We broke down

This lady, yeah, we hired her. Well, not her per se, but someone exactly like her. Seriously, even looks like her. With the shawl and the glasses on her nose and everything.


We hired a night nanny.

For those of you unfamiliar with a night nanny, this is a blessed soul who comes to your home at night and raises your children from the hours of about 10PM to 5 or 6AM. I was told about the night nanny before the kids came. I thought "ehh, that's for other people".

Ehhh, I was really wrong.

Night nannys are basically required for parents of newborn twins. I seriously don't know how we'd even be functioning right now if we didn't have someone to take care of them three times a week. I'm guessing we'd be hallucinating like we just chased shots of whiskey with Tommy Chong's bongwater.

The downside is that they're not cheap. However, when the twins were about 4 days old, the wife and I basically decided that we'd sell a kidney if we had to. There are things that didn't sound rational at all prior to this experience that sound perfectly normal now. All you parents of singleton children who are scoffing at us right now for passing the buck for the night hell, allow me just a moment to lose any semblance of self-control while I call you single parents pussies for only having one baby at a time. Sorry.

In other news

They're still ridiculously cute. Just look at that crap, have you ever seen anything that cute in your entire lives? Just say no, because you haven't.

It's really not fair to other babies.

The kids are gaining about half a pound a week. I think that's good. I'm not a doctor. I'd check with Doctor Harvey Karp's book, but I don't believe he's a doctor either.

The kids are doing all sorts of cute things. Nolan is unusually strong. I think he might be stronger than my wife. You know the expression "taking candy from a baby"? That doesn't work with Nolan. He'd be like, "motherf&cker, get your own candy", and then he'd punch you. Not that I condone that kind of language or violence from my son.

Here's an example of Nolan's ferociousness. Observe -- the famous IRON CLAW!

"I am crushing your head with the IRON CLAW! I has
future in teh
wrestle"

See what I mean? Ferocious.

Lilly is also doing all sorts of cute things. She's starting to chub up a little bit, which is nice because she was kinda skinny at birth. Her feet are still enormous. She's got giant damn feet, which I think means she's going to be tall like her momma. She's not perfect though, she's developed a nasty case of the fussy/colicy death scream, which makes me want to kick myself in the head.

Last picture -- Nolan in the bathtub.

Kills a baby's crying

It's crazy, but it's true. The neighbors probably want to know why we are always running our vacuum.

Strange things, man.

Sometimes the picture tells the story

<-- This was my son yesterday.

I never actually witnesses "projectile vomiting" before. My wife was feeding little Nolan, when all of a sudden, he opened up and launched a veritable rainbow of milk-based barf all over my wife's arm and hand. And sleeve. And couch. It was at this moment that I thanked our couch-salesperson for having the wherewithall to sell us that stainmaster package for $15.

Fifteen bucks for no baby barf stain? SOLD!

Anyway, spawn of Satan hasn't barfed a stream of nasty again. The Preist will be here Tuesday. Hail Mary.

I've been terribly neglectful

All right all right, I get the point -- I failed to update the blog for 4 days and left the adoring public wondering what happened. Did we get abducted? Did my bacteria-growing overtake the family like a blanket of death? Or am I just lazy.

The answer is that last one. Lazy. I'm a little lazy. Some people might call it very lazy, but those people are jerks.

Since our "Doctor" Harvey Karp meltdown, the children have been doing pretty well. They're sleeping OK, and they're on a somewhat reliable schedule. We went to the pediatrician and got their first vaccine. Hepatitis B. More on that later.

First -- More about me

I was sick. I don't believe I am sick any longer. I went to my doctor on Monday. She's a real doctor, unlike "doctor" Harvey Karp who lied to us in his book of lies. I've been on antibiotics, and I feel great. I went back to work on Tuesday, and that's been surprisingly OK so far. Although I believe my wife gets lonely here at home. Fortunately she's had help. My mother, parents-in-law, father, Wife's sister and my sister have all chipped in this week. It's been cool.

Now -- about those kids

I suppose I should write about the children. After all, this is a blog about them. Let's start from the intake to outgoing.

INTAKE -- Food

They've been eating really well. About 3 ounces eight or ten times a day. They're gaining weight They're two weeks old (already!) and they've gained a little more than their birth weight. They're doing great. I'm really proud of them and their growin.

Outgoing -- Worried....but then impressive!

