Father’s Day

I sometimes think about changing the tagline of this blog to “Better Late Than Never.” Father’s Day was a long time ago now, but maybe these thoughts are still relevant.

I’ve written before about my thoughts on “fatherhood” as a distinct category from “parenthood.” For the most part, I think it’s an empty distinction—or at least it should be. (For an interesting take, check out this blog post from the New York Times.) Certainly, when I talk to the babies, I refer to myself, in the third person, as “Daddy” (why do I do that, I wonder?) but I don’t really think of myself as a “dad,” or as a “father.” I think of myself as a “parent.”

Part of the reason, of course, is that when I think of “dad” I think of my dad, and he and I are two very different people, and two very different parents. In many ways, my dad actually has many of archetypal “dad” qualities. For one thing, he’s the strongest man alive. My sister tells the story that when she moved into her apartment in Manhattan, the movers didn’t show up, so my dad ended up carrying the entire moving van up two flights of stairs. One-handed. I am not the strongest man alive. In fact, I have a pile of things that are too heavy for me to lift that will be dealt with when dad comes to visit next week. When Eloise and Julian grow up, I do not expect that I will be able to uncomplainingly carry air conditioners up from their respective basements.

Dad also knows how to do stuff. He’s fielded many a late night phone call from me that went something like, “Hey, dad, how are you? Busy? So… how hard is it to unclog a garbage disposal?” or “Um, I can’t figure out how to take the glass pane out of the storm door,” or “Should we get life insurance?” or whatever. Rachel was recently remarking that my one practical skill—a rather deft hand with phone wiring—is nearly completely obsolete at this point. I mean, sure, I’ll probably be able to teach the twins how to make homemade mayonnaise or strum a G#m, but I’ll be useless when it comes to changing a tire, or jump-starting a dead battery, or caulking a bathtub.

There will be some traditional “dad” tasks I will be able to perform, of course. For instance, I’m sure I’ll embarrass them in front of their friends by telling the same jokes over and over again. I’ll probably sing too enthusiastically when driving the carpool. I’ll definitely think I’m caught up on all the hot new technology when in fact I’m years behind.

(I sometimes think about my dad when I’m changing diapers, and wonder how any parent ever takes anything their children say seriously. Someday, Julian or Eloise will come to me and express their earnest opinion on a matter of great import, and I’ll just picture them gleefully sucking on their toes while I wipe their asses clean.)

So, I don’t know about this whole “father” thing. I don’t want to deny that there are any essential differences in the way that Rachel and I relate to the babies. She, after all, grew them and personally produced the bulk of their nutrition. I didn’t. And I know as Julian and Eloise get older, the way we relate to them will inevitably become more gendered. But for now, I’m really enjoying the uncomplicated joy of parenting, and the extremely complicated pleasures of complaining to other people about what an all-consuming pain in the ass children are.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be the parent I want to be to them: I wish I could be the calm, cool, competent father I envisioned myself as. The fact is, I’m often frustrated, impatient, and overwhelmed by them. And yet, every lost hour of sleep, every ear-splitting shriek, every failed nap, every shirt spit up on, every new creak in my back—it’s all unquestionably worth it if it’s the price of seeing their faces light up when they see me. Adorable little rat-bastards.

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Off the Grid

Well, not off the whole grid, but off of the Internet-accessible portion of it, anyway. The four of us will be away for the weekend, but expect a rush of posts when we get back. I have a (more and more tardy) Father’s Day post to write, and we’ll have four days worth of pictures to post, and we’ll probably want to recap our trip.

So, see you when we get back!

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Eight Months

My babies are two-thirds of a year old! This is the first time I’ve measured their age in years, and while I admit it’s a little contrived to do so, it reflects the fact that I am slowly starting to think about time in larger segments. For the first eight weeks or so of the twins’ lives, I counted every single day — and each one felt endless. Then the weeks starting coming at a good clip, and sometime around 20 weeks I realized that I’d actually missed a Sunday of marking their age in weeks in my head. Once I returned to work, the months started to zip by. It’ll be a good while before I really shift from thinking about their age in months to thinking about their age in years, but suddenly the one-year mark doesn’t seem like a theoretical fairytale era that the world will only reach long after I am dead.

Maybe time is moving more quickly because the babies are moving quickly in their development. It’s amazing to me how well they rise to the challenge of just about every opportunity we give them to try something new. Want to stand up against this play table? Yes, all the time please! Can you sit here and listen attentively while we read you books? I can, and I’m adorable while I do it! Would you like to try to feed yourself Cheerios? More than anything in the world! Want to try drinking water from a cup? DEAR LORD YES THIS IS THE GREATEST THING I’VE EVER EXPERIENCED!

Eating solid foods is becoming a bigger part of every day, now that meals often include elements that cross over into play: drinking from sippy cups, sucking on fruit in mesh feeder bags, and eating finger foods. About a month ago we significantly relaxed our rules about waiting 2-3 days between the introduction of each new food, and now we just give them all kinds of elaborate combinations and tastes of what we’re eating. Sometimes we just take our own dinner and put it through a food mill and feed them that (orzo salad with feta, spinach, and tomato was a big hit). As for non solid foods, Julian is showing some skill at feeding himself a bottle, which is very cool and promises to be advantageous when he finally masters it. Less wonderful is that Eloise completely and suddenly self-weaned about 10 days ago. She acted like she’d never nursed in her life and wondered what the heck I was suggesting that she do with that thing, exactly? This has been very difficult and intensely emotional for me, for lots of reasons. I thought about writing a post about it, but in the end, I don’t think everything was meant to go on the blog. Suffice it to say, I’m still dealing with it (it happened so fast and I wasn’t ready to be done with nursing), and now we’re washing more bottles than ever.

