Should Have Seen This Coming

Newbies

In the last week or so, a very terrifying fact has finally permeated my foggy, exhausted brain.

I've been in a near panic, vacillating between downright terror and utter despondency with brief explosions of excitement in between.

DD- two days old and exploring the world around her

I'm about to have a freakin' baby.

In less than a week, this baby will be the same developmental age that SI and DD were when they were born.  Tiny, but perfect.  With perfectly functional little lungs, with all their fingers and toes...

Tiny, but ready to be in the world.

Less than a week before Baby X is where they were.

I've been getting the feeling that she's getting ready.  I feel her practicing breathing- her back rising and falling rhythmically inside of my torso for thirty seconds or so at a go.  And it feels seriously weird.  But reassuring.  And scary.  Because if she's ready to breathe, she doesn't really *need* to stay in there and get all cute and chubby, does she?  It's best- no doubt- but I don't need to worry about an early arrival hurting her.

My baby girls

I am NOT READY.  Not even close.

I have a nursery with fresh paint in it, but nothing else.

I have a heap of fabric and foam to turn into curtains and a crib bumper.  I have a lamp with no shade.

I have boxes and boxes of baby things that I haven't even opened from when the girls were newborns.  I have absolutely no clue *what* I have.

I haven't packed a bag.  I haven't even made a list.

I haven't even opened my big ol' box of nursing supplies.

I have, however, started to see that I might be in trouble.

Taking our family home from the hospital

What am I going to do when I'm needed by the girls in the morning, to get them dressed and cleaned up for the day, and I've also got a newborn?

What am I going to do when I just want to hold my toddlers on my lap and play with their curls?  Where does a nursing infant fit into that?

What am I going to do when they follow me around the house, asking me to just come and play, while I change a diaper every two hours (or less), or run the ENDLESS laundry that two toddlers and an infant will no doubt create, or try to gently rock Baby X to sleep?

I just. don't. know.

I don't know how this is going to work.

I'm trying to cherish the time I have with my kids before the new one gets here.  But I don't have time.  I have so much to do for the new baby.

One week from today, this is how old Baby X will be

And I have so much anxiety, and fear, and trepidation.

But I'm also excited.  Because I love this baby.  And while I know they don't exactly understand that the baby is real, and is really going to come and live in our house, SI and DD like to tell me that they love the baby, and that hey're going to take care of the baby.  And I know that as much as they can do the latter, they will.  And I have no doubt that they WILL love the baby.  Their baby sister.

"I love you Baby Sisstoo!" they say to my tummy.  And I panic.  Because there is a freakin' BABY in there. Not a fetus, not an abstract idea.  A baby.

I living, practicing-breathing, itsy bitsy human.

SI and DD- friends from the start

Perhaps the most terrifying creature known to man.

...waiting for just the right moment to strike.

I am not ready.  I will probably never be ready.  I must be ready.  Because there is no stopping what is going to happen from happening.

There is no getting around the fact that this baby likes to be up at night.  Or that that this baby has needs that only the adults responsible for her can meet.  Or that this baby is going to be on her way out of my body and into my home soon.

We are going to be a family of five.

And I am scared out of my freakin' mind.

Stream of Barely Conscious-ness

SI helping out a little friend

I have been pretty tense lately.  Tense, tired, and incredibly introspective.

Today I found myself utterly exhausted, running through the various distractions one has at their disposal when one doesn't have the energy to take their children out.

As I zoned out, staring without focus towards the TV projecting "Follow That Bird" into the room, two things penetrated my incredibly sluggish mind.

Inside the tent

One was the nubbins of DD's pigtails, pushing through the purple wall of the tent I had erected in our living room to act as some sort of distraction.

The other was a shape moving and shifting, pushing against the purple fabric of my dress.

For a moment, I was struck with the profundity of it.

It was the same purple.

My daughters, giggling and playing some game I couldn't devote any attention to, there in the tent.

My baby, kicking and rolling inside of my belly.

For a moment, I was struck with the terror of it.

Another child.  Another baby.  Another little person in my life, when I had not the energy for even one at the moment.

Now, my children are playing peacefully without intervention.  Baby X continues to kick, experimentally it seems.

30 weeks

I am running out of time.

I have ten weeks before Baby X is here.

Really, I only have three weeks to get everything done.

This week, I prepare for Passover.

The next three weeks, I prepare the nursery and M prepares for his last finals.

And then I graduate- and my mother moves in until Baby X is here.  And then M graduates.  And then I start up my final, four week long class.

And four days after that class ends...

Baby X's due date.

I am running out of time.

The tent in the living room is filled with plastic and wooden and cloth food.

