Mama Mama Quite Contrary

I am typing this while my little girls fight with each other in the basement.  Their general modus operandi is to argue until one of them ends up in tears at which point they yell and stomp until they have worked out their differences.  I often don't need to intervene and this, in many ways, makes my twins far more mature than Congress. Last night, my husband and I stayed up late watching the election returns.  I was anxious all day.  I lived in Boston during Mitt Romney's tenure and could not face the prospect of him as President.  (Apparently neither could the vast majority of other Massachusetts residents.)  To say I was relieved that this country re-elected Obama is a huge understatement. While I think Obama is a hard-working, intelligent man with a lot of class, I am not optimistic about what he can accomplish.  The Republicans seem to take pride in being obstinate obstructionists. I can't understand how people who do nothing but refuse to com...

Shopping with my girls is often a test of patience and fortitude.  I try to avoid it at all costs but occasionally I need to take them with me.  In those cases, I try to be as efficient as humanly possible.  That was the case this summer when I was on the hunt for an extra bathing suit for my twins.  I found one quickly and within seconds Elie laid vociferous claim on it.  This, of course, upset Jude.  It didn't matter to Jude that we already had one suit at home.  She wanted something too so I let her choose a pair of pajamas. Everyone was happy and these were the first items of clothing my girls could call their own. Other than the suit and jammies, everything Jude and Elie wear is a hand-me-down from her big sister, family, or friends.  Any gifts they have received have fallen into the matching outfit category and all their collective clothes are stuffed into two built-in dressers in their room.  It's a hodgepodge and a reci...

In January 2011, I blogged about how remarkably similar my twin girls look and how they have met their developmental milestones always within a day or so of each other.  Strangers have frequently asked if they are identical but I've told them that they are fraternal since that was what I was told.  I generally don't put a lot of stock in what strangers say anyway because it isn't uncommon for random people to ask my friend with boy/girl twins if her children are identical.   The thing is I  confused them a lot.  I did two years ago and I still do today. When we discovered our twins at 26 weeks, I was told they are fraternal. This made sense.  (As much as anything can make sense when discovering a bonus baby so late in the game.)  My mom is a twin.  My dad has twin sisters.  The girls had separate sacs and separate placentas and they were a totally spontaneous conception.   But this summer, I was at my wit's end over their zy...

I am part of a Facebook group called Naturally Parenting Twins.  This group was a nice discovery for me because it is hard to find people who believe that it is possible to have a natural twin birth and breastfeed two babies simultaneously. To have women who share those feelings as well as know the unique challenges of raising twins is a real gift....usually. The problem is that in every kind of mothers' group there always seems to be a person (or two) who believes her way of parenting is the right way.  Sadly, in my experience, these women almost always fall under the Dr. Sears Attachment Parenting  purview.  You know the kind:  the militant co-sleepers, the woman who believes that if you had a c-section you are just a victim of the medical establishment, the mother who insists on carrying a baby nonstop instead of using a stroller (aka "a pod of isolation"). You get the idea.  These are the women I try to avoid. I believe that unless a woman has a se...

Jude and Ellie don't really know that they are twins.  They aren't yet three and I think the whole meaning of being a twin is far beyond their level of comprehension.  People frequently ask if they are twins and they always proclaim that they are.  I know they are just echoing what they hear me say.  They are who they are.  One is Jude and one is Ellie. Last night, the girls chose to wear matching pajamas.  This is unusual because we only have one matching set (they were a gift) and Ellie hasn't been very interested in them. She is very persnickety about her clothing and tends to like different things from Jude so I was surprised when they both picked the same thing. Well, this morning Elie looked at Jude and had a revelation. She said, "Jude, you wearing pink polka dot pajamas and I wearing pink polka dot pajamas.  We are twins!!!!!" Yes, indeed.

