Friday, September 23, 2011

How do you do it? (Part One)

That's what people ask me a lot, and it's kind of embarrassing how manageable taking care of the girls is.  I mean, it's time-consuming, but it's usually one steady stream of work, not a juggling nightmare.  So I thought I'd outline my day so people can see what taking care of twins is like.  At least, what taking care of good-natured, fantastic sleeping twins is like.

(Excruciating detail warning - I like to be verbose for posterity, so I won't be offended if you get bored and wander off.  Seriously.  There aren't even any pictures.)

7:00am - My alarm goes off and I immediately hit snooze.  I had set it to go off before the girls wake up so I can shower, get dressed, and have some nice, caffeinated tea, but at the moment I don't care about any of that.  The girls have been sleeping solidly since 8pm and I've been sleeping since 10:30pm, so I can't say I'm deprived.  I'll just never want a shower more than I want to sleep.

7:15am - Alarm again.  Snooze again.  I hear grunts coming from the baby monitor, but no one sounds upset yet so I go back to sleep.

7:25am - Hayley's gone from grunting to cooing to griping, so I finally get out of bed.  (Matt is already halfway through his morning routine.)  I go into the nursery to find Hayley writhing around, looking flushed and confused.  As soon as she sees me, her eyes focus and she breaks into a gigantic grin and flails her arms and legs.  I stroke her hair and she tosses her head around and squeals crazily.  It's so close to laughter, but not quite there yet.  I play with her a little longer because it's one of the best times of my day.

Then I check Sarah; she's awake and quietly looking around.  When she sees me, she gives me a big smile too.  She kind of bites at the air with her grin, like she wants to smile wider but doesn't know how.  She also does some limb flapping and gentle cooing, but it's nothing near Hayley's exuberance.  That's okay, though; I know that she's at her happiest even if she's more subtle about it.

7:30am - I try to determine who's in a better mood.  The happier baby will be fine to stay in her crib while I carry the crankier baby downstairs.  The walk will put the cranky one in a better mood, and hopefully that will sustain her while I go back to pick up the happier one.  This is the sort of logistical thing that I had to figure out at one point, but it's just mindless instinct now.

Everyone's happy, so I take Sarah downstairs and lay her on her playmat.  That makes her cry for some reason, so I put her in her baby rocker instead.  Then I get Hayley, lay her down in the bassinet downstairs, and put her bottle in the microwave.  While it heats, I change Hayley's diaper.  Then I measure out her Prevacid in a plastic syringe, shoot it into her bottle and swirl it around.  I put a bib on Hayley, which makes her grin crazily again.  (I don't know if it's because she knows she's about to get fed or if she's just happy to be handled.)

7:40am - I pick up Hayley and sit in the recliner closest to Sarah so she can watch us.  Sarah's sitting quietly, and she'll probably stay that way, but it's best to be in a position to make interesting faces at her in case she starts griping out of boredom.  I give Hayley her bottle and she drinks it way too quickly.  I stop her every couple of minutes to burp her, but it's also to prolong the eating experience for her.  Otherwise she'd be done in about five minutes and I don't want her to get shafted on the eating/cuddling time.  She still finishes in under ten minutes, though, so I hold her a little longer and kiss her chubby cheeks.

7:55am - I put Hayley down in the swing.  I don't know if she still requires upright time after eating, but I'm never motivated enough to try laying her flat and risk getting barf in her hair.  I pick up Sarah and put her in the bassinet.  Hayley starts whimpering, so I try to give her a pacifier but she won't take it.  The attention seems to be enough, though, so I go back to Sarah and repeat the bottle/diaper/medicine drill.  We sit down next to Hayley and I give Sarah a little extra cuddling before we begin, since she eats better if she's happy.  Unfortunately, she can't figure out her sucking motion immediately, so she cries around the nipple in her mouth until I soothe her again.  We repeat the try/fail/cry/soothe cycle a couple times until she finally gets it and drinks hungrily.  After a few ounces, she loses her latch and we have to go through it again.  I feel bad pushing the bottle into her mouth when she's crying and making her even more upset, but I remind myself that she's crying because she wants to eat but can't.  However, that means that when we near the end, the only way I can tell if she's full is if she screams extra hard when I try to get her to latch again.  Some feeds are better than others, but it's rare to have a completely tear-free one.

