Firsts

Like the joy one discovers when Country hits Western or Chico joins up with his Man, I have finally managed to unite two of my passions: twin baby girls and Dodger baseball. This is part of my master plan in which both girls will take up all my life long obsessions and take them to the next level allowing me to live vicariously through them. I firmly expect they will win dual NCAA Softball championship while receiving Eisners for their ground-breaking line of comic books. Oh, and they will earn a billion dollars and invent a calorie free form of Chex Mix.

I do not feel that I have unreasonable expectations.


Let's set the mood:

April 21, 2007: Pirates at the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's a Saturday and game start is 7:10pm. The weather is cold, with a slight hint of dampness in the air as a storm system has only recently finished its transit through Southern California. The starting pitcher for the dodgers is Brad Penny, a giant fire-baller who once bet a batboy he couldn't drink and keep down a gallon of milk. Facing him is young Ian Snell who spent three years as Ian Oquendo when he took his wife's last name at marriage. Both pitchers were off to very fast starts in this young basbeall season, having only allowed a trickle of runs in opposition. On this day Snell got the best of Penny, and left in the seventh inning winning 3-2. But there is a reason they play all nine, as poor Pirate closer Salomon Torres could not get the job done and allowed a tying run to score with the unlikely sequence of a wild pitch, error, and finally a passed ball. So it was on to the tenth inning, as the manly men of baseball do not allow games to end in ties, where the Dodgers managed to load the bases. Up came mighty Russell Martin, the latest in a long line of beloved Dodger catchers, who could have won the game with a lazy fly ball, but instead he murdered a helpless baseball with a tremendous blow from his splintering bat, knocking it deep into the left field bullpen. Not only a home run, but Martin's first ever Grand Slam.



Wow, huh? Of course, we left the game in the 8th inning. Yes, in addition to the joy of our first major league baseball game, this was also another stop on the new responsibility superhighway. We arrived in the second inning as we were careful to feed the girls right before departure to ensure maximum tranquility. While we thought we had carefully planned out the entire outing, for some reason we had forgotten hats. This is particularly perverse, as hats are one of those things that people (and by people I am including their mother) love to jam on their heads no matter the weather or eventual destination, which is invariably always indoors. Going to dinner? Hat. Going to Las Vegas (in-laws)? Hat. Going to a baby hat store? Hat. I mean sometimes I really think they might not want to wear a hat when it is 85 degrees in the shade. But of course on this night, when we KNEW it was going to be cold... no hats. And to be perfectly honest, the blankets could have been warmer, too.



So by the time the 7th inning rolls around, it is getting quite chilly. Not east coast/great lakes chilly, obviously, but temperatures in the low 50s are a bit brisk for hatless babies with only 13 pounds of heat capacity. We sing "Take me Out to the Ball Game" and feed the babies a bottle and then it is really clear it is time to go. Besides, the Dodgers were losing. What were the chances they were about to rally? The health of the girls was more important than seeing the end of a game. Even one that turned out as great as that one. Not a big deal (I've left games too early many a time), but just another notch in the Daddy Responsibility belt. Hopefully this thing won't get too tight...



My savvier readers might have noted that the title of this blog was "Firsts" plural. We are also well into the process of introduccing the girls to solid food. We started almost a month ago with rice cereal, a mush that looks like Cream of Wheat but tastes like paste. We then kicked it up a notch to Oatmeal. Again, the baby version has been atomized to a point where I have to take their word for it that oats are even a peripheral part of the process. It does have a bit more flavor than the rice stuff. And yes, I do taste it all. That is not the weird thing. The weird thing is still give it to my children afterwards.



While the girls tolerated their mushes, they did not really get on board this whole eat-with-a-spoon thing until we got to carrots. They LOVE carrots. As in they would turn orange if we let them eat all the carrots they want. As in they would strangle Bugs Bunny for for just one more sweet bite of carrot. I mean, if they had the coordination to do so. And if Bugs Bunny wasn't a fictional character. And if they could eat a whole carrot, which they can not. They got no teeth and can't even say What's Up Doc? At best, they might manage waa aaa aaa.



