A Perfect Evening.

On Friday, Abby and I got it into our heads that we deserved a dinner out of the house. We'd been working away at the baby/frugality/Social isolationist grindstone for quite a while, and it was time to pat each other on the back.

I saw your wife. Well done.

*reluctant back pat*

The initial plan was to go down the road to our local bar and grill. We're fans of the reasonable prices, the acceptable taste, and not-unfriendly wait staff. Somehow, this plan neglected the

portable obligations at home. So we packed the battle wagon and rolled out.

It has more class than a rich neighborhood's organic-local-source grocery store and four dozen cup holders.

As the waitress dropped off the menus, my sister called and said she'd be willing to watch the girls while we went out and ate. We finished our drinks and packed back up to get the, now hysterical, home and in bed. As they've gotten older they have both a happy hysterical and sad hysterical setting. This was the better kind. The two hysterias are actually very similar, with yelling, table slapping, strange gargle noises, and full body wriggling; but the happy one includes smiles and and the other has rivers of tears.

Anyhow, the girls went down without event and we waited to make sure there wasn't any bedtime meltdowns. All clear. So we slipped out to grab a bite.

Darling, shall we GTFO?

We went to a restaurant around the corner that we've wanted to try for pretty much the whole time we've lived where we do. It was fantastic. there was no baby monitor, no crying, no one trying to nibble off my plate (neither child nor dog). To start we shared a bacon and chevre salad. We ordered a low end bottle of wine, and it suited our unrefined palates just so. I had a wild boar ragu (fantastic), and abby had a steak and frites (truffle oil seasoned fries). The conversation was good and the mood was good.

We were finishing up the entrees and she asked, "Should we get dessert?"

That was really a formality, because when she asks, the meaning is really: "I'm going to order dessert, and I know you want it too; but if we act conflicted and then give in, we don't seem like such fatties."

I hmm'ed and haw'ed appropriately and then accepted the desert menu, "Just to look at."

Then both our phones vibrated. It was a text from my sister, saying simply, "Maynard(the younger dog) is throwing up. Everywhere." And just like that, our beautiful evening, and my chances of getting lucky, collapsed like a sand castle in the mojave desert. Fun Fact: Sand is not very adhesive when it's 120 degrees.

"Your turn to get up."

We came home to find that he had indeed thrown up all the vomit. In all the places. Dr. Seuss could have written a story about it being here, there and the smell filling the air. He somehow managed to eat Doc(the older dog)'s dinner, in addition to his own, in the shuffle to get the babies down and us out of the house. The pile in the bedroom was large enough, I had to use two pieces of cardboard to scoop it before the reclamation project could start in earnest. Then there was the laundry to do and the steam cleaner to run.

Saturday, we had the wonderful opportunity to take him to the vet. $300 in x-rays and several days later it's agreed by all that he had a bad doggie case of "feeling like shit after eating too much."

There's no judgement there. I've bought cheeseburgers I had no caloric need for.

The Balad of Banhammer

Edit: This is all Jesse's idea. I am a plagiarist.

Gather 'round young un's and I'll weave a tale for your ear-holes. It's a story that'll dazzle the mind and excite the nasal cavities. This is the story of Banhammer.

Now you see, our protagonist did not start out as a mighty warrior, nor a defender of family justice. He started out as a well meaning, but distracted father. After threshing the wheat fields all day (I think you thresh wheat), he would come home to his moderate, but modestly middle surf-class hovel. He'd attend to the duties of his house, and pay respect to the Tiny Twin Queens that ruled the domain, then he would seek refuge in his games of make believe. In the fantasies he was a mighty swashbuckler, or a sorcerer from the tales, or a man/monkey/robot hybrid. The Man/monkey/robot thing was sweet, but you had to be there to really get it.

The fact that he was not paying attention at all moments angered the diminutive queens. They demanded all in the kingdom(Queendom?) either be servicing them or lie in wait to serve them again. So, each night as he would really start hitting his fantastical stride, the queens would use their sonic blasters to shatter his mental veil and drag him back to their imperial castle to worship. Their Enforcer, named Awsomewife McIloveyousomuch, thought the queens' desires were to be met at all times.

I tend to agree with her. Whatever she's saying, it's persuasive.

This made the God of Fantasy, Vydio Gaeme, pretty jealous. Our hero was Vydio's prodigy and showed great promise. He was really good at WoW. But we're not going to talk about that, it was a dark time in his life... and he doesn't want to reactivate his account.....nope. Plus, the mention of the Game Which Must Not Be Named gives Awesomewife the great power to revoke marital sleeping arrangements. And the couch is cold and lonely.

Anyhow, one evening, the man delved into his imaginarium, and again the Queens sounded their alarms to recall all servants. However, this time as the portal to imaginationland collapsed, Vydio left a little power behind for the man.

