Of Cherubim and Seraphim

I just had such a pleasant surprise! Totally unexpectedly, I received a package from Thierry Mugler, creator of my all time favorite scent - Angel. A few weeks ago, I had written a letter to the New York office suggesting they create a fragrance for babies, and call it Cherub.

I had taken a bath and used my Angel bath gel and delicious body lotion, and a sprinkle of their celestial dusting powder. Then, I nursed the boys and went to bed. In the morning, I woke up next to two sweet, yummy smelling, sparkling babies! The powder has little sparkles in it and the fragrance interacted with their skins in such a way that they had the aroma of plump little candies. I wanted to gobble them up.

So, I wrote to Thierry Mugler and asked if they could make a baby safe version of Angel, in a massage oil, a body milk and a hair and body wash. I guess they thought it was a good idea, because I got a nice note from a lady in the Customer Relations Department, her business card for future reference and a whole bag full of Angel products, for me to enjoy. I love sharing largesse like this, but didn’t have anyone around with whom I could share. Just the baby sitter, who took home her two bottles of fragrance and a moisturizing body spray, lucky girl.

I am very flattered they liked my idea; can you imagine if a Cherub fragrance line came out in time for me to use it on my boys? I'd give them a bath whether they needed it or not. But it had better be soon, something tells me a ten year old would balk at his mama giving him a massage with scented oil… All day long I have felt quite clever and creative. And I smell like an Angel on top of it.

A snippet of life with my DH

Like many well educated and intelligent men, my sweet DH can be completely clueless. (I wish I could figure out how to put a link on this page! I read a pee-yer-pants-funny entry a few days ago about a friend’s husband who was sleeping, but somehow set off the house alarm by mistake, fell down the stairs when the cops arrived, and when he opened the door to the boys in blue – get this!! He weren’t wearin’ no jammie bottoms!!! Mind you, this fellow is scary smart, and has a very important job, like Chief of Aeronautics at NASA, or something. But I am sure he wears a complete set of jammies to the office.)

So, my DH and maps... I wanted to go to a play group a nice mama invited me to join and did not know how to get to the playgroud. She had sent me an email with the name of the park and the town, so I thought I’d just look it up on my handy-dandy A to Z Street Finder, which I always carry in my car. I get lost an awful lot. It was late-ish, and I was getting the babies to bed, so the DH said – “I’ll find the park, Honey!” (You have to read that in a deep, manly I’ll-save-you voice.) I said thank you, told him which e-mail had the park’s name in it, and went into the nursery with the twins. Thirty seven minutes later, and I know how long it was because I looked at the time when I went into the room and again when I managed to sidle away, he was still on the computer, but surfing the web.

“What’s up? Where is this park?”
“I can’t find it! It’s not listed. The closet park with that name is near Lake Tahoe, but that can’t be right...”
“Good call! I am sure that’s not it. (We live in New England.) Did you get the spelling of the park name from the e-mail?”
“Yes, here it is. San Sebastian Park, Mustela.”
“Sweetheart, here's the e-mail, it reads the park is San Salvatore, and it is two towns over. The town name is right there. Where did you get that other town? Mustela? Is that some suburb?”
“I don’t know; it was in the e-mail!” Clearly peeved, he gets back on line, and types in San Salvatrice Park and hits GO! I put on my slippers and go get my Street Finder from the car.

Four and one half minutes later, I am looking in the Index.

“Hey,” says I, “There is no San Salvatore Park listed. Let’s call her up.”

Ring ring. The conversation was as follows: Hi. Hi. Where’s the playgroup tomorrow? At San Salvatore Park, on Mustela Street, two towns over. Thank you, see you there. OK. See you there.

I go to Map Quest, type in the street and town, and see an unnamed green glob on the map, at the end of Mustela Street. That must be it. I find the corresponding green glob on my Street Finder and jot down directions. Total time: approximately fourteen minutes. Meanwhile, my DH is still on line (good thing we have two computers) muttering about San Antonio Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and how he can’t see the screen clearly when he’s tired. But he does give good directions in his hometown.