My baby girl didn't poop for like two days. That was weird. But then she uncorked whatever she had stuck up there cause she's been pooping like she's angry at us. The boy farts like the old man, which makes me cry a little (that's my boy!)

Bottom line is that the kiddos are doing fine. That's made us very happy. In perspective, things are good with our family. We have two healthy kids who are intaking and outgoing like healthy kids.

Sleeping

Sleeping is still a hit or miss proposition. We had two GREAT nights. I mean great nights! They slept for consecutive periods of about 4 hours, which is just fantastic. But yesterday, they had their Hepatitis B vaccine. This made them fussy. Uncontrollably fussy. End of the earth ear shattering fussy for no reason out of control kill-me-now Defcon 1 I'm going to blow up the Death Star fussy! Little did we know BEFOREHAND that vaccines makes babies fussy.

The wife and I had a moment where we said (literally) that maybe it'd just be better if they got hepatitis. Seriously. How much worse could it have been than this?

But they're better now. They've been sleeping most of the day. Lilly just crapped her pants something awful, so I gotta go.

Sorry, no pictures. I can't be hilarious all the time!

I'm apparently growing bacteria like a human petri dish

I went to the doctor. I have some kind of bacterial infection. Might be strep. Maybe not. Who knows?





Doc said, "don't breathe on the kids". Too bad I spent the entire previous day shusshing them in their ear like Dr. Karp said I should in his book. Stupid Dr. Karp.

(This shit makes a lot more sense if you know who Harvey Karp is. Use teh Google)

So now we're in monitoring mode, analyzing every sneeze, poop and barf to determine if the kids are also culturing more bacteria than Britney Spears's hoo-ha after a night in Las Vegas. So far, they seem healthy. Temperature is normal, attitude is the same fussyness as always. The screaming is the same wail as before. The poop is definately okey-dokey. By the way, does it amaze anyone else that babies will just kinda hang out with shit all over their undercarriage? I'd scream like crazy if I had dookie all over me; but that's just me. (Look, I used a semicolon! Maybe incorrectly).

Me, I'm on antibiotics now. Feeling much better. I would like to thank my real doctor, who is an actual real doctor and not Doctor Harvey Karp.

The childrens were fussy last night again. They're strange that way, they'll have a good night, then a bad night. Last night was a bad night. But I slept really well from 11 to 3 and from 3:30 to 6 or so, so I took the kids from 6 to whatever time it is now so momma could get some sleep. I have to go back to work today though, and that kinda sucks. I really don't know how people do this. I'm sure I'll look back on this all someday and laugh. Or maybe just shake with anxiety and fear.

We're thinking about selling one of my kidneys to get a night nurse. This is one of those things that sounded crazy just a couple weeks ago that now sounds like the most rational, common sense idea in the entire world.

Sick

I felt like crap for most of yesterday, but I kinda thought that it was only because I didn't sleep the night before. Then I took my temperature. 100.7 or so around 9PM. Then, while I was in bed, I took my temperature again. 101.8. Great. Nothing like having a serious fever with two newborns. So I slept in seclusion and my wonderful wife took care of the kids. I go to the doctor today, hopefully I haven't infected my family.

Poop is funny

I wanted to write this yesterday, but I got sidetracked by the budding evil in our children.

A couple days ago, I wrote that I only seem to write about when the kids sleep. So I thought of another topic to write about pertinent to the children.

Poop.

Baby poop is one of those things that sounds awful, but it's actually pretty benign. It's a good thing, it means your kid is healthy, and it's really not that disgusting.

Except when it is.

So both of our kids were sorta constipated two days ago. They wouldn't poop. Lilly went about a full day without pooping, Nolan went a little longer than that. We were getting concerned.

They fixed it. Within 10 minutes of each other.

Nolan blew out most of the lower half of his body into his diaper. I don't think I crap this much. It was one of those poops where you really just have to step back and admire the digestive system. I was on the way out to the garage to get the sandblaster to clean up his backside when wife reminded me that we don't do it that way.

Then Lilly did the most unladylike thing I've ever seen. She made a noise from her undercarriage that made me a little proud of her. I went and checked her, and it was like she was thinking "anything Nolan can do I can do better". And she did. It's like our kids birthed new kids of their own!

So we were relieved to see that our babies were healthy, and a bit amused by the quantity of food by-product those kids processed.

Wiping poop off a baby is like wiping gravy out of deck of cards.

