saturdays

there's no alarm clock to go off, as none was set. with two, 10 month old boys, do we really need to have, or use an alarm? no because they are our new wake up calls, biologically set to go off anywhere from 5:30 to 6:00 am. and with twins, if it's not one, there's a solid chance it's the other.

these days we keep our sleeping fingers crossed that it's more like the 6:00 am and not like 5:20 time. if it turns out to be 5:20, we can try to give them some formula and rock them back to sleep in the dark of their early morning room. that scenario is a long shot and with two, even if you get one back to sleep, the other one might wake up right at the end of your nicely laid work; frustrating and better to not allow yourself to dream like that. ah dream, that's a lot what this is all about. i just want to get back to that amazing, fantasy filled, dream i was right in the middle of, or to let my weary bones recover just a bit longer before having to be jolted upright and start carrying babies or moving babies away from some trouble they're about to get into.

so today, saturday morning, this wake-up picture was drawn at 6:00 am, not too bad as it can go. baby finn was already in our bed, as he got up at 4:30 am and needed some breast feeding and hands on kind of care. at that time in the morning this care can only be giving from a horizontal position and with one of two eyes barely open. you know, that dream thing again and trying to stay in it. so, finns in the bed and we are all still sawing logs when oliver gives his 10 month old form of calling out to let us know that he's awake. these days i am starting to give in, and my biorhythm is beginning to adjust to what seems to be a crazy time to get up, especially on the weekend, and i popped right up and went to answer his call. oliver was standing and at the edge of his crib, with the happiest to see you look you can want from someone. on a snap from ones finger, my mood lightened, and i was alive like the morning light softly coming in the room.

by the time i changed his diaper and had some nose to nose kissing with oliver, i could hear finn in the other room calling out to the dog who sleeps on the floor, at the foot of our bed. the dog's name is oscar, and finn calls to him by just saying ah, ah, ah. we think it's the beginning of of what will become, ah-scar, and there he is, ah, at the end of our bed curled up in a ball and the one out of all of us, who gets to be normal and continue to sleep. i bring oliver into the bed with finn and yvette so he can play while we try to relax a little longer. if we can't sleep, maybe we can at least exert the least amount of energy, without actually still being asleep. so laying in bed, each with a baby in hand, we started the day.  the boys are starting to really be inner active, so we played and laughed with them, and we talked about what we wanted to do on this day. we ducked under the covers, we played peek-a-boo with the pillows, and we tried to show them how to get off the bed without going head first. we lifted them by their chests, from our backs, high as we could in the air, and let them pretend to be flying, and their faces lit up as if they really were.

after about an hour, we got up to face the day. we had a blast and bonded, and we had that tight feeling in our bellies from all the jiggling laughter. it dawned on yvette and i on this morning, we are a real family, a family and this is how our saturdays would be. it reminded me of my youth and the many saturdays i had with my family as their child. there just isn't anything better and we are blessed by the gods to have this special day; saturday.

the day i quit and the day i started

i'm a senior level technician, skilled in the area of medical devices. i've been in that focus for about 15 years and prior to that i work in simi conductor equipment. this is not my resume or a pat on my own back to talk about my skills or my work history. it is intended to let you know what i put in the past for now and to help explain how different my daily life is now.

i left a good job at a good company to pursue a new gig and get a different point of view on work, as i had become complacent and wasn't driven like i thought i should be. the job i took lasted about 60 days, 10 of which were me on vacation. i was laid off, my position had been modified (yeah right) and the position was now out of my realm of expertise.

while unemployed, my wife and i received long awaited news; news we had been hoping for, for about 4 years. my wife was pregnant and we were going to have a baby. we were still dancing the jig when we had our 45 day check up and ultrasound. my wife on the table all gooped up with ultrasound gel, the doc was sliding the imaging wand around and saying, "um, ok, and alright". then the words i never understand, but hear all the time came from her mouth, she said, "interesting". "interesting i said, how's that"? she asked for a moment, and it felt like a day, then said, "okay, take a look". we are not talking to each other, but my wife and i are thinking the same thing; oh god, something is wrong and we are about to get bad news. the doc first showed this small dot that was blinking, it could have been enemy submarines approaching as far as i could tell, but she told us, "that's the heart". then she moved the wand around, as if casting a spell with it and came to a random spot on my wife's belly. there we saw the same blinking light, yeah big deal, and we waited for her to tell us what was up. she asked if we knew what that was? now i'm not a doctor by trade, but i was learning through the process and i spoke up to say, "that's the heart". i was correct, but this was not the same heart. then what, our baby has two hearts? "no, your babies each have one heart each", she said. holy shit, we weren't planning on two babies but no matter, two is what we were diagnosed with. so two it is, and after the initial shock, we were happy as a child with brand new tenni shoes over the good news.

