Twins Rock

(Notice Kirsten's head in both pictures leaning on Maddox)

Twins rock, they really do. Ours could not be more different, but I don't know what they would do without each other. As many people know, the twins were born at 32 weeks. This, of course, made the whole ordeal pretty scary. I happened to be in Utah on business when Heidi called to tell me she was on her way to the hospital and that I needed to get home NOW! With the help of some close friends (Jeff Jensen, Chad Willardson, and a few others), I was able to make it from BYU campus to Heidi's bedside in just over 4 hours. I still think it is some kind of record.

A few hours later, and rudely interrupting a great episode of "Lost," Kirsten and Maddox were born into a frenzy of doctors and nurses doing everything they could to make sure the babies survived. Poor daddy Trevor was all alone (after the initial family visitors) because they knocked Heidi out as soon as the babies were out of her tummy. The only contact I had with her for about the first 24 hours was when I had to wake her up from her trauma and drug induced comma to ask the code to get into the car. It was like 4 in the morning and my brain was not working. Interestingly enough, Heidi remembered it right off the bat. I think she would have had a hard time remembering my name at that point, but the code to the car, no problem.

The twins spent the next month in the CHOC NICU. It was an amazing place and as small as our little guys were (I could fit my wedding ring around their wrists), they were actually the healthier babies there. I am still in awe of the way those nurses mix science and faith to make sure the babies are well taken care of. When the month was over, the babies had both reached about 5 lbs and the doctors thought they were ready to come home. We didn't really agree because Kirsten had a nasty habit of forgetting to breathe. In the hospital there were all kinds of alarms that went off when it happened. At home, it was just us. We did not sleep a lot those first few days.

Their personalities have not changed from the moment they were born. Maddox is the quiet one that is perfectly happy with a little truck and some space on the floor to push it around. Kirsten, on the other hand, is much more interested in people... and their attention. In fact, I'd say that it's very possible that the whole "forgetting to breathe" thing in the hospital was just a way for her to get some more of our attention! Regardless of their differences, the first question they ask when they wake up is, "Where is Kirsten?" or "Where is Maddox?" It is really neat to see how much of a comfort they are to each other.

One down side of having twins is that they work as a team to figure stuff out. Usually it is stuff that we would rather they did not figure out, like crawling out of their cribs, opening doors, opening cabinets, squeezing toothpaste, and fitting diapers on their heads. They also figured out how to make the most annoying sound in the world... you know, the one from "Dumb and Dumber." They used that one extensively on our recent trip to Utah.

Most of all, they have been normal little kids, and along with our other kids, they have filled our lives with a lot of work, laughter, frustration, smiles, noise, exhaustion, and poop. But through it all they fill our hearts with amazing joy that makes everything else worthwhile.