Welcome to the Twiniverse

Exactly two months ago today the twins were born. The passage of time has been both glacial – as only time with an infant can be – and, strangely, very rapid.  I guess having three children, 1000 pounds of laundry per day, and only two hands has a way of making time whiz by.  Have I mentioned that all three of my children have adopted the pastime of hollering and screaming?  Ila is easing off on the fits now, though she is still pretty touchy and easy to set off.  And I get her sadness and confusion.  This is a big adjustment for her.  But, seriously, these two infants cry more than seems wise considering their survival depends on me, the person who is slowly going crazy and, thus, being rendered incapable of taking care of anyone let alone needy and exhausting infants because of all their shrieking.  

I know they’re tiny babies who can’t help this very questionable behavior…blah blah blah.  All I’m saying is that I think infant deportment is pretty much an argument against intelligent design.  It’s a wonder we weren’t all set out on rocks to be carried off by large birds of prey when we were little mewling newborns.  As I said before, I don’t think they scream and cry more than an average baby.  I think they scream and cry about as much as an average baby…but there are TWO of them!  How is that fair?  And, the better question, why on earth did I think fairness would enter into this whole experience?  Why, for instance, did I believe they would somehow not each, individually, be as difficult as a single infant?  I guess I couldn’t face that possibility.

Okay, fortunately, I think I see light at the end of the tunnel.  Pippa, who was rapidly becoming the least popular resident in our house due to her 3 AM hollering, is getting all coo-y and gurgle-y and smiley and adorable.  Actually, she has always been cute.  She’s one of the those babies that came out looking pretty freakin’ cute…it’s just that looks only get you so far when your favorite hobby is waking up at 4 in the morning every day after nights of crying at all too frequent intervals.  Now, she’s actually napping a little, swiping adorably at mobile toys, and making unreplicatable lovely little baby sounds.   

Actually, they are both smiling and cooing.  They both started smiling pretty early – 4 weeks - and with more frequency than Ila.  They also both seem to enjoy tummy time and vigorously pump their legs up like they’re going to just up and crawl.  Ila was a little loungey, reclining, not-crawling-early baby.  The twins' more active demeanors are exciting and sort of terrifying.  What if they really do start crawling early and just run me ragged with their infant crawling antics?  When do they start amusing each other like twins do in all the anecdotes everyone loves to tell me?  Seriously.  This is not a hypothetical question.  If anyone knows, please tell me.  I’d like to mark that date on my calendar and cross days off as we get closer.  

Several people said it took about 6 weeks to adjust to the insanity of the twiniverse.  Ha!  I must be a slow learner because I am just now, at a little over 8 weeks, feeling sort of barely adapted to this strange new world.  Maybe a few days in the last week I’ve felt like I can kind of juggle it all.  Wake up, keep Forrest asleep by nursing him, get Ila up, nurse Pippa (who has been napping with Kiyomi in the living room since some ungodly hour), pump so I have breast milk other people can give them in bottles, help Kiyomi get Ila ready for school, get Forrest (who is now crying), change both babies and hope they don’t each scream through the whole process, and then spend the next 5 hours alternately tandem nursing them, individually nursing them, coaxing one to sleep while keeping the other one calm (hopefully).  If I am lucky, like today, I have a few minutes with both hands free to type this up.  Or fold laundry (more likely past time for me).   But, after the rushed bathroom visits and dashes into the kitchen to feed myself, I don’t actually have time even for laundry most days.  Or anything.  Even eating is a challenge, which, considering they are being exclusively breastfeed, is a bit dicey.  I get to 4 in the afternoon, and I’m ravenous.  And probably not the most pleasant person around here. 

Still, I can tell it’s getting a little better (please, gods, don’t reverse this trend!) because I spend more time looking at them and thinking they are sweet and cute and less time looking at them with confusion and misery because I can’t figure out how to keep them both from screaming at the same time.  My current mantra: This is a very short period of their lives. Others have survived this.  This is a very short period of their lives.  Others have survived this. This is a very short period of their lives. Others have survived this... 

It's a good thing they are both cute.

