The New Fun

Thus far, I have tried not to write too much on this page about Luke and Andre, my 13 month old twin boys. This is because I am aware that other people's babies are boring (except for in rare cases like Rosemary's baby). Besides, the boys have their own blog which gets far more traffic than mine. However, at some point, it becomes ridiculous not to write about them…kind of like if K-Fed had a blog in which he refused to discuss Britney.

To break the silence entails facing the challenge of overcoming the boring factor. Anything I might try to say about kids has already been said a million times. As a new parent, I am usually too discombobulated and sleep deprived to even bother trying to avoid sounding like a cliché machine. Before I was a spacy Dad, I used to do a spacy monotone impression of a Dad talking about the joys of having kids, as if reciting from the brochure they give you at the hospital: “What To Say When Single People Ask You About Fatherhood”:

“It just totally changes your priorities”
“No matter how bad a day I have, I come home and see them smiling, and none
of it matters anymore”
“It’s a lot of work, but its totally worth it.”

My friend Mark, who spawned two in 18 months before I got in the mix, was the source of a lot of these nuggets. The only non-cliched parenthood-related thing I can remember him saying in the past three years was about his newborn daughter at her Christening. He said, “You know that song ‘Barracuda’? You know: da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-DAA? That’s my song for her. She’s my little barracuda.” I looked at her in his arms: six weeks old, no teeth, not the least bit skinny, silvery, or menacing looking. In the next breath he told half our table, without anyone asking him: “I would eat her diaper." Apparently he had leapfrogged from trite straight into psychotic.

The next time I saw him was at his son’s christening, one year later. He had two kids hanging off him with at least one crying at any given time, the only quote that stuck out this time was: “Look at me, I’m just Joe Dad” as if he was contentedly resigned to familial mediocrity. Yet somehow, in the same visit, he insisted that what I needed was to have kids.

What to make of that advice? I hardly saw him anymore after the babies. As I got him drunk he admitted that he couldn’t remember when he had last gotten drunk. I looked around his house, cordoned off by indoor gates, strewn with toys and diapers and binkies, his daughter gaping up at a giant Elmo on the big screen TV where Tony Soprano or Tom Brady rightfully belonged. This was what I needed? He seemed content enough, but Mark was always easy to please, just give him a stable job as a suburban cop, a good wife, a house to hold some kids with a pool in the backyard. I was thinking about upcoming trips to Morocco and snowboarding in Utah. I was planning Christmas parties and canoe trips to the Adirondacks the next summer. The next adventure. I had books to publish, songs to write. True, I wasn't writing much of anything. But having kids wouldn’t help that problem.

All the new parents insisted, either implying with their knowing grins or outright telling us that we had to have kids. Darcy sent her friend Maria a link with pictures of the Morocco trip and she emailed back one line: “I don’t want to see any pictures of you until your belly is big.” Maria and Tony were another pair that used to have a life, in Hawaii we had all hiked the Kaupo Gap together, camped at Haleakala Ranch, they used to throw impressive cocktail parties. Now it was chicken nuggets and yogurt in sippy cups.

Why did these so-called friends want to drag us into this mess? Were they happy? Or were they lonely, just wanting to trap us in their desperate world of poo and vomit before they lost us forever to the side of people with lives.

I couldn't shake the words of this one woman, an adjunct professor at work whose name I don't even know. One night, in the office before class, she looked me in the eye and said, "Don't do it. Don't ruin your life. Don't have kids. I've been through it. I'm telling you because I wish someone had told me." I don't even recall asking her opinion, but it stayed with me. She was the only person that I had ever heard that from, yet somehow that made her heresy even more noteworthy amidst the stale platitudes of all my so-called-friends.

No matter what a thousand bitter adjuncts might tell her, Darcy still wanted kids, and she wanted them soon. She had a window boxed around the reputedly easy fourth year of med school, she had a special calendar coded with different color highlighters and abbreviations and symbols which I didn't need to understand. She didn’t want to get any closer to 35 (Advanced Maternal Age) and the risks associated with that magic number. I had my marching orders: report to the bedroom shortly after Christmas 2004 and every 25th to 30th day thereafter, ready for duty.