And with laughter.

It is purple.  The same purple as my dress.

There is another little girl in this purple hideaway.

Quiet mischief

There is more love coming into this house.  There is more to do.  There is so much to do.  There is so, so, so much to do.

Every minute, the toy food spreads across the house.

Every minute is another minute I don't have.

I am running out of time.

I am running out of energy.

I am running out.

I am afraid, and I am tired, and I have so much left to do.

And I am so eager to have all three of my little girls in the same tent.  Giggling, spreading their toys around the house, caring for each other while I stare blankly towards "Follow That Bird."

Somewhere, a toy blender has been left on- endlessly spinning purple bits of glitter into oblivion.

Baby X kicks against the purple cloth.

SI hands me a purple plastic eggplant.

With the sun shining, I see two purple silhouettes in a tent in my living room.

Every minute is another minute that I am not adequately savoring.  Every minute is work lost on my capstone project.  Every minute is a minute closer to our family growing larger again.

For a moment, I can't care.

I am the furthest thing in the world from tense, or nervous.

I am surrounded by the sweetest children I have ever known.

Children that I am too tired to force down for a nap.  Strange though that may sound.

And in my exhaustion it seems that my whole life is...

Purple.  And full to overflowing with love.

I Was Wrong

Mostly, they play together like angels.

I have no doubt that I'll be wrong again, but this time will probably stick in my memory forever.

This is undoubtedly the first of uncountable times that I will be guilty of this particular crime.

..I punished the wrong child.

You see, whenever DD is acting out, she makes the same sound.  It's her last ditch move to express her anger and frustration before she completely melts down.  I know that sound- I will always know that sound.  It's one short "AH!"  Her ultimate act of defiance before she loses all control.

While I was cooking yesterday, I heard a skirmish begin next to the girls' toy kitchen.  And then I heard that sound.  And as I walked into the dining room to find out what had happened, DD pushed SI away.

And, like I do, I began to lay down the law.  I put DD in time out.  I won't quite say that I yelled, but I made VERY CLEAR that it is NEVER okay to push ANYONE.  And as I lectured and forced the time out, DD just wailed and wailed and wailed.

And finally, I got to the point of getting to the bottom of things.

"Why did you push your sister?"  I asked.  I was fully not expecting an answer.  So far, every time I have asked this question it has been greeted with the response, "Yeah," or "Okay."

This time?

Playing at Shabbat

"SI hit me," she whimpered.  Her eyes still filled with tears as she bravely tried to weather her punishment.

I was shocked.

"Where?" I asked.

She began crying harder all over again, pointed at her ear, and said, "Here.  It hurts."

While I kissed her on the ear, I thought back on my own youth and childhood.  On all the times I felt I had been wrongfully punished when the real trouble maker was one of my sisters.

I can't even begin to describe the guilt that washed over me.

"Is that better?" I asked.  She shook her head no, and pointed to a different spot.  Apparently, my kiss had missed the mark.

I kissed her again, and she heaved a huge sigh of relief and pressed her head into my chest.

I called for SI.

"SI, did you HIT your SISTER?"  I asked.  I fully expected her to deny it.  She always does, even when I've witnessed the crime.

SI nodded solemnly.

"Is is EVER okay to hit your sister?"

"No." said SI.

"Is it ever okay to hit ANYBODY?" I asked.

"No." said SI.

Backyard fun with daddy

It was too late to put her in time out.  DD had just spent two minutes in time out, while SI had played happily. So I simply told SI she had to apologize to her sister, and give her a kiss.

She did both of those things readily.

I still feel dreadful.  I acted as I'm sure my own parents did, responding to what I saw, rather than the entirety of what took place.

Does it excuse DD from pushing her sister if she was hit first?  No.  But there is an injustice in only punishing on child.  Particularly the child who perpetrated the less effective violent act.

I'm going to do this again.  I know I will.

I just wasn't ready to be so thoroughly a parent.  I wasn't ready to be so self aware of my own failures, my own fallibility.  I wasn't ready to be straight up wrong.

They still love me, of course.  They will continue to basically ignore these failings of mine for some years to come, no doubt.

But the failings will continue.

I am not capable of being a perfect parent.  I am not capable of always knowing who is in the right, who is in the wrong, and who should be in trouble.  But it is my job to deal with those situations regardless of what I know through my own observations, it is my job to be as fair as I can be.

I let these kids get away with a lot

It is not fair for me to assume that SI is the mastermind behind any altercation, even if I suspect so.  From that she would only learn that I have no trust in her.

It is not fair for me to simply believe my children when they accuse each other of wrongdoing.  I have already come to know that they have the capacity to lie.

