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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!

Solving a Verizon issue (Nexus 5X)

I solved a problem today and figured that I’d document it for the rest of the world. Every time someone left me a voicemail on Verizon, I would get a cryptic text from Verizon at 900080006202 that looked like “//VZWVVM:SYNC:ev=NM;id=1;c=1;t=v;s=1XXXXXXXXXX;dt=18/01/2016 13:40-0900;l=13;dev_t=5” or “//VZWVVM:SYNC:ev=MBU;dev_t=5”.

Here’s what happened. It turns out that Verizon has three kinds of voicemail: basic voicemail (free), basic visual voicemail (also free), and premium visual voicemail ($2.99/month). I have a Nexus 5X and I recently switched from an unlimited Verizon data plan to a different plan (long story).

As part of that shift, it looks like Verizon switched me to visual voicemail. I suspect a lot of phones that you get at a Verizon store have some sort of visual voicemail app pre-installed. That app probably intercepts those cryptic texts and uses them to show a voicemail indicator. Ever wondered how the voicemail indicator disappears so fast after you call voicemail? I suspect that’s also because of a Verizon text that is interpreted by your phone.

But a Nexus 5X doesn’t have Verizon’s voicemail app, so it just presents texts from Verizon. To fix this issue, I stopped by a Verizon store and had a rep change me from “basic visual voicemail” to “basic voicemail,” and that fixed the issue. I don’t think you can toggle that setting yourself on Verizon’s website. Added: A friend told me that he got his voicemail changed to basic voicemail by chatting with a Verizon representative online. That might be easier/faster than visiting a Verizon store in person.

Nexus 5X rocks!

By the way, I love my Nexus 5X. It fits well in my hand, the camera is superb, and the fingerprint reader is blazingly fast. Also, the speed and accuracy of voice recognition on the Nexus 5X is amazing.

A final nice feature is that you can insert a Nano SIM card from any of the major carriers in the US. I often switch my Nexus 5X over to Google Fi in various situations; for example, Fi is great if you’re traveling outside the US.

HD Voice

One last tip if you’re still on Verizon: you can get HD Voice for free, but you have to enable it. HD Voice works via Voice over LTE, or VoLTE. HD Voice should have much better audio than a regular cell phone as long as both phones support it. On Verizon’s site, go to My Verizon->My Plan & Services->My Plan->Products & Apps->Manage Products & Apps and then click Free Products. Enable HD Voice on all your compatible lines on the website.

Then you need to enable HD Voice on each of your phones. On recent Android phones, look for Settings->More->Cellular networks->Enhanced 4G LTE Mode. On iPhones, look for Settings->Cellular->Enable LTE and select Voice & Data. More info on HD Voice and Advanced Calling on Verizon is in these FAQs.

What phone are you rocking right now, and how do you like it?

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