“You mean William?” Chris asked. His neurons were firing faster than mine, possibly because he hadn’t spawned two babies and two placentas.
“Um, yes, William.”
I sat down again, stared at the ceiling fan, and waited for the other one, what’s-her-name.
The wait wasn’t long. More shrill cries pierced the air, not counting mine. Chris and I stared at each other with the intensity of Uri Geller willing a spoon to bend, each silently bidding the other do something about the noise. A conversation ensued.
“Someone’s crying.”
“Yep.”
“Which one?”
“The girl.”
“You sure?”
“Not really.”
“Why’s she crying?”
“I dunno.”
“Any ideas?”
“Nothing concrete.”
“Is she wet?”
“Nope.”
“Hungry?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Tired?”
“Beats me.”
“Hot? . . . Cold?”
“Normal a few minutes ago.”
“So, you don’t know why she’s crying?”
“No. You?”
“Nope.”
“I understand why some people beat their kids.”
“You what?”
“Seriously. We’re educated, older, financially secure, happy enough in our mar—”
“Happy enough?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do?”
“Yes. And sometimes we still feel like dangling them over the balcony.”
“Like Michael Jackson.”
“Only we’d never do it.”
“Yeah, we’re too hot to move from this couch unless the guy or what’s-her-name screams bloody murder.”
Of course we eventually moved . . . to our bedroom. We were starting to mimic Vivian and William’s cycle of cry, eat, poop, sleep.
On occasion Vivian and William managed to sleep at the same time. There’s something peaceful about sleeping babies. Unless you think they’re dead.
One night, Chris and I stood over them and watched our two angels asleep in the same crib, feeling like the world’s best parents—or at least better than a tortoise who has dumped her eggs in a hole and swam off into the ocean. We smiled at the perfect moment.
Until I said, “They’re not dead, are they?”
“I don’t think so,” Chris answered. He looked at me. “Do you think they’re dead?”
We hovered over the crib like two novice marine biologists inspecting a polluted aquarium for signs of life. “I can’t see them breathing,” I said.
“You can’t see me breathe either.”
“Point for you.”
“Do you think we should wake them up?” Chris asked.
“No. You never wake a sleeping baby. Waking two is criminal.”
“What should we do then?”
“Let’s jiggle them,” I said.
“Jiggle? You want to jiggle them?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m about to pick them up and Shake n’ Bake them. I’m just talking about jiggling.”
“Jiggling? What does that mean?”
I defined the word. “I’ll just put my hand on one of their backs and wiggle it to see if they move.”
“That’s wiggling, not jiggling,” he said.
“Thanks, Webster.”
I placed my hand on each baby’s back and jiggle-wiggled.
They both moved.
“They’re not dead.”
“Not dead at all.”
“Do you think this qualifies me to guest star on CSI?” I asked.
“Not likely.” He kissed me on my forehead. “Maybe Animal Planet.”
Parenting Tip: If you fear your sleeping baby is dead, jiggle-wiggle her.
Night never lasted long enough. On the odd occasion we managed to sleep simultaneously, William and Vivian’s wake-up cries were like amplified foghorns.
For two cat-sized creatures, Vivian and William were loud, especially when they were hungry. Breastfeeding them gave me a close affinity to other mammals. With my wee litter camping out at my boobs, I couldn’t help but remember that mangy barn cat that crept around my parents’ farm, lying on her back while sharp-clawed kitties fought their way to her teats. Any mammal that sprawls on her back that much is in for a lot of trouble.
Because I didn’t want to breastfeed every waking hour, I made Chris get up in the middle of the night to help me feed the kids. He hadn’t learned to lactate, which would’ve been handy, but he could wipe butts and hand me clean babies so I could position their floppy heads onto a breastfeeding pillow bigger than Maui.
At first I tried the big-breast-sock-trick. I don’t think putting rolled up socks under my boobs helped me breastfeed, but they did help me in another way: they were weapons. I hurled them at Chris whenever I was frustrated with “natural” breastfeeding, something women have been doing as long as men have been grunting.
“Thanks for not throwing a book,” Chris said, retrieving the socks.
“This isn’t natural, you know,” I said.
“Chucking socks at your husband?”
“No. Breastfeeding two babies. At least it doesn’t feel natural.”
“Do you want to try just one baby at a time?” he asked.
“No way,” I said. “I already nurse them close to eight hours a day. If I do sixteen, I’m sending them back.”
“I don’t think there’s a return policy.”
I yawned. “I didn’t read the fine print.” I inhaled deeply and looked down at our babies. After having a bit of milk, they’d both fallen asleep, little sunbathers on my island cushion. I repositioned the guy under my right arm, woke him by jiggle-wiggling, and shoved my right breast in his mouth. I repeated with what’s-her-name.
Parenting Tip: Read the fine print and the nonexistent return policy before you get knocked up.
“You know what they call this?” I asked.
“I’d say breastfeeding?” Chris answered.
I launched another pair of socks at him. “The way I’m holding them,” I said. “Do you know what it’s called?” “I’ve got no idea.”
“A football hold.”
“Really?”
“Yup,” I said. “According to one of the books at least.
