Video Cuteness

Relief

I'm writing this at 5 a.m. because it's just easier to stay up right now than go back to sleep for what might be 10 or 15 minutes. The babies have been up, oh, about ten thousand times tonight, but I can't blame them because they just had their 4-month shots and they're feeling like crap. Milo had a temperature of 101.9 earlier tonight but now it seems to have broken.

The weather is currently taking a shift from spring back to winter. I'm watching the temperature drop right this very minute, and I can feel the change happening as the cold wind blows in through the closed (crappy, ancient) window next to my computer. The job candidate we made an offer to decided not to accept the offer, so months of hard work and wining and dining has just gone down the drain. But I don't mind any of this too much because I am so relieved about Milo and his head. Today we saw a specialist to find out whether he had craniosynostosis, which is a condition in which some of the sutures in the skull fuse too early. The treatment for this is surgery, surgery on the skull, in other words cutting my baby's scalp open and conducting surgery on his innocent little baby skull. This was really intolerable to contemplate, so my relief that it doesn't have to happen is enormous.

Milo's flat spot is just positional, and in fact it's mild enough that he won't even need a helmet, so now that I know he's going to be okay I can start making light of the whole thing, which is my God-given right as a parent. But I guess I'll hold off for a few days, anyway, before I start calling him "denty" and other things, seeing as how he's not feeling so well from the shots. I'm sensitive like that.

We Called That One The Little Red Haired Girl

My college roommate and I used to make up a lot of nicknames for people. This probably happened because we would talk about people we only knew tangentially, and often we weren't sure what their names were. So we made up names for them. One freshman reminded us of the little red-haired girl who was the object of Charlie Brown's affections, so that became her nickname. Another guy in our physics class, or maybe it was our math class, became "pole" after a particular relativity word problem we had worked on. Reasons for that are lost to me now, but we named his girlfriend "barn" after that same problem.

And then there was Zero. One night, my roommate and I decided to start ranking people on an attractiveness scale of 0 to 100. This seems like a good idea when you're, like, 19. We realized that the scale would be meaningless without defining what would count as 100 and what would count as 0. When it came time to identify somebody who would rank as 0, I said "you know that guy in our linear algebra class? The one who always puts the date in the upper right hand corner of his paper when he takes notes, and then makes a 3-d box around the date?" She knew exactly who I was talking about. This guy always wore highwater slacks that were a size too small. He would pair them with outdated short-sleeved shirts, which he would tuck in and then tie the whole ensemble together with a striped cloth belt, the kind with a buckle that looks like an airplane seatbelt buckle. Those pants rested somewhere right below his ribcage. He would wear white gym socks and old tennis shoes, and he had enormous glasses, and I could never figure out if he was wearing a beard, or if he just hadn't shaved in a couple of weeks. "That guy," I said. "He would be the zero."

The unfortunate nickname stuck. For a couple of years we referred to him as zero, never figuring out his actual name. We saw him in various math lectures here and there, but never really intersected with him. Then, when I was a senior, a bunch of friends of mine were housed in a suite on campus, and one of the suitemembers was that guy! Zero! As I got to know him, I found out that he was a really nice guy. He was exceptionally smart, had a great sense of humor, and was fun to be around. He loved to play games, as did all of my nerdy male math friends, and we would sit around for hours playing cards. Of course as I got to know him as an actual person, he ceased to be "zero". He was no longer funny looking, he was just a nice guy who was fun to have around. We stayed in touch for years after college, he came to my wedding, and I still get Christmas cards from him.

This whole story reminds me of Milo a little bit. The thing is, when I was pregnant, I worried a little bit that we would end up having funny-looking babies. Even worse, what if we had funny-looking babies and we were too smitten to realize that they were funny looking?

When Milo and Nora were born, I didn't exactly think they were beautiful. I thought they looked like most newborns, sort of wrinkly and angry looking. But Milo especially seemed kind of funny looking. He had these huge eyes, and he reminded me of E.T. His forehead was constantly wrinkled, in fact his whole face was wrinkled, and red, and he looked like an old man. He would make these bizarre faces and only open one eye. I thought, "well, I guess we did produce a pretty funny-looking baby." I didn't seem to have any of those smitten blinders on at all.

