In Your Eyes

Imagine living life through someone else's eyes. Your identical twin to be exact. I am not one, so I can't imagine it, but I have the honor of observing my daughters do just that.

They are almost four and still cannot distinguish their own image in a photo. Common sense tells me this is perfectly normal - they are looking at each other all day long (and not in a mirror!) and are told so often that they look alike, its no wonder.

For the record, my husband and I almost never confuse them. (It does happen, like this past weekend in the middle of the night when Jaeda came downstairs crying because she couldn't find the bathroom - we were in a rented condo with friends - and my husband asked her in a moment of confusion, "Is this Jaeda or Tristyn?")

Do you remember this post, when I fretted that Tristyn's first cognizant memory would be her hernia surgery, and Jaeda's would be the forced separation?

Fast forward almost one year later. On the short drive from our house to daycare/pre-school, I hear them in the backseat recalling to each other every detail of that day, alternating turns until the unaccounted parts of the day had been filled in. They recall details that I cannot; the unfamiliar Elmo diaper from the hospital, the pink blanket that Tristyn threw up on from the after-effects of the anesthesia.
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We are attempting to separate them more than just the occasional trip to the store (which usually ends in tears while one feels slighted or left behind), but it's another twin conundrum.

They need independence, yet crave constant togetherness.

My first realization of this was a (what I thought would be) simple walk to the mail box. They must have been 14 or 15 months old, so it was a small but significant stray from the normal surrounding of the house, the car or the stroller. I was relishing the freedom that would come with their newly formed bipedal skills, rather than having to lug them everywhere. But this was diminished as independent will took form - one wanted to go to the mail box, the other did not. I encouraged the former to accompany me while her sister stayed put. No. She wanted her sister to come with her. The latter wanted her sister to stay in the house. A classic impasse without a solution.

I often find myself standing over them unable to provide an acceptable suggestion.

Now that they are 3 1/2, and spend hours flittering around the house like ballerinas, I suggested ballet class. Jaeda held her hands over her head ballerina-style and enthusiastically agreed. Tristyn, on the other, adamantly said no, she did not want to take ballet class. A flash of opportunity took hold in my mind, and I offered other activities to her: ice skating? swim class? gymnastics? Yes! Gymnastics!

It was perfect. I would take Jaeda to ballet class and daddy would take Tristyn to gymnastics. All would be right in our world. Twindependence would prevail!

But, ballet requires those cute little pink or white ballet slippers, and while shoe shopping, Tristyn insisted she also wanted a pair because she too was going to take ballet.... *sigh*

As they get older, they do waiver occasionally in their desire for constant togetherness, but at the urging of the other, the thought usually dies before it can come to fruition.

In our house, the word "separate" has become a threat of punishment. It was unintended - sometimes they just need their own space, but when I suggest, they protest with vigor. Of the handful of times that I have followed through with it, hysteria has resulted, rather than my intended result of calm.

*Shrug* I can't blame them - it is all they have ever known...

Done My Time

As you would imagine, my friends that fall into the same age category and I are scattered at different stages in our lives, and different degrees of parenting; some remain our parent's children, not yet in the parenting world. At the other end of the spectrum are my friends with teenagers, who have paddled the murky waters of parenting for so long that they just nod in understanding at my struggles. Yet I see in their eyes that they are glad to have that "stage" far behind, and instead can only look forward towards their own reality.

I hate to sound callous, but for me, children younger than my own are merely reminders of how far I have come, and warning of how much I don't want to go back, despite a whiff of desire that seeps into my brain occasionally for my own little boy. If only he could appear as an eager, well-behaved pre-schooler. The thought of midnight feedings, breast engorgement, diapers, potty training...Hell, just the thought of giving birth again steeps my mind with fear and loathing.

I had drinks with an old high school friend that has an 8 month old. He's adorable and sweet and spunky, but listening to her just made me exhausted. Sleepless nights? Check. Incessant colds? Check. Concerns over pre-school vs. day care? Check. Check, Check, Check!

And while on a play date with my college roommate and her 2 1/2 year old daughter, I thought to myself, 'How did I manage with two two-year olds?' I guess the answer is that I just did, and that I'm sooo glad I don't have to do it all over again.

Last week at twin mom book club, one of our members - who has 2 year old twin girls - announced that she was pregnant.

With twins.

The whole room filled with twin moms roared with delight, and collectively sighed with relief that it wasn't us.  I joked with her that I was So Happy for her, but So Glad it wasn't me because "that is my own personal nightmare."

I've done my time.

"Kangeroo care" in the NICU

Glow

Birds of a feather flock together... The conventional advice to any new mom of twins or triplets is to join a moms of multiples club. Just the word 'club' sounds so dispassionate, like French club in high school, when the only prerequisite was enrollment in Francais, and the only benefit was a group picture in the yearbook.