Schedule, schmedule

Schedule, schmedule. To me that’s a bad word. Someone tells me, “the baby is on a schedule”, and I hear, “I only feed the baby when it suits me, according to an arbitrary timetable.” I know, I know, everyone has their own way of doing things, and to some a schedule is a necessity. I would never think someone else is raising their children wrong, and certainly do not say that to the person who is sharing their advice, experiences, and/or scheduling tips, but for what it's worth, this is my opinion: since I’m not on a schedule, my babies aren’t either.

(I read this intro bit aloud to my DH, who said – “But you are on a kind of schedule, Honey. You wake up around the same time each day.” I had to gently remind him I go by the babies’ cues, as does he. We get up sometime between 5:00 and 8:00 am. We eat breakfast sometime between 5:30 and 8:00 am. He leaves for work at 8:15, and I try to have my lunch, when I get it, sometime between 10:30 am and 3:00 pm. If I plan on running that night, I don’t have an afternoon snack, but if I am not running, I feel free to snack on whatever the boys toss on the floor during their tea, which is served sometime between 2:30 and 5:30. Oh, yeah, that is quite a tight schedule! Sounds like the schedule for flight departures at the local crop duster airport.)

The only thing that scheduled in my house seems to be the 8:25 am poop-fest and the afternoon Who can Overflow the Diaper contest at 4:30. Funny, both of my boys have their biggest, messiest diapers at the same times each day, and funny, those times seem to be just as my DH leaves for work (so he can’t help out or he’ll be late) and just before the baby sitter comes in the afternoons (therefore, she can’t help out either). Ever tried to change one baby while the other crawls all over you and the changee? It’s especially fun when the Baby A is doing his won’t-lie-down-to-be-changed thing and I wind up holding him by one leg, half upside down, like a greased wild piglet at a rodeo. This baby usually shrieks during changes like an ancient Christian martyr during a particularly trying session with an Inquisitor. The other baby, who feels he is being ignored and neglected, will weep bitter tears as I am forced to push him away, to prevent him from grabbing the full diaper and waving it about, sending the contents flying. (And yes, it has happened). Then Baby A, fresh and sweet in his new Huggie (size 4, yes my boys are somewhat small for their age), wants to play/nurse/be held! Sorry, sugar pop! I must needs shove you to the side so Baby B can have his posterior tidied up.

Now, I am exhausted.

One day, the baby sitter came by a bit early, at 4:15, and she was there for the Overflow Competition. I had her do the restraining so I could change Baby A, then I did the restraining while she changed Baby B, who is a little less like a Whirling Dervish. Baby B will lie there, quite nicely, as long as he can occupy himself by grabbing his little wiener and yanking away. However, he does screech and cry when you remove his hands from his Atari joystick so you can pull up the diaper and fasten it closed. “Don’t take my toy away!” I can hear him cry, “I just found out about it!” With two people around, it didn’t take as long to do the afternoon change as it usually does, and I was just about to comment how easy that was when the sitter says – “Wow. I’m all hot and sweaty now.” Hmmm. I guess “easy” means different things to different people.
Schedule, schmedule…each to his or her own, and God Bless everyone!

Tonight we have a guest blogger

Via e-mail, my good friend from down South, will share some of her motherly wisdom...


Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 9:54 AM
Subject: After the dust has settled

I am now sixty years old, my boys are 19 and 22. Grandmotherhood could be the corner. Listening to what new mothers have to say, I smile. I understand the struggle. When I was raising my boys -- alone -- after divorcing a husband guilty of child abuse, I swam against the tide. There was no end to the advice I would get -- and the criticism. I was supposed
to discipline my boys. I was to slack. I'd be sorry.

When my younger son developed what appeared to be Tourette's syndrome, we went to a psychiatrist who treated him with dangerous drugs with serious side effects. When I decided to listen to my son and let him stop the drugs and drop out of school, the psychiatrist was against me. Called me a terrible mother. We followed our hearts. My son dropped out of school, got
his GED and all his symptoms disappeared. There are times when you close your eyes and follow your heart.

After all is said and done, I'm not sorry. My boys are wonderful, honorable, sensitive individuals. They are extremely creative and talented. They are also self-confident and they never had to rebel against my rules. In this house, rules were remarkably lacking. I believed in teaching by example and letting them learn from natural consequences. They never wanted me to disapprove of what they were doing. We had no violence in our house. I look back. Of all the successes I have had in my life, the one that counts the most for me is having raised two absolutely incredible sons. They may be famous one day -- or not. They have already made important contributions to their friends and family. What more could I possibly want? Only their happiness.

