abc family

Were Little Boy

I posted this on Twitter yesterday, and I'm still chuckling about it (although only because the alternative would be whimpering, and I try not to go the whiny route).

I made nachos for lunch today, and Blaise wanted some, but neither a) with meat, nor b) without meat. Uh, it's called the law of non-contradiction, kiddo. You can't get around it.

Oh, yes. Blaise is three.

When Camilla turned three I thought I was going insane. How had my sweet, rational, affectionate little girl suddenly become this crazed impossible-to-please monster? What had I done?

This time around I have a slightly more balanced perspective. I know I haven't gone insane. HE has gone insane, and whatever developments are grinding away in his brain must be serious, demolition-level stuff, because the histrionics are so ridiculous they're hilarious.

But Blaise. Oh, Blaise. That kid has my heart.

Two weeks ago he fell down the stairs at 6pm and I had him to urgent care before 7, so sure was I that he'd broken his arm. Praise God, his arm is fine, but waiting to get the x-ray took a couple hours, and I was there with him for a while before Bryan switched me out. (Babies won't take a bottle. Bah!)

As he sat on my lap in the exam room waiting for the doctor, munching an apple and watching me play games on the iPad, he snuggled his head into my shoulder and whispered, "I love having Mama-Blaisey time."

Me too, buddy. Me too.

2011 was a tough year for all of us but I wonder if - Bryan's and my exhaustion and general strung-outed-ness notwithstanding - it wasn't hardest on Blaise. Camilla was old enough to understand and anticipate the babies' birth, but Blaise couldn't, and I imagine he must have been surprised when we took him to the hospital to show him two (!) brand-new brothers.

(My sister Tirienne told me that after Blaise went to see the babies, she asked him what they were like, and he held up his hands close together and said, "Dey're really little and tiny." For some reason that description tickled me.)

But then we brought the babies home and - while Blaise loves Ambrose and Linus and has never tried to hurt them or acted out toward them - both his devoted parents were suddenly very, very busy. Our household has never had such a stressful year, and I can imagine dealing with it as a two-year-old has been bewildering, to say the least.

In my head, Blaise looks like this:

Still a baby, always my baby, in a onesie and a diaper, the skin on his chubby arms and legs soft. My baby Blaise loves to cuddle, is enthusiastic and fascinated by the world around him, but is sweet, always so sweet.

But, the eyes of mother-love aside, this is a truer picture of him:

That striped/pink item is not some bizarrely-shaped sofa cushion. It is his sister. He is sitting on her.

My Blaise, my always-sweet baby, is a first-degree stinker who is filled with glee at each chance to pummel his sister, or tackle her, or grab a toy out of her hand and run away cackling while she chases him shrieking.

So... "always sweet" might be overstating it, is what I'm saying.

Yesterday Camilla and Blaise took a bath, and near the beginning he was threatening to dump water on her head. I told him he'd have to get out if he did. That was enough to deter him... until about twenty minutes later, when he was ready for bathtime to be over. I heard Camilla wailing, ran in to discover he'd poured an entire cup of water on her face, and told him he was done. He grinned, "Okay, Mama!" then hopped out of the tub. 

Did he do it because he knew the threatened penalty was now affordable? I'm hesitant to ascribe that level of craftiness to a young three-year-old. But he's got the potential. The SEEDS are definitely there. And I think we're going to have to get more creative with discipline as he grows.

(He worked the system! My sweet baby worked the system!)

Blaise is a middle child all the way - a little tentative, a little attention-hungry.

In this picture, for example, I was trying to get a shot of Camilla in her pretty new dress. 

 He JUMPED right in front of her, showing no remorse when she whined. I had to hide my laughter.

Those are small (or as he would say, "tiny," his stock word for all things diminutive) train engines clutched in his hands. Percy and Gordon and Hiro from Thomas the Tank Engine (Puh-cy, Goa-don, Hee-ro), his favorite toys. He takes them to bed with him. Lines them up, end to end, and lies on the floor pushing them in a circle around him for ages. Ten to fifteen minutes at a time, anyway, which is an age for a three-year-old. Just him, whispering "chug-chug-choot-choot" and talking about shunting and puffing and all sorts of train-related things.

He's verbal, surprisingly so for a kid who didn't say a word before 16 months, but if he's frustrated or upset he clams right up. I try - and mostly succeed - not to compare him to his sister, but shoot. She was so much easier to reason with, even as a three-year-old, and I'm finding myself adjusting, tweaking, reassessing my approaches to keep up with him.

I think of Blaise as resilient because he's always been so much less emotionally needy than his sister, but in his way he is just as sensitive. Last week he was distressed for a couple days over a dream he'd had that we left him alone at my parents' house - as much as I tried, I could not get him to fully realize that it was just a dream - and he was so forlorn. He teared up every time he talked about it and I wanted to gather him into my arms and never leave him again, so sad did it make me.

