It's been a while since you posted anything.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Perhaps you heard there are two babies to care for? Okay, for Ginger to care for. But it's exhausting watching her work so hard.

I was musing to myself yesterday, and it seemed like the kind of thing I used to post to this blog, so here goes: There's definitely something different about dealing with "a baby." What I mean by this is that when we had singleton births, there was only "the baby." Whoever was dealing with the baby was definitely dealing with "the baby." Even when Charlie was "the baby," it was clear what you were talking about when, for example, you said "Can you hold the baby while I finish cooking dinner?" Or, "Would you mind cutting up my steak? I'm holding the baby."

The words "the baby" haven't been spoken in our house since about April 2005. (I mean not together in that precise order.) That's because it's now a meaningless phrase in our house. Instead we talk in terms of "a baby." "Would you please hold a baby while I tie my shoe?" "Do you want to take a baby with you when you go to the store?"

Babies have become, in a way, a fungible good. You're not really being a productive member of the household (or for that matter any kind of worthwhile guest in our house) unless you are doing something for, with, or to, a baby. But it doesn't matter which one. They're interchangeable for this purpose, and perhaps for other purposes too. Babies come in a quantum of one, but there's definitely more than one to address. You wind up with "a baby" at a time. There is no "the baby." This may seem obvious to you, but it's weird to me that the "the baby" phenomenon that motivates the speech and action of every other set of parents simply doesn't exist in our house anymore.

Obviously we refer to them by name more than as "a baby." But a lot of times their need for attention is interchangeable. The only thing that specifically matters is which one of them is "more due" for nursing, in which case it does matter which one Ginger is holding and which one I have. But for most other purposes, you're just supposed to be helping "a baby."

Lately, the most effective form of man-to-man defense we have is Ginger with Evelyn and me with Anna. That's because Evelyn overtook Anna in the level of demand for attention. Anna can fall asleep by herself in the bouncy seat; Evelyn cannot. Anna can find her own thumb and self-soothe; Evelyn (for the most part) cannot. Anna can sleep for five hours at a stretch, day or night; Evelyn cannot. Anna can be put down and will fall asleep if you walk away; Evelyn cannot. So Evelyn gets a lot more time being held than Anna, because she needs it more. There are evenings when Ginger will suddenly realize that a day has passed and she hasn't held Anna at all except for active nursing.

There's also the fact that Anna is still taking one bottle a day, while Evelyn has been at 100% breastmilk for almost two months now. Because five ounces of formula is a lot for an eleven pound baby to work on, we try to time Anna's bottle for the very last thing of the day, to allow her to sleep through on a full tummy. Often this means waiting for Anna to wake up spontaneously at midnight, one or even two in the morning, giving her a bottle, burping her and putting her back to bed for the rest of the night. Sometimes she'll sleep as late as 8 a.m. or later under those circumstances. Because Ginger doesn't do bottles, most nights she'll take Evelyn to bed with her to "nurse out" while I stay up and wait for Anna to wake up enough to take the only bottle of the day. I'm a night owl anyway and this plays to my strengths, but it does solidify the impression that Evelyn is Ginger's baby and Anna (being less demanding) is mine. For now.