Matthew has a tooth!

Not to be outdone by Sarah, Matthew wanted to be included in the blog for doing something awesome. After about 3 months of acting like he was teething his tooth finally popped through last week. We are all pretty excited about it and hopefully it will return him to a non-teething pain state.

Sarah like to jump!

Wow, I guess I missed the monthly post for November. Apologies to my 0 readers. I'm just lucky I didn't get any hate mail for not posting. It was a busy month and we packed up the whole fam and headed out to Stinson Beach for our annual gathering. So thanksgiving, we moved, etc. Now you're caught up. I shot this video from my phone this morning but am not sure how to rotate it and the kids give me about 5 minutes at a time to ignore them so you need to turn your screen. Maybe later I will take some pics of the house and post them. Enjoy! 

Mmm, sweet potatoes

The kids got their first taste of real food this week. Mom served up some sweet potatoes and after a couple of funny faces they seem to be enjoying them. Sarah is crazy for them, actually, Matthew is just ok with them. Maybe it has something to do with the first tooth we think he's getting. Sarah's tooth is really starting to poke through now which is very cool.

The world, it is a changin'

I realize this is way too soon to post again, but there are big things going on with the kids these days. Matty learned just today that he can make raspberry sounds with his mouth. He's pretty excited about it and practicing all the time now. It is super cute, especially when he smiles after as if he knows how cute it is. He also almost has the hang of rolling over and flip flops all over the place. Maybe he is going to go into politics. Not to be outdone, Sarah appears to be getting a new tooth on the bottom which is just going to put her over the top in cuteness. This is all in addition to making steady progress towards closing on the new house. Yay us!

Workin' for a livin'

The tough part about being the dad is having to leave the family every morning to go to work. I know it has to be done, but just try and be happy leaving the house when your last glimpse of it is this sad scene:
The camera-phone on the tilt failed me on this one as far as resolution, but I think you get the idea. Fortunately the weekend is only a couple days away. That will bring the inspection for the new house and get us 1 weekend closer to moving in.

Cute pic o' the day of Sarah:

Hitting my stride.

Apparently I'm a once a month blogger. I will just have to learn to deal with the realization that my desire to write is outweighed by my desire not to lose my job or ignore my family. Consequently I am going to have to give up my dream of getting paid to blog and being able to quit my day job to just record my musings for your enjoyment. With that said, I'm going to dive into the blogging just in case I also am soon to discover that I have a 100 word limit post in me as well.

Sarah has started to make fun pseudo-talking/babbling noises and it has to be the cutest thing ever. If I can figure out how to get the mp4 off my phone and into a reasonable format that plays online I will post it but until then just trust me, it is the best thing ever. Matty makes some noises but they are just normal sounds and nowhere near as cute as his sister. Sorry, dude, get used to it. You can pretty much bench press your sister, so you can always fall back on that.

Today we took the whole family and Bob (the stroller) up to camino alto and hiked around. According to gmap-pedometer we made it approximately 2.66 miles which isn't so bad. About a quarter of it was pretty much up a 60% grade so that part was tough, but overall everybody had a good time.

Tomorrow gramps is coming over for a cookout and to sleep over before he heads east to the cuse on Monday. Should be fun. Everybody keeps saying how big the kids are getting but it is tough to tell when you see them every day. I uploaded some new-old pics to picasa today and the change is striking. They started out so tiny and are now like regular kids. Pretty soon they will be eating real food and Matty will be sleeping through the night.

I'll wrap up with your pics o' the day. See you next month.

Oops

Wow, it has been over a month since the last post. Sorry, America, I have been a bit busy. So here, in no particular order, are events of the past month that need to be recorded:

- Matt rolls over
- Sarah rolls over
- Matt rolls over the other way
- Sarah falls out of her bouncy chair in the middle of the night and sleeps next to it for the rest apparently happy and unaffected
- Mom goes to outlands concert Dad goes house hunting with the kids and grandparents.
- Kids look cute
- Kids cry
- BBQ

That should about cover it. See you in a month, America. I will leave with this cute pic of BFFs:

A weekend for the ages.

This past weekend we gathered up the kids and went to our first giants game as a family. My bother- and sister-in-law had club level tickets they weren't going to be able to use and called up Friday night. Since we didn't have any plans we called grandpa Mike since we knew he'd love to go with us and an extra set of hands never hurts. The kids were awesome the entire time (6 full innings) and really had a great time. They could have made it longer if the Giants hadn't stunk up the joint in the 6th giving up 4 runs and making a couple of pitching changes. The kids just couldn't believe that Bochy would pull Sanchez so quickly when he was cruising along and they had a 4-1 lead. Get used to it kids! Here's a picture of Matthew as the super-fan:Sunday we started out going to a dim sum brunch with my co-worker and his wife then went to a few open houses and wrapped the day up with a twins welcome party in Santa Rosa with about 100 kids. My kids were fantastic the entire time and were loved by everyone. Actually all the kids there were great but I guess I'm sort of partial to mine.

