Day 88 - Holiday Apologies!

Sorry! Been busy with a bunch of last minute holiday stuff this weekend, so kinda left the blog dormant. And I was on such a roll!

My friend, Jennifer, emailed me last week and said:

So is your show done with production? I've noticed that you've been posting on your blog a lot more frequently, so I figured you may be having a little more time on your hands than usual.

Ah yes, young padawan. Due to the wonderful disagreements between the AMPTP and the WGA, the show I am working on -- much like every scripted show -- is shutting down. Merry Christmas to us! So yes, I do find myself with a little more free time to spend a few minutes here and there to post little stories in between diaper changes and feedings.

I have a few stories and photos to share with you from the past days, but in the meantime here are some photos for now! More to follow...

"You've got spunk...I hate spunk."

"Holy Indiana Jones flashback," yells Andrew. "A gigantic boulder is rolling towards my head!"

Here you see the heads emerging from the cocoons as the Japanese caterpillar
completes its metamorphosis.

Day 84 - Food Swings

Although we try to keep the kids on similar schedules, they're not robots (I wish they were robots at times cause robots don't poop out of their diapers...although that HAL did try to kill Dave. Hmm...). The amount of alertness and activity varies during the day. Emma might be up crying while Andrew is asleep. Or Andrew might be up amusing himself on the playmat while Emma is, well, crying.

We are getting close to the point where the kids are going to be aware of our presence, but in a simplistic way. If Emma falls asleep in our arms and we put her in the crib, she might wake up and be confused why we aren't there anymore. To her, we disappeared. She doesn't understand we're just in the other room packing our suitcases getting ready to disappear.

One thing we have noticed is that the kids are most happy in the morning and after they have been fed. As for the feedings, Lisa breast feeds both kids for about 15 minutes. And then we wait for a little bit to see if they are still hungry. If they are, we give them a small bottle of formula to calm them down. Sometimes they want the bottle, and sometimes they don't. But what a difference when they do take the bottle. Lisa took the following pictures after feeding the kids earlier this week:

Emma after breast feeding and having a bottle.

Andrew after just breast feeding.

Andrew after breast feeding and a bottle.

Emma after just breast feeding.

I also had a picture of myself after breast feeding, but Lisa forbade me to post that picture.

Prude...

Day 83 - Poll Results & New Poll

It looks like despite my mom's efforts to get Oprah's encouragement and endorsement to keep us down in Los Angeles for the holidays, last week's poll resulted with 50% of you believing it would be a good idea to travel to Northern California. The other half was a mixture of "don't you even think of it" and "wait and see."

This week's poll doesn't have anything to do with the kids, but Auntie Anne thought it would be interesting. I was IMing Auntie Anne about her famous Almond Crunch pretzels, and we started talking about blog sites and internet journalism. She mentioned how tough it is to get a steady freelance blogging gig, and I told her how I'm totally used to instability. For those of you who know me you already know I work in television production. And for those of you who don't know me I have made millions being a body double for Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Dame Judi Dench.

The question I ask you this week is how many television productions have I done? This includes twelve years of working on television series, pilots, and presentations. I have not included any shows in my count that have won Emmys, been a top ten show, or went into syndication...because none of my shows have done that.

Day 82 - Stupid: The Sequel

I was going to write about our first week on our own tonight, but something happened that will have to push this entry to a later date.

You see, last night was not a very good night for us. Both kids were pretty fussy, and nobody slept much. Tonight after putting the kids down and eating dinner we started watching "The Bourne Ultimatum" on television. Despite Lisa's fascination with Matt Damon and my fascination with...well...Matt Damon we both were getting quite sleepy. So my brilliant idea at around 8pm tonight was to take a short nap. And the timing was almost perfect since both kids would wake up around 9pm for their next feeding. Off to bed we went. I cozied myself up with my Pound Puppy ready to wake up 30 minutes later refreshed and ready to take on my things to do list.

Right this very minute it is 11:17pm. Over three hours past and the entire Ichikawa family just woke up about 15 minutes ago. I feel crappy and just set my things to do list on fire. Lisa is worried the kids won't sleep through the night now. And both Emma and Andrew are crying. Actually, I'm crying now too.

