Last Saturday was a momentous occasion for this little Mendham family, as we did our first real outing! This included our first feed anywhere other than at home or at the hospital, plus the first remote diaper change too… A recipe for disaster, right?

Vancouver has a great stretch of beaches all along the southern side of it’s great bay, starting at Kitsilano beach and going all the way to Wreck Beach which looks out to sea (well towards the island) from the point below UBC. These beaches all have a fantastic view across to the North shore mountains, with Stanley Park and downtown Vancouver filling the foreground on the more eastern beaches. There’s a great walkway, called the seawall, which goes from almost the western end of these beaches, all the way downtown, back out around Stanley park, then back to town again – quite a stretch if you want to walk the whole lot!

Of course, I didn’t manage to get any photos of us walking alongside the water, beaches and mountains in the background…

We decided to just do a short stretch of the beaches after doing a little shopping at one of the trendy little suburbs (4th for those who know it – all the girls in Lululemon went NUTS over the boys) and getting a Cosmic milkshake (yes it deserves a capital C), so we were due for a feed and change when we got to the beach. We parked up in a shady spot on the side of a quiet side street and warmed up the bottles. Nat fed in the front passenger seat, I fed in the back seat – it’s actually reasonably roomy back there! The feeds went really well, and we only had a couple of groups walk past going “twins!”.

Then came time to change the boys. Nat changed Alex on the tailgate while I was burping Jack. Jack then did the biggest spit we’d seen him do, all down my only t-shirt. Damn.

Recovering from the spit & preparing to operate

Then I got to change Jack, and he had a GIANT diaper. Like, overfull. While I was dealing with that he also decided that it was time to evacuate the bladder and piddled everywhere, although I managed to save any from getting on the car by catching it on my hands…

By this time Nat was in absolute hysterics with laughter at the Jack and Jared show with tears rolling down her cheeks. A cyclist rode past right at that moment and we’re pretty sure she took massive pity on us – the wife bawling her eyes out whilst these poor people dealt with a couple of crying kids on the side of the road…

The operating table... we're in the wilderness boys! Kinda...

Jack was over the moon about being changed in public. He got all self conscious. Or maybe it was because of the pants?

Anyhoo, we got everything back in order, tidied up, then went for a great walk along the seawall. Freedom! Where shall we go next?!

Life here at the ranch seems to have settled down a little of late and we seem to be getting into a bit of a routine. The boys are still eating, sleeping, crying machines, so that routine can be a little monotonous, but we’re starting to see some glimpses of the boys they will be. Jack can get a pretty good smile up these days, and both boys will maintain eye contact. More in a cat sort of way than a “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” kinda way, but hey, it’s progress!

They seem to be on 3 – 4 hourly feeds, taking about 70 – 100ml of milk on average each feed, so thats pretty spot on. We got them weighed the other day and Alex is now well over 2.8kg and Jack is over 3kg, with Alex gaining about 20g a day and Jack about 30g on average. These are good numbers for boys of their type, and as Alex was the donor in the twin to twin transfusion he will lag behind Jack for a few months before pulling back into line eventually.

It can be pretty full on looking after both the boys by yourself and unfortunately Nat’s bearing the brunt of all that as I’ve been going to work during the day. Still, I guess we have to liken it to army maneuvers – we just have to take each battle one at a time and eventually we’ll win the war.

I’m gradually mastering the art of feeding two at once. Here’s a pic Nat snapped of a 10pm feed a few nights ago:

And of course you have to do a double burp occasionally…

Maybe, just maybe, the boys will start being able to hold their own bottles soon. Alex seems keen to work it out sooner than later! I’ve found that with the bottles rested in a certain way then they can feed while I have my hands free to attend to whoever needs my help most.

Here’s a little gallery that Nat took this afternoon of Jack’s many facial expressions. Alex does a similar thing, and it’s quite funny to watch them run through pretty much every emotion in the book within about 30 seconds! Make sure you click on the first image, then use the arrows on the side of the image to scroll through the enlarged pics

(please excuse the repeat of the last 3 images… something daft in the software!)

It’s Natalie’s birthday today… 28 years young! I believe she’s had a good day, plus a very solid chocolate birthday cake cooked by yours truly and some great presents. She also received this poem from my mother, photocopied from one of her books. It really struck a chord for how things are at the moment in our house and it was almost as if they had written about us.

My Two Little Boys

My two little boys
Eyes closed in sleep
Small innocent faces
I’ve come in to peep

What dreams do you dream
In your slumbering state
Of mischief and magic
Or Monsters and hate

What holds the future
My two bright eyed sons
Will you still be best mates
When your adulthood comes

Will you still want to hold me
And kiss me goodnight
When too old to sit
On my knee snuggly tight

Soft, sounds of sleeping
Tiny mutters and snores
Lead me hope that this sweetness
Will always be yours

I pray – may your lives be
The best they can be
You will always be special
To your Daddy and me

Well, today isn’t quite their birthday, but theoretically this is the day that Alex and Jack were due, so it’s kinda their birthday… Right?

Today is day 89 since they came into this world, and they spent 77 of those days in hospital. As I write this I have one on my lap and one beside me. Alex is giving me the crazy eyes after a feed and some tummy time, and Jack… He’s just having a bit of a squirm to himself. They can be so animated, waving their hands around in unison, gurning their faces through expressions that would make Da Vinci proud to pensive looks and all the way through to ones where it looks like they’re quite sure that they’ve pooped their pants. Again.