still unemployed, the pregnancy was going great. my wife, which i should reveal, as i don't like to call her wife so much, is yvette. so yvette, was a star and the pregnancy was smooth and without any real negative moments. when the ultrasound, which with twins is every month but seems like once a week, could allow us to see the sex of the babies, we had a cerimonial revealing. we had the technician taking the reading fill in the blank on per made flash cards were drew up; baby A = ? and baby B = ? we went to tartine for sweet stuff, during and after the pregnancy there were lots of sweets. while there we revealed by the first blind grab, which i pulled that baby B = BOY.  okay, now i really wanted a girl or at least one. so when i found out we were having twins, i felt my chances were really great. it was yvette's turn and her grab revealed that baby A = BOY. two boys, oh boy. i must say i was not happy, i was going to have to put to rest my desire for a baby girl. when you've been dreaming about a daughter and are woken up to find out it's two boys, it takes some mourning to get past it. my mourning lasted about 3 days. it was yvette that helped get me through, with all her positive scenarios about how cool it will be with two boys. once i was over it, i became so excited for our future with baby boys who would be brothers. in all this the only thing that didn't go our way was that baby A as he was known before they had names, was breached. butt down the whole ride and never to move out of that position for 38 weeks. he is still stubborn like that, but such an amazing child.

ok then, now we are up to the scheduled day for their caesarian birth and long story short here, everything went amazingly well, they were happy and healthy, and there were glassfuls of tears. it's like a great acid trip, it just can't be described, but i will say it's the most amazing thing that i've ever experienced in my life. true joy.

4 days in the hospital, standard for twins, and we are checking out. out of our luxury hotel and into the real world of being parents. we were scheduled to check out at noon, and we drug our feet and ended up getting in the car at 4:00 pm. we got home and the fun began... parenting. feeding, diapers, swaddling and repeat. that was about it.

time to raise kids and time to decide what to do about me being out of work and not finding any opportunities. yvette took maternity leave, 3 1/2 months, along with all her vacation time and sick time. it turned out to be about 5 months. all the while, i'm still out of work. i did do some contract work which lasted about 5 weeks, but i sucked at work as i was so exhausted and distracted from lack of sleep and thoughts of all the things we needed to do each day just to get through the day. i was late almost everyday, it was tough getting out of the house, trying to get the babes to point where yvette could take over. my co-workers looked at me like a slacker, when in fact i was super human. up all night, work all day and then do it again, and again. my contract ended, or did it, and i was back home full time.

we had a decision in front of us, should i continue the madness of looking for job or could we swing having me stay at home and raise kids? not only could we swing it, did i want to do it? did i want to go from a guy who brings home his fair share, to bringing home nothing? and did i want to leave the adult world and enter the world of two little bouncing baby boys, who at best could make a series of high pitched sounds? well, i sent out another series of resumes and we thought some more, and we talked, and i thought and thought and thought. i also spent the coming days checking my in box, only to find i still had friends and people who cared about my penis getting hard or getting bigger. however, nothing from the jobs i sought.

i really wanted to be the papa who stays home, i just didn't want my wife to see me as a bum or a slacker, and i didn't want to see myself as any of those things. i also spent my life in the philosophy that one is measured by how hard they work, and the work they do. would i still be relevant? if i was the caregiver, would i ruin these perfect babies? i meditated on it and we talked and in the end, the grand decision was absolutely,  positively, YES! i'm going to do it. change diapers, tell stories, play games, join stroller groups, go to music classes and lose as much sleep as humanly possible.

yvette went back to work around september and i finally got a call on a job. the hardest job i've ever done, and the most gratifying.  i am now the papa at home, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. the time has flown by, 10 months, snap, gone. best decision we ever made, or am i crazy from lack of sleep?