Secrets of a Stay at Home Dad

So how does a stay at home dad with three year old multiples stay on top of things? With child labor, that's how. If they can pick up a sponge, there is no reason not to put their mess making little keisters to work. It's a win-win situation: they get their character built and I get a clean house while I'm checking Facebook.

Kids crave structure and responsibility and household chores provide both. There's a sense of accomplishment that comes from a floor off which you can eat. And believe me, if anyone knows about eating off of floors, it's my kids.

Don't worry, it's not like this is slave labor. I pay my kids a lucrative salary of Goldfish crackers with an annual performance bonus of Dum-Dum Pops.

Jedi Mind Tricks

Truman and Amelia love to get into silly arguments and fights. No subject or object seems to be off limits. Even imaginary ones (which I'll get to in a moment) are fair game. I'm not surprised and I'm pretty sure it's especially common among siblings that are close in age (or in this case, the exact same age). But even I have had to laugh at some of the things they've been arguing over lately.

One afternoon I was loading all of the kids into the minivan for some typical afternoon jaunt to the park, the grocery store, or some other routine destination.  I was putting Amelia in her seat while she jabbered away about who knows what.  As I finish buckling her seatbelt, she decides to announce, "I'm talking to dad."  Truman, who previously did not seem to be paying attention to her ramblings, shoots back, "Noooo, I'm talking to dad."  This, of course, quickly turns into a shouting match over who is in fact talking to dad.  At this point, I close the minivan door and head back into the house to get Jameson.  Back at the car, I slide open the door only to find that the argument has continued despite the fact that I've been nowhere near them for the last few minutes.  "No I'm talking to dad."  "NO, I'm talking to dad."  "NO, I'M TALKING TO DAD."

Just recently, Amelia banged up her shin while climbing some stone steps.  It wasn't too bad, but it left a nice little bruise.  The morning after her injury she's investigating her leg during breakfast.  She reminds me of her calamity saying, "I hurt my leg."  Not to be outdone, but without actually having an injury of his own, Truman also declares, "I hurt my leg." This infuriates Amelia and once again we are off to the races, this time with a shouting match of "I HURT MY LEG!!!"

Now this next altercation is the one that blows my mind.  This is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to pointless fights.  It's dinnertime and Truman and Amelia are seated in highchairs directly next to each other which puts them in arms reach of one another.  While watching dinner being prepared they begin to pretend that they each have a set of imaginary tongs in their hands.  IMAGINARY.  Neither of them actually have anything in their hands.  Nothing.  Everyone is being pleasant as Truman and Amelia interact with Mom and carry out various tasks with their imaginary tongs.  Until.  Until Amelia decides to "steal" Truman's imaginary tongs.  She grabs them out of his hand and then waves them in front of his face while chanting, "I've got your tongs.  I've got your tongs."  Truman gets upset, lunges for Amelia and grabs his imaginary tongs back while scolding, "NO MAYA."  This only encourages Amelia who quickly snatches the imaginary-invisible-nonexistent-ridiculously-not-real tongs again and starts up with her "I've got your tongs" taunt.  I cannot believe this is happening.  They are actually fighting over objects that are simply ideas conjured up in their little two year old brains.  But then it gets worse.  Truman swipes his imaginary tongs back from Amelia once again.  This time, however, she doesn't make a play to get them back from him.  At least not physically.  Which is pretty much impossible anyway since THEY'RE NOT REAL to begin with.  No, this time Amelia just looks over at him and says, "Truuuuuuman."  He looks up at her.  She starts moving her hand as if she's dangling something in the air.  "Truuuuman.  I've got your tonnnnngs."  He looks down at his already empty hands as if his nonexistent tongs had suddenly vanished into thin air.  And he flips out.  "NOOOOO, MAYA!!!!  MY TONGS!!!!"  He scrambles to get them back.  Before he has time to relish his reclaimed treasure Amelia summons them back into her hands and with the biggest, most evil grin on her face begins her taunts anew.  Realizing his tongs have been magically pilfered yet again, Truman flies into a rage while demanding I intervene.  "Daaaaaad.  Maya take my tongs!  No! No! No!"  I'm not even exactly sure what he wanted me to do.  Her knowledge of the Force is obviously great, but I had to step in and put an end to this.  So I just did what I usually do.  I took away both of their imaginary tongs and set them on top of the refrigerator until after dinner.  Then no one was happy.  Except me.

