The Chain-Reaction

The twins turn six months old this week, and we've noticed recently that they're becoming a bit more aware of each other. It's pretty subtle -- it's not like they're suddenly playing patty-cake or singing "Ebony and Ivory" together or anything. But now when we sit them in front of each other, they'll actually look at each other curiously for a while. Then Riley will pat Leah's head or something. And then Leah will usually take Riley's bib and shove it into her mouth. This looks cute, but actually amounts to a semi-choke hold as the bib tightens around Riley's neck. So it usually means we have to separate them and that twin discovery time is over before it fully began.

Kathy and I have been excited to watch the babies become more aware of each other, but this development definitely has some major drawbacks. The biggest drawback is the phenomenon I'll call the Chain Reaction. The Chain Reaction starts when one baby gets upset for some reason and starts crying. Then the second baby hears the first baby and gets scared and starts crying. Then the first baby hears the second baby and gets even more upset and starts crying louder. Then the... well, I think you get the idea -- each baby cries louder and louder until both babies are hysterically yowling at maximum volume.

Aw yeah, good times.

Now, Leah and Riley are generally pretty happy babies so we don't get the Chain Reaction happening that much. When it does start happening, we'll usually take the originally offending baby (usually Riley) to another room, cutting off the chain before it gets too far. But once in a while, when we're trapped in one place for some reason, the full-blown Chain Reaction can rear its ugly head.

The Chain Reaction was in full effect yesterday at the doctor's office, where we went for their six-month checkup. Leah had fallen asleep in the car and didn't wake up until we were sitting in the doctor's office. Riley was awake and pretty calm. From that point, the situation went a little something like this:

Leah: [What the -- Where the hell am I? This isn't my house! Why is the light so weird and fluorescenty here!? What's that weird smell!? Why is that guy in the white coat here?!] Waaah!

Riley: [Somebody's screaming! Something doesn't seem quite right here. Who is that guy in the white coat? Why do mommy and daddy look so nervous?] Waaaaah!

Leah: [Somebody else is screaming! I knew something was wrong! And that guy in that white coat is poking at me!] WAAAAAAH!

Riley: [Leah's screaming! She must know something's up! Why aren't mommy and daddy saving us from this white-coated man? Maybe I need to scream louder.] WAAAAAAAAH!!

Leah: [Oh no! Mommy's paying attention to Riley instead of me! Maybe I need to scream a little louder to really get their attention!] WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

Riley: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

Leah: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!

Yes, good times indeed. It was actually kinda funny watching the doctor trying to do a real examination under these conditions. I mean, can you really hear anything through the stethoscope when there are two babies simultaneously screaming in your face at the top of their lungs? The doctor gave Leah and Riley a clean bill of health, but I dunno, I'm pretty sure he was just trying to get rid of us.

Thoughts from the Sick Bed

The cold that Leah had a couple weeks ago has slowly worked it's way through our family, traveling to Riley, then to Kathy, and now, naturally, to me. At least I think it's the same cold. Or more accurately, I hope it's the same cold, because otherwise that means somebody's brought a whole new cold into this house and there's gonna be hell to pay.

Lying in bed with a cold and a laptop (and the nanny playing with the babies) means that you've got some time to look at your photo collection. As I look back at the newborn and first month pictures of Leah and Riley, I am struck with two thoughts. The first thought is "oh my god, they look totally different now." The second thought is "gosh, they used to be kinda funny looking".

Is that a bad thing for a parent to think, that his daughters used to be funny looking? I mean, look, Leah used to have this middle-aged man hairline, and Riley used to be really skinny but with this big pot belly:

Now, of course, Leah's hair has come in, Riley's cheeks and body have filled out, and I personally think that they're two incredibly cute and precious 5-month old babies. But, hey, how come I didn't notice that my babies looked sorta like funny-looking old men? Was it some sort of parental blindness that made us think our babies were breathtakingly adorable? And how come nobody told us the truth? Everybody told us our babies were beautiful!

