A Dad’s Perspective

So recently I began following this guy on Twitter who not only has his hands full with a toddler going through his terrible twos, but he and his wife also gave birth to boy/girl twins in January of this year.  (Yeah, I know, sucks to be him, right?)  Because the infant stage of my own little twinkies’ upbringing is pretty much a blur of a memory, I have been finding his sleep-deprived humor more than just a little funny.  His Twitter name is @havingtwinsnow and you can follow his hilarious blog by clicking on this picture:

I asked @havingtwinsnow if he would write a guest post for my blog, so he could shed some light on the insanity that’s an inevitable part of being thrown into the world of twin parenting.  I thought it would be a cool switch to see a male’s perspective on trying like hell to juggle everything.  And good God almighty, did he ever deliver.  Here’s what his brilliantly crazy brain came up with:

HOW TO SHUT ‘EM UP

Pretty much the first thing you notice as a new parent of multiples is that you are now the center of attention wherever you are in public.  And if you weren’t aware of your awesome powers, wipe the sleep out of your eyes, the puke from your shoulder and the dried puke from your cheeks that was put there from the wet puke on your shoulder which you’ve learned to ignore unless you can feel it actually ooze down your arm. With great medical, food and diaper bills comes great fucking responsibility!

How? You ask. I have no clue. But here is at least one situation that while completely ridiculous, will state the ignorance of some upright humans while allowing for a few laughs from everyone else.

When you are out at a family function or birthday party, you can pretty much say anything and those family members/friends will believe everyfuckingthing you say. Just this past weekend I was sitting next to my wife, feeding a twin alongside her, or “tweeding” if you’re a kitchy prick. We were operating in our normal manner, communicating with grunts, clicks and whistles, and spastic head movements, when a mother of one since grown and moved out son (who has now apparently moved back in) asked us flatly:

“How do you do it?”

I glanced at my wife and gave her the sign that I would take this one, which is a handless gesture for oral sex involving my tongue striking the side of my cheek which to a fellow immature friend would possibly look like a penis! In my mouth!

So I answered as flatly as I could.

“Three things actually:

1.) A schedule that we dare not impinge upon or suffer its wrath upon our very souls.

2.) Coffee, which is the nectar of the gods and we are actually researching to discern if it is, in fact, Jesus’s semen.

And 3.) Anal sex. Lots and lots of ass fucking. It is really quite remarkable the amount of butt humping I’ve managed to squeeze in in just a few weeks.”

I then playfully tilted my head to the right, removed the bottle from my kid’s gullet and proceeded to burp her over my shoulder gently.

Blank stares from all around the room greeted my rapidly blinking eyes.

It appears that using the term “anal sex” is a show stopper. The entire room stopped what it was doing and looked my way. So rather than curl up into a ball, I got technical.

“See, the amount of strain on Julie’s vagina and uterus was so severe during her twin pregnancy that anal intercourse was really the only way to experience any semblance of sexual pleasure. To go even longer without coitus would probably generate so much marital strain that we would grow to hate each other, and right now, and particularly at 3:16 am every morning, we’re all we have. We need each other. And if that means I put it straight up her pooper, by golly, that’s what I’ll do.”

Still more silence.

As I went to open my mouth for more bullshit, my lovely wife elbowed me in the kidney. Monologue over.

The conversation around us gradually kicked back up, but it was odd, we were never made to feel as if we were disgusting or smelled of the shit of the bull that I was allowing to spew from my mouth. No, these people BOUGHT IT! I wasn’t being disgusting to them, no; they perceived what I was saying as me allowing a brief, truthful snapshot, although pornographic, into our interesting lives!

The pity you receive as a seemingly exhausted parent of multiples allows you to say the most disgusting things without the fear of reprisal, judgment or backlash!  You should really try it!

My Rockin’ Saturday Night

     

     My weekend entertainment was nothing short of a snooze fest. Since the hubby flew out for yet another business trip on Saturday morning, I was once again left to manage the troops all by my lonesome.  Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my kids, but I think we’ve all had just a little too much together time lately.  I am so badly craving an adults-only night out for a change.  Instead, I spent my Saturday night with a bloody nose and a pile of dog puke.