Open, Shut Them

Ah, sleep…I remember you. So, with Ila, at three weeks I was feeling like I’d gotten the hang of nursing, and our “sleep” had sort of normalized – meaning, I knew I was only going to get a couple 2 hour chunks of sleep a night. I felt a little better, a little like I’d accepted the situation. For about 1 day. Then it hit me – I was going to have to sit up in bed to nurse this little squirmer for an hour three to four times a night…for months…and months…and months. Predictably, I felt quite depressed. And exhausted. I became very determined to nurse lying down. I had tried it a few times already, but neither of us was quite coordinated enough as a new nursing pair. However, I continued to try and always had that hope ahead of me. Someday, I could just roll over and nurse. I would barely have to wake up! At two months, I achieved this dream, and it was way, way better. (Of course, after a year and a half of the “roll over and nurse” situation, I was also quite sick of this as well and fantasized about an actual night of uninterrupted sleep.)

So, the difference with twins is that I will never have the lie down and nurse dream to look forward to. I have just reached the “getting the hang of this sleep insanity” point…and I cannot believe that I will just have to sit up and nurse them all the time for months and months. Two AM has become a bleak, bleak place without a real hope of more sleep to look forward to any time soon…in any possible twin nursing position. Maybe someday their night time schedule will be staggered enough I can simply nurse one then the other lying down. I don’t really know how to affect this kind of change, though…and I need them to be on the same schedule during the day so that they actually nap at the same times.

This all points to the fact that life with twins is harder than life with a singleton infant. This seems obvious, but I say this because apparently not everyone believes this. A father of a girl at Ila’s school said to Kiyomi, after she said that we are exhausted and really feeling the difference of having two infants at once, that one baby was just as hard as twins. (They just had their second child.) Excuse me? I’ve had a single baby. The only way that is harder is if you are comparing the world’s fussiest singleton to the world’s easiest twins. Granted, I feel much more prepared and less shell-shocked than the first time around…but leaving the house, nursing, getting a free moment to go to the bathroom when neither is crying…this is WAY harder. And, I would say, that both of these babies already cry and squawk more than Ila did.

Neither of these babies better become colicky…I don’t know what I would do. I think, when I was pregnant, I just sort of believed that they must, MUST be easier than Ila because…well, they had to be otherwise I would not have been able to face the prospect of two infants. Ila wasn’t a particularly challenging baby – I think she was pretty average. However, even two average babies – that’s overwhelming to think about. Now, I am realizing – really realizing – that they could both be average, neither an easy baby. OR, they could both be more sensitive, more fussy, more needy than Ila. There is nothing that guarantees that they won’t be. Like I said, two AM has become a very bleak place.

On the up side, oh my god, they are so cute! It feels sort of decadent that I get to have two tiny, adorable, lovely babies at once. I feel, the second time around, that I am really cherishing this tiny infant stage. It’s so fleeting. I’m less traumatized by the sleeplessness and the chaos that an infant introduces into your life. And, while they can’t do anything, they are so sweetly captivating just lying next to me or nursing or making all those weird little faces infants make…well, they are thoroughly captivating to me anyway.

So now that the babies are a reality, Ila has been a bit more fragile, a bit more sensitive in general, but she is still pretty excited and enthusiastic about the actual babies. She loves to help, and she loves to take care of her own babies while I tend to the twins. Her babies are always much better behaved than the real infants. Yesterday morning, when I couldn’t get the babies to let me put them down for 15 minutes to use bathroom and eat breakfast, Ila informed me that her babies had already nursed and gone back to sleep. She looked at the twins as she said this, as if to let them know other babies knew how to behave. Incidentally, she informed me a few minutes before this that she had five babies, named Flower, Bee, Daisy, Stripe Baby, and Giraffe Baby. Stripe Baby is my favorite. I wish I’d thought of that name for ours.

My mother has always liked to say that those dolls that close their eyes when you lie them down and open them when you pick them up are a dirty trick. Reality, she contends is exactly the opposite. Well, our babies are certainly bearing her out on this point. Ila did as well…it’s just easier to carry one baby around with you all day. I feel guilty because I am perpetually choosing which one of the babies to carry, calm, comfort…unless I am just nursing both of them. So, as you may imagine, I basically nurse them all day so as to avoid unhappy infants.