I guess it's sort of a social requirement that when you see newborn babies, you have to tell the parents that their babies are beautiful. I guess maybe I wouldn't have reacted all that favorably if someone had said "holy crap, your babies sure are weird-looking". But how's a parent supposed to know if his kids really are beautiful or if everybody's just saying they're beautiful to fulfill their social obligation?

Actually, a few people have now told us something like "I know everybody always says that babies are beautiful, but YOUR babies REALLY are beautiful". It's nice to hear things like that, but I feel like in the near future, people will be saying that so much that it will become the new basic obligatory compliment, and just telling someone their baby is beautiful will actually become a social faux pas, like an insult. And to really compliment a baby, you'll have to take it to the next level and say "I know everybody always says 'babies are beautiful, but your babies really are beautiful', but YOUR babies REALLY are REALLY beautiful -- REALLY!"

Or maybe that's just my cold-fuzzy brain talking. Anyway, I now present a current picture of our beautiful babies. At least, I think they're beautiful.

Return of the Truck

When the twins were about a month or two old, Kathy and I started seeing some of our friends for the first time after having the babies. Typically, after the initial cooing over the babies, they would look at us with a surprised expression and say something like "You look well!" or "You look rested!" or "You guys actually look like you're surviving okay!"

This reaction was always amusing to Kathy and me. It was as if people were expecting that we would look like we got run over by a truck with, like, tire tread marks on our bodies and black and swollen eyes and little cartoon birds chirping and flying in circles over our heads.

But now I remember back to that first month and I think -- jeez, most of the time, I actually did feel like I got run over by a truck. And I look back at pictures of me and Kathy from those first few weeks, and I think -- yep, we actually did kinda look like we got run over by a truck. Minus the cartoon birds and the tire marks, but still.

The reason I mention this is that at about 8:00 pm this past Sunday night, Kathy and I sat exhausted on our couch, experiencing once again that feeling of having been hit by a truck. This weekend, Riley had a cold and Leah had the remnants of a cold plus a painful bout of constipation. All of our old dependable tricks for comforting Leah and Riley were no match for these illnesses, and so we pretty much had to watch helplessly while our babies, particularly Leah, cried out in pain and frustration. Over and over. It was a weekend full of desperate looks from our daughters that basically said "Mommy and daddy, why are you letting this happen to us?"

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

When Leah and Riley finally went to sleep on Sunday night, for awhile, Kathy and I sat there exhausted on the couch, blankly staring at nothing -- too tired to talk, too tired to think, too tired to even walk over to the bed and collapse on to it. It was probably the first time Kathy and I have been glad that a weekend was over and that we would be going back to work the next day. We were not a pretty picture.

Fortunately, unlike real truck collisions, the Leah and Riley truck doesn't cause much lasting damage. The next morning, Leah and Riley were their normal happy selves, and Kathy and I were fully recovered and back driving the Leah and Riley truck instead of getting run over by it. Okay, I'd better end this post -- I've officially stretched this truck metaphor as far as it will go.

Here's where I would normally post some pictures, but my DSL is down. Once again, I say - -Damn you, Earthlink!

The Battle of Sick vs. Happy

This past weekend, Leah fell victim to her very first cold. She seems to be past the worst of it, and it hasn't been much more than a cough and a case of the sniffles. Still, watching Leah, our happy-go-lucky daughter, go through a cold has been a sad, sad thing to watch. Because through it all, you could see that she was trying desperately to stay happy. Leah would be sitting there, with snot pouring out of her nose, hacking like a chain-smoker, eyes watering -- but with this big grin on her face. It's as if she thought that maybe, if she smiled wide enough, she could convince those little virus cells to leave her alone and maybe travel over to her sister.

She does this around naptime too. You can always tell when Leah's first starting to get tired because her smile starts looking a little forced. You can almost see the "tired" side of her brain and the "happy" side of her brain battling it out inside her head. Leah keeps trying to let out her normal happy coos and squeals, but they gradually start sounding more and more edgy and desperate. And then suddenly, the smile's still there, but the joy is completely gone from her face, and you just know that Tired Side has emerged victorious. The smile fades and the lower lip starts protruding farther and farther out. And then, meltdown.