Now 4 months later I think he's strikingly beautiful. I know that most of that is probably because I have gotten to know Milo, and I like who he is. He's a neat little baby with a great personality, and his face just lights up when he smiles. He and Nora look so different, but I think that they're both really cute in their own ways. And a big part of me realizes that I've lost all objectivity about them. Maybe Milo is more like Zero, maybe he is funny looking, but I just don't see it anymore because I like him so much. Or maybe he's not, and he's just grown into his natural cute babyness, and it simply took a while. I don't care either way, of course. But if you're secretly thinking that Milo and Nora are funny looking, that's okay. Don't tell me, because I won't believe you, and I'll just wait until you get to know them better, at which point you'll think they are beautiful too.

(I do, however, look forward to the day when they are no longer super bald).

Beginning and End

At the start of tummy time:


At the end of tummy time:


I should have waited another minute or two, and then I'd have a picture of both of them screaming their heads off!

Maybe I Should Burn the Books

Having twins takes a lot of the ego out of parenting. I think that if we just had one, we'd be attributing a lot of what works or doesn't work to our own parenting abilities. But when you do the same thing with two babies, and they react differently, you realize just how little control you actually have over the whole thing.

Take sleeping. The babies still both don't like to nap much; their naps, which (according to the baby whispering, sleep solutions, happiest baby on the block healthy habits books) are supposed to last about an hour and a half to two hours, often last only 25 minutes or so. After 25 minutes, boom! They awake and don't want to be asleep anymore. Theoretically the babies are supposed to be consolidating their awake times and their nap times, staying awake for longer periods and then napping two to three decent-length naps.

Nora and Milo prefer to do these short little catnaps, which is just killing us. In addition, they still like to get up and eat 2-3 times a night, which also shouldn't be happening according to these mythical textbook babies the books write about.

So we're trying to help them sleep better. We're not at the point where we feel comfortable letting them cry, and we might never reach that point, I don't know. I say "might" because the only thing I've learned so far is never say never, and even though I don't think that I could do it now, I might be so desperate in a month or two that perhaps it would start to seem like a good idea. So anyway, we're trying a different method that basically involves going in to them when they make noise, patting them or soothing them, and telling them to go back to sleep. If they're really upset we're supposed to pick them up just long enough for them to settle back down, and then put them back down before they fall asleep. In other words, we're not supposed to rock them to sleep, because apparently that means we become sleep props and the babies need to learn how to put themselves to sleep.

They're actually pretty decent about putting themselves to sleep. Milo is great at it; I can sense when he's getting cranky, put him in a sleep sack, put him in the crib, and he'll go to sleep. Nora's a little less consistent at this but she's able to put herself to sleep sometimes. All of those books (whose babies fit with those books, anyway?) say that the key to keeping babies asleep is teaching them to put themselves to sleep. Then when they wake up, they'll put themselves back to sleep. Not Nora & Milo. When they wake up, they don't like to put themselves back to sleep, they'd rather have us there, thank you very much.

So we're using this patting/soothing/pick-up/put-down method of trying to help them extend their naps, and you know what, it's working like a charm with Milo. If I pat him and tell him to go back to sleep, or give him a pacifier, he'll basically go back to sleep. He stays asleep longer and longer and often only wakes because Nora wakes him up.

If Milo were my only baby, I'd probably be congratulating myself on my disciplined yet kind approach to helping him back to sleep. I'd probably think that those other parents whose babies don't sleep just aren't doing it right, or aren't being consistent enough or something. I'd probably be all smug and know-it-all about the whole sleep thing.

But...there's Nora. Nora's not having any of this lame patting / pick-up stuff. She doesn't want to go back to sleep, darn it. I'll pat her or pick her up and she's all smiles, happy to see me. She doesn't want to sleep, she wants to play! "25 minutes was plenty, mama!", she says. When I remove myself from her sight, she cries. I can repeat this 10, 20, 30 times in a row. Nora does not go back to sleep. She can put herself to sleep the first time, like the books say. The books then tell me to consistently do this pat and soothe thing, and she'll learn to extend her naps and eventually stop waking up and crying. Well, screw you, books. Apparently you haven't met Nora.

