And No Way She's Gonna Have Time to Blog About It...

You've probably all heard about the octuplets born in Southern California earlier this week. Apparently, the octuplets mom says she's going to breastfeed. To which, I say, sure, hey, go for it. You probably should grow two or three more breasts, though. I'm not exactly an expert or anything on octuplet parenthood, but:

• It takes us about a half hour to feed both babies, and they eat every two hours.
• Eight babies is four times as many babies as we have.
• So it'll take them four times as long to feed the octuplets as it takes us to feed our twins (assuming the mom fails at trying to grow some more breasts). Four times a half hour equals two hours.
• So it'll take them two hours to feed the eight babies, and so as soon as they finish feeding the last baby, they'll have to start all over with another feeding cycle.
  
• Which means -- zero hours to sleep or eat.
• Which means -- better grow some more breasts.

I really feel for the parents. I'm not sure they know quite what they're getting into. Kathy and I look back at our first month with the twins, and we can laugh about it now, but I think we both have to admit now that the first month was a living hell. Total unadulterated hell. It was a month of crippling sleep deprivation, endless breastfeeding frustration, fear, confusion, and as a nagging certainty that we were doing everything wrong and were going to totally fail as parents. I'm not typically all that emotional, but I was breaking down into tears of helplessness and frustration on pretty much a daily basis, and it was even harder on Kathy as the mom than it was for me. And that's even though we had a lot of help from my parents for the first couple weeks.

So multiply that by four, and you have the joy of the first month of octuplet parenthood.

So, octuplet mom, if you're reading this somehow, all I can say is -- I feel your pain. Or, at least, I felt your pain. Or, I guess, I felt about 25% of your pain.

Our Unintentional Social Experiment

As parents of infant twins, our primary objective is survival. Okay, it's pretty much our only objective. We're just trying to survive through the day without screwing up our babies or losing our sanity. Anything that makes that any easier is pretty much a-okay in our book.

Sometimes, in the name of survival, certain parenting principles go out the window. Like Twin Parenting Rule Number 1: You're supposed to be treat your twins equally and consistently, applying the same parenting rules to each one, with no favoritism toward either twin. Sounds like a great rule, right? How could anyone possibly argue with that rule?

Well...

Exhibit A: When Leah starts fussing, she can often calm herself down by sucking her thumb. When Riley starts fussing, we know that she will fuss louder and louder, until the fussing turns into crying and the crying turns into screaming and the screaming turns into atomic meltdown. So, if Riley's fussing, we always run to comfort her immediately. But if Leah's fussing, we adopt the ol' wait-and-see attitude and hope that she quiets down on her own.

Exhibit B: Riley gets upset when she senses that your attention is not 100% focused on her and her only. Leah, on the other hand, is pretty content to babble to herself or play on her mat as long as you check in with her once in awhile. So, if there's only one parent and two babies around, about 70% of the attention gets showered on Riley, and Leah gets the leftover little attention scraps.

And the list goes on and on.

The verdict, at least according to the parenting books, is that we must be BAD parents. And we know it. But we keep on doing it, because dammit, it's pretty tiring to keep up with twin infants even when they're both happy. When they're unhappy - well, it gets exhausting pretty darn fast. So if we have the opportunity to reduce the frequency or length of the baby freakouts by, let's say, 25%, um - we're pretty much gonna go for it.

Besides, it'll be an interesting social experiment. Will letting Leah fend for herself more make her more independent, or will it make her regress in a bid to get more attention from her parents? Will the extra parental attention make Riley feel more secure or will it make her crave attention even more? Intriguing questions that are just begging to be answered. That's right, kids -- it's all for the advancement of science!

The Art of Multi-Tasking

I don't think I'll get any argument from Kathy here when I say that I'm horrible at multi-tasking. Whenever I have to try to concentrate on two separate tasks at the same time, I will usually fail miserably in at least one of the two tasks. And most of the time, I'll fail miserably on both tasks. Like if I try to call my parents to ask about something while I'm making a grilled cheese sandwich, I will usually burn the grilled cheese sandwich, plus I will forget what the heck I was going to ask my parents about. Or if Kathy sends me to the kitchen to get her a glass of water, the Bay Area section of the newspaper, and bottles of formula for Leah and Riley, I will come back with a glass of water, the Sports section, and no bottles whatsoever.

I'm not quite sure why this is, but I do great when I'm concentrating on one thing at a time, but I become a hopeless bumbling idiot when I suddenly have to concentrate on two separate things. This is a source of endless frustration for Kathy, who seemingly has no problem concentrating on forty-two things at a time.

Unfortunately for me, multi-tasking suddenly becomes a major part of the job description when you have twins. By definition, if you're watching two babies at the same time, you sorta have to be able to actually pay attention to both babies at the same time. Or you at least have to be paying enough attention to avoid physically or emotionally injuring either of the two babies. It's a tall order for a multi-tasking-impaired guy like myself.