Riley's a lot more black and white. When she's happy, you know it, and when's she's not, you know it. And there's no "tired vs. happy" battle going on in her head. If Riley's tired, you ain't gonna be able to make her happy, and she sure as hell is going to try to pretend to be happy just for mommy and daddy's sake. As if.

And so, now that Riley is starting to show signs of catching Leah's cold, Kathy and I are mentally bracing for the storm. It ain't gonna be fun, folks.

Although by the time Riley's at her peak sick level, Leah should be just about back to her full yeeeeahh strength. I guess that is one of the nice things about having twins -- usually one of the two is in a good mood and can offer you some respite from the crabby-pants one. Or I guess you can look at in the glass-half-empty way and complain that one of the two is always grumpy and bringing you down from the joy of the happy one.

What the heck. For today, I choose to look be a glass-half-full person. Although, that's subject to change -- check in with me after a day of two of dealing with sick Riley.

Tough Crowd (Part 2)

On with our story...

So, I'm sitting on the couch feeding Leah and Riley, thinking that maybe the worst is over. Suddenly, without warning, Riley starts screaming her head off again after only eating about an ounce of her bottle. And once again, she screams loud enough to startle our scaredy-cat Leah, so now both babies are crying their eyes out again. I frantically cycle Riley through various forms of prospective entertainment in an attempt to appease her. Playmat -- doesn't work. Exersaucer -- doesn't work. Bouncy chair with pacifier in her mouth -- that doesn't work. Lying her on the ground while waving the little bird toy over her head -- the freaking piece de resistance of my Riley bag of tricks -- guess what, it doesn't work.

I place Riley on the floor on her belly, which is sometimes known to calm her down. I watch as Riley immediately executes a beautiful roll on to her back. I try to congratulate Riley, but she's not in the mood to hear it. Actually, the fact that she abruptly finds herself on her back instead of her tummy seems to have disoriented her, and now all of a sudden, she's more panicked than ever. Meanwhile, Leah realizes that her daddy has been completely ignoring her for the past few minutes, and so she let's out a mighty yawp of protest just to remind me that I have more than one daughter.

I look at the clock. It's been eight minutes since the babies woke up. What the hell? Has time frozen or something?

The final thing left to try is the Jumperoo. Our Jumperoo is in the kitchen, at the other end of the house, so using it involves grabbing Leah, sprinting to the other end of the house, putting Leah in the Jumperoo, then sprinting back to the other end of the house, picking up Riley, sprinting to the other end of the house again, and putting Riley in a high chair. I am now getting a serious workout. In her high chair, Riley continues crying until I start leaping up and down in front of her. If I stop leaping for a second, Riley starts crying again. So, of course, I keep on leaping like an idiot for the next ten minutes. Sweat starts to bead on my forehead and my legs begin to burn, but dammit, it's worth it, because the babies aren't crying anymore.

Actually, the babies are kinda diggin' it. Leah's jumping around and squealing. Riley is laughing her ass off, probably amused at what a doofus her dad is. I actually haven't seen them simultaneously this happy in a long, long time. Life is good.

Just as I start thinking that this parenting thing isn't so hard, Leah suddenly stops jumping around and gets a very serious look on her face. And I know what that means. I think all the parents reading this know what that means. Leah is about to poop.

As Leah grunts away, I start to weigh my options. I could go change Leah in the other room, but that means leaving Riley in the kitchen, where she will almost certainly start bawling again. Or I could leave Leah in the Jumperoo stewing in her own poo until Riley goes to bed and hope that Leah doesn't start crying again. It's kind of a no-win situation. It's like Sophie's Choice.

The thought of Leah stewing in her poo is too much for me, so I change her and leave Riley in the kitchen. I set a personal speed record for diaper changing, and when I get back, Riley is miraculously not crying. However, all the joy has now drained from her face. She basically looks like a bored high school student sitting in detention.

I try to revive the pre-poop joy, but it is not to be. I struggle through the next half hour, holding and feeding one of the babies while the other one fusses, and then switching to the other one, and then back to the first one, and then back to the second one. And then back to the first one.

But I somehow make it through. At 7:30 pm, both babies are sleeping, and I am still standing, dammit. They did not break me.

The end. Roll credits.