Epic.Fail

Other available titles for this post include

• When Babies Attack


• Sleeping is for pussies


• Screaming is the new normal


• What the Holy Hell is the Matter with You


• Babies - 1, Parents - 0

God last night was a wreck. It started promising. We had a nice day. We took the babies out in their strollers for some good shopping at Babies R Us. Then we drove the babies around for a while. Then we got home, ate dinner, fed the babies and readied to put them down.

Then. It started.

Nolan went down and slept. He was a champ. In fact, throughout the night, Nolan slept great, only waking to ask for his scheduled feedings. And he even did that right.

Lilly decided to hold us hostage. In fact, I've drawn a depiction of what Lilly Grace did to me last night.

Let me walk you through this. My sleep deprivation is making me less brilliant than normal. 1:00AM -- Feeding. 2:00 AM screaming. 2:15 AM more screaming -- in fact, "screaming" isn't the word for it. Take a fork. Examine the fork. Now stab yourself in the eye with the fork. That noise you just made -- that was close.

So, around 2:30, we take Lilly to the guest room to try to soothe her. We're ready for this. We read the books. We had a reference copy of "Happiest Baby on the Block" with us, and we followed all the steps. Nothing. In fact, I now officially declare fatwah on "Happiest Baby on the Block" and the so-called "Doctor" Harvey Karp who wrote it. Dead to me.

Now....3:00 AM -- still screaming. Just insane. Just an unfortunate concert of one. She's clearly distressed, but about what? Then....in a moment that can only be described as brilliant.... TUMMY DROPS! After all, I had already sung the praises of tummy drops. So we dosed her up and said the obligatory "Tummy Drops are better than sex".

Yeah right. Maybe sex in prison.

The tummy drops were an epic.fail. Nothing. I curse tummy drops. Stupid sales of hope in a dropper!

It's at this moment we realized

The problem is that we had no clue how to "do it right". My wife suggested that she stay up with Lilly while I sleep with Nolan. I will always love her for this. Poor thing was on the phone with our pediatrician at 5:30 or 6 in the morning. They suggested taking her to Childrens. Right about then Lilly went to sleep. Blissful sleep. Wife slept for probably 30 to 45 minutes last night. I probably got 2 hours. I love her more because of this.

We ended up calling my mother to have her come watch the kids while we slept. Just insane.

I've heard the first three months are sometimes called the fourth trimester. I kinda wish we could just shove them back in for these three months then. Bring them out when they love you back. My wife disagrees with this. Can't imagine why.

Plus. We may be getting sick. Fuck.

Wow... so that was nice

I'm not supposed to say things like "they slept" or "I got plenty of sleep last night" or whatnot. My friends, who have been invaluable sources of information, advise me that I'm supposed to use coded language. So....

The Eagle....yeah, it fuckin landed

We set them down around 10. Fed them around 2, and they slept until 7. I know they're supposed to eat every three hours, but I'm also supposed to sleep! And we did. Slept like proverbial babies. I think we probably got between 6 and 8 hours of sleep last night, which is pornographically obscene for parents of 9 day old twins. It was awesome. We're awesome. We might be the best parents ever in the history of time!


When I say "slept like babies" -- I mean more of this:


And less of this:
So this was nice. Oddly enough, I'm still a little tired. My wife thinks I have post partum depression, but that seems backwards. It's not that I'm depressed, I think she forgets that I sat around on most Saturdays sleeping and watching football before the kids were born.

.

"Hey Ben, Your Blog is Boring Me to Pieces"

I've been writing a lot about what our nights are like. This blog has quickly become a daily update about our evenings. I can see how this is redundantly redundant and repetative without any reason for the redundant repetition.

There's a reason for this, those kiddos don't really do anything during the day other than sleep and look adorably cute. And how much are you really interested in reading about how Nolan waved his arms cute again today, or how Lilly made a cute face when she farted? I know it's a little cruel, and perhaps strange that I'd say this, but kids are a little boring at this stage in their lives. They eat, they sleep, they poop, and they cry. In between, they look crazy-cute. When they start doing things like cooing and making faces, I'll certainly let everyone know. I imagine that this blog will become less of a nightly recap and more of an actual blog about what the babies are doing.

In other family news

Our other babies are very confused about all this. We had been walking them every day and playing with them fairly constantly.

Now, they're very much a background attraction. They don't like that.

