It’s weird having twins. They’re so different. It’s like my wife pooped out the Odd Couple, with vaginas. Or little baby versions of Jekyll & Hyde (only without the evil and murder - so far).
Jules is the shit talker. Yeah, i know she isn’t really saying any real words yet, but if she could, rest assured she’d be serving up a hot plate of crap. You can just see it in her eyes. Well not really, she keeps a straight face. But that just means she’s good at lying. She’d be all like ’sure, daddy, i’ll totally go to bed tonight without crying like an idiot,’ or ‘no way will i spit up all over your nice shirt!’ Those bashful eyelashes and gummy smile don’t throw me off.
It must take a lot of energy to keep that motormouth running, because she doesn’t move around too much. She hates tummy time, and has showed no interest in rolling yet. Awesome. So she’ll be planted on her throne, using her silvertongue to trick me into bringing her juice boxes and animal crackers all day. What kind of way is that to treat daddy? I’m tired of lugging juice boxes around all day!
Cordy, on the other hand, doesn’t talk much. She’s the creepy silent type. You know what they say, it’s the quiet ones you gotta watch. Remind me not to get her that meat cleaver for her 5th Christmas. And you do have to watch her, because she’s very mobile. She hasn’t got crawling down yet, but she’s always on her tummy, and she can shimmy around for miles. She’s kind of like a car with a broken transmission - she can only move backwards.
I really hope she resolves this eventually. At least by the time she graduates high school. Could you imagine, her up on stage, cap & gown, trying to make it across the stage backwards? Knocking over the podium? That knocks over the principal, he falls on the valedictorian, it quickly snowballs into mass anarchy, and Cordy never even gets her diploma? Horseshit.
Anyway, they just turned 6 months, so that’s cool. We had another doctor visit, where they get their dose of inert diseases shoved into their tiny little legs. I guess it makes me a horrible father, but i don’t feel all that bad when they cry. I mean, needles suck, but they’re necessary. And i totally love the faces they make. That second or two, just as they notice something hurts real bad, but haven’t realized they should be crying yet. It’s like a rainbow of emotions splattered over their faces. If it lasted any longer, i’d grab a seat and some popcorn.
I hope this doesn’t develop into a habit, though. I’d look forward to their yearly flu shots. I can only imagine pulling out a camera quickly as one of the girls stubs their toe, or gets a papercut. I’d have to restrain myself from putting thumbtacks on the kitchen chairs before breakfast. I’d be a monster! Maybe i should look away from now on when they get their shots. Before the babies turn me into Jekyll & Hyde.
Holy crap i have to tell this story, but it’s not appropriate for little eyes (and my kid is known to look at my blog. primarily because i put funny captions on pictures). So you’ll have to highlight the following text, super-secret-like.
So i strongly dislike this whole tooth fairy business. It’s way too stressful. Impersonating mythical figures like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny are one thing, because you can send the kids to bed. But the tooth fairy? To get the job done, you’ve got to march right into the lion’s den. What if you wake them? What if you’re caught with your hand right in the cookie jar (or under the pillow, in this case)? Lie? ”I was checking to see if the tooth fairy had come yet.” That doesn’t sound feasible. If anything, your kid, streetwise beyond their years due to all the tv they watch, will think you were trying to steal their money. What if they think you’ve been skimming some of their tooth profits all along? What if they accuse you of owing them tens of dollars? What if they go apeshit and start ripping out teeth and throwing them at you? Your kid is traumatized and for what? $2 in exchange for a tooth? And what even are you supposed to give them, anyway? I used to get like a nickel. What’s inflation for a tooth? There’s no Kelly Blue Book for teeth! Do canines and molars yield the same amount? It’s too much!
All this and i haven’t even started the story.
So last tooth, she thought she’d get wise. An idea only a kid could have. She thought that if she left her tooth in a plastic bag, along with some loose change, she would get more back. I guess her thinking was, if the tooth fairy could turn something as worthless as a tooth into a couple of Washingtons, imagine what she could do with actual money to start with! Or maybe she was thinking more long term - like the tooth fairy would put those pennies into a Roth IRA for her. Maybe imaginary fairies yield high interest. Well, in my trek to acquire her tooth that night, i grabbed the bag, shoved it in my pocket, gave her money, and got the fuck out of there. I didn’t even realize i had some change with me in that bag until i got back to our bedroom, where i asked the wife what the hell this was all about. She suggested i just put the change back, but there was no way i was going to risk going back in there. And she got the same amount for this tooth as she did her last tooth. So, in essence, the tooth fairy stole from her.