Nat and I have to keep reminding ourselves that we have kids. Babies. Look, there they are, right there! Acting all cute again! And TWO of them! How did we get to double dip?

They’re starting to grow quickly now, with Jack above the 3 keg mark, and Alex is around about 2.76kg, gains of about 35g and 22g per day over the last few days, respectively.

I’ve just finished reading a eulogy my father wrote for my grandmother who passed away only a couple of weeks ago. This is the second time I’ve read it after we received it in the mail today (thanks dad!), so I’m a little reflective. I actually found out that there was quite a lot that I didn’t know about my Nan’s life. Alex and Jack have got a good heritage to live up to, as their grand-nan was a tough lady who had been through a lot, including having their building hit by a Japanese bomb in Sydney during WW2 whilst my father was a toddler and being amongst the first to travel the Trans-Siberian railway after it was opened up.

It made me realize that we (I) sometimes know so little about our parents, grandparents and their parents, etc, and sometimes it’s too late that you realize you should have spent more time talking to these people, rather than just co-existing.

It also makes me wonder how this new digital age will change things for our boys. Of course, they’ll be able to see Nat and my entire history together through the comprehensive digital pictures we’ve taken, and maybe the comparison of that vs all our old film shots will seem like the change from black and white still photography to colour seemed to us boys back when we were actually boys. If anything was old, we’d ask “was that from back in the black and white days, dad?” it became a joke after a while, but we saw so few pictures from the black and white days and it was tough for kids to imagine that they were real colour people with real colorful stories.

So I wonder if we’ll get asked “was that back when you printed pictures on paper?”

And I guess the thing that makes me a little sad is that although Nat and I have a great documentation through photos of our adventures, the stories will still be lost eventually, as will those of my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc, unless we have more story-telling time, which we’re losing in this digital age where we entertain ourselves with trashy American shows and soap operas in which nothing changes.

The crux of what I’m getting at here is that this eulogy has made me really want to sit down with my folks when I get home and really find out about some of these stories from our family history. I really should have asked Nan more about it when she was alive, but I’m too late there. It also makes me want to speak to Alex and Jack and tell them our stories rather than just filling their heads with other peoples stories all the time.

Sorry, a bit more reflective post this time, but the sentiment is that we really need to appreciate who we have, while we have them. Everyone has a story that happened to them in full technicolor.

So one of the most exciting parts of the day around here is Tummy Time. That’s where they get to lie on their chest and thrash about. One of the ideas behind tummy time was that this would give the back of their heads a break after the research on SIDS said that there was a higher likelyhood of sudden death if infants slept on their stomach, so everyone should put their babies to sleep on their backs. Problem with spending lots of time on their backs is that it has the potential to malform the back of their head… not good.

So, tummy time is good for preventing weird shaped heads, but it’s also good for strengthening their necks as it promotes them to try and raise their headsto look around, which leads to them sitting up, which leads to them strengthening more muscles, crawling, walking, and being able to eventually hoist a pint down ‘t pub. Baby steps though.

Anyhoo, Alex decided he’d had enough tummy time this morning and flipped himself over onto his back. Sure surprised himself and us, particularly considering one website I read suggested suggested that they will start rolling themselves over by about 5 months of age. Now, of course, it’ll be much more difficult for him to flip himself the other direction (back to front, althogh as a slight edit he did get close this afternoon), but it’s quite surprising really that he’s doing it all, considering they’re due to be born on Tuesday. That’s their actual due date and when they’re supposed to really kick start their development. Hmmm…

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One thing that Nat and I did the other day, and I’ll add it here as an addendum and a suggestion to *any* potential parents (I know there’s a few reading this!), is go back to the hospital for a brief half hour CPR course that is put on by the respirtory therapists that operate the breathing machines in the NICU. Here we learned the basics on how to resucitate infants in varying forms of choking, from partial airway blockage to full airway blockage. I won’t explain it here, apart from a couple of points, as you should try and do some sort of course or get some real information from a proper source whilst pregnant or soon after your baby is born.

A couple of key points were that simply picking your child up will help out with 99% of partial choking cases, as this will help dislodge whatever is causing it to happen. The other is that if a baby has a fully blocked airway, then they will be able to survive for quite a while on minimal air – their hearts and circulatory systems are so strong that the heart will keep ticking even if they stop breathing, you just have to find a way to remove the blockage, which they will tell you how in the course. If they do stop breathing for another reason, you can help them breathe, but you don’t really need to help out their heart with compressions as it will keep on going regardless for at least a few minutes. You can also skip helping them breathe for at least long enough for you to call 911/000, it’s not like an adult who needs consistant breaths.

The final fact is that a very high percentage of causes of infant death are due to a respiritory problem. So probably a good idea to do the course, right?

I’ve probably confused the hell out of you with these random pieces of poorly written information, but hopefully it’s enough to spur all you new parents in to doing the course or something like it. If you happen to be in the NICU at the BC Childrens and Womens hospital, then the course is run by the RT’s and is free, you just have to ask your nurse. They run the courses weekly on demand.