Looky, Daddy!

Ask The Dad

Dear The Dad,

I have the same family configuration you do (identical twin girls, a daughter 4 years older), just one year behind. We were stunned—and not in a good way--to discover we were having twins in that second pregnancy (insert standard I-love-them-very-much-blah-blah-blah disclaimer here).

Many, many times, especially during the horror that is the twin newborn time, we have been told by childless people that they would voluntarily sign up for this fate. That they really, really hope they have twins. Something about it being so cute dressing them alike and “being done”— I don’t really know because I can’t hear them over the thunder of my head exploding.

So, my question: What do you say to people like this? Because screaming “Are you HIGH?!?!” seems to offend them.

Thanks,

Lisa in Seattle

Dear Lisa,

Try this: Next time a woman stops you on the street to tell you she really, really wants twins, take out a piece of paper, write a phone number on it, then lean in close and say, "Have your husband call me. I'll make you a set real pretty."

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Dear The Dad,

Can you post a picture of your twins? How do you tell them apart?

Thanks,

K with B and T

Dear K (and B? and T?),

I don't post too many pictures of my girls on this site, namely because yesterday people visited me through such search terms as "pictures of people's poop" and "my hot and kinky wife" and "dad and babysitter having sex all over house," and that was Easter Sunday. I must admit, though, that I almost clapped my hands like a girl when I followed that last search back and found that, at third place, I had squeaked in just above Melissa from Suburban Bliss for dad-and-babysitter sex. Now I am truly a force to be reckoned with.

Still pictures of my twins aren't all that hard to find if you know where to look.

And as for how we tell them apart? Well, as of Friday afternoon, that just got a whole hell of a lot easier.

And easier it will remain. At least until we get Lila on our dental plan.

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Ask The Dad

I seriously need to clean out my InBox more often. I've found email in there from back when this little site was in it's infancy. So here goes, in no particular order, the Ask The Dad extravaganza! And if your letter is not answered in this one, fear not. More extravaganzas are coming.

Dear The Dad,
Are your twins ever competitive with each other?  What do you do to help the situation?
Sincerely,
Referee to twin toddler girls

Dear Ref,
It is normal for all twins are competitive in some way. If you find yours to be what the experts call "hypercompetitive," might I suggest utilizing that trait for fun and profit. A screwdriver, a rivet gun, and a small strip of leather are the only tools you need to adapt a typical cockfighting spur to fit a toddler's chubby legs. The project takes between 45 minutes to an hour to complete and no prior mechanical experience is necessary.
Hope this helps,
The Dad

Dear The Dad,
One night last week, when I woke up at 11:30pm on my couch. The baby was in her crib, and I had apparently dozed off as soon as I switched the TV channel so that I could watch the news at 10pm. Anyway, I then remembered that I still had at least a half hour of work of cleaning bottles and pump parts and putting laundry in the dryer etc., etc. before I could go upstairs and sleep a few more hours until it all started over again. I thought to myself (as I'm sure we all do from time to time), "why did we have children?" And, I then remembered why… I once talked to someone about my fears of having a child, and that *&^#%$ person told me, "don't worry, it gets better over time."
So, my questions to you are:
1) WHAT gets better?
2) How do you define better?
3) In how much time?
Thanks,
The Godfather

Dear The Godfather,
Your friend lied. It doesn't get better over any amount of time. Interestingly, the phrase, "It gets better over time," was actually coined by Proctor and Gamble, the makers of Pampers diapers, in the mid-1960s, to combat what they saw to be the potentially devastating effects of the newly developed birth-control pill on the nation's birthrate and, by extention, diaper sales. The P&G marketing campaign was so effective that the freshly-coined phrase made it into the lexicon of most new parents, despite the lack of supporting evidence. It also helped solidify Pampers as America's top selling disposable diaper, beating out Huggies and their slogan, "Put the pee back in whoopee" and Dappies brand diaper, whose slogan, "What is sex without a child?" is largely cited as the reason for their bankruptcy two years later.
Hope this helps,
The Dad

Dear The Dad,
We are about to take a long car ride for a weekend of Family fun.  Any advice for keeping the kiddies quiet in the back seat?
Sincerely,
Hopeful

Dear Hopeful,
I'm about to strap 70 pounds of raw meat to myself and jump into a den of lions. Any advice for keeping those beasts at bay?
Hopefully,
The Dad