Can't wait to see what they'll fight over next.

Breasts and Nut Cups

Julie and I have had four kids in a little less than four years.  Not a remarkable feat but still a little different when compared to the average American family these days.  Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't ask, "So how do you guys do it?"

And I always answer the same way:  With love and tenderness and a little Barry White playing in the background.

Hey-ohhhh!

Just try and delete that image from your head, friends and family!

Ahem.  Anyhow.  Having this many kids doesn't seem that out of the ordinary to me.  I myself am the oldest of five children.  And I come from a clan of prolific procreative Irish Catholics -- one aunt tops the charts at eleven kids.  Depending on who you ask, we've had a lot of kids relatively quickly.  Of course, having twins, a completely unexpected event, sped things up a little.  But, it is what is.  We have multiple offspring.

So how do we do it?

The real answer is:  We don't know.  We just do.

Lame, huh?

There's not really a good answer to that question.  You just do what you gotta do.  In so many ways, having multiple kids forces you to live in the moment.  The crying, the sharing, the barfing, the hugging, the fighting, the meals, the bedtimes, the trips, the stories, the questions, the revelations -- it all just keeps coming at you.  Each one a challenge and opportunity.  Each moment precious and fleeting.  It's kind of like being at the batting cages.  Whether you whiff or connect, you can't sit around analyzing or admiring your last swing for too long or you'll miss the next pitch.  You have to make adjustments on the fly, dig in and get ready for the next pitch.  Over and over again.

That's not to say you don't get better along the way by learning from your past performance.  Planning ahead is also beneficial.  And there are definitely tips, tricks and tools to help make the whole experience better.  Same goes for the other kind of "doing it" too, by the way.

Sorry.  I couldn't resist.

Maybe I'm really just dodging the whole question of how do we do it, but I will at least give you a list of the top five things that help get it done.

1. The Evenflo Travel Highchair

This is the single greatest purchase of my entire parenting experience.  It is especially key for anyone with multiples.  This beauty is lightweight, sturdy and ridiculously compact and easy to carry.  It works great indoors and out.  We have two of them and at least one of them is in the back of the minivan at all times.  They're so easy to open and the kids can be secured in one in seconds.  At picnics, they're the difference between chasing kids around trying to shove food down their throats and actually sitting down to enjoy a meal.  My kids would honestly weigh 24% less if we didn't have these high chairs.  When out, I have been asked by strangers about these high chairs more than I've been asked about my actual kids by at least a 3 to 1 ratio.


2. The Breasts



They're functional.  They're convenient.  Your wife always has them with her.  They never fail to sooth even the crankiest customer.

And they're not just for the dads.

Not every mother can or will breast-feed, but when available, they're indispensable.  Sure, bottles have their advantages, but it's hard to top breasts.  They provide the original comfort food and are damn near perfectly designed for feeding infants.  Breasts don't need to be sterilized, refilled, heated or prepped in any way.  You can't run out of breasts.  You can't lose breasts.  True, you can't borrow breasts in a pinch, but as long as mom's around, you also won't need to run out in the middle of the night to buy more breasts.

And best of all, dads don't have them, so it's the single parental duty that as a father you never have to handle.


3. The Bjorn

No, not Bjork.  Bjorn.