Oh God. Not the Christmas Critters!

It was a hammer, one which was imbued with the power of The Might of The Gigabits. He did not see it as he went to glut the Mini-Queens; but upon his return there it sat. He grasped the hammer and a cutsceen was jammed into his brain, like a pimento into an olive. He suddenly knew, in no uncertain terms, that the God of Fantasy did not like his leaving early before a round of fantasy had finished; he also knew it because the email the administrators of Fantasicalsburg sent him said so. As a result they gave him the power to become Banhammer.

With the power to be a nerd in real life and the ability to not be distracted, as Banhammer he was burdened with the inability to meet Vydio Gaeme ever again. Or at least for 1 day, then 2 days, and then his account might get permanently suspended. You know, unless the Queens would let him play. Someday, possibly, once they grow into their dictatorship; they might like to imagine things themselves. Or at least we can hope so.

Busy busy busy.

This is the fifth time I've sat down and tried to write something. Just when I think I have a few minutes to ramble on in blog form, I am called away to do some fatherly duty. Wash that, feed this, clean those, what this in that...

I'll walk you through my average day:

6:20 - Alarm clock goes off

6:29 - Snooze expires

6:32 - stop staring at ceiling, and actually get out of bed, head to shower

6:43 - Finish showering, dress from basket of clean clothes. (folding laundry is a frivolity I have been glad to be rid of)

6:44-7:05 - Feed the dogs, Cook breakfast, bring breakfast in bed to Abby, try to get her latte done, take out the dogs, pick up non-human poop

7:06 - Bring up laundry, be told it's not dry enough, return laundry to dryer

7:08 - Transfer awake babies from cribs to the loving arms of female guardian

7:10 - Brush teeth, Floss

7:12 - Try to pack leftovers for lunch. We're out of leftovers. Shit. Grab an apple and a handful of banana chips.

7:13-7:15 - match socks and apply socks to feet

7:16-7:25 - Wash used bottles from the night before

7:26 - Kiss girls goodbye, wave to Sissy, and depart

7:28-7:49 - Listen to miserable morning drive time radio. Imagine what I'd do if I won a call in contest.

7:50 - Decide I don't have the time to go to a "free concert" and it's probably better "Greg from Tacoma" won.

7:55 - get to my desk and boot up the computer.

8:00 - Panic at crisis that arose while I was away.

8:01 - Solve all problems. Like a Boss.

8:15 - Have a cup of coffee; grimace.

8:20-12:30PM - Do all the work.

12:31-1:00 - Eat a desk sandwich, chased by a delightful apple, and some banana chips.

1:01-4:30 - Resume all-the-work-doing.

4:35 - Head home to my babies.

4:36-5:05 - Listen to slightly better drive time radio. Become enraged over lack of talk during commute and abundance of commercials across all dial settings.

5:06 - Pull in to the driveway

5:07 - hear Dog#2 slam himself, body and soul, into the door. Repeatedly.

5:07:15 - Come inside to smiles from everyone

5:08 - take dogs out, play 5 minutes of iphone games

5:15 - come back inside, pick up a baby, kiss it, set it back down. Avoid changing any diapers. If one is dirty, pretend not to notice.

5:20 - start cooking dinner, clean as I go... to a limited degree

6:30 - finish cooking, plate up gourmet entree.

6:31 - Open beer. Take sip.

6:32 - sit down to eat, pause repeatedly to prevent dog from putting mouth on baby, and vise versa

6:45 - Finish eating, take second sip of beer.

6:46 - start doing dishes while Abby and jenny watch the girls

6:55 - Dinner time for babies! Solid food, presented by either Daddy or Mommy. Non-feeder cleans dishes.

7:10 - Split duties again; One person cleans babies and preps for bath time, the other washes bottles.

7:20 - Bath Time for babies!

7:21-7:45 - Wash food, grime, etc. from baby skin-folds and surfaces. Short bath play time allotted, based on cooperation of non-bathing baby.

7:46-8:30 - Feed the younguns, and put them down to sleep

8:31 - Harlot falls blissfully asleep

8:40 - get frustrated with Juggla and put her down, despite being awake and very smiley.

8:50 - Juggla's crying transitions to meaningless yelling

8:55 - Juggla's Meaningless yelling transitions to silly noises

9:00 - Juggla's Silly Noises transitions to moaning

9:10 - Juggla is asleep

9:15 - She stirs, and yells for a couple minutes again, then falls back asleep

9:20-10:30 - Blissful personal time. Perforated by stirring, and possibly crying.

10:31-1:30 - Sleep

1:31 - Feed Baby #1

1:46 - Go back to room to sleep

1:55 - Baby #2 wakens, shake Abby, groan "Your Turn"

1:55:15 - Fall back asleep

2:00-3:39 - Sleep

3:40 - Baby #1 or #2 wakes again, feed it.