But all I could think about was my dog. When I got Lucy, it was because I wanted a dog. I saw other people having fun with their dogs and I envied them. I wanted to pet their dogs and throw balls to them. I made myself wait a few months to make sure it wasn’t a passing fancy, and then I went down to the pound and picked out a puppy. I couldn't stop fidgeting for the whole hour I had to wait for my references to clear, and when I brought her home it was everything I hoped it would be and more.

I wanted kids...someday, hypothetically...but with nowhere near the immediate, pressing desire with which I had wanted Lucy. I didn’t feel the slightest void in my life that could be interpreted as the absence of children. I saw other people with babies and I felt sorry for them, their lack of sleep, their lack of a freedom. I had no interest in playing with their babies. None of them could catch a Frisbee, they couldn’t go for a jog on the beach with you, and, even worse, you couldn’t leave them in a crate while you went for a jog on the beach by yourself.

Still, Christmas was fast approaching, and according to Darcy's chart, we were set to start “trying” to start a family. (I hated that, too, all that loose talk: “we’re trying” or “we’re not trying, but we aren’t trying not to”, so what you are basically saying is “we’ve been screwing a lot more than usual lately whether we feel like it or not, no pills or rubbers for us!"). And then, the couples who “try” and “try” and “try” again, to no avail, and start paying doctors tens of thousands of dollars to freeze stuff and inject stuff all in the hopes of potentially ruining their lives. The thought of ending up in that situation just depressed the hell out of me. And why was I headed down that road? Just because my wife wanted to? That was no reason to do something that big.

My parents were divorced, her parents were separated, 8 out of 10 Dads I knew were either crazy or miserable or both once the kids were grown. Maybe it was because they had all taken the enormous step of making people without thinking about why they were doing it and asking themselves if they really wanted to do it.

So I thought about it, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that making a baby (I never even considered the possibility of making two at once) without really wanting to was a careless thing to do, a bad move for everybody involved. This was why so many men either left their families or hung in there miserably, because they had made this huge decision without even consciously making a decision. Was I going to be just like them?

No, I wouldn't make a human that I was responsible for for at least 18 years just because my wife wanted me to. But at the same time, I couldn't deny Darcy her wish to have a family, I had led her on for years with the belief that I wanted kids just as much as she did. I couldn't tell her to keep waiting, not with 35 looming and no real reason to think I would suddenly change my mind one day. I was completely content with our life together just the way it was, which was why I didn't want to go mucking it up with children just for shits and giggles, which was why I had to leave her, and soon, so that she could recover, then go look for a guy who truly wanted to be a Dad.

It is hard to believe it now, but these were the thoughts I was having. I slept less and less as Christmas approached, wide awake at night envisioning my escape, my new life where I put my dog, my snowboard, my guitar and anything else I could fit in the pickup truck and headed to some Mountain town out West to start over. Talk about cliches. I knew no one out there, but the cleaner the slate, the better. Run Rabbit, run.

Before Christmas we left for Morocco to visit my sister in the Peace Corps. This was a trip which Darcy envisioned as the romantic kickoff of our "trying" period. It was also a trip which I hoped would clear my mind of my pernicious escape fantasies, though it, in fact, only made things worse. We had met in Hawaii and been cross country twice together, yet we had never travelled anywhere more exotic than Quebec. In Morocco, we had opened a ornately tiled door to the wonders of the rest of the world, then we were just supposed to slam it shut, deadbolt it, dust off our hands and say, "That was nice, maybe we'll get back out there in a decade or two?"

My baby crisis manifested itself as nastiness, which led to fighting, which led to talking, which led to me breaking down on Christmas morning in my sisters remote mountain village and telling her all of the terrible thoughts that had been plaguing me.

She took it as well as could be expected. I think she hoped it was exactly what it looked like, a serious case of some pre-Dad cold feet. She did not back away from her wish to start a family. Instead, she wanted a yes or no verdict, soon, and she wanted it in writing. A letter confirming my desire to start a family.

Suffice it to say that Darcy got her letter. Just days later, Big Papi hit a two run homer in his first big league at bat, and I couldn’t be happier that I got pulled into the whole mess.

Happiness. A nice feeling, but not necessarily one that makes for good blogging at this URL. So, I won't try to gussy up the cliches and pass them off as something original. I will try to unearth some truths about fatherhood that haven't yet been worn smooth.

