Let's Begin the Beguine...




OK, I am getting a few moments here and there to hear myself think, so I thought I would take this opportunity to catch up on the blog. Like any story, I really should begin at the beginning, so everyone is caught up to speed. This will likely lead to several installments, so bare with me.

It is highly common in twins that one takes a bit more of the nutrients than the other. This can lead to one of the twins developing a condition known as Inter-Uterine Growth Restriction (IUGR), where basically one of the babies does not develop at a normal rate. They use to call it Inter-Uterine Growth Retardation, but changed the name for the obvious reason that mentioning the word retardation to anxious parents=to-be invariably led to super-freakouts. While it is clear in the title it is the growth that is retarded, not the child's brain, the multiple painful explanations finally led to a convention somewhere where beleaguered perinatalogists agreed to the name change.

Anyway, as most of you probably already knew, one of little ones was diagnosed in utero with IUGR. This led to Candy spending something close to 4 months on bed rest, as that is one of the treatments. Laying on your side all day is supposed to increase blood flow to the placentas and therefore the babies as well.

Along comes week 36. Candy has shown no signs of distress, except for the significant symptom of being as big as an hindoor game complex. At week 34 the signs of IUGR that had faded somewhat from early on appear to be back, so we know that if they persist into week 36 we may get our delivery moved up. We also know statistically that the median age of a twin is 36-37 weeks. So we thought we were somewhat prepared for news that the delivery would be soon.

At 11am we walked into our perinatalogist's office. He hooked us up to his fancy-schmancy ultrasound and took a few measurements. The little one was only 4 percentile in size for its abdomen, now two weeks in a row. Clear IUGR. At this late stage of the pregnancy it is his considered opinion that delivery is safer than waiting for some sort of critical development. I.e, tiny baby could become distressed and be in big (maybe fatal) trouble before the next check-up. He sends up to our OB.

At 1pm we see our OB-GYN, an old school Israeli (we think) doctor whose bedside manner definitely gives the impression he will suffer the questions of fools only to a point. He agrees with the first assessment and tells us we will indeed deliver.

Tonight.

We are to be at the hospital at 4:30pm. We should go home and pack for a 4 day hospital stay. The delivery is going to be a C-section, as inducing traditional labor would put too much strain on the little, possible weak baby. Inducing labor would take 12-14 hours. The C-section will be under an hour.

So you can imagine the chaos. Prepare to be parents in 2 hours. We had thought, at worst, they would schedule us for Thursday morning. Aye-yai-yai. We pack, we take out the trash, clear the sink, feed the pets, call the parents, I eat. (Candy can't, because of the surgery.) We pause to take some final pictures of Candy in the nursery, at her most splendiferous. Then it is throw the bags in the car, and off to have our lives turned permanently upside down.


Sitting in a Recovery/Prep room in Labor and Delivery, I read section's of King Lear to Candy, doing my best to do a different voice for each character. Occasionally I stop and summarize what I think happened in that scene, as it can take a bit of digestion to fully get all the nuances of Elizabethan English written in Iambic pentameter. I am doing this for two reasons. First and foremost I am trying to calm/distract Candy and myself from the fact she is about to undergo major surgery. Second, one of the top 3 names we are considering for the girls in Cordelia, who is the good daughter from King Lear. The room is shared, so I try to keep my absurd over-acting to a minimum.

Finally they come to wheel Candy away. While they are prepping her and starting her spinal block anesthesia I am not allowed in the operating room. They hand me scrubs and tell me to wait for approximately 15 minutes, at which point they will call me in to witness the event.

The waiting room is actually just a single chair sitting in a hallway out side a large set of double doors marked "Authorized Personnel Only". There is nothing else there, except a single still from Dumbo framed on the wall exactly opposite the chair. St. Joe's medical center is basically across the street from Disney Studios, so they have decorated all up and down Labor and Delivery with Dumbo themed paraphenalia. The picture exactly opposite me shows Dumbo flying joyously with Timothy the mouse dressed in his bandleader outfit atop his head. Clutched in Dumbo's trunk is the magic black feather that allows this little baby elephant to escape the bounds of gravity and do the impossible. Of course, the trick [spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen Dumbo. Seriously?!] is that the feather is nothing special and that Dumbo is doing it all himself.

