Happy Birthday girls

Well, not birthday really... It's more of an anniversary of sorts. Even that's the wrong word. I think the Roman word would be something like uncia-annual celebration of birth.

Fun Fact: In the process of trying to find that out, I figured out that biannual is a 1/2 yearly anniversary; and biennial is a two year anniversary.





Then what the fuck is semiannual?





Anyhow; the girls are now one month old. Harlot has enrolled as a non-metriculated student at SPU, and she's hoping to have her AA busted out before she has to commit more time to daycare and preschool. She hasn't decide on a major yet, but she's taking Babbling 101 and Staring Vacantly 104 this quarter. We're advising her to start with her inherent strengths and develop a skills base before she tried to tackle international tax law.

Meanwhile, Juggla is taking some time off from academic pursuits to "let the spirit world guide her." I don't know what that means, but there's a lot of incense burning and she's been hanging out with dirty filthy hippies. She has a tentative plan to go on a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia, but we'll see if any of the pieces ever end up falling into place.

Abby is recovering well, and if she can get her core strength back up she's considering a career switch to close-combat skydiving.

(I couldn't find a good picture of Keanu from Point Break diving out after Swayze. But imagine if I did. That would be a good picture here. Would you like to know more?) Abby would start training to do this.

In non-baby related news:

...uh...

...wait, there's got to be something..... huh.

...I made chili last night, but it was pretty mild. I guess the taste can bleed over to the taste of breastmilk. No, that's vaguely baby related.

Nope. Babies are pretty much everything right now.

Oh! I got it. The Pro-bowl. It's on Sunday, and I'm totally going to watch a bunch of uninspired, lousy football between the best of the best. I'll drink one or several beers, and hopefully eat the flesh of an animal, but not too loud. No need to wake the dragons.

Lets give this a shot.

I am married to a paragon of patience. A martyr (without dying) of motherhood. A champion for the children.

A little before lunch, I was at work and received a text roughly to the effect of: "They're screaming, and won't stop screaming. I'm taking them to the nail salon so the little Korean ladies can play with them." I, of course, offer condolences and volunteered to valiantly leave work early to assist. She indicated she had it under control, and that I could continue to jam my face against the grindstone.

As I was finishing up, I sent a message home: "Headed Home, need me to stop for anything?"

And her response was: "Thank God. They haven't stopped screaming today except when we left the house."

I walked in the door to find my domestic goddess looking like this.

Except instead of a chair, it was a baby. And instead of a poor black child, she was a middle-class white twenty something woman.

Pity overtook me, and I sent her straight off to the bath, then dinner, then bed. So, I guess it wasn't much of a straight shot, more of a meandering rest break. So here I sit, watching a pair of sleeping infants and watching a TV show that's not about housewives, be they Real or Desperate. Meanwhile she's taking a nice, night starting, nap.

We're going to try to switch off a feeding or two for a couple nights and see if one person can manage the ladies long enough to give the other a shot at a full REM cycle.

Are we there yet?

Ok girls, it's getting old.

feed, burp, change, finish feeding, put down, pick up, re-wrap, putdown, wait 1 hour. Repeat.

I appreciate that you're growing, and quickly. I understand that it's not malicious. I even think that you've, individually, been far better behaved than most babies. But seriously. You've got to bring something to the table.

I'm tired, Mom's tired, the dogs are exhausted. They've stopped responding to crying though, which is a plus. Maynard still moves to the opposite side of the bed, but he's figured out nothing is really wrong.

From reading the interwebs, I guess you're supposed to start smiling and possibly interacting slightly in the next couple weeks. That would be nice, as the closest thing we have to emotion yet is a funny head-bobble that indicates the desire for a nipple. All other emotions are indicated by a furrowed brow and slight puckering of the mouth.

About to poop: Furrow and Pucker
Happy: Furrow and Pucker
Solved world hunger: Furrow and Pucker, then tell no one the answer
Ambivalence: Pucker, then Furrow; then Furrow and Pucker, pass gas

To finish I wanted to compare these girls skill at filling a diaper to a Jackson Pollock. Complexity, layers, innovation, colors, action. They've got it all.