1. Newborns suck.

And no, I don’t mean suckle. What else can you say about a person that doesn’t smile, won’t look you in the eye, soils themself 8 to 12 times a day, is immobile, and is only capable of communicating by howling until you figure out what they want, or just howling because they are miserable due to all of their aforementioned flaws? They cry because they’re hungry, and then they cry because they are too incompetent to eat properly. Foals pop out and start walking as soon as they shake off the cobwebs, but our guys took six weeks to become semi-proficient at the one skill they needed to contribute to their own survival: nipple sucking. One of those early nights, dealing with our sixth wake up howl at 2 am, changing Andre’s diaper as he screamed at me as if I was ripping off his tiny fingernails, he peed, purposefully I was sure, all over me and his bedclothes, which meant I had to trudge downstairs and search for clean ones.
“I hate newborns,” I said. And I meant it, and I don’t take it back.

2. Babies (after 8 weeks) don’t suck.

This is not news to most people, but it has been a revelation for me. My fatherhood fantasies were of teaching the kids how to lay down a bunt or build a campfire or chop wood, all stuff that would have to wait until they were at least two. Basically, like many men, I expected the newborn useless alien stage to last at least two years, 2 years of me pretending to be interested in the babies and overjoyed at their pathetic cooing and stumbling around, just like all the other Dads were pretending they liked their babies. But in reality, sometimes around 8 weeks or so they got fun and just kept getting funner.

It started with eye contact, some spasmodic leg kicks, then swatting of toys on their back, then rolling over onto their stomachs. Little things, I’ll admit, but after the 8 weeks of being ugly, lame, whiny, useless little bastards, anything positive fills you with hope. Rolling over is better than the alternative, which is not rolling over, just lying on their backs gurgling forever. And you sit there, trapped at home, bored out of your skull, watching them utilize every ounce of coordination and determination they can muster to rock off their back onto their side, then they do it, and you want to cheer, but their arm is still stuck under their belly, and you can’t help but root for them to yank it out. That’s it. You’re a fan, you’re hooked. They are still useless, but they don’t like it any more than you do, that’s why their so miserable, and they have decided to do something about it. They want, at least for the time being, to be more like you. I remember watching Luke, up to that point lacking any coordinated movement, kicking his right leg ferociously as I changed his diaper one morning. He started doing it every morning, like 15-20 times, as if it was a program he read about in Baby Fitness magazine. You could see he was on a mission, like a post-coma Beatrix Kiddo.

Around 4 months come the humanoid activities like laughing, sitting up, crawling, throwing balls, standing, high fiving, walking…a progression that could lead to making a game saving catch in Game 7 of the 2029 World Series (please Lord, not for the Yankees), or driving a big brown truck and delivering packages in brown shorts, or Killing Bill …the exciting part is: who knows? What you do know, or appreciate, is that every day they get more and more interesting, which is the exact opposite of what most grown humans do.

3. Babies are a lot like martinis, and breasts.

Which is to say, three is too many and one isn't enough. Or to put it another way, I highly recommend having twins. Twins you very lucky. We learned this from Darcy's Korean nail lady, who went into a tizzy that shut down the entire manicurist shop for a good five minutes when she passed on the news to her co-workers. I knew it instinctively it when the sonotech told us there appeared to be a Baby A and a Baby B. Then and there I uttered my first spacy Dad cliche: "The more the merrier." (Twins are a good litmus test of how people feel about children. If you genuinely like kids, then two is better than one, and you congratulate the twinmakers effusively. Then you have my mother, who said upon hearing the news: "Oh God, that was my worst nightmare.")

Mom was wrong, and the Korean lady was right. Twins are lucky for many reasons. For starters. twins allowed me to avoid Mark's situation of being just another "Joe Dad". Darcy and I like to be a little different, and the twins thing is a twist, it keeps us slightly removed from the herd at "Buy Buy Baby". (We are rabbits instead of sheep.)

Twins are also lucky because they are a challenge, and we like challenges. We have had to rise to the challenge. And yes, of course, just having a "singleton", as we twin spawners like to call the half-formed variety, is challenging, but, lets face it, it obviously isn't nearly as challenging as managing two. We like that we can say obnoxious stuff like that, or at least not argue when other people say it.

Twins are lucky because having a Baby A and Baby B teaches you, from way early on, that you aren't fucking up your kids, they came that way. If Andre is waking up and crying five times a night at eight months because his mobile the wrong color, then how do you explain Luke sitting there sleeping like a sloth even though he has the same thing dangling over his crib. If Luke has got the sniffles because we haven't cleaned our refrigerator in eighteen months, than why is Andre A-OK? They are what they are. We can do some tinkering, but the essential tinkering was done at the molecular level way back when my two finest representatives crossed the finish line.

