Vertically Rising

// Coming Soon: Double Trouble

A little over a month ago, I made a fun announcement for my 5,000 tweet on Twitter. I had been holding off on the information for quite a while, as often times I ride the line between sharing too much personal information on the internet.

But yes, my wife and I are expecting twins. At the time of this blog, my wife is currently in her 27th week, so we have about 10 more weeks to go! It seems to be a more common thing these days, as there are currently two other couples that are in our small group that are pregnant with twins, and a pastor his wife in Oakland with twins (who just recently turned 6). We’re expecting two fraternal girls, and are almost done picking out names. What’s funny is that between the 3 of us couples having twins, there’s two boys, two girls, and one boy, one girl, so we seem to have all the bases covered in our little group.

It’s kind of amazing to think that in just a few short months, I’ll be a dad. I happened to have a dream about it about a week ago where I was holding them and kissing them as they were just little infants. We also signed up for a couple registries for the Showers being thrown for my wife. Surprisingly, she’s actually having three showers (and almost had a fourth, hah). We’re having one where we live in the Bay Area, one in Los Angeles because my wife grew up there and still has a lot of close girlfriends in that area, and the school she teaches at insisted on throwing her a baby shower (since according to them, “It has been so long since anyone in the English Department has had kids!”). Her former boss at the after school teaching academy also wanted to throw a shower for her, since she couldn’t make our Bay Area one. It’s nice to know she’s loved.

One idea that I’ve been debating is starting up a blog or putting in my review section baby gear. As I did some research on gear, so much of the reviews online are catered to, and written by Moms, but there’s only a few sites that focus on the Dad’s point of view or are written by actual Dads. I’m sure there’s other tech-savy Dads who would glean from the same information (For example, I already purchased and setup a FOSCAM IP Camera for the nursery, that I can access from online via a web browser, or my iPhone to check the baby room). Society typically says it’s the woman’s job to take care of the kids, and that Dads are more hands off, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t know baby products as well.

// When is Sharing on the Internet Too Much?

Working previously in PR/Communications for the largest provider of Mental Health services for youth & children in California, I had to learn a lot about HIPAA. We couldn’t talk about youth by name outside of the office, and in written reports, we actually had to use just the initials of clients we served.

I’ve also read some articles that talk out against posting the full names of your children as well as posting photos of your child on your Facebook (I guess with an open network).

So will I be one of those sharing every intimate detail of my children’s birth, their full names, weights, time of day they were born and more? Probably not, as my wife and I tend to be a bit more on the private side of things regarding home life. I would say to other parents, why risk it? What benefit are you getting out of letting everyone else out there know details that they don’t need to know?