First lessons in sharing.

Thick to Thin Thursdays.

Bet you thought I forgot about Thick to Thin Thursdays. Nope. But two weeks ago I gained weight and was stroppy, and last week I was busy shitting myself on the couch due to the swine flu. So as soon as I’ve posted this – babies willing – I’ll go update my weight loss stats. The short version of it is that as of yesterday, I am the same weight I was a few weeks ago.

I don’t know what is happening. Well, actually I do: I’m not writing down any foods, attempting to curb my eating, and I am eating a lot. I am craving a lot of comfort food. Not to mention the thought that with 14 week old twins, sometimes I don’t actually have time to eat, so shoving cookies in my mouth while warming bottles happens. Quite a lot.

A few days ago I was like, ‘Fuck it. I don’t really want to lose this weight yet. I want to eat.’ But you know what, I do want to lose it. Losing 60 pounds a few years ago gave me a taste of being normal sized (apologies to the curvy ladies out there – I think you’re gorgeous!). By ‘normal,’ I mean being able to shop in any store, feel really confident, and just generally being much, much healthier. Pregnancy with twins sort of fucks those things up, or it did for me…with the exception of confidence. I looked bangin’ when I was hugely pregnant.

All the information I read emphasized weight gain, weight gain, weight gain. And it worked. My babies were not born early, and they were a very good size for twins. I don’t regret the gain at all (59 pounds…the goal was to gain 60).

But here I am, oddly enough, a few years after wearing a bikini in public, and I am as heavy as I ever was. Heavy and weirdly flabby around my tummy. Granted, my stomach was out to HERE when I was pregnant, and then my muscles were cut through for the c section. The section also left a big portion of my lower abdomen numb, so that adds to the odd, out of shape feeling.

I want to lose the weight. I bought some clothes (I threw away all Fat Clothes when I lost the weight last time, vowing I did not need to keep them as I would not regain the weight. I kept it off, too, until the babies!) as I was feeling down wearing oversized pjs all day, every day. But I really don’t want to buy any more. I want to lose the weight, and lose it lose it lose it. I need to say that publicly, because last night’s McDonald’s sure did taste fine.

Total weight loss (I think): 7 pounds. To find out more, or to join in my weight loss crusade, click ‘Thick to Thin Thursdays’ on the right.

5ucK!t, TuRdF@c3.

More and more I have trouble reading those fucking spam avoider things. You know the ones. ‘Enter the text you see in the box. Having trouble? Click here.’

They used to be so easy. ‘BoxMom.’ ‘RedSmile.’  Then they went a bit surreal….’AppP3lk43,’ etc. Now they are all artistically fucking dotted around with dabs of paint, and the lettering is all wavy and messed up. It’s like they got some people with dubious creative talents to design these things, just out of pity or something.

Either that or I am going fucking bananas blind.

Our whole house smells like a movie theatre.

So. Three things.

1. Coconut’s poop switched to smelling like butter flavoured microwave popcorn about a week ago, and now Snort’s smells that way too. I love it.

2. In the middle of the night last night, Snort was manipulating his tongue and practicing new sounds. He said ‘Hello’ as clear as day and it was freaky!

3. Snort’s face is all messed up and oozing. Think it is infected exzema. We have antibiotic cream, but doesn’t seem to be working. TMD taking him to the doctor this evening. Cross your fingers for him, and for me – my heart can’t handle anxiety, apparently. I am all nervy about this!

I’m growing up.

Allow me my tiny moments, my tear filled eyes, my swollen heart. As I hold one, look into eyes, giggle at a goofy smile – and the other at my feet, full of sounds and kicks and laughter. I bitched throughout pregnancy. People came here to leave me comments, and more than one person emailed to thank me for not looking at things through rose-coloured glasses.

I, too, rolled my eyes at all the women who were trying to get pregnant – as we cheered each other on, they did it with blinkie signature files and I did it with telling people how my wife stuck pessaries up my vadge. As I tumbled through pregnancy, I wrote about not being able to walk, about throwing up in the bathtub, and, yes, about the tiny sweet kicks that rapidly turned into thunderous wrestling matches in my stomach.

I told the truth then, unvarnished, so you can trust that I tell it now.