You only have so many hands.  (Well, two specifically.  I guess I don't need to be vague about the number of hands you have.)  Anyhow.  Regardless of the number of hands you have, eventually you need to stop carrying your tots and start strapping them to your body with a complex system of straps and pulleys.  There are a bazillion contraptions out there for affixing babies to your body parts and I certainly have not tried them all, but I have tried a few and none of them compared to the Baby Bjorn.  The things are so comfortable that you could probably strap one of those giant tabloid babies to your chest and still shoot a 79 from the black tees.  When your kids eventually outgrow it, the Baby Bjorn can also conveniently hold a mini keg.  Or so I've heard.


4. The Nut Cup


I've been bashed in the onions more times since having kids than I had been in all the previous 30 years of my life.  Seriously.  It's a near daily occurrence.  It's a wonder I was even able to have more kids after the first one.  First of all, all little kids have this fundamental design flaw of being just the right height for kicking your nards when you pick them up.  Secondly, they have no concept of genitalia pain, so running and jumping knees first into your lap doesn't register as a critical hit in their minds.  If you're a guy with kids, you might as well slip one of these in your shorts every night before going to bed.  Why before going to bed?  Because it's a statistical fact that 83% of all ball bombs come in the form of leaping children eager to wake you up in the morning via the pain train straight into your crotch.


5. The Red Bull



Red Bull.  Lots and lots of Red Bull.

Some time around my junior year in college, coffee completely lost it's ability to keep me awake.  Now I can drink coffee in bed and still fall right to sleep.  I need something with a little more kick if I'm to keep up with my pack of hell raisers.  Dozing on this job doesn't mean nodding off face first into a computer keyboard while hoping that the person in the next cubicle didn't hear you just type "asdfjjjjjjjj" with your left cheek bone.  On this job, snoozing means things get flushed down the toilet that shouldn't be flushed down the toilet.  It means someone experiments with cutting their own hair.  It means something expensive gets broken.

So bring on the Red Bull. It's not the trendiest and maybe not even the most effective.  But it's the original.  And it mixes damned well with Jägermeister.

Knee High Ninjas

Truman and Amelia have mastered the art of completely destroying a room in a matter of seconds. They're done before you realize they've started. It's like dropping Mentos in a two liter of Diet Coke. Pow! You don't even have time to react. I can turn my back for a matter of seconds only to find that the twins have turned a room upside down. I don't even know how it's possible. These are the kind of skills that can normally only be attained through years of training in secret mountain sanctuaries. ("We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. We forge our tradition in the spirit of our ancestors. You have our gratitude.")

This "talent" of theirs may be what drives me to the edge. I can have a completely spotless living room one minute and in the time it takes me to sneeze I'll find every single puzzle piece in the house has made its way to the once barren floor. How do they do it? Some kind of reverse Mary Poppins magic? Am I the victim of the old I Dream of Jeannie time stoppage? I don't remember this happening when Jameson was two. Well, whatever it is, it's maddening.

And don't bother trying to clean up behind them. That just leaves the rest of the house exposed to their villainy. Talk about sisyphean.

These ninjas are going to be the death of me.

Wonder Twin Powers... Activate!

Sometimes I forget that Truman and Amelia are twins. Things are always so busy around here that I'm usually just focused on the fact that I have a bunch of kids running around. The last thing on my mind is the fact that two of them were born together.

When I do stop and think about it, I always consider how unique it is that Amelia and Truman are twins. They shared a womb for eight months. They entered this world mere minutes apart. They spend every night sleeping a few feet away from one another. They're a part of each other's lives in a way that us singletons could never experience or understand.

But where the hell are all the cool twin powers already?

The twins aren't inseparable. They're nothing alike. They don't have a secret language only they understand. They don't feel each other's pain. They don't complete each other's sentences. They don't pretend to be one another with zany, madcap antics that bewilder their unknowing dates at the local movieplex. They mostly just terrorize each other.

Which makes me wonder if Truman and Amelia aren't ordinary twins. I hope they become the best of friends, but right now Truman would rather bite Amelia and Amelia would rather steal and hide Truman's pants. In looks, Truman and Jameson are the twins. In personality, Amelia and Jameson are the twins. It's all very confusing. Maybe their twin powers won't show up until they stumble upon some weird alien crystal or a canister of radioactive green slime. Or maybe it happens when they hit puberty.

