“OMG… TWINS?!”

Another day, another dime a dozen comments from strangers. But to be fair, we may be the only people putting 2 newborns  in matching carseats down on barstools and then posting up to drink a Zombie Dust or 6 at the neighborhood dive bar that the local crowd has seen in awhile.

But these littles sleep better in their carseats than anywhere else in the world so I might as well take advantage and enjoy some time with husband whilst they snooze. And before you judge me for letting my kid(s) sleep in their car seats let me first make a list for you of some of the other parenting rules I have ignored so you can get all geared up and berate me in one go of it:

• Bottle propping. For days.
  • side note – if you are interested in this cardinal sin for your own purposes I could teach a class. First tip: the ol’ Wubbanub friends work the best for your base:

• Baby wearing while cooking bacon.
• Sleeping in bouncers. With blankets.
• Blindly reaching behind in the car to plug them with bottles during road trips.
• Enlisting the toddler to feed them. And not in the most supervised way.
• Not sterilizing bottles or breast pump parts. Like ever.
• Bottles of formula. So much formula. Cannot physically keep up with this ravenous madness despite best intentions.
• Not picking up the boy twin every time he has major spit up (aka constantly) and shoots the milk through his nose, instead choosing to v casually blot at him with a towel or blanket and shushing him from afar.
• Sometimes referring to them as Boy/Girl vis-à-vis Sandra B.
• And so many more! For a full list of my failures in the parenting rule department please purchase my audio book.

And don’t get me started on the pregnancy rules I broke… you may as well call me Sushi Turkey-Sandwich Summer Shandy Heavy-Lifting Café au lait Sally.

A couple of these list items I would like to touch on, however. In regards to #6 – I was putting the bottles and pump parts in the dishwasher occasionally until the dishwasher went to heaven to make space on Earth for Baby Jesus in the rosy holy light of Christmas Eve morn. It’s not my fault that Home Depot dropped the ball and apparently our new appliance and we are still waiting for them to send a technician out to repair the giant dent that we discovered when we unwrapped the box.

And in regards to #7, even my slacker boob was doing a fair job of keeping up with the caloric demands of two beebs until Twin A aka Boy aka Spence aka Suspencer aka Spency aka Fencer started his totally ridiculous spit up ritual that has sucked me dry beyond belief. One night in particular stands out where he ingested and spooched out a total of 20 oz of breastmilk and then formula in the span of only 8 hours. Which if you are well versed in the art of baby feeding you are aware that this is a ridiculous amount of food for a 2 month old and in no way is this an amount that someone with A cups can keep up with regularly. Although as time goes on…:

Also just in general, realize we are obviously doing our best. And just like my usual battle cry of “NO UTERUS, NO OPINION”, so it goes. If you haven’t had to deal with twins and a toddler yourself, shut yer yapper.

Although in general I really feel like things are going well. We’ve gotten the twins on the same eating schedule despite the fact that Spence is now doing formula 90% of the time because he spits it up less than breast milk and Sasha is still just breast milk, somehow they are still hungry at the same intervals which is amazing. Could he have a sensitivity to something I’m eating? Perhaps. But am I willing to eliminate any of the 5 food groups I eat – Goldfish, beer, leftover chicken nuggets, abandoned string cheeses, and coffee? No. Plus if I start messing with my diet to appease tiny sir then I run the risk of disturbing the delicate temperament of his sister, who is like a demon waiting to pounce and is v happy with her current boob juice situation. So consider this my own little Mengele study on who will come out on top. Kidding obviously, and I have full intentions to ease him back into the good stuff once he is a tad sturdier and less annoying. They are giving us 2-2.5 hour stretches between feeds overnight which feels like a dream compared to what was happening for awhile there. Also occasionally when I’m kicking it with all three I’ll panic and look around like “OMG where is the other one!?” which makes me feel like subconsciously I must think I am able to handle more than this which is insane.

I feel like I am rapid cycling through The Office characters with this maternity leave. One minute I’m Angela, whipping up Pinterest projects and home improvements and home cooked meals and snacks and when people are like, “BUT WHEN do you find the time?!” I’m like, “YOU GUYS – newborns sleep A LOT”  with a snide smile –

 

 

And then 10 seconds later I’m Pam standing next to Angela feeling like a chubby slob reaching for that brownie and getting nothing done during the day and no sleep day or night –

And then 5 seconds later I’m Meredith being like Yea I only had the second kid to get the vacation.