It is hard to describe my feelings at this point. Adrenaline cranked to the max. Palms a little sweaty, clutching the video camera. This was clearly one of those BIG life moments and it was not dissappointing. I put it up there with asking my wife to marry me as one of the most intense experiences I have had. I think what heightened it was that at this moment of significant life transition I was forced to sit and wait. Staring at that little baby elephant and doing everything in my power to concentrate on getting from one breath to the next.

When they finally call me Candy is strapped down to an operating table, crucifiction style. A curtain has been placed at just about her armpits, blocking a view of her lower body. She was shivering, mostly from adrenaline I suspect, although I think there was also shock involved, as by the time I had arrived she was paralyzed over more than half of her body. I do my best to comfort her. I think I tell her how proud I am of her. Then I am told I should stand up and look behind the curtain and that is where I see my girls enter the world.

I had watched enough birthing shows to not be surprised by the tugging out by the head of two white, gooey babies. The white goo is vernix, something the babies produce to protect their skin from the amniotic fluid. I don't know how many people get to see a birth live and close up, but it is truly astounding. Something from nothing. Spontaneous Generation. One becomes Two. Or in our case Three.

After they clean the babies and I get to cut the cord, Candy is allowed two quick glances at the babies she carried in her womb for 36 weeks and then we are all whisked off to the Nursery. The whole process I witnessed could not have taken more than 15 minutes.

But as you might suspect, I was far from done.

My Daughters, the Smurfs



That's Kayla, or Kaylee to her friends. I think she is just smurfy.

Below is Candy (the night of) holding Rylie for the first time.



Again there will be a lot more to come, but for now I got to run back to the hospital.

S.

ATTENTION, ALL SHIPS AT SEA

dee deedee dee deedeedee

Two new baby Colberts have been sighted in the Pacific Quadrant.

Rylie Jayne Colbert

&

Kayla Mackenzie Colbert

Both are pink, hungry and assumed to be extremely dangerous...To my sleep patterns.

Born Oct 18, 7:00 and 7:01pm.

More will soon follow, including pictures, but things are still a might crazy now.

That is all.

deedee dee dee deedeedee dee...

Satisfaction



I got the Chair Rail molding up and painted this weekend, with an assist from my mother who was passing through. I did the touch-ups and voila!



The best looking room in the house. While it was a tremendous pain in the posterior, now that I have executed my lovely bride's master plan I must admit it looks damn nice.



Check out the fish "wallies", stickers designed to stick to your walls without destroying your walls. We might add some sea turtles or doplhins or something, but have to make sure it doesn't get too busy.

It wasn't all sugar and light.

For one, I installed new breaker electric outlets. The kind that trip themselves off in they feel a surge (faster and with a lower threshold than your fuse box). In addition to being slightly more complicated than your normal outlet (you have to connect the wires to the correct leads or it can't "break" the current) these are grounded sockets where my previous ones were not. The previous ones were literally falling apart, so some change had to be made, so why not upgrade to the latest in outlet technology? Anyway, grounding a socket simply requires connecting it to the outlet box, the steel box the outlet is sitting in inside your wall. The steel box is grounded, so anything connected to it will be as well. To ensure a tight connection, I like to drill a hole in the box big enough to put in a screw that I can then attach to a grounding wire. Needless to say, sometimes drilling into a steel box recessed into the wall can be a thankless task. In this particular instance it led to one broken drill bit and, worse, a slip that pulled about an inch of plaster off the wall. Already painted plaster. Arrgh!!!

