Jill and I took the babies on a spur-of-the-moment weekend getaway a few weeks ago. It was really quite nice. That is, if your idea of nice is 48 hours of panic, stress, and chaos.

Jill picked me up from work and we immediately hit the road for a nearby resort and by 7:00 PM the babies were asleep. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived at our cabin, the babies immediately regained total consciousness. In fact, it was more like a state of hyper-consciousness.

After about a hour of pulling the babies off table tops, out from underneath furniture, and away from the multitude of baby death traps the cabin contained, I sat on the cabin's moldy couch, stressed, bewildered, and whining to Jill, "Can we please go home now?"

36 hours later, I sat in the van waiting for Jill to check out and watched a parade of other parents leaving the lodge, all looking as catatonic as I felt. It was at that precise moment I realized yet another Eternal Truth of Parenthood....vacations with babies aren't supposed to be fun and relaxing. They're supposed to be something else...I'm not sure what that something else is yet, but I think it's something between Chinese water torture and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Perhaps I'm being just a tad bit overly pessimistic about the prospect of future vacations. It's just that I remember a few too many trips to the beach where my most important concern was if the ice would last long enough to keep the beer cold.

Oh well. Jill and I and the babies are taking a real vacation in the near future which, because I'm an optimistic person by nature, I'm certain will be far better than something between Chinese water torture and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I'm certain it will be more like something between a root canal and a hug from sweaty fat man.

Reading:

I've recently begun to enjoy reading to the babies.

Perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise because there are few things I like better than books. Set me down in any row of a library or book store and I can amuse myself for hours. I'm certain that my love for reading was inherited from my parents, both of whom always seemed to be reading something all the time I was growing up.

As a child I loved going to the library, and my mother took my brother, sister, and me every week. I was always disappointed when the shriveled up old lady librarian would tell me that I had exceeded my check-out limit and would make me put back some of my selections.

My Master's degree was delayed by at least a year because of the frequency with which I would get sidetracked while doing research. I would set out searching for books on my thesis topic and end up with arm loads of books on every topic but my thesis topic.

So now, it's quite a thrill to see the babies begin to take an interest in books. All of them--Carter in particular--will pick out a book, stand in front of Jill or me, and say "book, book, book, book, etc." until we break down or tire of them beating us in the knees with the book and read it to them.

Then, something special happens. The one with the book will climb up in our laps, then the other two will follow close behind, and they will all three--get this--sit still and listen...

It's quite incredible and I'm becoming, if I say so myself, a wonderful reader. It took me a while not to feel like a complete moron reading aloud, but that was before they started paying attention.

I realized that it wasn't the books or reading aloud that made me feel stupid before. It was because until recently, they never seemed to be paying attention. In other words, I'm a ham and the babies have just learned how to be an audience. I guess it works out for everyone then.

The constant reading of children's books does have some unfortunate side effects. Since children's books generally rhyme, I find myself slipping into what I refer to as "Suesspeak." No matter how hard I keep on trying, I cannot, will not, stop from rhyming. Then every single word I speak, comes out as a rhyming squeak. And every little thought I think, comes out in a Suess-like stink.

You get the idea.

7-12-99

Time:

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating that my sense of time has been distorted beyond all recognition by living with the babies. Now that the babies are completely mobile and in motion every waking moment, their boundless energy seems to act on my sense of time like the spinning hands of a clock from an old Twilight Zone show.

My days have become one big blur of diapers, bottles, bathing, clothing, feeding and nursery rhymes, and that's just taking care of Jill...

But seriously folks...

As I lie on the couch, exhausted by merely being in the presence of such inexhaustible energy, I feel like I'm in an old cowboy movie where the couch is the circled wagons and the babies are riding around me in ever smaller orbits until they move in for the kill.

Ok, so I don't really feel like an old movie, I just feel old. Perhaps because I turned 37 this week I am preoccupied with passing time.

On the other hand, there's nothing like being around children to keep you young. In the 17 months that we've been blessed by these wonderful little creatures, my entire world view has changed--mostly for the better.

Although I'll readily admit to being occasionally overwhelmed by the magnitude of responsibility that comes with parenthood, having children has changed my perception of my place in the world and my responsibility to the future of it. I no longer see myself as disconnected from past, present, and future but see in very concrete terms myself as part of the huge continuum of time that extends through me to the babies and hopefully through them to the next generation.

Since the implications of this are immense in that even the smallest action carries that possibility of either tremendous good or tremendous evil, it's easy to fall prey to the temptation of staying on the couch and just letting the babies circle me, whooping and shooting me full of arrows.

But, as the wise ones have said, even in not choosing, one makes a choice. This is what periodically motivates me to get off the couch and do something which, given the lack of energy I feel as a result of the endless blur of diapers, bottles, bathing, clothing, feeding, and nursery rhymes, usually just means rolling off the couch and letting the babies climb on me until it's time to resume my parenting chores.

The babies have definitely affected my memory as well. The other day, we were at Jill's folks' for dinner. Jill's sister's new baby was there and as I looked at our 17- month-olds running around squealing and being wild, I mentioned that I couldn't remember when ours were so tiny.

Jill said that's what makes people want to have more than one. I think she's right. There's some kind of selective amnesia that occurs in that terrifying first year or so that makes you forget all the sleepless nights, horrifying colds, helpless cries, and every other hardship that a new baby brings and only lets you remember how sweet and cuddly they were when they were tiny.

For example, I have to look at video tape to remember what our babies were like before they could walk. Everything else is part of some weird fuzzy time that I don't remember too well.

I'll probably post some new pictures soon. Jill took the babies for their first professional photographs for my Father's Day surpise -- I'll share some soon!