His speech quirks are disappearing rapidly. (Until a few months ago, he inserted "no" randomly into his sentences instead of using proper negatives. I miss that so much.) But he still does one of my favorites, saying "were" instead of "our." "Were babies" he calls Linus and Ambrose, bestowing fervent if none-too-gentle kisses on them. I find myself saying "were" instead of "our" sometimes too; I think it's my subconscious way of trying to prolong his error.

To prolong his toddlerhood, really.

Blaise is our tough guy, rough-and-tumble, fully capable of terrorizing his sister and other people bigger than he is. (Ask Bryan, who handles his night-time wake-ups, all about that.)

But he is soft too, still little, still in many ways that sweet baby I see when I imagine him. Over Christmas we went back to our hometown for a week and he had a great time: playing with cousins, running wild at the grandparents', but after six nights he was ready to go home. He wanted "were house."

I promised him that we would stay there, stay home for a couple of days, and on the strength of that assurance he rested on the drive.

I can see in him the big guy who will someday leave us, who will be excited to grasp his independence and stride out to meet the world. But for now my baby just wants to stay at home, to be with the people who love him best. 

Three can be a challenge, but on my Blaisey it's just as lovable as every other age has been. 

This is really just a long tweet

So I mentioned on Twitter tonight that I "don't believe in teething anymore" and some people, reasonably, were all, "Wha-ha-ha?"

I tried to answer but it wouldn't fit in 140 character segments, and I thought about writing it down somewhere else because I don't really use my blog for stuff like this, but then I realized that just because I don't doesn't mean I can't, so here we are.

Obviously I BELIEVE in teething, in that I know that babies cut teeth. Trust me, I know - Linus and Ambrose have each cut six in the past six weeks. They've done a LOT of chewing on Mama (mostly my fingers, thankfully - I don't tolerate biting while nursing).

But when we were visiting the pediatrician with the newborn twins, he happened to mention conversationally that "teething isn't real." And I had the same reaction as my Twitter friends: "Wha-ha-ha?" Of COURSE teething is real. Babies cut teeth, and it makes them act crazily, and that's just the truth.

He mentioned, though, that studies have found that parents often attribute symptoms to teething when their children are not actually cutting teeth. He hypothesized the symptoms are probably caused by developmental leaps or by mild viral infections. I pooh-poohed, and ranted a little to Bryan on the way home.

But then I thought about it more, and I thought about how with Camilla and Blaise, I blamed lots of fussiness and various symptoms on teething... only to have the symptoms pass before they cut a tooth. Or, conversely, I'd find they'd cut teeth and expect fussiness/sleep/whatever to improve, only to have the symptoms continue for a while, apparently unrelated to the teething.

I went looking and found that the doctor wasn't lying about the studies. I thought about how it makes sense that people would imagine a cause->effect relationship with teeth. A baby acts a certain way, eventually his behavior changes, the only obvious thing that happened in the meantime was a tooth cutting - of course you're going to think that teething caused the craziness.

So I decided to pay super-close attention to Linus and Ambrose as they teethed. Our kids are late-ish teethers, so the twins didn't get their first tooth until almost 7 months, on December 3rd. They cut the first one (bottom right middle incisor) on the same day, after having basically no fussiness or unusual sleep interruption beforehand. They had a couple truly awful nights later that week, which we thought might be connected to the second tooth cutting, but they also had a cold then (thanks, older siblings) and the cold passed and the sleep got better before the second tooth came. 

Over the next six weeks, ending in mid-January, Linus and Ambrose cut five more teeth each. (They now have the bottom middle incisors and all four top incisors.) During that time, they had some random fussiness, including one particular week where all they wanted was for me to hold them. (That is REALLY FUN when you have two babies.)

But here's the thing: I was watching closely, checking their mouths every day, and their behavior seemed to be almost completely unrelated to their teeth. We did notice a couple times when one twin would have a slightly rougher night than usual, and in the morning he'd have a new tooth. (Conveniently for our purposes, L&A cut their remaining teeth at different times and even in different order.) But that was the extent of it. Otherwise, their fussiness and random sleep interruption seemed to be unrelated to teething.

So that is why I don't believe in teething any more.

I'm curious: what has your experience been? I'm interested! Especially if you've got some hard data (or as close to data as you can get with this kind of stuff, anyway).

Share your stories! Tell me I'm an idiot! Let's all be mom-geeks together!

2011, Vanquished

I decided I didn't want to skip this meme, so I just changed a few of the questions to be more relevant to my life. Hasta la vista, 2011!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Was hospitalized for a reason other than to give birth (to stop pre-term labor, thankfully with success). Gave birth to twins. Came home from the hospital and left babies in the NICU (definitely the worst part of my year). Nursed two babies. Brought home and cared for two babies. In general, the newness in this year was related to the Two Babies. 

