Archive for the ‘Andrew’ Category

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Murphy was invented to explain the phenomena of twin children.
8. A 55-gallon drum is not a sufficiently sized container for disposing of a weeks worth of diapers from twins.
9. Garbagemen (sorry, sanitation engineers) find a 55-gallon drum full of used diapers disgusting.
10. 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.
11. 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.)
12. Finding time to exercise is nearly impossible when you have twins.
13. Hell week at SERE training has nothing compared to caring for newborn twins.
14. 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.
15. The phrase “Your son was misbehaving today” will leave you confused as to which son the spousal unit is talking about.
16. 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.
17. 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.

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So, as I’m sure you may have figured out, my wife has recently given birth, via cesarean, to multiple children. But before I get into the sleepless nights, the endless cycles of feed/burp/sleep/poop, and all the other wonders of being a parent of newborns, I thought I’d like to catch you up on the recent pregnancy.

It was not an easy one, for my wife at least. Since finding out she was pregnant with multiples she has had to quit her job, quit school and spend 22 hours a day laying in bed. The other 2 hours were bathroom breaks and showers. If this wasn’t bad enough, she only spent about a week at home doing this before the hospital moved her to a room so they could bet better observations. Now normally this would be a time of stress and worry for both parents, and for her it was. For me it was a time of sports and beer, two things which I have to curtail when the wife is home. Six weeks of watching what I wanted to, when I wanted to. Granted I spent a good portion of my time with her at the hospital, but at home I was able to enjoy those rare treats that only come once in a blue moon. However I did come up with a list of things that you really don’t want to do, or to cover up before the wife comes home.

Things to do, or not to do, while the wife is away:

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For those who wanted to know:

While “in theater” at certain military installations throughout the world you must wear a highly reflective belt during low-light and night time conditions. The thought process being that it makes you more visible to friendlies and less likely to be hurt in an accident such as being hit by a vehicle.

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So in my recent excursion to the warmer climates of South-West Asia I came to realize that deserts are not fun. You are faced with three extremes there.

First, there is the normal everyday expected heat. 120F is not anyones idea of fun in the sun. You spend most your time outside drinking water because you can’t seem to drink enough. There is almost always a wind that blows sand, gravel, rocks and creepy crawlies down the back of your neck. It is hot, it is miserable…it is a normal day in the desert.

Second there are the cold nights. I say that any place on the planet earth that can reach temperatures warm enough to literally cook an egg should not be allowed to drop to sub-freezing temps the next night. It is intolerable. And it happens fast. One minute you’re slowly cooking in your own juices, then next your are trying to don your insulated APECS to keep from freezing to death.

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So what does a married soldier do as soon as he gets home from a long deployment? If you do not know this answer, you aren’t married, and have no imagination.

About three weeks ago my wife approached me when I was most distracted. I was playing COD:MW2. All she did was hand me what I thought was a pen and walk out of the room. It wasn’t a pen. It was an E.P.T. with a digital readout and the word not was nowhere to be seen. After receiving six unanswered head-shots I snapped out of my stunned stupor, and celebrated my upcoming child with the appropriate level of exuberance. I called every phone number in my cell phone to tell people I hadn’t talked to in over 3 years I was going to be a father.

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First, let me apologize for my long absence, but I have a good reason…

Did you know that the desert is filled with a demon spawned substance called dust? And some of this demon dust is so fine that no matter what type of air filters you use some will always enter your laptop and cover your heat-sinks. It then does what demons do best and heats up causing your laptop to burn out in a silent but sudden death. Yeah, demon spawned dust invaded my laptop and incinerated its brain. After an hour of frustration I reverted to a caveman and tried fixing my poor computer by hitting it with various large blunt object, starting with rocks and ending with a dumpster. Alas all this did was exacerbate the problem, as you have probably already guessed.

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OK, for all you jar-heads out there I only have 5 words for you…

“I Can’t Feel My Face!”

If you are a Marine and smacked your computer screen, it’s OK. If you are not a marine, never was a marine, and never will be a marine… What the hell were you thinking?!?

