Fatherhood

Fatherhood

Friday, August 26, 2011

The Art of War

Our household is very much like a WWE Tag Team match these days.

In one corner are the twins.

Although they claim that they don’t yet have the power of speech, I am convinced that they communicate through some inscrutable system of correspondence—maybe a little known native people's language like in Wind Talkers—and that they hold clandestine baby meetings in which they plot their covert ops, including synchronized diaper-filling and tightly coordinated screaming jags that have my wife and I scrambling to plug in pacifiers, warm up bottles, change diapers, strip off soiled (and I mean, SOILED) clothing and seek the ever- elusive baby blankets (see blog entry on “Baby Physics”) like a couple of really bad Whack-a-Mole players . Their timing is nearly flawless, and their execution, Navy Seal-like in terms of shock and awe.

In the other corner are my wife and I.

We are not yet as sophisticated in our battle plan as the pint-sized ninjas we are committed to care for, but we are learning.

In response to the twins’ attempt to weaken us with sleep deprivation—which, by the way, ranks well above water-boarding in terms of sheer torture—we have begun to use the old “tap-out” system. Some nights I get up for all of the feedings while my wife sleeps, and the next night she does the same for me. By this system we stay sharp (well, OK, as sharp as really tired middle-aged people can be) and ready to respond to the next infant assault tactic.

We are also well armed.

We now own two of every item sold at Babies R Us, including wiper warmers, clip-on pacifier holders for the strollers (we have three strollers by the way: one armored transport version for twins and two highly portable umbrella strollers, that hold up about as well as an actual umbrella in a hurricane) and other tools and apparatus (apparatuses? apparatti?) necessary to hold out until re-enforcements arrive. Yes, I know re-enforcements are never actually going to arrive, but the concept keeps us going.

Currently, the conflict can best be described as a stalemate; that may also describe either my wife or me, since we rarely are able to work a shower into the battle plan. For now, we keep in mind the words of Sun Tzu: "All war is deception." I think we have successfully deceived ourselves into thinking we are winning.

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