Here's Looking at You, Kids

Frick and Frack were extra fussy so, since I was all alone, I maneuvered them both onto my chest and skillfully administered double burp pats on their backs. After some successful burping, they both lifted their heads up and looked at me. They were awake; their eyes wide open. It was a fantastic moment, both my children looking at me, looking at their dad. I realize that they probably couldn't really see me--their eyes aren't developed enough yet and they most likely just saw a blob of light and shadow. But I felt a connection with my kids I'd never felt before. I also felt this huge weight of responsibility for these two lives crush down upon me. I almost felt like yelling: "Stop looking at me!" It's probably a good thing the kids can't see too well; they missed their dad freaking out.

Babies on the Go

Now that the babies have reached their actual due date (it was June 22nd), we feel more comfortable taking them out into the real world.

On Thursday, the Missus took them up to Bethesda to visit a friend who is moving out of town. Aftwerwards, she drove to my work, so I could show them off to some of my friends. I told a few people about it, and they told a few people, so by the time the Missus pulled up to the front of the building, there were fifteen people waiting. Everybody thought the snoozing babies were adorable, but I felt bad that they couldn't do any tricks, besides maybe drooling.

Saturday evening we piled everybody into the car and headed to a friend's house for a barbeque. The babies behaved well, mostly sleeping in their car seats, which gave the Missus and I a chance to enjoy some delicious food.

Last night, we took them for an after-dinner stroll around the neighborhood. We hope to make this a nightly activity, since we haven't had a chance for much exercise recently (unless you count running up and down the stairs with bottles in your hands.)

I finally had a chance to put some more pictures up.

Car Seat (Re)Test

When Adam was released from the NICU, he was strapped into his car seat for 90 minutes while the nurse monitored his blood oxygen levels.  This was the dreaded car seat test and unfortunately he failed.  His neck wasn't strong enough to keep his head up and he wasn't breathing correctly.  They rented us a car bed instead and we brought him home.

Today at a pediatric pulomonologist's office, he passed his car seat retest with those proverbial flying colors.  The Missus and I were not really worried since he's such a big boy now.  In fact, the nurse weighed him while we were there: 9lbs. 10 oz.  He's almost doubled in weight since the last time he took the test.

The Missus is happy because that darn car bed is a real pain to install and its size prevented us from putting Tessa's car seat in with it.  I guess I'm happy too, but I look at this as the first step towards Adam asking to borrow my car keys.

Fussy

My first Father's Day was both good and bad.  Good, because I am the proud father of two beautiful babies.  Bad, because I am the very tired father of two very fussy babies.  Both Tessa and Adam were extremely irratated and irratating yesterday, and refused to sleep last night.  We're not really sure why.  I think it's a secret plot cooked up between the two of them to drive us crazy.  The Missus doesn't believe it--she doesn't think they're able to plot with each other yet, and they're separately trying to drive us crazy.  Either way, we're both very tired.

Invisibles

For movie buffs, the Invisibles quiz on the FilmWise website is darn cool. There are stills from different movies, and you have guess what movie they're from. The catch is the people in the scene have been made invisible. All that's left behind are their clothes. Pretty neat!

Conjunction

In astronomy, a conjunction is when two planets (say, Mars and Saturn) appear close together in the sky. Ancient (and not-so-ancient) astrologers saw conjunctions as a sign of impending trouble or doom. This is nonsense of course, since it is just a chance occurence that Mars would be at a point in its orbit that would make it appear from Earth to be near Saturn, which is always millions of miles away from Mars.

Nonsense, yes, but here may be something to this trouble and doom thing, since a conjunction in our house is when the feeding orbits of Tessa and Adam come close together, and two babies start screaming for food at the same time. It's trouble when the Missus and I are both awake; it's doom when only one of us is there.

Take last night for example. It's about 1:30am, and the Missus is getting some well-deserved sleep. I'd fed Adam at 10:30 and Tessa at 11pm, so I'm expecting the boy to stir first, which is good, since he's the loudest and I want to get him fed before the girl. But now the girl starts fussing before Adam, which presents me with a dilemma. Do I wake the boy up first and feed him? Or do I try to rush Trixie through her meal and hope the boy sleeps until I'm ready for him?

I decide to feed Trixie first. As soon as I get her a bottle and start to feed her, yes, you guessed it, the boy starts waking up. Soon he's screaming bloody murder, the kind of baby scream that tears your heart out and makes you feel really guilty for thinking how nice it would be just to stuff a sock in the kid's mouth. Sometimes I would just put Tessa down for a bit, and feed Speed, but lately Tessa's been getting more and more demanding about her food too, so I decide on something more drastic.

I put both babies on the bed next to each other and fed them both at the same time. It was hilarious to hear them both slurping away. I was sure my laughter would wake up the Missus. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Glug, glug, glug. It was some kind of symphony in milk.

It was a while before I got them both fed, burped and changed. I went to sleep dreaming of portents of disaster, conjunctions, baby noises and milk melodies. I had a few short hours before it started again.

Friday

The last two or three days, when I woke up after not-enough sleep, I thought it was Friday.  It made me really happy for the moment or two until I realized that it wasn't Friday.  Today *is* Friday though, isn't it?  Isn't it?

I'm really tired.

Still more pictures

I uploaded some new ones. Check out the Baby Pictures Index if you wish.

Back to Work

I thought I was tired last week, when I was still on vacation. Now that I'm back at work, I know the real meaning of the word. It's even harder on the Missus, since she makes sure that I get some sleep so I don't drive into a tree on the way to work. Not to be a total cornball, but I have to say that it is all worth it when I get home and see those cute little faces. Only eighteen more years to go!