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My new year's resolution was to survive 2011. It was close, but I squeaked by.

In 2012 I want to feed my family more vegetables, give my big kids more attention and affection, and try to be gentler with myself. We'll see how it goes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not anyone geographically close, but it was an Internet baby BOOM. In particular I was anticipating the births of A'Dell's Charlotte, Diane's Leo, Maggie's Emma, and Maureen's Ann Marie, but I could name another half-dozen Internet cuties as well. I have a lot of Twitter friends with new babies, and sharing the experiences (especially in #midnightfeedingclub) was a big part of keeping me sane this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
 

Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit? What states did you visit? What counties did you visit?

Well, what with going to our hometown (which is ninety long miles away) two entire times, plus making a trek all the way from the southern part of our state to the northern part of our state (with babies in tow)... I bet I was in eight or ten different counties this year. Wow! That is almost a dozen whole counties.

You can call me intrepid. I won't argue.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Peace.

I have wound myself so tightly trying to manage my life that I am not so much living as I am ricocheting from task to task with no time to enjoy or even to notice the good things I have. That needs to change. This year, I hope it will.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

May 5: My friends on Twitter were talking about Cinco de Mayo margaritas and I was sitting in a hospital bed watching contractions peak on a monitor and listening to a neonatologist talk about NICU time. It was the day I let go of my plan/hope of having full-term babies and bringing them home right away.

May 12: In the first hour of this day Linus Michael and Ambrose John came (practically) flying out of me and our life was (for the third and fourth times) changed forever.

May 13: I was discharged from the hospital and left my babies there. I cried a LOT this day.

May 27: We brought Linus home from the NICU without Ambrose. More crying. (Sense a theme?)

May 29: Finally, both of them home! A joyous day. 

December 25: Christmas at home with our little family. The year was almost over and I think this was the first time I realized and affirmed that we will live through this.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I kicked butt this year. I gave birth to TWO babies! I exclusively breastfed them (I'd been lucky to have had easy nursing experiences before, but this time I worked HARD to feed my babies.) I managed to be a primary, stay-at-home caregiver to four children under the age of five for many months.

I was more exhausted, more strung out, more despairing at the hugeness of this job than I've ever been, and I still pushed through.

2011 was the year when I realized that that "cannot" is really - no, really, as cheesy as it sounds - NOT in my vocabulary.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I'm tempted to name a bunch of little things, but they are so tiny in comparison to the success of this year that I'm refusing myself permission to list them.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I might've had a mild case of preeclampsia the week before the babies were born; the doctors could never agree. I had mastitis in mid-summer which fortunately passed quickly, but I was miserable for a few days. I suffered a couple killer headaches and a bunch of minor ones that I'm pretty sure would stop if I could manage to get enough sleep and stay hydrated. Bah! But otherwise, a pretty healthy year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Camelbak hydration pack, which got me through bed rest and which I still keep in bed with me at night so I can drink water without even sitting up. That thing rocks.

Also the iPhone 4s. It's my first smartphone and I'm hooked.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Bryan's. I always chuckle inwardly when people ask me if he "helps" with the children. If you know him, you know what a ridiculous question that is. He matches me stride for stride and I'm continually amazed by his willingness to sacrifice his needs for mine and the kids'.

Lauren's. Having her at the other end of the phone line is a big part of the reason I'm sane. She has been SUCH a good friend to me this year, in all my most pathetic moments, and has supported me without wavering even as I'm struggling to cope with a blessing she's seeking. THAT is a true friend.

And my whole family's. My sisters especially have each given a lot of their time and energy to help me this year; my parents, as usual, go above and beyond; and my brothers are better at admiring baby pictures than any other young single guys I know. All of them are a blessing to me.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Honesty, I can't read every third news story lest the horrors keep me up at night with the Bad Thoughts. But that whole Penn State thing was especially awful.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Probably to the mortgage, as usual, but we spent an unprecedented amount on medical bills this year. Our out-of-pocket costs for L&D and NICU time were pushing five figures, and we have decent health insurance.

We can't afford to have twins OR a preemie again anytime soon, is what I'm saying.

15. What did you get really excited about?

This was not really a year of excitement. It was more a year of trying not to be terrified, then being relieved when things turned out okay, then being exhausted and overwhelmed, then continuing to be relieved when time marched on and we somehow managed to survive.

I *am* pretty excited that 2011 is over now. I expect 2012 to be a much better year.

16. What song sound will always remind you of 2011?

It's an unbeatable combination, really: shrieking + cackling + wailing + gulping/swallowing.

The shrieking is Camilla, upset because Blaise is beating up on her. The laughter is his, obviously. One baby is wailing because I am not holding him. The other is gulping/swallowing because he is nursing, which is the reason I can't get up from the couch to solve the shrieking/cackling/wailing.

