Quick Catch up post

Okay, after a reasonably good start, I've gone too long without posting here. This is because I'm trying not to post too much from work and when I'm at home, Moose and Squirrel are a handful especially if my mom doesn't come over to help and it's just Nightingale and I. 

While I stand by my earlier proclamation that this has been a relatively mild winter, I am ready for it to be over.  It's just too cold to do anything and the snow has turned into ice which makes carting two infants around a bit more problematic.

When we drop the kiddos off at day care, the side of the car that is facing the parkway is usually off limits because of the pile of snow.

I wrote a couple of posts about my Winter Training and the Half Marathon I will run next month.

So we didn't go grocery shopping over the weekend.  We should have, but we didn't and I don't want to go into the details of that bad decision.  I just want to write about how it came back to bite us in the ass.  Because we didn't leave the house to physically shop in the store, we opted to order from Peapod.  The earliest available slot was Tuesday and we had a choice of 7-9 or 8-10.

We thought that if we picked the 7-9 slot, with our luck, Peapod would arrive at 7, right as we were trying to get our kids down for the night.  So I said we should take the 8-10 slot.  It did occur to me that means they could arrive at 10 but we are usually up anyway because one of the two kids wakes up around then.  It never occurred to me that they would be 45 minutes late on the first night in weeks that our kids decided to sleep for 4 straight hours without and we could have gone to bed much earlier!

16th Week Update on Moose and Squirrel

We have switched from weeks to months so that every 22nd of a month marks a month milestone instead of counting in increments of 4 weeks, though I still like to think of every Monday as one more week closer to them being able to shovel the snow for me.

Even before having children was on the horizon, I promised myself I would never be one of those parents who, when you ask them how old their infant was, responded with an über precise down to the month/week answer.  When the time comes, a simple 6 months or year and a half, respectively, will do.  Indeed, I've had some mothers answer the question with: 8 months 2 weeks, 3 days and 4 hours.  Okay that's a slight embellishment, but not by much.
 
It is rough being parents of twins.  When it is just Nightingale and me, the default is one kid per adult.  You have to do man-to-man, zone just won't do.  And babies want to be held.  You cannot just put them in a bouncy chair or their crib and let them hang out. They might agree to do that once time a day for 20 minutes.  Then they want to be held.  And sometimes holding them isn't enough.  They want to be held while you are standing up or walking because you sitting just won't do.  It's like they have some GPS that tells them they are at the wrong altitude or something.

The other day, I didn't locate Natasha's pacifier quickly enough -- in fact I could not find the damn thing without turning on the lights and locating it inside her sleeper -- and she woke up for the day.  Nightingale assures me she would probably have gotten up anyway and we only would have scored another 20 minutes of sleep anyway but since I had been more or less up since the middle of the night feeding, those 20 minutes sounded wonderful.

I HATE shopping!

There are only so many things you can do with one hand and of those, the subset you can do well is even smaller.  Ergo it's hard to get posts together here and over at ChicagoNow.

Before anyone launches any cliches at me, yes they are wonderful bundles of joy.  Yes it is/will all be worth it.  yes God's creation and unicorns farting rainbows. yadda yadda yadda.

But I'm not a cliche kinda person and the reality is I'm dealing with the dark side of raising babies right now.  The 3am feedings and the diapers and the reflux.  Oh and the cost.  Diapers, formula and child care are expensive in this country, especially in Chicago.  Daycare for infants is high because it requires so much personal attention (see always wanting to be held) and because they can charge whatever they want.

Babies don't know how to tell you what is wrong with them.  You check the obvious things like their diapers, if they are hungry or try to put them down for a nap.  But if all that fails, it's hard to tell if something is wrong with the little germy barfy poopsack or if they are just being difficult.

Then I read something like this:

I unfortunately miscarried in November.  When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified and felt like I wasn’t ready.  I look back on that with regret and wish I had appreciated it.  I hope that none of you ever have to go through a miscarriage because the emotional roller coaster it puts you through…I’m still suffering from it.  I’m a lot better, really I am, but November and most of December was full of crying, anger, guilt, and fear.  I’m still scared and unsure if I want to try again because of the constant fear I know I will feel if I do get pregnant.  --  The Highs, The Lows, and The Books I Read In Between (2014)

and I think well sleep is over rated anyway.  I certainly don't want to sound like I'm complaining, I just need a little venting.  One of the ways I use to relieve stress was to go for a run.  That has been taken away from me of course because my knees are achy and because I haven't been running as much my endurance has gone away.  And so I blog.