While Ila, as a two year old, does introduce a certain amount of chaos and illness (hello, thousands of colds!) to the baby situation, it’s refreshing to take a little time every day to just hang out with her. After spending the day with the infants, she seems amazingly accomplished because she can use the toilet and speak in complete sentences. Seriously, though, I am enjoying this age – she erupts everyday with all kinds of odd statements and ideas. Yesterday, while playing grocery store, she told us that her car was parked far away, “in the distance.” I love when she incorporates odd little phrases like this. And, she taught us this little song the other day (from school).

It’s amazing to suddenly have three children…and also daunting. I just have to trust that my intention to have quality interactions with them all while still getting everything done that must get done (basics, like eating, etc.) will be enough. I have already had twinges of guilt when one infant is wailing inconsolably for the 5 minutes it takes to change the other baby or when Ila really wants me to play or snuggle or read, and I can’t as I’m nursing the babies. I cannot imagine having 5 or 8 or 10 children. My god!

It's a Boy...and a Girl!

Almost the first thing I said to the doctor when I walked in for my 7 week ultrasound last July was, “Just tell me it’s not twins.”  Ha ha ha.  The nurse and doctor laughed.  He’s a fertility doctor, so I imagine a number of his patients are concerned about having multiples.  Certainly some percentage of his patients using medication to increase ovulation or doing in vitro is nervous about twins, triplets…and beyond.  This must be a sentiment that he recognizes. 

The doctor started the ultrasound and shortly thereafter let out a kind of surprised “Oh-ho!”  It didn’t sound negative enough to make me really nervous, as in “Oh-ho, there’s no heartbeat!”  (That would be a poor choice of delivery and tone, certainly.)  Still, Kiyomi very quickly and urgently said, “What?” sensing something was not quite normal. 

The doctor replied, moving the ultrasound wand toward the left, “Well…here’s one baby and,” moving the wand to the right, “here’s another baby.” 

I’m pretty sure we both looked, well, sort of horrified.  Some people start out wanting twins, apparently.  And, to be honest, there are some reasons I can understand this.  I have a few friends who’ve had a very hard time getting pregnant or had their first baby very late in life…and hoped for twins as they weren’t sure they could get pregnant again.  But, I have also encountered people who just think it would be fun. 

Okay.

Well, having one infant at a time is pretty much like a cyclone of chaos and sleep deprivation touching down in the middle of your life all by itself…so, I can’t say I related to the wish of having more than one at time. 

I had said to both my mother and Kiyomi, “God, I hope it’s not twins” before this ultrasound.  Why would I even be thinking about twins???  While the chance of having multiples is increased with use of certain fertility medications or in vitro fertilization, I have only ever seen my doctor for plain old insemination.  As I like to say, our fertility problem fortunately seems limited to the fact that neither of us produce sperm.  So, why were twins even on my mind?  Who can say?  Maybe it was the incredible increase in nausea compared to my first pregnancy, the very early onset of pregnancy symptoms (like five days after the insemination), or – and this sound pretty ridiculous – all these double sneezes I was having…which I’ve never had before.  All I know is that it never crossed my mind when I was pregnant with Ila…but I was thinking about it quite a lot in the early weeks of this pregnancy.

At any rate, we were both in shock.  Our doctor promptly said, “I’m sorry,” which is sort of an odd thing to say when telling a person they have what appears to be a pretty normal and successful early pregnancy.  Congratulations seem more in order.  I can’t blame him, though; I had essentially just told him I didn’t want twins…and I’m sure we both looked like we’d been beaten about the head. 

Everything stressful is increased in a pregnancy with multiples – likelihood of miscarriage, slowed fetal development, lower birth weights, preterm labor, likelihood of stillborn babies.   Pregnancy really is a joy.  When we got to the car, I cried stormily for about ten minutes, wailing, “My life is over!  I guess all the plans I’ve had for the next five years are shot!  Oh my God, how are we going to do this?!  What if something goes wrong?” 

