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.