They’re tucked under my arms like footballs.”
Chris smiled. “Are you going to run them in for a touchdown?”
“Pretty sure there’d be a flag on the play. Given that I’m carrying two balls.”
“I carry two balls,” Chris said.
I laughed, startling both babies. One of my spawn lost suction, and a freed breast sent a continuous stream of milk into the air and across the room.
“It’s the halftime show,” Chris said.
I fought to control the leak, dousing a baby and a nearby wall with milk. “Now stop making me laugh,” I said. “I’ve got to connect to my inner mammal.”
“OK. But if you feel like kicking them for a field goal, let me know.
“Will do,” I said. “This one needs changing.”
“William?”
“Yes, the guy.”
Parenting Tip: Nighttime breastfeeding sessions are more entertaining if you wake your spouse. Just tell him he’s bonding with his child.
Now it was time for my middle-of-the-night entertainment: watching Chris change the other twin’s diaper. When William lay on the changing table, I was reminded of the Fountains of Bellagio. I could watch this nightly; sometimes I did. As soon as the dirty diaper was off, the show started. Will’s back arched and his penis extended, unleashing a perfect stream of urine in Chris’s face.
Vivian’s specialty was impeccably timed green diarrhea. I’m not sure how an innocent baby can empty her bowels a nanosecond after you lay her on the change table, remove her soggy diaper, and raise her legs to clean her bum. But as soon as Chris reached this s
tage with Vivian, a jet of hot liquid poo sprayed from her butt to his black pajamas, turning him into a canvas.
“That crap on your shirt looks like a Jackson Pollock painting,” I said.
“Not funny,” Chris answered, handing me clean Vivian.
It may not have been art, but it was solid—or at least semi-solid—entertainment at 3:00 AM.
The gong show continued whenever guests popped over, a frequent occurrence in our close-knit expatriate community. When the doorbell rang, Chris warned our visitors that they were going to get a free boob display and to enter only if they were unfazed, because once feeding time came, modesty disappeared.
But this was Bangkok; people could see ping-pong and goldfish girlie shows four blocks away. Don’t ask. Unless you “wanna make boom-boom long time!”
Later, Chris seemed to catch on to the fact that he could be making money off me.
“Ten bucks a boob or fifteen for a double pass,” he joked at the door.
“Seriously?” I said after that round of visitors had left.
“Can you stop selling boob-show passes to our guests?” I tried to suppress a smile.
He grinned. Then he said the same line the next time our doorbell rang, making me laugh yet again.
DO YOU THINK THEY DROPPED OUR BABIES INTO
A BIG VAT OF SOUP?
According to Thai law, one parent has to have an unpronounceable surname of 39.3 letters (like Prisaniripiyanporniratpattanasai) in order to get a Thai passport. According to Canadian law, expatriate parents need to fill out more forms than an accountant does in April in order for their children to be granted Canadian citizenship. I’m pretty sure the Wikipedia entry for “Canadian Pastimes” reads: “Waiting behind Plexiglas, be it at a hockey game or an embassy in Thailand.”
To satisfy one of the Canadian government’s requirements, we needed passport pictures of our newborns. William and Vivian’s virgin outing, therefore, was to a photo studio.
After figuring out how the Baby Bjorn carriers worked—an activity that made assembling an IKEA desk with your teeth look easy—Chris and I set out, each with a two-week-old heat pack Velcro-ed to our chest. We walked for ten minutes, past a seamstress, motorbike taxi drivers, and the papaya lady before arriving at Sukhumvit Road, one of Bangkok’s busiest thoroughfares. We climbed the stairs to a photo studio, handed over the embassy’s book of instructions, and began the challenge of unbinding two sweaty, floppy-necked babies without dropping them.
The photographer opened the instructions on the counter. “The background needs to be white,” he read. “Can you place them here?” He pointed to a white screen nailed four feet up on the wall.
“No,” I said. “They’re not that tall.”
“Can you just hold them up with your hands out of the picture?”
“No. They can’t exactly hold up their heads.” Pointing out the obvious had become my pastime.
He paused, looking around the scantly furnished room.
“We will put the baby on this chair. I’ll look for something white to cover it with.”
I looked at the blue armless desk chair complete with casters.
“Isn’t there anything else?” Chris asked.
By now, sweat rolled off all four of us. The slow ceiling fan mocked me.
“We could try this,” the man said. He held up a gray towel that looked like it hadn’t seen a washing machine since the Duggars were childless.
“Hold her,” I said, placing Vivian in Chris’s free arm. I took off my white shirt and put it on the chair, grateful that I had worn a tank top underneath. I fussed with the shirt, trying to get it wrinkle free. After I locked the chair’s wheels into place, I took sleeping Vivian and laid her on my shirt. I sat on the floor near the casters, at first spotting her like she was a gymnast on a trampoline, then propping her up like a doll when she began to slide to the edge. I ducked as the photographer got ready to take her picture.
He looked through the shutter, paused, and pulled back.
“She needs to open her eyes. It’s regulation.”
“You want a two-week-old to open her eyes on command? Are you serious?” I asked from my spot on the floor.
He nodded toward the counter. “The instructions.”