I suppose the lesson to be learned is twofold: 1) There is no such thing as a short nap when you're exhausted. 2) Learn to use your damn alarm clock.

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures that represent how I feel right now.

Day 81 - Spit Stop

In my life I have always had two fears: heights and insects (don't even talk about tall insects with me). Today I proudly add a third: baby spit up.

Do you know how some people have a fear of balloons? How they fear that any second that balloon will burst into bits? That's what I feel like about baby spit up. After you feed that baby you don't know when or where, but eventually that kid is going to open up and spew out mommy's boob juice.

And that's another thing. Your kid is spitting up your wife's tit pee. I know it's natural and healthy and totally normal...BUT STILL...I can't get out of my mind when I'm scrubbing that sofa with sudsy water and a sponge that I'm cleaning up tit pee. Come on now. That's a little gross.

I don't think Emma and Andrew spit up too regularly which makes it all the worse for me. Their unpredictable spit schedule drives me crazy. Are they going to spit up on my shoulder? Where's a burp cloth? Is it a good idea to hold Emma's head over this laptop after a feeding? But like a good bulimic, after our kids purge they don't complain or cry. If anything they tend to be happy and sometimes even smile.

About forty percent of young babies spit up regularly and the peak age for this is around four months. Our kids aren't even three months yet so they haven't even hit their prime. The cause of spit up can be any number of things. Maybe the baby is taking in too much air when they're feeding. Overeating can also do it especially since their digestive system isn't totally developed yet. Another known cause is sticking your finger at the back of your baby's tongue.

So what do you do to keep the food down? Burping, keeping your baby in an upright position after feeding, and trying to calm your kid can all help. We're pretty good about making sure our babies burp, and we just started to keep Emma upright after feedings. We had her stop doing sit-ups cause we think that might've been problematic.

No more sit-ups for you, Missy!

Day 80 - Playdate Pummel

There were two big fights this weekend: the Mayweather vs. Hatton fight and the Ichikawa vs. Lee fight. Our friends Bernard and Joyce visited this weekend and brought along their daughter, Abby. Abby is a few months older than our kids, although Emma is busily chugging down protein shakes to catch up.

Before they left, we put all of the kids on the sofa for a little photo session. As you can see below, our innocent Andrew kept on punching poor little Abby. Here are the fight highlights:

ROUND 1
Abby takes a punch to her right eye.

ROUND 4
Andrew goes for the Three Stooges nyuk-nyuk-nyuk bonk to the head.

ROUND 4
The nyuk-nyuk-nyuk puts Abby down for the count, but she gets back up.

ROUND 7
Abby tries to defend herself by holding onto Andrew's arm...

ROUND 7

...but Andrew breaks out of the hold and counters with a blow so devastating it pushes Abby a good 10 inches down the sofa.

ROUND 11
Coach Emma demonstrates to Andrew what move to do next which he does with aplomb.

After the referees declare Andrew the winner, Abby attacks Coach Emma for no particular reason.

This post-fight photo shows Emma hungry, Andrew dazed out of his mind, and Abby delusional thinking she scored the championship belt.

Day 79 - Stupid

Since we've been going out more often with the kids, we are put in the situation of talking to total strangers. Most of them are nice and make small talk. They like to look at the kids, ask what it's like to have twins, and wonder if we know any good sushi places (the Valley is full of Caucasians with wannabe Asian palates).

One has been scary. We were walking to CVS and a woman who was probably walking to get her meds stormed by us and yelled "You get twins when you're a whore!" She also yelled at a garbage can so we didn't take it personal. Although I wonder who she was calling a whore. It's hard to say since Lisa and I were both wearing high heels that day.

But there is one question that is asked over and over again, and I must say it's kinda dumb. It usually goes a little something like this:

Stranger: Oh! Are they twins?

Us: Yes.

Stranger: Are they a boy and a girl?

Us: Yes.

Stranger: Are they identical?

Now how could they be identical if we just said we have one boy and one girl? Let's think of the ways this could actually make sense. If Emma had a penis and balls instead of a vagina, then I suppose our kids could be identical. Or if Andrew had a vagina and no penis and no balls, then Emma could be his identical sibling. But if Andrew only had two balls that would not make him Emma's identical sister because if that was true then I would also be a girl. And that's just plain stupid.