Your cry in the middle of the night blares out of the baby monitor as it is perched on the dresser across from our bed. I jump out of bed and, on my way out of the room to check on you, I lower the volume of the monitor so your mother can sleep.

It is dark, perhaps 3 or 4 a.m., but I know the way by heart. I open the door to you and your sister’s room and move quietly but quickly to your crib. My eyes have adjusted to the dark by now and I can see you thrashing around in your crib. I bend over to pick you up. I can hear that your nose is clogged and you’re struggling to breathe. Your cute little hands, like paws on a kitten, swipe at your nose in a vain attempt to clear your sinuses.

This waking at night has been an ongoing thing and every night I ache for you because I know the only thing keeping you from sleeping through the night is your sensitive nose and the way it reacts to changes in the weather. Sometimes I squirt saline up your nose and you hate this almost as much as I hate doing it to you. This night, however, as I pull you out of your crib and hug you close to my chest I decide to just hold you. I find the glider that rests between you and your sister’s cribs and I lower us into the chair. Being upright begins to clear your sinuses and you melt into my body as we begin to slowly rock back and forth. Your chin rests on my shoulder and I can hear you sigh in relief as you take more and more deep breaths through your nose. If possible, you relax even more. It’s almost like you know your Daddy is here for you. I feel very close to you at this moment. I rest my cheek against yours as we continue to slowly rock in the dark.

Your cheek is cool to the touch and as soft as a baby’s cheek should be. I close my eyes and listen to the hum of the humidifier coming from the corner of the room. I hear your sister stir in the crib next to us but soon she is fast asleep as well. We continue to rock and my mind is transported to another time and place. Half-forgotten memories of me and my own father come fluttering out of my subconscious. I see my father tucking me into bed and purposefully and playfully rubbing his scruffy five o’clock shadow on my young face as I giggle and struggle to free myself. Suddenly I feel sad knowing that a short time later my father, your grandfather, died in a car accident.

I have had 28 years to get over this sadness and to a great extent I have. But having a child, indeed two children, of my own has suddenly given me a new perspective on my relationship with my father. I am saddened because holding you in my arms makes me realize just how much he must have wanted to be a part of my life. How much he wanted to raise a young man to be proud of and how he never got that chance. I have never thought about what being a father must have been like to my own father until this moment. And at this moment I choose to believe there is a heaven, that there is a higher being responsible for me being here today. And I hope that my father is looking down on us and smiling.

I hug you a little tighter there in that rocking chair and I kiss your full, round cheek and I burrow my nose into your neck. I inhale your baby smell and dream of all that I hope can and will be in our future. I think about the man you will become some day and I hope that I play a large role in that growth. I am keenly aware that there is no guarantee I will be here tomorrow. In fact, I sometimes think, as awful as this may sound, that I may never get to see you grow up. I pray that this isn’t the case because I believe now, more than anything, that I was born to be your father - to give you all that I never had the opportunity to have. And I’m not talking about material things. I’m talking about tossing a baseball around at the park, holding your hand while we watch the monkeys play at the zoo, teaching you the importance of hard work and pride in what you do, and talking about anything you want to talk about. I want to be there for all of that, Jonathan. More than anything. I’m sure my father did too.

We continue to rock and I think about a song I heard on the radio today. I had heard it many times before but had never listened to the lyrics closely. It was about a man and his strained relationship with his father and how he could never live up to his father’s expectations. Of course, I thought of you Jonathan, and without warning I started to cry in the middle of rush hour traffic. As I wiped away the tears I promised myself that I will always reach out to you. I will always support you in what you want to do in life. I will always be there for you to talk to. I hope you will always feel that deep within you. That is my wish.

I am brought back to the present as your sister stirs once again. I can feel your short breaths on the side of my neck as we rock together in the darkness of the night. I give you a small kiss on the cheek and I rise slowly to put you back in your crib. I carefully place you down and, with the aid from the street lamp outside your window, I can make out your peaceful face as you sleep. I watch you there for a minute or so. I linger because I am intoxicated by you and even though I tell people how much I’d love it if you would consistently sleep through the night, deep down I love these moments I get to share with you alone.

I reach over and plant one more kiss on your forehead before I quietly make my way out of your room. Goodnight my son. I love you.

As I got JT situated on the couch this morning, I explained to him what the day was going to be like.