But with Poop. Get it?

Babocolypse

I'm afraid that we've both been under siege by the babies a little too much for me to come up with anything creative, witty, or inciteful. So, I figured we should just keep everyone posted on what's been going on.

The Battle of Slumber Hill
The city of Sleepytown, USA is under a trade blockade by the armies of the Twin Federation. (Before I forget, the girls have unionized and formed a trading conglomerate) Nightly shipments of rest are being intercepted and re-purposed to sinister means. Fortunately, the leadership of Sleepytown (Abby and I, it's an oligarchy)has made some progress in the form of black market nap dealings. The blockade is unlikely to fall anytime soon, and we hope that moral can hold.




Pictured: A Butt-Smuggled Heroin-Balloon of Rest.

That's the Good Shit. It'll keep you rocking for 2, maybe 3 hours.





The Big Diaper Offensive
Sleepytown's strategy has been mostly a reactive one thus far, as proactive diaper changes and burpings have proved ineffectual. There is some amount of futility to the fight. The act of diaper changing seems to wake the demon inside the Twin Federation's collective bowels. We posit that the TwiFed soldiers view a full pant-load as some sort of camouflage, psychological advantage, or body heat retention system. We have top men working on it.



Top. Men.







The Blitzkind
The TwiFed's tactics are developing and maturing at a disturbing rate. Already they are addign personality, cuteness and funny noises to their list of available options. Previously, we had only had to content with furrowed brows, crying and strange odors. According to and What To Expect and The Art of War; the standard development of an opponent is slated to include "awake time" and "rudimentary intelligence" soon. Their neural pathways are developing and forming connections at exponenial rates. Fortunately they currently lack the skill to challenge me at sports, checkers, or competitive paintball.

As a result, I'll have to give them some time to develop before I force them to earn my love. Right now they're in the grace period, where they get the love without having to put much effort into relationship management. I think the grace period usually last between 14 and 40 years.

Sleep Deprivation.

Here's things that babies do:
-Eat
-Poop
-Pee
-Cry
-Look around
-Make faces that indicate one of the above

That's pretty much it. I think the goal is to get the balance to an equilibrium that you would like.

For us, the daytime balance involves a lot of eating and sleeping, but the nighttime alloy is heavier on crying and looking around. Their starting to really show some different personalities though. Neither one is all that interested in letting mom and dad rest much between the hours of bar-closing and walk-of-shame.

Ok, this isn't so bad.

Just Kidding. This is fucking hard. And a little intimidating. But also pretty straightforward.

I apologize if my verbiage, grammar and spelling work together to form an orchestra of literary clam-city. I'm a bit tired.

The Twins and mom are home. Everything went splendidly, and the hospital stay was a good warmup period for home life. It's pretty tough to get started well with a new mom that's flooded with a cocktail of crashing hormones and serious pain meds. Everyone is adapting well and learning skills at a mind expanding rate. We spent 3 days, 2 nights at the hospital, just as a precaution to make sure everyone was well on the road to recovery.

The dogs were an adventure in that they are wholly dependent on us(read: me); but if push came to shove, they could derive sustenance from shoe leather and paperback book bindings. These little meat-bags would be totally lost without us, and somehow that is incredibly endearing. We started out purely breast feeding, but then added some formula supplementation so everyone involved was having a good experience.

Then, we came home. The waves of life hit the walls of the sandcastle house we had built in the hospital. Night 1 was a trial, Night 2 was a horror. The next morning we introduced a bottle so mom could spend more than 45 minutes not-feeding at a time. I'm not much of a religious man, but the inventor of the bottle has my adoration and is now the object of my false idolatry. ( just tried to spell idol, like "idle", which would an entirely different thing) This morning I showered, brewed a cup of coffee and had a bagel I prepared myself, plus I have a chance to write here.

Abby's now had a solid 4 hours of sleep and I got around 6 broken up hours last night. Things have drastically improved. We're still pumping and using mom's special blend as our primary. I just thing the switch from point-of-sale milk transactions to a temporary credit system has everyone happier and more rested.

Now, it's a grind, but we're going to grind successfully.