Twin Realities
So I’ve been a twin mom for nearly six months now and I think I’m getting the hang of it. I’m excited to say that I can handle days like today when I don’t have anyone coming to help me and not feel like I need to desperately text my husband to see when he’s coming home and if maybe he could come home a little bit early to save me from our children. My boys are pretty happily playing on the floor beside me, laying on their bellies where they will occasionally work on getting to places they weren’t in to start with. Mostly it’s in circles right now, sometimes we move backwards, and sometimes we roll off the blanket and under the bouncers, just for fun.
Despite my new found confidence in my ability to take care of these two tiny humans, I’m still waiting for it to really sink in that we have twins. I recently told my sister-in-law and shiny brand new brother-in-law that the fact that they’re married will really feel real like next year, or maybe the year after that. I’m waiting to see if the whole twins thing feels more real when I go to plan their first birthday party. My husband and I still look at each other on a daily bases and say “So good news,” the very words that came out of the ultrasound tech’s mouth before she told us we were having twins. It’s still baffling and mind boggling and utterly unbelievable that we would have twins, but here I am, hanging out with two five and a half month olds who look exactly alike to the untrained eye.
I cannot imagine what life is like for singleton parents. Like, how do they even work? You put a baby down for a nap and that’s it, you’re done for the next 20 – 120 minutes. You can just sit and snuggle a baby whenever you want without worrying about what baby number 2 is doing. I get baby snuggles when baby number two goes down, as long as baby number one is having a good nap, and I don’t have to do laundry or wash things, or whatever. Our six bottles that I wash every three feedings could last a singleton parent a whole day! It’s amazing to me that some parents don’t wash bottles every time they feed their child. Also, breast feeding. What magic even is that?
For as much as I wonder at the life of a singleton parent, I honestly and perfectly content in my chaos. Sure, there are days when I constantly have one sleeping baby and one awake baby and no one sleeps longer than 20 minutes at a time, so no break for mama until daddy gets home. Sure, I’ve had to accept the fact that spit is going to be shared in my house and there is nothing I can do about it much earlier than any parent would like. Sure I listen to twice as much screaming while I change diapers and get bottles ready than the average human and it’s twice as likely that any given car ride will be to the sound track of a tiny boy’s extreme sadness, but this is my reality now and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
We get twice the baby giggles as my husband tickles them with his beard. We don’t have to fight over who gets baby snuggles in the evening as we feed them before bed. We celebrate twice the milestones as one boy figures out eating solids and the other full out laughs for the first time. It’s chaos for sure, but the very best kind of chaos. We get to watch two amazing little boys grow and learn and discover and grin from ear to ear. Twice the bath time fun with daddy, twice the story books with mama, half the fighting over baby for everyone else.
So yeah, napping when baby naps is very rarely a thing that I get to do, but that just means I get some one-on-one time with each boy while his brother sleeps some days. I get to snuggle a baby, put him down and then snuggle another baby. It’s a good deal. I don’t have as much down time as other moms, and forget going out by myself right now, but maybe someday I’ll get there. I’m getting more confident with my little guys by the day and I’m so happy to be learning and growing with them. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s almost nap time, (hopefully) and I’m going to try really hard to get these guys down at the same time. Wish me luck!
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