So we just lost another tooth. And it was late, like 10 at night. Which i do not appreciate. What if i didn’t have any cash on me? It’s not unusual, in this check-card age we live in. Do other parents keep a special tooth fairy stash somewhere? Whatever. Luckily we did.
So i had been sick and took an excessive amount of pseudoephedrine that night. I was wired. I was cleaning our kitchen feverishly, like the chick from Requiem for a Dream. Until 1am, when my wife stumbled out of bed and made me stop. My mind was all jittery to begin with, then i remembered i had to play tooth fairy before i went to bed.
So here i was, wired out of my mind, thoughts racing, and i had to somehow slow down and sneak into Grumplestiltskin’s room. There was crap on the floor everywhere. It was like walking in a landmine, only instead of metal exploding, stepping in the wrong place could’ve made a toy register start beeping, or make a few lines from Hoedown Throwdown play out of the chest of a little plastic Hannah Montana. I could hear the words in my head, only changed, and mocking. Pop it, lock it, wake your kid up, childhood’s ruined, cause you suck! Every floor board in my 100 year old house creaking. I was moving very slowly, in case she had rigged up some sort of motion sensor or heat detector like in those spy movies. You never know, with all the little gadgets kids have now. I perched along the side of the bed and saw the mass of shit she had up by her pillow. Toys, books, junk, for some reason even my dog’s leash. How the hell was i supposed to find her tooth among all this? I reached under, felt around a bit, and retreated. I tried the other side of the bed. She was facing me now. Asleep, but for how long? She was strangling her pillow, as if it were a flotation device, and she were dreaming about a plane crash. I slid my hand under, and jesus, it felt like she was forcing her head down as hard as she could. I cold barely wedge my hand under there. And what did i feel? Jack shit. I went back to our bedroom and started ranting at the wife.
She reassured me that our kid was a heavy sleeper. That i’d be fine. Basically that i should stop being a pussy.
I went back in and went back to the side of the bed with the trash heap. I closed my eyes and just shot my arm in there, kind of like Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom when he had to find the release lever in that recess full of bugs. I found it! A little felt angel that granny made. I pulled it hard, but all that came out were a pair of wings. It had ripped under the weight of her big fat head! The tooth fairy has turned from a thief to a vandal. I reached in and grabbed the rest. I quickly exchanged the money for the tooth. And i even stuck in the change i stole last time. Then i got the fuck out of there.
How does everyone else survive this horrible tradition? How am i gonna deal when the twins starting losing teeth? Nyquil them every time it happens? Sleeping gas? Make mommy do it? Ridiculous.
Hey everyone! Sorry for no updates, but it’s the holidays, and wrapping presents is a full time job. I did want to share this - last night we got a video of the girls ‘talking’ to each other for really the first time. It’s probably kind of boring on youtube, but was adorable at the time.
They’re cute, sure, but they’re also like menacing beasts with their terrible talons. Those nails so tiny, and also so difficult to cut, yet the damage they can reap is astounding. I have velociraptors. I have chick versions of Wolverine (I would even slip in a Lady Deathstrike reference here even but only like 2 readers would get it). I have dual-gloved Freddy Kruegers. And it’s bad enough when they scrape us up - i’ve learned to identify when they’re in a crazed claw-swiping mood, and keep my face arms-length away from their tiny little razors. But without my face to maul, they turn on their own. It’s like Edward Scissorhands all over again, only without the awesome hedges and Vincent Price cameo. Every couple of minutes there’s a new scratch, scrape or gouge on their faces. You’d think i was giving them a bath with No Tears and a cheese grater. I’m not!
Self-mutilation aside, the babies are doing very well. They are literally twice as big as when they were born, which is hard for me to wrap my head around. It’s fun having twins because i can see how babies can develop differently. Cordy is our roller. When laid down, she rolls on to her stomach almost immediately. She’s gotten this down pat. She even sleeps on her stomach every night now - she rolls over as soon as she hits that crib. She’s not so good at rolling back yet… but she’s working on it. Jules isn’t as interested in rolling over, but she does love talking. She’ll talk all day. Loudly. It’s really cute, until it’s been like an hour straight, and i’m really trying to watch this movie. Like, go ahead baby, keep practicing, because i want to hear you say daddy soon, but just turn it down a bit, because i’m trying to listen to Will Ferrell say something goofy to Zoey Deschanel, k?
