CHAPTER 14

One evening after getting the boys both to sleep, the two men hung over the edge of the crib watching their babies snuggle together in their sleep.  They had taken turns going out to Christmas shop for the boys, and although Kurt felt slightly guilty about it, pretty much everyone else's gift was going to be delivered; he wasn't sure how new parents shopped for Christmas before the internet.  Turning to Blaine, he said, “Sweetheart, what do you want for Christmas?”

“Eight, no make that ten, maybe twelve, hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Then maybe sex, but maybe just more sleep.”

“Mmm.  Right.  I don't think there's any way I can provide that.  I'll improvise.”

Their parents had both stayed for a week, then Carole had stayed another week, and Blaine's mom was there now.  Everyone would be there to spend Christmas with them, but after that they would be on their own.  Kurt brought up a subject they'd both been avoiding.  “Honey, we need a nanny.  I really don't want to put the boys in daycare when they're babies.  We have to find one, maybe two, since we both work such crazy hours.”

“What about Shelby's Broadway daycare?”  Blaine asked.

“Maybe when they're older, but right now I don't think it's a good idea.  They're too young.  And just like we didn't like having cars and sports pushed on us, I don't think we should push Broadway on our kids.  Music lessons are a given once they're older, and I don't mind dance lessons if they show an interest, but let's just expose them to everything, including sports, and see what they want to do.”

They called an agency and began interviewing two days later, and by Christmas had found two nannies, both college students, who would start just after New Year's.  The first, Alyssa, was a music major.  She took most of her classes in the morning, so that she was free to rehearse or play gigs at night.  She agreed to work from late morning to early evening.  Katie, an English major, overlapped with her, working from late afternoon until late evening, and was willing to work after midnight if necessary, since she didn't have any early morning classes.  They both worked Tuesday through Saturday, and they relied on friends or gave one of the nannies extra hours to cover Sunday matinees.  Often Kurt or Blaine or both were home, but the nannies enabled them to work at home, and occasionally catch up on sleep.  The arrangement was a bit unconventional, but it worked and everyone was happy with it.

* * *

Christmas was fun, with Burt and Carole staying in the spare room, which was serving as a guest room until they had another baby.  Finn and Quinn, along with Stephen and Carole Ann, were placed on air mattresses in the informal living area.  Blaine's parents and Cooper stayed in a hotel a couple of blocks away.  It was crowded and chaotic and full of love and warmth and surprises.  Kurt decided, among other things, to give his dad a reprieve from the vegan diet he had imposed while in New York, just for Christmas.  This was done in part to avoid having to listen to Finn complain about having to eat like he did when with Rachel.  He was frying bacon to go with breakfast for Blaine, Finn, Cooper, Blaine's parents, and anyone other than his dad who might want some when they got the biggest surprise of all.  He expected the smell to bring Finn and probably Stephen, who loved bacon almost as much; what he didn't expect was for Quinn to bolt out of the makeshift bed and dart towards the bathroom in his design studio, where he could clearly hear her emptying her stomach.  His first thought was that a stomach virus was the last thing they all needed on Christmas.  He went to the door and knocked, calling, “Quinn?  Are you okay in there?”

He heard the toilet flush and the sink run before a sheepish looking Quinn emerged, smiling a small smile, despite the fact that she still looked a bit green.  “Yeah.  Just not really used to this yet.  I don't think this one likes bacon.”

“What?”  The question echoed from Burt, Carole, and Blaine's parents nearly simultaneously.  They had been in the nursery admiring the boys sleeping.

“Yeah.  Um, surprise?  Quinn didn't want to tell anyone until she was further along, but I guess we can't really keep it a secret any longer.  Merry Christmas?”  Finn stumbled over his explanation.

Carole asked, “How far along are you?”

“About eight weeks.  It's a honeymoon baby.”

At that point, Blaine and Cooper emerged from the nursery carrying the boys and surveyed the scene, everyone looking back and forth from Quinn to Finn.  “What'd we miss?”  Blaine asked.

Later, as they opened gifts, Finn announced, “Christmas in Ohio next year.”

“Why?”  Kurt demanded.

“Dude, whoever has the youngest kid in diapers gets Christmas at their house, or close.  We can do Mom and Dad's house too.  Once they're all out of diapers we can alternate.”  Everyone had to laugh, but no one could fault his logic.