“Today we’re going to watch football, Jonathan.” I said as I absent mindedly waved his pacifier around in the air as I spoke. “We’re gonna be MEN! We’re not gonna bathe and we’re gonna eat all day long.” (Well, he gets to eat all day long every day, but I look forward to it)

As I spoke, I continued to jab the pacifier in the air for emphasis. “Today, we’re gonna root for Terrell Owens and Cadillac Williams in the morning and Drew Brees and LaDanian Tomlinson in the evening, okay? And remember, we’re gonna sit around and eat and drink. Why? Because we’re men!”

At that, Jonathan cannot take it any longer. The pacifier has been dangling in front of him for too long. In my excitement to share this male bonding with my 3 month old son I hadn’t noticed that he was growing disturbed. Suddenly, he begins to cry. I look at the pacifier in my hand.

“Oh, here you go.” as I pop it into his mouth.

Jonathan calms down and begins sucking furiously.

“Okay,” I say, “We can be men with a binky.”

Recently daddy fitness has been a topic of discussion. Metrodad told us about his fights with Hector, and my wife (who exercised throughout her pregnancy and has been exercising again for the past 6 weeks) has been hinting about how it might be time for me to start exercising again (something about a good example for our children, yada, yada, yada. But she’s right, so what can I say?). So, I dug out the running shoes two days ago and got on our very nice torture device treadmill.

I’m still sore.

The ultimate indignity occurred this morning, however. While changing Jonathan’s diaper he started doing straight-legged leg lifts (while smiling - as if to say, look how it’s done old man). I glanced down at his tummy to see total definition in his abdominal area.

My 3 month old has better abs than I do.

*Sigh*

If you need me, I’ll be in the garage on the torture device treadmill.

JT and Bri,

I can’t believe it’s already been 3 months since your birth. That means we only have 213 more months until you go off to college.

You’re growing up so fast. It seems like you learn a new trick every day. Jonathan, I watched you in your crib yesterday spend at least five minutes trying to get your thumb into your mouth. You had a plan that was pretty good in concept. Execution, however, wasn’t so hot. First, you extended your fist as far away from your face as possible. Then, you would eject your thumb away from your fist, almost like an artist sizing up his painting from across the room. Next, you would slowly bring the thumb/fist toward your face. Almost inevitably you would bring the fist right at your eye that was looking at the fist. Being off by only a couple of inches, you would then try to drag your thumb across the bridge of your nose, over the top lip and into the awaiting mouth. The only problem you had was by the time your fist got to the mouth, the thumb had retracted back into your fist. “Hmmm” I could almost see you thinking, “Let’s try this again.” And you would. Never quite got it though, I’m afraid.

Now, you’re sitting next to me as I type this and you’re at it again. Being the great dad that I am, I first showed you how I suck my thumb (Please note that I stopped sucking my thumb years ago. I mean, who knew how mean college classmates could be about such a thing). This seemed to provide some much needed encouragement, however, because you proceeded to try again in earnest. This time, I helped keep your thumb out and you finally got it into your mouth. Another problem has arisen, however. Judging by the wrinkled nose and licking of the lips, it seems you don’t care for the taste of your thumb. Well, we can’t say we didn’t try. Now, this won’t rank up there with me teaching you how to throw a baseball, blast out of the starting blocks, telling Mommy you love her more, but it’s a start.

Brianna, your new trick is that you like to talk. All… of… the… time. Every morning when I get you out of bed for your early feeding you look at me like I’m the bestest thing in the whole world (and I’m just going to keep believing it’s so). Your smile is so huge and you begin to make excited noises that are so loud I have to hurry you out of the room to change you so you won’t wake your brother. When I lie you down to change your diaper prior to feeding, you get so excited that you kick and thrash your legs around. While it’s cute as hell, it does make it a little harder to change your diaper. Luckily, there’s been no accidents as of yet. After feeding, I put you back down for your morning nap (you’re like your mom, you definitely like to sleep in. In fact, if it was socially acceptable for your mother to wear diapers to bed, she might not ever get up). It is so fun to hear you talk yourself to sleep over the baby monitor as I feed your brother. What you’re saying, I have no clue, but it sounds fascinating. You’ll have to explain it to me some day.