And our next impending disaster, as if the fear of our babies cutting their own faces off or rolling off the couch to become messy splats all over the carpet aren’t bad enough, is teething. Our babies, who really don’t cry all that often, have become unusually fussy lately. And they’re drooling, a lot. Like, i should buy flood insurance. I wish i could build fremen stillsuits and recirculate that drool. It would save a whole lot of wiping (which lately has degenerated from spit rags to daddy wiping it with his hand and then onto his shirt). They’re also in the age range to get their first tooth, which the internet tells me is 4 to 7 months. So, yeah. Teething rings? Orajel? Mouthguards? Every time i’ve got this baby stuff figured out, they go ahead and outsmart me, or start growing something new.
PS I’ve settled with updating pictures on my facebook account and nowhere else. I added links there on the left if you want daily reminders of how cute my babies are.
I’m thankful my babies are regular. Without even the use of Activia, my babies poop once a day. Like they swallowed a clock and it got stuck in their colon. It’s a fun, albeit stinky, guessing game, wherein we yell out ‘I got the package!’ like we just found a very brown, sloppy easter egg. Although now that the babies are starting to eat jar foods, i feel like it’s going to turn less into a scavenger hunt and more into a game of hot potato. We’ll be tossing the twins back and forth in the air hoping that the diaper will get filled up with a rotten chocolate milkshake in the other’s hand.
I’m thankful for BinkiGrips. Before my wife found these, pacifiers disappeared constantly. They were like locusts, tons of them there, then gone as soon we turned around. Then they would pop up like 7 days later mysteriously. BinkiGrips are awesome. They have alligator clips which attach to anything. It’s one step away from giving the baby a good strong piercing, like cartilage or septum, and attaching the pacifier right to them. Which i’m not opposed to, but current legislation prevents me from trying. So far.
And oh am i thankful for lights. When the babies are fussy, or if i need to deal with just one at a time, i have lights. Lights in swing chairs, lights attached to cribs, lights projected in ceilings, or hey, even the tv! My babies are like moths, mesmerized by anything bright, colorful or blinking. I do have fears that when they’re older and mobile that we’ll have some sort of bug light zapping accident, but as a father of twins, i have to worry about one thing at a time.
And lastly, i’m thankful for my wife. Our twins are fraternal. So whenever things become rough or too stressful, i can just blame her! It’s not my fault we had two babies! She shouldn’t have shot out too many eggs! What was she doing, trying to make a uterine omelet? Her lady parts are not supposed to be a Waffle House.
Too bad she didn’t push out some smothered & covered hash browns out of those things, too!
So there i was in the middle of Target making googley eyes to the babies, and my wife says to the 8yo, ‘hey let’s look at training bras.’ Great. As if i didn’t have enough to deal with, the kid is pushing into new frontiers. It’s like she’s going all Oregon Trail on me, only instead of me dying of dysentery, she’s going to drown me in hormones and woman issues.
What am i supposed to do with this? I’m still working on her trying to find her shoes in the morning without going all apeshit, and now i have to worry about boob issues? My plate is already full, but life is slopping a big helping of developing woman parts on there anyway?
She asked me a question about her bras, or boobs, or something. I swear i don’t remember what it was, because i just blocked it out. I tried, in a nice way, to explain that some questions were mommy-only questions, because i just didn’t have those same parts. So i had no clue. This is tough for me because i’m used to either having or faking the answers to everything. I’ve decided though not to even bother entering this realm.
I mean, i’m not even sure what a training bra is for. Does it really train your boobs to do something? Is it important for development? For protection? Does it really do anything? Does she need it for gym class? Like when she’s jumping rope, is that what it’s for? These are all of course questions i have, but don’t really want the answers. I really don’t.
And jesus, i have two more girls growing up. That’s four more boobs. It’s like an a-cup army, small and slowly growing impending doom. I feel like Sauron, and there’s all these tiny little things hanging around my house bent on destroying me. The Fellowship of the Training Bras, with their One Bra Strap to bring me and in the darkness bind me. In land of Women Parts where shadows lie. Ugh.