As if the weekend couldn't get better, Matthew decided he would sleep for 6 hours Sunday night.

At least it's sterile

So this weekend I was holding Sarah on her side and was trying to shush her into a relaxed state instead of the frantic panic she was expressing and she peed on my bare foot. For the record she had a diaper, onesie and pants one. Somehow the angle was perfect for some leakage. Unbelievable! I thought it would be a few years (maybe 13) until they started to be obvious about their un-appreciativeness to their parents, but I guess it starts even earlier. She later apologized and we are back to good terms so it is water under the bridge. Here is a picture of her looking very satisfied with her work:

Quality daddy time

The wife headed out to Mill Valley to play some golf with her dad and brother so here I am at home with the kids. I love golf, but feel so awesome about spending quality time with the kids and it is nice to have Erin be able to go out into the real world once in a while and have some fun. They started off kind of cranky with gas or something so for a while I had both on my on the recliner just rocking and shush-ing them until they settled down. Now they are happily asleep next to each other in the pack-n-play we got from Nana. Last night we headed out to Cha Cha Cha for a nice dinner while unkie and gramps watched the kids. It was only the second time since they have been born that we have left both of them with someone else. Dinner was fantastic and so was the sangria (here's a recipe courtesy of Erin's new favorite chef, Tyler Florence). We both agreed that being out was nice but we missed our kids. It is so cool how fast you become attached to them and they are such an integral part of your life. I really can't imagine my life without them any more, especially when they make faces like this:

They grow up so fast...

It is unbelievable how fast these kids grow up! Matthew came down to breakfast dressed in the following this morning:
Amazing but at least he hasn't gone emo or anything. Sarah has yet to determine her path and is still content being cute. They hit the 8 week mark this week which is pretty exciting and will officially be 2 months on July 1st. The time has absolutely flown by and they seem to get bigger every day.

6 weeks

Has it been 10 days since the last time I posted already? Wow, between craziness at work and craziness with kids it is easy to lose track of time. I need to set up an outlook reminder to post and maybe take a few minutes to do it at work. I suppose I could also post to or from work on the bus, maybe twitter is a better medium for me. I should try it out, I guess. I was able to bus in to work 3 times this week (I think) and hope to keep it up. At any rate, the kids celebrated their 6 week birthdays this week and are doing really well, gaining weight, sleeping and all that. Sarah actually has been posting sleep times of 8, 6 and 5 hours at a time which is fantastic. Matthew is still a bit smaller than her and I don't think he'll be ready for so much sleeping for another couple of weeks. Sadly I am going to be traveling to NYC again this week so I'll miss some time with them but I wonder how big they will be when I get back. Erin, Uncle Matt and the kids went to the San Rafael sidewalk painting fair with the kids this morning and had a good time. I skipped it because of a sore throat that I don't want to turn into a cold for my trip. They are heading to the driving range later, too. What a weekend for me to be sick. In good news, the kids are both starting to have activity time right after eating. Apparently this is good for their sleeping and psyche. Here is a nice pic of them being active:

Big Apple post

I know it has been a while, but things have been crazy both at home and work. I am posting from NYC because I had a pitch yesterday. General consensus is that it went really well, but you never know. That makes last night the first night away from the kids, though. It was a bit sad, but Guinness helped. Mostly feeling tired this morning and ready to head home. The weather yesterday was fantastic (sunny, mid 70s) but today is raining. Heading home tonight on the redeye so don't wait up for me kids! I can't wait to see you guys (and the wife, too).

'Cuse wins! 'Cuse wins!

Big day today... Syracuse beat Johns Hopkins to win the NCAA Men's lacrosse championship. Also, we packed up the kids and headed out to Novato to do a little bit of shopping as they are already starting to grow out of the preemie stuff we borrowed from the MPOMC preemie closet. Apparently this growing will continue for a while. Also, we picked up the makings of a heading-to-college care pack for my niece Karrah. We learned that you need to allocate a bit of extra time whenever trying to attempt this sort of trip. This is not because of the extra time to get out of the house as I think we are doing great getting them ready and out the door, but because everybody wants to talk to us. This is somewhat new to Erin & I as we are generally the reserved, get in, get out shopping types. It is definitely not a bad thing, as we met a lady who's twins were heading to UC Santa Barbara in the fall (also the alma mater of Uncle Matt... go gauchos!) as well as a girl who was a twin herself, but will take some getting used to, I think.

