A Day in the Life...

Over the past ten months, it’s been a wild ride, from the sleepless nights with newborns and shock of having two babies to care for to falling in love with these two beautiful little boys and realizing they’re now a part of my life, a part of our family, and now being unable to imagine life without them. It’s been tiring and tough, but rewarding.

Having never been in the situation of parent or even lived in a household with one, let alone two babies, I often wondered what life would be like as parents and how I’d deal with it day to day. So I’m posting what a typical work day is like in our home – a routine I’ve become accustomed to.

Nick and I have staggered our work schedules to avoid having the nanny with the boys for 10 hours per day, so I’m up first and out the door early, but home between 3:45 and 4 p.m. Nick isn’t home until around 5:30. Although we both have to work, at least with this schedule, the boys only spend about 8 hours or a little less with the nanny. And some days, one of us comes home for lunch.

5:00 a.m.: My alarm goes off, followed by two snooze sessions. I’m not a morning person, and hate this time of day! Everyone is still asleep, other than the dog. I get out of bed, let the dog out, and then feed her. Then I’m off to the shower and to get dressed. By the time I’m ready, it’s time to walk the dog. Some mornings one of the boys will be up at this point, and if that’s the case, I take him downstairs for a diaper change and a bottle in the Pack-N-Play. He’s safe in there while I walk the dog. After the dog walk, I skim the newspaper, say goodbye to Nick and the boys if they’re awake, and head to work. Nick has about an hour at this point before the nanny arrives.

4:00 p.m.: I’m home from work, and hit the ground running. Both boys are thrilled to see me, and I have to get my hugs and kisses from them! If they weren’t up before I left in the morning, this is the first time I’ve seen them for the day. Before the nanny leaves, I head upstairs to change clothes, get clothes ready for the next day, clean out the diaper bin, and then come downstairs to make my lunch for the next day. I generally do a little cleaning after the nanny leaves. The boys love to follow me around when I Swiffer the hardwoods! They seem to think this is some game. I usually start dinner around 5 p.m. and get the boys high chairs and baby food out for their dinner. We have play time until they seem ready for dinner around 5:30 to 6 p.m. By this time, Nick is home. If I feed the boys, I usually try to eat at the same time, sitting at the kitchen island. If you try to eat while they’re not eating, you’ll soon have a twin attached to each let, begging for food, even if they just ate!

6:30 p.m.: Around this time I like to either go for a two mile walk or work out in our home gym. It’s nothing huge, but enough for mid week workouts. Either way, I don’t spend more than about 40 minutes on fitness. Then it’s either bath time for the boys (we bathe them every other night) or time to change diapers and get them into their PJs. They love baths now, and we put them in the tub together with a few toys. Although it’s getting to the point where I could wear a rain coat during bath time, as they’ve discovered the thrills of splashing water. They have so much fun that I hate to take them out.

7:30 p.m.: This is wind-down time for the boys where we play with them and then either read them a book, or some nights we watch a DVD that has bed time stories. They love this, and there are songs we sing along with. By now they’re getting tired and sometimes cranky. One of the twins falls asleep in your arms, the other needs to be given a bottle and put in the Pack-N-Play. Then they’re off to bed around 8.

8:00 p.m. This is our only real personal time – 45 minutes to an hour on weekday evenings. I’m in bed normally by 9 since I get up so early, and this quiet time of the day just seems too short!

Weekends are more flexible and enjoyable with less routine, but we’ve fallen into this weekday schedule and it works for us. I’m planning on using my vacation time this year to play “stay at home dad” and spend time with the boys and take them out to do special things. Sometimes I feel guilty for not being there all day, every day, and other times going to work feels like a break. But then I see the stay at home moms in our neighborhood and they’re just as exhausted as I am. It’s a tough job, but an exciting adventure.

10 Months Old!

March is here, with warmer weather and longer days, allowing us to get out of the house more often. The birds are chirping and Spring’s first flowers have started to bloom. I’m no fan of winter and when combined with the horrible economic news the past few months, it’s been a season I just wanted to get past. Once the first green leaves start to pop open, I know the boys first birthday will be fast approaching. As much as I’ve tried to live in the moment and enjoy the twins in their first months, I think the first birthday is as much a milestone of survival for the parents as it is a celebration of their lives and their fist year.