I’m ignoring this whole development and going back to solving the problems that i can, like homework, diapers, and whether to watch iCarly or Wizards of Waverly Place (uh, iCarly, totally). None of these things involve me answering boob questions.
That is, i guess, until iCarly has a ‘very special episode.’ But then it’s that bitch Miranda Cosgrove’s responsibility. Not it.
It’s a little like losing an arm, you know. When you have twins. Because rest assured, you’ve most likely got ahold of a kid at any given time of the day. You learn to hold them and the bottle with just one arm because, jesus, you’ve got lots of other stuff you could be doing with the other arm. And you might not get much downtime sans baby. You have to learn how to make a bottle with just one hand, eat dinner with one hand, type with one hand, calm down a second baby with one hand. I wonder how one-armed people deal with twins…
Even with two arms, the logistics can be difficult at times. When the wife and i are home, we obviously both get one. But when we’re alone, there’s a lot of concessions that need to be made, and tips and tricks we’ve tried to develop.
My wife is a big fan of feeding two babies at once. She lays them down in front of her and shoves two bottles into two mouths. I acknowledge that this is effective and time saving, but i don’t care for it myself. Let’s face it, babies are at their most boring while they’re eating. And i don’t want to distract them, because they’ve got a job to do. So while a baby’s eating, i’m watching some tv or facebookin’ it up. What if something crappy comes on and i need to change the channel? If both my hands are tied up with babies, how can i work the remote? How can i add snarky comments to people’s facebook statuses, or harvest my farmville crops? No, feeding two babies at a time is not a good option for me.
So, my greatest friend is the pacifier. You may know it as the ninny. I know it as the piehole plug. If i’m feeding one baby, its a good way to zip those lips of the other baby till i’m done. If the other baby is whining and crying, how can i hear the tv? Not good for anyone involved. So i sit the kid in a swing, turn on those blinking lights, and plug up that piehole. Both kids get to eat eventually, and i get to watch another episode of The Simpsons. It’s win-win.
The pacifier goes by another name in our house - the snooze button. My wife didn’t get it at first but she’s come to embrace the idea. If, on a rare occasion, a baby would wake up in the middle of the night, i would go in the nursery, check their diaper, and shove a pacifier in their mouth. Then i’d go back to bed. Sometimes it would be a false alarm and the baby would go back to sleep. Sometimes the baby would cry again in a few minutes. It’s cool. Just like a snooze button, i got an extra few minutes to sleep. Instead of being jarred awake and not in a good mood, i get to wake up gradually, and the baby still gets to eat. My wife has gone from bitching at me, to actually calling it a snooze button. Which is why i love her.
Shopping is made more challenging with babies. When together, we have many options. We can ‘bjorn it up,’ each adorning our Baby Bjorns. Or we can put them in our awesome beast of dual stroller. At BJ’s the carts are double-wide, so we can actually put the car seats next to each other up on the front part. And there’s always a mixture of options - one in a Bjorn, one in the cart, etc. When we’re alone, however, options are a lot more limited. Especially when i take the girls out, and realize the stroller is in the wife’s car.
This requires a strategy. One, i have to park close to carts, so i can park, run and grab one, and take it back to the car - without, you know, abandoning my babies. Then i put one, in her carseat, in the bottom of the cart (whoever’s sleeping). The other goes on top the cart, with the diaper bag going on the rack underneath. Now i have to move carefully, because the cart feels like i’m pushing 12 christmas hams. I can only buy as much stuff in the store as i can fit in the cart alongside the girls (ok fine, i sometimes put things on the girls, but only lightweight stuff. it’s like toys. they don’t know any better). Getting back to the car goes even slower. Then, since every parking lot is somehow on a hill, i have to carefully put the first girl back into the car, while holding the cart still with my foot so it doesn’t roll away with my other girl (and worse yet, my groceries!).
There’s a a reason besides cart logistics that shopping takes much than it used to. It’s the celebrity of having twins. I’m sure you parents of singletons get stopped plenty, but when we go out with twins, we get mobbed. You’d think we were pushing around Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston (don’t i wish). Everyone wants a look. Everyone has comments, or suggestions, or their own stories to tell. I mean, crowds form. Lines, with velvet rope and a dude with a clipboard. I feel like i could charge admission, and actually get it. I bet i could rival street performers just by rolling the twins’ stroller out on the corner and holding out a tin cup. Hey, i am looking for a way to start a college fund…
It’s smile time! The babies smile all the time - when they see us, even when they just hear us. I don’t know if this is true for all babies, but our’s smile most first thing in the morning. They are so happy in the mornings and god i hope that continues on to the school years. We’re so on the cusp of laughing. It’s both exciting and frustrating and i feel like this will be a trend for the next few years.