If Nora were my only baby, I'd probably be feeling like a miserable failure right about now. I'd be wondering why the solutions offered in those books I read don't work on her. I'd be convinced I was doing something wrong and I'd be constantly comparing her to other babies her age, wondering why she sleeps so much less than she's supposed to.

Well, lucky for me I've got both Milo and Nora. This has taught me that a lot of babies' behaviors have to do with babies' personalities. Maybe just as much as my own parenting techniques. Maybe more than my parenting techniques. So if one baby is really great at something, or if one baby is really struggling with something, I'm not attributing it to my parenting as much as I would if I just had one baby. It's just not as much about me as I thought it would be before I had children. Not that this is an excuse to remove my own behavior from the equation, or anything -- I think that how Jake and I treat the babies generally has a lot to do with their health and happiness. But our parenting behaviors certainly don't wholly determine the babies' behaviors, that's for sure. I guess they're their own little people or something, with their own minds.

Thank goodness I have two instead of one, or I'd probably be insufferably opinionated about this whole thing!

4 Months Old

Today Milo and Nora are 4 months old!

I remember when we took them in for their 2-month check-up, we were still struggling a lot. My mom had just left and I felt down about that, and the weather was horrible. I told the babies that the next time they went to the doctor, they'd be twice as old. Maybe the weather would be nice! Maybe it would be sunny, maybe the crocuses would be blooming, maybe we'd see daffodils and tulips. Spring seemed so far away but I was trying to find something to look forward to.

Well, we've had a lousy, late spring and the daffodils and tulips aren't up yet, but the crocuses are indeed blooming. It's supposed to climb into the sixties tomorrow and by golly I'll take it. Most importantly, the babies are 4 months old now and 4 months is a much nicer place to be than 2 months!

Nora is doing many new delightful things these days. She's holding her head up pretty well and sometimes even enjoys her tummy time on the surfboard mat that she got from Grandmom. Nora is still pretty easygoing about people and is happy to let anybody and everybody hold her. She also enjoys cooing at people, and she starts the day with a smile. Sometimes, I'll wake up in the mornings and just hear tiny sounds, enough to know that the babies are awake. I'll go into their room and find them awake, alert, and happy. They both burst out with huge smiles every morning as soon as I walk in there.

Nora is nice and chubby now, which gives me great pleasure. She's still not a fan of nursing, or of eating in general really, but we're hoping a doctor's visit will help her with some of her eating troubles. She's certainly the most prolific spitter upper I've ever met. Nora can really shoot it out, and then smile a moment later. She and Milo both take medicine for reflux and the medicine has a very tart taste. When I put the dropper in Nora's mouth, she'll grimace with her entire face, making the most sour face possible, and then try to smile at the same time while swallowing. Nora also likes to smile at people from across the room now. When I'm sitting her on my knee and burping her, she'll start smiling and flirting with dad all the way across the room.

Nora can pull on her toys to make them play music now, and she can amuse herself well with the toys in her bouncy seats. She also enjoys looking at herself in the mirror. She'll smile at her reflection, and then look at my reflection for approval. Her hair, what little there is, has grown somewhat longer and right after a bath it sticks straight up off her head. Nora has outgrown her 0-3 month clothes and is now ready to switch to 3-6 month clothes. One of her favorite tricks is to rub her feet together really hard so that her socks come off. We call her our little cricket. She's a cute, chubby, happy little baby who isn't a huge fan of eating or sleeping, but loves being held and carted around.

The other day I had a meeting at a coffee shop and I took Nora in the sling. She's so cute that strangers stop me all the time to exclaim over her. "What a little doll", an old lady said that day. She's as happy as a clam in the sling, content to look at the world around her while still cuddled up to mama.

Milo has also changed a lot in the last two months. He has just started to get a little bit of stranger anxiety, which makes him precocious according to our twin whisperer. He's not so sure about being held by new people, and he often looks for me or Jake for reassurance. Milo loves having his parents around. Every time I enter the room he rewards me with the biggest, goofiest grin. Milo likes to sort of stick his tongue out when he smiles, which makes it all the more silly and endearing. Milo also loves to talk, all the time. He'll talk on the changing table, he'll talk to us as we hold him, and he'll talk to his toys when he's playing in the crib. He makes lots of consonant sounds and his little voice sounds so very much like a boy's voice. I never would have guessed that this early in life Nora would sound so much like a little girl and Milo would sound so much like a little boy.