It is not fair for me to withhold punishment altogether when somebody acts out, there must be repercussions for wrongdoings- there must be consequences for behavior that is simply unacceptable.  It is the only way I know to impart to my children that there are societal expectations that they must adhere to- and perhaps first among them is how to interact peacefully with other people.

I try hard to discipline without hypocrisy.  Not to punish violence with violence, not to break my own rules.  We talk a lot about choices in our home, the choices to act correctly or to act badly.  We do not talk about somebody being inherently bad for making bad choices.  We stress always that your behavior is conscious, that you know when you are making choices you will regret.

And then it is just as important to see to it that those choices are regretted.

And it works.

I can take a child away from the dinner table while she throws a fit, and bring her back after her time out, ready to eat almost like a civilized person.

I can take a child away from a battle over a toy to talk about choices and consequences, and return her to a room to take turns almost like a rational being.

Through our discussions about choices and their consequences, I can make our children bathe and use the potty and go to bed.

But I can't always be right.  I can't always be fair.

My choices are not always good.

And as a result, I must live with the consequences.

I wish it was always this easy.

...the crushing, never ending maternal guilt that will hover over me as along as I live.

Frightened of the Unkown, and the Inevitable

26 weeks with Baby X

As Baby X makes her presence more and more known, I am beginning to panic.

I have no solid plans for the nursery.  This is irrelevant, as without several weeks of concerted effort, I will have no nursery to speak of anyway.

I don't have several weeks to dedicate to that sort of thing.

I have no idea what I have and what I don't have when it comes to baby items.  I know I have a dozen gigantic storage bins in the basement, but I haven't gone through and organized them.

I have no time to do that sort of thing.

Instead, I have been trying to squeeze in a few hours of sleep here and there, potty train my two year olds (until your kid has taken her diaper off in order to crap all over her bed, you have no idea how exhausted you can be), keep up with school, keep up my health, and keep up with the laundry.

Bringing my twins home from the hospital.  Utterly terrified.

And to reiterate, I am beginning to panic.

I have been very, VERY lucky.  My children were easy babies.  Really, really, really easy babies.

Now they are very, VERY easy children.  But they know something is up.

They know because I am so tired.  Because I am so unavailable.  Because I am so distracted.  Because I am so... worried.

Because they have taken the lessons about good behavior getting attention to heart, they have become absurd little angels.  Climbing on my lap, politely asking to snuggle me, telling me how much they want to play with me.

They're worried.  There's just not as much of me to go around as there was a few months ago.  A few weeks ago, even.  And I fear that in another few short months, there will be so much less.

Five days old, passed out after nursing.

This baby is becoming more and more real.  And what that means for our family is also becoming more real.

I had believed that, having twins, I was used to dividing myself between my children.

I had believed that, having twins, the idea of another child was somehow less dramatic.  Less significant.

And now?  Now I'm just terrified.

I just know now that I'm going to lose something.  I'm going to lose the privacy I had to just love my little girls all the time, to cover them in affection and devote my attention to their games.

I am terrified of this new baby, because I have no idea what she means for our family.  I have no idea what she's going to do to our family.  I have no idea how much things are going to change.  But they are.

And that terrifies me.

I am afraid of losing this.  I would be insane not to be, wouldn't I?

Not Tiny Anymore

Apparently, they're dressed up as me.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been surprised enough by the simple fact to say this aloud... I have children.

Not babies.  Little girls.  Children.

Something in their brains has switched- they don't act like babies trying to get good at being little kids... they act like little kids.

They have tea parties.  They play pretend games, with stories that they act out.  Their functional vocabularies are staggering to somebody who can remember when it was a huge deal that they said "mama" or "dada."  When one of them stammers a bit, trying to find the right word, they know that it's there somewhere... and it is.

Their memories of recent events, and not so recent events, blows my mind.

If I mention snow, they tell me all about when Daddy made a snow ball and threw it "way up high in the air!"  That was months ago.

DD actually corrects me if I make a silly statement, like "You're a monkey!"  "I not a monkey, "she says, "I a little girl!"

And it's true.

Only robots and R2 units are invited to the tea party.

I'm having a hard time coping with that, honestly.

I think part of it is that I always get nostalgic when it comes time to switch them into the next size of clothes.  They're pretty much too big for their 2T stuff now, and for the first time I don't actually have a full wardrobe waiting for them once they're out of the current set of pajamas.  I go through all the new clothes and I think, "That can't be right, that shirt is huge."  But then, so are my girls.  I go through their closet and their drawers, pulling out everything that is simply too small now; the dresses that hardly go past their bottoms, the pants that show every millimeter of their ankles, the shirts that they keep tugging past their belly buttons, the sweaters with sleeves that don't reach their wrists...