Sorry for the long story. I have no idea if that was the least bit interesting to you all, but it at least gives you some idea of what it's like to be one person taking care of two five-month-old twins. I don't know if there are any pearls of wisdom that readers can take away from that story, but I can tell you that the next time I take care of the twins at night by myself, I'm sure as hell going to make sure I know where their pajamas are before they wake up.

And now, some pictures of Leah and Riley's first adventures with solid food, from this weekend. That didn't go so well, either, but that's another story.

Tough Crowd (Part 1)

Well, that didn't go very well.

I got home about 5:30 pm today, ready for my evening alone with the babies. The nanny had just put them down for their last nap. This timing was actually the best-case scenario I had been hoping for. With this timing, Leah and Riley would wake up around 6:15 or so, which is early enough that Riley wouldn't be in her evening grump mode yet, so she would eat peacefully and happily, and the babies would then play for about 45 minutes before going to bed at their ideal bedtime of 7:30. And the angels above would sing joyfully, and all would be well with universe. Theoretically.

At 6:15 on the dot, Leah wakes up. I smile at her. She smiles back. I talk to her a little, and she answers back in her little Leah language. Things are good. Riley wakes up. I smile at her, and she smiles back. I can hear the angels singing already. Tonight is going to go well.

Kathy had coached me on what to do if they woke up at the same time. You turn on Leah's mobile to keep her occupied, and then you change Riley's diaper and put her in her pajamas. Then you put Riley back in her crib, turn on her mobile, and change Leah. Then you take them to the living room one at a time and feed them. Easy as pie.

Following Kathy's instructions, I turn on Leah's mobile. As I start to pick up Riley, I realize that the pajamas that Kathy left in the room in the morning aren't there anymore. Oh well, I figure, the nanny must've moved them -- so I leave the babies in their cribs to go find the pajamas. It takes me about 90 seconds to determine the whereabouts of the pajamas (bedroom laundry). Unfortunately, in that minute, Riley transforms from angelic baby to she-devil. By the time I get back to the room, Riley, none too happy about me starting to pick her up and then abandoning her, is screaming at the top of her lungs. It's that kind of panicky screaming where she barely has time to take in breaths between the individual screams -- so basically she's panicked and oxygen-deprived.

I start changing Riley as quickly as I can, but Leah, who's currently going through somewhat of an "easily startled" phase, has now been snapped out of her happy mode, and starts crying in chorus with Riley, matching her decibel for decibel. I now have two babies crying at volume 11, and my evening is only about two-and-a-half minutes old. It was almost funny, in a way. Actually, on second thought, no, it wasn't the slightest bit funny at all.

I change Riley in record time, put her back in the crib, turn on the mobile, and get ready to change Leah. I get about as far as the third snap on Leah's shirt, but Leah and Riley are now both screaming loud enough to rattle the windows, so I say screw it. I hurriedly carry the babies down to the living room to feed them, Riley first with her face purple and tears streaming down her cheeks, and then Leah panicking with her lower lip trembling and her shirt half open and flapping in the wind like Tom Selick's in Magnum, P.I.

I look at the clock. 6:20 on the dot. 5 minutes down. Just have to make it through the next hour and ten minutes. How hard could that be? Things couldn't get any worse, could they?

Uh, could they?

To be continued.

Famous Last Words

Before the babies were born, Kathy bought me one of those "Father's Guide to Having a Baby" type books. To be honest, I didn't really read very much of it, but one of the things I remember is that it warned prospective dads that with mommy doing all the breastfeeding and having such a close bond with the baby, dads might feel a bit "left out" of the parenting process since there wasn't really much for them to do at first.

Tee hee. Not much for them to do. [Insert maniacal laughter here.]

Well folks, if you want to avoid the problem of the daddy feeling left out, let me highly recommend having twins. As the dad of twins, you can be involved to your heart's content. Because while mommy is awesome and can do a remarkable number of things for the babies, there's only one of her and there's not quite enough of her to go around. Because we have twins, I've gotten to be intimately involved in pretty much all aspects of parenting. Feeding, bathing, changing, dressing, burping, calming, you name it, I get to do about one baby's worth of it.

