Sit Back and Relax

So anyway, back to my vacation. After being in the city for a few days, we headed to Plantation Bay in Cebu. It's resort that is just incredible. If you're ever in the Phils and you need a nice, relaxing place to go, check it out. It was so nice but unfortunately, the kids liked to go to bed at 7-ish so our evenings were spent in the room. Not so bad because the room was really nice and room service wasn't too shabby. One of the things I really liked about this place was the phone had a button on it labelled "Butler". When you pressed this, someone would answer and you could get them to do anything for you. Sterilize the baby bottles, pick up our laundry, shoot the neighbours, ... anything.

The wedding was in Cebu as well and it was really nice. Because it was officiated by the archbishop and it was on a sunday, everyone from the mass just before stayed to see if the wedding was a celebrity. So my soon-to-be-sister-in-law was a Celebrity for the day.

Busy

We're busy. I don't mean the-house-is-a-mess-and-the-kids-are-fussy-and-won't-sleep-and-we-don't-have-time-to-cook kind of busy, I mean in the next 4 months we're putting our house back on the market and we have to find a new home, we're planning our kids' first birthday in March, and our wedding is in April. Just to give you a little perspective of the stress I'm currently experiencing: we just got back from the most expensive vacation of my life, Celia is still not back to work, we bought a new van last summer, I took 2 months of parental leave at half my usual income, and we all know how much baby supplies cost. And damnit, have you seen Celia's ring? I seem to think I'm rich. My secret is that I sell my body fluids to various banks around the Lower Mainland. I use different names so I can donate twice without anyone knowing.

Back in the PI

When we finally arrived in the Philippines, I was quickly reminded of the extreme poverty there. As we drove from the airport to the house where we were staying, I pointed out to Celia all the homes that looked like they were made with scrap pieces of wood and metal sheets, the garbage on the the streets and the pollution in the air. I guess I've been there a few times now so I've gotten used to seeing it and I know what to expect when we drive through the city but pointing it out to Celia made me notice how bad it is. It almost made me feel guilty for living in a clean city with clean water and for having money to go on vacation and staying at 5-star resorts. Almost. I'm glad my parents decided to take the chance and move to Canada 30+ years ago.

Anyway, the city was... the city. We visited with some family and went shopping for fabric for the bridesmaids dresses. The fabric was ridiculously cheap - like less than half of what we would pay here. Then we bought fresh popped chicharon and now Celia is addicted to it and wants someone to import it so she can get it fresh again. I can feel my arteries hardening already.

Depart Vancouver, Arrive Taipei

I'm not entirely sure how we even managed to organize this trip. We were packing right up until the last minute and we somehow did it while trying to watch out for the twins. Amelia was crawling around and climbing into the suitcases and Lucas was just crying because he was bored. We left the house at around 9pm and when we got to the airport to check in, Celia realized that we had forgotten the kids' passports in the filing cabinet. My dad and I drove home to pick up the passports and then back to the airport. Finally, at about 0030hrs, our plane took off and we were headed for Taipei.

If you've never been there, Taipei is a lot like Vancouver except with more chinese people. Seriously, even more. It's very nice and very clean. When I saw the tower, Taipei 101, the first thing I thought was "I thought it would be taller." It's kind of a cool looking building though - like a bunch of take out boxes all stacked together. While we were in Taipei, we met up with a few of Celia's old friends. The funny thing is that when I met some of her old friends in Vancouver, they didn't speak english, but the friends that I met in Taipei all spoke english. Anyway, we just hung out and shopped a bit (didn't buy anything), visited relatives, etc etc.

Home At Last!

There's so much I could say about our trip. So many stories, so many people, so much fun. I have to say though, that this trip was the most tiring and the busiest trip I've ever had. We had 3 times the usual amount of luggage and the twins have gotten quite heavy to carry around.

I don't know where to start. This will definitely come up as several different posts but here was our itinerary so you get an idea of my "vacation".