It's been almost a year since I switched their clothes.  Almost a year since I swapped out their 18 month stuff for the improbably large 2T wardrobe.

And this time, we're also getting ready to bring home a new baby.

Instead of putting away the clothes into storage and donation boxes, I'm putting clothes into boxes to donate or for Baby X.  "When Baby X is wearing this shirt, my little monkeys are going to be in kindergarten," I keep muttering to myself.

They have some 3T pajamas that are identical to their 12 month pajamas.  If Baby X is a big baby, there's a slim chance that I might have them in matching PJs for a week or two.

In the last year, those owls have been loved to death.

Those purple starred PJs... I'll get used to them all over again on my big, big girls.  And shortly after they've outgrown them, Baby X will inherit the old pairs.

Baby X, still snug in my womb, who will be walking around the same time she gets pajamas to match her big sisters'.

SI likes to joke with me about the baby.  "There is no baby in mommy's tummy!  Baby in mommy's nose!  Baby in mommy's hair!  Baby in mommy's knee!"

DD likes to talk to the baby.  "Hello, little sister!  Hello baby!" she says, sitting on my lap and waving at my belly button.  She seems sure that the baby is actually in my belly button, and not inside my big round belly.

I get to have conversations with my daughters.  They tell me about their day, about their week, about the people they like, about their favorite colors and animals and foods...  They sing songs, they play games, they express themselves remarkably.

Today, as SI began to have her regular mid-day meltdown, DD looked at me and said, "It naptime, mommy!" and scampered off to her room to climb into her bed, while SI wailed, "I don't want get in my bed! I want sleep in mommy daddy bed!"

As DD collected the ever important frog lovies for herself and her sister, she explained to me, "SI very sad, mommy.  She don't want to take a nap."  "Do you want to take a nap?"  "Yes mommy!  It naptime!"

Cooking is very important business.

They actually *get* Skype now.  And ask for it by name.  "Want Skype with Aunt [Genocide]!  Want Skype with Poppa!  Want Skype with Grandmommy!"

Today, they sang Aunt Genocide a very impressive rendition of "Bingo."

I know, none of this is exactly earth shattering.  None of this is unexpected.  But at the same time, it is.  They keep growing, and learning, and while it's happening you're too busy helping them to learn, too busy being so proud of each individual accomplishment, that you don't realize the whole of what's going on.  You don't see that each of those little victories is accumulating, tipping the scale until suddenly you just don't have babies anymore.  You're missing the forest for the trees.

And then suddenly, something as simple as your daughter, wearing pigtails and looking like a mid-80s child TV star in her legwarmers and dayglo green dress, takes off her shoes all by herself and tells you that she saw a jellyfish and it was upside down, and now she's going to play 'So Big,' okay mommy?  See- I took off my shoes!

And then both of them stand up on the living room chairs, chairs that it seems like only yesterday (it must have been only yesterday) they could barely scramble onto, and they throw their arms in the air and shout out, "I so big!"

Then they climb down, crouch on the floor and whisper, "Now I tiny!"

And then back onto the chairs, proclaiming, "I so big!" as they laugh and laugh and laugh.  "I not tiny anymore!"

Two years ago, they were tiny

"No," I say, trying not to choke up.  "You're NOT tiny anymore."

And DD proclaims, "I want to jump on you!"

And SI joins in, "I want to hug you!"

And you throw your arms wide open for your big, big girls to run in and hug you as tightly as they can, because they're not tiny anymore.  And you have no idea how long you have left before jumping on you, giving you hugs and kisses and nuzzles and snuggles, before all of that is something that only babies do to their mommies and daddies.  You have no idea how long you have before you're switching their wardrobes out again, but this time with two little girls trailing you in the store, demanding clothes covered in characters you don't recognize and bearing slogans you find offensive.  You don't know how long you have before switching out their wardrobes means giving them each some money and dropping them off at the mall.

You don't know how long you have left for any of it.

Last week, whenever DD demanded, "I do it myself!" I glowed a little inside.  So proud.

This week, when she casually takes off her own clothes for bed, I can't stop myself from being shocked.

Who taught her that? I wonder.   Who taught her how to be a little girl?

DD's goofy grin

When SI wakes up after a nightmare and calls out, "I want my mommy!" knowing that I can hear her, and that I will come...

When she greets me after my morning on campus with, "You not at school anymore!  You came home!  I love you!"

When DD says, "I don't want to eat my noodles.  I want ice cream!"

When SI proclaims, "I a goof ball!"  And DD chimes in, "I a goof ball too, mommy!"