Milo eats very well. He's just started eating 7 ounces when he takes a bottle! I have no idea how much he eats when he nurses, of course, but he is a good nurser. The only exception to that is early in the morning because Milo can become distracted by his desire to be social. So he'll take a sip, then turn his head and look at me and grin. Repeat endless times. He loves that game, and sometimes the only way I can get him to concentrate on nursing is to cover him up so that he can't make eye contact with me. Milo spits up too and sometimes has trouble after eating, but it's much better than it was two months ago. Both Milo and Nora love being changed. They love being on the changing table, getting naked, and having baths.

Milo seems a little shy based on the way he likes to smile and then quickly turn his head away. He has an incredibly sweet demeanor. Milo loves the toys in his crib, and he seems to enjoy playing there more than the bouncy seat, more than the swing, more than the activity mat. Sometimes he'll roll from his back to his side so that he can play with a toy with both hands. The other day I saw him fall asleep with his hand wrapped around part of the toy, and he took his nap that way.

Milo is still incredibly bald, and that doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. I figure we'll just put lots of hats on him. His baldness emphasizes his enormous, bright eyes. Milo has also outgrown his 0-3 month clothes. He enjoys novelty, and is very happy being carried around the house so that he can look at different things and look out the windows. He could do that all day. He also loves it when his dad holds him up high in the air. Last week, Jake had Milo on the changing table and was tickling him under the chin. Milo started laughing, and that was the first time I'd heard his laugh. Jake then tried for about 10 minutes to make it happen again, but without any luck.

This is such a delightful age because Milo and Nora are doing so many new things all the time. It's also a frustrating age because eating can be difficult at times, and they're having some regression with their sleep, and they still don't sleep anywhere close to through the night -- far from it. I've heard that these kinds of regressions aren't uncommon at 4 months of age. So sometimes Jake and I get frustrated with all of the hard work, but other times I'm good at reminding myself that this is the only time they will be 4 months old. They'll never again be this small, and we should enjoy it. Yes, they wake, and they cry, but when again in my life will I be able to hold them like this, sniff their sweet little heads, and feel them cuddle up to me, so small and compact? It's going to disappear so quickly, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Hooray for Jake

I knew that Mastitis was an infection, but I didn't realize it'd make you feel like you wanted to die. I've been so sick today, it's ridiculous. When you have two babies you don't get any time off, and how do you take care of two busy little ones when you can barely sit up? That's where I'm super lucky. Jake took care of them all day today, letting me sleep most of the day and only getting up for feedings. I don't know how single parents do it, I'm definitely lucky to have Jake.

One Year Ago Today

April 10 was the day of retrieval and fertilization -- Nora and Milo came into existence one year ago today, or more accurately a year ago tonight.

My life seems split in half now. There is the "before babies" half, or the bb half, and the "after babies" half, the ab half. Everything about bb life seemed to disappear once the babies arrived. Now I'm getting some of those things back, like walking to work or meeting somebody for coffee, so I guess over time the bb/ab split will seem less dramatic. Or maybe it won't, because the biggest difference is that Milo and Nora are here now, and we are a family of four now, and things will never be the same.

The bb/ab split was so earth shattering that it has almost caused me to forget the earlier split: life before infertility, and life after infertility. Before infertility I went from day to day, mostly living in the present, sometimes dreaming about the future, working towards my goals, having fun in my time off, just existing. After infertility, the rhythm of my life was chopped into 28-day cycles. I was either anxious about timing everything correctly, hopeful that it had worked, despairing that it hadn't worked, or recovering from the disappointment and grief of yet another failed cycle. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Over and over and over again.