I’m such a dad that i definitely have my favorite diapers and wipes. Pampers all the way. Anytime we’ve tried to stray, problems have arisen. The kind of problems that lead to biohazard tape and tongs. However much i like the Pampers wipes, though, i wish they wouldn’t sometimes stream out of the box like a magician’s handkerchief. If i wanted magic happening during diaper time, i’d much rather have a hat that could make stinky deposits disappear.
We’ve been having a lot of fun with the twins. We put them inside carved out pumpkins on Halloween. We play Pumpkin Plane and Jelly Jet with them all the time (even though sometimes it results in me getting spit up all over my face that one time). We have long meaningful conversations with them, and give them millions of kisses. Oh man, i’m so sappy now.
I took some quick (not very well thought out or shot) video of Cordy so you guys didn’t think i was an asshole and played favorites already. Here’s one in which she smiles but doesn’t talk, and one in which she talks but doesn’t smile. A problem child already!
So, i finally figured it out. Fatherhood is standing in the middle of Target, looking down at your baby, making all kinds of goofy faces and noises, just to get a smile. And not caring one bit about the people around.
I’ve made it past the messy noisy first month. And the kind of boring, hey start doing something already second month. The third month is when they started coming to life. That’s when the smiles started. They were intermittent at first. A smirk here or there. But now it’s natural for them. All we have to do is look at them and we get the biggest smile. You’d think our heads were made of cotton candy. Well, not that 3 month olds like cotton candy yet. But, you know. They would if they knew what was good for them.
Here’s some of our latest pictures, since most of you aren’t facebook friends of mine and i find that’s the easiest way for me to upload pictures and get instant gratification by people commenting on them reinforcing what i already know, that my babies are way cuter than everyone else’s.
The totally awesome Kodak flip video camera thing my wife got for me isn’t working, but i have managed one video with my regular digital camera. It’s nothing special, but it beats no content. So choke on that, readers.
Apologies for my site being down. I got hit by spammers hardcore.
Also apologies to anyone who’s my facebook friend - you’ll think this post is horsecrap.
Anyway, remember those many weeks when i didn’t update because i was too busy and sleep deprived and because, well, there’s no easy way to say this, i love my babies a lot more than you (yes you, specifically)? I was updating facebook at the time. So i though i’d fill in the missing gap by posting all of my baby related facebook statuses. Hooray for new content without having to write anything!
7/17
Joe Long has babies.
7/19
Joe Long ’s girl Cordy will be in the NICU still saturday but is doing well
7/20
Joe Long might get Cordy home sooner than saturday!
7/20
Joe Long is feeding his little pumpkin while mommy’s visiting jellybean in the NICU.
7/20
Joe Long thinks you should call the cops, because these babies have stolen my heart.
7/21
Joe Long is feeding Jules at 2am while watching Sliders on hulu. Good life.
7/21
Joe Long is a little cranky because Jules kept him up till 5.
7/22
Joe Long got good burps out of Jules tonight.
7/24
Joe Long just got 5 hours of straight sleep because Juliette is such a good girl.
7/24
Joe Long Cordy is 5lbs 1.1oz! She can come home Sunday!!
7/25
Joe Long is bringing Cordy home tomorrow.
7/26
Joe Long finally has both his girls home!
7/27
Joe Long is sitting in bed singing Ramones songs to his ladies.
7/30
Joe Long is singing the freddy kruger song to his girls. One Two Cordy’s coming for you…
8/2
Joe Long would kill a man for a solid 8 hours of sleep.
8/3
Joe Long is playing music for the girls, alternating between punk & vivaldi, hoping this will insipire them to grow up to be brilliant criminal masterminds bent on worldwide anarchy. Maybe they can buy daddy an island.
8/4
Joe Long dislikes wiping shit out of tiny vaginas.
8/8
Joe Long was changing Cordy, with her butt in the air, then Cordy managed to pee on her own face.
8/12
Joe Long has determined one of his kids looks like an elf, and the other a hobbit. Does that make me Gandalf? YOU SHALL NOT PASS STOOL!