This lady has lived in several different countries, worked as a writer for the LA Times, a financial planner, and now as an artist; she speaks a few languages, knows how to cook, paint, sculpt, make movies, work a sound stage; you name it. She also rescued three dogs from certain death and I don't know anyone who doesn't like her. She forgot to mention that her sons are both totally gorgeous.

I can't believe it!

To paraphrase my beloved Jane Austen - “For what do we live, but to make sport for (our friends and those we know), and laugh at them in our turn?” Quite right, Mr. Bennet. Since I have become a mother, and have all this time on my hands to make a fool of myself (ha ha ha), I am sure I am regularly making excellent sport for my friends and those who know me. (Actually, I don’t need all that much time to look like a jerk. When you have two babies literally hanging off you, are chronically sleep deprived and usually hungry, opportunities for being ridiculous come fast and furious.) As for laughing at them in my turn… Well, Fall is here, and with the change of season comes that same comment: “I can’t believe the summer is over!” All I can think is, “Really? You can’t? Will you believe me when I tell you Winter comes next? Or will you exclaim – NO! I can’t believe it? ”

How long will it be until those who insist on talking about the weather, despite my attempts to steer the conversation to more nourishing topics, realize the autumn comes every year, without fail? It’s not a difficult concept; the air gets cooler, the leaves change color and the children go to school. Every year… I think it’s just something to say when the brain is empty, kind of like – Oh, twins! Double trouble! and other idiotic statements.

There are still a few summer days of canine left in the year. Along with the I-can’t-believe-it contingent travel the Gee-it’s-hot-and-other-unnecessary-observations club. I went to a lunch with my DH and the boys the other day, and we sat next to a big bunch of people on the restaurant’s verandah. One of the older men, I think he was about 70, commented – “Hey. Those are some big boys you got there. I bet you can’t believe they got so big so fast.” I replied politely – “Yes, they are almost a year old already. I keep quoting Andrew Marvell

“But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.”

When I look next, they’ll be in school.”

If you had seen the blank, confused looks on the faces that ringed the table! Don’t older people read poetry? My grandmother was always quoting tracts of the stuff. But I should have realized they would not have a clue. A few minutes before, I overheard one of them asking another if it was hot enough for them. When I am asked that, especially when standing around at a barbeque, or in line at a ball park, or other notoriously roasting hot location, I am sooo tempted to reply – “Actually, until my nail polish melts off my toenails, trickles through my sandals, and drips onto the liquid tarmac, it’s just not hot enough for me.” But I usually restrain myself. I don’t want to get a ticket for jay talking.

Today was hot, in the nineties, and we went to a friends' daughter’s second birthday party. The party was outside and the subject of the weather was bandied about freely.

“Hot enough for ya?” was a favorite to win, with the close second - “Well, it’s not the heat, but the humidity.” Then, there were those who spent some happy moments congratulating each other on living where we do, because this has been a moderate summer, as far as heat waves are concerned. I am ashamed to admit, I too fell victim to the weather speak when I went into the house to prevent my babies from being broiled in the sun. I sighed – “Oh, it’s much cooler in here.” Duh. That lovely, chilly breeze that met me when I entered our friends' lovely home was the air conditioning.

Now I have 30 cents...

Thank you all for your comments! I am such a dingbat. I can see that I am making quite a big deal out of not much. If someone doesn't like what I write - they can go ahead and disagree, make nasty cracks, hang up on me if I call to apologize - whatever they want to do. I am here for me, for my own entertainment and a little intellectual exercise class. (Feel those synapses burn!) A wise lady sent me an email this afternoon with the subject line: Of mountains and molehills. ha hahaha snort! Good thing I have two cats. They eat moles for breakfast.

Stay tuned for more snarky snippets, coming your way soon.

Love and kisses.... MOT

Give me your 5 cents...

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the Internet is mightier than both. This is the new truism in my life. I have been keeping this journal/rant fest/steam vent for a few months now, and I am glad y’all are reading it and enjoying it and perhaps, disagreeing with it, too. I have heard some good remarks and some bad remarks and I love it when people comment! One post has caused some discussion. Here it is:


I am sure every mother, whether she has twins, triplets or singletons has heard the admonition, don’t do this/that/the other you’ll spoil the baby, blah, blah, blah. Well, I was with my boys at a relative’s house, and when one the babies started to cry I rushed over and picked him up. He had become scared by one of the older children’s noisy toys. I got to hear –

“She’s going to have a lot of trouble with those boys of she keeps on spoiling them like that.”