Uh, except for breastfeeding. I'm pretty sure I can't do that.

And trimming fingernails. Those fingernails are too freaking tiny. How the heck am I supposed to trim those things?!

Tomorrow, I get to check one other thing off the list that I haven't done yet, which is to take care of them completely on my own during the night. Kathy's got a work meeting tomorrow night, which means that it's just me, Leah, and Riley from 5:45 pm until they go to bed. And while Leah is usually pretty okay during that period, it's kind of a crapshoot with Riley. On about half the nights, Riley will eat her bedtime meal and then go to bed with maybe a little fussing, but no big deal. On the other half of the nights, getting Riley to eat her bedtime meal requires an elaborately awkward ritual where I feed her while standing up and bouncing around, in a dark room, with white noise playing in the background, while I simultaneously sing either "Hey Jude" or "Edelweiss" to her. And while that ritual is usually fine and dandy, it's gonna be hard to do that while feeding Leah at the same time unless I can figure out how to hold a bottle with my foot or something.

And yet, when Kathy suggested that we try to get our nanny or somebody to come over and help me tomorrow night, I stubbornly refused. No way. I got this one. I can do this. No problem.

So why did I do this to myself? Because I'm a guy, probably. It's like that whole no-asking-for-directions thing.

But more than anything, I'm just kinda curious to see if I can do it. If tomorrow night goes well, it'll be a huge triumph, and as a dad, you've got to take your triumphs where you can get them. Plus I'll be able to say that I've done something that not even Kathy has done yet. I'm actually sort of perversely excited about it.

And if it ends up being a total disaster? Well, at least it should make a good story for the blog.

I Don't Like Where This Is Going

Since the birth of the twins, our cat Chloe has been seriously getting the short end of the attention stick. In a few short months, she has gone from being the spoiled queen of the household to being something we sometimes accidentally trip on while running to tend to the babies. At first, she seemed to be taking this whole baby thing in stride, but the honeymoon is definitely over.

It's been kind of a slow progression.

During the first month, I think Chloe actually thought the babies were pretty cool. The babies kept Kathy and me up at all hours of the night, which meant much more night-time entertainment for her. She would climb on the bed at night as we fed the babies and sniff their heads. She would follow us up and down the hall as we prepared and washed bottles. She would get special middle-of-the-night feedings, too. I think she was thinking this whole baby thing might not be so bad.

During months 2 and 3, you could tell the novelty was wearing off for Chloe. These babies were definitely stealing attention from her. There were these creatures always lying or sitting on the laps that previously had been her domain. Chloe was definitely miffed at this turn of events, but didn't really protest too much, other than the occasional plaintive meow for attention.

During month 4, Chloe started getting pissed. She would pace angrily back and forth on the couch while we fed the babies, trying in vain to lure attention away from those small humans. When that didn't work, she finally resorted to throwing up or pooping in random areas around the house, figuring that these protest poops and barfs would be the way back into our hearts. Somehow, that didn't work so well either.

During month 5, Chloe kicked it up a notch to Homeland Security Level Orange. Since throwing up and pooping around the house was clearly not working, Chloe has recently decided to be a bit more targeted in her attacks. She started throwing up and pooping in baby-specific locations like under their cribs and on their favorite hangouts like their playmats. She still paces back and forth on the couch, but now we actually have to keep an eye on her so that she doesn't actually step on the babies, which she actually has done about three times now. (Although the babies don't even notice when she does it because Chloe weighs nothing.)

We are now about to begin month 6, and I have to say, I'm kinda worried, because as I see it, the natural next step after pooping and barfing on the babies' things would be pooping and barfing on the babies themselves. And that wouldn't be very good. Trust me, as one of the primary poopy diaper changers of the household, I can attest that Leah and Riley get enough barf and poop on themselves without any help from anyone else.

I wanted to end this with a picture of Chloe with the babies, but apparently we haven't taken any pictures of Chloe over the past five months. Sorry, Chloe. Instead, more baby pictures!



I'm writing this on Kathy's last night before going back to work. If anyone has any words of wisdom or pep talks for Kathy as she returns to work after six long months away, feel free to comment!