Dear The Dad,
My husband and I were thinking we were ready to have kids.  Then, due to the strange alignment of the planets, we saw Nanny 911 and read the she-vomited-on-my-head post on your blog in the same day.  Could you please share with us the 10 best and 10 worst things about having kids? And I think on the 'worst list' bodily fluids should only count as 1 item, otherwise it might be the whole list.  Or maybe I drastically underestimate the impact of bodily fluids ...
Trepidatiously,
The Trophy Wife

Dear TTW,
First, let me reassure you, there is no way to underestimate the impact of bodily fluids. Second, two top ten lists is a bit much considering I'm writing these as fast as I can before the twins wake up from their nap. So here's what you get:

Reasons to have babies:
1) You will save money. No longer will you drop huge wads of cash on romantic nights out with your husband.
2) No more pesky phone calls from friends asking you if you want to go out and have fun.
3) With children, even the mundane events of life become something to be treasured. Like sleeping. Or bathing.
4) You will have an excuse to get a new wardrobe--one that doesn't smell like the inside of a baby.
and finally,
5) Big boobs.
As for reasons not to have babies, I really don't think there are many. Besides, no need to dwell on the negative, right?
Good luck,

The Dad

Dear The Dad
I recently found myself babysitting my 2-year old niece for a couple hours. I walked into this as a confident 34-year old single guy, former military officer, graduate student in the bio-sciences...cocky, if you will.  When my sister came back hours later, I was smiling outwardly, but inside I was on my knees weeping and praying for the sweet release of death.  Is this normal for the uninitiated?
Frightened,
Jason

Dear Jason,
Yes, it is normal. Furthermore, fact that you were wishing death for yourself and not your niece shows that you might have a promising career in the child-care industry. I pay $10 an hour. Can you start Wednesday?
Sincerely,
The Dad

Ask The Dad

Dear The Dad,

I'm a stay-at-home mom.  My husband thinks he wants to be a stay-at-home dad.  He's convinced that he could get a lot more songwriting done if he stayed home with our 16-month old twin boys.  It's not financially possible... OK, it is but we'd be living like starving artists.  Anyway, I don't take his offers seriously.  They are mostly an annoyance because if I dare complain about having a bad day, he'll go on and on about how he'd happily switch places.

How do I convince him that the grass is NOT greener on the twins' side of the fence?

Thanks,

Debi D.

Dear Debi,

Unless you husband is bluffing, and it doesn't sound like he is, then you have but one course of action: Stop complaining. I mean it. Keep quiet, or you might ruin this for all of us.

The only way we stay-at-home parents can maintain the image that our long-suffering image is to keep our spouses at work where they belong. Remember the oath you took? It's still binding. They can't know. They can't know about the spa treatments, the tennis lessons, the hours upon hours of leisure. They can't know that 99% of our daily problems can be solved by an Elmo DVD. And the songwriting? Don't get me started! All of the best songs were written by stay-at-home dads. The list is endless: Prince wrote the entire soundtrack to Purple Rain over a three day period while his toddler had the stomach flu. Imagine started off as a way to explain sharing to John and Yoko's triplets. And Bob Marley's career didn't end when he died, it ended when his kids went to pre-school.

So keep your oath, Debi, and suck it up. Don't complain to your husband or he might just blow the lid off our whole stay-at-home operation. And if you have to complain, get a blog instead.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

Dear The Dad,

I'm beginning to think that my 17 month old twin boys hate each other. If they are not fighting over a toy, they are fighting over me, fighting over food, biting or hitting each other. Are your twin girls friends, and if so, when did this transformation take place? If not, how do you deal with the constant screaming and crying? (other than 3-martini playdates..)

Twin mom in Massachusetts

Dear TMiM,

My twins are not friends. They are, instead, mortal enemies who have forged an alliance to work together to defeat an even greater enemy, me.

The lesson to be learned is, if your twins are always fighting over you, make yourself less desirable. Stop bathing. Cry a lot. Yell at them for no reason. That's what I did and it worked great for me.

And if that doesn't do the trick, play the game I called, "The first baby that hugs me goes in the box."

Hope this helps,

The Dad

Dear The Dad,

Recently I returned to Austin after a ten-day visit to our nation’s capital. In front of me were a mother and her toddler son. He was everything a toddler should be: verbal, inquisitive, cute as a button.

