Pix from Eli and Max's birth (10/16/00) up until 5/25/01
Click here for the narrative of the whole pregnancy, up till the babies came home.
5/25/01 Finally, some new pix! Note that all dependents shown below now have teeth. All are also capable of four-limb locomotion, though the first one, Eli, does it inverted.
4/13/01 OK, it's really rudimentary right now, but you can see a half-minute video of Max and Eli if you have Quicktime installed in your browser and you have high-speed cable or DSL. If so, click here. (Quicktime seems to work a lot better than the Microsoft and Realplayer crap. If you don't have it, you can download it for free here.) The clip is interesting: they are starting to become aware of each other, and this captures one of those moments. For my windsurfing friends, here's a great sailing day off Magnolia recently (sure was hard to hear the babies crying from out there).
4/09/01 Below, Max gets close; Eli reads at five-- five months; and Eli and Max fight over a book (and in doing so, completely ignore the fact that it's upside down, much to their embarrassment when we pointed it out).
3/18/01 We're all reading a new book: "The Baby Whisperer." We've decided that Eli and Max are not in charge of their schedule anymore-- we are. The book shows how to fight their power. But so far, they're still winning. We'll see, we have a few tricks too. Below, first picture-- they're looking really similar; another in their gym (both taken by Kim); and finally, a selfish pic of just me, windsurfing out front...well, actually a little south of here, back when it was possible to go somewhere. Not that I'm complaining: it's been possible to windsurf here many times this winter, with a slightly different outfit.
3/08/01 Laura and Carl brought Jody, who appears with her cousins in the first pic below. Kim, the greatest Nanny ever, and a good photographer, took the other two.
2/25/01 A Yuen Lui moment; Max E. T.; and a walk in the park with that old guy.
2/16/01 Wow, their fourth month birthday. Here they are being quite gentlemanly in their gym. Recently we've seen some great stuff: both of them following objects and grasping them; turning over from face down; and Eli laughing at me when I was trying to teach him the basics of gravity. They're over 13 lbs, growing fast. When I wonder whether it could possibly be time to feed them again, I realize they're like little houseplants: you pick them up, and if they feel light, it's time to water them.
01/29/01 Not much time for updating the website these days. But here's a quick one of a happy Max:
01/19/01 Jeff Hoyt sent this first picture of a salon on Vashon Island. "Opened around the time Max and Eli were born. Should be good for a free massage, don't you think?" I agree. We need to visit it. Next shot is of my experiment: a bottle of formula for breakfast. I wanted to see what the boys' stomachs feel like every three hours for the last three months. Also it was a protest, in solidarity with them: same old thing every day. Like dog food. Conclusions: you have to have great lungs to drink formula as a baby, because it's hard as hell to get anything out of those bottles. I was exhausted after 4 ounces. Second, it tastes like graham crackers. And third, it's totally filling. Fat and sugar. I certainly only needed one bottle. And I only weigh 12 times what they do. Would I grow as fast if I had 12 bottles every three hours? Maybe.
Third pic: the boys float in zero-G, which makes them sleepy. Finally, a few pix from Kimberly Mann's visit here.
01/04/01 Bob visited and took some pix with his new digital camera. From the left, Max yelling at me to stop crying (he was getting irritated); Julie and I on a good dual feeding; and Bob and Julie and babies.
01/01/01 Eli celebrating this especially numeric New Year's with Dad:
He and Max partied the entire night with festive yelling and screaming. During the day, they had saved their energy up by sleeping during an outdoor expedition:
12/28/00
12/22/00 The days have grown short, but the twins long. At the pediatrician's visit this week, the guys were 21.75" and 21", and their weights 10.25 and 9 lbs! As shown here, Max accelerated hugely and pulled way ahead of Eli:
Just kidding-- a trick of the lens. They're in their usual
proportions, with Eli still the big guy. Yesterday they were one
month "corrected" age-- one month after their real due
date. Below, from left to right: a typical scenario, where Max
is wide awake and Eli sleeping; two of Julie twin-juggling in the morning (or
maybe evening, no way to tell-- clothes are the same, everything's the same
every 24 hours); and recent ones of Bob Delf and Max, Therese and Larry, Kip and
Janine and El; and Misty Haley with Max.