Big Storm

We had a really bad storm come through last night. A lightning bolt hit something in our backyard. I saw sparks fly. No damage was found, though one of my neighbors did call the fire department.

The twins slept soundly through the whole thing. The only thing that wakes them up is food. They take after their dad in that respect.

As the storm moved away, we were treated to a rare double rainbow. I managed to stop taking pictures of the kids for a moment to photograph it.

Noise

It's amazing how much noise the babies make when they're sleeping. I'm not talking about the yelling and screaming they do when they are hungry, but just the general noises they make while snoozing away. They squeak, grunt, groan, coo, snort, cough, sneeze, squawk, yawp and gabble. They sound like two little old men. In the middle of the night our bedroom sounds just like the Cracker Barrel in Tampa around early-bird special time.

Family Visit

On Saturday, Grandmom, Granddad, Aunt Pappy and Uncle Ryan came over to visit Speed and Trixie. We all had a nice time, but no matter how much we poked and prodded them, the twins refused to open their eyes. After everyone left, of course, they were staring around with that look of shock that babies always seem to have. Even Tessa, my little night owl, opened her big, beautiful eyes up, a special daytime treat.

Uncle Ray also came for a visit, and took a nice picture of the twins, which you can see on his website along with a bunch of other nice pictures. Ray is a very talented photographer. When I bought my new camera, I tried to order talent as an accessory, but it wasn't available. (After I showed Ray's picture to my so-called friend Mary at work, she said, "How come his picture is so much better than yours? Ouch.)

New pictures

Here are some new pictures of the twins.

And a quick update on Trixie. She went to the doctor's this morning and everything is just fine. She now weighs 6lbs, 6ozs and is 19 inches long.

False Positive

On May 17th, when Speed and Trixie were still in the NICU at Fair Oaks, we received the results back from the standard screenings that were done on samples of their blood. The state screens for a bunch of different abnormalities and diseases. Adam's tests all came back normal. One of Tessa's tests came back abnormal. She appeared to be missing an enzyme that helps break down lactose, a sugar found in milk. This indicated that she had a genetic metabolic disorder known as galactosemia.

Galactosemia is treated by taking the baby off of milk products, and Trixie was immediately switched to a soy formula. With this treatment, the immediate risk of death or serious complications was reduced to near zero, but there was still the possibility of long-term problems, such as learning disabilities and infertility.

Needless to say, the Missus and I were scared to death, but we didn't panic. The neonatologist, although making no promises, indicated that the test had a large incidence of false positives. Tessa had been on mother's milk and milk-based formulas for two weeks with no problems, another indication that she didn't have a problem. (Also, neither the Missus nor I could think of anyone in our families with metabolic problems.) A retest was sent into the state immediately.

We sweated it out for a week and a half, until we called down to Richmond for the results of the retest. They told us that it appeared Tessa's case was closed, which meant that the retest was normal and the girl was fine, but, they said, we should talk to our pediatrician for the "official" results. It took us almost another week to get the pediatrician's office to confirm that everything was okay, the bastards. The Missus is at their office with Tessa as I'm typing this; she should be given the all-clear to go back onto breast milk today. (Though she has done just fine on the soy formula and is gaining weight like mad.)

So everything is well with our little girl. It did however take some of the joy out of bringing her home, since we were so worried. I guess being worried about our kids is something that we have to get used to, right?

A Typical Night

It's about 2:30 am and I'm feeding Trixie her bottle. The Missus is in the other room sleeping. We've started taking shifts and she's sleeping the 9pm-3am shift. So I have a half-hour before I get to sleep and I'm praying that the boy won't wake up until then. (I know that's not very nice, but I'm really tired and in no mood to be kind.)

Alas, the boy starts stirring. That means I have about two minutes before he starts screaming. There's nothing wrong with his lungs. I hate to interrupt Tessa when she's in the middle of gulping down her bottle, but I do so as I quickly put her down, take Adam out of his bassinet and put him down on the bed. So now we're all on the bed, and I'm feeding Tessa again.

Adam starts yelling. He's hungry. Tessa is resting in my left hand as I feed her with my right. I use my big chin to hold the girl's bottle upright as I reach over and turn Adam over. He's disoriented momentarily and stops crying while he tries to suck milk from the mattress. As soon as he realizes he can't get anything, he starts screaming. Then again I balance Tessa's bottle with my chin and turn him over. A moment of peace, before he realizes that he's still not getting fed.

This continues for a little while (that seems like nine hours) until finally the girl is done her bottle. I leave my screaming Speed Racer behind and go downstairs to make his bottle, burping Trixie as I go. (It's amazing what you can do with one hand.)

Upstairs again, I put the girl in her bassinet. The boy is brick red and still screaming, but calms down as soon as I pick him up and change him. The Missus is now awake due to all the fussing. It's only 2:45, but too bad! I'm going to sleep. I hand her Adam and a bottle and head for the guest room. Tomorrow is another day.

Late Night TV

I've recently had the opportunity to watch much more late night (actually, early morning) TV than usual. Here are some observations that I've had.

1. Is it creepy for a thirty-nine-year-old man to have a crush on Marcia Brady? I hope not.
2. Happy Days was never the best show in the world, but after Richie left, it really sucked. Really.
3. Betty Grable, yes. Carmen Miranda, not-so-much.
4. My abs are terrible!