So these are images of the girls immersing themselves in liquified carrots. Since the carrots we have moved on to peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and one mushed up banana. For the moment, Magilla Gorilla is safe (the banana was surprisingly not a hit).


By the way, for those of you trying to keep score at home... In order the images are: 1) Both (Rylie on left) 2) Kayla 3) Rylie 4) Both (Rylie on left) 5)Kayla 6) Rylie 7) Rylie 8) A cartoon ape buying vending machine bananas from a gumball dispenser. So Rylie took this blog 5-4. However if you didn't stay to the end, you most certainly missed it.

Eight Miles High...



"...and when you touch down, you'll find that it's stranger than known."

Whew! Let me warn ya, this blog entry is a long one. We just came back from our first transcontinental flight (or any flight, really) with the girls. The flight out was not too bad. Candy and I had some debate about whether dealing with the stroller was a good idea or not. Boy was I wrong. The stroller was awesome, as they allowed us to roll right up to the gate and gate check it. This allowed us to haul even more stuff in addition to the babies. Another nice thing about taking the babies is that the airlines throw out virtually all of their carry-on rules (or at least stretch them quite a bit).

Two valuable travel tips for multiple baby travel:

1) Travel on low travel days (Tues-Thurs) and there will generally be plenty of extra room on board the planes. This gives the gate the freedom to clear out almost an entire row for your comfort. We basically had 5 seats to ourselves. On a low use flight this is easy to arrange, as the answer to "would you like to move away from potentially screaming babies?" is always yes.

2) IMPORTANT: There is a hidden rule that basically no two lap babies can be placed next to each other. While there appear to be some exceptions based on the type of plane, each section of seats normally has only ONE extra oxygen mask, so if the plane depressurizes two babies together would be in trouble. This means when making a reservation, you want to get seats across the aisle from each other (the best you can do). If the flight is full they will not be able to move you. See the bottom of this blog entry for more details on that horrible eventuality.



Left on a Thursday and flew into Dulles, which is officially the oddest major airport with its shuttle cars on stilts. That airport should have been updated two decades ago and they are only getting around to it now. Drove into Rockville, MD to stay with my BE-UTE-IFUL Aunt Margo (pictured here). The traffic at 5:30 onto the 495 Beltway was less beautiful, but we will not discuss such an ugly thing. Margo made us dinner and we visited with our friends Debbie and Tracy, who apparently live so close they are really neighbors of my Aunt and Uncle. We slept in a red, white, & blue themed bedroom, except, oddly enough, for the leopard-skin wallpaper on one wall. Where Yankee Doodle Dandy meets Tarzan the Ape Man.



On Friday we visited with my college buddy/roomie/lackey Dave G. Sadly, I appear to have no pictures of this. Maybe I took them and Dave sucked the silicon right off the RAM chip with his mind. He can do that. You should see what he does to Dodger baseball games. Friday night was the Rehearsal Dinner at my Uncle Ed's house. I got about as lost as possible trying to go from the Congressional Country Club, where I was staying (and this cute picture of Kayla was taken) as I have ever been. First of all, I blame Dave who has bad directions karma. Secondly, I blame myself for blindly following Google Map directions without THINKING about them first. We had swapped maps accidentally, so I was on my way to the wedding church site. Finally I blame the Potomac River, which stubbornly insisted on lying between me and my final destination. It took an extra hour to unravel that mess, and we missed some of the Rehearsal Dinner festivities. Rats.



Saturday morning we met up with Candy's Uncle Chuckie. Once again I have no photos, but we do have some video that I will not even pretend I will ever post on this site. If you want moving pictures I suggest your local cinemateque. Chuck is quite the baby expert, with four (if I have counted correctly) grandkids of his own. He appears to have developed the trick of tickling babies necks with the tip of his nose. Rylie (pictured here in her "Owned by Daddy" outfit)in particular seemed to like this.