     Once I finally got the kids to bed, I thought I’d try to plop my seriously worn-out junk in the trunk on the couch for a while.  After the marathon of a day that I’d had taxiing everybody’s ass all over the flippin’ town, it didn’t seem like such an unreasonable desire to want to chillax with some boob tube and my trusty ol’ glass of KJ (that’d be Kendall Jackson for all you rookies). But, as the past three weeks have more than proven to me, there is no such thing as chilling, much less relaxing, for this little mama. And wouldn’t you know that no sooner than my left cheek barely even grazed the cushions, than I was up catering to someone else’s needs other than my own.  

     With the kids, it was business as usual with them playing their little games to delay going to sleep in any way humanly possible.  Do you have any idea how pissed off that makes an incredibly sleep-deprived woman to watch another human being try their very damnedest to NOT go to sleep??!! I would’ve traded my big toe, my left arm, a kidney or two and any other body part to have the chance to catch some zzz’s. Alternatively, though, I got to run up and down the stairs threatening to take away bikes, food and shelter if two little people didn’t shut their freaking yappers.

     When I finally established peace on the second floor and started to let out a sigh of relief, I was then greeted by yet another whiny household member.  The damn dog wanted out of his crate and was ready to raise all kinds of hell. Since the pooch needs to go out to do his duty no less than 25,000 times a day, I leashed him up and headed out to the backyard with my flashlight (I learned my lesson about scooping poop in the dark).  As I stood there freezing my ass off in the cold autumn air, I noticed that he kept smacking his chops as if he was eating something, and when I shined the light in his mouth, I found that he was chomping on gummy bears of all the odd things.  Upon further investigation, I discovered that some little neighborhood shit had completely scattered our entire backyard with a whole jackass bag of gummy bears. Seriously, what the hell?!  Is this a new thing?  I guess I didn’t get that memo, and I completely failed to see the humor in it.    

     After I brought the dog back inside, I irrationally thought I could get him to sit on the couch with me and a variety of his chew toys. Surely, I could finally hook up with my long-awaited KJ.  However, the pooch apparently decided that his chew toys weren’t quite chewable enough for him and decided to move onto bigger (ahem) and better things.  The little maniac bit my boob, as well as the tip of my nose. Did I mention that his teeth are like tiny little razors?  Razors and skin do not make a good match, so I then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get the end of my nose to stop bleeding.  Eventually, it clotted, and I was all set to watch Wanda Sykes’ new HBO special.  I got about thirty minutes into it when I noticed the dog gagging next to me on the couch.  I immediately went into save- the-couch mode and shoved him onto the floor where he barfed up a big pile of nastiness on the rug.  And as if that wasn’t enough icing on the cake, he then reminded me of one of the nastier little dog quirks that I had somehow blocked from my memory.  Dogs eat their puke.  Yes, they most certainly do.      

     So, to recap my rockin’ Saturday night, I ran laps up and down my stairs, cleaned up gummy bears from my backyard, and watched my dog bite my boob, bloody my nose, and eat his own barf.  I know you’re all jealous.  I am a lucky, lucky girl with such an exciting life.  I can’t believe all my glamorous escapades aren’t chronicled daily in Star magazine right alongside such party animals as Dina and Lindsay Lohan.  All this excitement is almost too much for one person to handle.

Meth Lab Mama

     I don’t get sick very often, but with the insane lack of sleep that’s been beating me down now for three straight weeks, combined with the fact that my husband’s been traveling for those very same three straight weeks, it’s no surprise that I’d end up feeling like death warmed over.  All I wanted to do yesterday was to crawl in my big, comfy bed and snooze this virus right away.  That was most certainly not in the cards for me, though, since I am the only “responsible” adult available around here.  Luckily, my daughter had a playdate after school, so I was only left with one kid and one devil dog to try to control.  I was barely functioning, though, and in desperate need of some kind of temporary relief from my symptoms. Since our selection of cold medicine in the cabinet was running low, I dragged my little man with me to the grocery store to stock up for the night.  

