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.

Comments

[Lisa]

Oh, I love this. A picture of reality and the challenging blessedness of it. Glad to hear something from you about the day-to-day. Glad you were able to be coherent enough to type it out. I'm not sure I would be, if I were in your shoes.

[Jessica]

I'm glad things are going well! I was sure you were going to say the secret of getting it all done was to never sleep.

[Erica]

Amazing. Keep it up.

[Maggie]

You ARE amazing, lady. And props to Bryan too. I think I would probably be muttering in a closet somewhere and my husband would have long ago left me for a nice little beach hut in Fiji.

[A'Dell]

You ARE amazing. How do you do all of this? I would love a "day in the life" type of post, particularly with the home school stuff. I keep trying to cram some educational stuff in and...no. It is not happening yet.

You are truly my inspiration, and not for that trite "if she can do it with twins I can do it with only two" way. No. (But, yes, because THAT IS AMAZING.) You are a woman with incredible resource and strength on several metrics and I just....I think you're an awesome person, labels aside. I am so glad to call you my friend.

xoxo

[Valerie]

I've got my sister's toddler for the day, similar age to mine and I was thinking about wine at ten am. Seriously, you are amazing. For real.

[Elsha]

Arwen, you are awesome.

[Check Insurance]

A picture of reality and the challenging blessedness of it. Glad to hear something from you about the day-to-day. You are amazing. For real.

[Cin]

Keep on trucking, Arwen. I have 4, but no twins -- and I know there were points after Eddie was born when I was so tired I just cried.

Wondering, (and you don't have to answer but as an Internet prayer-friend I wonder)are you managing to keep your weight up with all this work and nursing twins? How are you feeling physically? (We mothers, we worry about everyone!)