Not Exactly the Algonquin Round Table

Today was my first full day alone with the babies. I've had them for short periods on my own before, but never for a full day. It was fine! There was no crying at all, and just a bit of fussing, mostly from Nora during Milo's bath time as I basically had to leave her in the Nursery O' Stink for a few minutes. They took a decent hour-long nap in the morning, which actually gave me some time to get things done. Their afternoon nap was terrible, only 25 minutes, so we still have to work on napping skills.

I now understand why parents get so excited about the little skills babies develop. You hear that a baby can put something in her mouth and you think "big deal, I do that all the time." But it's exciting when you start to see your kids finally doing something after weeks of just basically lying there. When they were first born they were pretty much cranky lumps. Now they're no longer lumps; they can do all sorts of things, which has me excited to see what new things they will develop. So far:

• Milo can roll from front to back.
• Nora has rolled once from back to side.
• Both can hold their heads up pretty well when sitting supported.
• Nora sits very well in the bumbo seat; Milo lists to one side a bit.
• Both babies can grab things and hold small things in their hands.
• Yesterday Milo pulled a ring on one of his toys and made it play a song. He then proceeded to do that about 18 more times.
• Both babies can see across the room and will smile at you from that distance, or respond to a smile.
• Milo is just now starting to get the hang of using iambic pentameter; Nora is pretty good at integration, but still sometimes forgets to add the +C.

Here's another video I took today. It's basically just Nora and Milo being cute.

Body, Hunger, Chocolate

When I was seventeen I'd look around at older women, mothers, matronly types with polyester pants stretched tight over their hips, the zipper on the fly exposed because they had tried to stuff themselves into a size too small. In my infinite 17-year old arrogance, I would tell myself "that will never be me." I would never be that...gross. It's all a matter of self control, I'd smugly think, carelessly enjoying the thin body that my genetics gave me. It certainly didn't have anything to do with exercise, or healthy eating, or self control. Not at seventeen.

Cut to today. Grandmom gave Nora and Milo huge beautiful chocolate and peanut butter eggs for easter. One read "Milo" and one read "Nora". Because they're still a little too young for chocolate, I had to make the sacrifice and help them eat the eggs. I had a sleeping Milo in the sling, and I was sitting at the computer responding to emails and eating a giant piece of that giant chocolate egg. I then looked down to see crumbles of chocolate that had melted all over the inside of the sling, Milo's shirt, and Milo's head. I actually woke up my sleeping baby because I was cleaning chocolate patches off of him. This is how low I have sunken.

How did I get from there to here? If I ran into my 17-year old self now, I'd disgust her. The pants are too tight. The shirts are too tight. I have entire sections of my wardrobe that I should just throw out now, because there's no way I'm ever wearing that skin-tight halter top or that bikini ever again.

Oh yeah, I know how I got from there to here. First I got old. Then I got pregnant with twins, and gained 40 pounds. I did that cheerfully, and every pound gained was a pound deliberately gained, as I tried to put on as much weight as I could. This took work because I wasn't hungry during my pregnancy. I was either sick or on a crummy diabetes diet which involved way too many servings of beef jerky and far too few servings of ice cream. Then I delivered the twins and finally learned what nursing hunger is all about. I am hungry and thirsty all the time, all day long and all night long. The next thing I know, it seems like a good idea to inhale a giant chocolate and peanut butter egg after having already eaten a complete lunch. A lunch that involved sour cream.

The babies are 3.5 months old by now, and yet my body is nowhere near back to where it used to be. When I was pregnant I went to a conference in Providence. The conference organizer was both beautiful and exceptionally thin, and I was surprised to learn that she had a 3-month old baby. She told me that my body would return to its normal state, or more realistically, "within epsilon of normal." Curses, I believed her. It worked for her, why not for me?

I know it's time to stop inhaling chocolate eggs and time to start breaking out the jogging stroller. I also know, or suspect anyway, that my body will never look the way it used to look. There's just too much...stuff around my middle. Is it skin, is it fat? What makes up this strange shelf that hangs over my giant scar? I don't know, but I doubt it's going to disappear for good. Even if it does, the stretch marks don't look like they're going anywhere. So I have to calibrate to a new normal.

And you know what, that's okay. The shelf is creepy, but I find that I look at the shelf, and then I look at Milo. I look at Milo's wrinkled forehead and his giant eyes. I look at the stretch marks, and then I look at Nora's upturned nose, and her tiny perfect mouth. So this imperfect lumpy body made these two perfect little people. The tradeoff is worth it. It's a trade I was begging to make for years. So it's okay.

I think.

(Above -- a picture of me at age 31, pre babies, and a picture of me the day after the babies were born).