Recently a family friend of ours told us that if he could have laid out his life plan knowing how hard it would be to have twin babies, he would still choose to have two at once. Even if he had the choice to have the same exact children but not at the same time, he would CHOOSE the experience of having twins.  I nodded politely but in my head I was thinking  there is no way in hell I would go through that again.    It is well-documented in this blog that my twins were a huge surprise.  I had a few weeks to prepare for the baby I was expecting and the bonus I was also getting.  I was frantic with the idea that I was going to have three children under the age of three and little help.  To say that we were overwhelmed for the first year of their lives hardly conveys the extreme amount of exhaustion, stress, and misery we endured.  It was brutal and if given the option of all things being equal, I absolutely would NOT choose to do it again. I think...

Sometimes I feel bad for Vivi.   I get what is means to be a daughter.  I also understand what it is like to be the first-born and a big sister.  Like most people in the world, however, I have no idea what it means to be a sibling to "the twins."  For Vivi, I think it must really suck sometimes. This morning Vivi was complaining of a stomach ache and said she didn't want to go to camp.  I knew she was probably feeling anxious and, after a long weekend of fun activities, it made sense to me that she would want to stay home.  She still managed to get dressed and fully-accessorized but as she was lying on the floor complaining about camp, Jude came over and dumped a cup of water all over her.  It drenched Vivi's "best favorite ever ruffly shirt" that she was wearing and she burst into tears. I jumped up from the table, grabbed the cup from Jude, and yelled, "Why would you do that?" Jude burst into tears.  Then in some kind-of strange twin symbiosi...

It's barely 9 a.m. and I am processing three distinct interactions with my twins this morning. Here is the first: Ellie wakes me up every morning after she and Jude have breakfast with their dad.  She usually comes in like a tornado and then climbs on the bed yelling, "Ake up Mama!  Ake up Mama!" When I begin to stir, she burrows under the covers and changes her battle cry to "Nuggle Mama!" while she settles her head next to mine on the pillow.  Despite the ruckus, I love starting my day this way. This morning Ellie came in with the usual commotion but instead of telling me to wake up, she was barking like a dog.  She got up on the bed with her stuffed puppy and started bouncing it on my head while she was growling.  When I looked up, she said, "Mama,  Puppy poop on head."  Then she put her nose to my scalp and proclaimed, "Oooooh,  stinky!" This is a long way away from the usual snuggling. Before today, Ellie would lie next to me, stroke ...

My husband and I were just marveling at how the Turtles' vocabulary has exploded.  They went from a handful of words and sounds a month ago to a whole host of phrases and demands today. They are beginning to understand nuance and humor in language which is just mind-boggling. Even though they are my second and third children, I still can't get over how fast the language acquisition happens.  I vaguely remember this with Vivi but because I have double the number of girls talking it seems that much more pronounced (ha!) with Jude and Ellie. Ellie doesn't speak as much or have as many words as her twin BUT she definitely communicates well. She always responds with a thank you when anyone gives her something. She doesn't need to be prompted and it makes the Miss Manners inside me jump with joy each time I hear it. Ellie also has a good sense for people. When Vivi was being sassy to me the other morning, Ellie marched right up her and said, "Viva, TIME OUT!" Elli...

In all my angst about kindergarten, I forgot to do my update for Dolli-Mama's 52 Week Me Time Challenge .  I wish I could say that I did something wonderfully exciting this week but alas, I didn't.   The good news is that I made it to the gym a few times this week.  I plopped the girls in the childcare and hopped on the machines.  It isn't much and it certainly doesn't make for riveting blog content but I am glad that I am doing it. The bad news is my ass is still the size of the Yukon Territory but at least I feel like I accomplished something  when I stagger off the treadmill. When I think back to the first year of the babies' lives, it is hard to believe that I survived with my sanity in check.  The exclusive breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, and all the necessary tasks to keep the children alive and the house from imploding made time to myself virtually impossible.  I've had so many people come up to me and say the usual line, "I don't know how y...