Then, pretty much I accepted it.  I even started to feel excited – it certainly would be an adventure…and I have a pathological need to rise to any challenge.  And, as one of our friends who actually has small children and still seemed genuinely excited about twins said, “Well, it’s more baby!”  Indeed.  For better and for worse.

So, I studiously researched what I needed to do to increase the probability of positive outcomes for a twin pregnancy.  This included eating 3500 calories a day!  I was supposed to gain 25 pounds in the first 20 weeks.  That is work, let me tell you.  I mean, you can’t just eat a bucket fried chicken and call it a day…these calories are supposed to be nutritional. 

I was certainly more nauseated in this pregnancy; I got quite big quite fast and, as a result, my physical movement has been much more restricted.  Still, the first two trimesters went pretty smoothly.  Then, the third trimester started.  I have had to go to the hospital three times to be evaluated for preterm labor…two of those times I got to stay for several days and got to experience the joys of medication to stop labor and constant fetal monitoring.  Unpleasant. 

At this point, I am 34 weeks, and all three of us are fine.  However, it is a relief every day that I do not go into labor.  I would like to make it to 37 weeks at least.  Still, I am bigger than I was at the end of my first pregnancy…so, it’s hard to imagine where the rest of the baby mass is going to go in the next weeks.  I mean, they are already stretched from well under my ribs deep into my pelvic bowl.  They are each probably over 5 pounds at this point…and we’re six weeks out.  Where else is there to grow?  And where will my organs fit?  I mean, am I going to have two 8 pound babies?  That’s 16 pounds of baby.  What?  What???  How is that even possible?

Fortunately, Ila has been super excited about all this.  She likes to talk about how she also has “monkeys in her tummy.”  Actually, sometimes it’s babies…sometimes it’s bears or penguins.  Or even one moose and one fox.  Of course it will be an adjustment when the babies actually come, but she is very stoked about it right now.  She loves taking care of her own “babies,” which is almost any object she’s playing with.  She frequently commands me to snuggle whatever she is playing with.  A lego train?  An invisible mini-alligator (“it’s not scary, Mama”)?  Her big rubber bouncy horse?  Yes, they all need to be cuddled. 

Part of this stems from the fact, I believe, that she has really turned into a snuggle bug herself.  When she started pre-school in August, she needed about half an hour of snuggling with me every morning before she would consent to getting up.  This snuggling time also helped with the very gradual weaning process we went through in the fall.  It was not super traumatic…for her.  It has been pretty upsetting for me.  I stopped breastfeeding her with some serious reservations.  I felt, practically and logistically, that it might be best since I will have two infants I needed to nurse.  However, emotionally, I really did not feel ready to wean her.  Even now, she’s so completely in love with my breasts – she may not be nursing, but she wants to pat, snuggle, touch and kiss “the boobies.”  It’s so sweet…and really makes me wish I could still be nursing her.  I know I’m already a statistical outlier as someone who nursed her child well past two…but it’s so sweet and lovely…and it’s such a tiny fraction of our life together.  It’s hard to let go of this stage.  Sigh.

On the other hand, heading toward three years old is pretty amazing.  I feel like every week she says more and more.  It’s funny that a year ago, she was still speaking this seriously limited baby pidgin - mostly nouns and verbs, only a few multi-word phrases.  Now, she’s a real conversationalist.   

When I was still taking classes at the end of last semester, she came into the room I was in and, with a sigh, said, “I have so much to do.”

 

I was amused, “Oh really?  What do you need to do?”

“Math…” (I took two math courses last fall) “and jumping.”  She paused for dramatic emphasis, “On the bed.”   

That’s a pretty serious itinerary.  I guess Kiyomi and I must have been saying that we had a lot to do with some frequency.  All last semester she “worked” at her desk (a little end table in the living room) on “lab reports.”  She, like most two year olds, is a sponge for these little phrases and mannerisms.  It’s hilarious.  Or a little distressing when she says, “Crap!” or “Jesus!”  or something worse with perfect intonation and timing.   