Grandpop the Photographer

I guess I was Wrong

A few months ago, Jake and I had this conversation:

A: T's [photography] work is so different from, say, the piece we have downstairs in the living room.

J: What piece?

A: The one hanging opposite the sofa.

J: Uh...what does it look like?

A: You know, the one of the shoes and the dress.

J: What? What are you talking about? What does it look like?

A: You know, that photograph that's been hanging on the wall for, like, the last 3 years? The one that you've been looking at every time we sit on the sofa? The one you see every single day when you walk through the living room?

J: Huh? Is it black and white? Is it in color?

A (head about to explode): How can you not know what I'm talking about? Every night you sit on the couch and look right at it! It's a HUGE framed photograph! It's the only thing hanging on that wall! You know, the one with the shoes and the dress?

J: I have no idea what you're talking about.

A: Aaaaaaaaa!

I concluded that Jake was just remarkably, disturbingly unobservant. But apparently I was wrong, as evidenced by today's conversation:

J (as we're walking on the sidewalk in front of somebody's driveway): That car belongs in this driveway.

A: What?

J: That car. It's going to turn into this driveway.

A: What car?

J: That black Audi.

A:Where?

J: There, down the block, driving this way.

(The car does indeed turn into the driveway.)

A: How did you know that? We're not even anywhere close to home.

J: I notice things.

No Mother of the Year Awards Here

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This morning I was pulling Nora's onesie over her head and one of the snaps on the bottom got folded under so that it scraped along the top of her head. The onesie was already a little tight so it was a hard scrape. She started screaming immediately, of course. She was easy to calm down but now she has an angry red mark along the top of her head, and I feel like a class-A jerk.

The whole week has been like that. I stand up and knock over my water cup, spilling water everywhere. I twist the ice-cube tray and ice cubes pop out and spill all over the kitchen floor. I trip several times a day for no good reason. I bang the car seat against the inside of the car door, leaving a mark. I just can't seem to get anything right, to get it together. Geez.

How long can I blame stuff on sleep deprivation? I've been sleep deprived for 3 months now and at some point I imagine the sleep-deprivation excuse for being a dumbass is going to wear thin. Or already has.

The worst part is that I can't afford to make mistakes when taking care of babies. What if the next mistake I make results in a dropped baby? I don't want to drop a baby on his or her head and then end up with a kid who leans to the left all the time or something.

I won a national award last week and this news has just been posted to our national organization's web site, so now I'm getting all kinds of congratulatory messages from people. It's so odd to receive these career accolades while screwing up again and again both at home and at work. Some day people are going to figure out what a giant impostor I am. I just hope I can keep fooling everybody until after tenure!

It's a strange feeling to simultaneously exist as this career person who is supposed to have her shit together, and as this new mother who keeps making rookie mistakes.

Up above, Milo's cute shoes and Nora trying to sit in the bumbo seat. They are both great at holding their heads up when they're on our lap, but when they sit in the bumbo seats, they still let their heads loll back.

Numbers

Today the babies are 3 months old, and 13 weeks old. I estimate that I have spent over 11,000 minutes pumping since they were born. That's over an entire week just pumping. That doesn't count actually nursing the babies.

Pumping is such a pain, but on the other hand, it gives me time to write blog posts.

We have changed almost 1,500 diapers since the babies were born.

Last week Nora was over 9 pounds and Milo was over 10 pounds. Nora has doubled her weight since she was born. Milo has probably done the same by this week. Way to go, babies!

I thought maybe I would have to pay for taking this picture, but the flash didn't wake them up after all. This is how Nora and Milo sleep. You can see Milo's flattened head in this picture, and how we encourage him to sleep facing his left by putting Nora on his left side.

This week my mother in law left unexpectedly, three weeks earlier than planned. So now it's just us. It's kind of scary, and kind of nice. On Monday I had meetings that I couldn't miss, so Jake stayed home by himself with the babies for a few hours. When I returned home they were all still alive, so things must have been okay.

One way we need to deal with things like errands and meetings is to just split up the babies. It turns out that I can handle going to the grocery store with one baby, but the thought of going by myself with both babies seems overwhelming. However, Jake can take care of one easily enough if I take one with me. Same with work. I can take a baby to work if necessary, leaving the other one home with Jake. Today I took Nora to a faculty meeting and she slept through most of it, but woke up at one point to raise her arm, as if she were in school and had a question. The chair said "you don't get a vote, Nora."