The boys are very active, very mobile, and progressing toward walking. They walk along furniture, holding on for balance and looking for trouble. We’ve removed as many temptations from the main living area as possible, but you can hear the wheels turning in their little heads as they look for something new to put in their mouths or break apart. The only thing you’ll find on our coffee table or end tables is fingerprints. I finally broke down and moved two big plants to the basement until they can be placed outside in Spring after tiring of saying “NO” and pulling leaves and dirt from their mouths. The Tupperware drawer in the kitchen is a great toy box to divert their attention while preparing dinner, and it didn’t cost a dime. I’ve also learned to be fast when getting things out of the refrigerator. It takes about two seconds for either of the boys to be under your feet and pulling things out of it. And cooking just wouldn’t be fun without a boy attached to each of my legs!

Both boys have a fair number of teeth, and one of them loves to use them to bite, or chew on his crib. I think we’ll have to sand the crib down and re-stain it once he’s beyond this stage, since the cribs convert to twin beds. It was such a big deal when the first tooth came in, but now I don’t check every day. They both have top and bottom teeth in front, and seem to have figured out how to chew like a rabbit on food they like. Teddy Grahams are a great way to gain about five minutes of peace and quiet while you load the dishwasher.

The big difference in parenting now (ten months) compared to last summer is that’s it’s fun. We’re much more rested now that they both (usually) sleep through the night, and they laugh, giggle, and play with each other and with us. Last evening I got down on the floor in the middle of their toys and just played with them, let them crawl over me, and watched out for the occasional pinch or bite to my face. When I come home from work, their little faces light up and they have to get a big hug from me. Now I can see where having twins actually gets easier, because they play with each other, “talk” back and forth, and conspire to commit crimes against their daddies! Another parent rule to remember, silence equals big trouble! If everything gets quiet and you don’t see either twin, trouble’s a brewin’ somewhere. In these mysterious quiet moments, I’ve caught them doing the following: chewing on a dining room table leg, pulling all the toilet paper off the roll in the powder room, chewing on a dirty shoe, pulling the cords to the computer and very close to pulling it off the desk, about to knock over a telescope, taunting the cat, removing door stops from the wall, pulling dirt out of planters, playing in the dog’s water dish, and sticking their hands in a toilet. Just when you think the house is baby-proofed, they prove otherwise!

Two months until the big birthday, and plans have already begun. We’re hoping for nice weather and an outdoor party and maybe one of those “jumpy castle” things for the bigger kids. I have a feeling we’ll have grandparents in town for the occasion (none of the grandparents have been to visit yet) so it should be interesting.

Inauguration, Colds, and Hope

January has been a month of sickness in our house, and I’m ready to move on to February! I caught a cold a couple weeks ago, that’s still lingering a bit, and now both boys have it. The poor guys hate when we use what I call the “nose picker” (a bulb suction thing) to suck the snot out of their noses. I don’t know why it freaks them out, but it does. For me, the cold was just annoying and nothing that kept me in bed. It seems the same for them.

The weather has cooperated with an entire week of temperatures in the 60s and 70s, while the Midwest and East suffered through an Arctic cold blast. We were able to enjoy being outdoors much of the weekend with trips to the park for swinging. Winter returns tomorrow though, but nothing too intense.

As the daily news seems to bring only bad news about the economy, one bright spot for our family this week was the inauguration of President Obama. I hadn’t intended to bring politics into this blog, but I imagine most people reading this tend toward the liberal side, as do we. Whether you agree with the politics or not, I would hope most people agree that this historic day was a turning point in American history, electing a black president. As we are a bi-racial (black/white) couple with bi-racial children, it brought tears of joy to my eyes to see a man racially equivalent to my children take the highest office in our country. To think that someday I can say to my children, “See the President? He’s just like you! You can go a high as you’re able in life.” I love their brown eyes, curly dark brown hair, and mocha skin that’s half way between our own skin tones. My hope is that racism isn’t as much of an issue for them as it has been for past generations. And with the election of President Obama, there is more Hope on the horizon for all GLBT families, that someday we might get the legal recognition we need!

