SCHOOL

Marge often says,"I always pictured me being the one to take Brigid to school." She does so whenever she has a day off. I am a morning person; this part of the day is easier for me to handle than for her. When Brigid started pre-K, Marge worked out a deal whereby she could go take Brigid to school and go in to work late three times a week.  This left me with only two days where I had to schlepp the three to school. This deal ran out after the winter holidays. I got used to getting the gang dressed and out five times a week. Thank God for days off.

I loved going in as the parent assistant in pre-K. Marge and I split the monthly duties. I got to know the names of almost all 20 kids in class. Running Color Bingo was a lot of fun. The first time I served, Brigid didn't want to be in my group. The next time she wanted to be with me. The teacher gave me the job of preparing the snack--cream cheese and jelly on crackers. I had my back to the teacher and students as I worked in the kitchen in the back of the classroom. What a treat to look over my shoulder and see Brigid raising her hand and knowing all the answers. Is it any wonder she was one of the three kids in her class who were promoted to Eagle Kindergarten?

Many times when I picked up Brigid at the end of the pre-K day, her teacher Mrs. Tarrash would say, "Don't go until you see Mommy...or your babysitter...or Daddy." Third billing! A lot of times she'd leave off Daddy but I got used to that. I wonder what went through Brigid's head. I never asked her. I am not a nonsexist language crusader but my time in the publishing business has made me appreciate accuracy.

Kindergarten is very different from pre-K. There are no regular parent assist days. I leave Brigid at the outside door and she runs up a short flight and lines up in the auditorium with her class. In pre-K we'd wave good-bye as the class marched up the stairs with the teacher. In kindergarten we see the teacher just once, at the end of the day. Brigid missed her old friends since she only knew two other kids on the first day. She was nostalgic for pre-K, placing her old class picture on her desk at home. It wasn't more than three weeks later when she said as we went home,"I like kndergarten. I have a lot of new friends!" I exhaled another parental sigh of relief.

THE TWIN THING

Would I have ever stayed home with just two kids? I don't think so. It was the enormity of having twins plus one, the challenge of it. Plus, I was  exhausted from lost sleep and New York subway commuting.  Marge was burned out after three years at home.

There are a lot of things that men can bring to the job of full-time father, not the least of which is strength. Marge has the back trouble that many mothers have and most men should be able to avoid if they never get overweight. Just pushing a stroller can  wear you out day after day. I could do stunts such as picking the stroller up the steps and keeping the boys asleep as Brigid and I tiptoed in. The frustration of a sleeping baby waking up when you're exhausted works like this:They are asleep. You carry them in. They sleep on your shoulder. The second you put them down they wake up and there goes your break. We often thought about moving to a ground floor apartment so we could just roll them in and let them sleep.

I put the boys on a schedule from my start at home every day. It made a tremendous difference in our daily life. We never had a set bedtime for Brigid when Marge was home full-time. That was a problem but I didn't mind it so much because I got home late a lot and I was always excited to see the baby when I got home. There were  some work days up to the time I started as a FTF that I would miss her waking hours for the entire day, and I wasn't even a big executive who could tell himself it was a manly sacrifice for the family.

 Twins, twins, twins. I still can't figure why a wealthier member of our families could have had this expensive blessing bestowed upon them. We used to have this conversation about some day having a second child. I was pretty sure we could handle a second child but thought we should wait a while. Margie agreed. We would end with me saying that a third child was going to be pretty hard to handle financially and in terms of wanting to go through all that hard work again. Did I want to be a father of three? I was pretty much against it. Marge was always in favor of having a third child.
The moment the technician working the sonogram told us about the twins, Marge was smiling-in-tears. I was stunned. Marge and I fight about a lot of things, but we share near identical values when it comes to our children, born or unborn. The decision about the second and third child had been made for us by God or by fate. I have learned to dig in against adversity, whether it's a promotion that doesn't come through or the latest financal hit. I was determined to become the World's Greatest Father.

When you have twins, other twins go out of their way to introduce themselves. One day, a woman in her sixties came up to the kids and  said some nice things about the children. I said thank you and she said, "I'm a twin too." Then she said sadly, "My sister died at birth." I've met other women in their sixties who have said, "I have twins. They're 38 now!"  That always makes me laugh because   people would never normally tell you, "My son is an accountant. He's 47 now!" As a young parent, it's nice to know that the kids will be a source of pride and joy after a lifetime.

MY MOTHER

One of the best things about being home with the kids was seeing my mother every Wednesday. She is in her early seventies and could pass for early sixties or even late fifties. She is one of the few women her age I could   be friends with even if she were not my mother. My father died of stomach cancer two years before Brigid was born. He was 74. The day Brigid was born eased some part of that pain that I still have thinking about the health roller coaster that was the last three years of my father's life. I got real close to my father near the end. I do an imitation of his voice for the kids and show them pictures. We named the oldest twin after him, Thomas Brendan Black. My father was also the eldest of two nonidentical twin boys. I also learned later that Thomas in Hebrew means twin. Matthew Brian Black I half-named after me. Even though Brigid and I share the same first three letters, she was actually named after Margie's grandmother.

MY WIFE

I can state without fear of contradiction that no husband does as much when he comes home or as much on weekends as my wife does when she comes home from her full-time job. She comes home between 4:30-5:00 with groceries every day and hits the ground running. She is my secret weapon. People tend to give me more credit than I'm entitled to. If I do a half-way decent job taking care of the kids, it's considered a marvel. If a woman gets 93% of the job done, it's considered a problem.
 

My wife says that women reinforce the attitude that only she can do things like dressing the kids or cooking. She says that some women want to  do it all themselves. They have a hard time relinquishing traditional responsibilities. Marge and I fell into certain house jobs. I like to cook so I do  most of the cooking. I do the wash and Marge does most of the folding and putting away. I vacuum and shampoo the rugs because men like operating machinery; Marge does the dusting. Marge does the bathroom because she, "loves grime." This is a direct quote but I think she was kidding. I give   "twinbaths" and Marge does Brigid. All this just developed over time. If we had discussed it, it wouldn't work as well.

JE NE RIEN REGRET

I have no regrets. Margie and I have been thinking about switching again, sometime in 1993. We each would have put in three years apiece. I never mentioned trivial things such as money, the cost of carryover medical insurance while we waited for Marge's plan to start, the early fear that it could be  the biggest mistake we ever made. If you want to do something badly enough, you will make it so. The rest will fall into place. Money? "The money," my father used to say, "will come."  I can't wait!

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