It is SAD how many times this exact scenario happened to me this year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 

– happier or sadder? This is complicated.

On one hand, I am worn thinner than I've ever been, and am exhausted and overwhelmed a lot of the time. I cry often.

On the other hand, I am relieved, both that my twin pregnancy had a happy ending and that we made it through the first eight months with two babies. And also, we HAVE those babies, and Linus and Ambrose are a joy and a gift in themselves.

On balance, I'm going with happier, but I hope that this time next year I am happier AND rejuvenated AND more content.

– thinner or fatter? Thinner. But this time last year I was in the second trimester of a pregnancy during which I was specifically trying to gain weight. So that's not saying much.

– richer or poorer? Poorer. Did you read the part about the medical bills? And we've just decided to send Camilla to private school next fall, so watch this space for the same answer next year.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Being gentle and patient with my husband. Listening to my big kids and enjoying them. Giving myself credit. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
 

Blaming myself and viewing every weakness as a failure.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
 

At home, just the six of us, on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. 4:30pm Christmas Eve Mass, appetizers for dinner, reading The Grinch, A Visit from St. Nicholas, and the account of the nativity from the Gospel of Luke, hanging stockings. Opening stockings with the big kids at 8:00am before the babies were up, eating cinnamon rolls and bacon for breakfast, opening family presents one by one around the tree.

Later in the day my family came for a big dinner, and we continued our Christmas celebrations over the following days, but the evening of the 24th and the morning of the 25th were perfect.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
 

With my baby boys, of course.

22. What was your favorite TV program? 

As is my tradition when a baby is born, I re-watched all of Gilmore girls. I still love it.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
 

I don't hate anyone.

24. What was the best book you read?
 

My best reading experience this year was re-reading Harry Potter, the whole series from start to finish, in November and December. That is one incredible story.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Did you, by any chance, perfect your recipe for blueberry muffins this year? Would you like to share it with the world?

As a matter of fact, I did and I would.

26. What did you want and get?
 

Two healthy babies, praise God.

27. What did you want and not get?
 

A full-term birth for my babies. A reasonable amount of rest, of both the emotional and physical types.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? How much pizza did you eat this year?

A truly ridiculous amount. I'd like to say that will change in 2012. We'll see.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
 

I turned 29 on August 23rd. It was a fine day. I remember very little about it, just as with most of the days in the babies' early months.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I'd spent more time appreciating how hard I was working instead of blaming myself and worrying about unimportant details.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011? Have you showered this week? Good for you!

Thank you!

32. What kept you sane?
 

Bryan, Lauren, my family, my friends outside the computer and (sort of especially) on Twitter. My support network rocks. Also, I started going to counseling in mid-October and over two-and-a-half months it has already helped me immensely.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Can you sing the theme song from Thomas & Friends? Do you hate it?

I can and I do. What a freaking earworm. 

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Did you manage to read any magazines?

I always page through my issues of Cuisine at Home and Cook's Country and Bon Appetit with excitement, even though I'm currently unable to try many new recipes. Looking forward to more cooking once things settle down around here.

35. Who did you miss?
 

My sister Miriel and my brother Brandon, hundreds of miles away. Lauren, ditto. The year I learn to apparate is going to be the year my life finally improves immeasurably.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Besides the babies, which is sort of obvious, I'm going with my new online-turned-real-life friend Laura. She's a long-time blog reader who's local, and while I technically met her in 2010, she's been awesome this year - so helpful and supportive and fun. I'm grateful for her.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

Self-flagellation is a very bad idea.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Do you like cheese?

Yes, as long as it's melted and not too pungent.

Good-bye, 2011!

Merry Christmas! (2011 recapped)

I sent this letter out with our Christmas cards this year. I've blogged a lot of this stuff, but it gives a pretty good update on our year. I would've sent this to every blog reader if I could've - and I'm praying for the greatest blessings for all of you in 2012!

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! I hope that this letter finds you well and celebrating the holidays with those you love most.

2011 has been a roller coaster marathon of a year in our household.

The first big event was in early January, when a 16-week ultrasound revealed that our identical twins - who were due to be born in June - were boys. That ultrasound and further ones found the babies healthy and thriving, thankfully.

While I could still travel, Camilla and I flew to the DC area to visit some dear friends and my sister Miriel who was living there at the time. On the trip we had high tea at a hotel downtown, a highlight that Camilla still talks about months later! It was a treat for me to travel alone with my “big” girl - at four she’s inquisitive and easy to excite; I loved watching her enjoy the trip.

In late February, Bryan took what would turn out to be his only business trip of the year. He’s never had a year with this little travel, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. The kids and I stayed with my parents for the week, and it was then, around the 25-week point of my pregnancy, that I started having the contractions which would cause my doctors to put me on restricted activity (a modified form of bed rest) for the remainder of the twins’ gestation.

