We did it. All of us survived the first 14 days. Sleep is a past hobby for everyone in the house, including Stark, but we're all crushing this parenting thing one day at a time. I figured I'd give you some highlights of the first few days in short little stories. Hope everyone is enjoying our journey every step of the way!
Baby Things:
With two, we obviously have a lot of shit. I find stuff that I forgot we had from our shower or just gifts that people have sent us through the entire process everyday. A lot of it the girls can't use because they are too small, but eventually they'll get to things like the 4Moms bouncaroo's that we have downstairs in the basement. Everything that is big needs to be put together. I ranted already about how much I love this process, so I won't bore you with those details. However, I want to ask a question to everyone. Why are there no directions? I don't need step by step directions since I'm not doing rocket science out here in Sterling, but something would be nice. We have 4 auto-rock and plays. You know how many direction pamphlets came with them? Zero. Yea that's right. Zero. I of course did the next logical thing after swearing to myself for a good 3-5 minutes, which was to just try to do it myself because I obviously have a lot of experience in this field. This doesn't go well at all, and I wind up heading to my new best friend. YouTube. If it wasn't for the moms and dads out there that make videos of how to put things together, my rock and plays probably would look like one of those cat mazes that have carpet on them and are 6 feet tall. These people have been my life savor.
There are things then that come together and when you get around to using them you think to yourself, this isn't suppose to work like this. Our stroller falls into this category. We have the Baby Jogger City Select Double Stoller. After research and talking to a few mom's that have had twins, we decided to go with this one. I love the stroller names. They're named like futuristic cities which I get a kick out of. Companies can't just name their strollers the Fun Walker or something easy that people can remember. By people, I mean men. Woman would ask me all the time what stroller we bought and I eventually got to a point where I was just making up different words around Baby Jogger. "Hey Rock, what stroller did you guys get?" Oh we got the Baby Mini Select Spin Dual Jogger. Sounds fucking sexy right? The best part is the woman knew that didn't exist, but they didn't know how to respond to it. It was great. Ok back to the point here. Nora and I just took the girls out in the stroller for the first time. It was the first time that Nora was out of the house in like 5 1/2 weeks doing something besides being pregnant. We decided to walk to the shopping center up the street, so we got the girls in their car seats, locked them into the stroller, and we were off. We went maybe 20 yards and the wheel swivel on both front wheels snapped out of the locked position. For those of you that are a little confused and are questioning why this is a problem, picture this. Nora is pushing the stroller, and although it be a great thing if we could just walk in a straight line to the store, we can't. Therefore we need to turn the stroller, which when the wheels come unlocked, the stroller doesn't allow us to do this. So there we are, Nora pushing the girls in the stroller, and me with Stark on the leash stopping every 30-40 yards to get on the ground and lock the wheels back into place so Nora can turn the stroller. What the fuck. This isn't suppose to be like this. I won't say how much the stroller cost, but for what we paid for it, I shouldn't have to be out of breathe 5 minutes from my house because I'm locking the wheels over and over again. If this was the case, parents never would put their kids in the dam strollers. Nora and I do what we do best, and fought through the challenge making it to the store and back. If I had to take an estimated guess on how many times I had to lock the wheels into the swivel position I'd go with somewhere between 15-20. No bueno. What to do now? That's easy. We pull up our trusty friends on YouTube and search that ass for an answer. It took me only a few minutes to see that there were people just as much on tilt as I was about the wheel lock and they had a fix. All I had to do was tighten the two screws in the wheel base as they were too lose. Of course Baby Jogger. Take my money and then force me to fix something you didn't do right in the first place. I mean the stroller only was $20..............
Zombie
We have a system here at the Parrish household when it comes to everything. I'm sure one of my posts in the future will talk about such shenanigans, but this one was a real treat. Both girls have lip and tongue ties which I mentioned in an earlier post. Londyn had the procedure done to fix hers, and Wren goes in on Wednesday to get hers fixed. Our system for feeding is a little different, because of the girls ties, along with their weights. Nora will wake up by a screaming baby, or her alarm going off because it is time to eat and at night I'm asleep 99% of the time. Since she is the greatest wife in the world, she gets up with the first one, changes her, and then starts to breast feed. She allows me to sleep for an extra 10-15 minutes before waking me up to change the other ones and then we switch. I take the baby that was already breastfed downstairs and have to syringe feed her so she is getting the proper amount of milk or formula. We do this twice and on the second switch Nora goes to pump and then she goes back to sleep. Let's back this train up a little bit and talk about the waking up process. I sleep like a rock. To get me up Nora has to basically box my arm like she's in a street fight, and when I awake from my slumber I have no idea what's going on. This was ok when I wasn't in charge of two other humans, but apparently that doesn't fly now. For the most part, I've been pretty money on the routine and being efficient with it. Then last Friday happened. Nora wakes me up, and I go pick up Wren since she is breastfeeding Londyn after standing and wondering in our bedroom for a good 45 seconds. Nora asked what I was doing, but can you really answer a question when you don't know the answer to it? The answer is no. No you can not. After I realized that I was standing up, I scooped up Wren, took her to the nursery to change her, and brought her downstairs. I put her in the boppie pillow (these things are genius), prop her up and try to feed her. Sound good right? I'm so good at this. I should get father of the year. Wren is screaming at the top of her lungs, but I think to myself, why is this baby, and before I can finish my thought I hear it from upstairs. It's Nora and she is yelling. What happened? I'm trying to deal with our screaming hungry daughter down here. I focus and can finally understand what she is yelling down the steps. It's clear as day. "You have the wrong baby." Whoops. I forgot to change, and switch, so Wren is screaming at the top of her lungs because she hasn't breastfed yet, and here I am trying to feed her through the syringe. She was pissed. If she could talk she probably would say something like her mother and I'd throw a zing out there to make myself feel better. I'm sorry babe, I didn't know what I was doing.