There are two times, though, when I do get a glimpse of that special twin bond. When they are conspiring to get into trouble. And when they read together. Maybe there's still hope for some cool telepathic powers. (Vegas, here we come.)

Trip to the Grocery

This was my first trip to the store by myself with all three kids. It
went pretty well, but the store was a little busy and navigating two
carts at a time was not easy. Jameson was a good little helper.

Put Those Kids to Work

This family has QUADS+1. With that many, you have to get creative with the housework. And if the kids are going to be under the couch anyway...

Can You Pick Your Twin?

You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.

My Wife is Crazy

Julie is up baking cupcakes right now. (Note the time of this post.) Why is she doing this? Because we need them for some important event tomorrow? No. Just because.

Why am I up, you ask? I was asleep. Truman woke up. Apparently because the house smells like fresh baked cupcakes. Man that kid loves to eat.

Peace out. I'm going to bed. Julie's got some icing to do.

(Editor's note: If you had three kids aged two and under, this wouldn't seem strange at all. You learn to value the night. Even the late, late night.)

Photo Update

She Knows

The only way I can get Amelia asleep is by walking and bouncing her. The key here is walking. Sometimes this takes 20 or more minutes. It's not a huge deal, but as she gets heavier, and especially when Truman also needs his own bouncing session, it starts to wear on one's back. Unfortunately, Amelia will not let me bounce her while sitting. I've tried so many ways to transition from walking to sitting but nothing works. I contort my body. I move in super slow motion. I do everything possible to recreate the feeling of being walked and bounced, but the results are always the same. The moment I reach a sitting position and give my back a little relief... BAM! Amelia starts screaming her head off. Nothing works. She KNOWS the second I've shifted an ounce of effort from maintaining her comfort to my own. I feel like Indiana Jones trying to replace the idol with a bag of sand. Just as I think I've successfully accomplished my task... click... the arrows start flying and I'm back to trying to outrace a screaming boulder. It's the same thing every day. So I guess in my case, Indiana Jones stars Bill Murray and takes place in Punxsutawney, PA.

As incredibly frustrating as it sometimes is (notice the time on this post...), for some strange reason I wouldn't have it any other way. It's such a part of her personality that I love and I guess it's also a reminder that being a parent requires no less than a 100% commitment to your children. Though, if she's this demanding at three months...

I'd better get some sleep. Lots of it.

Twin Photos

Yes, it looks like all we do is sleep around here. That's because we're up all night partying.

Not Going According to Plan

Well, I took the entire week off from work and had some big plans. Neglected cleaning and household projects, potty training, looking at new houses online, organizing photos and videos, watching movies, blogging multiple times a day and generally spending time with the family. Now here it is, Wednesday, and nothing has been accomplished, all because of one irresponsible parent (and for once, I'm not referring to myself).

I'm talking about the parents who insist on taking their sick children to public places and letting them run around with reckless abandon, spreading their germs to anything and anyone they come across. I'm not a germaphobe. And I know you can't quarantine your kids every time they get a runny nose. And I know that kids will find a way to get sick anyway. But for the love of a good night's sleep, when your kid is a walking, projectile virus factory, it might be a good idea to skip the trips to the toy store, park, play date, book store, activity class, preschool and any other place children congregate. For example, Jameson had a gymnastics class last weekend, but we weren't about to take him when he had snot running down his face. Sneezing, rubbing his nose and climbing all over gym equipment would have been the ideal way to spread his cold to a dozen other kids in a matter of minutes. We LOVE the gymnastics class because it's basically a coordinated hour of wearing Jameson down to the point that he's ready to eat and go to bed as soon as he gets home. It's divine. But as much as I would love to send him to class, doing so would have been cruel and unusual punishment for all of those other parents.