The wedding itself was at Saint Patrick's down in the heart of Washington DC. It was here I finally got it through my thick skull that Google Map Directions and the like are very limited, as the poor signage in DC got me once again. Once off the directions I was [please cover your child's eyes and/or ears] SCREWED. If I had taken the five minutes to study a map of where I was going I could have saved myself, but instead we spiraled our way towards where we thought we needed to go to get back on the printed directions. We never did, as this part of DC is full of one way streets, streets that don't go through, and highways that won't let you off or on where you want. We also ran into a full-fledged street fair, which I felt just wasn't fair (second meaning, same spelling) at all. We did eventually arrive, only 15 minutes late, and then miraculously found on-street parking practically out front, which was clearly God's way of saying, "Oh, I really overdid it with the street festival closing off five city blocks, didn't I? My bad."



We missed the bridal processional, but otherwise saw the entire ceremony, which was the full Catholic wedding-fest, complete with liturgy, communion, and the whole shebang. Amazingly the girls slept through almost the entire thing. They stirred once, and I can only imagine what they were thinking, waking up inside a Gothic cathedral-style church, complete with stain glass windows and the rhythmic echoing chants of priest and congregation. We then went from the Church to the Reception (this time NOT getting lost), where the girls were a big hit. They seemed to be on there best behavior, snoozing through most of the dinner, pictured here where I parked them in front of a window at the CCC.



The wedding itself was a typical family affair, with a lot of drinking and dancing. It is not a party unless someone staggers into my room looking for a bathroom. The next day we nursed hangovers at a family brunch. We had competition for cutest baby from cousin Caroline (pictured with mommy Rachel), but I think once again the crown went to us, as it is difficult to stand up to the twin barrels of the K-Mac and RJ Outlaw show. Caroline did have us beat in the talent competion, where she managed to carry both a cinamon roll and a small bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream throughout the house, picking herself up when she fell by her head alone, as she refused to put down any of the treasures she had in hand.

It was great seeing everyone, but all good things must come to an end... and for us that end was the flight home. The flight was packed to the gills, but they had to move us from our booked seats because of the oxygen mask issue I mentioned above. They put us in the aisle and center seat, in the front row. This is nice because it has a little more leg room and bothers fewer people, but sucks because you have no place to store anything and with two babies you have lots of stuff you want easy access to. But that was only half the problem. AFTER they loaded everyone on the plane, they decided that there was still only one extra mask for the three central seats (the plane was a 767 with a 2-3-2 seat formation). This led to an immediate shuffle which left Candy in the middle seat and me diagnally behind her on the aisle. At this point seven people has been moved around and none of them were happy. Two of those highly grumpy people were Kayla and Rylie.

With their parents split, limited access to things to sooth them, a long ground delay, a milk supply issue (we had only 4 bottles for what was nearly a 10 hour stretch, if you don't include the two smaller Medela bottles, which I do not count because Kayla would only scream if you tried to feed her with one of those), multiple unfriendly diaper incidents, and a Captain with a love for the Fasten Seat Belt Sign, things got ugly real quickly. Even when the flight crew tried to help, they hurt. For instance one "nice" stewardess liked to help us by picking up our child and then running away to the opposite end of the plane and not returning the baby to us. I am talking more than 15 minutes. Twice we had to get up and take the baby back from her. Kayla didn't seem to mind, but the mother of the baby was definitely further stressed by it.

To summarize, the babies cried most of the trip home, so we were THOSE people on the plane. The ones that make everyone else miserable. It is very, very hard when the babies get cranky like that on a plane, because 90% of the things we do to soothe them get hard or can become impossible because of take-off, landings, and turbulence. By the time we got to LA, we looked like we had been riding on the outside of the plane the whole way. The trip was great, but I think I will not run and plane travel with twins again soon if I can help it. I have been told they only get worse to travel with until about 2-3 years old and won't be tolerable until roughly 4 years. Sounds like a goal. No one else get married for three and half years, or if you do, please do it within a one hour flight of Los Angeles.

To soothe all our frazzled nerves, please enjoy a picture of my two young-uns with two of my cousin Lorna's young-uns, the irrepressible Maggie and Colleen.

