Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Time Marches On

Tomorrow my twin boys will be 6 months old.  Ugh.  Honestly, the last six months of my life have been a roller coaster.  Very little of which I remember.  It's all a blurry mess.  But the fog seems to be lifting.  They aren't sleeping through the night yet.  They roll over on their back and chat with their mobiles for thirty or forty five minutes before they get really pissed and scream at the top of their lungs until we flip them over and give them a pacifier.  That's right, we are the proud parents of pancakes.

We have twin boys, but when you get to know them they couldn't be more different.  It's certainly not what I expected when we found out we were having twins.  Not only are they not identical, their personalities are FAR from identical.

Shrek is the jolly old fat happy kid of the two.  For the most part, if he has been fed, is dry and has something to gnaw on, he's a happy camper.  He laughs at everything, especially his dad.  Not just little smiles but deep wrenching belly laughs.  He was 18lbs a couple of weeks ago when we went to the doctor.  He's definitely the larger of the two.  All those things are what he is, here's what he isn't.  He's not what I would call "a thinker".  He flirts with Cinderella's dolls and looks confused when they don't talk to him.  He shrieks at scantily clad women on the television.  And he drools.  Goodness he drools.  He's that kid that has to wear a bib at all times.  At least it isn't a helmet, right?

Donkey on the other hand is the stoic quiet type.  While he will occasionally smile at you, for the most part he just looks at you.  I never thought a six month would be able to make me feel like such an idiot, but he has managed.  While I'm acting like a fool trying to entertain his special brother, he's just starring at me with an air of disappointment.  He's like Stewie on Family Guy.  If he could talk, I'm sure it would be condescending.  Donkey seems to be about two or three weeks behind his brother developmentally.  He's not rolling from his back to his belly yet, which is his brothers latest trick.  He does, however, eat from a spoon much better than his brother.  He LOVES sweet potatoes and about any other orange vegetable.  Green beans on the other hand are completely unacceptable.  He's up to 16lbs now and if he keeps eating like he has been, he's going to catch his brother in no time.

Cinderella turned 4 a few weeks ago.  She clearly loves her brothers to death and will not leave the house in the morning without giving them hugs and kisses.  The boys on the other hand look at their mother and I like "she scares the hell out of me".  It amazes me the way her mind works.  She seems like such a big girl these days.  On the other hand, we have had some attitude problems that we have been attempting to put an end to.  I've always heard about the dreaded teenage years, but it seems like she may have started a little early.

Last weekend we had a house full of teenage girls, Jayna's niece and her friends came to Tulsa to shop for prom dresses.  As a result, I was awarded the dubious honor of staying at home with the twins.  Alone.  Not the first time I had taken care of the boys by myself, but this time I decided I needed to run some errands.  Jayna does this all the time and I respect her immensely for her lack of fear.  I on the other hand am not as accustomed to the trials and tribulations of taking twins to any retail establishments.  I planned my trip carefully.  I had all my stops mapped out and the order in which they were going to occur.  My first stop, The Home Depot.  I pull into the parking lot and the trial begins.  Get the stroller, put the car seats in, strap on the diaper bag, make sure they are warm then we head in to the building.  So there I am, strolling through a hardware store with two babies, a land train of a stroller and my extremely stylish paisley covered Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag swinging nonchalantly from the stroller.  I had to buy a hammer just to man up the trip a little bit.

We made a couple more stops after the hardware store and we all survived.  I feel like I'm getting better at this father of twins stuff.  Maybe it's more growing accustom to it than getting better at it.  I guess time will tell as it seems to keep marching on whether I like it or not.

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