3:50 - Other baby decides it's time to guzzle some mommy juice. Feed it too.

4:45 - Realize I passed out in the rocker, set the relevant baby down to sleep.

4:46 - hope she doesn't stir.

4:47 - I think we're good.

4:48 - she groans, I hear movement. But no escalation of tears.

4:50-6:20 - Sleep

For those of you playing along at home, that's 6:09 of sleep each night. Not too shabby.

Repeat.

I'll try to take a few of my blissful moments of introspection to update more consistently; but know that if you don't see anything, I probably have 4-5 unfinished entries that I intended to go back and finish.

Cha Cha Changes

There's been a lot of changes in our household as of late. That's the reason I am going to blame for my lack of posts. I say that like there's dozens of fans waiting on my pearls of wisdom. I doubt there is; it's probably mostly mark, my mom, and Chelsea. I suppose I could have some hidden, secret underground following. A bot in China breaks down my ramblings and posts them to twitter, and then a team of theologeans search them for clues to solve missing person cold cases.

"Sweet foil hat, man."

To be honest though, the reason is that I've been busy, and not feeling particularly hilarious. Mind you, I think of myself as just as awesome as always, I just haven't felt the need to validate myself.

Some of the changes we've seen that people may or may not have been aware of:

1. The girls are pretty stable, physically at least. They're really needy when it comes to affection. If I had a girlfriend like them, I'd say things about "needing space" and "you're smothering me" and "why do you cry so much about stupid shit?" and "I love you? is that what will make you stop?"

2. Big Momma has joined (willingly) the unwashed masses of min-van owners. It was the best negotiating that either of us had done, because we didn't really want it; and babies have made us poor.

3. I still think boobs are great. Somehow that sense of awe has survived the pumping and feeding and objectification of my wife's chesticles. That makes me happy, cause boob-loving is kind of a landmark in the landscape of my mind. Without that monument, I would probably get lost in my own psyche and latch onto one of my lesser interests, like personality, or "a sense of humor."

4. I can function on much less sleep than I thought. Where we're at now is nothing compared to the first few weeks, but there's enough short notice meetings in the middle of the night to really mess with your REM cycles. Plus, we're running with a pretty heft deficit. From what I hear, you never get caught up, you just get enough to keep going.

5. Abby's hair is falling out. She went to pull her hair back in a ponytail and realized that here temples are much thinner than she remembered. After setting up a doctor's appointment, she started in on one thing I've told her never to do: go to webMD and look up her symptoms. She convinced herself she had Lupus. Again. Blood was drawn, tests were run.

The doctor thinks she's under stress (dur!) and her hormones are going wonky (Double Dur!). Her body is realizing she's not pregnant, so it's letting go of all that lustrous hair her prenatals bestowed upon her. With twins, there was double the lady juices, and so the crash is double the depth. Her scalp is overshooting the expected shedding levels.

6. Our girls are developing distinct personalities:

JuJuBee has figured out how to roll back to front and will use that ability to get closer to you and claw your face with her talons.

Har Gow has decided that she would like to spend her life well fed, happy, and right where you left her.

7. We've moved the girls out of the room, and as of tuesday, are letting them cry themselves to sleep. This causes the Mrs. some physical discomfort, but it give me a sick sense of power. "I'm not a slave you your tiny vocal cords!"

8. I'm going through some serious withdrawals. I need my football. College, Pro, Lingerie (Go Mist!), I don't care. ESPN has stretched their offseason coverage to the limits. FoxSports has reported on the lockout past where a reasonable person would stop. The sports blogs have all thrown their hands up and said, "I got nothing. Seriously, I already covered spring ball, and all the schools are leaving for summer break." My fantasy football page won't even let me start the league because of the stupid lockout.

9. My sister is back from South Korea and living with us while helping with the girls, so abby could go back to work. I'm not sure if I had ever mentioned that, but it was a while ago.

In the words of a much more interesting man than myself: That's all I have to say about that.

I'm a bad blogger

I was pumped about it, and then I hit a lull. Then the lull became writer's block, and subsequently a writer's anchor. I upgraded that to a guilt spiral, then an embarrassing... uh... other thing.

Anyhow, it's been weeks since I relayed the trials and tribulations that make up the bulk of my existence. The girls have developed a lot in the last month's span. I guess you should do some maturing anytime you become 25% older. They're full babies now. They do things like smile, babble, and make faces when they poop. They're doing other things though, that make the process feel like it's getting better. They can sit up almost on their own. They're ovbiously scheming. I can see it.

Also, their insistent hunger has shifted to a ravenous anger at the lack of food. It's pretty counter intuitive. I mean seriously, if you were sitting at dinner and the Azteca staff was taking forever with your Chicken Fundido, would you protest by screaming your damn head off?