I am a rock, I am an island

Today I am here by myself with the kids while mom heads in to the city with cousin Lynn and Nana to visit the farmers' market and see the city a bit. So far so good. They woke up separately for their feeding which was very considerate of them, and then went back down for a nap without too much resistance. The worst part about having two kids and one parent is not being able to go to the bathroom. You have to decide if they will be ok and not start crying too much if you want to go before the feeding because once they start it could be 30 to 60 minutes of sitting until you have your next chance. I am not sure how Erin manages when they feed so much, but so far I have opted for holding out until the feeding is done. I haven't posted in a few days, but they have been full of action. I took the bus in to work on both Tuesday and Thursday, then worked from home on Friday. I was hoping to get caught up, but it seems like that is not going to be possible any time soon. The positive reasons for taking the bus are the following:

• It gets me in to work about 45 minutes before other people generally show up, which gives me some quality time to get stuff done.
• It costs about half of driving across the Golden Gate bridge and then paying for parking and gas. This didn't matter so much when both the wife & I were working in the city and commuting together, but now it seems like saving around $1700 a year in commuting expenses plus the environmental benefits makes a lot of sense. When the kids get a couple months older or so, I plan to try and bike home from work once or more a week. It is about 12 or 13 miles and somewhat hilly, so it should both save $3.50 a trip and get me back in to shape.
• It bookends the day nicely so that I don't go so engrossed in work that I forget to go home (yes, that tends to happen to me, it is both a blessing and a curse to love your job). I generally hop back online and work some more at night, but at least i can get home to see the family and get some quality time in.

There are also a few some minor negatives:

• Australian non-stop talking about junk the whole trip both directions guy on the bus. I know every public transportation line has this guy (or girl). Fortunately they can be tuned out with an iPod and a book.
• Lack of flexibility when at work. I can't leave early unless I want to take a $30 (?, not sure of the cost) cab or a $9 ferry home. Plus, if I ever did need to work late (or even go out after work in the city), the last ferry is around 9PM. After that it is cab territory.
• Commute time goes from 20 minutes to 45. Since I am able to surf the 'net or read a book, this is not a big deal, really.

The biggest thing to happen while I was at work was the kids' first baths. Judging by the picture below, it looks like my wife was selling tickets:


Regardless of the process, it was nice to come home to fresh smelling and happily clean babies after work.

Finally, I would like to make a point to new dads that you should make sure to clear the couch of kids (or at least be aware of their presence) before sitting down. This morning I wasn't quite awake yet when and I went to sit on the couch I tried to brush away a pillow as I was sitting only to find out it was a kid sleeping. I don't think I would have actually sat on Matthew as I realized it was a really heavy pillow I was moving, but Erin decided to scream at me as additional insurance. Next time it will be coffee first, sit second. Lesson learned.

Back to work

As promised in the previous post, here is a picture of the family taking our walk together:


Sadly, though, tomorrow will be my first day back to work. It has been an awesome 2+ weeks with the babies but it is about time I get back to makin some bacon. Hopefully everything checks out tomorrow at their follow-up visit to the pediatrician and Erin can bring them in to work on Thursday for show-and-tell. I can't wait to show them off!

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn...

...where Brooklyn is a euphemism for 'until they turn two', I guess. Last night we got almost no sleep. Apparently the kids are going through some sort of growth spurt which means that instead of sleeping they are awake and crying a lot and feeding even more. I think I got around 4 hours of sleep and the wife maybe half that. I suppose that isn't so bad, since it could have been no hours of sleep, but still much less than I am used to and less than they have been letting us get to this point. I really shouldn't complain since this means that they are super-hungry and growing like they are supposed to, but I really hope that we can work a deal out with them so that when I go back to work next week they let me get just enough to not be a zombie at work. Thursday and Friday they were sleeping enough that I was able to install a new-to-me open source CMS (Umbraco) and set up a website for the Make-A-Wish New Leadership Council in NYC and it was nice to get back into the tech state of mind for a little while. Once we get a live url I will post it. At any rate I hope to be able to balance the demands of the kids (and wife ;)) with those of work. Stay tuned for updates.

Family outing #1

This morning we had our first non-medical related family outing. After having a nice breakfast and getting the kids fed and sleepy we loaded them up in their car seats and dropped into the double snap-n-go. We didn't go too far, just down to the bike path and back, maybe two miles total, but it felt great to get everyone out of the house and moving after pretty much just sitting here for the past couple of weeks. The weather was perfect as it was sunny and warm but with a slight breeze and they slept the whole time. We ran in to a bunch of our neighbors along the way who had already gotten the whole story from either Nana or Grandpa Mike and everybody loved the kids. Nana happened to drive by while we were walking so we got our first family action shot which I'll post as soon as she sends it to us. Overall the trip was a smashing success and will hopefully lead to more and farther outings.