Infertility causes stress levels in patients that are similar to those who face a fatal illness or a death of a family member. At first glance this might not seem to make any sense, because infertility is so much better to deal with than, say, cancer. It is, of course, but the cyclical nature of infertility is what makes it particularly hard to negotiate. There is no one primary painful moment that a person faces, deals with, grieves over, and then moves on from. Instead the grief keeps happening every month. Each cycle that fails brings a fresh wave of grief that has to be dealt with all over again, and it gets harder with every passing month rather than easier. I used to feel like I could never escape from infertility, not even for a little while, not even when I wanted to, because I couldn't get out of my own body. Even if the cause of infertility is a male factor, it is the woman who experiences the expectations, hopes, and failures of each cycle in the symptoms (or lack thereof) she experiences.

If any of you have friends or family members who struggle with infertility, here are a few helpful tips about what to say and what not to say:

Don't Say: Just relax!
I often felt that if I had to hear one more person to tell me to relax, I was going to smack them upside the head. Infertility is a medical problem, not a personality disorder. If you found out that I had hepatitis or a broken leg, would you tell me to fix it by just relaxing? Also, to everybody who ever told me to relax, I wanted to say "have you met me?" I don't "relax". Feeling like I had to relax just added an extra layer of stress onto an already difficult situation. Not only was I failing at the most fundamental aspect of womanhood (or so I felt), but I was making it worse by being all stressed out about it (or so it seemed).

Don't Say: I had a friend/cousin/aunt/colleague who couldn't get pregnant, but then she took a cruise / went on vacation / traveled to Hawaii, and blammo! Pregnant.
Goody for them. Those people were not infertile. Those little tricks work for normal people, not for infertile couples. Why not tell me to revert back to age 17, drink a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and hop into the back seat of a Chevy? That worked for a lot of people I know.

Don't Say: You can have mine!
That's just tacky.

Don't Say (when I'm not drinking in order to improve our chances): Oh, well I was drunk when I conceived little Johnny.
Bite me.

Don't Say: It was meant to be (or some other version of "maybe God didn't want you to be parents").
Are you kidding me? I'm not meant to be a parent and the couple in the news who had crack-addicted babies and then neglected them and let them wander out into the -5 degree weather by themselves without any shoes on were supposed to be parents? What kind of crazy reasoning is that? What about all of the people out there who become pregnant unintentionally and cannot, for whatever reason, have a baby at that point in their lives? They were supposed to get pregnant and I wasn't? And by the way, are you seriously suggesting that there's something about me or my personality that means I shouldn't be a parent?

Don't Say: I knew this one couple who couldn't have children, so they adopted and then, surprise, she got pregnant!
Infertile couples who adopt experience spontaneous pregnancies at the same rate as the rest of the infertile population: it happens about 5% of the time. There is nothing about adoption that causes it to happen, or we would see it occur in higher rates with adopting couples. Not to mention, isn't that remark kind of insulting to adoptive families? It suggests that adoption is a second-best choice and conceiving is the brass ring of family building.

I received all of those comments, and more. I heard them all many times. Fortunately, I also had a lot of wonderful, supportive, understanding friends and family members who said all of the right things, all the time. They listened to me complain and cry for what now seems like an eternity, but actually was only a couple of years. The support I received helped me enormously, and here are some of the things they said:

• I'm here if you want to talk.
• I'm sorry this is happening to you.
• Let me know if you want to vent about it, I'm here for you.
• Let's go get a drink and let off some steam.
• Even though I don't know the route you'll take, I know you will be a parent.
• I'm thinking of you/pulling for you/crossing my fingers.
  

A year ago today everything changed. Nora and Milo came to be, and a couple of weeks later we discovered that they had actually survived and seemed to be digging in for a long ride. The cyclical nature of my life was about to end. Everything changed forever. I'm glad it's now and not then, because as wonderful as it was to find out that we had a real chance at having a baby, it was nothing compared to living with them every day, knowing them, loving them.

Action Shots

Nora's nursing strike is getting worse instead of better, and I'm trying everything. Now Milo seems to be joining her. I'm worried about Nora's eating in general. She just doesn't seem to want to eat, even from a bottle. Could it be reflux that we haven't fixed with the medicine? A milk allergy? Something else? We've consulted with the lactation specialist and she's stumped, and now we're consulting with the doctor. It seems like it's always something. If she actually weans, which would be really weird at 4 months, should I just nurse Milo? That means I'd be the one feeding him all the time, and Jake would be the one feeding her all the time. The asymmetry of that bothers me. Feeding is such a bonding experience that I hate the thought that each of us is only bonding in that way with one baby. Should I just give up all of this nursing/pumping nightmare all together?