8:20am - (OMG, this is so long already...) I set Sarah back down in her chair next to Hayley in her swing, then sit down in front of them.  I pet their feet and make faces at them, and they smile and coo at me, but they're starting to wind down.

8:30am - They go back down for their first nap just an hour after they wake up.  They're both smiling when I lay them down, but they quickly realize that they're not being held anymore and they start crying.  It's a gulping, irritable, scrunchy-faced cry that they only do when they're overtired.  Hayley takes her pacifier fairly easily, but Sarah tosses her head around and cries about it like she does with her bottle.  I finally get her to hold onto it just long enough for her eyes to close, and I bolt, shutting the door behind me.

8:35am - It only took five minutes to put them down, and I know that I'll get at least an hour to myself now.  If either of them wakes up, they'll be sleepy enough to take their pacifier without a fight and immediately fall asleep again.  It really is that easy.  I do some dishes, eat my breakfast, read my e-mail, and do some planning for an upcoming camping trip.

9:40am - Hayley starts yelping and I'm actually disappointed that their nap was "only" an hour.  I know so many parents would kill for one predictable hour every morning, so I try not to take my sleepy girls for granted.  But just like a lot of hassles seem perfectly normal to me, so do a lot of my blessings.  They sleep for an hour minimum, but sometimes I can get an hour and a half or even two out of them.  I really am spoiled.

I go upstairs and get my excited baby greetings again.  I put Sarah into Hayley's crib so they can squirm together and accidentally grab each other's arms.  They've only just started looking and smiling at each other, so I'm trying to encourage their relationship.  I change them both out of their pajamas and into onesie outfits, which they tolerate because I'm smiling at them and touching them.  But when I try to put a cute little hoodie on Sarah, she loses patience and starts crying.  I take it off and cuddle her, but I can tell she's in a bit of a mood.  I wonder if she's still tired and cranky, but it would be impossible to put her back down, so I just go with it.

9:50am - I take the girls back downstairs and lay them on their playmat together.  I used to lay them head to toe, but when they got more active they started kicking each other's heads, so now they lie in the same direction.  They still poke each other's faces with their hands sometimes, but there's a sweet spot that I can position them in where they're mostly safe.

Sarah cries when I lay her down again, which is frustrating because the playmat is usually her happy place.  (Maybe she remembers getting kicked?)  So I pick her up and cuddle her while Hayley plays, but seeing Sarah's sweet, blissful face in my arms just makes me feel guilty.  The happier she is being held, the more I feel I'm being unfair to Hayley.

Now, this is absolutely the hardest part of having twins for me.  I'm constantly worried about giving them equal love and attention.  The real point is to give each one enough love and attention, but I keep getting hung up on the equal part.  Which is why it's easier for me to lay them both down on the mat and scratch their bellies and make faces at them at the same time.  No one's getting held, but it's fair and it's easy; everyone is getting equal mom time.  So even though Hayley is perfectly happy playing and is so not keeping track of who gets held and for how long, I still feel like cuddling Sarah is somehow subtracting from Hayley's love.  I know that by that logic, I should be able to even things out by cuddling Hayley for the same length of time later, but because I have that sense of subtraction, that can feel like two wrongs making a right.  I KNOW.  It's so stupid and backwards and it doesn't benefit any of the three of us.  I really am trying to get over it, but it's harder than logic makes it sound.  Feeding, diapering, and all the practical stuff?  That's easy to deal with.  This is when my two arms feel so painfully inadequate.


Good lord, it's past 11pm now and I'm not even to noon yet.  Are you still with me?  You're awesome.  But it's time to slap a "Part One" on this and go to bed.

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