Dec 24 - depart Vancouver
Dec 25 - arrive Taipei
Dec 26 - high-speed train to Pingtung (about an hour on this train. Did I tell you this is the fastest fucking train I've ever seen?)
Dec 29 - 2 hour car ride to Taichung
Dec 30 - 2 hour car ride to Taipei
Jan 1 - depart Taipei, arrive Manila/Marikina
Jan 4 - Cebu
Jan 6 - Eva's Wedding @ Shangri-La Mactan
Jan 7 - Boracay (we took a little turboprop plane to Caticlan - the smallest plane I've ever been in. scary if you don't like to fly. I don't like to fly)
Jan 10 - back to Marikina
Jan 11 - 2 hours Manila-Taipei, 4hr layover, 10 hours Taipei-Vancouver

Whew! For almost the entire trip, we carried the twins (no carseats, no strollers) and we had a lot of luggage for their stuff.

Details to come...

Spoiled

Well, the flight wasn't so bad. Flying business class is fucking awesome. I never really thought economy was that bad but now that I've gone business, economy is so... for the masses. They had a little bassinet for each of the kids, they gave us tonnes of toys, and they even asked other passengers to switch seats so that we could all be together (that's another story). When your meal comes, they give you a tablecloth and they bring out your tray individually instead of on a cart, and when you recline your seat, it really reclines - I'm not talking just a couple of inches, I mean you go down to at least 45 degrees and the footrest comes up and the pillows are even bigger. Since Celia has decided to fly home with me instead of staying longer, we'll be upgrading to business class for our flight home. Sweet.

Leaving

We leave tonight for Taiwan. 13 hours on a plane with the babies. Wish us luck...

9 Months Later...

Well, the twins are now 9 months old and I still have no idea what I'm doing. I'm pretty good at faking it though so we get by. I was looking at some old pictures of them and it reminded me of all the stuff we had to go through last spring. I look at pictures of Lucas with his feeding tube sticking out of his nose and Amelia with an IV in her scalp and it almost brings me to tears to think of the daily trips to the hospital, commuting to the children's hospital in the city, and the calls in the middle of the night from the NICU nurses. I've had friends say that it was quite a rollercoaster, but they have no idea how crazy the ride really was. I know Celia doesn't like to look at the old pictures because it was such a hard time for us, but I like to see them to remind myself how far the kids have come. Every day I come home from work and see them smile and all I want to do is pick them up and hold them. It takes everything I have to not hug them too tight or to not kiss them until they're practically crying for me to leave them alone.

Yawn

Last week I said we put Lucas through boot camp. Well, its been a week now and I have to say that Celia and I have never gotten so much sleep since we brought the babies home from the hospital. Last night Lucas slept from 8pm until 3am, ate, and slept until 6am. We went to bed around 10 so we got 5 hours of continuous, uninterrupted sleep. Earlier this week, we got almost 7 hours! I don't have a favourite between the two of them or anything, but I now have a new favourite.

Update

My kids are so damn cute. No, there's no story to go with this, I'm just saying they're pretty damn cute.

Every Once in a While...

I say to myself, "Holy shit, I have twins."

Boot Camp

Over the past couple of months Lucas has gotten into the habit of sleeping in the same bed as us. Not too bad considering we have a King Size bed but for some reason I'm still sleeping right on the edge. The real problem is that he has also gotten into the habit of snacking throughout the night. He wakes up every 2 hours again to have a snack. He won't go back to sleep unless I get up and rock him for 30 minutes or unless he goes on the boob for 5 minutes. Which solution do you think we choose at 3 in the morning? So, last Thursday we decided enough was enough and he was going to learn to sleep through the night and learn not to snack. For the past 2 nights we've been letting him cry himself back to sleep. The first night, he cried for an hour and then passed out. Celia thought it was hilarious that when he was crying he was kicking me nonstop (we had to let him cry in our bed so that he wouldn't wake up Amelia in the other room). The second night he cried for about half an hour in his crib and slept quite well through the night. I'm hoping that a couple more nights of this and he'll be sleeping all night in his crib. I'm actually kind of excited at the idea of him not waking me 3 or 4 times.

Alone Again - w00t!