When I think of all the hours I've spent pumping, struggling to nurse with a baby who is protesting, and worrying about milk supply instead of just holding and enjoying our babies, I think that it's not worth the emotional and bonding cost, and I should just give it up. But then when I think about all of the health risks they incur from not getting breastmilk, it breaks my heart to think about giving it up. So, I don't know what we'll do.

In the meantime, here are some action shots. I think that on this day, Nora rolled from her back to her side, and Jake then helped her onto her stomach.

A Conversation With Nora

Nora: Blech! Get that thing out of my mouth! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa!

Me: Dude, you have to nurse. It's time to eat now, so please nurse.

Nora: What, do you take me for a chump? I'm not going anywhere near that thing! Aaaaa, stop trying to make me, or I'll just scream!

Me: Look, I know you're hungry. I can tell by the way you're acting. Let's just be logical about this. If you nurse, then you'll stop being hungry. You'll feel a lot better, I promise.

Nora: Forget it! Where's that bottle?

Me: Uh...hey look! Nice pretty boob! Don't you want to nurse?

Nora: You think you can distract me away from the fact that I want a bottle, not you? Who do you think you're dealing with here?

Me: But you have to nurse. You need milk, not powdered evil. Don't you know that if I give you formula, that's akin to riding a mechanical bull while pregnant? Haven't you seen those public service announcements?

Nora: You don't let me watch tv, remember? Anyway, I'm only a baby and even I know how dumb that is.

Me: Well anyway, trust me when I tell you that it's important for your health that you nurse. Preferably sooner rather than later. Let's try again.

Nora: Forget it! Aaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa!

Me: Oh my God Nora, please just nurse. I'm not going to give you a bottle. Don't you realize that if you stop nursing, you'll never get fed by mama? Do you really want daddy to feed you every single time? I mean, just between us, we know who you love best. Right?

Nora: ...

Me: Right?

Nora: I'm hungry! Where's that bottle? Stop trying to shove that thing in my mouth! No, don't even put it anywhere near my face, don't even make me look at it! Aaaaaa!

Me: Look. I'm the parent, and you're the child. So what I say, goes. And I say you must nurse, so you had better comply.

Nora: HAH HA HA HA HA HA.

Me: Let's just try one more time...

Nora: Aaaaaa! Stop it! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaaa!

Me: I can't make you do this, can I. Or anything, actually. Oh crap, I'm so screwed...

Nora: Welcome to parenthood, sucker.

And then they'll end up at Middle Kentucky Tech

An important benefit of having twins in the expanded opportunity for a father to be involved with his children when they're babies. A father's participation in early child care always enriches a child's life, but with twins it's a necessity...Nevertheless, there are issues that crop up between fathers and mothers of twins in the babyhood years...
(J.A. Friedman, from Emotionally Healthy Twins)

I should say right off the bat that Jake is a great father. He has a load of patience. He approaches most things with a sense of humor, including the babies' more frustrating behaviors. He is gentle. He hauls himself out of bed in the middle of the night every night to feed the babies. He does things that most fathers of infants don't ever have to do, or don't do on a daily basis.

But. But, he's not me. He's not the mom. And sometimes it seems like Nora and Milo need me, not him. They need to be soothed the way I soothe them, and only I will do. This is the hard part.

Imagine you have a baby and your husband is trying to get her to stop crying. She won't stop, and you sit there and watch him try and try and try, and nothing is working, and you know without a doubt that if you just took that baby and held her for about 10 seconds, she would stop crying. You know it. So what do you do? How long do you let your husband continue to try to get her to stop crying, how long do you listen to her scream? Do you listen to her scream for 5 minutes? For 10 minutes? For 15 minutes? Do you watch your husband suffer and listen to your baby scream and scream and do nothing to fix it? Do you wait until she gets to the stage where she's hiccuping and her face is all red and blotchy, and the screams continue with heartbreaking intensity? Do you just sit there and let all of that happen right in front of you, without doing anything about it?