I put my hands on my stomach to keep myself from crying a little.  Because it's not over.  I have another one on the way.  Another one who will be here soon.  Another baby I can teach and watch and try desperately to protect from ever growing up, while desperately helping to grow up the best that she can.

But it will be so different.  Because DD and SI... they look up to me.  I am their hero, their example, their ideal.

But for Baby X?  It will be DD and SI.  I will always come second to them when it comes to being the coolest person around.  And DD and SI will love their new baby.  They'll love to teach her, to show her their books, to help her learn.  She'll want to dress like them, not me.  She'll want to play games with them, not me.  And by the time she's their age, and she wants to show them how big she is and how many things she can do, they'll be bored by her and think that it's annoying that I make them pretend they think it's the most amazing thing ever.

SI's faraway stare

But it is.  It is the most amazing thing ever.

My heart breaks with all the things I know I've forgotten about my children, about their babyhood.  I can remember in my fingers how soft the skin on their necks was as they slept in my arms.  I can remember in my shoulder the slimy wet spots from where they would latch on and giggle, drooling furiously.  I remember deep in my gut the way I felt when they would laugh their tiny baby laughs.

But I can't describe it.  Most of my memories are replaced by memories of photographs, of home movies.

Instead, I could tell you every detail about them now.  About the beauty mark that has appeared on DD's cheek.  About how incredibly blue SI's eyes are when she's daydreaming.  About how much I love them.

I love them so much.

No child could ever replace them, replace their babyhood.  Baby X can't take their first two years away, ever.  She will have her own infancy, her own toddlerdom.  I'll love her as much as any mother could ever love their child.  Just as I love SI and DD.

Tiny- two and a half years ago

But it will be different.  The whole experience of raising Baby X is going to be different.

My children, they were tiny last month.  Or maybe it was last year.  Or maybe it was longer ago than that.

But they're not tiny anymore.

Now it's Baby X's turn to be tiny.

And then it will be time for my heart to begin breaking anew, all over again, as she also becomes big.

And all that will be left of my babies will be those gigantic, goofy monsters, with their dress up clothes and their robot tea parties, singing songs of their own invention, and needing me only to reach the snacks on the high shelves in the kitchen.  Moving farther and farther away from me into the horizon.  Growing each day, while to them I remain eternally their mother... unchanged in my role for their life.

In the end, I think I might be the tiny one.  One day relearning what I actually do with my own time, what I'm actually like when I'm not dangling children upside down for the pleasure of the cacophony of laughter.  What I'm like when I'm not constantly keeping an ear out for my name, which used to be Lea but now is "mommy."

I miss my babies.  I am terrified and anxious to meet my new baby.

Only 8 months ago

And incredibly, I miss my toddlers.  But I love the little girls who outgrew them in the night to take their places.  I love holding SI's hand in line at Chipotle and seeing her face beam with pride as she announces to other customers, "This is my mommy!"  I love when DD brings me a paper full of scribbles and announces, "This present for you, mommy!"

I wish they would slow down for just a minute.  Just let me hold them and kiss them and smell them and memorize every single inch of them.  But they don't.  And no matter how I tried when they were different, when they were smaller and there was somehow more and less to forget, I did forget.

I wish I could freeze time for a week, for a day, and do nothing but count their toes and run my fingers through their incredibly soft curls.  I wish I could hug them, and just hold onto them for a few hours and remember.

I wish I could explain to them how much they mean to me.  But it would be pointless.  They know how much I adore them...

I'm their mommy.

It's the only explanation that they need.

Mommy and daughter, exit stage right

Edit:
Or, to sum up this whole experience in somebody else's words...

Mother, oh Mother,

come shake out your cloth,

empty the dustpan,

poison the moth,

hang out the washing

and butter the bread,

sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house

is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery,

blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little

Boy Blue (lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).

The shopping's not done

and there's nothing for stew

and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo

but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing

will wait till tomorrow,

for Children grow up,

as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs.

Dust go to sleep.

I'm rocking my baby, 

and babies don't keep.

Whole People

One thing they do have in common is how much I love them.

I really wanted to do this last night, but I was far too busy helping M put together our massive new collection of bookshelves and editing a new header for this blog (my babies are big girls now!).

I've been following PostSecret since I discovered the concept in Found Magazine.  I think that was probably nine or ten years ago now.  I anxiously waited until Sunday to check the livejournal feed every week, and there are secrets from the beginning that still haunt me.  I remember one, written on an unfilled prescription slip, by a person who couldn't find a way to tell his wife she was going to die.

PostSecret, 2005

And then there are some, like this Hitler secret, that still crack me up.