My fake response: “Children are like tropical fruit. They only spoil if they are ignored. My babies are not going to be spoiled by my enjoying them and appreciating them and picking them up when they need me. Your little ADHA child was obviously ignored, Missus Bad Mother.”

I feel the need to explain that the entire purpose of this little story was only to be a vehicle in which to make the tropical fruit comment, which I thought rather clever. This story was made up. I did use a bit of reality, like many writers do. (I know my dear sister will not mind me using her in the blog, she’s cool with the occasional shout out.) The relative’s house is her house; the noisy toy was a mechanical Barbie horse, a comment, sort of like the spoiling comment, was made by someone who speaks another language, so I am sure I heard it wrong, but I needed a remark to respond to, so I made one up; and the ADHD child is merely a figment of my fertile and creative mind. (If the lady who had made the remark about my holding the babies too much really did have a child with ADHD, he would be the first 40 year old Emergency Room Doctor with ADHD I have ever met.) The Missus Bad Mother, therefore, is no one at all.

I have heard it said that no one has a right to call anyone a bad mother, that each mother does the best she can with her situation. I have heard it said that I have no right to call my sister a bad mother (which I did not do in the above story, not me, no way and never will). I have heard it said that mothers of twins, of all people, should know how hard mothering can be, and that no one has a right to be as critical as I am on this blog.

The point to this is, yes, I do have a right to my opinion, as do you. Yes, I do have a right to think children should not be ignored and the mother who does not pick up her screaming baby is not being the best she can be at that moment. I absolutely have a right to that opinion, just as you have a right to disagree.

Please give me your 5 cents: Do I have a right to express myself so bluntly? Do I have the right to express my opinion and to create stories to make a point? Do I have a right to call someone a bad mother, a bad friend, a bad dancer, bad driver or bad lover? One of the blogs I love love love to read for her wisdom and truth is www.chezmiscarriage.blogs.com. She had a posting the other day that caused a comment war with about 30 readers, to which she responded, in her usual pithy way. Here’s a quote:

What surprised me about Friday's disagreement is that if you read the comments, everyone is essentially saying the same thing. "Please don't tell me how to feel." That's the sum total of everyone's position, right there. And yet a tussle ensued. A squabble. A donnybrook. An imbroglio. But why?
In my opinion, these issues are so sensitive - and so rarely discussed - that other people's experiences can often feel like an indictment of our own. It's difficult not to get defensive when someone is articulating an unfamiliar emotional reality. When an infertile woman confides that it's difficult to hear women complain about their pregnancies, does her fertile friend feel as though her physical complaints are being trivialized? When a woman with primary infertility articulates a longing for just one child, does her friend with secondary infertility feel stung by the implication that she should be satisfied with what she has?

In my own, clumsy way I am trying to express what I think and feel, what I hope and fear and what goes on in my mind. I am saying out loud what not a lot of mothers allow themselves to think: I am not the best mother, I am not the best mother I can be at all times, I am not the best mother for twins. However, the powers that be knew that I can handle this and therefore, I am the only mother available (drat – no days off!) My boys and I will have to muddle along, figuring it all out together. God knows, (‘coz He’s always watching) that I lose my patience, I yell and scream, and that I don’t always pick them up as fast as I can. Of course, I feel horrible about every time they have cried and I delayed the delivery of mother comfort so I could do something for myself first. (Like pee, put on my clothes, drink some water, you know, something a baby just can’t understand you may need…) But, I am not Missus Bad Mother all the time, just when I feel guilty. The guilt that comes with motherhood! Everyone feels it, and perhaps residual guilt over things done or left undone is what causes someone’s prickly defensiveness. What do you think? Please read the comments and make one of your own. I need feedback.

Not yet goodbye

This could have been a farewell posting, an end to it all and a goodbye. But I have decided, once again, to forge on. I have even less time than ever now, with the end of summer gardening and the birthday party and all, but I still make the time I need to blog in the dark hours of the night. The reason I almost called an end to my on line experiences is because of some negative feedback. It was tough to hear. I actually cried. However, I am going to use that feedback as a means to improve, not to quit.