Daycare, Cats and Football

I am NOT babysitting!

So we started the twins in daycare this week.  We had a nanny but it didn't work out for various reasons.  I don't want to go into the reasons now I'm just writing this for posterity.  In a perfect world, we would have had the nanny for the winter to avoid taking the kids out in the cold and then switched to daycare when the cost reduces from Infant Ransom to simply Small Child Cost.

Ironically, our nanny worked for us during the relatively warm and unusually snow-free December and on the day when we had to start daycare, we get temperatures in the single digits.

The good news is that the twins are now sleeping through the night!  It's only been four days but three of the last four nights have resulted in them sleeping through the night with Monday night just having one sleep feeding.

This was starting to manifest already but we suspect that daycare is doing a much better job of wearing them out during the day than our nanny-grandma tandem was doing.  Not entirely sure what the weekend will bring but I'm hoping we can keep this going.

It just seems like I can never get to zero on the credit cards.  Before the flood, I effectively had a $2k balance on my card (for various reasons I don't want to get into) and now that I've paid the flood off, I'm back to that $2k balance.

Daycare has, of course, put us in an emergency budget lockdown.  In that same perfect world, we would have had one or two more months before we had to do this and I could get my bills under wraps better.  In December two big costs came up.  1) $500 for brakes for the (E)Lement* and 2) $300 to get the thermostat repaired.

* the E has fallen off the Element so we jokingly refer to it as the one-of-a-kind Honda Lement.

Update on our Cat

Austin still outweighs her

As you know we had to put our cat Maggie to sleep last June.  Her brother Austin developed diabetes and we have been treating him for it, along with his other health issues.  Austin is doing as well as can be expected from a cat of his age (14 years).  He does tend to pee outside his box which makes hosting a SuperBowl party problematic this year.  He is also struggling with weight though my informal weigh-in yesterday (where I weigh myself then immediately step back on the scale holding Austin) showed him at 14.5 lbs, which is a few pounds lighter than his high.

 Sadly, we don't know how much of 2015 Austin will see.  It's possible he'll make it another year or two but more likely that he will pass before Boris and Natasha really get to know him.


Football Talk

Watching football hasn't been as enjoyable for me in recent years as is was in the late 90s and early 00s.  Probably because of all the mediocre Bears teams but also because I've learned to enjoy other things with my time.  Still, I do enjoy a good game and this weekend would be a good one to stay in, start a fire and watch the game on the big screen assuming Moose and Squirrel co-operate.

For more reasons than one, I would personally love it if the Carolina Panthers upset the Seattle Seahawks and make it to the NFC Championship game.  It would be the first time a team with a losing record advanced so far.  And if they were playing Dallas or GreenBay they might have a better chance.

My picks for this weekend are New England, Dallas, Denver and Seattle.  With Indianapolis Colts possibly upsetting the Broncos.

I fully expect the NFL playoffs to be expanded not because the powers-that-be think they are broken but because they know there is more money to be made.  Football markets aren't quite as regional as baseball but I'm guessing more money is made off a Chicago-New York game than a Minnesota-St Louis game.

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Turkey Hangovers and Seven Days of Gratitude

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day if you celebrate that sort of thing.  We had the in-laws and youngest SIL in town to celebrate the holiday and meet the New Kids in the House!

Youngest SIL (cropped out) did the bulk of the cooking

We were just a little beyond our capacity because Nightingale's Auntie Em has been staying with us as interim child support until we can hire one of those many godforsaken immigrants Obama is letting across the border (sarcasm mine).   We only have three bedrooms, ours, the nursery and the guest room which will become Boris or Natasha's rooms when they are older.  The basement is okay for a younger person or two without any back issues to sleep on the furniture for one, maybe two nights but not an entire week.  So we were just a little cramped.