Fear not, I have already repainted the area. But between the initial incident and the final latex painting, there was some swearing and tossing of dustpans. You can tell when I am really angry at myself for doing something dumb, because I start inventing new swear words. In the interest of not having this blog blocked by parent filters I will repeat none of them here. Let me just say I combine the standard dirty seven words in combinations with objects that just don't make much sense... bubble gum, kazoos, whatever pops into my heated brain. Usually I also mention donkeys.

Another problem I had was that one of the closets refuses to dry properly. Every time I think it is completely dry I close it. After an hour it creates a strong, superglue-like bond with the door frame and when the closet in opened again, it rips the pain off. Presently we are living with this issue as dealing with the oil paint any further is more than I can bear... although now we are considering the painting of bureau.

So, what I would like most now is that the room not be used at all, but instead declared off limits using a velvet rope. Tour groups will be brought by, but they may only gawk inwards longingly.

Apparently this is an unreasonable request.

Instead we are filling the room with baby gear. More on that next blog. In the meantime, please enjoy this photo of me and my dog, Pismo, which looks wholely inappropriate, but is in actuality, not:




I'm scratching her back people! It is either this or more pictures of animals wearing hats, I swear!

S.

Do Not Touch The Trim!


Behold the wonder that is fresh painted trim! Know that while beautiful, it must always be remembered that oil-based paints produce fumes that make the head throb and ache. Ventilation, my child, ventilation.

Seriously, I had to get some serious fan-action going to keep the fumes out of our "temporary" bedroom last night. The room got a little cold, but I put the down comforter back on the bed so it felt quite warm and snuggly. Wife and childs appear none the worse for wear.

Painting with water-based latex paints is so relatively pleasant, that I had forgotten what a bitch-fest oil stuff can be. Right now, as I speak, there is a fan in the nursery-to-be window, producing negative pressure in the room to ensure whatever fumes are still being outgassed go out altogether. Important mental note: In future set up fan FIRST, so that throbbing temples do not ensue. Also, do not talk with the Space Bunnies. They are not real.

So I am truly in the home stretch, needing only to hang the trim and do final touch-ups. Hopefully with as little oil-based paint as possible.

Now, as it is Friday the 13th.... DEVIL CAT!!!!



...and mildly Satanic turtle.

The Great Leap Forward



Yes, today's post has been inspired by the Chinese Communist Party's 5-year plan circa 1958, in which they tried so hard to throw the country into collectives while increasing production on all fronts that the entire country essentially collapsed. It is really a classic example of why running an economy from the top down does not work. Everyone got pressure from the next level up to produce results, so each level lied/exaggerated to the next and therefore the entire country began to starve while the upper echelon thought things were going so swimmingly that they started pulling farmers to make more iron or steel. Since the farmers weren't exactly metallurgy experts they did the next best thing and melted down their farm implements. By the time Mao and company realized what a disaster they had created they were in deep trouble, as they had been claiming just the opposite. So they continued to act as if everything was going swimmingly, hoping it would eventually fix itself. For instance, over most of this time period that people were starving, China continued to export large quantities of food to the world. Because there was such plenty in China. Because Mao was a genius and collectivism worked. You get the idea. Long story short, 20-30 million people starved to death and Mao lost a great deal of power and credibility (temporarily, it turns out... but the Cultural Revolution is a subject for another do-it-yourself project).



So in that spirit I announce the successful launch of stripes and waves on the walls of my nursery. This was done without outside intervention (except for Nan...thanks Nan) and demonstrates the indigenous wisdom and mad paint skills of our people. Pictures now follow. All hail our great leader, Sherman Williams.





For those of you keeping score, I still need to do the trim, touch-ups and hang the new chair rail molding.

Here is some evidence of the wear and tear this nursery painting has exacted on my poor, tired bones. Either I have decided I can't take it anymore and have decided to end it all by driving my head into a pile of plastic sheeting, or I am masking stuff at floor level. Or both. Quite possibly both.



Blessed be Zod.

S.

P.S. I believe I have activated the "allow anyone to post comments" option. So, go for it, anyone.

Tom Sawyer was a Genius.



