I can remember the exact date that I figured out my life was irrevocably changed. It wasn't during my wife's pregnancy, it wasn't even immediately after the birth; it was when the twins were exactly 5 weeks old, in early September of 2006.
I know what you're thinking.
5 weeks, what’s the matter with you?! While that isn’t a short list, in this case - Denial, friend, is not just a river in Egypt. (Say it out loud if you don’t get it) I thought I could go right on doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Maybe it was the lack of sleep – we didn’t get those babies sleeping at the same time until just prior to that fateful September weekend.
So my wife had opted to go back to work early. Frankly, with two new mouths to feed, and at the rate we were cruising through diapers (seriously, with the poop – what is the deal?), it seemed like the thing to do. Reluctantly, she called her hospital and picked up a 12 hour shift (she’s an ICU nurse. This matters later in the story). As she tearily departed for the day, she uttered “don’t go anywhere with them, just stay around the house. I don’t think they’re ready to travel yet.” Had I only heeded her advice.
There was an outdoor store 45 minutes away, that had just gotten a new shipment in of the latest in backpacking and climbing gear. I wanted to touch, handle, and monkey around with this stuff. You can see where this is going.
I remember the train of thought going something like this:
You have lead men in combat. You have climbed mountains in harsh environments. You change diapers like an Indy 500 pit crew. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
The first 45 minutes on the road were fine. The babies slept, I drove. The MINUTE I shoved that car in park, the wailing started. In truth, my wife had tried to prepare me well for children. She gave me books I pretended to read, had me watch shows, tried to have frank and mature conversations. Little did she know, her chosen partner in life isn’t named Frank, and isn’t capable of maturity. So, Daddy’s little angels are caterwauling madly in the back, at the drop of a dime, and I can’t figure out why. I start going through the checklist in my head:
Diaper? No.
Hungry? No.
Diaper? No.
Still not hungry? Nope.
Well damn, I’m out. WTH?! What do I do? This is usually the point my wife steps in to assist!
I should mention, that this was before we had the van, so I had managed to contort myself into the back of our Honda in between the two car seats to do this, straining my back in the process.
On a side note, it turns out that sometimes, kids just scream to test out the pipes. Maybe they have gas. More than anything, they were probably sick of their car-seats. These things were not part of the checklist that I frantically repeated. There I was, having been isolated to home or office for weeks, and just a mere 10 meters from my favorite outdoors store, and there I was in the parking lot being stared at by everyone walking in and out of the shopping center.
And to add insult to injury, it seems that anytime a guy of my size and stature has wailing kids, I must have either beat them, be a pedophile, or kidnapped them based on some of the looks I was getting as I was stuffed into the back seat of that car.
What do I do? Call wife. Call wife now – but then I froze.
“Don’t leave the house,” She had said. I’m almost an hour away…she’s going to kill me…what…do…I…do?!
Have you ever made a decision when you’re REALLY tired? If you have kids, I’m sure you have. Working on weeks with no more than 4 hours of sleep a night, your thought process distorts into some weird loop of ridiculousness. Couple this with trying to think while gyrating yourself through the funhouse amusement park ride that was my backseat, and you get positively no where. While a portion of my rational self realized that I should just call her and beg forgiveness, I decided to drive. I thought, if I called her from the car, she might not know where I was and could walk me through emergency action procedures with the kids. So I floored it out of the parking lot and started beating feet back to the house. I assumed that if I called her from the road, it would be quite as bad. Yes, I know, flawed logic.
Finally getting her on the phone after what seemed an eternity the floor secretary made me wait, the first question she asked was, “are you in the car?”
Busted. I cracked like an egg and spilled the beans. Dead silence on the other end as the babies continued to scream. The lecture was not lengthy, but was punctuated with a few pointed expletives and detailing a list of household chores that I would ensure were completed by the time she was home in order to make amends. Then she left. Hung up. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, it was just that Kentucky state police officers don’t like it when you’re on the phone when they pull you over for a speeding ticket.
Didn't I mention that I was attempting to break land-speed records to get back home?
Ironically enough, as I pulled into my driveway, exactly 120 minutes later, 175 dollars poorer, a strained back, and in hot water with my wife, the kids stopped screaming and passed back out. Seems the demon had passed, and they slept clean through to their next feeding. And that, friends, was when I realized that my life was no longer my own. Cheers.
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