Detours

May 7^th, 2013

Not so successful tummy time.

I am tired.  Really tired.  One comfort is that I know people don’t die from this.  I mean, a lot of other folks wouldn’t have passed away before me in the pursuit of infant care.  However, yesterday, when my eyes were on fire for like 5 hours before bed time, and I kept fantasizing about putting my head down, it did sort of feel like I was dying.  By this time in Ila infanthood, I could lie down with her and just nap and nurse for a while.  That’s so much harder to do with two, especially as Pippa will take a pretty decent nap of a couple hours (with intermittent waking, squawking and resettling) while Forrest will take two little tiny naps of half an hour during that time.  They are, roughly, in sync, but their different natural proclivities, when it comes to sleep, are surfacing.  For instance, earlier this week, Pippa slept through from 9 until 5:30 the same night that Forrest woke up to nurse about every hour.  Not exactly ideal, but fascinating.  In fact Pippa has really calmed into this little sweet, bizarre creature who puts herself to sleep and often sleeps long stretches at night.  At least for the last couple weeks.  It’s kind of amazing because the other two babies I’ve birthed don’t seem to understand this concept.  Not that Ila or Forrest are terrible sleepers, but they never put themselves to sleep!  Pippa has had a number of nights with the more usual 2-3 wakings to nurse, but it’s starting to be pretty standard that she only wake once…and sometimes not at all.  This is so strange.  I am trying not to depend on this as a permanent state of affairs, but Ila never did anything like this so I find myself thinking this is just the way Pippa might be.  

Forrest

Fortunately, a little shy of 8 weeks, both Pippa and Forrest settled into more manageable babyhood.  I’m still often bowled over by juggling two babies, particularly in the late afternoon/evening when everyone is hungry and grumpy and heading toward the train wreck that is bed time.  But, the babies did what all the books say babies do once they’ve gotten a bit attached and adjusted to life outside the womb – they cry less, they give little warning squawks before really getting going, they stop if I pick them up.  It’s kind of a miracle when this actually happens.  I think Ila started out hollering a little less and not quite so loudly, so it was a shock to have to screamers.  Now, though, they seem to use crying as an actual method to get what they want instead of simply as a permanent condition of their personalities.  This is a definite improvement.  I would say the prospect of raising twins, at least until toddlerhood, now seems merely very challenging rather than potentially impossible.  Now if I could figure out how we will afford to put all of them through college.  Actually, forget college, through private preschool.  (Yeah, wouldn’t it be amazing if we had actual public preschool?)

May 12^th, 2013

See? The only happy one has a pacifier!

We decided this weekend, without a great deal of planning, to restrict Ila’s use of her pacifier to only sleep time.  This is actually how it has been since before she was a year old, but in the last two months, she has been using it all the time she is home.  She runs in and nabs it from the bedroom and won’t be parted from it.  And, not surprsingly, we’ve had little to no energy to restrict her use of it.  Judging from how unhappy, ornery, grumpy and obstreperous she has been without it this weekend, I would say it has been helping her with the sibling transition.  It’s kind of amazing, actually, how intense her desire for her “ba-ba,” as she calls it, is.  Her pacifier has been incredibly useful as an aid (for falling asleep, etc.), so I don’t regret introducing it, but it feels like we’re asking an addict go cold turkey.  According to some folks, kids that really want to suck will do it whether you give them a pacifier or not, so maybe she would have been a thumb sucker if we hadn’t started with the ba-ba.  But, I don’t really have any data to support this, so I’m not sure.  There certainly do seem to be children who are never interested in sucking fingers, thumbs, pacifiers, etc. and others who can’t get enough.

May 18^th, 2013

Ila and Pippa

Clearly jinxing really works when it comes to babies.  After a week of claiming Pippa was so much calmer and such a good little sleeper compared to her first two months of life, she decided to scream for two days.  Fun.  I am ashamed to admit that after a day of screaming every time she is awake and refusing to eat, just one minute more of screaming sends me to the place where I have to remind myself that I do not want to shake my baby or toss her down on the bed forcefully and run screaming from the room.  I feel like such a terrible parent for a) having these thoughts at all and b) having them so quickly after a screaming session starts.  At the start of a screaming day, I have some patience…but it evaporates before the day is out.  I feel like such a weakling.  I guess I should remind myself that many times with either baby or even Ila, I do find some reserve of calm and patience in the face of frustration.  Well, at least sometimes.  That’s better than nothing, right?  Actually, one of the reasons I want to be calm and patient when frustrated (at least some of the time) is that it feels very important to model for Ila and, eventually, the small ones, how to deal with frustration without screaming, throwing a fit, breaking things.  I want to be a model of flexibility and maturity.  I don’t want to pretend I don’t get angry or agitated or irritated or frustrated; I just want to deal with those emotions skillfully.  I guess I want a lot of things.

Ila holds Forrest with Mommy's help.

Ila has adjusted back to having her pacifier only at sleep times.  It wasn’t too bad, though I still dread the final adjustment away from the pacifier altogether.  Maybe I should be a tougher parent…or see the long view more, but I do not find it easy to inflict short term suffering in the interest of long term gain.  To be fair to myself, it can be hard to know what short term suffering is worth it when parenting.  Don’t get me wrong, some situations are pretty clear.  I don’t mind the wailing about something she wants me to buy in the store that we are not going to buy.  I don’t mind the hollering when she is upset because we told her not to do something dangerous or unkind.  I mean, I don’t like to see her unhappy, and I want her to understand that there are reasons we don’t buy everything we want or hit people or jump up and down on a block wall, but it’s easy to determine her short term unhappiness about these disciplinary decisions of ours is worth it in these situations.  Others are not so clear cut.  The pacifier.  Going to sleep on her own.  Do you just wait for the child to be ready?  Always?  I don’t want to inflict true anguish.  This is the guiding sentiment behind parenting philosophies that are “child-centered,” I suppose.  It’s my job, then, as a parent to not be guided by an impatient desire to get her to fall asleep on her own or by my worry that the pacifier will be harder to get rid of the longer she uses it.  Basically, impatience and worry are not good motivators, though I frequently feel compelled by them.  Worry is particularly insidious.  For example, having a pacifier has clearly given Ila a tool for negotiating difficult situations, transitions, and feelings.  The thought that it would be easier for me as a parent if I had never let her have one, thus avoiding the difficulty of weaning from the pacifier, is motivated by worry and doesn’t feel like it takes into account what makes the most sense for her.  Sometimes kids need little psychological crutches – pacifiers, sleeping in parent’s bed, having someone sit with them until they fall asleep – these are not forever, but it is hard to remember that.  There isn’t one, straight line of emotional development from infancy to adulthood.  Everyone’s path is different, with all kinds of seeming detours en route.  All this is easier to remember if I focus on staying in the present…if I could just stay present long enough to remember that.

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.