Recently I was fortunate enough to be sent to Florida for some advanced career training for the military. This is a joint training course involving all four major branches of the military as well as several foreign militaries. I was fortunate enough to end up with the marines. Now anyone who has gone TDY with marines know, if you are going to drink, take a marine. First of all, they are among the best brawlers in the US and will cover your butt should a brawl break out. Second of all, they know the best bar games. I was introduced to one called, “I can’t feel my face.”

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So you are checking your email one day and every single person in your family, including the Aunt you haven’t heard from or spoken to in more than 9 years, sends you an email that says the same exact thing…

What the (random explicative) is Skippy’s List?

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With Yule right around the corner I finally got out my Yule tree and decorations. You may notice that I use the term Yule instead of Christmas, but that is another story. This one however involves certain things I rediscovered while unpacking my artificial Yule tree. Those things include:

1. A specific strand of holiday lights
2. My previous Yule tree
3. Several Yule presents which were never given
4. A train set
5. A large red cylinder with a black hose attached to it

The story goes something like this:

Did you know you should always use a certified electrician when running a new power outlet? Here is why:

• Twas the week before Yule, and all through the house
• Everything was quiet, even my pet mouse
• The wife was out shopping, with my sister-in-law
• Then the silence was broken by a reciprocating saw
• I was cutting a hole, in the living room wall
• I was laughing and singing, simply having a ball.
• See there were no outlets, in the place I had cut
• To plug in the lights for the Yule tree I had cut
• I was running new wires, from breaker to hole
• To brighten my wife’s Yule, and lift her soul.
• I connected the wires, plugged in the tree
• Plugged in the train, ho ho he he
• I threw the breaker, then began to choke
• For while hearing pops, I smelled smoke
• I ran to the room and began to perspire
• My Tree, My Train and presents on fire!
• Did you know that house power, comes in three types
• I had connected too much, two twenty volts to be precise
• The lights had all burst, igniting my tree
• The fire then consumed my presents you see
• The train itself had burst into flame
• Too much power, the cause the same
• So if you are thinking, you know what to do
• When lacking an outlet for holidays too
• Then listen to me, I’ll say it again
• Always, Always, hire and electrician!

Now for further clarification:

1. The holiday lights were un-fused and every bulb had burst, as well as electrically welded to their sockets.
2. The “Yule Tree” was little more than a charred lump of wood that I had kept to remind me not to play with electricity.
3. The presents were of course the remains of the ones I had put under the tree
4. The train set was little more than a lump of molten plastic and twisted metal
5. The red cylinder was of course a fire extinguisher

The good news is the house didn’t burn down. The bad: my wife didn’t get her PlayStation 3 or the new coat I had bought her.

I hope you all enjoy this!

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Now when you read the title I’m sure you thought “Great, another Disney fanatic!” And you aren’t wrong, but this isn’t about a Disney film.

This is about me and another soldier who just happens to have the best qualities of a red headed librarian, school teacher, Miss Universe and the super-hot naughty nun all wrapped into one cuddly little bundle.

But first a little background. I used to be a highly competitive athlete. I was a swimming, diving, rock climbing, snow boarding, skate-boarding, biking and running machine. Unfortunately this meant that I also received a fair share of injuries from each sport. By the time I was twenty I had dislocated both my shoulders on no fewer that two hundred occasions, broken almost every bone in my body and had dislocated my left hip no less than eighty times. But I was still quite limber and wiry so I could use these impairments to my advantage for the gross-out type humor. And I could do a very good impersonation of a redneck pig farmer.

Around Halloween two years ago I was showing off for some of my buddies at work and word leaked out that I was some kind of freak of nature that could twist my body into a weird shape and sound like an insane pig farmer. A little later that day I was on my way to a briefing at HQ and this bombshell of an Airman stopped me and asked ever-so-nicely if I would do the impression for her. Well since on a scale of one to ten she rated at least a fifteen I agreed and after dislocating three major joints in my body, folding my arms backwards across my shoulders and turning my voice into a raspy shriek of insanity she proceeded to laugh in a most convincing and distracting way. Distracting because I did not notice I had moved in front of the VCOs office, something I would tend to notice and avoid. Needless to say, he was not amused.

So rule of thumb, if you are going to do something to impress a beautiful woman, make sure it’ll impress everyone else as well.

P.S. The super-hottie is taken now. Her name is Tressie and she got married December 14 of last year. To me.

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