Catching my breath here for a second. S. gallantly offered to take the next feed, which could be at 4am or 8am or anywhere in between. Need to make up some bottles and do some dishes before bed, but I wanted to update ye ol' blog before I did (thanks to JF for reminding me to do this!!)
I'm realizing that I really need to document how the boys, R. and M., are doing, both generally and very very specifically, because little changes happen every day, and I'm realizing already how fast these guys are growing and developing. So the boys had their 4 month checkup; they're doing great. They're JUUUST barely on the growth charts (like <5th percentile) for length and weight, but 50th percentile for head size. Yep, they are my sons alright (I have a profoundly enormous noggin). The pediatrician was impressed with their neuro and muscular devlopment, and pretty much said, "You guys keep doing what you're doing! You're doing great!!" which was a nice 'attaboy'.
Little aside here: I've been trying to decide what I want this blog to be, and I think I want it to be everything - a place for me to scribble thoughts and feelings about the boys, a place to rant about things good and crappy about parenting, a place to recommend and rant about products, and a place to track how the boys are doing.
It's been ages since I've updated, so I'm going to try to do some of all of that in this post; we'll see how that goes. Hoping for more, smaller posts soon.
Life as a twin dad is tough. Free time comes in drips and slices and little gobs here and there, and when it does arrive, you rarely have the energy to go for that run you meant to; you plop your ass in front of the TV and watch "Chopped" or "Breaking Bad". And it's really easy to get lost in the routine of it: Sleep. Wake. Warm bottles. Change diapers. Feed babies. Sleep. Wake. Work. Get mail. Eat lunch. Work. Make dinner. Change diapers. Eat dinner. Feed babies. change diapers. Do dishes. Fart around on Facebook. Sleep. But occasionally you have these "OH MY GOD WE HAVE BABIES AND THEY'RE AMAZING" moments; unfortunately, those are balanced with some "OH WHY THE FUCK WON'T YOU STOP SCREAMING" moments. And these babies can turn on a DIME. The worst part is the "tentative" cry, the wuhh....wuahhh...wuh-wuh...wuhhhh... that can turn into a full-on vein-popping fit and can turn into ...deep uninterrupted sleep. Get a bottle ready, and the kid passes out. Try to roll over and ignore it, and the kid's screaming bloody murder as you prep the bottle. Awesome. On the whole, though, it's just amazing watching these guys develop and grow. I love weekends, S. is less "ALL BABY ALL THE TIME" (I can help out) and I get to catch up on stuff.
In other news, we're looking at cars. Right now, the garage has my car (a Subaru Impreza 5 door hatchback) and S's car (an awesomely impractical-for-babies Jeep Wrangler). We need a vehicle with more room. Right now, the frontrunner is a Hyundai Veracruz AWD. It's a serious chunk of money, but has everything we want (AWD, 3rd row seating, and some goodies). So we're going through the car-salesman dance, which is about as much fun as having matchsticks under your fingernails. When I talked to the salesman alone last week, he said "How's the family?" and I said "Great". 5 minutes later, "Oh, and...how's the family?" "uh...fine." And 10 minutes after that, "How's the family?" "I MURDERED THEM ALL AND NOW I NEED A GENESIS COUPE TURBO TO RUN FROM THE COPS." Actually, I said "Still fine." but thought that. OK, I didn't even think that until just now, but it would have been really funny.
I also went to court recently. A week after getting home with babies, we had S's mom & grandma visiting and my parents visiting and were still getting used to babies in the house... and I got a $50 parking ticket for parking in front of my house (did not know there was a ban on overnight parking from Nov. to Apr). So the prosecutor dismissed it, but said he didn't believe that I didn't know. I tried to chuckle and said "I...guess I'm that dumb." But he stuck to his guns. You know what, little junior prosecutor dude? Fine. Call me a liar, if it helps you sleep at night and gets me out of a $50 ticket.
Two products in heavy rotation right now: Dr. Brown's Formula Mixing Pitcher and the Munchkin Bottle Sterilizer. The former because you can set up formula almost a quart at a time; the latter because you zap bottles in the micro to sterilize them. Oh, and protip: Buy some Glad Steamer Bags (14 for $7) and you can steam breastpump/bottle supplies for half the cost of "baby" steamer bags.
OK, not much time left, my eyes are losing their ability to focus. THE BOYS! The boys are doing great. R has rolled back-to-front a couple of times (the doctor said, "Wow, that's a 5-month trick!") and both of them have discovered smiles. I do a little "steal the sadness" thing where I tug on either one's mouth and they grin. If I'm lucky, they chuckle and wiggle. The early grins were just mouth-smiles, but now their eyes join in, too, crinkling into a whole-face grin. They ADORE their mobiles, and watch them incessantly; the Brahms Lullaby one is great, because it winds up and spins. The boys are both tracking motion now; if I spin slowly while holding one of them, I can watch his eyes do the sweep-flick-sweep-flick motion that normal grown-ups' eyes do. The boys are both really active sleepers; we'll put them to bed in the middle of their cribs, and in the morning, they look like they were haphazardly chucked in - shoved in a corner, backwards, facing directions I certainly didn't leave them in. They are starting to pay attention when S. or I talk to them. I think it's as much a "hey, what was that noise" thing, but it's laying the groundwork for "MOMMY VOICE" and "DADDY VOICE" responses, which I really can't wait to see.
R's prolapsed navel has almost completely reverted, which reduces the easily visible differentiators between the two babies. I'm resisting the urge to whip out a sharpie & label them.
We're trying cloth diapers. I don't completely understand - there's a shell and there's a liner, and you toss both in the hamper when they're soiled. I don't understand why there's a separate liner. I will say that poo in a cloth diaper was a surprisingly easy clean-up -- there's a diaper-liner that contains most of the poo, then you just rinse off the rest.
OK, still need to make bottles up before I go to bed. Wish I'd sterilized stuff before I came down to my computer. More soon.
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