My first moms of multiples club meeting felt awkward and unnatural, sitting in plastic chairs set in a huge circle in donated space in a church, scanning the faces around me for vague familiarity or potential friendship. They all seemed so different from me - did they have the same struggles I was having? Did they have other kids? Did they want more? Did they work full time like I did? Or were they happy to stay at home changing diapers and prepping bottles? I had tunnel vision in terms of these women, because I hadn't yet come to terms with being a twin mom, and I needed to feel a kinship of some sort, besides just the fact that we carried more than one baby in our womb at one time.

Looking back, I think what I really needed from these women was commiseration. Was I the only person in this circle of mothers that cried when I discovered I was carrying two babies? Was I the only one that struggled through my pregnancy, trying to feel thankful instead of terrified and anxious? And was I the only one that viewed my newborn daughters through the clear plastic incubators without emotion?

Was I the only one that was depressed and didn't know it?

Three years after abandoning the detached circle of twin and triplet mom faces, I was adopted into a twin mom book club, and seeing them each month swells my heart with companionship and a blissful understanding of what I went through; what we have all been through.

What strikes me now about the women in my book club is how very different we are from each other. And how accepting. There's no judgement when one of us is telling a story, or sharing a feeling. Sometimes I need not even finish a sentence before their silent understanding washes over me.

At our last meeting, when the mulled wine had been devoured, the zucchini soup sat cold on the stove, and our mouths were tired from speaking, we packed up to go home. Christine, my dear friend since junior high, looked at me and commented that I looked good; I was glowing. I looked at her inquisitively. We giggled as she said, "I know you're not pregnant" (no, indeed!) She and I have both struggled with depression, although her path has been much more arduous, fighting it for years longer than I, and to a severity unbeknownst to me.

As I pulled out of her driveway, I knew.

There is nothing more powerful than to be understood. Truly understood.

You're My Everything

You're a falling star
You're the getaway car
You're the line in the sand
When I go too far

You're the swimming pool
On an August day
And you're the perfect thing to say

And you play it coy
But it's kinda cute
Oh when you smile at me
You know exactly what you do

Baby don't pretend
That you don't know it's true
'Cause you can see it
When I look at you

And in this crazy life
And through these crazy times
It's you, it's you
You make me sing
You're every line
You're every word
You're everything

You're a carousel
You're a wishing well
And you light me up
When you ring my bell

You're a mystery
You're from outer space
You're every minute of my every day


And I can't believe
That I'm your man
And I get to kiss you baby
Just because I can

Whatever comes our way
We'll see it through
And you know
That's what our love can do

And in this crazy life
And through these crazy times
It's you, it's you
You make me sing
You're every line
You're every word
You're everything

And in this crazy life
And through these crazy times
It's you, it's you
You make me sing
You're every line
You're every word
You're everything

You're every song
And I sing along
'Cause you're my everything
Yeah, yeah

Michael Buble' 

I used to croon this song to my infant daughters strapped in their car seats, willing myself to believe the words - that my daughters had become my everything; that they were all I needed. 


Last month, at my office holiday dinner, our new administrative assistant remarked that she would have never imagined that I didn't always want kids because of my utter love for them. I told her that I used to mock women that had babies to give them purpose in life. I wanted my purpose to be ME... 


Alas, now that I have children, they are my reason for living. 


The four women that make up my office each represent a different decade in regards to age; 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's. The 3 eldest have very different stories to tell of the circumstances on our journeys to becoming a parent. 


Caprice, in her 40's, does not mince words when she tells us that Kat - her brilliant, gorgeous daughter - now a distinguished member of the elite Marine Corps band and her best friend in the whole world, was "the best mistake she ever made". 


We all nod our heads in agreement. 


Ah, but it was not always like this. It was not always Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, as the nursery rhyme goes. 


The good things in our lives never come easy, do they? Most of us work our fingers to the bone for the good things in our lives. I never should have expected that parenting would be easy, just like marriage isn't easy, nor is dieting or friendships or... 


For years, I had a quote from Rose Kennedy on my fridge, given to me by my step-mom after a heart wrenching breakup that changed the course of my life; 


"I have always believed that God never gives a cross to bear larger than we can carry." 


I never really understood the quote until I learned that she outlived only four of her nine children. 


I never fully comprehended the quote until I crawled out of depression. 

Worth every minute.... 

Twin Conundrum

There can be only one winner. The other, by default, is the loser... 

My brother and I are just over two years apart, and I don't recall every feeling that our parents had to force a winner - maybe they were adept at dissolving sibling rivalries, but more likely, it had to do with our age and gender differences. 

