The Wombats and the Wedding

Jen and I have wildly different views as to the difficulty of accomplishing certain tasks with the Wombats. Jen believes that we can do anything, go anywhere, and live our lives exactly the same way that we did before having babies. I believe that we really can't do anything other than huddle together at home and ride out the next ten to fourteen years until the boys are a little more self-sufficient.

We're both very wrong, however, I think yesterday may have moved Jen a few ticks over in my direction.


Last night we attended a rooftop wedding in Manhattan with the boys. It seemed to start well despite the two hours stuck in traffic and having to feed the two of them in the car before entering the location. We made it to the rooftop, found our seats and the ceremony started. Oddly there was then a series of explosions across the river. No one seemed to pay it much mind. After all it was only New Jersey over there.

Then we looked down and saw the looks of distress on the boys' faces. The explosions had started something in them that could not be reversed. That something was a complete meltdown. Martin held it together while looking at me with distress in his eyes. Elliott, on the other hand, lost it. We were suddenly those people at the wedding with the two squawking babies only we were on a rooftop with nowhere to go.

All we could do was huddle in a corner in shame, squeezing the babies tightly and hoping it didn't turn into a Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen type situation.


After the ceremony the preacher was extremely gracious about the whole thing and even held Martin for a bit. Elliott was still on the naughty list.


I promptly drank away the memory of what had just happened and blended into the crowd, holding Martin, and hoping no one would suspect we were the parents of the shrieking babies. I think we did a good job fooling everyone because people seemed genuinely thrilled to meet the Wombats. The cute matching outfits probably helped a little in not earning everyone's total disgust with us.


Our friends were even kind enough to give the boys placesettings. The staff at the event even brought a highchair over, probably not suspecting the actual age of the guys.



As the night wore on the boys drifted off from a long day of wedding-ruining. The wall-shakingly loud music and stomping on the dance floor somehow soothed them while the soft tones of the preacher earlier had disturbed them to their very core.


Jen, on the other hand, was freaking out because their car seats were pressed directly against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows which looked over downtown and the Freedom Tower. My explanation that it was unlikely they'd fall through a sealed window that could not be opened didn't seem to ease her fears.

With all that done we had to head home where we collapsed, utterly exhausted, almost unable to complete their feeding before bed. While it was a challenging day there was something very satisfying in having done it. A few months back I thought it would be impossible, yesterday morning I thought it was totally doable, and last night I was just glad we'd made it through the day alive.

Jen and I have both moved a few steps closer to the center in our great debate. Do Everything vs. Do Nothing. This is a battle that has been fought throughout time. Who will win? Probably Jen. I can't be bothered to fight.

And with that I'll leave you with an incredibly shabby video of the dance floor at the wedding followed by the Wombats sleeping in their car seats in really bad focus.

Hey, I've got video capability now. I may as well use it poorly!