MTV Cribs

There used to be a terrible "reality" show on MTV called Cribs that would profile celebrity homes. A camera crew would show up at a singer or actor or sports stars house, and then get a tour around the premises. Inevitably, the celebrity would show off their six cars, a room with some old-school arcade-style video game, and a refrigerator filled with nothing but Sunny Delight, eggs and Red Bull. It was lame. As irritating as it was to wake up after driving 14 hours from St. Louis to Jacksonville and build two cribs, I would gladly do it over again if it meant I could erase my memory of the show MTV Cribs. Unfortunately, that will never happen.

Anyway, I spent my last day of leave constructing two cribs in a room filled with boxes and shower presents. It was a squeeze at first, but after I got one crib put together, it got easier to move. Eventually, all the big boxes and crates in which the furniture came got moved out to the garage, and the fully assembled cribs remained.

I am pretty sure that as soon as I finished turning the last screw on the second crib, Rachel began whirring around the room like a hummingbird. In the time it took me to take a shower, approximately 7 minutes, Rachel had already gone to Babies R Us and bought two mattresses, put linens on them, gone to Target and bought a lamp, and had assembled the monkey mobile.

If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is to just allow Rachel to do her thing in that room. There is no talking sense to her, because she doesn't want to hear about how the twins will not be here for two months. No joking here, she already has the monitor out and turned on in the baby room. I think she heard Tyson stirring from a nap and came running this afternoon. If there is two things I have learned from this experience, it is that baby bedding is pretty cool. The monkeys look stylish enough to me. If there is three things I have learned from this experience, it is that absolutely everything we got during the baby shower requires assembly. I know this because Rachel comes to me somewhere between six and twenty-seven times per day holding a package of some baby related thing and a screwdriver and asks for help. I hope she doesn't run out of things to do anytime soon.

In honor of celebrities that have probably appeared on MTV Cribs, here are some names we will not be naming our children: Mariah, LeBron, Hulk and Mylie.