     As I stood there in the medicine aisle staring at the vast array of choices, my pounding head couldn’t be bothered to make any rational kind of decisions.  I mean, really, what difference did it make if I took drowsy or non-drowsy at that point?  I was already a walking zombie anyway, so, rather than hem and haw over it, I just grabbed four different kinds and headed to the register.  The cashier couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old and was WAY too peppy for my last bit of patience.  I’m quite certain I didn’t look like I was in the mood for chit chatting, but Young Clueless was yapping a mile a minute about their special deal of the week. When he finally got around to doing the job he was paid to do, he stopped in his tracks to call out for assistance.  

     Turns out that you have to be eighteen years old to even scan cold medicine!  When I asked why, he told me it was because of the growing problem of using the ingredients in cold medicines to make crystal meth. My brain was too fried at the time to really process this, but what the hell difference does it make if he’s eighteen or not?  Is it because he isn’t mature enough to red flag a customer who’s buying a shit ton of cold meds?  Or is it because they’re afraid he’s going to steal the cold meds to set up his own meth lab?  I don’t get it!  After I paid for my purchases, he told me that he was really surprised that I was allowed to buy four different kinds because they usually limit it to three.  ”You don’t really look like you’re gonna set up a lab, though,” he said with a chuckle.  Hmmm, what tipped you off there, young blood?  Was it the six year old child attached to my arm or was it the bag of marshmallows that said child talked me into purchasing?  Actually, as awful as I’m sure I looked with the bags under my puffy eyes, a nose that looked like Rudolph’s, and my ratted out ponytail, I suppose I could’ve very easily passed as a meth addict. However, I think my suburban naivete was shining right through my rough-around-the-edges exterior.  I told the kid that not only would I have no concept of how to even begin to make crystal meth, I don’t have the freakin’ time to set up my Halloween decorations, let alone a meth lab!

     So, I took my bag of feel goods home and spent the night alternating between blowing my nose right off my face and popping NyQuil.  I feel hungover and woozy today, but the show must go on. Moms just don’t have time to be sick.  But, if I get a wild hair up my ass, I suppose I could now turn my kitchen into a drug den with all the new additions to my medicine cabinet.

Survival of the Single Mama

     

     I gotta tip my hat and bow down to all the single mamas/papas out there.  That, my friends, is no easy task and should be rewarded with high-fives, knuckle-bumps, and all-expenses paid vacations.  I honestly don’t know how on earth you do it without absolutely cracking the eff up.  I have only done it for short bursts of time and inevitably feel like I need a straight jacket to contain my temptation to go absolutely medieval on everyone around me.

     Since my husband had to travel for business the past couple of nights, the shit naturally decided it was time to hit the fan.  First off, my son had the amazing wherewithall to come down with a blazing ear infection.  The poor kid was literally up all night on Monday night with ear pain, so the whole week got off to a big whopping sleep-deprived bang. Then, the dog decided to take four steps back, even though we’d taken three steps forward, and wake up crying multiple times in the night.  (Have I ever told you how much I LOVE being woken up in the night to search for dog shit with a flashlight?!) Then, to top it all off, my daughter must’ve felt left out, because she, too, felt the need to contract an ear infection to keep up with her brother.  After two trips to the doctor and two trips to the pharmacy, we are more than good to go up in here, thank you very much.  

     And as a result, this mama here is at the absolute end of her limit.  My patience is non-existent and my attention span parallels that of a two year old.  So, it is probably pretty apparent how well multiple rounds of jack assinine questioning is going to go over with my walking time-bomb of a brain.  Kids, even if I knew how many flippin’ springs were in my running shoes, what car tires were made of, or how fast my bike could go down a hill, I’m not sure I’d even have the energy to tell you.  In addition, I honestly must’ve heard my son mutter the word “Mommy” no less than four hundred times last night.  I was seriously contemplating changing my name to Queenie or even Bob just for a change of freaking pace.  As much as I tried, I was completely unable to go to my happy place.  I seemed to be stuck indefinitely in Crazy Town.  I promised myself as I was going to sleep last night that I was going to wake up in a better mood and have a good day even if it killed me.

