervous laugh. "It does get less overwhelming, for sure." Then she smiled, wished us luck, and walked off.

Hm. That can't be a good sign.

Because I'm trying to stay optimistic, I'm going to assume that these parents' refusal to throw us a freaking bone and tell us that it's going to get easier just means that the two "terrible twos" that they were pushing in the stroller had just thrown a pair of horrible tantrums and they were still frazzled.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Oh, and look, Riley's smiling!

One Plus One Equals - I Don't Know - Two and a Quarter?

One question I get asked occasionally is whether I think raising twins is twice as much work as raising a single baby, or more than twice as much, or less than twice as much. It's kind of a tough question. For one thing, I don't really feel qualified to answer because I've never raised a single baby. And for another thing, I worry a little about sounding arrogant and belittling the plight of the single-baby parents, given how difficult it is to raise even one baby. Who am I to say that our lives are so much more difficult than someone with just one baby?

Aw, what the heck. I'll say it. It's much more difficult. So there. Sue me.

Maybe it's not three times as much work, but I think it's slightly more than twice as much work. Let's say 2.2 times as much?

Now why do I think raising twins is more than twice as much work as raising one baby? Well, here's the way I think of it:

Parents have an internal battery that can be drained or can be recharged. A fussy or crying baby drains the battery. A happy, calm, or sleeping baby recharges the battery. For someone with just one baby, there are usually enough happy, calm, or sleeping periods to keep the battery at least partially charged most of the time.

The problem with raising twins is that if only one baby is happy, that still drains your battery, because that means that the other baby is fussy or crying, and darn it, that's still draining. You only recharge your battery if both babies are happy at the same time, and my experience so far is that this really doesn't happen all that often. And if, God forbid, both of the babies are screaming their head off at the same time, well that just instantly drains the battery to zero. Trust me on that one.

So, because you rarely get to recharge your battery, your battery just keeps draining and draining as the day goes on, and by the time (to pick a random example) your husband comes home after work, you're almost totally spent. You're like the Energizer Bunny, except someone switched out the Energizer batteries with those generic store-brand batteries that they just fished out of the trash because they can't find any other batteries around the house.

Okay, did I beat that metaphor to death enough for you? I thought so.

Where was I going with this anyway? I can't remember -- my battery's too low.

And now, a picture before I say goodnight -- a picture that I think illustrates the difficulties in getting both babies to be happy at the same time: