Life With Twins

It is amazing that I have not lost weight by now...I mean alot of weight. I feel as though I am constantly on the move. It must be those late night snacks...you know, a bite of cinnamon cake as I heat up a bottle at 3am, a shot of Redi Whip as I put the milk back in the fridge. Not great, but short of brewing a pot of coffee in the middle of the night, I do all that I can to make sure I don't accidentally give the boys soda or rum in my sleep-deprived state. Which leads me to the first, and actually, most difficult part of having twins. You learn quickly to live on no sleep.

Anyone who has a baby will say, "yeah, so? We've all been there." No...no. It is not the same. Trust me. Take what you have been through...and multiply it by two. And crying it out is not an option when babies are sharing a room. Not unless you want two screaming babies...and eventually a toddler waking up wondering what all the noise is...and another cup of water.

We have it down to a routine at night. As soon as a baby cries, I jump out of bed and grab him, shushing him, in hopes to not wake the other baby. I bring him to my groggy husband, along with a diaper, and he begins to change him while I go out to prepare a bottle. Or two, depending on whether or not the other baby is also awake. We do it this way, because if my husband were responsible for getting up to get the baby...well, it might never happen. He will take about three minutes just to sit up and get his bearings...then, eventually stumble out of the room. The entire house would be awake by the time he got there. And so...this is my responsibility. Hence the late night foraging on my part. We then feed the babies (or take turns if it is only one at a time,) and put them back to bed....only to repeat the routine a couple of hours later. I have learned that rocking them back to sleep does not work well...unless you want to be rocking for a good hour, and then have to stay up because the next baby is up after that. An hour of sleep is still an hour of sleep.

Then, during the day, after several cups of coffee, I commence damage control. Has anyone seen the movie, Shrek the 3rd? There is a scene in it where Shrek is dreaming about coming home to find not one, but several little ogre babies...they are all going in different directions, and he is running around like crazy trying to scoop them up before some dangerous peril befalls them. That is a fairly accurate description of my day.

I have them pretty much locked in the living room, which, for the most part, is fairly well baby-proofed. However, they find ways of getting into things they shouldn't. Don't ask me how....they just do. For example, we have a computer out there. They can't get to the cords, but they have managed to pry open the computer case. As I pull Owen away from the now open computer, I hear a squeal behind me. Connor has climbed into the infant seat I had sitting out to take to a Mom 2 Mom sale...he is standing up in it, holding onto the handle, and rocking it back and forth while squealing with joy. I set Owen down to go grab Connor and put the infant seat on the other side of the gate.

Crash.

I whirl around to find Owen shoving the external hard drive back behind the entertainment center. He opens the DVD drive on the DVD player and pulls out a disc...licks it...and tries to put it back. Meanwhile, Connor has found the remote, and has switched the channel.

"Look Mommy! It's Obama!"

Irelynn is trying to help me do damage control by yanking away any item she thinks they shouldn't have, but is momentarily stunned by her idol on the television. Connor sees his chance, and takes her juice...which is not spill proof.

This is why I am exhausted by the end of the day.

Last night I ran out to the store, leaving a reluctant husband behind with the kids. As I searched the coffee aisle for some pumpkin spice cappuccino (I will have to ask my mother-in-law where she finds hers,) I see a woman scanning the coffee shelves. She has a baby in her arms, and she is trying to console her. I look down to see another baby in an infant seat, fussing in her cart. The woman looks tired. I smile.

"Twins?"

She smiles and nods.

"How old are they?"

"Two months."

I smile down at the babies.

"I recently celebrated my twin boys' first birthday."

Her eyes got wide and she smiled.

"It does get easier."

It wasn't a lie. It wasn't the complete truth...but I remember those days. Those are the days that you really wonder if you will ever get through it....the days you are scared out of your mind. In that way, it does get easier as time passes. You learn that this, too, shall pass. You are stronger than you think...and that life may be difficult, but it isn't without wonder, amusement, and a whole lot of humor. Someday she'll look back and think that it wasn't so bad. Or she'll blog about it...one of the two.