Living in the Central time zone is great, because it means that a lot of weeks, I actually get to read the secrets on Saturday night.  It feels like cheating, but it's something I still look forward to constantly.  I can't tell you how close I've been to sending in dozens of secrets, but each time I realize that my secret is something that shouldn't be a secret.  That I have people I care about that I can confide in, and that it's a healthy thing to do for me to take advantage of that.  I know how lucky I am.  I know how isolated and alone I felt back when I did lead a life full of secrets, and mostly secret pain.

I think that PostSecret isn't just an incredible art project, it's a public service.

At any rate, yesterday I discovered Mad Jackie's weekly event, Secret Sunday.  It's a weekly link-up and writing exercise.  You go through the week's secrets, pick one, and use it as a writing prompt.

I also freakin' love a good writing prompt.

Unfortunately, this week yielded a surprisingly small collection of secrets.  I think that's because Frank Warren, the creator/administrator/curator of PostSecret is still posting secrets from the short-lived iPhone app. So I went back a bit, I'm not sure how far, and picked out this one.  As it sort of speaks to something that I frequently find myself internally drafting diatribes about.

People feeling the need to label my twins.

www.postsecret.com

I don't feel like in my family we split up "pretty" and "smart" genes.  We split up "crazy," "smart," "funny," and "creative."

Lucky us, there are more "crazy" genes than anything else.

But people really are determined to label children as soon as possible.


When they were newborns, and M and I would take them somewhere- say, to a restaurant or a hospital waiting room- bystanders would ask me, "Which one is the quiet one?"  "Which one is the social one?"

It's constant, and it has never stopped.

Because there are two of them, they must represent different traits.  One must be smart, one must be pretty.  One must be quiet, one must be troublesome.  One must be a good sleeper, while one must be a good eater.

I don't see people do this as much with singletons, but it still happens.  And the fact is, it's so pervasive that children do it to themselves.

My children aren't simply aspects of a person that opposes a different aspect.  My children are people.  That means that they have moods, they have funks, they have passing whims.  Yes, right now SI constantly asks for help.  That doesn't make her "the needy one," that means that she's figured out that when she says, "Help, mommy!" I might do something for her that she thinks is a little too much trouble.

DD is picking up whole phrases and using them in context right now, that doesn't make her "the verbal one."

They're both people.

They're people with preferences and quirks.

Just like anyone else.

Aunt Something Funny, me, and Aunt Genocide

I think they get it worse as twins, but this was the case with my sisters and I.  I always considered Aunt Something Funny to be "the smart one."  I always considered Aunt Genocide to be "the funny one."  At different times in my life, I was intensely jealous of them for that.  I tried very hard to present myself as "the creative one."

But Aunt Something Funny isn't "the smart one."  She's one of three girls, born within about three years, who are all very, very smart.  She was the best at telling adults when they were wrong, she did have the best ability to recall impressive vocabulary, or identify specific dinosaurs.  She got good at Scrabble first.  She was also the oldest.

Aunt Genocide isn't "the funny one."  She's one of three girls, very close in age, who are all very, very funny.  She was the best at clowning around for a crowd, she was the best with a biting comeback, or a hilarious one-liner.  She also felt from a very early age that there was no way she would ever be "as smart" as her older sisters.  Which is a belief that, I'm sorry to say, Aunt Something Funny and I encouraged.

I wasn't "the creative one."  I was one of three sisters right behind each other in school who had a variety of talents.  I might have had the most drive to perform, I might have had the most art supplies in my rooms, I might have listened to the most progressive music, but I certainly didn't monopolize creativity.  Aunt Something Funny is a brilliant writer.  Truly brilliant.  I've reread one issue of her zine, published about a decade ago, more than almost any other book I own.  Aunt Genocide is an amazing photographer.  Really.  Even if she's decided that her passion lies more with her "smart" pursuits in academia.

Not "the boisterous one."

And we're all crazy.  And yeah, we all have our opinions on who is the craziest.  But frankly, there are enough kinds of crazy going around that we can all have our own.

The idea of teaching my children that they are whole people, not defined by their similarities or differences to each other, has been important to me since I first learned I was having twins.  I see so many other multiples- and their parents insist on dressing them identically.  What does that say about them?  That they exist only as reflections of each other?  That in fact, they are only one social entity?

How would I have felt if I constantly matched my sisters?

I would have felt even more that I needed to identify myself- to be "the creative one."  Because aside from that, I would have had no other distinctions.  I would have been simply part in a collective person.

I wouldn't be Lea the individual, I would be Lea of "The Borenstein Girls."

Just as DD and SI wouldn't be DD and SI, they would be, "The Twins."