The rest of the winter and early spring passed slowly, although in retrospect it seems to have gone by in a flash. We made it through March, and then April. Bryan handled the household chores; I spent a lot of time on the couch concentrating on growing babies; Camilla and Blaise worked on their self-amusement skills. (Those skills have come in handy since!)

Then came May, our whirlwind month. After a short hospitalization to stop preterm labor and a few days at home on strict bed rest, our twins decided it was time to come, so they did!

Linus Michael, at 5 pounds 7 ounces, and Ambrose John, at 5 pounds 12 ounces, were born at 12:38 and 12:41am on May 12th, at 34 weeks 3 days gestation.

In case you’re wondering about the names: the babies are named for early saints. Linus is traditionally considered to have been the second pope, and Ambrose was a great scholar and doctor of the church. Michael is Bryan’s middle name and St. Michael the Archangel is a special family patron, and John is after my grandfather and St. John the Baptist.

The twins’ birth was a crazy one but surprisingly good, thanks in large part to my doctor, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who delivers multiples regularly. I credit her with my managing to avoid a c-section, something that was important to me.

Having avoided surgery turned out to be an advantage over the next few weeks, since while I was recovering from giving birth, Linus and Ambrose were catching up from having come early. They spent 15 and 17 days respectively in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. While I wouldn’t recommend NICU time to anyone, we had a sort of best-case preemie scenario: our babies breathed well from the beginning and only needed jaundice treatment and some tube feeding until they could get strong enough to eat on their own. And we’re lucky to have a great NICU just 2 miles from home, which made it much more bearable.

Still, the day we brought them both home was one of the happiest of the year. There’s nothing like being forced to spend many nights away from your newborns to emphasize the joy of having them with you!

But then the real work began. Having twins is like Extreme Parenting: all the normal baby tasks, doubled. There’s no way to spell each other, no way to get the breaks you get when you have a single baby. We were blessed to have my mom and sisters take turns staying with us for the first month, but caring for the babies is still a round-the-clock job, and Bryan and I would take turns moaning and blithering at each other as we sat up feeding twins in the middle of the night, near-drunk with exhaustion.

Fortunately, things got better. We got Linus and Ambrose off bottles onto full-time nursing, which simplified feeding. They started sleeping [somewhat] better. They held their heads up, smiled and laughed, and finally at around six months began sitting on their own. It’s two steps forward, one step back, but we are slowly making our way toward the time when (we hope) we’ll be able to really enjoy having twins.

In the meantime, we have two other kids to enjoy, and this has been a great year with Camilla and Blaise.

Camilla turned five in October and I’m casually homeschooling her for kindergarten, with a plan to send her to a local Catholic school for first grade next fall. She loves math and is making great strides in reading, and spends non-school-time drawing and creating all sorts of games to play with Blaise. When the two of them aren’t careening all over the house, she also deigns to help amuse the babies (for a few minutes at a time, anyway). She’s a delightful kid.

Blaise, who will be three in January, is a fireball of a kid, and while we’re working to (ahem) help him learn to curb his aggressive tendencies, we really enjoy his enthusiasm. He loves all things vehicle-related, especially “frucks and frains” as he calls them. He literally runs from place to place around the house, usually with a small truck or train clutched in his hand, so excited is he to find the next piece of mischief to manage. We’ve loved getting to know him as his verbal skills have developed this year, and we expect he’ll keep us laughing (and probably groaning) for years to come.

Bryan is still working at [redacted] and really liking a new project he started working on this fall. I’m still writing sporadically for faithandfamilylive.com, and looking forward to doing more as the twins get older and life settles down a bit. Neither of us gets nearly enough sleep, but we’re grateful for the crazy blessing of our little family, and we can’t wait to see where 2012 takes us.

And as a reward for making it to the end of this letter, here are a few extras the Christmas card didn't contain:

Linus (l) and Ambrose (r) just after we put the tree up in early December. New at sitting!

Camilla is always trying to convince me that she can carry the babies around. Here she is with Ambrose.

But look how happy they are when she's NOT doing that! (Linus)

Kids on Christmas Eve - Blaise with Ambrose, Camilla with Linus

Perfection

Remember when I said I feel competent?

I lied.

I know I am competent. I remind myself on a daily basis that I am accomplishing a lot for one person and doing a pretty good job of it. I try to be happy with myself, to congratulate myself, to tell myself that my family is blessed to have a wife and mother who is so dedicated to their well-being.

I don't believe it for an instant. And while I can see, objectively, that I am competent, I almost never FEEL that way. I feel like I am exactly the same person I was in the early years of our marriage, when I had 12 hours of class a week and almost no homework and still rarely managed to go grocery shopping or do laundry.