It sounds insane to do that. But that's what I had to do last night, because the OTHER baby was nursing at the time. I cannot pick up and soothe Nora when Milo is attached at the breast. There is only one of me, but there are two of them, and sometimes they both need me at the same time, and it drives me crazy to not be able to take care of them when they need it. Ultimately it got to the point where I cut Milo off once he was mostly done so that I could attend to Nora. And then, of course, Milo started crying.

I know that these babies cry more than they would if they had been born one at a time. A lot more. Fewer of their needs get met because I am usually busy with one baby when the other one needs something. They get to have a very close relationship with their father, and I wouldn't trade that for anything, but sometimes only I will do, and I cannot be there for them. I hope we aren't damaging them for life because of this. If we have to damage them for life, and I'm sure we will, as that's our job as parents, I'd rather it be for a better reason. Something like, "oh, sorry we spent all of your tuition money on our new boat", not "sorry for that whole 'not picking you up enough' thing when you were babies."

Today I was holding Nora on the couch downstairs and I could hear Jake upstairs with Milo. He was awake and making noises, not quite fussing yet, but starting to get a little agitated. I knew he needed interaction. I could hear Jake in there, sitting near him but not talking to him, not playing with him. Jake is a quiet person who tends not to talk just for the sake of talking. I think he finds it hard to talk to the babies, and who can blame him, I find it weird and awkward myself sometimes. I have to force myself to talk to them, and I say inane things like "And now we're going to put your diaper in your wrap. Here we go, folding it into thirds! And now it goes into the wrap, and let's put it on, okay, here's one velcro tabby, and there's the other tabby! All done!" On and on and on, endless inanity. But I do it, because I know they need to be talked to, and they love it. They smile and wiggle and kick their legs. And I have to say that Jake talks to them more and more every day, and he's great at playing with them, so this was just one weird day.

But I knew Milo needed to be talked to, played with, and I couldn't do it because there I was, holding a sleeping Nora , who I didn't want to disturb. So I have to sit there with the knowledge that my baby isn't getting what he needs, and half the time that's just the way it is. They're not going to get talked to as much as they should. And again, this drives me crazy. I find it really hard to truly enjoy and be present with whichever baby I have when I am worrying about what the other baby isn't getting.

All of this makes me irrationally angry. Maybe it's just being overwhelmed by having twins in general, but whatever it is, I get a lot more angry than is called for. I find myself doing things like yelling at poor Jake, or yelling when I drop things, or trying to control the urge to just kick something across the room like a child because I'm so mad. Just typing that makes me realize that a major attitude adjustment is necessary on my part. I know the logical thing to do is just lighten the hell up about it all. It's not going to be the end of the world if the babies aren't talked to 24 hours a day. It's not like they're going to then have delayed language development, and therefore experience cognitive deficits that affect how they do in school, which will ultimately affect their attitude towards learning in general, which will prevent them from realizing their true potential and gaining complete happiness as they stagnate at some regional state college instead of going to Harvard on a full scholarship which they would have done if only we'd talked to them more as infants.

Yeah. Okay. So maybe I need to lighten up.

A Different First

Today was my first full day back at work! A full 8 hours scheduled to be out of the house entirely! Yes, it is now April, and we now have partial child care in place, and I can theoretically work 8 hours out of the house twice a week. Up until now I've been grabbing minutes here and there, sneaking away for meetings, working at odd times while I pump or after the babies are asleep, but never in truly long chunks.

What a day. 3 a.m., up for a feeding. It was going to be Jake's solo feeding but Nora was hungry at the same time that Milo was hungry, and rather than making her wait I got up and nursed her. Then she spit up a few times, and had an outfit change, and a diaper change, and finally they both went back to sleep. Then they slept all the way until 7 a.m.! Hooray! I got up, nursed Milo while Nora played in the crib, and was about to start nursing Nora when Milo had a huge, giant blowout. Okay, so Milo had to have a bath. Nora patiently waited while I brought Milo into the bathroom. I set him (without a diaper) onto the bouncy seat while I ran the bath. Once the bathtub was full I turned back and thought, hmm, why is Milo's leg wet? Did I dribble water on him? Wait, why is the cloth he's sitting on wet...why is the floor wet? Ooooohhhh. Cue me cleaning urine off the floor, discarding the cloth, and then bathing Milo.