My only tool is difference in temperament.

While dropping my daughters with my co-worker for some Christmas fun, Jaeda announced that she needed to use the restroom. Upon being told she would need to put on her socks and shoes (she insisted on being barefoot during the car ride), and deciding she abhorred the socks I had brought for her, she began crying for her Hello Kitty socks. 

The very same socks that her dear sister had so dutifully selected when asked to go find socks. 

I looked at her incredulously and said with sarcasm (that was lost on her), "You want Tristyn to take off her socks and give them to you???"  

My co-worker suggested that they trade one sock each. Tristyn, always the agreeable one, sweetly offered one Hello Kitty sock to her sister, but to no avail - irrationally, this only made Jaeda more defiant and angry. 

"That's the best I can do", my co-worker said very matter-of-factly. A sentiment that I admired because, truly, coercing Tristyn into relinquishing the socks to her sister would be unfair. 

I often see Tristyn as being "punished" - for lack of a better word - for being the obedient one.

I looked at my co-worker and said, "you're experiencing first hand a 'twin conundrum' that you always hear me talk about".

Luckily for me, she was undaunted, not having to deal with this on a daily (hourly) basis, and I left the bickering children in her capable care.

By the way, at naptime, I noticed that Jaeda had on ONE Hello Kitty sock. By bedtime, she had managed to finagle both from her sister. *sigh*

bickering since the very beginning...

Logistics

I've written before about my singleton angst towards mommies of one baby. It's all about perception. When the girls were newly home from the hospital, I recall seeing a documentary about newborn triplets. During the first night at home with all three of them, juggling feedings and intermittent sleeps, the mom joked to her husband, "twins would be a breeze... one would be a cinch!" I never forgot that.

It has always been the logistics that have flustered me. I'm an analytical person, always trying to solve problems in a mathematical way. Which, of course doesn't necessarily translate to having two babies.

In my online research, it appeared that the accepted advice for grocery shopping with young twins was to use two shopping carts - pushing one while pulling another behind you.

Uhh, two shopping carts? No. Freaking. Way. 

But where do you put two babies while attempting to shop? If you push a stroller, you might as well do the double cart juggle. The best way we found was to have one baby in a Bjorn strapped to your chest, and the other in the car seat situated atop the cart. But having a 15 pound baby strapped to your chest does not make for an easy shopping experience.

Honestly, nothing is easy with twin babies. But I was determined to make it look easy.

I can think of a few times when I failed miserably. The girls must have been about 6 weeks old, and I decided to stop by a friends' office to see her. I hefted both car seats out of the back seat and carried them both into the lobby. By the time I had crossed the parking lot (imagine carrying 2 buckets of water at your sides holding them out so they don't spill), I was sweating and overheated. And the girls were getting hungry and starting to whimper. I immediately regretted getting them out of the car. The visit was rushed and anxious.

That's another thing. Breastfeeding. Normally, a mom can scoop up her baby and calm a hungry baby in her arms. Don't get me wrong, I was "tandem" feeding before the girls were out of the hospital, but in public? Hell no. Simply getting situated to breastfeed 2 babies required an assistant (either a nurse, my mom or my husband), and eventually, when I figured out how to do it myself, I needed a gargantuan twin breastfeeding pillow, an armchair and cover-ups because guess what? It's impossible to breastfeed two babies simultaneously and be discreet.

This post about trying to figure out how to navigate a bathroom break while on a road trip with twin toddlers (sans a stroller) really hit home for me. Their infant car seats had their own challenges, but portability issues become even more challenging once they are in toddler seats.

Walking toddlers, too, came with challenges. I bravely attempted to utilize the dual leash system that is despised by many moms, and that was a PARENT FAIL. It worked great at first, but when the two independent minded little girls decided to go in different directions, I was forced to cruelly pull one child down onto the floor in an attempt to thwart them.

Simple pre-babies tasks became herculean to me. A necessary trip to the post office bogged my mind down with details. Besides being physically exhausted, my postpartum depression made me anxious and overwhelmed. After much mental deliberation, I opted for a single umbrella stroller and a baby on my chest in the Bjorn. Once I had negotiated the babies into their designated spots, I felt the stares of strangers boring into me like lasers. Did they know I was cursing the task, my car, the World? Did they know I was overheated and grumpy? Or was I successfully disguised behind my pseudo happy facade? 

I begged family members and friends to accompany me to the girls' doctor visits after a solo trip when a second hand umbrella stroller broke halfway across the parking lot and I was forced to ask a stranger to hold one of my babies.  

I became increasingly frustrated trying to explain the logistics to those around me. My friend didn't understand why I was hesitant to have lunch in a restaurant with two babies (I did it a number of times, and found it to be doable, but remained anxious throughout). My husband didn't understand why grocery shopping solo terrified me. 

