 Twins for sale! Twins for sale!
"Mr Grizzly" and "Little
Prince"
By Siamack Salari
December 6, 2003
The Iranian
Why, you may ask, do we want to sell our twins after only ten
short weeks?
For one thing sleep deprivation has finally taken its toll. Varinder
and I, on a good night, will enjoy around 3 hours of sleep. The
rest of the time is a blur of feeding, nappy changes and huge amounts
of my slobbery kisses on the crowns of their heads at every opportunity.
Being non-identical twins, our boys have totally different and
distinctive personalities despite being so tiny. We call Kourosh, "Mr
Grizzly" while Siavash is our, "Little Prince".
Feeding Kourosh can be extremely traumatic. He chokes, wheezes,
screams, swings his tiny fists around and this is before his bottle
even reaches his month. Once the teat is in we hear a heavy high
speed sucking sound -- not unlike a small two stroke engine
- while milk streams down his face onto his bib.
Every 20 seconds
or so Kourosh pulls his face away to scream some more as I frantically
struggle to push the teat back into his wide open mouth. After
what seems an eternity he begins his high speed suck again until
the next scream. And this continues until he has finished most
of his bottle. The remainder is a mass of bubbles from the occasional
blowing rather than sucking at the teat. Goodness knows why...
A typical feed can last 50 minutes.
Some parents among you may think he has colic but Kourosh is a
healthy burper. In fact on more than one occasion whilst smiling
at us he has brought up half of his 200ml bottle right onto my
neck.
Siavash, our prince, is altogether more regal. I am sure I have
seen him rolling his eyes and shaking his head at his hysterical
brother. He will feed uncomplainingly in around 20 minutes before
starting a conversation in a language which closely resembles a
hyperactive squeaky bathroom duck. Every now and again I kiss his
big cheeks, porky little legs and, best of all, the soles of his
chubby feet. He kicks, swings his head from side to side as the
teat approaches his wide open mouth before eventually catching
it and latching on like a limpet.
A few weeks ago Varinder decided we need a nanny. We have now
employed a much sought after nanny who the boys adore. She is a
gorgeous redhead of Irish decent who is a complete natural around
our boys. They respond by giving her broad smiles reserved only
for her. Smiles which betray a coyness which I interpret as the
very first sign of finding the opposite sex attractive. She will
hold them in turn and, using her index finger, make circular movements
on their backs while saying, "Are you my little man?" I
get goose pimples simply watching her.
The most beautiful sight of all is seeing the boys with Varinder.
Varinder is a natural, instinctive mother who can even stop Kourosh
from screaming with a few gentle, soothing words. She'll kiss them,
speak to them like adults and handle them in a way which won't
wake them up from a light sleep. I, on the other hand, can startle
them out of their slumber by merely walking into the house.
Below is a summarized list of other happenings from a couple of
weeks ago:
1) We promised ourselves we would never succumb to soothers. We
now have a huge number lying all over the place within arms reach
in case one of the boys bawls his head off for no reason. Soothers
are a life a saver but our health visitor has suggested we wean
them off in a few weeks time. We shall see.
 2) Nappy changes are traumatic at best. Kourosh in particular
can make our windows rattle with his screams every time I remove
his
nappy. The attached picture sums up how he feels towards his
dad after a typical nappy change.
3) We promised ourselves that we never let them sleep in our
bed. They have both taken over our beds with V and I pushed
to the very
edges. This is the only way we can get them to sleep for 3-4
and sometimes 5 hours without being woken up.
4) At 8 weeks their arms and legs are porking up so I can grab
morsels flesh and kiss them hard -- maach, mooch, maach...
 5) Their 8 week inoculations were a two person job when visiting
the surgery. I sat patiently with V and a bunch of other
mums with their own 8 week old babies. After a while I
turned to
the nearest
mum behind me and began to make conversation. She seemed
very uncomfortable especially when I kept straining to
take a look
at her baby's
face. It took me a few minutes to realize that the poor
lady was breast feeding and that to those who didn't know it looked
like I was trying to get a look at her breasts. I had what
I call
a mega-cringe, picked up Siavash and decided to throw him
over my shoulder and walk him around the large waiting
room.
Only
then did I realize that most of the mums were breast feeding
and looking
away from me thinking that I was trying to spy on their
breasts. V ushered me back to my seat where I tried to make myself
as small as possible.
6) Every Thursday, V and our nanny take the boys to --
wait for it -- baby massage classes. Babies, we have
been advised,
cannot be massaged if they are crying or sleeping. Unfortunately
on each visit so far my boys have either grizzled or
slept soundly. The solution has come in the form of a baby sized
doll (politically
correct black in colour) for V to practice on while
all the other mums practice on their real babies. My sister
has suggested
leaving
the boys at home and just taking the doll... increasingly
tempting. I keep suggesting leaving the boys and the
doll
behind and
taking me! I really could do with a massage and would
be an excellent
scaled up model to demonstrate more difficult techniques
with.
7) V is seriously considering joining baby yoga classes
in a few weeks. This is not a joke. I have tried
to explain to her
that
it is not the boys who need relaxation therapy but
me. The
stressed and worn out father who does most of the
feeds throughout the night.
When my sister and I were small (around five years old) and being
naughty our mum would make an incomprehensible threat to us. She
would threaten to put us back where we came from or, "meekonametoon
to khikkam!" (I'll put you back in my fat tummy)
 This morning at 5am as I sat downstairs trying to rock to sleep
a recently fed and nappy changed Siavash - he simply wouldn't close
his big, long eye lashed eyes - I too wanted to put him back into
his mother's "khik". But these feeling are fleeting moments. Never
in a million years did I ever believe that two tiny men could dominate
so much of my time, love, kisses and sheer happiness to be alive
so that I could simply hold them.
So, you may ask, how much do I want for our boys? Thinking about
it, I don't really need to sell them. We could make far more
money by simply hiring them out to people who love kids but can't
cope with the full time responsibilities. I'll have a word
with Varinder and get back to you.
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