I have a feeling that maybe things will get easier as the babies get a little older and a little bigger. Right now they can play in their crib with toys and the mobile, or they can play under the activity gym downstairs, but basically their playing consists of lying on their backs batting at toys above them. Or lying on their bellies either trying to roll over, or doing face plants and crying hysterically until the 5 minutes of tummy time is up. So the play isn't all that exciting, and it can't last that long. So what do I do to entertain the babies? I can either have them playing in those ways, or I can carry one around in the sling, but then what do I do with the other one if they're both awake? I can put them in bouncy chairs or in the swing, but then I kind of feel like I'm neglecting them by doing that, even though I'm in the same room and they're watching me. I keep worrying that they're thinking "Pick me up, mommy! Don't leave me in this chair!" Which is silly because when I do put them in a bouncy chair in order to take a shower or something, they seem perfectly happy.

In the morning, after I feed the babies, they are usually awake and happy but I have to pump after the feeding. So I'll turn on the mobile and they'll coo at it and play with their crib toys while I pump. But again I worry that I am neglecting them by just leaving them in the crib like that while I'm pumping. Stuff like that makes me want to give up pumping, but then I know that means less breastmilk and more formula. I've decided to keep pumping until they are 6 months old, and then give myself permission to stop.

I know the thing is that I have to find ways to go about the day and get things done with the babies, and because they don't sleep all the time anymore, I need to be okay with doing something like putting them in bouncy chairs while I cook dinner or do the dishes. I hope that's okay. I have this feeling that it'll get easier as they get bigger because then they'll be big enough to play in the exersaucer, or jump in the Johnny jump up. So there will be more play options and I can rotate them between different fun stations, so to speak.

Right now I'm typing with Milo in the sling, and Jake is on his computer with Nora in the sling. When both of us are here it's okay, because there are two adults to hold two babies. It's those times when I'm on my own (or when Jake is on his own) that I fear. But the only way to get more comfortable with it is just to do it.

I worry that twins, by nature, just have to live with less parental attention than they deserve. It's too bad. On the up side, they will, I hope, always have each other.

Life with Milo

Jake just said, "dude, you can't afford to poop. Your ass is on fire." That's not exactly about Milo, though. That's more about Jake and Milo. Today Milo pooped the poop of death, or rather, the poop of acidic fiery molten lava, the kind that burns away at the skin. Literally. We changed his diaper and he must have pooped an hour before that or so, and that hour left a burn all over his bottom and his legs. A weepy, red, angry burn. I can't imagine how much it must hurt. It must hurt to have his bottom wiped and it must hurt to have his diaper changed, and I can't blame him for screaming as loudly as he did.

Milo is amazingly good at calming himself even under the most stressful circumstances. Heck, I'd be crying too if I had a nasty, weeping burn and somebody started rubbing it. Milo brings his hands together in front of his chest and holds them close to each other, grasping at himself as he calms down. It looks like a deliberate calming mechanism. Milo purses his lips in a look of sad concentration, clasps his hands, and stares right into my eyes as his cries fade into wimpers, and then into silence. Sometimes he'll then start smiling even as his eyes are still red.


Milo's got some mad skills. He can roll from his belly to his back, and he can reach out and bat at a toy with pretty good accuracy. He tries and tries and tries and tries to grab those toys, and sometimes he succeeds. The best skill of all is one that Milo possesses; he can put himself to sleep. We can put him in the crib drowsy but awake, and he'll go to sleep. That is the gold star of baby skills right there.

Nora likes the mobile and the mirror; Milo likes the soft ball and the soft cube. He can't get enough of touching those toys. Milo also loves his little blue bear that hangs upside down. He'll hold entire conversations with the bear, sharing his little baby secrets in his deep, husky little baby voice.


Milo is a serious baby. He always looks like he's thinking about something deep, and sometimes I swear he's holding his head up with his eyebrows. His whole forehead wrinkles up in concentrated worry. Then, I pick him up, or I sing "Morning Milotown", or I say "Hi Milo man, hey there Milo", and he grins the biggest grin, changing his face entirely. He looks like a different baby smiling that wide, sweet smile. I don't know if I love him more when he looks worried, or when he lights up. Each time I decide I love him more when he's doing whatever he happens to be doing at the moment.

Milo's head is a little flattened on one side and, being the paranoid first-time parents that we are, we took him to the doctor to have her take a look at it. She wasn't worried about it but suggested that we do things to encourage him to rest his head on the other side -- the round side -- and otherwise stop worrying about it. So we've switched the changing table to the other direction, and I try to remember to hold him in my right arm instead of my left, and most successfully we put him to sleep with Nora on his left side. Inevitably Milo will turn his head and sleep facing her, every time. He looks like he's watching over her. I can almost see the child he will become, the man he will become.

Life with Nora

Nora loves to raise her arms and stretch them whenever she's not confined in the straightjacket swaddle we wrap her in to sleep. As soon as the velcro comes off, her arms shoot out above her head like some sort of victory gesture. Sometimes Nora will even eat like that. She'll spread her arms out and guzzle her milk as she grunts with satisfaction.