Motherhood is so sweet that sometimes I am filled up, up, up with adoration for my children, for myself, for my wife. I sing to them and am amazed to feel wetness trickling down my cheeks. We hold whispered conversations, we are a daytime team of three, we can conquer the world.

Sometimes I am so tired I can barely pick my feet up. There have been two occasions when I have sobbed uncontrollably and felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. But the real seed of truth in the middle of it all? I often have an uneasy feeling, a wondering where all the terrible days are. As I read twin blog after twin blog, I read of women sobbing on the floor, sitting between their two babies, not sure who to help or how.

Me? I feel like the motherfucking baby CHAMPION, a woman so capable and strong in this new way, this fulfilling way, this way where I am talking back and forth to these two little people. She with her face that lights up, that tightens and tenses her whole body in a tall sort of happiness, her funny chewing face and sometimes solemn eyes. He with his conspiratorial glances at me, his wide mouthed and uneven smile, his laugh so powerful he surprises me every time.

We are getting the hang of it, and sometimes it’s lather-rinse-repeat of the same tasks over and over, but more and more it becomes a joy, a moment I want to live deeply in, a time I can already feel slipping away and so I concentrate on remembering every instant. Really paying attention to what it feels like to have her sleep with her right arm tucked around my back. Loving every time I change his diaper and he chats chats chats until we are both filled up with new thoughts and ways to be.

I cheer her on as she holds onto a toy and gnaws its face. I apologise to him for the ridiculous scratch mitts that are back in the game, as his poor face oozes and reddens. They reward me with their patience, their independence, their sweet baby snuggles and wide eyes as they watch the trees bend and sway in the wind.

For them, I walked this evening on my own to the doctor’s office, my legs still so weak and sore from months of being unable to walk. I almost gave up and came home, and then I kept going because I want to take them on long walks, I want to stomp in crispy leaves with them. I want to watch him feed the horses. I want to lift her up and point out the trains whizzing past.

I don’t need to look at my mornings through rose coloured glasses, because life is just rosy. I have a daughter who looks so happy and amazed just to be awake, just to be hanging out with me in our home. I have a son gulping his bottle, sitting on my leg, so strong, busy looking at everything. I know their rhythms, their likes, what it means when they move their faces just so.

Motherhood makes me feel like I am the first woman to have done this, the only one to really understand what it means. Motherhood makes me deepen myself, makes me feel a fierce love and determination to create a life for these two little people to unfold in their own ways, at their own pace, in their own directions. I want to be there in the background, my arms and heart ready to catch them when they need it, but giving them the space and freedom to make mistakes and try new things and be their own selves.

I want nothing more than this cycle of life to carry on, to continue, to grow older as I watch them grow up.  I’ve been thinking of my grandma a lot lately. How she held my mother, how my mother held me. Here we are altogether, linked by this business of being alive, of doing things that are no different than what has happened for thousands of years for billions of women.

But in here, in my heart, in this house, it is our little team of three that laugh together, that experiment with what it means to have a brother, a sister, a mother, two children. We smile when TMD comes home, their eyes widen and bodies jerk when the post comes, the cat streaks to the door on both occasions. I sing them Christmas songs, we dance to rap music, I curl up with one or the other and we read. I take naps with little baby bodies held close, their heads turned in toward my heart. I touch her smooth, soft cheeks. I rub lotion again and again into his funny chapped skin, loving that he loves that so much. We live in a world of touch, of taste, of kisses and space.

Sometimes we all do our own thing, in our own ways. Other times the three of us look at each other, burble, talk, smile. They look at each other when the other one is not looking, and sometimes they get a little worried and look at me to make sure everything is okay.

And it is.

Better than okay.

Over and over and over again, we get repeats and do-overs and try agains. Through it all, I feel this time, this babyhood, as something so painfully sweet and slippery. Every day they grow up and into themselves more, and I find myself thinking of them as teenagers – and then I yank my attention back to right here, right now, because where else would I rather be?

Walk into the bookstore of my heritage.

I started writing something today that feels important, really important. And better than that, it feels good. Maybe I’ll tell you about it some day, or maybe you’ll read it yourself.

Niiice.

Been away on Swine Flu Island. Am on my way back to the mainland now, but on a rickety raft that isn’t moving too fast.