Needless to say, the last 3 months have been an incredible time in our family. I must admit it’s pretty exhausting to juggle the both of you (not literally, we haven’t tried juggling you since you hit the 10 pound mark. Daddy’s back isn’t what it used to be). But at the end of the evening, after your mom and I have bathed, fed, changed and finally put you to bed we close the door to your room and we give each other a kiss and a high five (Another day without killing the kids or each other - All Right!). It is then one of us will look at the other and say, “Can you believe how lucky we are?”

No, I cannot believe it. But there it is. You are living proof at how blessed and fortunate we are. I dreamed of having you for so long, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would be as good as this.

Happy Three Months Little Ones. I love you.

When we first discovered we were having twins and after I recovered from the shock of having two babies instead of the one we had been planning on, I began to form in my mind what the babies would be like when they arrived. This was particularly hard since we didn’t know the sex of either baby yet. I have an active imagination, however, and I did pretty well imagining all the baby-like qualities of the twins. I pictured cute, round faces, lots of cooing and a smile here and there. Basically, I pictured every baby on television commercials.

What I didn’t think of and couldn’t even begin to imagine was how different they would be. It never dawned on me that baby 1 and baby 2 would be so wonderfully different. In fact, in the past few weeks I have noticed a tremendous change in how I view the little ones. Instead of something to feed and change and feed again, and change again, they are little human beings that interact with me in their own special ways.

Bri will smile at me and just melt my heart. In the early morning I feed her and gaze into her eyes. We stare at each other for long periods and suddenly Bri will smile around the nipple of the bottle. It’s as if she’s mocking her old man for loving her so darn much. Her personality is so happy that when she gets cranky her facial expressions alternate between laughing and crying as if she’s doing a pretty darn good impression of the Tragedy and Comedy masks. When I put her down to take a nap after feeding her in the morning, she smiles and coos at me and we have little conversations that don’t mean anything, but really mean everything. She also has her mother’s determination. She has not been that great at breast feeding but seems to be trying really hard at it. Now, that hard work is paying off and lately she has been feeding like a barracuda (I’m so glad I don’t have to know what that feels like). The amazing this is that nothing seems to bother this little girl. I get the feeling she could be bitten by a dog and be excited about getting to touch the dog. Bri is a sweet, sweet baby. There’s just no other way to describe her.

Jonathan, on the other hand, is completely different than his sister. From the beginning he has cried more and when he first started communicating, all he did was grumble. He is very cuddly and loves to be held. When I come home from work and see him for the first time, I’m greeted with smiles and he seems to melt into me as I pick him up for a long overdue hug. He knows the sound of my voice and will follow me across the room. When we make eye contact, I’ll smile and he smiles right back. Recently, he picked up a new trick. Unknowingly, as I over-emoted in front of him while playing, I was raising and lowering my eyebrows at a quick rate. Suddenly, he got a look of deep concentration on his face and then, in a quick moment, his eyebrows darted up and then down. He looked at me, I looked at him and we both broke into smiles. At night, Jonathan is a handful. He continues to wake up at night sounding congested. I continue to do all I can to help the little guy and hopefully we’ll get this thing figured out soon. He loves to sleep on my belly and it’s those times that I feel so very close to the little guy. But I can’t let him get used to sleeping on me every night so I try to limit it. If I could, I’d have him sleep on my belly every night.

How lucky am I? Yes, I panicked a little when I found out we were having twins, but I can’t imagine my life any other way. These two little ones are my children. My daughter. My son. How very strange and how very wonderful do those words sound. And the best part? If the first 3 months have been this great, I can only imagine what the future will bring.

In the past I have written about just how painful operating on 3 to 4 hours a sleep a night can be. The first 6 to 8 weeks were the most difficult period of time I have ever encountered. On one hand I had these two beautiful babies that I loved with all of my heart. On the other hand, I was cranky, tired, and feeling disconnected from everything.

The good news is that things have been gradually getting better. It started about 3 weeks ago when Brianna began sleeping through the night. One night, we were feeding her at 8:00 p.m. 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. and the next night she skipped the 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. feedings and has never looked back.

Jonathan, however, has been a different story.

