Holy Hilarious Hairdos, Batman

You're an infant of 4 weeks old and because you're mostly swaddled and heavily clothed most of the time, your hair is one of your only places to stake a claim to individuality - do you:
A) Pitch a fit and insist that mom or dad comb your hair so you can step out in style.
B) Expend all your free time learning how to manipulate your opposable thumbs so you can prep your own hair
C) Cast your inhibitions to the wind and just wear it like it is, baby.

We're not sure where this hair comes from, but we do know it is magnificent. It seems to be made of some complex polymer that defies matting, combing and even water on occasion. The good news is that Mary Poole has the gumption and wherewithal to carry this styling forward with charisma and class. There aren't many who could claim the same.

Perritt on the other hand has adopted the "Bald is Beautiful" stance for his dome. While he's clearly committed to this effort, he hasn't completed the full hair loss. So he's now sporting an unfortunate wraparound hairdo with just a narrow band of hair around the back of his head. So instead of looking like MJ, he's sort ooks like an old timer waiting on his pension check to cash so he can spring for a senior's cruise to the Carribbean. This of course, is hilarious. Though from the picture, it's clear he's much less amused with the situation than we are.

In other news . . .
Don't call it a comeback - he's been here for years. Our little chowhound, Perritt, is almost 9 lbs strong and now officially outweighs his sister . . . again. Though the birth weights may lead one to believe the contrary, Perritt actually started out in the womb with a head start with his weight. We think that somewhere along the way he got distracted by all the kicks to the head he received from his sister ("Quit hitting yourself. Quit hitting yourself. Quit hitting yourself." could be clearly heard in many of our ultrasounds). So Mary Poole ended up weighing more than Perritt at birth. But upon arriving in the world, he made it very clear that he intended to reclaim the heavyweight title and has insisted on a rigorous eating regimen to allow him to bulk up. Beefcake!!!

Mary Poole, of course, is just simply not interested in this competitive display of testosterone-driven weight gain and is quietly adding ounces at a good clip herself (8lb 12oz). So they are both doing great and are rapidly outgrowing their clothes which is amazing and funny. They are both squeezed into their newborn onesies now - sort of like Bruce Banner in a dicey situation . . . only with fat instead of muscle . . . and they aren't green or angry. But those are both good things I think.

Things to appreciate before having children

Just a quick snapshot of the twins in, you guessed it, matching pants suits on their second stroller trip. While the weather's been hot, we took them out in the evening a couple of days ago and snapped this shot of them before we headed out. One note on the image: Ok, so Perritt looks a little like K-Fed in this picture - with that staged "This is how I roll in the 342, shoty" look about him. Add in a gold chain or some bling on his grill and the image would be spot on Federline. Just trust me, this is semblance is incidental - he was stretching.

Moving along. . .
So, I've had some time to start compiling a list of things to do the next time I find myself without children in order to better appreciate what life is like when you don't have kids. Of course this won't ever happen again, but perhaps my own experience can serve as a motivational signpost for the DINKs out there. Here's is an abbreviated list of the things I didn't appreciate enough before Perritt and Mary Poole came home.

1. Uninterrupted sleep
   Before Perritt and Mary Poole came around, a lot of my friends who had children would tell me things like "Get your sleep now." or "You better save your sleep up" These are all nice ways of saying - you won't get any sleep when the children come along. And this is very true. You do not sleep with newborns - at least not like you used to.
   
   Sure you get an hour or two at a time at night - perhaps a nap in the afternoon (yet to materialize for me) - and if you count the Dawn of the Dead state that you occupy between the hours of 1 and 4pm in the afternoon as 1/2 time - you do in fact still get "sleep." But it's not the same sleep. It's not that 7 or 8 hour long drink of water on a hot summer day type of slumber. This is derivative sleep - a cheap imitation of the real deal. The Rite Aid Cola of sleep. It just ain't the real thing, baby.
   
   
2. Enjoying a meal
   We're at the stage right now where spending an hour to drive half a mile up the street to Taxco to have Burritos Nacionale of questionable quality, a so-so margarita and a super mug of Budweiser sounds about like taking a month and heading on an all-expense paid trip to Bali. How does perspective change like this? A month ago, we would have thought nothing of leaving the house on a whim and going to a nice dinner at an Atlanta eatery of our choosing. Now, stealing away for a #1 combo at Chick Fila sounds a little risky and probably more trouble than it's worth. Luckily we've got great friends and family who've kept us in meals.
   

