Venturing out

The kids and I had a big day Monday. With momma at work I had the twins by myself again, and decided it would be fun to venture out into the world for the first time alone! First things first, where to go? Let's see...the Children's museum? Probably a bit too ambitious for our first outing, sans mom. The Zoo? Probably not as special for 2 month old infants as I have built up in my mind. How about the Target store less than a mile from my house...perfect! I needed to get some new socks and boxer briefs anyways since my current garments have been in the rotation for a solid 4 years now. It was your classic two birds one stone scenario.

Preparing to go anywhere with infant twins is logistically on par with a small military campaign. Hauling two kids, their car seats, the Kolcraft stroller, all of the baby gear, and rations; one could easily be mistaken for setting up an Army bivouac. Just getting out of the house requires Navy SEAL-like maneuvering. At approx. 1500 hours, I led my platoon to the operational canteen for chow; at 1530 we exercised tactical burping; at 1545 we initiated evacuation procedures, locking all infants down in car seats and securing transportation in the GMC Envoy, once the supply line loaded all provisions into our vehicle; our squadron left alpha base at approx. 1600 hours to rendezvous point, code name- Target. Hooah!

I pulled into the Target parking lot and found a spot near the front. Stepping around to the back of our SUV, I extracted the mighty Kolcraft Stroller. This stroller is amazing. It's the Cadillac of twin strollers, and I don't mean one of those new hybrid Cadillacs, I'm talking old school Caddy. The kind that got 3mpg. The kind that planes could land and take off from, aircraft carrier style. Our Stroller is seriously only a hood ornament and some tail fins away from being one of Elvis' personal cars.

I unfolded the stroller and locked the wheels in place. I carefully extracted Z from the car, being cautious not to wake her. After locking her seat in place, I retrieved E and performed the exercise again. Stepping behind the controls of the stroller I felt somewhat like a Gladiator riding a chariot, this was probably more of a Walter Mitty type overreaction to having the high point of my day being pushing my children around Target in a stroller...but whatever.

I began to cruise through the parking lot, the stroller responding fluidly to my every movement. As I neared the entrance, I saw a few Target employees that were on a break. One of them, a middle aged lady, remarked aloud towards me, "There's something you don't see everyday!" I realized she thought it unusual that a man would be taking his infant twins out to Target for an afternoon activity. It was as if I was breaking some unspoken social norm, as though I was doing something that only a mother does. Smiling back to her I quipped, "maybe there's a reason!" Panic stirred as I thought to myself...maybe there IS a reason you don't see this everyday.

My panic quickly faded as I crossed the threshold of the consumer Mecca, known as Target. The entire store filled with two distinct groups of people; working moms making a quick stop on their way home after work, and housewives hauling their children around on as they checked off items on their to do list. I was the only person there with enough testosterone to grow facial hair, (excluding the elderly lady with the spotty beard, whom I assume was on some sort of hormone replacement therapy.) There were fewer men at Target that afternoon than at a Gloria Steinem lecture.

I made my way to the back of the store, to grab some socks from the men's section. It seemed as though every Y-chromosome-less, eye was inexplicably drawn towards me as I pushed the twins to and fro. The reaction of these women were all the same; they would tilt their heads to the side, bend down slightly as if to get a better view of the kids, raise their eyebrows, and silently mouth Awwwwwww! I had somehow attained a celebrity like status at Target. These women seemed to believe that I somehow understood what they go through as mothers. "This man gets it. He gets what my lazy-good-for-nothing husband could never comprehend! God bless him." They swarmed around the stroller like paparazzi chasing down a photo-op of a celebrity couple and their newly adopted Cambodian baby.

Women began to approach us, a mob of goodwill and cheer. It was like being accepted into some exclusive club for mom's only, full of play dates, power walking, and Target shopping. The only thing that could possibly be similar is, if I were to land on an uncharted island after a plane crash, and the natives mistook me for some sort of magical being. I half way expected these women to begin fanning me with palm fronds.

"Well look at you!"
"Aren't you brave!"
"Isn't that just precious!"
These were the type of comments we were getting, followed by offers of help.
"Can I get you something to drink? You sure have your hands full!"
"Do you need me to push a cart for you? I can follow you around and do my shopping tomorrow, you sure have your hands full!"
"Do you need help to your car? Can I pay for your items? You sure have your hands full!"
What a great experience, Jami must love taking the kids out with her!