While the lighting was not exactly optimal, this is what the room looked like after the initial painting of the ceiling. Notice the snazzy dropcloth on the floor, part of my Home Depot birthday present. A cloth drop cloth is roughly 4000% better than plastic, except for the fact that at the end you need to clean it instead of just throwing it away. It doesn't rip, paint dries uber-quick on it, it doesn't slip much on the floor, etc. This drop cloth is just slightly too small for the room, so I had to put plastic down on one stretch and it is just not as good. Plastic sheeting is definitely cheaper, but I say invest in the cloth drop cloth. Everything will go much smoother.

Anyway, now that I have made my plug for the National Foundation for Advancement of Textile Paint Protection Materials (NAMBLA)...

This is how things stood Saturday afternoon: Ceiling painted. Check. Next 25 steps. Still to be done. Fortunately Candy had lined up a whole bunch of sucker-- er, I mean, helpful volunteers to come over on Sunday and make a good push on the whole project. Painting is fun. Why, it is so much fun you should pay me to be allowed to do it.

They didn't pay me, but thanks to Nan, Jacole, Marie, and my mom (Jane) anyway. Thanks to them we 1) Emptied the closets of roughly one ton of stuff, 2) Cleaned and painted the inside of the closets, 3) Painted the top 2/3 of the room (Nacre), 4) Painted the bottom third of the room (Honeydew), 5) Masked everything that still needed masking. This flurry of work even allowed me time to run out and get some chair rail molding to put in the room. I have two pieces cut to order, each ~13 feet in length. Even in my mom's SUV I had to stick them out the passenger window to get them home. It felt a bit like jousting. I was desperately afraid I was going to take out some poor pedestrian's noggin on the way back to my abode.

The room now looks like this:



Coming up Next: We get fancy. There are going to be stripes and waves. Stay tuned.








Oh, and the Dodgers rolled over and died without much of a fight, so I am no longer distracted by baseball. Just this baby any minute thing.

Holy crap, My wife is gonna have a baby!

No, not now. At least I hope not. No labor, no panicked rushes. None of that.

I did, however, spend a good portion of two days watching her hooked up to baby heart monitor machines. They average ~130 beats/minute which although squirrel-like, also happens to be very good for a in utero baby. My wife has even started having mini-contractions, or pre-contractions, or Braxton-Hicks contractions. Call them what you will, they are really Holy-crap-this-is-really-gonna-happen-soon contractions.

With my other mind-occupier, the Dodgers, just about circling the playoff toilet bowl, I have little else to obsess over. It doesn't look like the House re-model will start until after Thanksgiving, so no escape there, either.

So if I am going to run around like a father-to-be with its head cut off, I might as well get something accomplished. So begins the epic and heart palpitating tale of "Painting the Nursery". While it doesn't have the emotional complexity of "the Hole", it should end up being more colorful.

Here is what my bedroom looked like about a week ago.



Sort of a Where's Waldo game of messiness. Find the cat, the mouse, and the sheep and win a fabulous prize!

I can't tell you what it is, but I can guarantee it will be fabulous. If by fabulous we all agree means stuff I am trying to give away that is sitting in my garage.

The idea is to clear the bedroom and paint it into the nursery. This required we move out and into the back office. Which required clearing the back office and putting most of it in the garage (hint hint, fabulous prizes). If it all sounds very
complicated, well, it is. Needless to say it is sort of a musical chairs process that is less a whacky birthday party game and more like continually moving everything you own. In the end, we probably move the bed back in the nursery until the re-model is ready to start. Then we move to my Mom's house. Six years go by and then we have a bigger, nicer home. The End, trumpeting swans, fade to shimmery white.

In the meantime, someone had to clear that room. It now looks like this:



Holes are being patched and sanded. Next I will scrub the walls down with pre-paint, wall-cleaning soap. (TSP I think it is called. Total Soap Product? Try Something Porous? Tom Sucks Pe- No. Probably Not. Anywho...) Then comes the tarp, taping, and painting. Stay tuned loyal viewers, as this room goes from plain Jane to room of the future!!!!

S.