I have heard that I am too hard on people in these entries and that I am just too mean. I certainly don’t think so; I think I am just getting what I need to say out there, however I can. Over and over, I tell those around me what I feel and need and want and my hopes and dreams, and over and over I get the distinct impression no one is listening. Once I was telling someone I know (and I know a lot of someones all over the world) about a banana bread recipe and he said – “Yes, well, I’m a vegetarian, myself.” What? Talk about a non-sequitor. He just wasn’t listening at all. I am no different from anyone else; I like to be heard. I, too, can be guilty of just waiting for my turn to yip yap out what I want to say, but I have taught myself how to listen too. Recently someone told me something that I really took to heart. I would go into details, but I promised I wouldn’t.


I am part of a group of moms, who all have twins of various ages, and even they cannot fully understand my experiences for one major reason; they are not I. There is no other twin mama I have met who I have clicked with, like a Doppelganger. I sometimes I read one of those magazines - Daddyhood, or Now-That-you’re-a-Parent-we-can-tell-You-how-to-Live, or some such publication, just for entertainment. I cannot take 90% any of it seriously. In one such rag I read of a mother resisting a playgroup – why should she try to get along with these strangers, just because they all had children? The thrust of the story was parenthood is not really a point in common. Quite right too. After all, every dog can reproduce. Does that mean I am just like any other bitch on the street? (No, don’t answer that…)

I went to a group style midwife practice when I was pregnant. I wanted to use a midwife to have a cave woman type birth experience, and use a doula, and I met a midwife who kind of liked. She seemed a bit dippy, but sweet. (In retrospect just that description alone is enough to make me break out in bloody hives, now knowing what I know about childbirth, and my difficult experience, but we each must learn or lessons our own way.)

Anyway, I found myself part of a group that included two unwed teenagers, aged 17 and 19; a 6 foot tall Black woman and a clinically depressed person, who was going through a divorce, and stated flatly she didn’t want to have this fourth baby, but her anti-depressants interfered with her birth control pills. I had the most in common with the sister; we were both married and had both become pregnant intentionally. The two teenagers would ask the most idiotic questions, such as – “ If I’m in a car with some one who is smoking and we roll down all the windows, that’s not called second hand smoke, is it?” And questions like – “You gain weight when you breastfeed, right?” And - “I didn’t think I was supposed to stretch when I was pregnant, it could hurt the baby. You mean I should do yoga?” And they made comments along the lines of - “My boyfriend is really excited about the baby. He loves babies; he has two already, but this is our first together.”

I asked the midwives if I could have individual appointments; I was more interested in talking about my own health, and my own dietary concerns and about breastfeeding, not as an option, but how I needed to prepare, but they were really adamant about “Group”, as they called it. (That should have been another clue for me – I hate hate hate it when native English speakers leave off the article! It’s “I’ll see you at THE group on Tuesday,” not “See you in group on Tuesday!” That makes one sound like someone who failed an ESL class.) But, pregnancy hormones being what they are, I let them talk me into staying. Then I found out I was going to have twins. I really should have gone to an OB at that point. I am so mule headed sometimes, I still wanted to have the crunchy granola experience, and kept hoping the (see, see THE) group would get better. After all, the numbers were dropping; one of the teenagers moved to Florida to be with her divorced mother’s last boyfriend’s sister’s cousin, and the depressed one heard something bad about Yale and wanted to go to a practice that used a different hospital. Therefore it was only the seventeen year old, the sister and I. So, I stayed, against my better judgment.

Then the blood pressure and the weight started going up up up and the ankles began to really disappear. One of the midwives actually gave me a lecture on eating too much, and to watch how much peanut butter I consumed. I told her I had subsisted on nothing but popsicles and milk for about a week at that point. I was over 37 weeks along, but again – people just don’t listen… Obviously (in hindsight) there was something wrong. But, pregnancy hormones being what they are, I did not listen to my body’s screams for help.