This past Sunday, I got a nice little crash-course in multi-tasking when Kathy took a few hours off from baby patrol to go for a walk and have lunch with a friend. Naturally, an hour or so into my time alone with the twins, both Leah and Riley were screaming at the top of their lungs, both demanding to be fed NOW NOW NOW. Typically, Kathy and I will feed the hungrier baby first and let the other baby wait her turn on the playmat or something, but by the tone of the screams this time I knew that neither baby was going to be too keen on waiting for her meal.

So, improvising quickly, I put one U-shaped Boppy pillow on either side of me on the couch, put one baby on each pillow, and then, by sitting in a semi-awkward position with my arms haphazardly askew, I was able to bottle-fed both Leah and Riley at the same time. And then to top it all off, when Leah finished her bottle, I was able to tilt Leah up with one hand and pat her on the back to make her burp, all while continuing to feed Riley with the other hand.

It was a small but triumphant moment of victory for this multi-tasking impaired dad. It was one of those moments where you're just bummed that nobody was there to witness it.

Well, nobody except for Leah and Riley. But they really didn't seem all that impressed.

Single Baby Envy

Kathy and I love our daughters to death, of course, and wouldn't trade having twins for anything in the world. That said, there are definitely times when the ol' "Single Baby Envy" creeps in.

Last night, Kathy and I had the Single Baby Envy going big time.

Here's the scene. We're out to dinner with our friends Alex and Espe and their one-year-old son, Alex. It's a gloriously warm night in San Francisco, and we're eating out on the patio at a local restaurant. It's about 20 minutes into our meal, and Leah and Riley have slept the entire meal so far. Kathy makes some comment about how well behaved the twins are being.

On cue, Riley starts crying from her place in the double stroller. I try using the pacifier on her. Riley scoffs at my feeble attempt to silence her and starts crying louder.

Kathy takes Riley out of the stroller and tries to comfort her by holding her. Riley, now fully awake and in scary unfamiliar surroundings, starts screaming her lungs out.

Kathy tries to bottle feed Riley. Riley, apparently thinking we're trying to smother her to death using a bottle, starts screaming louder, and also now at a higher octave to ensure that her screams will carry as far as possible. Our fellow dining patrons, previously politely ignoring the screams, all simultaneously turn and glare at our table. Or at least that's what I picture in my head.

Leah, who has been peacefully sleeping up to now, is startled by the piercing shrieks emanating a few feet from her head. Leah starts grumpily fussing.

Kathy hands Riley to me and picks up Leah. I try to feed Riley, unsuccessfully. Kathy tries to comfort Leah, unsuccessfully. I hand the bottle to Kathy. Kathy tries to feed Leah. I try to comfort Riley, unsuccessfully. Thus begins an intricate but chaotic dance of passing babies, bottles, and pacifiers back and forth over plates of food, bouncing, soothing, and shushing -- all while attempting to finish our dinners. Through it all, Riley is screaming, increasingly louder, increasingly more panicked, and increasingly high-pitched.

Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, I looked over at our friends, with their single baby. They expertly took turns entertaining or feeding their son while the other parent ate, conversed, or just relaxed. Whenever one parent started to need a break, the other would step in to relieve. It all seemed so beautifully simple and effortless.

(Insert wistful sigh here.)

So, it was kind of a difficult evening for mommy and daddy. It was the kind of evening that makes you fantasize about how much easier it would be if you had only one baby at a time like everyone else.

But then, of course, Leah and Riley apparently got together and decided that they had to try to make it all up to their poor, exhausted parents. And so they went down to sleep at 9 pm and didn't wake up until 7 am, giving their parents an unheard-of ten hours of sleep.

Oh yes, those twins are sneaky.

They're Taking Over

As anyone who has visited our house recently can tell you, our house is gradually being taken over by baby stuff. It turns out that for two babies, you need a lot of stuff. From the beginning, Kathy and I knew that all the baby products could not be contained by our tiny little nursery, so we started stockpiling the baby stuff in our living room. Over the weeks, the stockpile has grown and grown, and as of now, our living room contains two car seats, two double strollers, two "Bumbo" chairs, one swingey chair, two bouncy chairs, one play-mat, one box of rattles and toys, and various miscellaneous pillows, baby carriers, and bags. This has meant saying goodbye to our living room as we once knew it. Farewell, cat-tower/scratching-post-thing that Chloe never used. So long, chair foot-cushioney-thing and Japanese-floor-lamp-that-didn't-actually-provide-any-light-to-speak-of.

I never pictured we'd have quite this much baby stuff. I don't remember my younger brother and sister having any of this stuff as babies. They had a Winnie-the-Pooh doll, a blanket, a stroller that folded up to the size of an umbrella, a rattle, and that's pretty much it. And I'm not even sure about the rattle.

So when Kathy went out this weekend and bought something called a "Rainforest Jumperoo", I was extremely skeptical at first. I mean, first of all the thing is fricking gigantic:

There wasn't room for this monstrosity in our living room stockpile, so we had to put it in the one place in our house that actually has floor space, which is the kitchen. As Kathy brought it home and ceremoniously placed it in the one open space in our kitchen, grumpy-old-man thoughts went through my head, like "In my day, we didn't need jumperoos -- we entertained ourselves by staring at the popcorn-ceiling all day! And we liked it, dagnabbit!"