When the flight attendants announced that all passengers needed to be seated, this young lad was unimpressed. An airplane is prime territory, after all, and being strapped into a chair doing nothing is hardly the best way to go about exploring the place.

I understand this. I applauded the mother’s efforts to distract her son until the airplane took off and the air pressure began to fluctuate, causing the boy severe pain, if one were to judge by the earsplitting shrieks he emitted. I understand this as well. I applauded the mother’s efforts to once again distract her son by giving him a sippy cup and various stuffed animals. I politely handed each and every one of these items back to her each and every time her son flung them over the seat at me.

Midway into the third hour of this unrelenting tantrum, I stopped applauding. I realized the mother had very little in the way of options--she could not take her screaming child somewhere private, she could not try to distract him with the television or music, she could only make use of those items she had brought with her onto the plane—but frankly, my eardrums couldn’t take much more abuse. Finally, the mother tried a new tack: if he threw something over the back of the seat, after I handed it back to her she put it away. Soon he was left empty-handed, and instead of shrieking was quietly sobbing.

I decided this was a fine time for a nap, closed my eyes, and leaned my head against the bulkhead. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, something landed in my lap, quickly followed by another something.

The toddler’s trousers, and his diaper.

I was very, very happy to land twenty minutes later.

Sincerely,

Thank God There Weren’t Two of Them

Dear TGTWToT,

You suffered. There's no doubt that you suffered. Your ordeal is plain to all. But...

Your suffering began when you boarded the flight. It ended when you disembarked.

Now imagine the mother. Her ordeal began months ago when she made the decision, for reasons we cannot here fathom, to fly across the country with her toddler. She stressed about this, worried non-stop, from that moment on. She probably didn't sleep much the night before, packing and prepping that bag of toys that kept ending up in your lap. She was already frazzled, trying to get a small child through security and their ever increasing list of inscrutable rules. Then the flight began and all of her worst fears, fears that have been taunting her for weeks, came true. And for her, the suffering did not end at the Austin airport. She and her little bundle of screams still had many hoops through which they had to jump before she could close this particular chapter of her life-with-child.

And now that she's home, can we finally say her agony of travel has ended? No, not even now. Because, now, going through her mind every minute that she has to think about such things, is the knowledge that she is going to have to do it all over again in April for her in-laws' 40th wedding anniversary in Oklahoma. Oh, wait, that last part is me.

Someone kill me now.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

Ask The Dad

Dear The Dad,

I am a SAHM with fraternal boy twins. Since they were born almost 2 years ago, I have been gently hinting to my husband that he should get a vasectomy. I've gotten nowhere. I can't tell if his reluctance is because he doesn't want anyone messing with his dinger, or because he still wants more kids, so yesterday I tried a different tactic. I told him that he needed to take some time off of work so I could go in and have my tubes tied. He said, and this is a direct quote, "Great. And you can have a tummy tuck at the same time."

My question is this: How should he die?

Thanks,

Soon to be Single Mother

Dear STBSM,

I can't answer this. There's just no way. Just reading it makes my head hurt. It's not the vasectomy that bothers me. In fact, I think hospitals should throw those in for free with every multiple birth. No, I can't answer this because of The Mom. The Mom and I have been together, albeit not always romantically, for 19 years now. Throughout those 19 years, I have said an amazing number of things to her, and, to hear her tell it, a goodly number of those things were colossally stupid.

The Mom remembers them all. She has the full collection of my moronic man-statements alphabetized on little note cards and filed away in the huge Rolodex of her mind. And if I so much utter a peep as to the insensitivity of your husband and his apparent insinuation that your tummy, which I am sure is quarter-bouncing flat, might be in need of a little tuckage, then The Mom will no doubt proceed to fill the Internet with her lovingly-treasured anecdotes of my own verbal blunders. Then, before I know it, there will be crowds of women with their Kenneth Cole bags stuffed with axes, kindling, lighter fluid, and matches, all surrounding my modest New Jersey home and asking me to wax poetic about, say, their pinky fingers, before they end my miserable life. And I suspect they might throw in a free vasectomy while they are at it.

So I will refrain from answering your question, STBSM. But something tells me I have plenty of readers who may want to offer you some suggestions of their own...