This group – called Centering – was really for the healthiest specimens, not for me. The drill was: go in, get your own chart, take your own blood pressure and weight and then sit and wait for the MW with the fetoscope to listen to your tummy. Therefore, the medical caretaker isn’t really focusing on your weight or blood pressure, because you did it yourself. Oh, she glanced at the chart, but the MW I usually saw seemed more interested in chatting with me than the actual visit. I was lonely, and flattered she thought I was interesting, and I didn’t really clue in that it was bad not to get my urine tested for protein, except once. So by August I had pre-eclampsia, and no one knew it. I’m lucky I didn’t have a seizure and die in my own house. That would have been a nasty shock for my DH – come home from work and there is the wife, 38 weeks along, 240 pounds, dead as road kill, and probably a bit stinky too. It was a hot August, and no one ever came to visit me, to make sure I was okay. I’m damn glad I drove myself to the hospital that day I had my boys. If you, gentle reader, have a pregnant friend, be sure to call her daily and/or visit, especially if she had twins. You just might be a hero.

The mother’s group I joined, the one with all the twin mothers, is kind of the same to me. Yes, we all have twins, but we really do all the work on our own. You need to speak up and speak out if you have a need or a want, and you take your own blood pressure. I joined hoping to make friends, and meet mothers who could advise me on trade secrets. I also wanted a forum in which to vent my anxiety, and explore my options and wanted to meet women with whom to share my mothering journey. I have to say; I don’t really feel a part of the group. Am I going to quit? Nope - I am capable of learning a lesson, and know the change needs to come from ME. That’s why I joined the Board of Directors. Now I have a compelling reason to keep going. I have faith that Group will get better for me. (If I drop the article, and call it Group, can I play too?)

Asinine comments, Part two

Yes, more of my favorite asinine comments from all and sundry; I knew I hadn’t heard the last of them! Here they are, the latest batch of remarks, complete with my fantasy responses.


I was innocently shopping at Stop and Pop, my favorite place to go on a rainy day, when the proverbial little old person accosted me. “Oh, my! Twins, are they?” she yells.

“Yes, they are twins. These are my boys, Vegetable and Banana-head,” I said, introducing the scrumptiousnesses that are mine.

“Hey! If they are twins, why do they have different colored eyes, and why is he bigger?”

“Because they are fraternal twins.”

“But his eyes are a different color…why?”

“I made them that way, just to confuse old people like you, ok, Missus Let’s Stick our Face into other People's Business?”

I am sure every mother, whether she has twins, triplets or singletons has heard the admonition, don’t do this/that/the other you’ll spoil the baby, blah, blah, blah. Well, I was with my boys at a relative’s house, and when one the babies started to cry I rushed over and picked him up. He had become scared by one of the older children’s noisy toys. I got to hear –

“She’s going to have a lot of trouble with those boys of she keeps on spoiling the like that.”


“Children are like tropical fruit. They only spoil if they are ignored. My babies are not going to be spoiled by my enjoying them and appreciating them and picking them up when they need me. Your little ADHA child was obviously ignored, Missus Bad Mother.”

We were at a friend’s swimming pool, and the babies went into the water with their DD. Someone remarked, because my younger by 20 seconds baby has eczema on his ankle -

“The pool water is going to clear that skin right up! I took my daughter swimming in our pool every summer; she had eczema until she was 12 years old.”

“Oh, really? I am sure I have read, have heard, and know from personal experience with dry skin that chlorine is harmful, dehydrating, and will only worsen the situation. Eczema must not be exposed to air or it will dry even more. Why else do you think babies don’t eczema (except in the most extreme cases) on their diaper area? Huh, Mister Instant Dermatologist? That’s because the diaper area is never exposed to air. But now that you’ve told me your version of medical fact, and reassured me that your own child suffered from itchy skin for twelve years, I’ll be sure to dip my baby into a chemical bath on a regular basis!”

(As it is, I give the boys a bath as soon as I can after they have been in a pool, so as not to make my poor little Vegetable baby any more dry, or my mother will call him Alligator.)

I am still nursing the babies, and yes, they have teeth. One of them bit me a few times, but I managed to talk him out of it. The other baby still bites me, I accidentally, I hope, or when he isn’t really interested in nursing. He bites a lot of things and nibbles on my neck and ears and skin in general. I am still trying to convince him that biting is not fun for anymore, but it’s a battle. So this comment, which came from a man friend a few weeks ago, was really too much.

