eeney meeney miney mommy

This morning I was on the bus to work and it stopped at a light in front of an art gallery where the exhibit in the window had a TV screen that was flashing black words on a white background. The words flashed so quickly that you could not read them consciously, only absorb them in your subconscious – eat.work.play.sleep.eat.work.play.sleep.eat.work.play.sleep. The series of words would strobe about four times, then briefly show a picture of some random thing and then flash through the series again. It was captivating. It summed up how I feel about my life right now – a sequence of events happening at breakneck speed with intermittent pauses here and there to try to absorb my life and everything that is happening in it.

I miss blogging. It makes me sad that I can’t find the time for it right now. I regularly think about updating and often start posts that I never finish. I miss the camaraderie of this community and the support of all of my dear
friends here in blog land. You know what else I miss? I miss getting to know the newbie bloggers. There are so many great “new” blogs out there that I wish I could keep up with. Many have actually become veteran ttc’ers and bloggers since my ttc days and I wish I could have been a more active participant in their journeys, like many of you veterans were in mine, when I started this blog. I suppose there will be time for that again someday. I
hope.

My dear friend Puffer dropped me a “miss you” email today, which in blog lingo means I have been silent for waaaay too long. I know this. It’s been nagging me for weeks and her email was just the gentle nudge I needed to make some time for a post. It’s just that there are so many things going on right now and so little time to get them down in print. I want to tell you about my kids and share some of the craziness of my life right now, but my days are scheduled down to the last second, and I am often too tired to organize my thoughts for a proper post. I love this life of mine, I really do, I am happier and more fulfilled than I remember being in a very long time, but it is busy, sometimes chaotic and absolutely exhausting. I wish I had more time to just enjoy it.

My kids are so amazing. They really are. I don’t know how to talk about  them in a way that doesn’t sound trite and cliché, but all the typical mom talk applies here. They are growing too fast. They are beyond adorable. I am consumed by them and the incredible things they do.

The other night I woke in the very early morning hours, either because bug was stirring next to me in bed or because my hips were bothering me, I’m not sure which. When I opened my eyes, there was Bug, his face just inches from mine, his eyes wide open, staring at me in the dark. When he saw me wake and look at him, he broke into a huge smile and started chattering at me. I couldn’t help but giggle even though it was much too early for those kinds of antics. As I tried to get back to sleep, I started thinking about all the months of ttc it took us to get them and how grateful I am to finally have the privilege of sharing my life with them. It made me ache for all of you who are still waiting for that dream to be realized.

They will be six months next week and as every other mom out there, I too, cannot believe how quickly the time has passed. This is what has been going on in their lives.

• They have been eating solids for a little over a month, Bug more successfully than Button. He’s a good eater, her, not so much. Our doctor advised us to start them with rice cereal and veggies first and then move on to fruit because you don’t want to condition their pallets to sweet things and then try to get them to eat veggies after. Makes sense to me. She wanted us to go through all the veggies first, feeding them each one for at least 4 days, before introducing the next. So far they like orange things best – sweet potato, carrots and squash. Green things are hit or miss. They liked peas and green beans but avocado was a hard sell. Bug will eat spinach but Button gags with every mouth full. Watching the poor girl’s gag reflex kick in each time she tried to swallow it was no fun for anyone so we moved on. I can’t blame her; I don’t care for cooked spinach either. They both really like bananas and we’ll be trying pears next. We are making all of our own food and freezing it, using the ice cube tray method, which seems to work really well for us.
• Button has become our little mover and shaker. While Bug will just lie in one place and fuss until we pick him up, Button will actually roll and wiggle herself where ever she wants to go. We often find her face down, in some strange location in her crib at night, which makes me really nervous.
• Both of them “talk” and squeal and giggle like crazy. They talk to each other. They talk to us. They talk to themselves. They talk, talk, talk.
• We took them swimming a couple of weeks ago with the Seattle Families of Multiples group we belong to. It was so fun and Bug really liked the water. They looked so damn cute in their little tiny swimming suits! I can’t wait to go again.
• We took them to a Super Bowl Party recently. I’m not into football but we figured there would be a ton of people to play pass the baby with, allowing us a few minutes of grown up time to eat junk food and
  socialize. No such luck. For the first time ever, both of them
  exhibited stranger anxiety and screamed anytime anyone would try to interact with them. Bug was the worst about this. He was especially
  nervous around men and I had to hold him the entire night. We’ve
  decided to make a point of socializing them more. It’s not easy to get out and socialize with twins but we’re going to do our best. Up next is the Rainbow Families pancake breakfast tomorrow morning. Wish us luck.

The other big news in my world is that I just received a promotion at work. The good news is that my job is about to become really cool and interesting. This is a position I am very excited to have and there will be more money,
which we desperately need. Having a twin pregnancy, twin birth and then twin babies involved more costs than we could have ever imagined. Things have been – how shall I say it – tight (read – busted broke) around our household as of late. It will be nice to get ahead and put some money in savings for us and the kids, instead of living pay check to pay check, as we have been since the pregnancy bills started rolling in.

I am conflicted about the new job – about working in general, actually. In a perfect world I would be able to stay home with the kids and work or volunteer when I felt like it. But my world isn’t perfect and I unfortunately have to work. I don’t want to. I want to spend lazy days walking the beach with my babies. I want to raise them the way I want them raised instead of relying on a nanny to do it. I want to bond with them and be their everything, like they are my everything. I struggle everyday with the fact that I can’t do these things and the new job is going to make things more difficult. I will have to work more hours and I’ll have to travel several times a year, sometimes for as long as two weeks at a time, with weekends at home. How is this going to affect breastfeeding and pumping? How is this going to impact my relationship with them? Will they resent me? Will they be less bonded to me? The possible answers to these questions are too painful to consider more than briefly.

Aside from the money aspect of it, I do think there is value in being a working mom. It’s important for my kids to see me get up each day and go to work to provide for them. I hope my example will help them have a strong work ethic and illustrate the value of working hard for something. I also believe strongly that I need to have interests in my life other than them. Hopefully it will make me a richer and more complex individual and hopefully that will enrich them as well. My last thought on being a working mom is this, someday they will grow up and move out and I’ll need something to fill the gapping hole that they carved out of my heart when they go. I’ll need something to be besides Bug and Button’s mom. I’ll still need to be me and like it.

Does it sound like I’m trying to sell myself on this? I am. I’m trying to find all the positives, and there are so many, to being away from them everyday. But, as I usually do, I’ll still buy myself a lottery ticket next week and dream of having the luxury of being a SAHM.

And just to make this very long post even longer, here are some pictures from the past month.