I did exploit the opportunity to utilize FIL to get a few more things done around the house, specifically:

• put together the 8" drill press
• finish attaching the hinges to the antique smoking table that will now become a nightstand
• fixed leaky toilet in half bathroom
• installed window frame in bedroom
• installed a new gate fence

the last one was huge.  Even though it was essentially just swapping out the old boards with new ones from a fence building kit, FIL was able to re-engineer the doorway so that it works better.  I'm bummed that we had to reuse the old hardware though I suppose that is technically "being green."  It did save me several hundred dollars of paying a handyman to do the same thing, which is good because I'm going to need that money for a new dryer.  Every so many loads something causes the drum to come off the rails and make a sound like an ostrich being sodomized by a Dingo. 


Ten Weeks

So if I was sporadic at posting here before, you can imagine how hard it is to write a meaningful content-filled post now that I have two germy projectile-barfing poopsacks to deal with when I get home.

I've done even worse with ChicagoNow, having only posted a couple of times since the kids were born.  Many of these posts have to be done in piece-mail, with me writing them and adding pictures later, or uploading photos and then writing a post related to them afterward.

Looking at the stats to the left, I have about 5 posts to go to meet my 2012 number (93) and then another 20 posts to match last year (113). 


I was going to write a little more but I'm gonna add those thoughts to a different post and end with something a friend posted on her newsletter:

Sometimes we can get bogged down with daily life stressors that it can be difficult to take a moment to appreciate the wonderful people and things in our life. Here are a few exercises for the next 7 days, starting with today, that you can use to think about and show your gratitude.

Day 1: If you could re-live one day with someone in your life, what day would that be? If possible, share this memory with this person.

Day 2: When was someone close to you thoughtful? What did they do and why was it meaningful to you? Tell them.

Day 3: Name 3 things that you like about yourself.

Day 4: Do a random act of kindness today.

Day 5: Call someone you haven't talked to in awhile. Tell them why you appreciate that they are in your life.

Day 6: Think of something in your life that at first seemed a "negative," but ended up being a blessing in disguise.

Day 7: Happy Thanksgiving! Who or what are you MOST grateful for? Why?

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Sixth week observations on having kids

I want to write a little bit about our time in the hospital before it completely escapes my memory.  We left early Monday Morning and headed to the hospital for a Scheduled C-Section.  Scheduled C-Section means we knew all along it would be a C-Section and not a vaginal birth, not that the date and time were set in stone.  We actually ended up going in a week early.  Why do I point this out?  Apparently there are camps of people who think anyone who gets an epidural or has a c-section is a terrible person and they birth shame them!

We ended up staying at the Baby Hotel hospital for four days and three nights.  I have no problem being there the first two days/nights.  It's part of the job description.  If I had to do it all over again, I would have insisted that I go home Wednesday after noon to look after the house, spend quality time with our neglected kitty and get things ready for Nightingale arrive the next day.

One of the reasons to be there the first couple of nights, besides general love and support, is to go through Baby Bootcamp where you get use to the concept of no sleep and feedings every few hours.  Which is fine and all but you don't need to go from one extreme to the other.  They have nurses on staff who are there to give you a break if it gets to be too much and you need some sleep to keep from losing your shit. 

Using the logic that "you need to get use to it because there might not be help at home" is like saying you shouldn't use air conditioning because it might break some summer.

The thing is, regular day-to-day stuff doesn't care that you are having a baby and it doesn't get done on its own.  40% of my paternity leave was spent in a hospital room not being very productive.  Especially since as we learned from last year, there is a lot to do around the house before winter arrives and right now, it's not getting done.  Yes I bonded with my kids and changed diapers and such. But at the time I suspected I would be allowed to take the young poopsacks home and the opportunity to bond would still be possible one week later. 

The first nice day of weather we had that fell on a weekend was also the day that SIL had to leave so I couldn't do much yard work.

One of the lessons we learned a bit too late is when people come to see the baby, it's best to schedule that visit in the early evening.  Right now, the kids are at their best behavior from mid-morning to early evening.  And while that's great for visitors, it is also the only time Nightingale can manage them without my help.  So the best time for me to do those things around the house that need to get done. but i cannot do that if i have to play host. 