Ask The Dad

Hi The Dad,

I'm a mom of 13 month boy twins. Tell me how you did the whole ferberizing/rocking to bed, weaning off bottle, getting them to eat with an utensil thing.  I have a babysitter and my mother in law watching them, and they are treated like singletons (rocking to bed by each caregiver/still need a bottle before nap/bedtime).

I am thinking about staying at home, but the prospect scares me because I would be taking care of them all by myself and up to this point, they've had someone always there to hold them if they needed to be held.

HELP! When does it get easier? Or am I at the "easier" stage already and just don't appreciate it?  I have them with me after work and on the weekends, and I'm so tired.  What is your daily schedule with them? Free play? TV? (they don't watch alot of TV).  How do you get by??

Thanks for any sort of advice you can give,

A

Dear A,

True story: When my twins were around 11-months old, we started attending storytime at our local library. It was a once a week event, and the sheer effort of getting there usually left me knackered for the rest of the day, but we went every week without fail. Why? The ladies. Storytime at the library meant forty-five minutes of non-stop adoration from the ladies. I would walk into storytime, clean, groomed, in each arm a gently cooing baby, with just a little hint of loin-stirring cologne, and the room would fall quiet. Throughout storytime, moms and nannies, singletons in their lap, would sit around the circle, ignoring stories of George's curiosity, transfixed instead by the aura of me. They would whisper to each other. They would point. The braver ones would reach out and touch the hem of my pants, hooting like the half-apes of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. I was their monolith.

Here comes the true part: One day, weeks into the session, a new mom showed up. With her twins. And her nanny. She was a mess. Her entrance into the room could not have been more chaotic had she been Grandma Clampett driving her loaded-up car of Beverly Hillbillies straight into our circle. She had at least three diaper bags dangling off each arm. Her nanny had two. They took their place in the circle with a cacophony of grunts and sighs, oofs and ahhs, zipping and unzipping of bags, setting out a virtual smorgasbord of bottles, cups, and treat-filled Tupperware bowls. Finally, their home-away-from-home made, the mother with one baby, the nanny with the other, storytime began only to be interrupted a few minutes later by the mother looking over and exclaiming, "Oh my God! You have twins, too?"

I smiled and nodded.

"Do you take care of them yourself?"

Another smile, another nod. Let the adoration begin. I am ready.

Instead she said something that almost made me reach over and collapse her windpipe with a single, well-placed punch to the throat. She said, and I swear I am not making this up, "Oh, it must be so much easier that way."

She must have taken the sound I proceeded to make as a request for clarification.

"I mean, your girls must understand that there's only one of you. They must have learned patience, right?"

Storytime was still going on, so I didn't verbally respond, hoping instead that the core of her brain, the part that biologists claim dates back to our wild animal days, would recognize my wide-eyed stare, and thus trigger her 'fight-or-flight' reflex, hopefully choosing 'flight' because 'fight' would involve a very sudden and devastating bombardment of two eleven-month-old twins upon both her and the nest she had made in the library's storytime room.

This woman and I lived in different worlds. I could no more talk to her than I could have a meaningful conversation with Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Or answer a letter by a person who uses the term ferberizing, a word I had to Google just after I got your letter.

Still, your letter was so wrenching, your tone so plaintive, that I thought I'd try anyway.

Your boys are thirteen-months old. They are adaptable. If you are fool enough to try to take care of them solo, they will adapt to it. It will be ugly, and the first few weeks will make you want to take a job, any job, just to get back out of the house, but eventually they will adapt.

At bedtime, you will sit with both babies in your lap. You'll read them stories, sing them songs, rock them together. You'll put one down while you put the other in his crib. The screaming will be horrendous. It will be mind-blowing. You'll get the other into his crib, then you'll sing songs. You'll move their cribs closer together so you can reach both of them, patting their backs, soothing them, calming them. It will work. Not right away, but it will work.

Bottle weaning takes place when you stop giving them bottles. Get nice, soft-topped sippy cups and explain that their milk now comes from that. It will be ugly. You will feel like a terrible person, a bad mom, but eventually they will drink from the cups. They won't die.

Eating with a utensil? Forget it. Not important, not essential. They'll figure it out by kindergarten. Until then, let them use hands.

When does it get easier? Every day.

It gets easier every day.

Ask The Dad

Dear The Dad,

Curious on a guy's perspective...

After your kids were born, did you ever have a time when your wife wanted to be intimate and you didn't? 

Thanks so much!