Mmm, Try The Jazz!



That's right, from the company that brought you Pepsi Clear, comes Jazz, the new sound of cola. It is Diet Pepsi with Black Cherry French Vanilla flavors! No calories, no fat, all indulgence. Grab yourself a Jazz and experience a "Jazz moment"(tm) all to yourself. Also available in Strawberries & Cream and Caramel Cream. Mmm, its a Jazzerbration!

With us about to take off on another epic journey -- cross country flying with six month olds -- I felt I should get these photos up form my last trip. While clearly the Jazz cola was the highlight of the trip (look how excited Kayla is at the thought of so much artificial sweeteners AND artificial fruit flavors!), we also happened to meet up with Candy's brother and their new baby, Melky. Or Melkie. Or possibly even Melchie. Seriously, someone needs to develop a standardized spelling for Melchior nicknames.



Here is a photo of their very first get together. Rylie is clearly upset because she has yet to sample the Jazz and indulge her taste buds. Also pictured are momma, grandmomma, and Uncle Davie. (Or is it Davy? Here we go again...)



On Saturday the poor, tired moms got some well deserved pampering at a Spa. Uncle Davy met up with a friend to hit a photography convention, which left me in charge of three babies for a day. OK, grandma helped some too. Grandpa mostly played online poker, but he provided strong moral support. It went smoothly, indicating I am some sort of super-dad. You may touch me if you wish... but only on the arm.



Here is sweet Kayla well on her way to being seduced by the devil and witchcraft, because she is wearing a Harry Potter themed outfit. We want to be good parents, but the Satanic Potter Cabal (SPC) has already ensnared our souls. Oh well. Say, why do you suppose they call it Jazz, anyway? Do you suppose it is because of the fantastic improvisation of flavors inside your mouth? I bet it is.



Here is a nice close-up of Melky (I picked a spelling and am sticking with it. Please address all complaints to your local congressman and/or nickname supervisor) accompanied by random baby feet. One could guess that they were the feet of Rylie and Kayla, but without further forensic evidence we are just going to have to associate them with Jane and Joan Doe. I am having dental X-rays taken of the toes.



Here is Rylie demonstrating an astronomical fallacy. There is no center of the universe, no place out of which things "exploded", a common misconception of the big bang theory. Space ITSELF has been expanding for 13.5 billion years, everywhere. The universe has no center and it has no edge. Rap your mind around that if you can. Of course if it did have a center, it would be my children and possibly a tall, cool glass of Jazz.

Speaking of, here is the next great drink to swep the nation: Jazz^.

And some family members in the background... near another can of Jazz!



^ Warning: Jazz is the most god-awful stuff imaginable. If I wanted to drink stuff that sweet I would have stuck my tongue in a jar of aspartame. Oh, wait I think I did when I drank the Jazz, which maybe should be used instead of Ipecac to induce vomiting. And it is EXTREME!

Attack of the 50 Foot Baby!



We will be flying to Washington DC in about 10 days. With their amazing swelling heads, who knows how big the babies might be by then...

OK, ok... As hopefully everyone has realized by now, the previous post was entirely bogus. Look at the date, April 1st. April Fool's Day. I had planned on leaving it up and uncommented, but a vocal minority has demanded some sort of retraction. So, no the babies are completely fine and will not have to go to a special school where all the doorways have been widened to accomodate their huge heads.



Here are the original pictures, unaltered by Photoshop. To give the impression that this could actually be happening, I only altered this first photo of Rylie a very small amount, increasing the head size by about 15%. Considering the perspective of the photo it is very hard to tell that anything is wrong... unless you stare at it. As a side note, the onesie Rylie is wearing is a pro-Pluto-Planet outfit, showing a spaceship going from Earth to Pluto and on the back it says that Pluto is definitively a planet. Of course, to cover my bases, I made a second outfit that says the exact opposite.