What have we been up to… well what HAVEN’T we been up to!? Obviously the holidays were a hoot and blur of matching pajamas, family, and egg nog and we survived our first road trip together on Christmas Day.

 

We had the most relaxing New Year’s Eve at home cheersing Olivia’s sparkling apple juice with our champagne and wishing each other Happy New Year at midnight. And 3 am. And 6 am.

 

I’ve gotten proficient at the baby wearing:

 

I’ve braved the library with all 3 solo more than a few times and I recently took them all to Target solo too:

 

It was a game changer when I realized I could stack the carseats on top of eachother in the cart. #protip #twinning

We’ve painted piggie toes and taken bubble baths and watched hours of YouTube:

 

Speaking of which, someone please explain to me the weirdness that is on YouTube?! As we battled the stomach flu and then colds I was more than happy to give OG anything she wanted to distract her from barfing and also to temporarily quell her insatiable urge to cough directly into the babies’ open mouths so she basically was attached to a tablet for an entire week straight and at first I was just tuning out the noise because it all sounded the same and she somehow knows how to navigate around that thing and pick her own videos but my ears perked up when I heard the voice of a grown man… narrating his way through CHANGING ELMO’S DIAPER?! That is a video on there. That has like a billion views. And then I quickly realized that she wasn’t just watching the same “Finger Family Song” (which, don’t even get me started on that in the first place) a million times, there are in fact a million different versions. And she is drawn to the ones in a foreign language where (when I finally took a look at what she was watching) in the background there are like grown up people dressed as babies dancing around!? And then there are just tons and tons of videos of adults playing with toys and weird little dolls and figurines and just talking about what they are doing with the doll and Olivia watches this stuff absolutely MESMERIZED. WHAT?! Bizarre. Need to figure out how to filter some of this garbage out. And we need to stop getting sick. Pronto.

We’ve all gotten pretty good at feeding babies, we’ve learned we hate being swaddled, we’ve “Cheers”-d mama’s milk bottle being pumped into, we’ve worn fashionable glasses, and we’ve spied on mama in the shower.

 

 

We’ve climbed on things and fallen off things and played in laundry baskets and plugged our siblings and colored with water and colored with chalk and twirled in tutus and drank hot chocolate and started swim lessons and started talking with the accent of a British pig and we’ve snuggled and snuggled and snuggled.

 

We’ve looked adorable in general, tinkled on the potty, ordered our own chocolate milk at restaurants, been groomed into loving wiener dogs by a fun aunt and uncle, and gone to the barber shop:

 

We’ve survived bouts of illness, Cafe Hollander on a Saturday, and the mall on a weekend.

I also survived seeing this monstrosity I created but I will never recover from it:

 

Oh and I also survived Gate’s first business trip out of state since the twins were born! Someone give me a medal. When he took his time off when the babies were born it was back when they were cool and chill and we had fun being bums and he hadn’t really had to deal with much solo crank or parenting time until recently…. I knew he was finally starting to understand what a day in the life was like for me when after a particularly trying evening with our litter he took a calming breath and closed his eyes and I asked him if he was ok and he said, “I’m decomposing”. I think he meant decompressing but the former works too. And in a sick, twisted way I like that he has had to deal with some of the garbage sauce these kids serve up for supper sometimes more often lately because I don’t think anyone can truly appreciate what it’s like being a full time at home parent unless they do it themselves. Even if my status at home is just temporary. Speaking of which….

Only a month left until I’m back to work! Trying to remind myself to stay present in the moment and enjoy this fleeting time. Every time people come visit they always excitedly ask to hold both at the same time and to take a picture and this never fails to remind me how goddamn lucky we are to have these little bugs and to appreciate what I’ve got, despite how crazy things seem 98% of the time.

 

So that’s about it for now! Is that enough? It feels like enough. As Olivia likes to shout, as soon as one teeny drop of breast milk is expressed from the pump, “HEY THATSA ‘NUFF!”

Ok maybe just a couple more tiny things:

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And then finally, a true snapshot in the life… I call this one, Toddler at Bedtime. Behold:

Me: Olivia Gretchen it is time to get your jammies on and for you to go to bed.

Her: NO!

Me: What are you doing?

Her: JUMPING IN MUDDY PUDDLES!

Me: I’m going to have to tell Daddy you were being naughty.

Her: YUP!