Maggie has definately been hit harder by this than Elroy, although it hasn't been a walk in the park for the old man. Maggie hasn't once played "rope bone" or fetch with her parents since the kiddos came home. This is hard on her. She's a fragile, delicate 100 pound dog.

"Hi, I is Maggie. I is fraghle"

We also have two cats, but nobody cares about their feelings. As if cats have feelings.

We're going to the mall today. So if you see a couple of awesome looking well-rested parents pushing a double stroller loaded up with newborn twins around Northpark today, just stop us and tell us how awesome we are. Hope you get that right, cause if it's not us, well.....that would just be embarassing.

What just happened here?

I would like to begin by thanking my parent-friends who told me to buy stock in tummy drops. Ahhh tummy drops. These things are bottled magic and I don't know why they're not hoarded and sold for drugs on the street. Personally, I believe there should be a law passed requiring every sex scene in every movie to end with one partner saying to the other "That was great, but not as great as tummy drops". This would apply to everything from porn to those sappy-ass romantic movies. So regardless if it's Tom Hanks finally getting to nail Meg Ryan in Sleepless on AOL with Mail in Seattle or if it's the worst kind of depraved cultish fetish driven leather film, the actors would have to say "that was great, but not as great as tummy drops."


Everything wasn't peaches and cream last night though. I don't really recall what exactly happened, but the wife was trying to get Nolan to sleep for half the night, and I was feeding Lilly about every two hours (it's usually every three, but apparently Lilly needs to eat more).


This is all clearly our fault. We let them sleep too much during the day yesterday. I'd love to say we wouldn't do that again, but the kiddos are sleeping soundly right now and we're not stopping them!


We're a week removed from the birth of our kids today. It's been a really challenging road. Wife had a rough c-section delivery -- our doula called it the scariest c-section she's ever seen -- the wife lost a lot of blood. So between the blood loss, the recovery, my inherient desire for sleep and my overpowering sense of entitlement and laziness, this last week has been a true test of our mettle. We feel we're starting to get through this first challenge. The kids are sleeping better (although you wouldn't know it by the way I bitch all the time). We're getting the hang of the whole feeding/diaper/laundry/washing bottles/sleep thing, and we're picking up awesome tips -- like tummy drops! Wife is on the mend with her c-section recovery and related major surgery issues. And the kiddos have dropped their post-birth weight and should be gaining weight again. They're certainly eating more. So all-in-all, it looks like we're on the right track

Night at Home #3 -- Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

The wife and I took extra steps last night to see if we could get the babies to sleep a little better. We fed them a little more to help them grow and sleep. We bundled them extra tight. We made everything nice and cozy for them and put them down around 10.

The kids woke us up like clockwork for their feedings. Ate (the extra amount we talked about), and went back to sleep. Went.Back.To.Sleep! Yayyyy! How many parents of twins get six hours of sleep -- good interrupted chunks of three hours of sleep -- a night?

My kids are so awesome. All that stuff from yesterday, just ignore that.

It has been reported to me that I'm a giant puss

In the process of reviewing my brilliantly written insight into my brain, the wife commented that I complain a lot. This was reinforced by my constant complaining to anyone who will listen.

My whining to co-workers, my commentary to the mailman about how much sleep I got while standing in my underwear, the crank caller I kept on the line for 10 minutes.

What can I say? I'm kinda a puss like that.

I whine, I complain, I make things that other people deal with sound worse than they are. But here's the deal. I like sleep. I like it a lot. And I don't get it anymore. And it's all just starting. I've got the next year or so to look forward to this.

So I should focus on the good things that are happening now.

So I will.

For one, we had a great visit with the pediatrician today. The babies are doing fine. For two, my babies are almost a week old, and I can't believe that. For three, my little babies have the cutestst little expressions when they're not screaming for no reason at all (negative? Maybe so...blow me).

I'm thrilled to be a father. It's the biggest thing I've ever done, and if I don't totally screw this up, I'm poised to have an impact on two young lives -- and this time, for something good. That's exciting. Really exciting. Like the reason why I'm here in the first place.

There was one of those stupid inspirational posters up in the pediatrician's office today. It had a picture of generic white boy on generic beach in genericsville USA and the caption said something like "In 100 years it won't matter what car you drove, or what house you had, or how much money you made, but it might matter to a bunch of people if you positively impact the life of a child". I almost got teary. I didn't, because that would be totally lame. But I bet somebody less awesome than me did at some point.