The Twins have arrived

Note:  I jotted some notes while we were off to the hospital last week and this is an expansion of those.  I often wonder just how much information to share here.  For this post I'll probably over-share because weeks, months and even years from now, it will be useful to us.  To my readers, perhaps not-so-much.

Two weeks ago today  Nightingale and I went to Baby Factory Prentice for our C-section.  The C-section was moved up a week because Boris had an issue with his kidney that was borderline.  We probably could have waited the week and the extra time would have benefited Natasha but it is what it is.

Based on the notes I jotted down, we apparently left our house with only a few ounces of gas in Nightingale car.  We did have time to stop but didn't, which meant that I had to fill the tank during one of the short trips home.

The were having trouble getting a blood draw.  Which can be a bit annoying when you are a former ER nurse like my wife.   She was very patient with them though. 

Every time a new person comes in we have to do the "what are you having?  Do you know if it's boys? girls? one of each" dance.  After the third person I'm thinking I might put a sign up.

MONNESDAY

After the babies were delivered, and cleaned up and presented to us, and we made it back to our room, the next three days were really just one long day as far as I can remember. 

In the span of one hour, we had visits from the lactate consultant, the pediatrician and the hearing test technician.  Compare that to the local hospital we dumped my mom off at last month.  It would have taken two days for those three to show up and do anything. 

Natasha passed her hearing screening but Boris did not.  This is not something to be overly concerned with, especially with preemies which they technically are. 

As I said, it seemed like we were rarely alone, especially during the daytime.  Then mid afternoon Wednesday Ii noticed that it was quiet and the time between nurse visits was increased. 

We got released from the hospital on Thursday and it couldn't come soon enough.  The futon I got to sleep -- if you can call it that -- on was comfortable enough but the blankets I was  given were a bit scratchy. If I had to do this all over, I'd insist that on the last night I go home and spend quality time with our cat (whose world has been rocked since we brought Moose and Squirrel) home and pick everyone up the next day.

Introducing: Boris and Natasha

My company gives us two weeks for paternity leave.  We have one year to use them and the only other requirement is they have to be used in one week increments.  Thus I took one week for the birth and to help out at the hospital and will use the other one on a Week-to-be-Named-Later.

Cutest Dad Moment so far:  I came home from work one evening last week and Nightingale said that Natasha has been grumpy all afternoon. She put her in my arms and she starts smiling and stopped fussing.
"She just wanted her daddy," Nightingale said.  I'm sure that was a bit overstated but still.

The calm before the C-section

So Nightingale is going in for her C-Section today.  Boris had a little issue with fluid and his kidney and as a precaution we are taking them out a week early.  [in case it isn't obvious, I wrote this post and scheduled it! I'm not actually writing while my wife is getting cut open.]

Today would be Week 37 so we are going one week early.   While it probably isn't a big deal, everyone is erring on the side of caution and getting them out of there rather than stretch this out a week.  Nightingale is slightly relieved to not have to wobble around for another week given all the difficulties she's had walking, sleeping or even trying to find a comfortable position to sit in these last couple of weeks.

Well this is opening night on an act that started rehearsal 9 months ago and we have been waiting for all year.  While you're never ready, you wish for as much time as possible and the extra week might have been better spent working on last minute items.  On the other hand, Nightingale and I are chronic procrastinators so we probably would have just put off everything we got accomplished this weekend to next weekend anyway.

I know I should write something about the miracle of birth and bringing two new lifeforms into the world.  But I'm not really there yet.  I will say that this weekend has kinda sorta felt like marathon weekends in that I know tomorrow is the big day and I will probably wake up every hour on the hour, look at my alarm clock and realize that I still have a few more hours to go before I need to get up.  And then everything changes.

In the meantime, my biggest challenge will be decimating the information to the many friends and relatives who have subtly and not so subtly asked that their first communication about Boris and Natasha not be through Facebook.  To that I have to say: we'll see.  The only thing I will say now is that I plan to do what is easiest for me and I won't get into the pecking order trap of having to inform certain people before other people. 

On a side note, K&J who were 10 days behind us in pregnancy, had their twins last week, 9 days before us.  Here's a little bit I wrote about that. 

