Twins!!

Hey folks, I hope you’re doing well, and wanted to catch you up to speed on some new life happenings. Namely: babies. Two of them at once. Lindsay and I welcomed healthy fraternal twin boys into the world a few months ago.

So far, Twin A is big, open, loud and easygoing with his smiles. He’s also built like a tank, and a one-baby workout for anyone’s back. Twin B is smaller, quieter, and more shy with his smiles, but when you get a smile from him, you feel like a million bucks.

The babies are thriving and happy, and Lindsay is steadily recovering from a required C-section. In classic Lindsay form, she’s done a remarkable job with the kids, all while recovering from major abdominal surgery. Some of which includes, breastfeeding, non-stop pumping, running an ad hoc HR department (ie. sourcing help), hosting humans, sending me flowers with love notes, and more. All on very little sleep. Women are phenomenal. My woman in particular. She regularly leaves me in awe—and the boys are lucky to have her as their force of nature Mom. ❤️ 

It’s strange to observe the different standards for men and women as parents. Men are often glorified for doing small things (“You took your baby for a walk!”). Meanwhile, Lindsay dealt with all-day nausea for 6.5 months during pregnancy. In her “stubborn meets perfectionist” way, she also gave up coffee, her favorite foods, refused to take any painkillers, and more to make sure the babies had their best shot at optimal health.

Pumping breast milk for twins means she hasn’t gotten a full night of sleep for months. Women carry so much weight (literally, as Lindsay points out), and it’s often treated as though “it’s your job.” It quietly goes unquestioned. It also seems people rarely check-in regarding how much women might be holding throughout the whole process. Our society needs to learn how to recognize, support, and celebrate women in these spaces more.

Instead of the highlight reel that people see or post on social media, I hope we can move towards creating more spaces that talk about the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. It would be a more honest way to live and interact with one another, which is kind of what life is all about.

Sometimes when I’m trying to get a baby to sleep, Lindsay will come up behind me and guide me on how to sway or move or shush. It feels like dancing and it’s a wonderful way to learn how to sooth babies. One of her most impressive feats (to me) is taking a baby, coaxing him to sleep, then taking the *other baby* and coaxing him to sleep. Back-to-back baby whispering. 

We still haven’t decided how we feel about pictures of them being on the internet, so here’s a tasteful silhouette of Lindsay and twin B instead:

Lindsay and Twin B

So if you’re wondering what we’ve been up to over the last little bit, that’s it. 🙂

We’ve spent two cold winters in Canada, and are hoping to be elsewhere during the winter months. If you have thoughts on warm/fun places to spend the winter, with a baby-friendly tilt, let us know. California, Washington DC, Costa Rica, and Europe are all places we’re considering. Let us know if there’s places that are great to spend a winter with young ones!

This is Lindsay, my force of a human

I wanted to write a bit about my partner Lindsay Aranoff and why I'm so grateful we found each other. I could talk about the stuff you could discover from the internet (inaugural Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum, curator of a TEDxKids … [Continue reading]

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