A related bonus of having twins is that you don't have time to obsess over each individual kid. People tend to baby their babies these days. Every tear is an emergency, every hiccup a cause for alarm. With twins, you just don't have the energy to micromanage, you can barely keep up, so you don't have time to do the obsessive coddling (and damage) that a neurotic mother can do. Some shit is gonna slide, and the babies will roll with it, in fact, they will be better off without the stress of someone stressing over them.

Twins are way more fun than solo babies because they can amuse one another. Hey, a little bit of stacking blocks or reading books about lost mittens or playing Candyland or tic-tac-toe is a lovely trip down memory lane as your child continues his or her journey towards becoming a worthy backgammon opponent or doubles partner. But, I think I speak for all men when I say that we simply can't handle hour after hour on the floor with the babies they way the ladies can. After twenty minutes, we're off working on our blogs or downloading something. The next thing you know, the kid gets stuck under the sofa until Mommy comes home and starts yelling at us.

Luke and Andre can amuse themselves, and then amuse each other, and only when that fails do I feel compelled to step in and sing and dance awhile. This is great for them, and having a lifelong playmate is very lucky. This is why, although I know I'm not supposed to say it, twin boys is the Royal Flush of parental hands. They got a buddy. A Goose to their Maverick. As Mark (sweetly ignorant of the homosexual connotations that Darcy and I couldn't help but giggle at) put it: "Wow. A pitcher and a catcher!" And I don't have to ever worry about watching a football game and seeing my twin daughters half naked in a Coors Light commercial.

Finally, twins are great because they complement one another. The little nuances in Andre's personality come into sharp contrast when juxtaposed against Luke's, and vice versa. Andre sits still and cautiously, observing a situation before deciding if he wants to participate. Luke dives into things headfirst, and he has the lumps on his skull to prove it. Andre learned the power of crying in a matter of weeks, and he has become a Miles Davis when it comes to wailing on his vocal chords. Luke seems to cry only when he can't help it, he has only one cry, and, because he doesn't use it as often, it breaks your heart. Andre reads books upside down, Luke reads them right side up. Luke heartily ate the first solid food ever offered him and has been eating like a lumberjack ever since. Andre sat next to him for two months and watched him as if he were a fool to settle for that slop when he could have sweet, sweet breastmilk if he would only hold out. Andre makes long and meaningful eye contact with people, Luke is always looking past your eyes for the next thing to grab.
I could go on and on until you saw that almost everything about their personalities is different. Yet there are still many who ask at 3, 6, 9, even 12 months, "So, are they starting to have little personalities already?" They were born with personalities, more so than many of the people who ask that question, but I forgive them because I was recently clueless, too.
Because I can compare one to the other, I know that the things they do and prefer are not just things that all babies do and prefer. Luke weighed less than Andre at birth and for his first 6 weeks. Early on, the pediatrician was concerned that he was a little 'scrawny' and recommended that we supplement him with extra formula, yet I knew, from Day 1, that he was going to be the bigger, brawny of the two. It was written in his scowl. We were all born with our personalties. Like a Polaroid picture, the image is there as soon as the film slides out of the camera, it just takes time to develop.

In conclusion, Mark and the rest were right, the bitter adjunct professor was wrong. What Mark was unable to convey to me was that he was having more fun than he'd ever had in his life, even though an babyless outside observer like myself would never be able to tell. He was having what I call "the new fun". Since Darcy got pregnant, my unbabied friends have mercilessly gone on to heliski in British Columbia, catch 30 pound redfish in their new fishing boats, climg Mt. Kiliminjaro, and have sex with trapeze artists. Those are all prime examples of the old fun, the kind of activities that look like fun when you are doing them and sound like fun when you tell stories about them. The new fun doesn't translate quite as well, but it is not the lesser of the two. In fact, I wouldn't trade the old fun for the new fun because the new is with you all the time, having babies in this world infuses every mundane act in life with pride and joy (even if it doesn't appear so to the untrained eye) whereas the old fun boils down to a bunch of tempting things you chase because just being there in your own skin is somehow not fun enough. With the old fun, you do get the elusive thrill of touching it now and then, but you can never quite catch it and hold in your arms.