Real Housewives of Cologne, Episode 8

“PROMISES TO KEEP”

For several reasons you already know, and now including one more that happened during the month that just finished, Frau.’s weight gain curve and appetite increasing much more than what would be expected if there was just one, we’ve been thinking twins.

Sonogram confirms.

Definitely twins.

And twin boys.

***

Even before we were married, Frau. and I made a deal with what were at the time likely future prospects in mind — She names our daughters, I name our sons.

For as long as I could fathomably conceive that idea that I could eventually be a father, I already knew what I wanted to name my first son, and that alone should be a hint.

Fifteen years ago, in the aftermath of a tragic event, I made a promise to myself that if I ever had a second son, I would name him the name I suddenly had in mind. Some of you will probably figure this one out either right away or in short order.

If ever there was a time for the metaphor “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” to be extended literally, this is it. But, since it looks like the stork will be bringing me both my first and second sons in the same bundle, I’m going to be able to keep both of these promises to myself.

There’s also another reason why I’m happy they’re both boys.  I’m as much happy that neither one of them are girls.  Meaning that I won’t have to worry about having to raise (a) white/German(-ic) daughter(s) here in urban western Germany.  Either you get it right away, or it won’t take you long.

***

As a biological aside, I already told you that fraternal twinning runs in both my family and Frau.’s, in fact, from both of my parents and both of her parents. My mother’s eldest sister had fraternal twin daughters, and one of them in turn had fraternal mixed sex twins. My late father’s only siblings are fraternal twin sisters, both still living. Both of Frau.’s grandmothers are party to fraternal twins in some way — One of them had a fraternal twin brother (late), the other had mixed sex fraternal twin siblings, the sister still living, the brother late.

Before the honeymoon, I also wrote here that, in the instance of any one set of fraternal twins, the relevance of the biological heritability that caused them to be fraternal twins is mother-side only, and I asked you to think through the biology. If you didn’t get it, it’s that fraternal twins are two sperms fertilizing two eggs, which means two eggs must have already been there waiting for them, which in turn means two eggs were released during the mother’s relevant estrous cycle. Which means she had to have the genetic trait for two-egg-release estrous cycles. In contrast, identical twins are a single fertilized egg splitting, which happens after fertilization, which means the DNA for that trait could come from either father or mother.

Because we’re going to have twin sons, same sex, the only way we’ll know for sure whether fraternal or identical is when they arrive, and we can look at both and compare. The only way we would know fraternal for sure right now is if they were boy-girl. Same sex could be fraternal or identical, mixed sex must be fraternal. However, considering (Frau.’s) family history, I’m betting on fraternal.

One other thing this does, knowing that they’re going to be twins, is that it pushes our due date range sooner by a week. Twins have a shorter gestation period than singles.

Frau., never what anyone would call a svelte girl or woman, is going to get really really really really really big, and is probably going to eat everything both in sight and not in sight.

***

We’re not going to have a baby shower as such, for the same reason you all know we didn’t have a wedding registry. Because we don’t need it. Everything we need and nearly anything we could want relative to what we’re expecting to happen, we can afford. I will say that there’s a reason I wrote “as such,” because Frau., my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, Frau.’s two grandmothers, and other female in-laws of mine, are planning on a get-together sorta shower some time this fall, involving many, many, MANY boxes of shipped-in chocolates, (remember, one of the people going to that shindig is going to have a big appetite), from Germany’s world famous chocolate makers in Bremen.

And my father-in-law and I will cherish the “me” time, probably the last such time I’ll have for a very long time.  Speaking of, he is probably even happier than I am that they’re going to be two boys.  Instead of calling or texting him the moment we found out, he wanted to wait until he got home yesterday in the early evening, and Frau. and I waited for him at his house.  When I told him, he just about went into orbit.  I can only imagine what he’ll be like when they actually arrive.

I will also say that, while Oktoberfest in Munich (and most of the smaller Oktoberfests in other cities) were canceled for this year several months ago, the Frankfurt Book Fair is still going to happen, and I’ll finally have the chance to go to it for the first time, but probably no more than two days of its five-day run (the 14th through the 18th).  October 3 is also the 30th anniversary of Reunification, and while the ceremonies for it are being spread out over a month and over various places to keep any one crowd from being too big, I’ll be going to the actual October 3 ceremony in Berlin.  Frau. might come along to one or both;  It depends on what she feels like in a month and a month and a half from now, respectively, in terms of how big she’s going to be in that her seventh month along.

***

Speaking of our upcoming spending spree, now that we know they’re going to be two of the same sex, this means that we can now start apartment hunting for only one extra bedroom instead of two. And because we know that there will be two for sure instead of just one, any slight chance that Frau. might have kept in her mind that her Golf would still be practical in our anticipated new domestic reality are now gone, so for sure we’re also going car shopping. On top of all the sundries, the Kindersitzen, the Babymöbel, a pressurized space suit for my father-in-law, etc etc. August was been relatively busy for both of us, but we were also in a holding pattern waiting on Sonogrammstag. It took that to come and go before things could start falling into place.

Which means that my slight increase in activity here on the blog and my socials that I know you all have enjoyed in the past few weeks, is going to go bye-bye.

That will explain my silence around here and on my socials, save any big Armageddon-quality breaking news.

***

One last note:  You’ll remember that I wrote in this series back in May, that all that has transpired over this year has not only forced my sister-in-law to give up on her quixotic treachery, but also it has forced her and the soyboy to do some deep introspection.  I predicted that, two years hence, they would be either parents or divorced.  Nothing has happened since then to make me think one is more likely than the other, but one major thing that happened while we were away on Flitterwochen is that he has made a career change, though to say that he made a “change” is misleading, because what he had before wasn’t really a career, just menial employment.  Anyway, I can’t say here what it is, for security purposes, and I wasn’t even aware that one could make a living doing such a thing.  But, he is, and already he’s making serviceable money, and because Cologne is one of the world’s centers for this relatively new industry, one that held a big annual trade show here in town over this past extended weekend, he certainly lives in the right city for his newfound profession.  Though he will be doing going his fair share of travel.  I will say that, as of now, both of them combined now make enough to sustain themselves and a potential baby, so that might be a hint that they’re growing closer together.  But, by the same token, each one of them is now making enough to live well enough separately, so it could be just as much of a hint that they’re headed to Scheidungsgericht.

Though for the first time, I’m actually cheering for them to make it.  Because I think it would be so neat if (fill in the blank for my planned name of my first son) and (fill in the blank for my planned name of my second son) eventually come to have one or more first cousins.  Since I’m an only child, and Frau. has no other siblings, they, (or in theory, my sister-in-law with another man) are the only possible source of potential first cousins for fill-in-the-blank and fill-in-the-blank.