In our case, the culprit was some snot nosed brat in the child play section of Barnes and Noble. Some parents thought it would be a good idea for their spawn to spread his viral fluids all over the books, tables and chairs and toy trains of the local book store. Nice. Maybe they were al-Qaida. At the very least they were morons. Either way, I hate them.

Jameson of course got sick. He really doesn't seem to mind other than having a little trouble sleeping because of the congestion and his nose and upper lip being raw from all the nose blowing. The problem is when it spread. The twins each have the cold now to varying degrees. Which means they are next to impossible to get to sleep and to keep asleep. The last several nights Julie and I have been able to muster four hours of sleep at best. This of course has worn me out enough that I got the cold which proceeded to become a sinus infection. Julie is barely hanging on to her health and simply looks exhausted.

Looking forward to catching up and posting more later...

Big Ol' Twins

Here are the latest twin pictures. They're really starting to chunk out. Truman in particular. The kid is an Easter ham. At their last visit, The Beast, err, I mean Amelia, measured in the 90th percentile for girls in both height and weight. My poor meatball, on the other hand, measured in the 70th percentile for boys in weight, but only the 50th percentile in height. We'll begin practicing his three-point stance soon...

As was the case with Jameson, the swing and bouncer are lifesavers with these babies.




The Beast giving Mom one of her usual looks. So much fury in such a tiny package...



We need a bigger bed!



Hmmm. Mom napping again...



When living with The Beast, sometimes the only way to get some rest is to pull your hat down over your eyes and ears.

Bowling

The twins demand a great deal of our time. Obviously. So we make an effort to spend some time with just Jameson whenever we can. Jameson still gets plenty of attention in general, but it's nice to have a little fun with him without potential interruptions from the babies.

A couple of weekends ago we went bowling. I'd say Jameson's attention limit is about nine frames. He liked rolling the ball down the lane, but could care less about the pins. He wanted to rush back to the ball return to wait for his ball to come back. By the way, it is possible to roll a ball so slowly down the lane that it actually comes to a complete stop halfway to the pins.

Yes, they make two-year olds rent shoes!

The atmosphere and the junk food were the real reasons Jameson liked bowling! (Though isn't that the case for most people?)

My Weekend Meditations

OK. In all fairness to Julie, I may OCCASIONALLY take a nap with my babies. But it's just so I can be rested up to better take care of my wonderful, loving wife.

Twin Baby Names

We have ZERO names picked out. Post your suggestions in the comments below. No we are not considering Jose Cuervo and Margarita. We only have until Friday to decide!

Turkey's Done

As Julie likes to say, "this turkey is done." We're at 35 weeks now, a number we never guessed we would see. The way Julie has been feeling, she claims the babies are coming in the next few days. I guess we'll know soon enough. To all of you family members out there that we won't be able to visit with on Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving!

Jon & Kate plus 8

This is a show about a family with a set of twins AND a set of sextuplets. If they can handle their 8 little ones, then we'll be just fine with twins and a two year old, right? Julie is the one that got me hooked on this show. She basically watches Discovery Health every minute that she's awake so I had to start watching something with her. I like the show because it always looks like they're bordering on chaos but they somehow manage to get by in that unique, large family sort of way. I think I can relate to them more than most other TV families. Ever see that family with the 17 kids, the Duggars? Fridiculous. Anyway, they have this huge family and it's like the 4-year old cooks dinner, the 7-year old does the laundry, the 12-year old does the taxes, etc. And no one ever disagrees about anything. Yawwwwn. That whole family is drinking the Kool-Aid.

Anyway, big families rule!

Pushing the Limits

We're officially up to 34 weeks. The belly has taken on a life of it's own. Even though the crazy old man told us not to, we fed it after midnight AND got it wet. I guess we've learned our lesson.

Headed towards you, Julie looks deceptively like a normal pregnant woman...


...Then BAM! Check this bad boy out. There's at least 10 pounds of baby in there.


That's right... all the way out to the knees. I don't know how she sleeps...