I can't tell you how many people walk into our house, see Jude and Ellie running gangbusters through the mess, and say, "Ok.  Don't tell me who is who.  Let me guess."  Sometimes, my friends get it right and sometimes they don't but I think it is funny that guessing who is who has become a little game for them. Jude and Ellie look a lot alike.  Physically, they were quite different when they were first born but as the months passed, they started to look more and more like each other.  I don't dress them the same for many reasons, not the least of which is it takes me just a little too long to differentiate them when they are in the same outfit.  With efficiency and simplicity as my goal, matching outfits would only add to the chaos. Now, as the mother, you would think that I have no problem telling my kids apart but if they are dressed alike and I'm not seeing their faces directly on, I confuse them.  A lot.  At their one year well-check, I was ...

Jude loves people and has been known to climb into the lap of anyone who happens to glance in her direction.  She greets every person we pass in a store with a boisterous "Hi!" which leads to numerous head-pats and smiles.  She loves being the center of attention so we always assumed that Jude was the party animal of our Turtle duo.  You have probably heard the old guidance counselor bit of wisdom:  When  you assume, you make an ass out of u and me?   Well, I am an ass because in the last month Ellie is all party, all the time. For one thing, she is all about connecting with her peeps.  Ellie climbs on my desk, pokes at my laptop, and proudly demands that it is time to talk with Kai Kai.  Kai Kai is Aunt Katie, with whom we Skype on a regular basis.  Well, that is if Skyping is defined by kissing the screen and hogging the webcam.  The love doesn't end with the computer though. When I took Jude out for some errands, Ellie was no...

I haven't been feeling very victorious lately.  Vivi has settled back into being hell on two legs.  I'm tired and stressed out which is really getting on my husband's nerves.  (At least that is what he reports anyway.)  And, to top it off, my pants are tight.  Today I just gave in to the misery of it all and put on yoga pants.  The same yoga pants I wore all throughout my pregnancy with the Turtles. SHOOT. ME. NOW. I think I know what my problem is though. I weaned Jude and Ellie.   You see, before I took off to NC, I had managed to get the Turtles down to one nursing session a day.  It was at 5 a.m. and it was so bloody uncomfortable, I was eager to be done with the whole breastfeeding thing as soon as possible.  I wasn't crazy about the idea of forcing it by leaving town but because I wasn't really on top of getting it done beforehand, that's what had to be done. I left the state with my breast pump in my bag and hoped for the best. We...

Sometimes, I could just throttle my four-year old. Make that my four-and-a-half year old-- an age which she very proudly exclaims when she is being either exceptionally annoying or exceptionally charming.  It's usually the former. I don't know why Vivi and I butt heads but that seems to be all we do lately.  This morning when I met her in the hallway with my usual greeting, "Good Morning!  I am so happy to see you."  She responded with, "You are a gross woman."  It's true that I had not brushed my teeth nor was I wearing pants but I think I deserve a little more respect than that. That is just one example of the nastiness.  Vivi has called me an idiot, a rat, told me that she hated me, threatened to kick me in the face, and proclaimed that she would "kill me in real life." (My mother would say that this is my comeuppance but my nastiness didn't really come out until high school which, at the very least, is expected.) This all started aro...

October seemed to come and go in one fell swoop and for the first time in a very long time, I actually know what happened. First it started off with Vivi's fall on the neighbor's porch which led to a very loose tooth.  It only took one day and a bite out of an apple for the tooth to fall out.  From what we can surmise, she swallowed the tooth along with the apple although that didn't stop her from writing a note to the tooth fairy letting her know where she can leave the money.   Here's Vivi in all of her toothless glory and one whole dollar richer: Seems that the same thing happened to her father at about the same age: He only got a nickel. Jude and Ellie are up to their usual antics-- climbing, playing, and learning to talk.  I am convinced that there is nothing better than a child between the age of 12 months and 24 months.  They are so full of curiosity and energy but not yet testing their boundaries.  They also haven't fully grasped the power of...