And then we put Leah in the Jumperoo.

And within thirty seconds, I remembered why parents buy all this crap for their babies.

Leah's eyes were suddenly all lit up and saucer-like, staring in amazement at the flashing lights surrounding her. Her mouth was at first open in wonderment, and then broke into an ear-to-ear grin of boundless joy. Her legs jumped and flexed about in an ecstatic dance that seemed to say "This Jumperoo completes me. Thank you, oh, thank you, beloved parents of mine."

It didn't last, of course. Fifteen minutes later, Leah was out of breath and a little grumpy. And eventually I'm sure that Leah and Riley will be bored of the Jumperoo, just like they're going to get bored of all the stuff in our living room. But, I tell ya, those first ten minutes of discovery with a new baby toy are totally worth it. Worth the money, worth the loss in living space, and worth the loss of our house as we knew it.

Right, Leah?

This Post is Totally Gonna Jinx It

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I haven't written much recently about how sleep deprived Kathy and I are. Well, I've avoided this topic because I was afraid of jinxing it, but here goes...

Leah and Riley have recently been sleeping 7+ hours in a row at night. Sometimes 8. Once this week, they slept almost 9 consecutive hours. It's true.

It first happened a couple weeks ago. We put the babies to bed at 9:30 pm as usual. They had been typically waking up every night for a 3:30 am feeding, almost like clockwork. On that night, I woke up to go to the bathroom and glanced at the clock. 4:30 am. What the --?

Kathy was awake too and was similarly confused. Were they still breathing? Should we wake them up to make sure they're okay?

Luckily, we came to our senses and realized that waking our babies up to make sure they were sleeping wasn't the best idea. Instead, we peered into their bassinets and convinced ourselves they were breathing. Our babies were, in fact, alive, and had actually slept seven hours in a row. And counting.

Kathy and I were absolutely giddy. We felt like we had won the lottery or something. Or more accurately, we felt like we had found a lottery ticket stuck to the bottom of our shoe and the ticket just happened to hit the jackpot. We were actually so excited about this turn of events that we found ourselves completely unable to get back to sleep. We both laid in bed in a semi-euphoric state until the babies woke up, about 45 minutes later. I realize that staying up for 45 minutes in the middle of the night to celebrate your babies sleeping longer is kind of self-defeating, but hey, we didn't care - we were happy, dammit.

The downside of Leah and Riley sleeping longer at night is that they are now sleeping shorter and shorter during the day. The hour or ninety-minute long naps that we had gotten used to have turned into half-hour mini-siestas. Which means that we have to cook and eat meals really fast. Plus I need to type really fast when I'm blogging, lest the babies wake up before I finish my tho-

Flashback: The Birth (Episode 2)

Having twins is great and all, but there are definitely times when I envy all those people who have one baby at time. In terms of the whole birth experience, I'd say that as a parent, giving birth to one baby probably kicks giving birth to twins's ass.

It was at about 12:15 pm on October 2, 2008 that our first daughter, Riley, was born into the world. Like many first-time parents, I had envisioned those first golden moments holding my newborn son or daughter in my arms, looking into his/her eyes, connecting with his/her soul, telling him/her how glad we are that he/she is in the world and how much we love him/her. That's how it's supposed to go, right? Right? I mean, isn't that the way the movies said it would be?

Except that with twins, those first "golden moments" apparently don't really happen. Because as soon as the first baby is born, the doctors start working on getting that second one out of there. A couple minutes after Riley was born, Kathy had to start pushing again - no basking in the glow of the birth of our first child allowed. And plus, because our baby was technically a preemie, the doctors quickly whisked it away to a heated incubator and then to the nursery to do a bunch of tests on her. So, Riley was gone from the room in minutes, before I even had a chance to remember to take a picture of her. The doctors did ask me if I wanted to go to the nursery with her, but that didn't seem to be quite the right thing to do, since my second daughter was about to be born any minute.

So after another fifteen minutes or so of pushing, our second daughter, Leah, was born. For Leah's birth, I did remember to take a couple pictures, and we did get to hold her for a few seconds, but again she almost immediately had to go to the nursery. This time I went with my daughter, thus leaving my poor wife stranded in the operating room, with a bunch of doctors massaging her uterus from the inside. (I don't know quite how that works, but based on Kathy's reports, it doesn't sound like a very fun kind of massage.)

Anyway, there I was in the nursery watching my new daughters in their incubators, dodging the doctors who were running about, feeling kind like I was in the way but not knowing what to do about it. I tried to figure out exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I guess I knew I was supposed to be bonding with my daughters, but I found that it's hard to bond with your daughters when you're not allowed to pick them up yet and when they're so far away that they can't actually see you anyway. So I just stood there and watched. Sheepishly. The whole experience felt not-quite-real, especially since Kathy wasn't there to share it with.

Of course, if I had known that Kathy was at the moment getting her uterus massaged from the inside, I probably would've been thanking my lucky stars that I wasn't in there witnessing that. Bleech.

Hm -- Don't want to end with THAT image. Hey look -- more cute baby pictures!