Adventures in Parenting, Part 2
So it has been a while, I know, but it has been a productive while. My wife gave birth to two beautiful baby boys (thought we were having trips, but wound up with twins), and they are now close to ten months old. They are adorable little boys with smiles, and cute drooling, and addictive laughter, but they are two little boys. There are just some things about twins that nothing can prepare you for.
- You can be a second circle master ninja capable of walking across water without even making a ripple, but the sound of your very presence WILL wake up one of the twins, and it will always be the one you are not picking up.
- You may be able to juggle fifteen objects in four different directions simultaneously, but there is no way for a father to simultaneously feed twins.
- When playing with either child, tossing them in the air and catching them eight inches from the ground is a good way to make their mother very, very mad at you.
- Provided you help keep them limber, babies CAN touch the back of their heads with the bottoms of their feet, from any direction. Often they find this immensely hilarious.
- Spinning around with your child in hand till their eyes twitch in their heads, may be funny to you, but the wife hates it when they throw up on her 30 seconds later.
- Projectile vomiting is defined as follows: You child(ren) can and will promptly vomit on you from any location in the house, at any distance, as soon as you change from your ratty yard working clothes into your nice work clothes. This will happen at unexpected times, in unexpected ways. The only time it is a 100% guaranty it will happen is when you have to wear your only suit for some important VIP visit, and you are running late.
- Murphy was invented to explain the phenomena of twin children.
- A 55-gallon drum is not a sufficiently sized container for disposing of a weeks worth of diapers from twins.
- Garbagemen (sorry, sanitation engineers) find a 55-gallon drum full of used diapers disgusting.
- No matter how funny you think it was, that was not a fart. It was the teleportation of one child’s bowel movement to the other child’s diaper.
- Twins will attract every interested party within a 5-mile radius to annoy you with innane comments and stupid questions the moment you step out the door with them for some exercise. (Are they twins? Are they identical? You must have your hands full.)
- Finding time to exercise is nearly impossible when you have twins.
- Hell week at SERE training has nothing compared to caring for newborn twins.
- As soon as you finally get both children to sleep someone will do one of the following: Show up unexpectedly with something that generates loud noises, call the phone from Timbuktu and feel the need to shout at the top of their lungs to be heard, ring the doorbell repeatedly while pounding on the door with enough force to knock an elephant out, fire off a howitzer, decide that now is the time to put together a marching band and practice, discover that holding down the center of the steering wheel will generate a continuous loud noise, generate some other various loud noise that will invariably wake up both children simultaneously.
- The phrase “Your son was misbehaving today” will leave you confused as to which son the spousal unit is talking about.
- Square feet of living area defines the space needed by twins for all of their belongings. This number is relative and will always be at least 1,000 square feet more than what you have.
- As soon as you save up enough money for that vacation to Tahiti, you will find all those things that you’ve wanted for your children on sale at the local WalMart. You will wind up spending your entire vacation fund on said items. (Walk in for milk, walk out with $4500 in baby stuff, and no milk)
In all of this I have made another rather disturbing discovery. There are many pediatricians out there who not only have no idea on how to deal with twins, but will refuse to service a family with twins. Take our recent pediatrician for example. She was a nice lady, deals well with children, but put her in a room with twins and she was almost completely lost. When asking questions about one twin, she would almost always look at the wrong chart and say “Well I don’t see that information in his chart… Are you sure?” Fortunately our new pediatrician only deals with multiple births so things are getting better there. Anyways, I’m always open for additions, advice, or a means to laugh at my own life; so if you have anything more to add feel free to add them to the comments below!
And remember: Those that think they are too small to make a difference, have never spent time in a dark room with a mosquito.
Follow
June 13th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Wait, there’s seriously pediatricians who won’t deal with twins, triplets, etc.? That seems kinda crazy to me.
Reply
Andrew reply on June 14th, 2011 1:03 am:
I know, but there are those out there that never had to deal with them, and have no idea how to deal with them. The pediatrician we used to go to specialized in special needs children (Edward may have some sort of nervous disorder… Either that or my version of peek-a-boo is going to lead him to a very nervous life) and had never had to deal with twin in her 23 years of work. The pede we were trying to get flat out refused because they were twins. She specialized in premature births (they were almost 3 months early) so we really wanted to use her services.