L, mother of three girls

Dear L,

Since the kids, has there ever been a time when my wife has wanted to fool around but I haven't? Well, not exactly, but certainly there have been some major changes in how she and I approach intimacy these days.

Not long after the twins were born, The Mom started to get into fantasies. One night, after the kids were all tucked in, she approached me with an idea, and it nearly floored me. She wanted to role play. "You be the plumber, out on a service call" she said coyly, "and I'll be the helpless housewife."

I was game, what guy wouldn't be? So I went down to the basement, dusted off my tool box, and headed back up to the bedroom. But my wife wasn't in the bedroom. She was in the bathroom. In a nightie.

"Oh, Mr. Plumber!" She batted her eyelashes. "Our toilet keeps running!" Hair flip. "And I'm home all alone. Can you help me?"

Funny enough, our toilet did keep running. I'd been meaning to get to it for weeks. So I opened up my toolbox, rolled up my sleeves, and fixed it the blasted thing. All the while, The Mom was all, "You're so strong!" and "What a big wrench you have!" and "You're getting so dirty!" and "What a man you are!"

It was hot.

My wife's fantasies didn't end there, though. A few days later, it was Mr. Handyman and the Helpless Housewife. I changed two light bulbs and rehung a fallen picture. "Oh, I love the way you screw that lightbulb!" Then it was Mr. Painter and the Helpless Housewife. I painted over some old water stains in the bathroom. "Prime it, baby, prime it!"

I thought that these fantasies would eventually peter out after a while, but they didn't. My wife had a seemingly endless supply of kinky sex fantasies. There was Mr. Gardener and the Helpless Housewife, Mr. Floor Cleaner and the Helpless Housewife, Mr. Empty the Dishwasher and the Helpless Housewife, Mr. Clothes Folder and the Helpless Housewife, the list was endless.

Somewhere between Mr. Laundry Pre-treater and Mr. Cat Litter Sweeper-Upper, she began to forget the lingerie, and soon after that the hot sex became less and less pivotal, but my wife assures me that this is all part of the fantasy. "You wouldn't want me to sleep with every handyman that shows up, would you?" she explained. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

I'll be honest, when I married her, I had no idea that this woman would turn out to be so kinky. I must be the luckiest guy in the world.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

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The Mom is upstairs fighting off a fever and a sinus infection, so I'll just answer a few letters today.

Dear The Dad,

You are the only male in a family with four females. That would drive my husband crazy. How are you handling it?

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

It's not the number of females, it's the number of bathrooms. We have one. But down in our basement, down in a corner of our unfinished basement, down in a far corner of our oh-so-recently-filled-with-sewage unfinished basement, I've got a little bucket, a bar of soap, and a razor. It's called Daddy's Special Place. Nobody is allowed to bother Daddy when he's in his Special Place.

The worst indignity I've had to suffer, however, is when one of the moms at my oldest daughter's school remarked to me, "Four women and a stay-at-home dad. There's just not an ounce of testosterone in you house whatsoever, is there?"

Dear The Dad,

My wife and I have been asked to baby-sit for a friend's twins on a regular basis. Just once a week for about six hours. Our friend offered to pay, and my wife had no idea what a fair price would be, since we love the twins, but are frightened from your stories. She went off to research and take surveys of fair prices; I suggested we ask you.

Thanks,

AJ

Dear AJ,

Not only should you babysit your friend's twins, you should do it without charging them a dime. Just think how six hours a week with twins will help you save the money that you would otherwise spend on horror movies, skydiving, bungee jumping, driving in Boston, heroin, roller coasters, or any of the other methods that more mundane people use to get a rush.

Plus, think of the karma, man, the karma! Taking another person's twins for even half an hour would pretty much guarantee that your next life will be significantly closer to nirvana than your current one is. Up that to six hours a week and you might just have to plant a Bodhi tree in your backyard.

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Dear The Dad,

I'm 33 weeks pregnant with identical twin girls and also have a 2-year-old daughter. How scared should my husband and I be? And how the heck are we going to tell them apart?

Sincerely,

Soon-2-be-mom-2-3

Dear 2bm23,

When I was young, I once got a frisbee stuck on the roof of a friend's one-story house. To retrieve the errant toy, I had to climb up the back of the house, climb over the roof to the front, get the frisbee, then climb back over the top of the house to get down.