So I'll be less negative. Everybody goes through this. My parents went through it. Yours did too. Yes, it's harder with twins, but if we play this right, we only have to do this once, and then we get to reap all the joy of raising two beautiful, smart children who will always have each other.

So the twins learned a neat new trick

The new trick works like this.... 12:00am feeding.. they feed. They go to sleep until the 3:00 am feeding. 3:00 am feeding begins. Twin A (doesn't matter which one) goes to sleep. Twin B starts screaming. Screaming. I mean fucking screaming a lot. Loud. Ear piercing screaming... the kind of screaming where you have to get out of bed and walk around with the baby. The whole time Twin B (again, doesn't matter which one) sleeps like the proverbial baby.

Just when twin A sets it down and goes back to sleep, twin B decides it would be a great time to pick up where twin A left off. The concert continues. In fact, "concert" is the best term for it. I saw Metallica in 1994 at the old Starplex when it was still just the Starplex. It was loud. My ears hurt. When I thought it was over, they came back and played louder and awesomer. My babies are pretty much like Metallica, except they suck at singing and sound worse than that Load/Re-Load double album bullshit. Oh, and that "awesome" part -- they are not awesome!

So that was my 2:30 AM to whenever the sun came up. I can't wait for my beautiful babies to learn some english so I can politely ask them to pipe it down.

The dogs are sick of this shit too.

First night -- are you f*c&ing kidding me?

So we settle in around midnight for a 3 hour sleep before the next feeding. Nolan starts crying. Then Nolan starts screaming. We try to "fix him" for a couple minutes until we give up and decide to just feed him -- even though we just fed him 2 hours earlier. So we feed him, burp him, check his diaper...it's now 1am. Remember -- feeding at 3.

So then he settles in next to his sister (who hasn't stirred at all even a little). Nolan sleeps a little, but then, on cue, Lilly starts whining. We eventually feed her.... I lose track about what time it is now.

I remember seeing the clock around 4:30am. I remember thinking that I had slept for about 30 minutes. I remember thinking about taking the manufacturer up on the warranty return policy for these babies, but then I remember that we got them "as is".

The first night was a real challenge. The kids are totally making up for that right now by being unbelievably adorable. Wow -- I have a newfound respect for parents everywhere.

By the way, was my dog just using my computer?

I neds to say things to peeples. A speshal note from Elroy the dog

Hi. I'm Elroy the dog. I've been the dog in this familee for a long long long time. Like all my doglife. Which is long. You can tell cause I gots white in my dogface. That means "old".

Im an extreemle talented dog. I can type on the compooter, evne tho i lack things. LIke thumbes. I have a dogsisiter, her name is Maggee. I didn't used to have magee, but I do now. She is okay, but she can't type...hahahahhahahahahahahah. Plus, she's dum.

I have a really big problim. Mom and dad brought home small bugs. Not really bugs, but they look like bugs that are realli realli big. They cry. Mom and dad spend way too much times with thems, which means I don't go for walks anymore. This makes me sad. And angree. Mostly sad.

These bugs are steange. They smell. I think i'm greatly confuseesed.

Peeples kep using the woreds "babee". THat's ME! I is babies! I've been the babee for a realli long time. Like my whole life. I don't know if these new "babees" and me will bee frends. Majik eight ball for dogs edition says "outluk not lookee so good".

Dad is coming! He luks mad that I'm typing on his compooter. Gotta run!

Tired and happy looks like this

So the second morning in the hospital looked like this. The squinty eyes, the barely awake look.... wow.... just tired.

But I got my babies and that makes me happy.

The new babies! The first night at home

First Post

They're Home!!!!!

We brought the babies home from the hospital today! It was like our own little personal episode of Bringing Home Baby....except they're our babies!

We're both wiped out at the moment. This has been such a long road, from the whole getting pregnant issue to finding out we're having twins, to reaching the end of the pregancy. And now we've got two beautiful children; Nolan Allen Braly and Lillian Grace Braly. We love them. They love us too. At least I'm pretty sure they do.

This is the first night we're spending at home alone with the kiddos. While we were in the hospital we sent them to the nursery for five or six hours at night, which let us sleep for a good chunk. I guess that's over now!

So that's it for now. We'll put up a couple pictures. I have some video, but I got this fancy high def video camera that saves files in a format that isn't very upload-compatible. I'm working on it.