8/16
Joe Long got a ton of formula spit up on him at 4am, and has had only 4 hours sleep. Chicken McAwesome.
8/17
Joe Long Jules puked up her milk last night - on to Cordy. So that was fun, at 3am.
8/18
Joe Long thinks people who only have to deal with 1 screaming baby in the middle of the night are pansies.
8/18
Joe Long is rubbing athlete’s foot creme on his baby’s raw ass.
8/21
Joe Long is singing Tommy the Cat to his babies.
8/22
Joe Long dislikes projectile vomiting on early saturday mornings.
8/22
Joe Long doesn’t get it. If you’re not done with the pacifier, don’t push it out of your mouth.
8/25
Joe Long loves and hates 4am feedings. Has to wake up at 4am, but gets quiet alone time with his girls.
8/25
Joe Long is delighted his babies took a break from their 3 hour eating schedule and have instead decided to eat a little bit every 45 minutes.
8/31
Joe Long dislikes diapers so bad they lead to immediate bath time.
9/1
Joe Long just exceeded the recommended dosage of sudafed as he’s discovering the joys of being sick with twins.
9/3
Joe Long has babyspit on his shirt and babyshit on his shorts. And doesn’t even care anymore.
9/6
Joe Long is seeing how the babies’ first night in the nursery will work out.
9/7
Joe Long dislikes angry baby milk volcanos.
9/8
Joe Long’s nose picking skills finally came in handy, to clean out his baby’s nose goblins.
9/10
Joe Long is replacing a laptop motherboard and feeding a baby at the same time. Yes, he’s that good.
9/12
Joe Long hates sick babies
9/12
Joe Long thinks he just wiped his nose with the same tissue he used to wipe spit up milk from jules’ face.
9/20
Joe Long’s baby is doing her best impression of Mt Vesuvius.
9/24
Joe Long is feeding Pumpkin but she’s kinda going all jimmy legs apeshit.
9/26
Joe Long took his babies to their first horror convention!
9/26
Joe Long disliked having to say, “there’s no way to get this onesie off without getting shit all over her head.”
It’s weird having twins. They’re so different. It’s like my wife pooped out the Odd Couple, with vaginas. Or little baby versions of Jekyll & Hyde (only without the evil and murder - so far). 
It must take a lot of energy to keep that motormouth running, because she doesn’t move around too much. She hates tummy time, and has showed no interest in rolling yet. Awesome. So she’ll be planted on her throne, using her silvertongue to trick me into bringing her juice boxes and animal crackers all day. What kind of way is that to treat daddy? I’m tired of lugging juice boxes around all day!
I really hope she resolves this eventually. At least by the time she graduates high school. Could you imagine, her up on stage, cap & gown, trying to make it across the stage backwards? Knocking over the podium? That knocks over the principal, he falls on the valedictorian, it quickly snowballs into mass anarchy, and Cordy never even gets her diploma? Horseshit.
Holy crap i have to tell this story, but it’s not appropriate for little eyes (and my kid is known to look at my blog. primarily because i put funny captions on pictures). So you’ll have to highlight the following text, super-secret-like.
So last tooth, she thought she’d get wise. An idea only a kid could have. She thought that if she left her tooth in a plastic bag, along with some loose change, she would get more back. I guess her thinking was, if the tooth fairy could turn something as worthless as a tooth into a couple of Washingtons, imagine what she could do with actual money to start with! Or maybe she was thinking more long term - like the tooth fairy would put those pennies into a Roth IRA for her. Maybe imaginary fairies yield high interest. Well, in my trek to acquire her tooth that night, i grabbed the bag, shoved it in my pocket, gave her money, and got the fuck out of there. I didn’t even realize i had some change with me in that bag until i got back to our bedroom, where i asked the wife what the hell this was all about. She suggested i just put the change back, but there was no way i was going to risk going back in there. And she got the same amount for this tooth as she did her last tooth. So, in essence, the tooth fairy stole from her.