We went on a weekend trip in October, came home to a broken dishwasher and stacked our duffel bags in the hallway. Over the following days I managed to empty the bags, but still they sat in the hallway. Every time I passed them, I berated myself. I get nothing done around here. It's such a mess. Those should have been put away a long time ago.

Never mind that every time I passed through the hallway I was either carrying a baby or rushing to tend to one. My self, harsh critic that she is, cares not for such details. She just wants me to get it right. Every. Single. Time.

My husband loves me. He thinks and tells me that I am doing a wonderful job. My family? Ditto. My friends? Ditto. All the kind people on Twitter and in blog comments and emails? Ditto.

But when I hear or see those words my mind says, Well, they don't really know. They don't know how often you slack off, how much you really could do if you applied yourself to the job. They think you're doing well, but they don't have the whole picture.

You'll probably be glad to hear that I've started seeing a counselor, a cognitive therapist who is doing a kick-ass job of helping me work through all of this stuff. 

(Interesting aside: I typed "kick-ass" there, because that is what I would say if I were talking to Bryan or Lauren or Miriel, but then I erased it because some people might not like it. But then I typed it again, because during my last counseling session I started to say it and stopped, and the therapist - who is awesome, and also Catholic, for the record - was like, "Were you going to say 'ass'? It's okay for you to say 'ass.'" And then he let/made me say it, because it is okay for me to be who I am even if who I am is very slightly vulgar, instead of worrying about keeping other people happy all the time.)

Anyway, he made me tell him everything that I do well as a wife and mother. My immediate instinct was that it would only be fair for me to tell him all the ways I should improve, and that it would be more productive to start with those.

So after we talked about why I have such a hard time giving myself credit, I actually listed the things I do well as a mother. There are plenty, it turns out, and many of them are intangible. Like working hard on keeping my temper and not yelling at my children. Or nursing the twins, which technically has a tangible result of growing, healthy babies but which on a day-to-day basis just means my house is a bit messier and each baby has spent some time fussing while his brother ate.

(I kid you not, I have some guilt over the fact that if we were bottle-feeding I could feed them both at the same time and they wouldn't have to wait as long. Even though I try and mostly succeed to keep them on separate schedules so they rarely have to wait anyway. I'm telling you, there is nothing about which I will refuse to feel like a failure.)

I sat and listened while the therapist described me back to myself in my own words, and had to admit that I sound good - not perfect, but like someone who is trying hard and managing a lot. 

We talked about perfectionism and my immediate reaction was that I'd better work on it before my kids get old enough to catch on, because I don't want to screw them up. And he laughed and said, "Do you realize that you're even talking about this in terms of something you have to get right?"

Huh.

After six months of the hardest work of my life I'm worn almost see-through, and struggling to see and believe that I'm doing it well. I can laugh at the absurdity of my point of view as I write it out, but I have to cry too because this is a confusing place to be. I'm battered by my life circumstances and my own standards and I have a hard time seeing a way out.

When Camilla was five months old I wrote a post called "Making It."

If I wrote the same kind of status update now, I'd have to call it "Faking It."

For the time being, it's the best I can do.

 

I'm leaving comments open on this post not because I want everyone to jump in and tell me that I'm doing a great job (Remember? I won't believe you.) but because I'd love to hear about similar struggles - or dissimilar ones - that you've been through. Where've you been? Where are you now? How did you get there?

Linus's and Ambrose's Birth: Part 4

It's Tuesday evening. I'm in a room, sporting an IV port but not hooked up to anything, suffering in a corset of monitor belts, my blood pressure elevated but not alarming, my contractions regular but not too painful yet. I've hit this point in labor before, with contractions five minutes apart, and things have always progressed forward from here. I know my body. I know these babies are on their way.

Except, then, they're not.

As the evening progresses, my contractions slow and then disappear almost entirely. Cessia has warned me that she heard the team of residents talking about inducing me if my lab results show any preeclampsia signs. (There's a team of them, four young women, who all seem friendly and down-to-earth but whose names I can't quite recall.) No induction tonight, though, as one of the residents comes in around 10:00 to tell us that my lab results are "stone-cold normal."

I'm relieved to avoid the Pitocin drip for now, but since no one has mentioned any possibility of being released, I assume I'll be inpatient until the babies are born. Which makes my irritable uterus's suddently refusal to contract all the more, well, irritating.

Bryan and I chill for a while, playing games on our iPods and watching an episode of Gilmore Girls. Eventually I suggest he go to bed, and he gets comfortable(ish) on the room's fold-out couch-chair hybrid. I decide to see if getting out of bed will help things move along, so I stand next to the bed, swaying and watching the contraction monitor. When I'm on my feet I have long contractions and my back aches horribly, but the contractions aren't getting stronger or more regular. And I'm miserable on my feet and so happy lying down that after a while I can't resist getting back in bed.