     However, the dog taking a big sunrise dump on the rug certainly didn’t get things moving in exactly the direction I had planned.  Then, as we were finally walking out the door to head to school, my daughter frantically announced that she had another Math worksheet to do for homework.  This just so happened to be the same worksheet that I had asked both kids about multiple times last night, and no one claimed it to be theirs.  Since my daughter insisted on doing it, we worked on about half of it and then raced off to school.  When I went in to tell her teacher that we didn’t have time to finish it, the teacher looked at me like I had three eyes.  Turns out that they didn’t even have homework at all, and that my daughter had actually done my son’s homework.  Well, that is just craptabulous.  I’ll just add that to the list of other mommy fails that I’ve been accumulating lately.

     If the hubs doesn’t get his tush back home soon, I’m gonna be so delirious that I might just be feeding dog food to the kids and Pop Tarts to the dog.  I am in survival mode here, people, just flying by the seat of my pants.  I couldn’t have a meaningful conversation with anyone right now even if I tried.  My brain may be on vacation, but it’s my body that needs the get-away even more.

Puppy Love

     

     My world just got a whole lot nucking futtier, since yesterday was the day that we finally brought home our highly anticipated new puppy, Wrigley.  It was like a dream come true for my daughter, and my son, who, as you may recall, is not the craziest about dogs in the first place, even got into the excitement. Yep, I am once again a baby mama, and I’ve got the sleep-deprived bags under my eyes to prove it.

     Much to my kids’ disappointment, the breeder’s house was located about three and a half hours away from our house, forcing my husband and I to listen to five minute intervals of “Are we there yet?” throughout the entire duration of the car trip.  When we finally pulled up to her house, my daughter shrieked so loud with elation that she about burst our eardrums. She’d been staring at pictures of the puppies online for weeks, and she just couldn’t wait any longer to get her little hands on them.  We were first introduced to our puppy’s aunt, Mrs. McGillicutty, and his dad, Nike.  They were full-grown Airedales, which made my son a little anxious at first.  He kind of hid behind my back and watched from afar.  My daughter, on the other hand, who could very easily give the Crocodile Hunter’s daughter a run for her money as to who loves animals more, was, of course, all over the dogs.  And when the breeder finally introduced us to our little guy, she was truly on cloud nine.  I’ve never seen a bigger grin on her face as I did when I handed her the puppy for whom she’d been praying so long.  My son took a little while to warm up to him, but, eventually, he even sat in the floor and played with the puppy, as well.  My husband and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as we watched our son, since we were worried that he’d end up in therapy for being forced to face his biggest fear on earth.  

     As the breeder went over all the paperwork with us, she put the dad and the aunt in their crates and let the puppy play with the kids. Halfway through our orientation, we noticed that Wrigley had laid down in front of his dad’s crate.  They each put their faces up to the crate, so that they could feel each other’s warmth.  I couldn’t help but think that maybe they were saying goodbye to each other, and I immediately felt a lump in my throat. They both lay like that, faces pressed together, for a good fifteen minutes.  It was both the sweetest and the saddest thing I’d ever seen. We were taking this little creature away from the only family he’d ever known. (Little did we know that he would make sure we were more than aware of this fact later on that night.)  

     When we set off for home, we started out with the puppy in his crate at the back of the car.  That lasted for only about fifteen minutes, since he was completely freaking out.  I couldn’t stand it anymore, so he rode the rest of the way on our laps.  As we piled out of the car in front of our house, all the neighbors came out to meet this new kid on the block.  And, naturally, all the day’s excitement wore the poor thing out.  He happily snoozed in his crate after we put the kids to bed, so my husband and I scarfed down our pizza-delivered dinner.  We fooled ourselves into thinking that maybe this whole puppy stage was gonna be a piece of cake. How sadly mistaken we were.