I bashfully shrugged the comments off and grabbed my socks and boxer briefs. I checked out to a slew of more appreciative looks, oohs and ahhs. As I packed the Envoy back up, I'm sure I was glowing. Those women who don't know me and have never really seen me interact with my kids are right, I am a great and brave father.

I got home, unloaded the car, and realized that time had really gotten away from me. Jami would be home soon, I surveyed the house and realized that perhaps the Target crowd had an unrealistic portrait of me. The diapers strewn about, the laundry backed up, the dishes in need of washing, all betrayed the Super Dad image my Target groupies might have had of me.

While my first trip out was successful, I think more than anything it reaffirmed to me how amazing a wife and mother Jami is. I compare small excursions with the kids to scaled down Military invasions. Jami just does them because, like the hundreds of other things on her to do list, they just need to be done. She takes care of the kids, without complaint and just the other day my beautiful, smart, funny, and vegetarian wife...also made me a delicious meatloaf. So to all the incomparable stay-at-home moms and working moms, I salute you; and if you should ever see me with the twins at Target, tell me to hurry up and checkout, because the house ain't gonna clean itself.

www.cecilfam.blogspot.com

Standards & playdates

I've never had what you might call strict standards when it comes to things like cleanliness. My apartment in college was likely what the State government would refer to as "unfit for human occupancy". There was an odor to that place, not necessarily a bad odor mind you, but a very distinct, stale, boys live here odor. Many people hold to the adage "cleanliness is next to godliness", my roommates and I preferred the adage "out of sight, out of mind". If our apartment looked clean in the right areas, then that was good enough.

When I got married I came to understand the error of my bachelor ways. My wife calmly explained to me the value of keeping a clean living space, maintaining a scheduled laundry routine and instituting proper personal hygiene goals. If these new standards were not exercised correctly by me, my relationship with my spouse became decidedly less intimate and our lines of communication were also strained. I quickly learned that I needed to pitch in with laundry duty if I wanted to have a pleasant home life.

Now with E & Z in the picture, I feel as if both Jami and I's standards have loosened up a bit. Not to the depravity of my college years, but our idea of what's acceptable is a bit more relaxed. Case in point, as it turns out, neither of us "needs" to shower everyday. If we can work it out, well that's great. However, the reality is this: if you are stuck at the house all day with the kids and have no plans to visit any of the community's institutions...what's the point of taking a shower? As a matter of fact, what's the point of even changing out of your pajamas?

When either of us come home from work to find the other in the exact same outfit as the night before, or in the same location as when we left for work, we are neither shocked or disappointed. This phenomenon has become commonplace - I call it the time warp factor. When caring for infant twins at home all day, time loses all of its power and meaning. As such, the caregiver in charge cannot become dirty, necessitating a shower or change of clothes. In other words, I do not build up a filmy layer of grime on my skin or clothing by constantly changing diapers and feeding babies whilst watching TV and doing laundry, so what's the point in making any changes in my attire or hygienic status...leave well enough alone.

There are some conditions to this theory that require action. For instance, when changing a diaper and your offspring urinate on your sweatpants, you are obligated to change the aforementioned sweatpants, however you are not required to jump in the shower. Likewise, if you find that the kids are napping well and you would like to feel refreshed and awakened you are allotted 5 minutes in which you may take a quick shower, however there is no need to change into so-called "clean clothes"; because let's face it, that just creates more laundry to do and you're not going to be getting out of the house anyway. Conversely, if you manage your time well and muster up the fortitude to exercise hard enough to work up a good sweat, you need to take a shower and change your clothes. However, I've found this situation to be more rare than a pack of forest elves riding unicorns, hunting centaurs.

Recently my wife has been finding an excuse to break away from this new normal, leaving me as the sole parent to not shower or change out of my PJ's while in the line of duty. She calls her excuses "play dates".

As I understand it, Jami will clean up to visit a friend that is similarly confined to their home and held down by the constraints of providing children with appropriate care. These play dates seem to follow a loosely held schedule, whereby the host home rotates depending on whose children are more suited for travel on that particular day. These play dates seem to really invigorate Jami, and make her day less monotonous. I also have reason to believe that these play dates involve a carefully orchestrated plot for the matriarchs involved to somehow co-op the care of the children, thereby reducing the stress associated with being a parent.

I cry foul! These play dates are an unfair advantage. I'm unable to participate in these play dates. So when Jami comes home on Mondays to find me in the exact same condition as when she left 12 hours earlier, it gives the impression that I have some weird form of male postpartum depression. Here's why I am unable to take advantage of the play date scenarios.