The friend was sitting with me chatting, as I nursed the Biter and suddenly I exclaimed – “Ouch! No, baby! No biting!” The baby took a break; I kissed him and then continued to nurse. My friend said -

“You know, it’s not a good idea to let the baby bite you on the boob. You should try to stop him.”

“Really? You think I should start trying to get him to stop? Well, my old job was at a club called The Chamber and I was known as Dominatrix Trixie Van Pelt. I still kind of like sharp, painful pinching on delicate parts of my anatomy, but of you think I should stop him, Mister Experienced Nursing Man…”

This last comment was from a woman who I have known for several years. She has two boys of her own and, when I said I hoped to nurse my twins as long as I could, she said –

“Breastfeeding can be a good thing, but after a year, it’s kind of like child abuse.”

I had no idea what to say to that one, in jest, or in solemnity, and I still don’t.

How many days do I have left to serve in Purgatory now?

The day I wrote this was my saint’s day, and my oh-so-Catholic father left me a message saying he had “bought a mass” for my intentions on this special day. The message also said that he was going to Vermont for a long weekend with my mother, so we won't be getting together like we usually do on Thursdays. Which is too bad, for me. I like having a soporific meal and a bottle of wine, sometimes even champagne, in the middle of the day at the end of the week. It kind of takes the edge off, if you can imagine…but they are off to a resort in a barn this month. My parents really need their monthly vacations because they work such crazy hours; I calculated it to be about 85 hours a week, and this is in four full days, Saturdays and Thursdays “off”. The off is in quotes, because he generally puts in four hours or more at his office before he comes home to drive his riding mower around at 45 miles per hour on their 3 acres of lawn. They have a team of gardeners (Yep. A team. I’d call one guy bossing the other three guys around a team.) come and do stuff a few days a week, but the lawn mowing is my father’s special province; the British feel rather protective of their grass. Must be a cultural gene that missed a generation in me. I like grass to be green and there. I don’t freak out of people park on it, drive on it, forget to mow it, or, as my DH has done, burn it brown and crispy by leaving a glass topped outdoor table upside down on it for five hours on a broiling hot Saturday. It’s just grass. But to my father, it’s another child.

Once I drove along the lawn rather than on the potholed driveway. “Potholed? But I thought they spent hours and hours on a daily basis on their property?” you may say. While they do take a lot of trouble with the garden and the lawn, they don’t bother with the driveway – it’s not green, growing or flowering, so it’s is not a subject of interest. That’s just the way it is. So, there I was, in my two-day-old new car, not wanting to dive into a two-foot deep pothole full of mud and water, get the car filthy and hear the chassis scrape on what’s left of their tarmac. So I inched a teeny tiny bit onto the grass, just along the edge, with two wheels and drove on the lawn for about four feet. Whoo boy! Y’all should have heard the upset and disappointed-in-you message on my voice mail that night…

Anyway, my lawn-loving parent called and left a message that they would be going to VT tomorrow, therefore I will not be able to enjoy their company. I guess I’ll just go to Costco as an outing by myself. He used the words “bought a mass”. I wonder how many indulgences he purchased, and many fewer days in Purgatory I have to go through now? Is there way I can exchange some of them for fewer bad days here on earth?

Bigfoot can't afford Manolo Blahniks

When I was pregnant and getting more and more enormous by the day, I was afraid that my feet would never go back to normal. At one point I was wearing size ten flip flops from Old Navy, which were a little snug and left dents in the top of my feet. (Not that I actually had feet; they were more like paws.) I expected a lot of body parts to change size, tootsies included. Everyone says the feet do expand to accommodate the extra weight. Most women I’ve spoken to about this say their feet got a size bigger for each child. Two sizes, I thought, I am having two babies. Was I going to be doomed to have to cut circles of leather and tie them with a leather thong, like Ayla in The Clan of the Cave Bear? As the pregnancy progressed and I added up that I was gaining about 9 pounds a month, I knew I would definitely wear a larger shoe. What I was most afraid of was having feet both longer and wider. I already had a hard time finding shoes owing to the width of my size 8 pre-pregnancy feet, but feet twice as big and twice as wide? No Jimmy Choos for me, alas alack! Not that my husband is willing to shell out $500 for a pair of three inch heels in pale green satin with rhinestone buckles on the ankle strap – but it would be wonderful, no? (And yes, I would find somewhere to wear them! To the supermarket, to the coffee shop, to my sister’s house, with jeans, with a skirt, with my everlasting yoga pants…)

Since I gained almost 80 pounds (Yep, that’s right. Eight zero. I am five foot three, and had a 62-inch waist. I looked like a beach ball) my feet did expand. However, my worst fears were not realized; I am now a size nine, but I think a little narrower…hmm. Well, that’s my excuse for “having” to buy all new shoes. Any excuse to go shopping; too bad it’s only at Nine West. Now if only the babies would give me a day off to do it. A day off from mama-hood, for me to do my own thing? As all mamas are thinking: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! HA!