We're going to Taiwan and the Philippines this Christmas. We leave on the 24th and return on January 11th. Well, I return on the 11th and Celia returns on the 13th. Someone stupid asked me "couldn't you get seats on the same plane?" Seriously. She just wants to stay a couple of extra days with her family and she'll fly back with her sister a couple days after me. If things really work out the way she wants, she'll convince her mom to fly back with her after the chinese new year. If that happens, it means I'll be home alone - no Celia, no twins - for close to a month. It's time for a sexy party!

Shopping

Today we decided to go stroll outside with the kids. It was nice and sunny, not too cold, and the kids were nicely bundled up in their stroller. We decided that Robson St. would be a nice place to walk around, do a little shopping etc etc. Driving to Vancouver was uneventful - hwy 1 wasn't too busy (only took us 20min to get to science world), chinatown wasn't too crowded, all roads leading to downtown weren't busy at all, and then... Oh shit. Just as we got to the point of no return, we turned the radio on to find out what was going on and today was the Santa Parade. It took us 20 minutes to get to a place where we could turn around (no thanks to the assholes who won't let you merge) and another 10 minutes to get out of downtown.

So then we decided the W4th would be a nice place to go. Holy crap, it took us another half and hour to get there because of all the construction and traffic. We finally got there and we looked around and just... strolled.

stupidest store entrance: Baby's World has a giant, and I mean a Giant, step to get into the store. I guess if you have a baby in a stroller they don't want you to go in.

best baby sleeper slogans: "My dad can kick your dad's ass," "Bitch better have my bottle," and "All dad wanted was a blowjob."

Weekly

We've been really good at going to church every week. A couple of weeks ago the kids were sick so we didn't go but other than that, we've gone almost every week since summer. I haven't gone this regularly since high school.

Angels Falling from the Sky

Last week I told Celia that we should lower the mattress in Amelia's crib.  She's crawling around in it, craning her neck to see over the rail, and pulling at the bumper pads trying to stand.  Up until now, she hasn't been able to pull herself up into a standing position unless she had a little help.  This morning, however, Celia heard a "thump" from the room and when she went in there, Amelia was on the floor in front of the crib.  Apparently, she pulled herself up and climbed over rail and fell.  She seems okay, but we'll be taking her to the doc to get her checked out.

Paparazzi

I mentioned this before, but me and my family are celebrities. People watch us as we walk by and as I pass I can hear them talking about the twins and how lucky we are and all that jazz. At first it was kinda cool being the superstar in the mall, then it was a little annoying because people stopped us all the time, and now its just a super pain in the ass. I was walking with my stroller and there was this lady that was smiling at me and the babies and looked at me like she wanted to talk to me and ask questions about the baby. I just gave her a polite smile, turned my eyes forward, and kept on walking. I do this a lot now. I don't bother to speak to my fans because it's very tiring. Maybe I'm not appreciating the people that got me here, but sometimes I just need time for myself. I can totally understand what the Olsen twins are going through.

World Wide Twins

We got the kids their passports the other day. Finally. Well, we sent in the applications anyway. We mailed it in during the summer but it was returned because the pictures weren't good enough. This time, we made sure the pics were okay and we waited in line for 2 hours with the babies to get the applications in.

I Need to Win the Lottery

The trouble with having a job is that you have to be somewhere every day for a specified amount of time. I guess its optional but after some time you won't have a job anymore and then after a little more time you won't have a home either. Then your wife leaves you because you're a bum and then The Man comes and takes away your children. If you don't believe me, check out Britney's blog. Anyway, my point is simply that I have to be out of the house every day for 8 hours. it really sucks because I come home and Celia says, "Amelia learned how to crawl today." or "Lucas can sit up by himself now." I was home all summer so I got to see them roll over for the first time and I was there for them when they had to have their immunization shots. Now I feel like I'm missing it all.

Thank God for Little Girls

Don't get me wrong, I love both my children the same. After saying that, I also have to say this: if it wasn't for Amelia, I think I would go crazy. Lucas is not the kind of baby that falls asleep on his own. It is always a struggle to get him to sleep - and then a continuing battle throughout the night. If we didn't have twins, and our only child was Lucas, I'd go nuts. I know that you're probably thinking twins is harder than having just one (and it probably is, believe me) but without Amelia to even me out, I'd go crazy. My little angel is saving my sanity.