On a happier note, the twins just get cuter and funnier all the time. Julian is going through a phase of really loving to play with giant “toys” — I can stand him at the tower fan and he’s content for a good five minutes — longer if I turn the fan on and off a few times (don’t worry, I have the oscillation turned off). He loves the big yoga ball we used to bounce them on for a good 37 hours of each day. An empty laundry basket is another good one. Perhaps he feels comfortable around very large objects because of all the time he spends with his own cheeks.

Both kids continue to be obsessively into standing up, and if they’re lying on their backs or sitting, and you hold your two hands out to them and say “Give Mama/Daddy your hands,” they’ll put their two little hands in yours and pull themselves right up. (Actually, I think we could probably hold out our hands and say “Republicans are slimy and they’re trying to sabotage meaningful health care reform” and they’d do the same thing — I don’t think their verbal comprehension skills are really what’s at play here.) They aren’t clapping, waving, or giving high-fives yet, though that’s next on my list of things to teach them. Julian is pretty motivated to pull himself up on stationary objects, and Eloise will stagger in an approximate walking motion if you stand over her holding your hands in hers — it continues to seem likely that she will walk early. Neither one seems particularly close to crawling, and it’s entirely possible they’ll skip it altogether. It’s hard to learn to crawl when all you ever do is stand (or shriek to be put into a standing position).

Lots of people will say that having twins is interesting because you see so very clearly how different children are right from the start. And anyone who has spent any significant amount of time with our kids knows this is true. However, I’ve noticed that sometimes I tend to associate a certain characteristic or interest or skill with one baby, and not recognize the possibility that the other baby might actually have the same one. For example, for a long time we marveled over Eloise’s interest in standing up, so we were constantly propping her up on a stool or a small table or something. When it finally occurred to me to see whether Julian might be able to do the same thing, not only did he catch on very quickly, but now he is even more aggressive than Eloise in his attempts to pull up on anything within reach. So I’m trying to be cautious about making assumptions about either baby in relation to the other. This will get easier to avoid, as Julian and Eloise are starting to show an ability to perceive what the other is doing and insist on doing it as well. This often manifests itself as jealousy when the other baby is being held, but it also applies to bottles, toys, and, of course, standing. (God forbid that one should get to stand up in the crib while the other poor, tortured, unloved, deprived baby gets its diaper changed.) As difficult as that can sometimes be, when both babies are gracelessly lunging at me at the same time in an effort to pull my hair and pinch my face to demonstrate that they missed me while I was at work, I actually think it’s pretty cool that in eight months, they’ve gone from a near total lack of perception of their surroundings to possessing the ability to identify that their sibling is doing something and by god they want to do it to. (The grammar in that sentence was quite flawed, but I’m not quite up for fixing it.)

I think we’re all starting to enjoy each other as a family more and more. Matt and I always loved the babies, without question, but recently I think that feeling has really deepened for both of us, from a sort of instinctive, protective love into a much more complex love that comes when you all start to, you know, like each other. The words “smitten” and “besotted” have often been crossing my mind when I think about how I feel about these two little delicious, soft, funny, snuggly, smart, amazing, wiggly, constantly changing little people. It is a truly fantastic feeling.

This month we’re looking forward to our first overnight trip since St. Louis in January — we’re taking the babies to Lake Winnipesaukee! Even before I had kids, and certainly when I was pregnant, one of my favorite things to imagine was taking my children to a place that I love so much and that looms so large in my own childhood memories. I’m hoping the trip goes better than we expect — we are a wee bit concerned about napping and nighttime sleep — because I’d love to feel a little more flexible about taking the babies places in the future. (Julia, I’ve got my eye on you and Portland! Rachel and Liz, get ready to show the babies the Big Apple!)

Speaking of looking ahead, this week my friend Melissa was in town and stopped by with her adorable 11.5-month-old daughter, Abi. Watching Abi next to Julian and Eloise was like watching two different species. Abi was crawling everywhere, pulling up, maneuvering objects with lots of dexterity, babbling like crazy, and just generally being a toddler next to our babies. It is impossible to imagine that that’s what’s in store for us in just a few short months. Impossible and awesome.

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Month 8

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Manhattan Toy Company

Why does the Manhattan Toy Company’s Whoozit line feature a rendering of the constellation Grover?

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Yet More Video Cuteness

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(No, our good camera isn’t back. Today’s photos were taken by our good friend Emilie, whose amazing work can be seen at www.emilieinc.com.)

Plum

Internet, forgive me: I fed my babies store-bought baby food.

At least it was expensive, organic baby food. We’re running low on our own baby food stocks, and I couldn’t figure out how to process what Rachel and I were having tonight (cheese quesadillas), and Julian had frankly already eaten his weight in yogurt today, and, and, and…

Eloise, predictably, loved it. Julian opined that, on the whole, he preferred yogurt.