Anecdotes and Stories
(aka "A Stream of Consciousness From The Front Lines")
Just thought that I'd record some thoughts and notes as I journey through my first experience as a father.
And All Was Good With The World ...
Babies and pets have it figured out. Their critical needs aren't expressed by some complex pyramidal hierarchy, it's a couple of blocks, maybe two or three. They don't need flashy cars, expansive houses, big raises, glitzy clothes, or promotions. Give my cat or either of my two babies a full belly, some room for a good stretching, and lap to snuggle up in, and all is good with the world. You can see it in their faces, not a care, not a worry, just a deep contentment that can't help but infect everyone around them. We could learn something from babies and pets.
Is That A Zoo In Your Bedroom?
Kids make the funniest sounds. I think our kids make more sounds than most. I'm not just talking about the crying. The astounding variety of chirps, groans, grunts, hacks, and moans that come out of Matthew and Benjamin is truely amazing. Sometimes I think they sound like 70 year old men.
How Babies Change Our Perceptions
| Activity | Pre-Babies | Post-Babies |
|---|
| 4 hours of sleep | A terrible night's sleep | A great night's sleep |
| Red-eye flights | A necessary evil of consulting | 4.5 hours of sleep (see 4 hours of sleep) |
| Getting peed on | A sexual fetish | a weekly occurance |
| Having only one baby | Unimaginable | Unimaginable |
| Diaper shopping at Target | A chore | Date night |
| Poop | Disgusting | The center of my existance |
| Smiles | Not very extraordinary | Another sign of my babies' genius |
| Hobbits | Fanciful beings from the mind of JRR Tolkier | What Susana has become (breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, supper, dinner, desert) |
| Insurance | Good financial planning | A piece of napkin that ensures I don't get peed on |
I Wish I Had NASCAR Training
I've concluded that changing babies is much like managing the pit crew at a NASCAR event. The objective of a pit crew is to be at the driver's call for a stop and to make sure the driver spends the least amount of time in the pit as possible. Changing diapers is much the same way ... you want to make sure the baby is exposed for as little time as possible. Why? Silly reader. They get cold .... NOT! EVERY SECOND THEY REMAIN EXPOSED IS A SECOND THEY MIGHT PEE OR POOP ON YOU!!!!!! You put them down, uncover, wipe, and change them as soon as you can, all the while chanting, "don't pee on me, don't pee on me, don't pee on me".
We have it down to a crude science now. Before a baby is even put onto the changing pad, all the "equipment" is taken out, arranged, and prepped. All we need to do is uncover baby for a few critical seconds, and then, BOOM!, it's back on with a new diaper.
It's also kind of funny how I've given each phase of the diaper changing process a name and call them off as I change each babies diapers. If Susana is listening, she can tell exactly what I'm doing by the names I'm calling off. When we put the diapers back on, we go, "Diaper - Shirt - Cape - Chicken - Ski Jumper - Good baby!" You go figure out what they mean.
Dads Have It Easy
I think that I've come to the realization that dads (or really the working spouse) has it easy. For as much as I might contribute to feedings, diaper changes, and other stuff, when I'm back at work, I have the luxury of saying, "see you tonight honey. I'm going to work (or wherever you might be going). This is huge. Not that I'm not doing great things at the office, but I have zero real responsibilities for watching a pair of twins. I don't have to listen to their cries. I don't have to worry about whether their diapers need changing. I don't have to worry about whether they are hungry. I'm beyond that. I'm at work. This little oasis of sanity may last for 9-12 hours, until I finally return home from the office.
My wife, she doesn't get any break, not until she decides to return to the office herself. Until then, it's babies ... babies 24 X 7 until she goes back to work. No break. No respite. Just babies .... their cries, their diapers, their feedings .... 24 X 7. You tell me who has the tougher job.
Where Did All The Space Go?
I wish I had a good car. wait, that's not right. I actually do have a pretty good car, a 1999 Subaru Forrester; a car that up until 2/5/03 did everything I wanted it to do. On that fateful day though, I came to the realization that this car, the one that I thought had so much space - more than I knew what to do with - was full.
The Forrester by itself is a great car. It has a very roomy second set of seats, which are elevated so that your passengers can easily see ahead. There is plenty of headroom and a good size cargo area in which you can store all of your crap. When you introduce twins to the Forrester however, this all goes out the back door. Where we had a roomy, spacious second set of seats for guests, we now have a pair of Graco infant seats and bases. Our cavernous cargo compartment is now filled with a dual stroller, diaper bag, and various other baby sundries. See where I'm going with this?
I realized the other day, while shopping for groceries, that if the car were fully loaded with babies and strollers, this would simply not be possible - well, we could probably shop for a bag of chips or a Jamba Juice, but that would just about fill up the rest of the car.
I think it's time to think about a 18 wheeler with at least 3 rows of seats and a trailer.
My Newfound Respect For Single Parents
Here's a big shout out to all those single parents out there. I think we all realize that they all fill some pretty big shoes when it comes to raising their kids all by themselves. I don't think any of us can really appreciate how much work that really is until we experience it ourselves.
With Susana still recovering from her c-section (can't lift heavy objects, can't bend over, still resting a lot in bed), I have picked up a lot of the normal day to day duties like diaper changes, some feedings, all of the housework, cleaning, cooking (some), etc. Just this sometimes has me at my wits end ... and I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I also have the luxury of having 12 weeks of Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) time off. I could not imagine doing all of this, by yourself, and having to work a normal job to support your family.
Maybe the term I should use isn't respect, but awe. You single parents, who do a good job of raising your families while maintaining a full time job, are amazing and for that I tip my hat to you all.