Happy New Year!

The holidays have come and gone and I’m ready for spring! I’m not a fan of winter at all, so I take note each day of the slowly increasing amount of daylight, hoping for warm days when I can get the boys out of the house. Luckily we get warm days here and there, so I was able to take them to the playground over the Christmas break and they enjoyed swinging in the infant swing.

I began the New Year in the emergency room with a nasty case of stomach flu. It was horrible, and I had to have an I.V. for rehydration. My main worry was that the babies’ would get it, but luckily they didn’t. But then we had to take one of the twins to the emergency room last week when he had a 101 fever. It turned out to be the “Hand/Foot/Mouth” virus, which I’d never heard of . He has blisters in his mouth that are obviously painful, but he’s doing much better now. Two nights in a row he was up every one to two hours crying, so we had a difficult weekend. He slept through the night last night, so he’s getting better. The doctor said the other twin would most likely get it too, but so far, no symptoms. We’re keeping our fingers crossed!

As the boys have become mobile, parenting has begun a new phase. In the beginning, it’s just about feeding, changing diapers, - basically, keeping them alive and healthy. Now they do things we don’t want them to, like pulling leaves off a houseplant (I looked up our plants online to make sure they weren’t poisonous), pinching the dog, harassing the cat, finding tucked away cords to pull on, turning over the dog’s water dish, messing with the remotes, etc. So far neither boy seems to understand “no”, but I’m sure they’re beginning to recognize how often they hear that word! We say “no” and take them away from the situation, trying to minimize the temptations along the way with a minimalistic landscape in the house.

It’s amazing to see how fast they’ve grown from helpless newborns into little people who watch our every move and react to us. I believe leading and teaching by example is important, so I’m already working on my own behavior at the same time. For example, anger control. I grew up in a home where my mother raised her voice and yelled at us. I’m not talking about abuse, but sort of like George Costanza’s parents on Seinfeld. Sure, the Costanzas were funny, screaming back and forth at each other over nothing important, but that’s not something I need in my home! I’m practicing a calm demeanor in challenging situations and have already noticed that a calm voice helps sooth a crying baby. All parents experience anger toward each other at times, and again, remaining calm and keeping an even tone in the face of anger will set an example. “Serenity now”, and hopefully no insanity later! Parenting is a skill, and like all skills, practice makes perfect.

Preparing for the Holidays

The holiday season is here, and we’re still tired! I thought the sleep depravation was supposed to end around four months, but I thought wrong. The boys are doing well and now over seven months old, with one at 20 pounds and the other near 18, but our little night owl still won’t sleep through the night. This is still the biggest challenge for us, as we never get a full night’s sleep. His latest thing is that he gets up for a bottle, and then refuses to go back to sleep. Getting up for two hours in the middle of the night has been so frustrating. I’ve spoken to other parents who say their babies never slept through the night until they were over a year old, so this could continue for quite some time. Last night I finally let him cry for about 15 minutes, and then he fell back to sleep. I’m not a fan of the “cry it out” method, but it seemed to be the only option, other than getting out toys and staying awake half the night.

On the positive side, it’s been fun buying and wrapping Christmas presents for them, and last week I took them to get their picture taken with Santa. They did very well and neither one cried. They even seemed to enjoy doing our Christmas shopping at the mall after the picture and liked all the attention they received from strangers.

Both boys are now mobile, which introduces a whole new set of challenges around the house. We have a two-story home, so we’re going to get baby gates for the stairs soon. They’ve also discovered the Christmas tree, and it’s as if they know all those colorful presents are for them. I don’t think they’ve figured out what “no” means, so we keep steering them away from the temptation! We also had to lower the mattresses in their cribs because it looked like they would soon be able to pull themselves over the rail.