Those nails so tiny, and also so difficult to cut, yet the damage they can reap is astounding. I have velociraptors. I have chick versions of Wolverine (I would even slip in a Lady Deathstrike reference here even but only like 2 readers would get it). I have dual-gloved Freddy Kruegers. And it’s bad enough when they scrape us up - i’ve learned to identify when they’re in a crazed claw-swiping mood, and keep my face arms-length away from their tiny little razors. But without my face to maul, they turn on their own. It’s like Edward Scissorhands all over again, only without the awesome hedges and Vincent Price cameo. Every couple of minutes there’s a new scratch, scrape or gouge on their faces. You’d think i was giving them a bath with No Tears and a cheese grater. I’m not!
She’ll talk all day. Loudly. It’s really cute, until it’s been like an hour straight, and i’m really trying to watch this movie. Like, go ahead baby, keep practicing, because i want to hear you say daddy soon, but just turn it down a bit, because i’m trying to listen to Will Ferrell say something goofy to Zoey Deschanel, k?
And our next impending disaster, as if the fear of our babies cutting their own faces off or rolling off the couch to become messy splats all over the carpet aren’t bad enough, is teething. Our babies, who really don’t cry all that often, have become unusually fussy lately. And they’re drooling, a lot. Like, i should buy flood insurance. I wish i could build 
And oh am i thankful for lights. When the babies are fussy, or if i need to deal with just one at a time, i have lights. Lights in swing chairs, lights attached to cribs, lights projected in ceilings, or hey, even the tv! My babies are like moths, mesmerized by anything bright, colorful or blinking. I do have fears that when they’re older and mobile that we’ll have some sort of bug light zapping accident, but as a father of twins, i have to worry about one thing at a time.
What am i supposed to do with this? I’m still working on her trying to find her shoes in the morning without going all apeshit, and now i have to worry about boob issues? My plate is already full, but life is slopping a big helping of developing woman parts on there anyway?
And jesus, i have two more girls growing up. That’s four more boobs. It’s like an a-cup army, small and slowly growing impending doom. I feel like Sauron, and there’s all these tiny little things hanging around my house bent on destroying me. The Fellowship of the Training Bras, with their One Bra Strap to bring me and in the darkness bind me. In land of Women Parts where shadows lie. Ugh.
Even with two arms, the logistics can be difficult at times. When the wife and i are home, we obviously both get one. But when we’re alone, there’s a lot of concessions that need to be made, and tips and tricks we’ve tried to develop.
So, my greatest friend is the pacifier. You may know it as the ninny. I know it as the piehole plug. If i’m feeding one baby, its a good way to zip those lips of the other baby till i’m done. If the other baby is whining and crying, how can i hear the tv? Not good for anyone involved. So i sit the kid in a swing, turn on those blinking lights, and plug up that piehole. Both kids get to eat eventually, and i get to watch another episode of The Simpsons. It’s win-win.
Shopping is made more challenging with babies. When together, we have many options. We can ‘bjorn it up,’ each adorning our Baby Bjorns. Or we can put them in our awesome beast of dual stroller. At BJ’s the carts are double-wide, so we can actually put the car seats next to each other up on the front part. And there’s always a mixture of options - one in a Bjorn, one in the cart, etc. When we’re alone, however, options are a lot more limited. Especially when i take the girls out, and realize the stroller is in the wife’s car.
There’s a a reason besides cart logistics that shopping takes much than it used to. It’s the celebrity of having twins. I’m sure you parents of singletons get stopped plenty, but when we go out with twins, we get mobbed. You’d think we were pushing around Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston (don’t i wish). Everyone wants a look. Everyone has comments, or suggestions, or their own stories to tell. I mean, crowds form. Lines, with velvet rope and a dude with a clipboard. I feel like i could charge admission, and actually get it. I bet i could rival street performers just by rolling the twins’ stroller out on the corner and holding out a tin cup. Hey, i am looking for a way to start a college fund…
I’m such a dad that i definitely have my favorite diapers and wipes. Pampers all the way. Anytime we’ve tried to stray, problems have arisen. The kind of problems that lead to biohazard tape and tongs. However much i like the Pampers wipes, though, i wish they wouldn’t sometimes stream out of the box like a magician’s handkerchief. If i wanted magic happening during diaper time, i’d much rather have a hat that could make stinky deposits disappear.
We’ve been having a lot of fun with the twins. We put them inside carved out pumpkins on Halloween. We play Pumpkin Plane and Jelly Jet with them all the time (even though sometimes it results in me getting spit up all over my face that one time). We have long meaningful conversations with them, and give them millions of kisses. Oh man, i’m so sappy now.
7/17
but is doing well 
8/22