Updates from the babies:

• We got an interesting call the other day from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. Apparently after careful consideration, they've decided to use Perritt as the new standard for determining time for the U.S. Turns out the vibrations in Perritt's stomach as meal time approaches are more accurate in assessing feeding time than the more traditional cesium standard. It really is amazing to watch him meltdown within a nanosecond of feeding time. He could be on "Heroes" - though that would sort of be a lame super power.
  
• Meanwhile Mary Poole continues to most closely resemble that guy from Summer School, "Nocturnal Larry" who slept all day in Mr. Shoop's class. Though we're pretty sure she's not up to any funny business at night like that guy was, we've had our alarm on at night just to be sure.
  
• Bathtime for the kids . . . yea, still not the "pleasurable bond between parent and child" that it was sold to us as. I'm sure that will change.
  

In all seriousness, it's really neat seeing the lights come on in their eyes. Mary Poole is ticklish, smiles a lot and is hysterical when she wakes up. We can see her becoming a functioning member of society right before our eyes. Perritt, though not ticklish, loves to be held. We have an affectionate name for him that I'll refrain from posting so his friends won't make fun of him later in life when they Google this blog for dirt on him. But he's a real good boy underneath the meticulous fussiness. Every day is something new and it's a joy to experience first hand.

And now . . . the embarrassing staged photos

So this is a scene from the typical day at the Smith house. Children asleep and parents trying to figure out what to do with them. Do you fill their heads with books, music, songs? Do you let them sleep? What exactly do you do with these little tikes when all they seem to do is eat, the opposite of eat, and sleep.

All in all, it's a weird version of slow time you might commonly hear associated with prison time, in which people occupy themselves with any and all available activities just to more readily pass the time. Instead of carving chess pieces from soapstone and dreaming of Zihuatanejo, or learning life lessons and plotting revenge with an Italian priest in Chateau d'If - we have opted for the higher calling of simply watching our children and playing dress up with our two captive minions. One day they will hate us for these pictures. But for now, it's a good way to make do - three hours at a time.

In this scene, LeeAnn has decided to try on little matching outfits and has documented the event with some nice photos that are reminiscent of paparazzi pics of Lindsay Lohan on any given Tuesday night. Only our little ones won't have to be hospitalized for "exhaustion" or "adverse reactions from an anti-histamine they were taking". They're just in your average, run-of-the-mill food coma.

Other times we sit them under a colorful gym and expect them to do something. We're not sure what - perhaps blurt out "polka dots" or grab for the weird red bird or maybe just roll around a little. But mostly they don't do any of this. They just sort of sit there and drift in and out of little blissful sleep. Occasionally they'll pipe up to let you know they need to be changed. But most of the time they don't do this either - it's just a little too much effort. Plus they know we'll figure it out sooner or later.

But we do love them and truly there's nothing more fun than waking them up when it's time to eat and watching them stretch and open their eyes. It's a great highlight I get to look forward to and re-watch every three hours at snack time. We're hopelessly in love with them.

In other news . . .

• You may have won Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest 6 years in a row, Takero "The Tsunami" Kobayashi - but someone else is having the Best Week Ever." Perritt "The Punisher" Smith, born at 5lb 10oz, he has vaulted up a weight class to 6lb 11oz - nearly a 20% increase in his weight. Bring on the hot dogs.
• Mary Poole (born at 6 lb 11 oz) has gained a much more ladylike and respectable 6 ounces to take her to a girlish and healthy 7lb 1oz. We're proud of her very sincere efforts.
• When you have a newborn and you know that any fever means visiting the hospital to get a spinal tap and other unsavory procedures, there are few places scarier than the waiting room of the pediatrician's office. Thoughts of ebola, bird flu, SARS and malaria wafting about in the recirculated air fill your mind. Oh the horror of such things percolating in our little childrens' lungs. Has anyone invented the Lysol gas mask? If not, why? Anyway, we ran in and out of the office like were were avoiding the Andromeda Strain and are already planning our strategy for the next visit.
  
• Rhett seems to care little for the babies. He will occasionally want to sniff their heads but really just sort of likes having us around. So no issues there. And no more crib incidents.
  

Hope all's well with everyone out there.