Two is such an amazing age.  When I think that we will get to have two more little goofy beasties running around our house, saying ridiculous things and concocting bizarre games and ideas about the way things work, I guess I'm excited about having two more.  They just need to stay in a little longer...oh, and be super mellow and easy when they come out.  Ha!

Hot Undies

We are raising a nudist, which is to say, we have a perfectly normal two year old who prefers to be naked as much of the time as possible. I accept this, especially in Tucson in the summer, with little resistance except when we must go outside. First of all, I am okay with the expectation that most people have that everyone has at least some clothing on in public places. I'm fine with this. We can all wear clothing in public. Ila doesn't necessarily agree. She is uninterested in the norms and rules of society as they apply to clothing.

When I remind her that she needs to protect her body from the outside – sun, cactus, tripping and falling – she does acquiesce, which is a blessing. However, she picks very astounding outfits given her proclivity for nudity. For example, the other day, I couldn't interest her in clothing all day when we were thinking of going out. “Hot shoes,” “hot shirt,” she informed me. Okay, we'll stay home and be naked.

When it was time to go to a little two year old birthday party for two friends, she selected a shirt, skirt, leg warmers and socks. This was 4 in the afternoon, not a particularly great time for leg warmers, if you ask me. Then, about three hours later, in the cooler early evening, after taking a naked dip in our friend's swimming pool and putting on some undies, she had to take off her underwear a few minutes later, saying, “hot undies.” This has become a frequent refrain around here. “Hot undies.” They are, apparently, the most thermal item of clothing she is ever forced to wear. How and why undies can be so much hotter than socks and leg warmers requires the kind of logic only a two year old understands.

Transitions Are Rough

Yesterday I spent much of the day on Ila Time. That is, we played or read or walked around the house with her little shopping cart and stroller as she wanted to. Despite this, she was extremely resistant to transition to other activities when I had to enforce them. I had a doctor's appointment, so we had to go over to Grandma's. She didn't really want to get off the potty to do that. Then, once we were at Grandma's, she didn't want to get out of the car. This is a hot car in Tucson in May. The appeal obviously wasn't the car itself. We went to the library in the early evening and she didn't want to get out of the car once we got home, again. I remember that, at one of the schools we visited, the director making a comment about “gently moving the kids inside” after being outside, after which she said, “transitions are rough.” I guess that's what we're facing here.

We've been reading parenting books that emphasize “non-coercive” parenting strategies. Say you want your child to put her clothes on, any clothes even just those little bloomers that go under a dress and that shirt that is so small it looks like a bib, you need to get out of the house to make it to an appointment and you've been trying to gently get her ready for an hour. Now, you may be tempted to force her to put her clothes on or bribe her or give her an ultimatum and practice “love withdrawal” (isolating her – time out her until she does what you want) or in some other way assert your authority, but that would be coercive parenting. Even called “violent parenting” by some books.

I get it. I mean, I think some of this might be a touch overblown, but I like the love and reason style parenting (or teaching)...it's just NOT efficient. Non-coercive parenting techniques are generally the slowest way to do things. In addition, I find that I have to frequently readjust what I think we need to do.  This is, I suppose, the slow parenting movement.  (I imagine there is one out there.)  For example, I think, “Oh we have two hours before we need to be home again, we can run to the store to get paper towels and sun screen in plenty of time.” Only to decide, after an hour of slowly moving at Ila speed toward departure, that maybe I don't really need to go today; maybe we should just stay home and draw and read. It's sort of like when she was tiny and I didn't really want to bother leaving the house...we've come full circle.

I try to remind myself that each phase of childhood has its own natural rhythm and time. Toddler time is very slow when it comes to abandoning a perfectly good activity, like reading Olivia Saves the Circus 17 times, for a hot car ride to some boring grocery store. I can't blame her, I guess. It's just a balancing act – getting done the things we really need to, being realistic about the things that don't really need to happen, and just generally slowing down enough to be present and available for her. I can't say I always do it with grace, but I am trying.

Olive Too.