     My husband took the dog out one last time around midnight.  We thought surely he could last until the crack of dawn.  Ha!  He instantly started in with the whimpering and whining, which soon escalated into ear-piercing shrills.  It honestly sounded like a pig was being slaughtered in our kitchen. For the next THREE hours, we both took turns going downstairs to try to quiet him down, much to no avail. How something that small can make noises that unbelievably loud is beyond me.  My husband eventually ended up grabbing a comforter and laying on the floor in front of the crate with his fingers through the bars.  Somehow, miraculously, the dog finally drifted off to sleep for a very short two and a half hours.  I don’t know who had the darkest circles under their eyes this morning — my husband, me or the dog. It’s definitely a toss-up.   

     One thing’s for damn tootin’ though.  Something’s gotta give tonight. We’re most likely gonna move the crate into our bedroom, so that he can at least feel that we’re near him.  I realize that he’s just scared and unsure about this new environment into which he’s been thrown, not to mention the fact that he’s probably missing his family. Great, as if I don’t already have enough mother’s guilt built up from my own twins.  Now I have one more little being to cause me remorse….

Sleeping With The Enemy

     You know how satisfying it is to collapse into your comfy, cozy bed after a long, hard week of chasing around little people here and there and everywhere?  You know how much you savor each and every second you get to rest your weary bones?  Well, apparently, my bed had absolutely no interest whatsoever in providing a place of serenity for my tired tush the entire weekend.  I don’t ask for much, but I count on my bed to be there for me if only just for a few hours a day.  I mean, after all, that IS its job, right?

     Typically, I absolutely L-O-V-E my bed.  It’s one of those huge, oversized kings that sits way up high, so high, in fact, that I have to take a running jump to get in the friggin’ thing.  Because of this, I ended up getting into the habit of using the base of it as a step ladder to hoist myself up there.  I vaguely remember one day last week hearing a crack as I stepped on the baseboard but just dismissed it as a normal bed creaking sound.  However, by Friday night, it became clear that it was anything but a “normal” sound.

     My hubby was gonna be late getting home, since he was doing his fantasy football draft (you know men & their fascination with all things balls).  So, by the time I had finally tucked the kids away, eaten dinner, ran the dishwasher, and folded the laundry, all I could think about doing was drifting away to dreamland.  As I was hoisting myself into bed, I heard a REALLY loud pop.  I laid my head down on my pillow and realized that I seemed to be in somewhat of a tilted position.  I got back out of bed to investigate the situation and discovered that the entire frame of the bed had popped out on my side.  The baseboard was barely even hanging there. However, I was so exhausted that I got back into bed and decided to just sleep on an angle.  When I woke up in the middle of the night, my back was completely throbbing and I felt like I was on the Tilt-A-World at an amusement park.  My husband must’ve come home at some point during my restless slumber, so I scooched him over as much as possible and slept the remainder of the night dominating his side of the bed. Luckily, he was able to fix it the next morning, so I thought for sure that Saturday night would be my night to catch up on some zzz’s.  How naive I am….

     We were out pretty late with some friends on Saturday night for dinner, so I was hoping to maybe sleep in a little on Sunday morning. The kids had started school last week, and all the excitement from first grade had completely worn them out.  Surely, they would take the opportunity to sleep in a little on Sunday morning, right? (Ha!)  As I was lying there in my big, newly repaired bed, I thought I could hear giggling somewhere in the distance.  I opened my eyes to find my kids staring me right in the face. They jumped into bed with us and immediately began squirming.  They were kicking each other and crawling under the covers and doing anything but allowing me to catch up on those zzz’s.  When I finally got them to calm down and lie still, I was briefly able to doze back off again.  Within milli-seconds of me closing my eyes, I suddenly could feel a tiny finger pushing on my left nipple and a little voice shouting, “Ding dong!  Is anybody home?” It seemed that my son thought my boob doubled as a doorbell. Well, that was the last straw, so I ended up kicking everyone out of the bed. Clearly, it was just not going to be a place of solitude for me. Like it or not, I was up and at ‘em and ready to start yet another sleep-deprived day.

     I have to say that my bed has really let me down.  And here I thought we had this close-knit relationship and common understanding between us.  I make it every day, and it greets me with open arms every night.  What happened to that arrangement?  It better sort through its little linen-related crisis quickly cause I don’t know how I feel about sleeping with the enemy.