“I didn’t think they came with instructions,” I mumbled.
Chris said something back that sounded like a cross between air escaping a tire and a Welsh curse.
Parenting Tip: Shipping your baby via FedEx or DHL is easier than getting a passport photo with your baby’s eyes open.
I picked up what’s-her-name, pulled out a wet wipe intended for a diaper change, and cleaned her face. Her eyes blinked open, then closed. I sighed. Chris shifted; Supreme Alpha Male was ready to erupt. The photographer smiled and bowed slightly.
I pulled out my water bottle, doused the cloth, and squeezed it on Vivian’s face. She started to wail. I ducked back under the chair, held her waist, and listened for the shutter.
“We got one,” the photographer said.
“Freaking Hallelujah,” Chris said as we switched babies. “And now for William.”
I looked at William; he was sweaty and sleeping.
My eyes shifted to the wet wipes, then to my water bottle. No contest.
Like a player who’s just won the Super Bowl, I picked up my water bottle and dumped it over the baldish head of the one who calls the shots.
Our little coach woke up. We got the championship photo.
Eventually, I began to venture out myself. We’d hired a nanny/housemaid to help me for six hours each weekday. With our closest family member 8,000 miles away, it was either hire Mary Poppins or put the babies on a bamboo raft down the Chao Phraya River and hope the daughter of the King of Siam would find them among the sewage.
When I left our apartment, I would often take one baby—usually in a Baby Bjorn carrier so I wouldn’t have to maneuver the limo-sized double stroller. Our nanny would take the other twin with her on errands. Divide and conquer.
On one particular errand day, I took William. After walking past competing tailors who were trying to convince me I needed better clothes, I headed towards the mini-supermarket to pick up ice cream. I was a ball of sweat because carrying fourteen pounds through carbon dioxide emissions when it’s ninety-eight degrees out will do that to you. I trudged up to the door and saw the sweaty Coca-Cola deliveryman holding Vivian. Our nanny was nowhere in sight.
“Hi,” I said. “You’re holding my baby.” I thought of what one of the books said about germs and babies.
“Wiwian is your baby?” he asked, smiling and rocking Vivian. Thais have trouble saying Vs and Ls, whereas I have trouble saying all of the Thai consonants.
Before I could answer, the deliveryman shifted Vivian into his other arm and reached out to tickle William’s toes, which stuck out of the baby carrier I wore. “And this is Wee-yum,” he said, assuring me he knew my son’s name. William giggled when the man tickled him again.
“OK, then,” I said, “we’re just going into the store.”
I walked into the store with William and saw our nanny paying for some items we needed, like diapers, vodka, and Xanax. We chatted until one of the cashiers squealed over William, called him by name, and took him out of the carrier so I could shop unrestricted in cooler temperatures.
I beelined to the ice cream section and opened the cooler, the concrete jungle’s instant air-conditioning.
I paid for my Häagen-Dazs (some habits didn’t end with pregnancy), took William, and met my nanny outside. She held Vivian and the shopping bags. The CocaCola deliveryman had fled the scene. We walked home with our loads.
Parenting Tip: Keep your household well stocked with these items essential to newborns: diapers, wipes, alcohol, alcohol, and alcohol.
Chris was back from work when we entered our apartment. Our nanny gave Vivian to him, unpacked our groceries, and prepared to depart.
I deposited William into his bouncy chair and unwrapped my ice cream.
“I saw the Coca-Cola deliveryman holding one of our babies,” I said.
“Really? Two days ago, I saw one of the hair stylists holding William.”
“What’s that saying about a village?” I asked, digging into my ice cream.
“It takes a village to raise a child.”
“Well,” I said, licking some chocolate off my lips, “we don’t need a village. Only a nanny and a few retailers.”
And some waitresses, as we would soon find out.
Later that week, after I was sick of the bare walls of our apartment, Chris and I decided to take Vivian and William out for dinner to a place we called The Concrete Slab. The size of an NFL field, the Slab was adorned with cheap plastic patio furniture in various shades of dirty white. Several portable propane cooking stations lined the outside. Megaphonestyle speakers distorted Thai music. It may have been romantic if you were inebriated and child-free.
Our pregnant friend accompanied us, her husband out of town. Chris left for the Slab’s sidelines to order each of our favorite dishes: spicy pork, fried rice noodles, and chicken fried rice. I rocked the stroller with my foot and focused on having an adult conversation while not falling off the chair, a wobbly piece that seemed to have shrunk since I gave birth.
Before long, four Thai workers who looked vaguely familiar came up. “Twins?” they asked. I nodded. “Can we hold them?”
I looked at Vivian and William who were starting to squirm. “Sure.”
The women unstrapped them from the stroller and craddled them. “We go for a walk?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
When Chris came back with our fried goodness, my friend and I were in the middle of the first conversation I’d had in weeks that didn’t involve bodily fluids.
“I hate to interrupt,” Chris said, placing our meals in front of us like he was a maitre d’. “Have either of you noticed that two babies are missing?”
“Four ladies took them for a walk,” I said.
“OK . . .”
“Don’t worry. I threw out that book.”
“What book?” Chris asked.
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