Cessia was replaced at 11pm by my night nurse, Danber*, a middle-aged woman who's not particularly charismatic or encouraging. She tells me grumpily that if my contractions aren't regular it means my cervix isn't dilating. She also seems annoyed at how often she has to come in and reposition my monitors. (Twin heartbeats are hard to track.) We're both relieved, I think, when at 2am the resident in charge decides the babies can come off the monitors for now. The single belt of the contraction monitor feels beautifully light in comparison.

(Since it's hard to keep two monitors in place, L&D nurses often like to use two belts on the heartbeat monitors, meaning with two babies plus a contraction monitor I was sometimes wearing FIVE straps around me. I'm not kidding that it feels like a corset.)

I can't sleep, so I stand up for another little while around 1am. The contractions still don't become regular, though, and my back hurts so much that I don't want to keep it up when lying comfortably in bed is the other option. (It occurs to me in retrospect that I was feeling back labor, which I'd never had before because Camilla and Blaise were so nicely positioned. But with two babies, no wonder my back hurt!) After about an hour, I lie back down and go to sleep for a while. Three hours then another two, the best rest I've had in a while.

7am shift change and a new nurse with an (apparently) unmemorable name comes in to catch a 20-minute strip of monitoring on the babies. They're active and reactive, just perfect on the monitors as they always have been and will be. (Amen.)

Except, as perfect as everything looks when we can get the data, we're having a hard time keeping track of the babies in utero. Baby B seems to be in an entirely different place than he was yesterday - he's been breech on the top left for weeks, but now it seems like he's farther down, farther to the left. He's been kicking differently too, so this seems right to me.

Blah blah whatsit and general hospital-type waiting around while a resident tries to track down an ultrasound machine and figure out exactly where the babies are, and then out of nowhere Dr. Happy Chatty shows up and takes over. 

She surprises me by telling me that with my bp just borderline and nicely stable, and my lab results perfect, that she's going to send me home this morning and see if we can get a few more days out of me. I'm conflicted about this - I know that it's best to give the babies more time in utero, but at the same time I'm worn out and emotional and kind of want this whole thing to be over. 

(In retrospect, if I'd understood what NICU time is really like, I'd have been fully in favor of more pregnancy time no matter what. But I didn't know then.)

Before she releases me, though, Happy Chatty does a routine cervical check. I'd mentioned seeing some reddish signs of dilation during nighttime bathroom trips and she'd raised one eyebrow; as she checks my cervix both of them jump toward her hairline. 

"You're at... seven centimeters. Eighty percent effaced."

She strips off her gloves and grins. "You're not going anywhere today."

It's a weird, defining moment of the whole ordeal. I'm surprised to find my first feeling is relief that I don't have to go back into bed-rest and possible-preeclampsia limbo where I wonder each morning if I'll have to be induced that day. Instead, my body is stepping up, leaping toward getting those babies out. It doesn't even need a real labor patttern to get things moving. 7cm, baby!

Babies!

HC does a quick ultrasound and discovers why my labor has stopped: Baby B, the stinker, has flipped head-down. He and A are "battling it out," in her words. She's seen this before and says that, while we'll give things a chance to move along on their own, it might take "a whiff of Pit" - a tiny amount of Pitocin to get my uterus contracting hard enough to force one baby down ahead of the other. But it's my choice if/when I want to try that. With the babies looking as good as they do, she's willing to let things ride as long as I want.

I'll be moving to full-size Labor and Delivery room (since I have to deliver in the OR anyway and the ward is full, they've had me in a smaller overflow room where they keep patients who need L&D care but aren't delivering imminently - the same kind of room I had during last week's preterm labor episode).

Dr. HC wants me to eat a good meal, relax for a while, do whatever feels like it might help to get things moving. But it's nice - there's no pressure on me, no worry about the babies, just hanging out and seeing what my body does. The babies are a little early but they and I are healthy and there's every reason to expect this delivery should go beautifully.

But will it?

*I'm going to keep anagramming the names, but if you can't guess it, the correct order of those letters is 465312

Linus's and Ambrose's Birth: Part 3

This is me the day I went to the hospital to give birth. 34w1d pregnant:

(Please to compare with this picture of me at 36w3d pregnant with Camilla. You've got to be kidding me.)

I blogged from the hospital that afternoon, when I was under the impression that I had gone to the hospital for a definite induction, and that the babies would probably be born that day. I was hoping my labor would progress on its own and I wouldn't need interventions.

While we were in triage, Dr. Happy Chatty stopped by for a talk. I was excited that she was on call. During one office visit she'd mentioned that she thought I had "good birth karma" and she was positive about my chances for a vaginal delivery. I appreciated her upbeat, "you can do this" attitude. The prospect of delivering twins intimidated me, and it helped that she was breezy about it.