Week 32 and a half Pregnancy update

So we are between Week 32 and Week 33 (Monday will be Week 33).  From here until Week 36 we are still in the NICU Zone, that time where if the babies come early, they will most likely have to spend some time in the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU).

• Week 35 is average half twin babies come before, half after.   
• Week 36 is early but odds are decent that we would avoid NICU.
• Week 37 is early but odds are even stronger that we would avoid NICU.
• Week 38 is our target, we make it there we should be good to go.

Anything after it technically risky for twins.  And frankly, Nightingale is ready to have Moose and Squirrel out already.  She cannot move quickly.  She cannot sit for long periods of time. 

She has been having trouble sleeping a lot more lately.  The pattern is usually not sleep well on Monday, not sleep much on Tuesday.  On Wednesday she is irritable but hesitant to take any sleep medication because she wakes up groggy.  On Thursday she might finally give in and take the sleep medication which means she is okay on Friday and catches up on sleep over the weekend and then we repeat the next week.

Last night she seemed to discover that her waking up is related to being hungry.  As soon as she had something to eat last night, she said she fell asleep right away.  Who knew.

Code Name: Moose and Squirrel

Assembly time is almost longer than time kids
will actually be able to utilize it

So people are starting to ask if we have names picked out.  Most are just making conversation.  Others, closer relatives and friends, are lobbying for their choice and/or to be the babies namesake.  A small minority are just trying to be in the know.  We definitely want our kids names to be slightly unusual and not mainstream, but not wacko out there either.  We are trying to avoid names that have multiple common spellings (such as Steven and Stephen) or have an icky nickname.  I looked though a list of Polish names and found that most of them are simply derivatives of other names so there really isn't much point naming our daughter Kasia if she's gonna end up being Katie anyway.

We have made the decision not to reveal any of the names we have on our short list.  Therefore I will refer to them, now and probably forever on this blog, as Natasha and Boris.  Sidenote:  I actually lobbied for the name Natasha but it just didn't work out with our final decision.  Boris was never an option.

Our last ultrasound showed that our future kids are healthy.  Boris is 2lbs 8 oz.  Natasha is 2 lbs 7 oz and breech so the C-section is still on the table. 

Away on Planet Michigan

Over the weekend we were in Grosse Pointe, Michigan for the first of Nightingale's baby showers.   Whenever we drive up here I inevitable think about all the times I drove out to Kirksville for college and even to visit afterwards.  I don't know how I managed that 7 hour drive, most of the time on my own.  

Nowadays I don't like to drive more than a couple of hours at a time, probably because I now commute 90 minutes a day four times a week for work.   

Alas for this trip I had to do all the driving because Nightingale cannot drive comfortably in her condition.   The good news is that we left just after rush hour, made good time and only needed to stop once for a bathroom break, once for lunch and gas. 

It was a nice trip overall and that is probably because after all these years of traveling to either Nashville or Michigan, we have finally reached our family equilibrium, the point at which a family becomes so use to each other and each others' subtle nuisances that we learn when to engage and when to leave one another the hell alone.
Nightingale is big on getting together with her entire family and they make a big effort to do it even though everyone now lives in different states.  I recall the first time we went to Tennessee to stay with Nightingale's folks, probably Christmas 2009.  The Adamas, who only had Little_Monkey#1 at the time, were also coming.  The future in-laws only had three rooms in their townhouse and the expectation of Adama was that he and his wife got one room, his 2 year old son would get the other because he was such a problem sleeper that he needed total darkness and silence and the parents would get the other room.  Leaving Nightingale, myself and her younger sister in the hallway on pull-away beds.

I was NOT going to sleep in the hallway so that a 2 yr old could have his own room and said that I could either stay in Chicago and give Nightingale a lift to the airport or the Adamas could suck it up for two nights and cram into a room.  My reasoning followed the insane logic that just because Little_Monkey#1 was a bad sleeper 18 moths ago when you tried it, perhaps possibly something has changed and you know, why not try it again?  Adama wasn't trying to be a dick to the other adults so much as he was thinking about his son and also assuming that we all wanted what was best for the little monkey and would all benefit from him getting a good night sleep.  And also being a dick.  

