The Gemini Diaries

In the movie, it's a reference to a drunken bagpiper who falls down and temporarily stalls a wedding reception. In the Smith house, it's a reference to me falling sick this past weekend. And just as jarring as having a dance song come to a screeching halt, so it is when one parent falls ill quite unexpectedly. Lucky for us, it was me, the Robin to LeeAnn's Batman. However, one day it will be her and this will appear in retrospect to have been a very minor tremor in comparison to that much larger shock to the system.

What it showed me is that life in a house with children has a very distinct rhythm. It appears to be required in order to make it through the days and nights in some sense of order. At a very high level, it looks like this: me sneaking a run before the children get up, arriving home to find out I wasn't so lucky, helping get them fed, executing the start-of-the-day routine, watching the children while LeeAnn goes for a run, me getting ready for work, me leaving, then showtime as the full daily grind gets under way (I miss this part most of the time - my daily grind is challenging but pales in comparison), me coming home in the middle of the end-of-the-day routine, bathtime (opt.), storytime, feeding the children, putting the children to bed, putting the children to bed, putting the children to bed, putting them back to bed, and back to bed, and back to bed. Breathe. Sleep.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Daily life emerges as a finely choreographed dance that is only truly satisfactory for the "fans" and sustainable for the dancers when the routine is performed by two entertainers. But even old pros sometimes fumble over the intricate maneuvers leaving one to carry on the act - hopefully without the audience really noticing. In ice skating, it's typically the girl who's haphazardly being spun 18.5' into the air who takes the worst of the falls, pauses for a moment, glares at the guy, dusts herself off and then gets back up - all the while the guy is standing there looking pretty and pretending it was all part of the show. But the girl always gets up and the show always goes on unabated. Hooray.

Only in our case, it was me who fell. And I didn't get up for about 3 days. This of course left LeeAnn on the ice to carry the entire act. Periodically, she would come back to see if I was ready to perform, but upon finding me still lacing my skates back up or wiping the ice off my sequined unitard, would dutifully proceed with the show. When you consider that the show runs about about 14-16 hours every day including weekends, this is a tall order. Furthermore, in addition to the pure exhaustion of performing the entire two-person routine by herself, the "fans" are known to pop by the trailer at 1, 2 and 3am for encores. It's a rough business, showbusiness.

But like I said, better for it to have been me, the B-lister, to have fallen than the star of the show. Unlike in dancing, she leads. I follow. So at least we had our "A" player in. Even still, an "A" player can only do so much. Even Tom Brady can't win the Super Bowl without his O-line.

And that's sort of the way I think about our house. Only I'm probably not quite worthy of an entire O-line title. Maybe more like what the ever-rambling Madden would call an "intangibles guy." Not the best caregiver, the best housekeeper, the best cook, the best cleaner, the best anything really - but I like to think I take care of little things in all of these departments from time to time that add up to make an impact.

>>I'm not sure why LeeAnn is laughing now as I read this back by her. Oh, come on, LA. I help. I make an impact, right?<<

Anyway, when the Intangibles Guy isn't around and those little pieces are no longer being picked up, it makes life hard for the quarterback to run the offense because all of these other things are just added onto her list of accountabilities. Not the least of which is the tending to the injured player himself. But in addition, it's the extra diaper change here, the giving of baths there. These are the little things that the Intangibles Guy can no longer do because he's sitting with the team doctor getting bandaged up. These are the little things that add up quickly and it's then that the overall offensive system starts to buckle. Not because the QB forgot the plays, but because it takes a team to be successful against such stout competition as twins.

And lest we forget, on the other side of this venerable offensive system LA and I have created, we have never-ending pressure from our cute little versions of the Brian Urlacher and Champ Bailey who want to see Brady and the Intangibles Guy up close and personal - all day. They're always up in our grills. Always on the hunt for more attention, more smiles, more games, more books, more walking around, more talking to, more feeding. More, always more. It gets hot in the pocket with that kind of pressure.

But the good news is that I'm on the mend faster than anticipated. It's not a season-ending injury. Unfortunately, it's not simple to get the offense's rhythm re-established. The adoring D-line is ever present, they demand ever more intricate pageantry, and they still won't quite seem to leave us alone long enough to get the sleep we need. What's more, I heard the league announced that this season each game will last 630,720 quarters, there will be no halftime and there's a very distinct possibility of OT.

And what will really keep me up at night is what we're going to do when Brady goes down.