If I wanted to be judged, I would have gone to Red Lobster.




No. You would cluck disapprovingly and say a little too loud;y, "I wonder if something is wrong in the kitchen, our food seems to be slow; and my iced tea is empty again."

But their solution is to scream to the point of exhaustion and write sarcastic reviews on Yelp about our parental skills.

I've been trying to get it on camera, but because I'm clumsy and slow to react you're going to have to live with the internet meme version. Baby A does this all the friggin time.





Vomit in 5...4...3...2....blarg! Just in time to miss the towel and hit the dog.





Another interesting fact: The dogs don't mind being vomited upon. Not sure how to capitalize, but there has to be a way to turn that into a facebook game or something.

The Mrs. is back and work and she loves being away from the girls. Not really. She wants to be a stay at home mom, despite spending the first 8 years of our relationship denying that she would ever have the desire to not work. As a result, most of her income is going to be devoted to scratch tickets. It's a valid investment strategy. What? I feel like I'm at a goddamn Red Lobster, what with all the judging and what not.

...And Regression.

So, just when I think we had this thing down, and the universe was going to let us sleep. Mother nature tossed us a whopping mushroom stamp. The girls have again decided that waking up semihourly is a great idea. The articles I've read say it might be because they move in their sleep and wake themselves up, or it could be a developing social awareness, driving them to desire cuddle time.

I tend to think they're just messing with us. I don't want to set up an adversarial relationship where Abby and I are a coalition against The Twin Federation, but that's how it seems; at 3:42 AM, when you were up at 1:27 and will be again at 4:44. It's an endeavor of loving attrition. We're doing our best to hold the lines, and sleep in the foxhole between marching and fighting. But they are growing in power, size and force of personality.

Fun note: Julia has learned a new cry. It combines all the best aspects of a scream, a dog whistle and a squeaky toy.





Like this but instead of cow, it's full of rage.






Harper figured out she can save her poop up for about 4 days before the dams burst. At which point, the evil flowing from her rear was described as "looking like peeling open a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Also, Julia had something going on called "Baby Neck Cheese." I shit you not. It's a real thing, and I guess it's common. We also thought everyone had worms, but it was just a weird poop.

Progress.

Babies are dumb. I do not mean that as a slam on my children, nor on the current and future idiots of my friends. I mean it as an empirical and indisputable statement of fact.

Evidence:
The need rest in order to get a good nights sleep. What. The. Shit?

Abby has started to read a book about how to get babies to sleep. I had been operating under the false assumption that children functioned like milk powered robots. They Expend all energy is the form of fussing, enter standby mode; then, when the batteries have cooled, reactivate and demand fuel for their lactose fueled tantrum.

But, as it turns out, they need a sleeping start at their rest. The crying seems to be a symptom of too little sleep, and by crying they work themselves up too much for sleep. Dumb. Then, since they're awake, they eat and eat and guzzle, then vomit. And then do this strange thing that's like vomiting, but really slow and the consistency of boogers. Yet they're happy to have a mouth full of rancid milk-slime.

Anyhow, Abby got a contiguous 7.5 hours of sleep a couple nights ago. We have the girls split up in two little bassinets, one on either side of the bed. The idea is that if your baby sleeps, you get to sleep. At this point it beats trying to keep them on a schedule, because waking up a baby and jamming a spout of boob-juice in their cry-hole does not endear them to anything. The conversation, upon waking went like this:

Abby: Wha..*gurggle*
Des: oh baby, oh baby. You light my fire.
A: Are the babies alright?
D: I think so, Why?
A: I feel fantastic.
D: And that's bad, why?
A: I feel like singing, and the world has color. I... I don't know if I can go back... What do I do?
D: Let's start with feeding the baby.
A: Oh, right! I had almost forgotten.
D: Yeah, you were out. Like a breathing rock. Or a very attractive hibernating bear.





They hibernate so adorably. Not that I watch them sleep or anything. I was acquitted on all counts.











A: Did you take care of [Baby Jungle-Juice] for me, to let me sleep?
D: No, she slept right on her own...... Wait, No, Yeah; I daringly took care of her while you rested. That's totally what happened.
A: Oh god my boobs hurt.
D: Do you need them massaged?
A: No, silly-willy. I haven't made a withdrawal at the mammary store in too long.
D: So... No boob touching?
A: No.
D: OK, offer stands.
A: Appreciated, but unnecessary.

But back to the subject of dumb babies. After some reflection, I don't think they are really all that stupid, I'll hope that judgment for when they're 16 and bring home a boy named "Chud." On the plus side, by the time that happens, I'll be a well established member of society, and he'll be a tattooed punk that no court would believe over me.