I had already taken the Adamas free baby sitter away from them when I started dating Nightingale and this was yet another silent battle in many to come over Adama Needs not trumping other family members.  This one was solved by someone -- MIL I believe -- getting us a hotel room off her rewards points.  It would turn out that Little_Monkey#1 sleeping issues stemmed from being hungry and though he still prefers to sleep in a dark room (who doesn't) he actually thinks its kinda cool to get to sleep in his parents room.

This trip is special because it is not only Nightingale's baby shower, but also Little_Monkey#2 baptism.  This brings lots of Nightingale's side of the family to the Adama compound including youngest SIL and future. BIL.  Just just say it is a crowded house but we are not on top of each other because it is such a big house and that Family equilibrium thing.  That doesn't mean there still wasn't a little bit of controlled chaos.

Future BIL is lobbying to get us to take SIL cats since they are moving in together into a smaller abode. I should be a good guy and take him up on it since Future BIL has taken a lot of pressure off me because he's more FIL's type of guy when it comes to social political issues.  On the other hand, if we get more cats I want to raise them from kittens.  Furthermore when poor Austin passes, I think it would make sense to have a short period of cat free time, no more than a decade of course.

Looks like we need some FAQs

Since announcing that Nightingale is pregnant, people generally ask me the same two questions:  When is she due and are we going to learn the sex of the children.

I am actually a bit surprised that people wonder if we would want to know.  When I was an obtuse lad in the 90s and my friends were starting to get preggers, I asked one of them this very question.  She looked at me like I asked if she were going to sign the kid up for the sex trade and said in only a slightly condescending tone of voice:  You want to know so you can get things ready.

Things like what, I thought, their favorite cognac and preferred smokes?  In any event, that experience made me expect that everyone pretty much wants to know these days because the technology is more accurate than the sitcom make you think.  I asked the ultrasound technician and she said that it's about 50-50 of people wanting to know versus not wanting to know. 

So yes we found out last week that we are having a boy and a girl.  Or an aardvark and a Gecko, our insurance has some limitations.

When is Nightingale due?  Well twins arrive on their own timetable and generally come early, usually by Week 35, which would mean time at the Nicu.  And if she makes it to Week 38 they want to induce so we have to see how we feel about that if and when we get there.  They really like to do C-sections on pregnant women because it is quick and efficient -- for them.  So allowing for errors in our calculations, any time after Sept 15 is fair game.

Names:  We got asked this a little less often at first, probably because it was too soon to know the sex and we could deflect with the "we want to wait procrastinate until we knew the genders".  The only name that is off the table is my real first name because the world doesn't need another Icarus.

numbers were thrown around

4/2/2014:  we went in for the genetic screening orientation, or whatever you call it.  For most people, this part is done much sooner but somehow it wasn't brought to our attention until a few weeks ago when we asked.  We were told that there wasn't much time because certain events have timestamps, shelf-lives and expiration dates and if I have to explain that to anyone, you're best off not knowing.

They tell you the risk odds of the various tests and naturally the more accurate, thorough ones are the more risky.  They tell you because they have to both mitigate litigation but also because they genuinely give a crap about you although from the number of forms we have to fill out every fucking time we come here and go to a new department you'd think they just secretly own stock in a paper company.

So naturally we decided that we went through so much effort and trouble to get here that we aren't going to take the high risk tests to determine if the babies have downs, though when the test comes back we still have at least 15 minutes to decide if we want to.  The test we are taking is 60% accurate?  I'm not sure, numbers were thrown around.

8/13/14: another ultrasound.  Natasha is still breech, but head on left side instead of right and weighs 4 lbs.  Boris is still sideways, head on left side.  He is 3 lbs, 15 oz.  Their heads are close together. He also is showing slightly larger kidneys which usually just means urine isn't flowing completely but in addition to the test we took back in April, his risk of downs is still single digits but slightly increased.  Technically, his risk hasn't changed, only the level of perceived accuracy. 

We think it will be fine.  In fact, we have no choice but to believe that because we are in the midst of some other hell going on right now with regard to my mom.  my mother is in the hospital.  We checked her in over two weeks ago after discovering that she downplayed just how sick she had become.