1. All of my friends work during the week. I'm the oddball with Mondays off.

2. All of my play date possibilities would be with my wife's friends, which would be weird. "Hey Jenni wanna hang out and watch our kids together this afternoon?" Of course this doesn't work. Because to hang out with my wife's friends in the absence of my wife is too strange and not allowable.

Though I've never actually witnessed a play date first hand, I feel like I know how they work. The kids play or nap, and the moms help each other with bottles and diapers while talking about their feelings as they encourage one another for being great mothers. I don't like talking about my feelings, and outside of a high five I would feel awkward giving one of my wife's friends encouragement. Having said that, if any of you moms out there would like to hang out and talk about the last UFC pay-per-view or the relative artistic merit of 90's rock music, give me a call and we can set something up for next Monday.

Unfortunately, I don't know if daddy play dates will work. I think letting your buddies see you being a father requires an uncomfortable level of vulnerability. Guys feel silly when they use their baby voice in front of other guys. "Does wittle baby have a poopy diapy?" we exclaim in a cartoonishly falsetto sing-song voice. As guys, we are legally required to make fun of our friends if they talk in such a manner. Let's be honest, our daddy play dates would probably devolve into the dad's playing video games while the kids are put down for a nap whether they need it or not.

Soon winter will break, and the weather will be more hospitable for going out. My kids will be a little less all consuming with the constant bottle feeding. I will be able to pack them up more easily and enjoy getting out of the house. Until then, you can find me in my black sweats and old t-shirt, sitting in the rocking chair, with a baby on my lap and a Dr. Brown's bottle in one hand and the remote in the other. For the next 12 hours I will feed my beautiful children, change their diapers, and with the help of DVR and Hulu.com, get caught up on my shows.

And The Award Goes To...

I just returned home from the Father of the Year awards in Oslo Norway, where I was nominated in the Father of Infant Twins category. The competition was fierce, and the ceremonies were wrought with scandal. Being quite jet lagged, I will do my best to recount the details s I remember them.

I was nominated for my first "Daddy" award, in part because of my parenting skills displayed when Jami went back to work and I subsequently began my turn of staying at home alone with the twins on Fridays for 8 hours and a 12 hour shift on Mondays. The honorable Father of the Year Academy, raved about my double bottle feeding technique, my multi-tasking abilities, and the overall energy and sense of sincerity I brought to the role of Fathering of Twins.

My fellow nominees were certainly worthy. Hans Gruber from Munich Germany is a father of twin boys who elected to be a stay-at-home dad, a noble achievement indeed. Joseph Umbasi of Capetown South Africa, is the father of new twin girls, as well as 4 other children all under the age of 8! Representing Sao Paulo Brazil, Mario Silva is a single father of twin girls doing the work of mom and dad, way to go Mario!

I felt good about my chances of bringing home the hardware, following an interview session with the "F.o.t.Y" advisory panel. I also felt like I had strong showings in the swim suit and talent portions of the competition. My confidence was running high as I took my seat at the closing ceremonies, somehow I just new that I would be walking around at the post ceremony gala holding a shiny new "Daddy"...and of course pictures of my kids.

My excitement began to grow as my category drew closer, I walked through my acceptance speech in my head. "Wow, I didn't think that I would win...It's an honor just to be nominated. I want to thank my beautiful wife Jami, you're my best friend and an amazing mother. To my fellow nominees I share this award with you. I want to thank my agent Ari, you are the hardest working man in the business. Thank you to the Father of the Year Awards Academy for this achievement and all they do to celebrate Fatherhood. Finally, I want to thank my kids, you are the reason I do what I do, I love you with all of my heart...now go to bed (fake a little laugh here and pause for audience reaction)"

Just before Denzel Washington was set to take the stage and present the Father of Twins award, "F.o.t.Y" Chairman Saul Goldberg, walked to the podium for a surprise announcement. A murmur began to swell through the crowd, what could this possibly be about?

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a heavy heart that I am forced to announce that Father of Twins nominee Josh Cecil has been disqualified from the competition and stripped of any potential Father of the Year titles. The academy has learned from an inside source, of an incident that shows gross ignorance for even a new father, be it a father of twins or otherwise."