* * *

The first crisis hit the first week of February.  The play Blaine had in rehearsals had opened in late January, and he had his stand-in take a week of the play he was performing in while he directed the first week of the show.  After that it was on autopilot and an assistant took over, so Blaine could return to performing.  Alyssa got the flu, so she was out, but Katie was there as usual, and since he had no rehearsals, he felt like he could manage.  Kurt was overseas for the usual February Fashion Weeks, but they both agreed it would not be wise to take two two-month-olds on a transatlantic flight, so he and Blaine would be spending Blaine's birthday apart for the first time in their marriage.  The morning of his birthday, Blaine awoke at half past four in the morning to hear Ian shrieking in pain; by six, Patrick had joined him.  Both were running fevers.  Blaine had no idea what to do.  He tried to give them baby Tylenol, but they just spit it out.  By seven, he called Carole in tears.  At her instruction, he called the pediatrician's office when they opened at eight.  By nine-thirty, they had both been diagnosed with double ear infections.  When Kurt called that afternoon, which was actually late evening for him, having been in shows and events all day, Blaine was crying.  Kurt felt awful, both for abandoning Blaine to deal with this alone, although there was no way he could have known it would happen, and for his sons, having to go through the nightmare of pain that ear infections could be.  He offered to come home, but Blaine insisted it was important for his business that he stay and get as many orders as he could.  Kurt stayed, but was distracted the rest of the time he was away.  By the time he made it home, Blaine looked exhausted, and Kurt thought maybe a bit older, but both boys were happy and healthy, their Papa having seen them through their illness.

Then, there was the matter of feeding them.  When the boys were six months old, the doctor said they were ready for so-called solid food, which really meant food other than formula.  Having seen the baby food Finn and Rachel fed Stephen, Kurt announced that he refused to feed his children “paste.”  He bought a steamer and made his own baby food, which both boys steadfastly refused to eat.  Santana finally told him to mash or puree whatever he and Blaine ate, finely to start, gradually leaving more texture.  First, she told him, they wanted taste in their food – Kurt had been foregoing all seasoning, based on the advice in his baby books.  Second, she told him that they would eat what Kurt and Blaine ate when they were older, instead of asking for separate, bland, processed meals like so many children.

“Look at Amelia.  She eats my mother's migas, enchiladas, anything with pasta, no matter how spicy, pretty much everything other than my mom's tortilla soup.”

“If she eats whatever you do, why doesn't she eat the tortilla soup?”  Kurt challenged.

“Because as great a cook as my mom is, her tortilla soup is awful, that's why.”  She laughed.  “We learned to eat it to suck up, but Amelia doesn't need to do that, because according to my mother, she can do no wrong.”

As they boys grew older, they gained the ability to sit up by themselves and to manipulate toys.  What that usually meant was that if one of them had a toy, the second would wrestle it away from him and then hit him with it.  The apartment usually echoed with shrieks of rage from one baby or the other.  “Twins will be great, everyone said.  They'll entertain each other.”  Kurt muttered under his breath as he deposited Patrick, furious at having been deprived of the toy he had stolen from Ian, into his crib, and then went to comfort Ian.  When Blaine came in from a meeting a short time later, he said, “Tell me the story again about Jeff and how he and his twin got along, please.”

“Maybe it's because they were boy/girl twins?”  Blaine mused.  “Although, I have to say, maybe it was because Jeff was afraid of his sister.  I only met her a few times, but I'm pretty sure she's meaner than he is.”

“That doesn't take much,” Kurt said drily.  “Jeff doesn't have a mean bone in his entire body.”

“True,” Blaine replied.  “So what's going on here?”  He asked, taking Ian, who had finally calmed down.

“Apparently it was Patrick's turn to swipe the toy and smack his brother, that's what.  Now Patrick's in time-out.”  Kurt leaned back on the couch, debating whether he should get something to eat or just pass out.  He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd eaten breakfast, assuming he'd remembered to do so.

That evening, Blaine called Jeff.  Jeff called his mom, then called back.  Blaine called Kurt to deliver the bad news.  “Um, apparently Jeff and his sister did the same stuff.  The entertaining each other and playing well together didn't really kick in until preschool.  They did sleep better together and have fewer bad dreams when they were together even earlier, but his mom said babies and toddlers tend to be too self-centered to really play together well, twins or not.  She said it's pretty typical, developmentally.”

Kurt sighed.  “They do sleep better together.  It's just everything else that drives me crazy.  When they're asleep it's great.”