Is This a Joke?
Babies poop. They poop a lot. So far, I have been lucky to dodge the bullet of taking the diaper off and getting shit or pissed on, however some people in the household haven't been so lucky. Both Wren and Londyn love this trick though. You take them into the nursery and put them on the changing pad, where I have learned a little trick. I do not take their swaddle off and go right in for a diaper change. I allow them to make their funny little faces and stretch their legs out. Sometimes when they do this, it helps them drop a mean deuce in their diaper and I feel like I won. I have beat the system. Again, I'm crushing this parenting thing. Every now and then though the girls audible on me at the line of scrimmage. They come to the changing pad, survey the defense, and realize they are in a cover two and the outs are wide open under the zone coverage. They wait for me to let them stretch their legs out, have me wipe and change their diaper and just as I am putting the last velcro strap on their new and clean diaper, it happens. Shit right in the new diaper. You've literally had that diaper on for less than 5 seconds and now I have to start the process all over again. Each diaper is worth about 35 cents give or take. You just cost me 70 cents, and if both of you do it (which happens more times then when it doesn't), that's $1.40. Let's do the math on this: Say this happens 5 times in a day- .70 x 5 = $3.50 x 7 days a week = $24.50 x 4 weeks in a month = $98. They can't talk yet, but I feel after this exact scenario happens, they are sitting next to each other in their boppies laughing what they just did. Laugh it up ladies. Laugh it up.
I'll close this blog out by giving a big thanks to everyone that has helped us through the first 2 weeks. We are blown away with the support we have got through texts, calls, meals, and gifts. I'd like to thank my mom who just left after spending the first 2 weeks with us. She was up with me at every 2 am feeding helping, along with doing all the other things that Nora and I couldn't do since we were taking care of the babes. Thank you mom I love you.
Baby Things:
With two, we obviously have a lot of shit. I find stuff that I forgot we had from our shower or just gifts that people have sent us through the entire process everyday. A lot of it the girls can't use because they are too small, but eventually they'll get to things like the 4Moms bouncaroo's that we have downstairs in the basement. Everything that is big needs to be put together. I ranted already about how much I love this process, so I won't bore you with those details. However, I want to ask a question to everyone. Why are there no directions? I don't need step by step directions since I'm not doing rocket science out here in Sterling, but something would be nice. We have 4 auto-rock and plays. You know how many direction pamphlets came with them? Zero. Yea that's right. Zero. I of course did the next logical thing after swearing to myself for a good 3-5 minutes, which was to just try to do it myself because I obviously have a lot of experience in this field. This doesn't go well at all, and I wind up heading to my new best friend. YouTube. If it wasn't for the moms and dads out there that make videos of how to put things together, my rock and plays probably would look like one of those cat mazes that have carpet on them and are 6 feet tall. These people have been my life savor.
There are things then that come together and when you get around to using them you think to yourself, this isn't suppose to work like this. Our stroller falls into this category. We have the Baby Jogger City Select Double Stoller. After research and talking to a few mom's that have had twins, we decided to go with this one. I love the stroller names. They're named like futuristic cities which I get a kick out of. Companies can't just name their strollers the Fun Walker or something easy that people can remember. By people, I mean men. Woman would ask me all the time what stroller we bought and I eventually got to a point where I was just making up different words around Baby Jogger. "Hey Rock, what stroller did you guys get?" Oh we got the Baby Mini Select Spin Dual Jogger. Sounds fucking sexy right? The best part is the woman knew that didn't exist, but they didn't know how to respond to it. It was great. Ok back to the point here. Nora and I just took the girls out in the stroller for the first time. It was the first time that Nora was out of the house in like 5 1/2 weeks doing something besides being pregnant. We decided to walk to the shopping center up the street, so we got the girls in their car seats, locked them into the stroller, and we were off. We went maybe 20 yards and the wheel swivel on both front wheels snapped out of the locked position. For those of you that are a little confused and are questioning why this is a problem, picture this. Nora is pushing the stroller, and although it be a great thing if we could just walk in a straight line to the store, we can't. Therefore we need to turn the stroller, which when the wheels come unlocked, the stroller doesn't allow us to do this. So there we are, Nora pushing the girls in the stroller, and me with Stark on the leash stopping every 30-40 yards to get on the ground and lock the wheels back into place so Nora can turn the stroller. What the fuck. This isn't suppose to be like this. I won't say how much the stroller cost, but for what we paid for it, I shouldn't have to be out of breathe 5 minutes from my house because I'm locking the wheels over and over again. If this was the case, parents never would put their kids in the dam strollers. Nora and I do what we do best, and fought through the challenge making it to the store and back. If I had to take an estimated guess on how many times I had to lock the wheels into the swivel position I'd go with somewhere between 15-20. No bueno. What to do now? That's easy. We pull up our trusty friends on YouTube and search that ass for an answer. It took me only a few minutes to see that there were people just as much on tilt as I was about the wheel lock and they had a fix. All I had to do was tighten the two screws in the wheel base as they were too lose. Of course Baby Jogger. Take my money and then force me to fix something you didn't do right in the first place. I mean the stroller only was $20..............