They'll probably never get away from being, "The Twins."  No matter what I do, it's going to happen.  Just as I was lumped into the unit of my sisters, they'll be lumped into the unit of their twindom.

And yes, I've been guilty of dressing them alike.  Or as complements to each other.  But only as a special occasion thing- only for a picture, or for a big family event.  For something that they will understand as "not the way things normally are."  But each time I do it I feel ashamed.  Because being a twin isn't just a cool trick they can do.  It's a facet of who they are.  And I have no right to make a spectacle of that without their consent.

No, she's not "the sweet one."

I'm sure that it will be easier for them to actualize as individuals being as visually different than each other than it would be if they were identical twins. But they're not- no more than I am identical to MY sisters.  They just happened to be born at the same time.  And that means that they are automatically perceived as being part of a set- incomplete without each other.

I just wish that the rest of the world would stop treating it as some sort of novelty act.  One person, with traits divided between two bodies.

They are TWO people.  In some ways similar, in others, not at all alike.

Just as any two people in the world might be.









...and for those of you reading through a platform that doesn't actually show you my blog- the new header:

"Becoming SuperMommy!"

 

Revenge of the Big Girl Beds

Say, "Awkward!"

In order to enact some small revenge, I am illustrating this post with the worst of the worst outtakes from the girls' photo shoot for our holiday cards.  Don't judge me just yet- when they were newborns M would punish them for puking on cute clothes by putting them in the ugliest clothes that we owned.  So, now my goofy pictures don't seem so mean, do they?
 
As you may recall, we recently made the switch to "Big Girl Beds" with a little... well.. pain and suffering.  Grandmommy, rock star that she is, got us these bed rails.  They make it VERY DIFFICULT to accidentally roll out of the bed.

That was helpful.  For a while.  But there is no irresistible force that can match an mischievous toddler.

An odd thing began to happen.  During the routine fourth or fifth round of, "Get Back Into Bed Now Or I'll Do Something You Won't Like,"DD began magically appearing in SI's bed.  This didn't particularly bother me.  In fact, I had considered SI the greater threat to naptime or bedtime harmony- after all, SI would wait until DD was almost asleep, and then begin shouting at top volume, "Debba!  Wake up!"

But no, this concerted effort to stop her sister from sleeping was not the worst to come.

In recent days, naptime has devolved into seemingly endless hours of constant screaming. So how on earth has this happened?  What could have transpired to utterly ruin my afternoons?

Allow me to illustrate.

Imagine that you've put your kids to bed for a nap.  You have cleverly parked yourself in the rocking chair in the corner of their room, so they can't get up.  At all.  No goofy antics.  No giggling.  No shouting.  Nothing.  Just peaceful drowsiness and then blessed, blessed unconsciousness.

Or so it seems.

The moment you leave the room, everything changes.

DD pops her eyes open, and begins her evildoing.

She slowly, silently, creeps from her bed.  Ever so carefully, she sneaks into SI's bed.  And with as much force as her little toddler arms can muster, she pushes SI OVER THE RAIL and out of the bed.  SI hits the floor with an astounding thud, and DD lays her head on her sisters pillow to go to sleep.

SI, naturally, wails in misery and horror.  Her nap has been interrupted a mere half hour into its course, and VERY rudely.  I of course rush into the room to mete out comfort and punishment, and then things get a little... out of hand.

DD wails at being forced back into her own bed.  SI wails about her injury, repeating "Debba push me!  Debbah push me!" until too exhausted to proceed.  At that point, DD begins wailing again, anxious to get attention for her own misery now that SI is evidently "cured."

SI, without fail, allows me to place her back into her bed in order to comfort DD, who of course has no real memory of the cause of her current angst.  And once DD is peaceful, quiet, and sleepy... I attempt to leave the room.

Up to this point, SI is decidedly the victim.  DD is the bad guy.  Pretty clear.

At this point, however, the roles change.  I become the victim, and SI becomes my cruel tormentor.  I am no longer allowed to leave the room.  I am no longer allowed to simply sit.  I must hold her, rock her, soothe her, until... when?  She certainly refuses to sleep again, but she's so tired she can't do anything but.  So I spend the next as-long-as-I-can-stand-it rocking SI while DD peers at me gloomily, occasionally whimpering or crying which sets SI off again as well.  Any attempt to even stroke DD's hair while rocking SI results in SI screaming bloody murder.

When my need to do ANYTHING ELSE becomes too strong, I place SI back in the bed, and retreat.

For as long as I can stand the blood curdling shrieks coming from both of my children.  And it begins again.

For two hours or so.  Or as long as it takes to erase all memory I might have had of a life before the screaming began.