Dr. HC leaned against the wall and we chatted and laughed, but we didn't make a definite plan. I think she was assuming that my bloodwork would show some red flags that meant we should speed up the birth process. I was assuming, like I said, that my body would do its thing and labor would progress. No one mentioned me going home.

My body - or more accurately, my babies - had some surprises for us.

The triage midwife had declared me just 4cm, and my contraction pattern was clearly early labor, so we agreed that Dr. HC would go home and check in by phone throughout the evening. "We've got a great team of residents," she told me.

They moved me to a labor and delivery room, smaller than the normal ones because they were at capacity and twins are born in the operating room anyway. We had a friendly young nurse, Cessia*, who kindly called an expert tech to place my IV port when I showed her how last week's tech had bruised me. IV in, monitors hooked up, contractions still just mildly uncomfortable - we were ready to go.

Cessia snapped a photo for us. Two fingers for two babies!

At this point, my spirits were high. I wasn't thrilled to be giving birth pre-term, but I'd had a few days to adjust to the idea of the babies doing NICU time. And I WAS thrilled that my pregnancy was almost over. I had no idea how the labor and delivery would go, but it seemed like my body's birthing abilities were kicking in, and I trusted it.

We were moving along.

 

*As a small courtesy to the medical people who helped us during my stay, but to avoid my having to keep a bunch of pseudonyms straight, I'm going to use anagrams of their names in this story. You'll probably be able to figure them out, but at least they won't be Google-able.

Accent Vlog

I saw this first at A'Dell's and since I was sitting on the couch with Linus on my lap and time on my hands, I decided to jump on the bandwagon. I'm bummed both twins weren't in the video, but it would've been pretty, um, HECTIC that way.

So. This is how I talk. How strong does the accent sound to you?

I realized after I uploaded and screened the video that the top half of my face is cut off for a third of it. But you can see Linus the whole time, so I think you got the good end of that deal.

She Has Many Faces

When you let an almost-five-year-old loose with Photobooth, funny things can happen.

I feel like it's been all-twins all-the-time blogging here recently, but Camilla's still hanging around. And still as delightful as ever.

Managing

I feel like I should whisper this, but... life around here has been manageable lately.

We have:

1) an almost-five-year-old whom I am now homeschooling for kindergarten

2) a two-year-old who seems to be starting three-year-old behavior now even though his birthday isn't until January (The kid didn't talk until 16 months, but for some reason he has to be precocious NOW?)

and, of course

3) four-month-old twins. They are fairly mellow babies despite their reflux, but there are still TWO of them.

Considering these circumstances, I feel like "managing" is the best I can hope for. It's not going to be smooth sailing right now, but if we make it through each day with no large mishaps I think we're doing well.

Honestly, I have never been so proud of myself as I am now. I feel incredibly COMPETENT. I am somehow teaching Camilla, riding herd on Blaise and her, keeping the babies happy, and still getting laundry done, feeding my family, and keeping the house tidy enough that I don't go crazy. Looking at it objectively, I have zero idea how it's even POSSIBLE for me to do everything I'm doing. And yet. It all gets done.

Well, there is Bryan. Bryan is incredible, and I don't use that term lightly. He pulls his weight, and then some. I have no idea how I got so lucky.

I don't want to make it seem like it's not a struggle. It IS, and sometimes I melt down. I dread the end of the weekend when Bryan goes back to work. I'm stretched as thinly as I've ever been. My roots are out of control and I wear pajamas 85% of the time. 

But... when we found out we were having twins, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it at all. I imagine I must have a breaking point, beyond which I will become unable to function, and I secretly suspected that twins might be it. What a relief to find out they're not.

When we first brought Linus and Ambrose home, I was often so physically tired that I would sob. Just because I was tired. Exactly like a little kid does. During middle-of-the-night feedings Bryan and I would each hold a baby and a bottle and sort of... moan at each other with exhaustion. We couldn't form coherent words, let alone sentences. 

But we got through that, and it is so much better now. It happened gradually, but the biggest turning point was when we cut out bottles all together. The babies exclusively nurse, and at night when one of them gets hungry Bryan hands the baby to me from the crib on his side of the bed. I nurse him lying down, then Bryan puts him back. Neither of us wakes up for more than a few moments. It is a great solution.

So now that we're not weak with physical exhaustion, it's really just the existential exhaustion. Most of the time I don't feel tired, just stretched, worn, thin from moving moving moving all the time. Hardly a moment when I don't have to *do* something, never a moment where someone might not need me to do something in the next. It's unrelenting and it really does wear us down.

It'll get better, though, and in the meantime I suspect this is good for us. A kind of training camp for the hard reality that is life. Something that will, in the end, make us better and stronger and happier people. 

I hope so, anyway.