Reply
June 13th, 2011 at 10:41 pm
When people ask if they’re twins, tell them “no, they were born 4 days apart.”
And walk away…
Reply
Anna reply on July 8th, 2011 4:55 pm:
Or say no, but we’re working on our marriage now. That’s raised a few eyebrows :D
Reply
June 13th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
I have non-identical twin girls. And their heights and weights are very different. I get baffled looks when people ask me how much older the taller one is than the shorter and I answer “She’s 17 minutes younger”
Good Luck! You are now entering the really interesting stage…Mobile Twins! Muahahahaaha!!!
Reply
Andrew reply on June 14th, 2011 12:59 am:
I know the feeling. The younger of the two has 3 lbs and half an inch on the older. To beat that, Edward (the older one) has his mothers red hair, pale skin, blue (like crystal clear sky blue) eyes, and ears that stick out for a mile. Meanwhile Charles (the younger) Has dirty blonde (mid-way between his mothers and my hair) Hazel eyes, my skin (I have a perpetual genetic tan) and his ears are about two sizes too smal for his head. And even after looking at them people still ask, “Are they identical?” Edward looks his age and Charles is large enough that he looks about 6-8 months older. My were only 5 minutes apart though.
Reply
June 14th, 2011 at 12:21 am
My mom had two sets of twins 18 months apart. (I’m not one of them) She’s completely insane now but most people understand why once they meet the family.
Reply
June 14th, 2011 at 6:06 am
Heh.
#14, “fire off a howitzer” … isn’t that something that helps them sleep, actually? That’s the way it works with my sons. (Yes, this has been tested. Well, OK, so technically it was with cannons and not howitzers, but anyway.)
Oh, and for fun with many kids… one of the guys in my hunting club was downtown with two of his. Someone asked if they were identical twins. He answered, truthfully, “No, I left the three in the middle at home with the wife.” (And no, they weren’t all from a single birth either.)
Reply
June 14th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
All I can say is…. wow. I know how hard one baby can be, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a linear equation that shows how much work multiples are.
As for the baby deciding to puke on you only after you’ve changed into your work clothes, my Class A’s had a permanent uneven color running down left front and back panels because my middle son puked down my shoulder as I picked him up on my way out the door to go to an inspection. ahhh, memories.
Reply
June 14th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Yeah, but look at it this way. There must be economies of scale from raising 2 at once. I have no idea what they are ’cause I have no kids.
From your wife’s point of view, if she wants only 2 kids, well, she got ’em with one pregnancy. I bet it was a heck of a pregnancy, though, judging from your comments.
Reply
June 18th, 2011 at 8:39 am
If you have a boy/girl set, wearing pink and blue, people will ask you if they are identical. Even after being told that their names are Kate and Luke.
Reply
June 23rd, 2011 at 4:04 am
::Laughs at the Howitzer Comment.::
I can imagine you get the kids to sleep, then suddenly from down the block: THOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
then wailing from the kid’s room. LOL
Reply
Andrew reply on June 23rd, 2011 3:17 pm:
Other than waking the kids into screaming hysterics, it wasn’t really a howitzer. It was only a 6 inch mortar firework. But anyone who has stood within 100 yards of one would swear it was a howitzer.
Reply
July 8th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
I have a 4 year old and now a 3 month old boy/boy set. Since my 4 year old’s sound setting is loud and louder the twins won’t nap in silence. If he’s watching a show quietly, reading a book in a whisper, or coloring silently the twins wake up instantly. However, if he’s stomping down the stairs, screaming in the back yard, or roaring like a monster they’ll sleep for hours.
Reply
November 12th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
I’m a twin. my sister and i are non-identical. she’s 3 inches taller than me and blonde, i have dark brown/black hair. i’m the elder, by 11 mins. people have, in the past, flat out refused to believe we’re twins. had to explain that twins do not have to look the same etc.
what really confuses folk is when i say i have 1 sister who is 11 mins younger than me and another who is a week younger. they come up with ideas like triplets where one had to be kept in utero for a week after the birth of the first two.
my youngest sister is adopted.
Reply