Table for 9 please

We have all had the feeling while in the hospital, sleeping on a make shift couch/bed, interrupted every hour though out the night for BP reading and various other check ups, I am ready to go home.  All of these nuisances are obviously necessary for the health of mother and child, or in our case children, but man they can be terribly interruptive to sleep.  Then you are so excited to go home and get back to normal life with dates and dinner parties and movie nights and ice cream runs, and all those things that make life satisfying.  Wait…..we just had twins and any sort of “normalcy” is pretty much gone for the next…oh….4 years or so!  Then, after you are home, you look back at how good it was in that cold postpartum room, when the nursery would offer to take the babies for the night to allow you to “get some sleep.”  Now we are home and the real parenting begins!

How is it the babies can be so sleepy and content in the hospital and when they get home, surprise, surprise, surprise, “Dad, we have lungs and I am really not that tired anymore.”  Most of the time that has been the case, but these boys have been dreamy so far (I will regret saying that!).  Now they still have their moments, during diaper changes, when they get “hangry,” or when one of their older brothers pokes them in the eye, you know, the normal stuff.  These boys should be bullet proof by the time they are old enough to walk.  I guess having 5 older brothers will do that!

After 4 years of no babies, you tend to forget what it is like to not get continuous sleep.  It is sort of like taking a succession of tiny naps all night, which does nothing for you mental exhaustion.  Then the kids start playing tricks with your mind!  Here is the game, you decide to start changing their diapers before feeding, they start filling them up mid feeding.  Then when they are done you brighten their day by changing their diaper, again, which is always a calming event.  They are then wide awake at 3 am, which is spectacular!  Of course if you wait and start not change the diapers before the eat, they do nothing in them and you have woken them up for no reason, its a viscous game.  There is some joy with them being awake at 3 am when you have 5 other kids, you finally get some quiet one on one time.  They are so sweet and just look at you and coo and there are no other distractions or noise, it is utopia.  I think it is an amazing time to bond with the babies.  Even when you are tired seeing those big eyes and hearing the soft sounds, its quite fantastic!

I have shared with you previously how absolutely perfect my wife/supermom/best friend is and has been through all of this, well she continues to amaze.  I haven’t seen her this happy in quite sometime.  I can tell her heart is exploding with love and our family has definitely strengthened through this adventure.  My unbreakable bond with my best friend has grown in ways I didn’t feel were possible.  Even in the midst of sleep deprivation, which normally means short fuses, we continue to lead and transform this family with smiles and love.  I have never met a person quite like her, someone that completes and enhances everything about who I am.  She is my everything, and together I know that no peak is unreachable and every summit will be conquered.

Lets be honest, getting no sleep really stinks, but to have, not one, but two healthy babies, does it really get better?  I know most of you think we are absolutely crazy, 7 kids, and with the imbalance of work load to sleep, I tend to agree, but this thing called life is getting really good.  What if you got to always received two of everything, 2 Ferraris, or 2 houses in the French West Indies, or 2 signed original Babe Ruth bats, would that not be spectacular?  That is exactly what having multiples is like.  Remember that view from 10k feet, I have to tell you its looking pretty breathtaking right now.  Cherish the moments you have and don’t wish for the ones you never got, and remember only you make your own destiny.  Being a Dad is the greatest treasure given to man, seize it and make the most of these moments, even if you are sleep deprived, there are surprises in the most inopportune times and places.