I took the boys last month to get RSV shots – apparently twins are at greater risk, so they need to get shots once per month until Spring. This was my first time with them at the doctor when they got shots, and I felt so bad for them. As soon as that needle went in, you would think someone had hit them over the head. It took about ten minutes to calm them and wipe away the tears after the shots. Next week we’ll have to do it all over again. I remember as a child being terrified of the doctor and shots, so I can definitely sympathize with them.

Dinner time has become interesting now that they’re eating solid baby food. The bigger twin eats anything we give him with no problems while the smaller twin takes a little coaxing at times. I think we already know who our picky eater will be! I know some of our neighbors make their own baby food, like boiling and then mashing sweet potatoes. I’m going to ask for advice on this to find out what works best at this age.

I can’t wait for Christmas morning to see the excitement on their faces as they rip open their presents. They’re really into tearing paper now, so they may enjoy the process more than the toys.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Halloween

I’ve been so busy lately, but keep meaning to post an update. This month both Nick and I had to travel for work, one week each, so we’ve both had the opportunity to take care of the boys alone. I was gone first, and I worried about home, the boys, the dog, and whether Nick was going crazy with all the responsibility dumped on him. But I’ll admit I enjoyed the freedom too. I was able to go out to nice restaurants, hit the gym in the evening without hurrying, and then sleep nine hours each night at a Marriott. I especially enjoyed the uninterrupted sleep!

I really dreaded the following week when it was time for payback. But it turned out to not be so bad. I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home all that week, so I didn’t have to worry about getting ready in the morning while the boys were up, which is a difficult thing to do. Plus a friend in our neighborhood stopped by in the evening to help with feeding the boys, or just keeping them occupied while I walked the dog and ate my own dinner.

Next Monday the boys will be 6 months old! They’re getting big (one is 17 pounds now) but the smaller guy still won’t sleep through the night. The doctor said it’s ok to start letting him cry it out, and that we shouldn’t feed him in the middle of the night. That’s easier said than done. I just don’t like the idea of letting him cry, but I’ve heard it’s better to break the habit now rather than a year from now. Last night I had to go to the guest room in the basement because I couldn’t sleep with his crying. Nick said he was asleep in 15 minutes, but I tend to just be on edge when I know he’s in the next room and could cry at any moment. We’ll see how things go in the next week.

The boys are going out this evening as Superman (twin Supermen) and our neighborhood is having a baby parade for all those too young to trick-or-treat before it gets dark. They enjoy any attention and excitement, so I’m sure they’ll enjoy themselves.

The next step we’re getting close to is crawling- probably within the next two weeks. They’re already somewhat mobile, but not actually crawling. Their smiling faces, giggles, and accomplishments amaze me every day!

Four Month Checkup Time

The boys go in for their four month checkup later this week, but they seem healthy and normal to me. They’ve both begun the teething process, and I’ve asked moms on our block about this since I was clueless. The first thing I noticed was constant drooling, and then they both began sucking on their hands. Each boy has had a couple “bad days” where they seem very irritable, a lot of screaming and crying, etc. We give them these little pills that dissolve on their gums to numb them, then we have teething chew toys, and if all else fails, a little baby Tylenol. I didn’t know this, but the teeth don’t just pop through in a few days. They move up and down in the gums over a period of time before finally popping through, so it just comes and goes from day to day.

We took the boys swimming a couple weekends ago and they really seemed to enjoy it. I bought them swim trunks and special diapers for swimming, then strap on sunglasses. We took them to a kid’s pool in our development that has no deep end, and just held them and moved around in the water for about an hour. By their lack of screaming or crying, I assume they enjoyed it!

The larger twin is still sleeping through the night while the smaller one still gets up for a bottle around 3 a.m. every night! It’s certainly easier than during the first couple months, but I have to wonder when he’ll start sleeping through the night. We definitely see big differences in personality between them, with the larger twin being fairly laid back and independent, and the smaller being much more challenging! I’ve asked other parents if the personalities they saw in their babies translated to their personalities when older, and the answers vary, meaning their personalities could change. They’re definitely getting fun to play with as they now grab things and like direct interaction. One twin likes “peek-a-boo” and is catching on to “gimme five!” while the other shows no interest. It’s amazing how they’ve developed in such a short amount of time.