My next photo was this St. Patrick's Day photo, where I increased Kayla's head size by about 25%. The photo is farther back, so again you might not intially think anything was wrong. Also note that I made no alteration to Rylie whatsoever. She was so far back in the photo I didn't bother. However, if you had carefully compared this photo --




-- To this photo of Rylie, it would have been clear I was up to shennanagins. This time I increased the head size by 40%, a size increase so ludicrous that I figured the typical reader who might have been sucked in by the serious tone in my prose, should have immediately clued in that something was not kosher.



This next photo is equally ridiculous, but I did do some tricky Photoshop manuevers to keep the dog's head the same size creating a more baffling piece of "evidence". I actually created a dog head layer and then slid in the head from the next picture below, between the dog head and the orginal photo.





There are several other inside jokes in the piece, the number one being the name of the mysterious swollen head disease (which is "not as rare as you would think"): Cranial Panis Mica. Panis Mica is latin for Bread Crumbs, hence the use of yeast as the disease. I would have used the latin for Muffin Crumbs if such a translation had really been possible, which refers to what I thought was in my head as a small child. It endlessly amused my father to ask me what was in my head in front of guests. Semolina is not brain matter, but a food stuff. It is a type of wheat.

Tasmania and Uzbekistan are just silly place names (nowhere near each other), but India refers to poor Milly, who had the misfortune to be in a photo on my computer than had a baby in the right position to give the Anubis head to. Milly had recently returned from a big trip there. Why I wanted to give an Anubis head to a baby, I do not know. I guess it just sounded funny.



For anyone who was even remotely fooled by the previous post, let this be a lesson to not believe everything one reads on the internet. Photos are easily doctored and emotions easily manipulated. Especially in blogs, which are notoriously silly. Extra especially near April's Fools.

Does This Look Right to You?

I have hesitated to write about this, because it was so weird and I wasn’t sure it was really happening. Well, maybe I just wanted to believe it wasn’t happening. When it comes to one’s own children, you want to believe they are perfect with no flaws or deformities.



It all started about 4 weeks ago. Initially it was really subtle: they just looked a little off. I mean, babies are supposed to have heads that are slightly large for their bodies, right? But look at this picture of Rylie from that early time period. Looking back it is hard to believe I didn’t immediately realize that something was wrong. But I really had no idea and neither did anybody else. Clearly this sort of condition strikes at a common human blind spot.



By St. Patrick’s Day it was obvious that something was going on. Where earlier they had been showing all sorts of developmental progress, like turning over and holding their heads up, now it seemed that in many ways they had returned to newborns, unable to do anything with their strangely enlarged heads. I think it finally hit me that something was really wrong when none of their clothing would fit over their heads anymore. They could only wear clothes that buttoned up the front or were eight sizes two big for them.



After a particularly ugly night of denial followed by tearful recriminations, we finally came to the realization that we had to take them to see a doctor. Of course the physician knew exactly what was going on the moment she laid eyes on the roly-poly twosome: Cranial Panis Mica.

Apparently the girls were eposed to some extremely rare variety of yeast that interacts with the semolina of the brain causing swelling and significant asymmetric gigantism. While rare it is not rare as you would think. It can look quite grotesque on five month year old baby, but the body will eventually catch up, or at least most of the way. The doctor suggested the body may even try to overcompensate for the large discrepancy by accelerating the body past where it would have been. I.e., they may end up taller than they naturally would have been. So apparently I should break out the basketball shoes.



The key thing is this is rarely a life threatening illness, although it obviously could lead to significant self-image issues as they interact with other children their age. Until they go through puberty they will continue to have these oversized skulls. We may want to consider a special school to replace the elementary level, where the doorways have all been enlarged to accommodate their immense noggins.

The doctor asked us if we had been traveling, as the yeast that causes this condition is almost completely non-existent in the United States. Significant outbreaks have been seen in Tasmania, Uzbekistan, and large regions of India. I have been racking my brain, trying to figure out how they could have been exposed to a weird Indian yeast spore. No luck yet, but if anybody has any ideas, I’d like to hear them. This rare pathogen is also sometimes known as the Anubis strain.

I have no idea why.