Birth weight, mission accomplished

We went to the pediatrician for the first time since Friday today to get a status on the kids' weight gain as they were previously not gaining weight at the appropriate pace. For the past 5 days we have been supplementing each feeding with a little formula just to make sure that they would be able to gain the recommended ounce a day weight gain. We were also getting them up every 2.5 hours for feedings which meant that Erin hasn't been sleeping much during the night. For some reason she has been kind enough to do most of the night work herself, leaving me the fairly basic task of just rocking them back to sleep each time. As it turns out the pediatrician had apparently told us to get them up every 3.5 hours, not 2.5, but both of us had either been staring at the kid we were holding or just generally spacing out when she said that as neither of us heard it. We probably could have gotten some extra sleep out of that schedule, but our diligence was rewarding by the fact that both of them had not only gained more than the requisite ounce a day, but had actually passed the birth weight threshold. Matty is up to 5 lbs 9 oz and Sarah is 5 lbs 13.5 oz which is fantastic. Not only does this put them back into the 'normal' baby category, it means that we can let them more or less tell us when they need to eat instead of keeping them on a strict schedule.
Ideally we could end up getting a solid 3 - 4 hours of sleep tonight but in reality they seem to both be cluster feeding so it may not be any different than the other nights. That isn't all bad, though, I would rather have them plumping up than happily sleeping away their health. Here is your cute twin pic o' the day titled: Not talking.

Sleepytime

Not much to report today. Both kids felt like last night was not an opportune time to sleep and so we had to rock them to sleep after each feeding. Overall, still not too bad since i am off work again this week and they are sleeping well once we get them down. Erin had an OB appt today and everything checked out great with her healing process so we feel good about that. So tired. More later. Here's a relative indicator of how big they've gotten...
For reference, that is Sarah's foot next to a size 1 chuck taylor. It is still amazing to me that they are perfect replicas of a people in such a small package.

Trip to the ER? Check.

Last night was fairly interesting as we had to take Matthew to the ER. Being a first time dad I am trying to be self-aware and not over-react to things as they come up as they are inevitably all new to me. So when Matthew's eye started to leak ooze and swell up exponentially over a couple of hours yesterday, I tried to think logically and do some research on the interwebs to figure out the best course of action. A bunch of minor things came up indicating a blocked tear duct, post-birth reaction to the Erythromycin given at birth, and the like. In addition to the 'not-so-serious' problems were things like viral infection, bacterial infection, and permanent damage to the eye. In the end we called Nana and Poppa Joe over to watch Sarah while we took the little man to the ER. Not exactly what Erin had in mind for her first mother's day. We initially went to the hospital to where he was born, but it turns out that they have no clinic there and would only take him if he needed to be hospitalized. Fortunately they were super nice and sent down a pediatrician to look at him and decided that it was not serious enough to admit him and gave us directions to the other campus. We got to the real ER a few minutes later and again got lucky in that it was a Saturday night and they were not too busy. After 45 minutes or so, they had taken a bunch of cultures for testing and suggested it was probably just conjunctivitis. We got some antibiotics for him and headed home. This morning his eye looks so much better and despite potentially over-reacting I think we made the right move in not waiting for it to get worse before deciding to take action. Happy mothers' day, wife (and Mimi and Nana)!

Weight Update

We all packed up and went to the pediatrician again today. Both kids had gained 1/2 an oz since yesterday, which is better than losing weight, but not up to the normal newborn 1 oz gain a day. I'll give them a pass since they were not even supposed to be here until next thursday. They are still not really able to regulate their body heat too well and get dehydrated easily, so we need to keep them well fed and bundled. The pediatrician recommended that we not leave the house except for doctor appointments until they both regain their birth weight plus a bit.

Tough to be the dad

I'm trying to find out if the following scenario will result in an automatic revocation of my dad license... I put Matthew in to the swing to calm him down after his 2:15 feeding last night because he tends to try and fight off the sleep. he has been enjoying the swing and my arms are really tired right now, so it works out great for both of us. At some indeterminate point later in the evening/morning, my babies' momma came in to get him because he was screaming and the swing had stopped swinging. I somehow managed to sleep through his noise even though my head was on the floor not more than a foot from the swing. Any thoughts?

Hello

Welcome to my blog. This is sort of a branch off of the blog my wife and I had during her pregnancy called AllTheToys. I figured since I'm their dad and they are now here in the world, I should have my own blog to describe my experiences with them. I'm doing this for me and them so hopefully once they are old enough I'll have some great stories to share with them. I guess to start I explain they were born on May 1st, which was about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Sarah came out first @ 3:36pm and weighing in at 5lbs 11oz followed by her brother Matthew @ 3:38pm who was 5lbs 5oz. I was in the operating room and opted to see them pulled out from Erin by the doctor and it was the most amazing thing i have ever seen. I would highly recommend it to any dad to be. By the time we left the hospital 4 days later, they had both lost about 10% of their body weight which was within the normal tolerance for getting out. Both seem happy and healthy are what we always dreamed of.

- will