So I have toddler twins. That’s two, count ‘em, two crazy ass kids who, at this point in their life, are really only part human. They’re lovely, don’t get me wrong, but let’s face it, they’re toddlers so they have the morality and self control of a monkey who’s been fed a steady stream of The Sopranos for a year straight.

The first two years are a complete blur. The kids didn’t sleep. They still don’t sleep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about using chloroform. Raising infant twins is a lot like parenting on acid. When it’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, you see feces everywhere. You may or may not be hallucinating.

I remember the first few months were dominated by the word “nipple.” There was a lot of concern over my wife’s, the children’s, and occasionally mine. I also remember a very happy hour (somewhere around month four) when I tried to get the Leap Frog Caterpillar to say dirty words. It was a smart little caterpillar. You press a key, it says the letter. If you pressed the keys fast enough, you could get it to sound out whole words, like “HAT.” But it wouldn’t sound out “FUCK,” or any version of that word. No FUK. No FUQ. It wouldn’t say “ASS” or “DICK”. When you typed in the letters, it got through the F and U, but then giggled when you typed C and said, “that tickles.” It said that whenever you typed in any dirty word, which means there was some toy engineer who had the foresight to plan for immature parents.

I like to imagine the meeting where the engineer brought this little glitch up to the rest of the Leap Frog team. I like to think of a bunch of suits brainstorming about what sick and demented words fatigued parents might try to make the little green caterpillar say. I picture them writing them all down on a big dry erase board.

Thinking of that makes me happy.

Other stuff happened in the first two years. The kids got baptized and my daughter got a rash from the holy water. No shit. She slept better afterward too.