Zombie
We have a system here at the Parrish household when it comes to everything. I'm sure one of my posts in the future will talk about such shenanigans, but this one was a real treat. Both girls have lip and tongue ties which I mentioned in an earlier post. Londyn had the procedure done to fix hers, and Wren goes in on Wednesday to get hers fixed. Our system for feeding is a little different, because of the girls ties, along with their weights. Nora will wake up by a screaming baby, or her alarm going off because it is time to eat and at night I'm asleep 99% of the time. Since she is the greatest wife in the world, she gets up with the first one, changes her, and then starts to breast feed. She allows me to sleep for an extra 10-15 minutes before waking me up to change the other ones and then we switch. I take the baby that was already breastfed downstairs and have to syringe feed her so she is getting the proper amount of milk or formula. We do this twice and on the second switch Nora goes to pump and then she goes back to sleep. Let's back this train up a little bit and talk about the waking up process. I sleep like a rock. To get me up Nora has to basically box my arm like she's in a street fight, and when I awake from my slumber I have no idea what's going on. This was ok when I wasn't in charge of two other humans, but apparently that doesn't fly now. For the most part, I've been pretty money on the routine and being efficient with it. Then last Friday happened. Nora wakes me up, and I go pick up Wren since she is breastfeeding Londyn after standing and wondering in our bedroom for a good 45 seconds. Nora asked what I was doing, but can you really answer a question when you don't know the answer to it? The answer is no. No you can not. After I realized that I was standing up, I scooped up Wren, took her to the nursery to change her, and brought her downstairs. I put her in the boppie pillow (these things are genius), prop her up and try to feed her. Sound good right? I'm so good at this. I should get father of the year. Wren is screaming at the top of her lungs, but I think to myself, why is this baby, and before I can finish my thought I hear it from upstairs. It's Nora and she is yelling. What happened? I'm trying to deal with our screaming hungry daughter down here. I focus and can finally understand what she is yelling down the steps. It's clear as day. "You have the wrong baby." Whoops. I forgot to change, and switch, so Wren is screaming at the top of her lungs because she hasn't breastfed yet, and here I am trying to feed her through the syringe. She was pissed. If she could talk she probably would say something like her mother and I'd throw a zing out there to make myself feel better. I'm sorry babe, I didn't know what I was doing.
Is This a Joke?
Babies poop. They poop a lot. So far, I have been lucky to dodge the bullet of taking the diaper off and getting shit or pissed on, however some people in the household haven't been so lucky. Both Wren and Londyn love this trick though. You take them into the nursery and put them on the changing pad, where I have learned a little trick. I do not take their swaddle off and go right in for a diaper change. I allow them to make their funny little faces and stretch their legs out. Sometimes when they do this, it helps them drop a mean deuce in their diaper and I feel like I won. I have beat the system. Again, I'm crushing this parenting thing. Every now and then though the girls audible on me at the line of scrimmage. They come to the changing pad, survey the defense, and realize they are in a cover two and the outs are wide open under the zone coverage. They wait for me to let them stretch their legs out, have me wipe and change their diaper and just as I am putting the last velcro strap on their new and clean diaper, it happens. Shit right in the new diaper. You've literally had that diaper on for less than 5 seconds and now I have to start the process all over again. Each diaper is worth about 35 cents give or take. You just cost me 70 cents, and if both of you do it (which happens more times then when it doesn't), that's $1.40. Let's do the math on this: Say this happens 5 times in a day- .70 x 5 = $3.50 x 7 days a week = $24.50 x 4 weeks in a month = $98. They can't talk yet, but I feel after this exact scenario happens, they are sitting next to each other in their boppies laughing what they just did. Laugh it up ladies. Laugh it up.
I'll close this blog out by giving a big thanks to everyone that has helped us through the first 2 weeks. We are blown away with the support we have got through texts, calls, meals, and gifts. I'd like to thank my mom who just left after spending the first 2 weeks with us. She was up with me at every 2 am feeding helping, along with doing all the other things that Nora and I couldn't do since we were taking care of the babes. Thank you mom I love you.