From the beginning, JT has been difficult when it comes to eating and sleeping. He had a touch of reflux and he also does not handle changes in humidity well. He wakes up at night and has trouble breathing. Being the loving father (and the sleepy, wanting-to-go-back-to-sleep father) that I am, I would take JT back to bed and let him sleep on my belly. Often, it was the only way to appease him. It certainly was the easiest. So, after waiting for JT to catch up to Bri in the sleep through the night department, we noticed a pattern. While we finally got him to skip the 11:00 p.m. feeding, he was still waking up at 3:00 a.m. like clockwork. I would feed him but we started to reduce the amount. Even after feeding it would take having him on my belly to go back to sleep.

This had to stop.

So, two nights ago I got tough. When JT awoke at 3:00 a.m. I picked him up, soothed him and them put him right back down. After 20 minutes of doing this I somehow stuck my finger in his mouth where he started sucking and calmed down considerably. Now JT normally doesn’t like pacifiers. Bri uses them to sleep but that’s it. So after 15 minutes with my finger in JT’s mouth I finally thought, “Okay, I can’t stand here all night.” So, I ran and got a pacifier from Bri, stuck it into JT’s mouth and prayed. Well, what do you know? In about 5 minutes Jonathan was asleep with no feeding and no belly sleeping.

Last night, he again awoke at 3:00 a.m. This time, I didn’t pick him up. I placed the pacifier in this mouth. He spit it out. I put it in again. He spit it out again. I put it in and, this time, held it in his mouth. Seeing he was up against a man who really wanted to sleep and had no intention of playing “fetch” with the pacifier, Jonathan started sucking and sucked himself to sleep in about 5 minutes.

So, I am this close to getting a full night’s sleep. I can taste it! Will tonight be the night? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s coming folks. It’s coming.

Tonight, while giving my baby boy a bath, he farted in the tub. I laughed, made the requisite comments about having his own jacuzzi and we moved on.

Then, while drying him off he did it again. Spontaneously, I said full of joy and vigor, “Was that a Froggy!”

I stopped in my tracks. Until that moment I had forgotten that in my house when we were kids, we called farts “froggies.” I’m sure it was because of their similarity to the sound of a frog croaking but that’s not my point. My point is that it started me wondering about all the other things that I experienced as a child and if or when they will reappear in my current role as Daddy.

Since I started this blog, I promised myself I wouldn’t write strictly about pooping and peeing and I sense I’m getting very close to that right now. (And I have no doubt I’ll hear it from Andrea that I was talking about farting on my blog) So let me end by asking…

What things in your childhood reappeared once parenthood hit

Tuesday I packed up Jonathan in his infant carrier, double checked the items I had in my cool, manly backpack diaper bag and we headed out. I had an errand or two to run before I took Jonathan to the doctor or a, ahem, “male” procedure. Our first stop was to Kohls department store to pick up a second set of King size sheets for our bed. We had put off buying a second set and, instead, would wash the sheets and put them right back on the same day. Now, however, it quickly became apparent that we would be changing our sheets a lot more often due to baby spit-up and breast milk flying around our bed. So Jonathan and I found a shopping cart made specifically for infant carriers and off we went to shop. Jonathan, being the babe magnent that he is, got lots of attention as we made our way through the store. I stopped off in the women’s sport clothes section and picked up a couple of tank tops for Andrea to wear around the house. We then proceeded to housewares where I picked up the sheets. Everything was going well and I paid for the items and we made our way back out the car. Once to the car, I carefully loaded Jonathan back into the car, fiddled with the mirror we installed in the back so I could see him from up front, and got into the car and headed to the doctor’s office.

Upon a successful return home from the doctor, I brought Jonathan upstairs and was telling Andrea how great everything had gone when I suddenly realized that I didn’t have the Kohls items. I had left them in the shopping cart in the parking lot. So, I flew down the stairs and drove quickly to Kohls (luckily it’s only a five minute drive) and found the cart where I had left it. I looked inside - nothing. I hurried inside and inquired at the register and they directed me to customer service. It turns out that customer service had the shirts but no sheets. I feared as much and was prepared to re-purchase $80 sheets (on sale) when the young lady picked up the phone, told the manager my problem and asked if she could replace the sheets. I was very grateful when she said “yes.”

Upon returning home, a bit red-faced, I looked at Andrea and said, “Well, at least I remembered the baby and forgot the goods - not the other way around!”

Last night I partook in my new favorite pastime - watching the babies sleep. As I gazed at Brianna, I told her how beautiful she is, how much I loved her and that she’ll always be Daddy’s little girl.

Only then did I realize I was talking to Jonathan.

I guess I do need more sleep.