Parks felt like a complicated puzzle that my brain wouldn't grasp. How could I be in two places at once? I recall my anger after attempting to observe both of my daughters equally at a playground, only to watch helplessly while the baby furthest from my grasp stumbled and fell right off the play structure, landing roughly on the bark mulch below, and eliciting screams that felt like daggers in my heart, my brain projecting her thoughts: 'Why weren't you there to catch me?'

I've found the peace within me that parenting is never perfect, and in every situation, you do the best you can. My daughters survived their infancy, and so did I. 

That's all I can ask for. 

Unaccompanied Minor

My first solo airplane trip without my twin daughters felt Sooo Simple that I reprimanded myself for ever complaining pre-children, with only myself (and sometimes partially my travel companion) to take care of. Only my luggage to cart, my shoes to remove, my_self_ to walk through security.

I hate airplane rides. It's not that I'm scared of flying. I'm not claustrophobic. I don't have a phobia of germs. Unless its intense, turbulence doesn't even really bother me. Quite honestly, it's the air. Not the air outside. The recycled, nauseating, dry air that seems to always be blowing at gale force on the top of my head, no matter how many times I twist the damn thing to OFF.

Oh, and I'm one of those lucky people whose ears pop incessantly during takeoff, and then refuse to pop at landing, so my voice is trapped inside my own head, oh-so-annoyingly, until I can snort just the right way with my head tilted to the east and my left index finger on my right nostril to clear my ears.

We traveled across country a staggering four times (that's 8 flights; 2 segments each for a total of 16) before the girls' 2nd birthday (with the last trip occurring on their 2nd birthday). And I'm not talking quick jaunts from Seattle to Portland. I'm talking 6-hour, red-eye-to-save-money, transfer-planes-in-unfamiliar-airport-with-too-little-time-in-between, lap-infants-to-save-money flights and let me tell you, It Was Not Fun.

I would scour the Dollar Store weeks before each trip searching for airplane activities that were age appropriate for my two babies/toddlers - books that made animal sounds when you press a button, large piece toddler puzzles, child-safe stamp kits, washable markers, notebooks for them to scrawl all over, stickers, you get the point - and diligently pack them away for the surprise unveiling on the plane.

Not to mention the bottles so their ears didn't hurt on takeoff and landing. The massive amounts of food and related accoutrements required to keep two babies happy on a long flight. The diapers (and extra diapers just in case) and changes of clothing. The additional layers for unanticipated changes in weather.

And all the other little items that are simply expected of a mother to have at a split seconds' notice - tissues for efficiently wiping noses, baby wipes for inevitable messes, sticky hands, POOP and the like. Band-aids - lest there be a minor toddler EMERGENCY in need of one, sugar-free suckers for soothing an over-tired 18-month old, baby advil and OMG a baby thermometer - what if baby/babies get a fever? Teething tablets, ear-ache drops, Benadryl....

Did you know that lap infants/toddlers cannot sit on the same side of the same row of an airplane? In other words, even though we were often gifted an open seat or two, we could not let the girls sit next to each other, nor could my husband and I sit next to each other (leaving one child unaccompanied on the other side of the row).

Which means passing and re-passing items back and forth across the aisle to my husband and other child. And it means having to share the coveted single DVD player between two demanding toddlers.

My anxiety before a flight has always been high. Even though I've been a regular airline customer since I was 8 years old, I still get pre-flight clammy hands and sour stomach. But with children - and postpartum depression, my anxiety began days before the trip, not the morning of.

I would keep detailed lists, scurrying around the house to make sure my carry-on bag included a solution to every possible potential problem that might occur.

This past October, at a very mature 3 1/2 years old, we all flew to San Francisco for a weekend with Grandma Starr (my mom). It was heaven. Each girl carried their own bag filled with their very own selection of toys. No need for diapers or bottles. The little seasoned travelers followed instructions perfectly, removing their own shoes at security, waiting patiently in line to get on the plane, and just generally being cute to all the other passengers.

As luck would have it, my most recent flight to Mexico with hubby and friends put me smack in front of a grumpy lap pre-toddler.

Whom I could not take my eyes off of.

I twisted around to wriggle my fingers at him between the seats. I removed my scarf and passed it to his chubby hands to play tug-of-war. I offered his harried mom one of those sugar-free suckers (that I still keep in my purse) during a tantrum.

And then I turned forward in my seat, put in my earplugs and fell asleep to the random rhythm of kicks on the back of my seat with his adorable toddler tennis shoes, thankful to have served my time on an airplane with babies.

Trying to make it look easy, 5 months old