Nora grunts a lot. She grunts when she drinks, grunts when she sleeps, grunts when she farts, and the funniest of all, grunts right after she farts in some twisted baby expression of extreme satisfaction. We get a huge kick out of that.

Nora was the smaller twin, born at only 4 lbs and 9 ounces, so in the very beginning I was inclined to worry about her. But that disappeared pretty quickly because something about her just seems...tough. She seems resilient. Nora knows what she wants and does what it takes to get it. If she wants to eat, she yells, and she gets it right away. If she wants to be held instead of put in the crib, lo and behold I'll get to the end of the day and realize that somebody's been holding her almost constantly. When Nora gets mad, she cries like she's mad, not like she's distressed. She just sounds pissed.

Actually, she sounds exactly like Cartman from South Park. Any of you who have seen that cartoon might remember the way he whines to his mom when he wants something: "But mommmmm...." That's what Nora sounds like. I expect that she'll soon start telling Milo "Respect Mah Authoriteh!"

When Nora gets excited, which happens most often while she's looking at her mobile, she starts huffing in these high-pitched excited sounds. "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!" This baby girl is so verbal that I have a feeling we're going to have a real talker on our hands when she gets older. She's either cooing, grunting, or huffing in excitement.

Nora has discovered her fist, and is now able to get it to her mouth with fairly reasonable accuracy. For some reason Jake and I both just love this. She is so cute, sitting there sucking away on her fist. The other day Jake was holding her and she started sucking on her fist, and we both said "awwww...how cute." Jake remarked "This makes it all worth it." That's such a lame parent cliche, but I knew

exactly what he meant. Somehow watching our little girl suck on her fist like that, watching her accomplish that major baby feat, it made everything seem worth it. All of the broken nights and all of the tears, all of the frustrating days seemed to melt away as we sat there, transfixed, grinning like a couple of idiots as we proudly watched her shove that fat little fist all the way into her mouth and start sucking.

Mama and Daddy love you, you little grunting fist-sucker, you.

My Guys

I've Got a Fever, and the Only Prescription is More Cowbell

Here are things about life with Jake:

When Jake moved in to this house, we completed the job in a day with the help of his friends, his parents, and their minivan. Later we started unpacking boxes to sort things out in the basement room, and I pulled out a framed picture of...Christopher Walken. The guy owns a photo of Christopher Walken. I don't know what that means.

Jake spends the day at home taking care of Nora and Milo with his mom while I go to work. Thursday I had to attend an 8:30 meeting, a noon job talk, a 1 p.m. lunch, a 4 p.m. meeting, and a 6:30 dinner.  It would have been impossible for me to have done all that without Jake caring for the babies at home.  

When the toilet runs, Jake fixes it. I don't know how to do that. I've never bothered to learn.

Sometimes I attempt to tandem nurse the babies, and it sort of works. But the only way it works is when Jake is right there to place them, and to pick one up and burp him or her when necessary. When I don't try the tandem thing, I nurse one while Jake feeds the other. Those babies are getting fed by Jake almost as much as by me. They're spending just as many hours in their father's arms as in my arms. 

On the one hand, I think this is wonderful and it's exactly how I want it. We are deliberately working on having a peer marriage. On the other hand, the LLL book on raising multiples tells me that it is critically important for the babies' abilities to attach that they get fed by one person only, and that person must be their mother. So then I feel guilty for breaking that rule. (The book is called "Mothering Multiples", but I think they missed part of the title as it should really be called "Stay-At-Home Mothering Multiples"). 

 

Jake can't really feed a baby without simultaneously singing a song. He doesn't sing songs designed for babies. So I get to listen to him sing "Mysterious Ways" or "Sweet Caroline" when nursing. 

 

Jake does the taxes, and thank goodness for that. Our tax situation is ridiculously complicated.

When I was first married to Jake, I worried that he would get some fatal disease and die. The whole thing just seemed too good to be true -- he seemed too good to be true -- and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still get unreasonably worried whenever he gets sick. 

Jake isn't perfect, of course. He leaves the faucet handle wet after brushing his teeth, and he's not very good at being quiet when I'm trying to sleep, and he sings way too many bad 80s songs. But the ways in which he isn't perfect are so minor when you compare it to what an asshole I'm capable of being. There's no way I could raise Milo and Nora without Jake doing everything that he is doing. I just couldn't do it. Having two babies is hard on a marriage. We're together all the time and yet we have no time together. I can see how that would drive people apart. I don't think that will happen to us; I hope it won't. Instead, we're dealing with this sort of like it's boot camp. Once you survive boot camp together, you're more bonded than ever before. 

Now if only I can get him to get rid of that creepy Christopher Walken photo.