As panic began to rise up into my throat, I squirmed in my seat. Slowly every head in the auditorium began to turn my way, accusatory malice filled their glares. "What have you done?" they seemed to ask collectively. I stood up as the sweat began to trickle down my brow. I looked at Jami's confused face, so gorgeous was she in her Vera Wang gown. Confused though she was she stood with me and grabbed my hand, determined to "Stand by her Man". We stumbled towards the exit, I was mumbling something to the affect of, "this is outrageous, I have no idea what this is about!"

Instead of the beautiful orchestral piece that would have whisked me from the stage after the acceptance of my trophy, I shamefully fled the auditorium to a rising chorus of boos and hisses.

The plane ride from Oslo to Newark was a torturous trip that felt like an eternity. Silence filled the cabin as I sat despondently looking out the window and Jami thumbed through a Sky Mall catalog. Our silence was finally abated on the flight from Newark to Indianapolis.

"So...you want to tell me what that was all about?" Jami queried.
"I...I...I have no idea." I passively offered. "I thought for sure I'd won..."
"That's not what I mean. What were they talking about? Gross Ignorance?"
I hesitated. Unsure of what to do, I broke down and explained the circumstances that must have cost me the Father of the Year award.

"Ok, listen...and promise you won't be mad."
Jami crossed her arms, and prepared herself. Her lips were pursed together, and I thought I could see a small storm just beneath the surface of her forced calmness.
"I suppose there is no point in hiding this anymore. That first Monday that you went back to work, and I had the kids all by myself for 12...no, 13 hours. It was really hard, they were really fussy. It seemed like every time I turned around they needed something else, a bottle, a diaper change, or just to be held. I was trying to be a good father and husband... honest I was. I was doing laundry, I even ran the vacuum. I wanted you to come home to a quite and clean house after a long shift at the hospital. Well...I put the kids down for a nap around 1:30 or 2:00. They seemed to be sleeping soundly, and I had the urge to do some cooking...you know how I love to cook! Well I decided to make some Mac and cheese, I used whole grain pasta...cause I know how you like whole grain pasta. Anyways, I boiled the pasta, and made my own chipotle cheese sauce. I was putting it all together to bake off in the oven. When the kids began to wake up. I set the cheese's burner to warm, and went to check on the kids. Things just got hectic really quickly. The kids both wanted a bottle, and I still needed to bake the mac and cheese. So I was running from the living room to the kitchen; feed a baby, mix the mac and cheese, burp a baby, put the mac and cheese in the oven, feed the other baby, check on the mac and cheese, burp the baby, take the mac and cheese out. With both babbies fed I began to clean up the kitchen, and run a load of dishes through the washing machine. With the house quiet again I sat down to eat some of my Mac and cheese creation. I thought I smelled something funny in the house, but I figured between the baking and the dishwasher, my olfactory sense was playing tricks on me. Right before you got home,...and keep in mind I 'd had a long day and now I had a pretty bad headache..."
Jami was tired of my spn doctor storytelling antics,"Get on with it!" she yelled. Other passengers stared in her direction.
"Well, I was walking past the kitchen and I could smell that smell again. This time it had a familiar odor, but I couldn't quite place it. Then it hit me..."
"What?" Jami exclaimed.
"Well remeber how I said I put the cheese sauce on the stove top to warm...?"
"Yes?"
"well I may or may not have remembered to turn the stove off...and the house may or may not have been filling up with natural gas for several hours with me and the kids inside."
"What do you mean may or may not?"
"I mean I deffinitely forgot to turn the stove off."
"What! Josh do realize that you could have given the kids and yourself Carbon Monoxide poisning! Or worse yet blown the house up! What were you thinking? Hours? Hours, you left the gas on!"
"I know, I know." I broke down, "Believe me I was freaking out. I had a headache, and it must have been from the gas, so I wondered if the kids had any reaction to it. Then I thought maybe they weren't really sleepy but just high on Carbon monoxide. Then I started freaking out about all the long term damage I must have caused, and how they wouldn't get into a good college. And then I began running different scenarios through my mind, like what if I had lit a candle...Kaboom!
"Good Lord Josh! and to think you were up for Father of the Year?"
"I know, I know...I'm A Monster!!!!!!"

And that my friends is how I have chosen to tell you the reader about the first day Jami went back to work, and I nearly killed myself and the kids with a little help from our natural gas appliances. On the bright side, if that was my first day watching the kids by myself for 13 hours...I can't possibly have anywhere to go but up. I mean how much worse can it get than a near death experience. As for Father of the Year...well, there's always next year.