And, one I'm quite proud of: Eli with his new windsurfing wetsuit, brought by windsurfing buddies Kip, Jeff and Larry.
Overall, the guys seem healthy and thriving. They have learned an amusing trick: if only one parent is available, they both decide they need to eat at the same exact time. It's a scream.
12/5/00 The Richmond Family is here! Some pictures. Dad and me and Eli down by the water; Wendy and Dad there, too; Mom and Wendy and the babies; and Dad and Mom with babies-- one of them a picture I visualized many times during the difficult days of the pregnancy. I'm so grateful it came true, with everyone in it healthy.
12/1/00
Sleeping, napping, sleeping, that's what we all do when we're not crying,
eating, or pooping. The adults barely get time to do the last two. I
mean, three.
11/25/00 Their first thanksgiving-- Julie's family was here, but our help was not. Julie and I did 3 all-nighters. They guys are entirely nocturnal-- neither of us got sleep during our turns. Welcome to parenthood. Periods of extreme cuteness (to us) make up for it. Click to enlarge Julie and Eli, me and Max, and Max. Then the last two are Max posing in front of the web site picture of him, and then posing in front of him posing in front of the web site picture of him. He was bored by being bored by the self reference.
And pix of Eli and Max' guests at Thanksgiving, from left to right: Carol (Julie's Mom) and Tod assembling the food, our pal Joy Delf and Carol and Tod, Julie's sister Laura and their baby Jody and Carl's nose, and me and Carol and both babies.
11/20/00 One day after their official due date, and they're five weeks old, growing like crazy. We figure Eli is well over 8 pounds now. Bath of Eli on the right. Click to enlarge.
11/18/00: From left, a day where they were a bit of trouble. You can see it in our expressions on the second from left. Next, our ignored-herein other baby Samantha down by the water, and two of the great sunsets from this long streak of un-Seattle-like fall weather.
11/17/00 A couple really great ones (trust me) of Julie and the guys on the TV room couch, at one point all asleep.
11/14/00 The guys, together:
Please excuse the clumsy method, but try voting on which is which:
You can view the results here. (The hand recount will take place by noon Friday, unless a court order determines otherwise.)
11/12/00 After our two new babies arrived, Bard's older one is now leaving the nest at age 17. Active Voice was sold to Cisco. You can read about it at http://www.activevoice.com.
A natural growth stage for the company, and good for employees and shareholders, but I will miss being its Dad.
But back to my real job as Dad of Eli and Max:
The first two pix are in their crib, obviously. The third is Max at the window on what appeared to be a nice day. The guys are doing great-- both well above 5 pounds on their visit last thursday. On their "real" due date, Nov 22, they could be close to an average birth weight. They'll be more than a month old.
11/02/00 Can't believe it's been only 3 days. Seems like we've been with these guys for weeks in their room-- changing diapers, feeding, and watching them. With twins, it takes about two hours to "do" them... and then, an hour later, the first one wakes up again and the cycle repeats!
We took them in for a checkup today. Great news: Max is up to 4 lbs 7.5 oz and Eli has broken 5 lbs! Even allowing for differently calibrated scales, that's fast gain. They definitely are appreciating being home.
And we finally put them together again after 2 weeks apart. Click to enlarge.
11/1/00 THEY'RE HOME! It's heaven, despite the lack of sleep. They're released from all the cables, cuffs, tags, tubes, blood-sample-pinpricks, and blood pressure checks, and now can just sleep, eat, poop, and pee in their own room (and sometimes in their diapers). Already they seem more relaxed and are eating more.
We took them home last night after they passed the previous night's car-seat test: each lying in the seat for double the time of the planned road trip, without stopping breathing. All future tests will seem harder, but none will be more important. Upon leaving the hospital, Max weighed 4 lbs 1 oz, and Eli 4 lbs 11.5 oz.
Click to enlarge these photos of Eli and Max, dwarfed by their car seats; and lying in what appears to be a super-King-sized crib but is actually normal-sized. It seems spartan, but it's the rule these days to get rid of all potential breathing hazards.
Coming soon: pictures of our dog, Samantha, trying to figure out whether the twins are playmates, food, or have food to give her.
And click here for the narrative of the whole pregnancy, up till the babies came home.
And here are some pix of Bard and Julie in 1998, two years before the kids aged them by six years.