Sometimes I think being a parent to twins and an older child is akin to doing an extended  stint in an Iranian hard labor camp. The incessant demands, the never-ending cleanup, the desperation and deprivation all make me wonder what sort of cruel universal joke landed me in this predicament. In many ways, that punishingly difficult first year is starting to fade. Vivi has more or less accepted that her little sisters are here to stay and she delights in how much they obviously love her. (She is less enthused with them touching her stuff, however.)  The Turtles are no longer colicky blobs of ceaseless crying but instead are two disparate bundles of personality. They are speeding around and beginning to talk and when asked how much Mommy loves them they'll throw their arms wide and yell, "Big!  Big!"  But, it is still not easy.  I realize with twins that it never gets easy.  It just becomes less hard.  Or, at least, some things do.  While the bab...

If there is one thing that I was absolutely clear on the first year of Jude and Ellie's life, it was that I was done having children.  Did you hear that? DONE.  D.O.N.E. At no point in the future would I be birthing or raising any more children. Period. We were pretty sure at the start of our second pregnancy that we were going to stop at two children.  Then we got our bonus baby and that likelihood became a certainty.  The plan is to accept our fate as a party of five. So there. Last Saturday, I visited my dear friend who is 33 weeks pregnant with her own set of twins.  Like me, she has an older daughter.  Unlike me, she has had a difficult pregnancy and is now on hospital bed rest.  I wonder how it is all going to work out for her and I feel both trepidatious and concerned. My friend has seen how hard the first year of my twin's life was.  She was witness to the marathon nursing sessions, the short tempers, my inability to hold a conversatio...

It seems that there have been more than a few posts on this blog about how much having two babies at once really sucks.  It's exhausting and back-breaking.  It's chaotic and stressful.  It's stinky and sticky and downright dirty business.  But it is also wonderful.  Yesterday morning, I heard the babies chattering in their room.  It was 7:30 a.m. and they had slept much later than usual.  I went in to get them only to find them blowing kisses to each other across the room.  It was beyond adorable.  As I scooped them up and wrestled them into my arms, Ellie's nose rubbed against Jude's neck and they dissolved into the amazing little giggles that only babies get.  I realized in this moment, as I was completely enamoured with my Turtles, that I would not be experiencing any of this if I had had just one baby.  And I just would not trade all the heartache and stress and bad behavior that come with ...

The birds are singing. The trees and flowers are blossoming. The sun is shining and I'm coming out. Well, not in that way... but I feel like a spectacular change is upon me. A change that feels so good. The change: I am really enjoying my children. I know. Sometimes I don't believe it either. That is all but, in many ways, it is everything. While I had a lot of mixed feelings about the Turtles turning one, we are no longer in survival mode and that feels like a reason to celebrate. I see my girls, all three of them, interacting in ways I never could have imagined when I was so desperately sleep-deprived and trying to keep my sanity. They giggle with one another. They comfort one another. They talk and sing and explore together. They all gather in our bed and snuggle. And now, above all else, they sleep. When I envisioned having my own family, these are the moments I pictured. There weren't any deafening cries from colic and constipation. There were no tears...

Yesterday was just one of those days when I felt like I had it worse than every other mother in the world.  The sort of day when nothing goes right and I am living some sort of existential nightmare where there is no rest, no end to the crying, and no freaking escape from my children.  A god-awful, suck-the-life-out-of-you kind of day that makes a woman hate every other mother who has ever complained about how hard it is with their kid-- their one child or their two children-- because they (the infamous "they") do not know how much harder it all is with twins.  And, let me just say it now, having twins is so much more than double the work.  It is the kind of thing that makes one regret becoming a parent at all.  There, I said it.  I have been so good about staying positive the last eleven and a half months that I barely have let the drag of it all get to me.  Well, it got to me yesterday so unless you have twins y...