The House That Diapers Built
New babies go though a lot of diapers. Twins go through even more diapers. I have a new found appreciation for how much space they take in our nation's landfills. I figure that 4 fully loaded diapers (you figure out what that means), folded up for disposal, and stacked 2 x 2 are approximately the same size as a standard construction brick - you know, one of the brick red ones (2 1/4 X 4 X 8).
Now, at home, we go through 20-24 diapers a day between the two babies. Multiply that by 365 days, gives us 7,300 diapers or the equivalent of 1,825 bricks. So what could we build with 1,825 bricks? For starters, a wall that is 228 square feet in size. If you bring that inside, that's a wall measuring 8 feet high by 28 feet in width. In my home office, that is a wall of diapers that runs from floor to ceiling and runs the length of 2 1/2 walls - WOW.
On-Line Gaming And The New Father
In the midst of all the typical day's activities: changing diapers, feedings, checking e-mail, cleaning the house, groceries, etc., I do get some free time. I relax by engaging in some on-line gaming, typically in 15-30 minute blocks. Natually, since the office is downstairs and the babies are upstairs, we borrowed a baby monitor so that I can monitor them at all times. We are using a Fisher-Price model which has absolutely been great. You can hear everything, crystal clear, as if they were in the room right there with you.
This creates an interesting environment for my tired, overworked brain to process. On the one hand, game sounds, on the other, the sounds from the babies' room: the TV, Susana's snoring, babies' hiccups, crying, etc.
What I basically hear is "Fight!, Need Ammo!, [hiccup], sounds of gunfire, [hiccup], Medic!, [hiccup], [snoooooooooore], more gunfire, [hiccup], Objective Taken!, [hiccup], [snooooooooooore], [waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah], [hiccup], more gunfire, Need Ammo!, [waaaaaaaaaah] -- oops, second cry, that's my cue to go -- Bye everyone, on my way up honey!
Making Use Of All Your Free Time
NOT!!! One thing that I learned early on is that you will have zero free time to do any sort of non-baby work. This could include home improvement projects, auto maintenance, taxes, home finances, etc. Don't assume that you'll have time to do anything extra - get all your chores out of the way before the baby(ies) show up. If you have a job that requires extensive travel, make the time prior to delivery (and plan for early arrival) to get this stuff taken care of. This could include getting the cars tuned up and fixed, home improvement initiatives, taxes and family finances, etc. Set expectations with your employer that you will need some time to do this - it may happen on weekends, but then you need to be around on weekends to do this.
Warning Labels and You
| Your baby's health depends on carefully following these directions |
What's a new father to think when he sees a warning label like this? Was it on a hydraulic press? a set of sharp cutting tools? No!!!! A cannister of powdered baby formula - the stuff that's going to sustain my babies for the next couple of months and make their poop smell bad.
I can almost imagine the discussion I will have when it comes time to mix up my first batch of baby formula - "OMG! honey, does this look like an unpacked teaspoon? Does this look level?? For god's sake, the health of our babies is at stake here. I have to get this just right otherwise I will be soley responsible for their underdevelopment and a lifelong of teasing at school."
Nothing like a good apocalypitc warning to get you warm and cozy with your new responsibilities as a dad.
The Stages of Poop
Babies develop rapidly after birth, so we've been told. One sure sign of evolution and growth, is the nature of their poop. We've only reached the second phase, but we'll keep adding new descriptions as we witness their development.
- Black Tar. When babies are inside the mother, their digestive tract is lined with a black tarry substance called maconium. Maconium is not a pretty sight, in fact, it's downright shocking. It something you'd expect to see washing up on the beach after an oil spill ... only it's coming out of your baby. Luckily, this passes quickly and before you know it, you're done cleaning up the Exxon Valdez and on to ...
- Taco Bell. While Taco Bell still remains one of my very most favorite fast food restaurants, the next stage of poop really does look like the beef filling from one of their burritos -- kind of an earthy brown, pastelike, with sprinkles of seed-like substances. I have no idea where that comes from as I certainly have not been feeding my babies seeds.
- Pumpkin Paint. This is pretty self explanatory. The babies went onto a 100% breast milk diet and the first few days of this resulted in what looked like Pumpkin Paint. I guess that's just a transitory phase, since I haven't seen this much since then. Oddly enough, this phase was very short.
- Macaroni & Cheese. This phase of poop is characterized by a new sensation - smell. I can smell this, even given my notoriously bad sense of smell. It smells like macaroni & cheese sauce and looks a heck of a lot like mac and beef.
- Dead Fish. The smell characterizes this phase of poop rather than color or consistancy. Namely, their shit stinks like dead fish. Sometimes it's green, sometimes it's brown, sometimes it's "solid", sometimes it's runny, but it always stinks
Getting The Right Translation For Foreign Names
If you will be giving your babies foreign names, you need to make sure you get the right translations from the get go. Our babies have the nick names of "Zi Fong" and "Zi Wei", which corresponds to the traits of innovativeness/leadership and strength of character. I accidentally, having forgotten my Chinese to Pinyan lessons from very long ago, listed them on the birth certificate as "Xi Fong" and "Xi Wei". It wasn't until my brother pointed out that I was a stupid head, that I realized I had made a mistake. Naturally, I assumed the worst and had many visions of having to explain to my babies why I had meant to name them "innovative leader type person" but instead, named them "eater of poop".
Luckily, the birth certificate office at Marin General didn't automatically assume I was a moron and told me that we could process the change right there in the office. Whew. Another life crisis taken care of.