I think my favourite tourist attraction is the ’shit your pants without realising it and lay in your own poop soup for a few hours’ railroad company.

It does a body good.

Happy three month old birthday! It’s taken a lot of booby and bottle, but you are so big!

(Snort = 14 lb 4.5, Coconut = 13 lb 2.5)

 

Massive shout out to single parents, seriously.

I have a great baby voice. It is super enthusiastic, chirpy, suitably high pitched. Why, this morning I had both babies squirming in delight. What was I saying?

‘I’m gonna punch your big fat Nana right in her nose, yes I am, I’m gonna punch her!’ They thought this was hilarious.

What, you don’t say this sort of shit to your kids? From what I’ve found out about incubation periods (two days) and who you catch it from (you’re contagious if you feel like shit), we deffo caught our sicknesses from Big. Fat. Stupid. Nana. (Can you hear the cooing way in which I can say this? And how every sentence sounds like a question due to the lilt at the end? No, it’s not at alllll obnoxious, I assure you.)

Anyway.

It started on Monday night for the middle of the night feed. I woke up as TMD started Snort, and was merrily chatting away at her.  She suddenly thrust him at me and muttered, ‘I was terribly sick about a half hour ago. I can’t do this.’ She fell into an immediate and deep sleep. She was so frickin’ pale. She is still mega mega sick, took her first Tamiflu dose last night.

Compadre, with no questions asked, jumped onto a train from The City and came out here to The Country so he could go pick up her anti-virals. I just love him so much and feel so honored to know him, let alone have him be our children’s non-god godfather. They are lucky little pumpkins. Anyway.

I’ve been on solo twin care duty since about 3 am late Monday night. It is better and worse than you would think it is. Except that now little Coconut is coughing, coughing, coughing. She had some mega throw ups last night. Neither baby seems sick, per say (excepting the coughing and sneezing). Coconut isn’t quite her cheerful self, but then Snort has somehow morphed into The Most Cheerful Baby On The Planet. So maybe he stole some of her good humour? Can twins do that?

We didn’t get to bed till after midnight last night. It was a tricky evening, and probably because I was so worn out. I can normally count on TMD jumping right in once she’s home, and we’ve got it sorted that she always does middle of the night feeds unless they both need to be fed at the same time. I was so worried they would need that last night, because we’re keeping TMD away from the babies. (She is too weak to help feed them anyway.)  She slept on the couch, which appears to have broken her back.

It’s all a bit spooky because she never gets sick. And even if she is feeling a bit off colour, she refuses to admit it. She has transformed to someone who is sleeping hours at a time, alternates between being pale and quite flushed, and actually moans in pain when she is awake. Not nice. Still, she admits she feels like absolute hell this morning, but she doesn’t look as sick. She was also awake out here for about 40 minutes, which is a world record.

So, in conclusion, fuck you Nana. Fuck you real bad.

SHIT. Coconut coughing again – every time she does, large amounts of spit up accompany it.

‘Imma fuck  up your Nana, Imma fuck her up hardcore, yes I am, yes I am!’

 

Edit: Fuck. Snort just threw up massively bad. If there is a god of twin parents out there, a god of lone care givers, I hope they/it/he/she are on my side. I hope I can care for two throwing up three month olds. Today is their three month birthday, so perhaps the birthday god will also help us out. Oh, and the god of polka dot pajamas.

Answers to your questions:

Saralema – Didymos are the same sort of idea as Moby wrap. One main difference is that the Moby wrap is stretchy, and Didymos are woven. They offer better support for bigger babies/toddlers. We went straight for these as we already have borrowed a stretchy wrap from family (and love it!). The Didymos are also more of a long term investment as you can wear them for ages!

Tatiana – Why not get a wrap now? Lots of people don’t get them till much older. You can even make your own. You can get a shortie one as Maya is older and use hip carries. Our Didymos are also good for rucksack carries – go to youtube. It’s awesome. You can also wear a toddler AND a baby *nudge, nudge*

CJ – a cot is a crib, I think. A cotbed is a cot that is extra large, and when your baby is old enough you take off the side bars and it transforms into a bed. You can use these till they are five. We were going to go for this option (can you tell we like things with longevity?), but with the two cots that are smaller, we will have slightly more room in their nursery.