Somewhere along the route, I slipped. I slipped and slid down the roof. I remember flailing my arms, kicking my legs, trying to gain purchase, trying to stop my inevitable progress down the incline and off the roof.

That fear, that impossible terror, that entirely useless, silent, scrambling, terrible fear, which probably lasted only a second or two as I slid off the roof into a hedge of holly bushes, is the same fear that you should feel from this moment until the twins are born.

Good luck with that.

As for your second question, you should realize that, until the girls are old enough to recognize their own names, it's not important to tell them apart at all. My girls probably switched identities half a dozen times before we finally made a concerted effort to keep them straight.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

Dear The Dad,

So, if you win the Bloggies, what will be your first act of world domination?

Just Wondering

Dear JW,

I will make it a capital crime for a stranger to ask a parent of twins if the twins are "natural".

And speaking of which...

Dear The Dad,

I'm a SAHM of 4-month-old twins. Almost every time I go out someone comes up to me and asks me if my twins are natural. Do these people know what they are asking?? That's like coming up to a complete stranger and saying, "So, are you infertile?" It's NOBODY'S BUSINESS!!!! My twins are in fact from IVF, and that was a result of countless years of attempts, tests, procedures, failures, and finally one success. How dare these people so casually pry into my journey to motherhood.

So my question is, what do you say when people ask you if your kids are natural? (I won't ask you if people ask you this. I know they do. Every twin parent I know gets it.)

Thanks,

Mom of Beautiful Twins

Dear MO2BT,

The "natural" question. Of all the questions we twin parents get, nothing drives me crazier than the "natural" question. The fact that people feel they can so casually inquire to a stranger's personal life and health issues just completely baffles me. Do these people go up to bald people and ask, "So, cancer?"

Here are a few of my favorite answers to "Are they natural?" Feel free to pick and choose, depending on the situation.

1. No, they're unnatural.

2. No, they're synthetic.

3. (In a low whisper:) Clones.

4. No, they're pretend.

5. No, they're made of cobbled together body parts I bought on eBay.

6. More than you.

7.  No, sir! What you are looking at is the next level of human baby. I'm telling you, they are state of the art. Titanium skeleton. Pentium III processor. And the outside? 100% NuSkin. Grown in a lab in Weehawken, New Jersey. Looks real, doesn't it? Cost a pretty penny, I don't mind saying, but worth it. Sure, we could have gone with the vinyl skin, but I think those just look tacky, plus they heat up like the dickens in the summer. Do you want to feel it? No? Okay, but do this: Lean in close, you can hear them hum. It's low, but you can hear it. Go ahead. No? Alright. Well, next time, maybe. Anyway, if you want to know more, the manufacturer of these bad boys has a website. It's www.youarearudesonofabitch.com. Check it out when you get a chance.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

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Ask The Dad

Yesterday's Ask The Dad generated more than the usual amount of email, with many readers writing me a thank-you email for actually providing a helpful parenting tip. That response has prompted me to turn this website around and stop being so flippant with my answers. I really think I'm doing a reasonably good job at raising my kids and I guess it could be helpful to some if I used this blog to actually dispense real advice. So from this point on, I will do my best to be a good citizen and to provide honest, helpful parenting tips to my many readers who write to Ask The Dad. I'll start with these two letters from Tapey's Mom and The Godfather.

Dear The Dad,
My husband and I are Costco shoppers, buying everything in bulk from paper towels to frozen lasagna to a gallon-size jar of pickles.  We have a bit of a bulk-shopping problem that I am hoping you can help with.  We buy our son's diapers at Costco (in bulk, of course).  Well, lately, Junior has been doing a bit of growing, and he has grown right out of the most recent box of diapers that we got at Costco.  So here's the question: what do you do with over 100 extra diapers that won't fit your kid anymore?
Thanks!
Tapey's Mom

Dear Tapey's Mom,

Extra diapers? The possibilities are endless. They can...

...keep your ears warm while you herd sheep at Brokeback Mountain...

...or prevent hearing loss at a rock concert....

...or be a spare helmet when you visit the Russian space station, Mir.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

Dear The Dad,

We've found that our little girl laughs and laughs at the Oompa Loompa song from Willy Wonka. You know, "oompa, loompa, doobity do, I've got a special present for you…"

What tips do you have for other things that make babies laugh?

The Godfather

Dear The Godfather,

My babies laugh when I drink.

Hope this helps,

The Dad

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