So, right around Valentine's Day, Ila said “I love you” to me for the first time ever. Well, technically, she said, “Olive too,” but I know what she meant. In the intervening month, she has gotten a little closer to the standard pronunciation, but it still often sounds like a strange contraction, “lovetoo.” I think she's trying to say, “I love you, too,” or maybe she just can't say words that start with y? Either way, waking up with her in the mornings now, which was already so snuggly and sweet, is even more adorable punctuated by her little attempts to tell me she love me. It's very lovely. I know that co-sleeping doesn't work for some folks, and I get that, especially on nights she's very restless, but I can't imagine not having her in our bed right now. When she wakes up now, she says, “kiss” and “hug” repeatedly while she gives us snuggles. How freaking cute is that?

Speaking of standard pronunciation, I'm trying to just revel in all her odd little saying as I know they will not be here forever. “Bub-bel-ee wa wa” for carbonated water, which she weirdly really loves. “Blank-uh-let” for blanket, which is my favorite right now. But I know these little Ila-isms will not be around forever. She used to say “block-oh-lee” for broccoli, and she's already lost that. The last few weeks her pronunciation has been getting better and better. And she said her first full, real sentence last week, “It's right here” (about a temporary tattoo on her knee). What a simple sentence, yet it sounded so sophisticated and erudite after so many weeks of “Mama, drive” or “Mommie, walk” or “Eat, peas, corn.” It's amazing to see her really focus and grow verbally...but it's also a little sad to see some of the most surprising and humorous pronunciations go.

 I've been trying to record samples of her speech. However, she has become fixated on watching videos of herself on my camera (hopefully not the start of an extremely narcissistic personality) whenever I take it out to record anything. She just asks to see "the baby"...

I am now in school again, so we've been looking for a preschool. That's fun. Meh. Actually, I shouldn't complain too much, we found one we really like that had a spot for her in the fall. Now that she is almost two, there are a lot more options out there. I look forward to having a place that she will – hopefully – enjoy going to so that I can get work done...but I also feel torn about losing so much Ila time. It somehow feels different than when her grandparents watch her now. When they watch her, it sort of feels like an extension of our little family unit, still close to us and part of our lives. I guess that's why picking a pre-school that really “feels” right, with nice families, etc. is so important. I want to be clear...I don't feel guilty about leaving her exactly...it's more like I feel greedy, like I should be the person who witnesses most of her little toddler moments of life...I don't want these pre-school interlopers. I'm not sure this is a super-functional and healthy feeling. I mean, it's really about me...Ila can certainly grow by having some time with other adults and children in a safe, nurturing environment. I'm not saying it's required at the age of two, but it can be great for a toddler. After all, I am not, realistically, going to keep her home forever and home school her...but I am a teensy bit embarrassed to say that I sort of secretly want to do this.

I'm not necessarily convinced she loves being away from me for long periods of time anyway. I mean, I think she will adjust and enjoy pre-school, but there is definitely a threshold she hits and then just wants to be with me. I think children are supposed to be “energetically” connected to their mothers until they are three according to Chinese medicine...this seems about in keeping with my experience. She is certainly becoming more and more opinionated, more individuated, but she still feels very, very sensitive to how long she is apart from me. This can be stressful, of course, but I remind myself that this is such a tiny, fleeting amount of her life. And much of the time, especially during morning snuggles, this connection feels so completely wonderful that it's easy to forget about how difficult it is to, say, do the dishes when she wants me to hold her the entire time.

The Weeee Game

One of the best parts of this phase of Ila's life is her burgeoning friendships with other children. Two weeks ago she started using language with other little kids. Her language use in general has expanded wildly in the last month - number of words, short phrases, the use of commands - but when she actually turned to another little child her age and spoke to them, I realized what a huge leap this is. She has gone from speaking only a little, and usually to adults she knows, to trying words out even on the other strange little people around her. She's always been fascinated (as all children are) with other young-ins, but now she has more tools to connect. Pretty amazing to watch, even if no actual words are being exchanged...a whole new level of her self - her social self - is developing because of the impulse behind talking and communication.