I think I've managed to make it pretty clear to DD that it is NOT okay to push SI out of her bed.  But I just can't get it through SI's head that holding me hostage when she just needs to close her damned eyes and be still is in her best interest.

You win this time, Big Girl Beds.  But I'll have the last laugh.

Eventually.

I hope.



...dear lord, I hope.

Complicating Factors- Or, My New Widget

Tummies are Awesome!

As I mentioned recently, I've been having some... rather complicated health problems.

The gall bladder thing, skin cancer, catching every little bug that goes around...

If you follow me on Twitter, you've probably noticed routine complaints that I am either hungry or tired.  Or nauseated.

There's a reason for all of that.

I'll tell you the same way I told all my friends on Facebook...

That's right!  I'm pregnant!

I found a super cool widget for the blog- it has a rendering of my new grubling floating around in what is supposed to be my extremely spacious uterus.

I can't telly you how excited we all are about it.  The girls are absolutely thrilled about the idea of the baby in mommy's tummy.  SI is insistent that she wants a brother, while DD refuses to acknowledge that there could be any acceptable outcome but a baby sister.

M is pulling for a boy, which isn't a surprise.  I'm totally on the fence.  I feel like I'm kind of awesome at raising girls, and I don't really know if boys would be different.  At the same time, I would love to have a little boy as well.  So either way, I'm going to be thrilled.

The day I found out I was pregnant was a pretty amazing day.  I had noticed a mole that had gone all... funny.  You see, when I'm pregnant I get skin cancer.  It's kind of terrifying, but there's really nothing I can do about it.  So when I saw that mole changing, I thought to myself, "I should take a pregnancy test."  I wasn't due to start my period for another two days, easily, but I went ahead and tested.

I went into shock.  I took the test as soon as I got home, so our new sitter was still there.  I called her the bathroom with me (she obviously thought she had started working in a crazy house- the look on my face must have been terrifying) and asked her if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.  She flipped out.  She kept saying the line was a little faint, so maybe I wasn't pregnant and I should stay calm.  I thought I was a lot calmer than her, so I told her to go home and started trying to put my thoughts in order.

This is an impossible task in a house filled with active toddlers.  So, I took them into the back yard.  The back yard had a few surprises in it for me.

First, there was the GIGANTIC katydid.  The girls LOVED it.  And I couldn't help myself but smile.  Katydids are a symbol of fertility and luck.  There's a an old Chinese blessing, "May you have as many children as the katydid."  I helped the gigantic insect escape from my children by promising them we could look for another "big bug."

We found one.

It was a GIGANTIC grasshopper.  Another luck symbol.  And another Chinese omen- it's supposed to be a harbinger of a baby boy.

It seemed kind of impossible.  Those first few weeks, I seemed to be followed everywhere by katydids and grasshoppers, reminding me that even if the only difference I could physically feel was mutating skin cells, I was going to have another baby.

And seriously, I was practically being stalked by katydids.  On my walk from my car to class.  Sitting on the wall outside the pharmacy.  Hanging out on trees near my friends' houses.

Katydids everywhere.

We've passed through all the scary things well enough so far.  It turns out that I'm a carrier for a really terrifying looking genetic disorder.  But after a few weeks of fretting and worrying, it turns out that M isn't, so that's a huge load off my mind.

I'm due at the beginning of June, after graduation but before my last summer class.  That is going to be a HUGE challenge.

But M will be done with school.  We'll both be graduating.  We'll be free of that huge weight, that huge responsibility, and free to get better jobs- that give us more resources and more time.  And that's a gigantic relief.

We'll have our whole summer with the new baby.  All of us together.  And then... then the girls will go to preschool, and for the first time I'll find myself alone with just one baby.

Ideally, for the first time I'll find myself with only one child in diapers, too.

Of course I kind of suck at pregnancy.  Through the whole first trimester- this time as well as the last- I was just so darn ill that I actually lost quite a bit of weight.  And once again, I'm having SPD problems.  (For those of you unfamiliar- it means my hips have prematurely loosened to make way for a baby that just isn't really there yet.)

Just try figuring out a way to get enough calories when you are a)constantly puking, b)have no appetite, c)restricted from eating fat or meat or dairy or eggs, and d)chasing two toddlers with hips that keep threatening to dislocate.

It makes me nervous, but it doesn't bother my doctors.

One of the best parts of this new pregnancy is that we didn't use fertility assistance.  We got the all clear that M is fully recovered from his chemotherapy (he was on chemo from August of 2007 until February of 2009), and so... we just went off of birth control.

And a few months later...

Well...

It looks like we're going to have to find a way to fit another person into our little condo.