Change is in the Air

So as my other half has mentioned our family is expecting twins.  This change will be happening, at most, nine weeks from now.  If you are a regular reader then you may already have an idea as to the particular flavor of chaos that we typically wade through.
If you are a first time visitor, I will give you a few minutes to catch up... there you go.

Being that I am not the one constantly knocking things off of the counter with an ever expanding tummy, getting poked at by doctors, or being betrayed by my body and emotions, I occasionally forget that these little bundles of joy are on their way.

This is not to say that I am not excited as I absolutely am.  But it's a special kind of excited.  A terrified kind of excited.  Also, we found out that they are boys.  This is a particular brand of awesome because if I start feeding them protein shakes now then by the time they are 18 they can be professional wrestlers. I imagine that this is what Lewis and Clark felt like as they set out on the Oregon Trail.  Like they were about to discover things, things that they will introduce to the world.  Things that they would be responsible for.  Much like the some of the discoveries of Lewis and Clark, things that may eventually turn hostile and do their best to kill me.  I just vetoed my own protein shake idea.

If they both have goatees then we are f'd.

I am not so much concerned about my ability to parent boys.  I've been parenting girls for a  few years now and as far as I can tell the only real difference is I substitute Princess stuff with ninja stuff, ballerina stuff with football stuff, and Taylor Swift with Pantera.

My real concern is that my wife and I are already stretched so thin.  Attention is the currency of parenthood.  It is how we pay our kids.  You can typically tell how well some children are compensated by their parents.  If you see a kid in a McDonalds play land with his lips wrapped around the ketchup dispenser pumping liquid red into his gaping maw while his mother absently texts standing three feet away from him then it is safe to assume that child is under paid.

On the other hand, a child that smells of Purell, whose hair always looks freshly cut, and whose sense of entitlement makes you feel for some reason that you forgot to bring him something, that kid is overpaid.

It's the kid that has a couple of stains on his shirt, good manners, and a temporary Buzz Lightyear tattoo on his cheek that is properly maintained by his keepers.  That is the balance that I strive for.

Every parent that has more than one child struggles to find a way to balance time between their offspring.
For some parents, such as ourselves, one child demands more payment (attention remember) due to medical needs or the likely hood of reorganizing the food in the kitchen.  On a side note, Maggie insists that bacon need not be refrigerated.  I have found little success at convincing her otherwise.    
My oldest has grown with this reality.  Though there never seems to be enough of either my wife or myself to go around, she has managed to become a remarkable and well adjusted kid.

The baby has served as an attention tax on the other kids as well as the on the attention we are able to pay to one another.  This is pretty much the babies job so you can't resent her to much.  This is where the fear  portion of the new additions to my family arises from.   In short, I am worried that the twins will overtax the other kids and they will throw both my wife and I into the Boston Harbor.  I hope if they do this they have the good sense to not first dress as Native Americans as it would be racist.

Adorable, but also racist

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Bilbo Baggins states that he feels like butter spread over to much toast. We are already feeling like that and I'm worried about how being spread in two more directions is going to affect our family. 

 Life has handed my family our fair share of challenges and I like to think that we have handled each struggle with poise, grace, and a lot of swear words.  I know we will rise to this challenge as well.  But, like Lewis and Clark, I don't have a map or a really great idea as to how we will get there.

L&P