Back to the nursery. Milo is happy, now feed Nora. Both are fed and changed, time to pump. I eat a bowl of cereal while pumping, killing two birds with one stone. It's now 8:15, so I'm behind schedule. Wash the bottles. At 8:30 our nanny arrives, aka the Twin Whisperer. I update her on all things baby, and then at 9 hop in the shower to get ready to go. I'm finally out and ready to leave at 9:30, just an hour later than I'd originally planned.

I walk to work. It's only a mile and a half. But I didn't think about what it would take to walk to work with my backpack, my computer, and my breastpump which comes complete with its own bag, parts, and bottles. Turns out that a half-hour walk carrying all of that is way too long. I don't want to give up walking, though, and yet I need to carry all of that stuff. So I'm still trying to figure out a solution for that.

Get to work a little after 10. Pump immediately. Answer emails while pumping. Disconnect the pump and then lean over while the pump parts are still attached to me, thereby spilling a bunch of milk all over my pants. Oh well. I have actually cried over spilled milk in the past, but not today. Time to move on. Store the milk, clean up my office, and proceed to the major non-administrative task at hand, which is crafting my research narrative for my annual review, which is due in a week or so. Work on that for an hour, then get a phone call from my former student. He needs help with his teaching, and he wants to collaborate on a grant, and he wants to talk about the recent report put out by the math advisory panel. Hang up with him, and it's time for lunch. Wolf down lunch, and then meet with a person I'm interviewing for a transcribing job. I need him to transcribe about 42 hours of video data, and the interview is promising. It looks like he'll be competent and able to do the job.

Pump again. It goes a little better this time, no spilling. Worry over the lousy amount that I'm pumping and wonder if this means that the babies aren't getting enough to eat when they nurse. Make a conscious decision to not worry about that for the next two weeks, at which point they'll visit the doctor and get weighed again anyway. Now I have two full hours to work on my narrative. Two hours! Of uninterrupted time in a row! What a luxury. Get working on my narrative. Get interrupted by another professor wanting to discuss an upcoming agenda item for a meeting I have to attend. Back to the narrative. Get interrupted again by a student who is having trouble with his field placement.

Okay. There's still time. Continue working on my narrative, when, whoops, it's time for my next appointment. I meet with one of my graduate students about her thesis. I cut her off after an hour. Pump again. I've been sore and semi-engorged all day, and I realize that the pump just can't compare to a baby. Tell myself, for the thousandth time in a row, that I only have 8.5 months left of breastfeeding. Then I can stop without feeling too guilty. Back to the narrative -- oh no! It's 4:55 p.m. and I have to leave in 5 minutes! Pack everything up, haul all of my gear onto my back, and make the 30-minute trek home.

Come home to find out that Nora had basically refused to eat for the last two feedings. She's been a little off lately. Otherwise, however, marvel at all of the wonderful things our Twin Whisperer did, including playing with the babies, giving them tummy time, feeding them, bathing Nora, and somehow also getting a load of laundry washed and dried and folded, and sweeping the floors. Hooray for the Twin Whisperer. I feed Nora immediately, and fortunately she does nurse. Put Nora to bed. Make dinner hurriedly while Jake walks around with an awake Milo in the sling. Milo is supposed to be sleeping, but he's not. Eat half of my dinner when Nora wakes up screaming. Soothe Nora back to sleep. Eat the rest of my (cold) dinner. Wash the dishes. Jake is still dealing with an awake and now fussy Milo. Wash all of the bottles and pump parts. Get the mail. Milo is still awake, and whoops, it's time to feed the babies again.

Feed the babies. Soothe them to sleep. Pump. Answer emails from prospective students while pumping. Finish pumping. Wash bottles and pump parts. Do some more work, finally finishing a draft of the narrative. Change into pajamas, get ready for bed. Write this post. The end.

All in all, I'd say my first day back was more or less a success.