I remember when I lived in Atlanta, one of my many job was at J. Crew. I really only got the job because I wanted the discount, not out of any desire to further my retail career. Be that as it may, I was there for about four months over the Christmas season and beyond. There was a very pretty lady who used to come in every Thursday and wander around, sometimes buying and sometimes not. Once I was chatting with her, and remarked – “You here a lot. Do you have a weekly date at the mall?” She replied – “I have every Thursday on my own – it’s Mother’s Day Out.” At the time I thought, why on earth does she need or want a day away from her baby? Now I think – Lucky wench.

If I had only paid attention and lined up my “days off” as soon as I found out I was expecting. I try to tell my pregnant friends show lonely and frustrating and annoying and damn boring it can be trying to fill your days when you have a baby to carry around, but to a woman they all say – “I’m sure I’ll be fine! I am just going to love this baby so much” and “I won’t have to ask for time for myself. My husband is bound to want time to bond with the baby on his own.” Yes, of course the husband will want time, but every time you need to be alone, will he know, just by instinct? And of course you will love your baby! We all adore our scrumptious munchkins more than we could have ever imagined loving another human being. But one does need time to collect the scattered wits and reassemble oneself, that may be higgily-piggily all over the shop. The most deluded comment of all came from a smart, nice, kind of funny and kind of funky woman, who once said, in response to her husband’s offer of taking the babies for a walk every night when he got home to give her space – “Don’t leave me alone, I am sure I’ll want to come along! I love walks!” What a dumb thing to say… oh, wait. That was me.

Friday the thirteenth

Friday the thirteenth was an Alexander-like terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day (remember that book?) Owing to the heat and humidity, we were inside most of the day, apart from a walk in the cool of the morning. (Cool – right – it was 70% humidity and 80 degrees in the shade…) Therefore, the babies were being a little more crotchety than usual. What with my having terrible stomach cramps – no doubt from guzzling a pint of chocolate milk of the carton in lieu of breakfast right before the aforementioned walk in the boiling heat, and the babies being bored and whiny, the day was eternal. It took forever for 4:30 to come around, 4:30 being the magical hour when the responsible member of my baby-sitting force comes by. Well, let me tell you, 4:30 came and went, as did 5:30, the magical hour when my DH comes home from his office. No one showed up. By 6:00 we were all still alone and ready to explode into little baby and mama bits all over the kitchen.

“This is the day when I lose it,” I thought. “I am going crazy, right here and right now.” I am tired of screaming into a pillow and don’t want to slap my cheeks to calm myself down. I have started an at home micro-dermabrasion routine, and my skin’s kind of sensitive. I had no one to call; my sister has gone to Italy; my mother is on vacation; my husband was out of the office, but if you’d like to leave a message, I’ll call you right back. The close stay home mama-friend I have is busy with her very new baby, and bombarded with calls all day and doesn’t pick up anymore. I really can’t blame her; she needs not to talk. Notice how it’s always like that? If you want company, you may as well live on a deserted island. If you want solitude, your door is splintering under the crush of fans trying to get in. Calling my other nearby stay home mama-friend was not an option; we’d had little sort-of-fight few days ago, and I wasn’t sure how she’d welcome a weepy “I can’t take it anymore” sort of call. Besides, she has her own two boys home for the summer and baby-sits her two nieces as well.

The fight-lette was very weird. I was gassing on about how I am working on my novel, and how difficult it is to find time and peace and how maybe we could meet up, leave our respective children with our respective designated hitters (har har) and get together so I could write and she could read, or just be quiet together. She says – “ I find it hard to get time to do things too, but I don’t have someone clean my house or babysitters coming over on a regular basis.”

Ooooh boy. I could have said a whole lot, let me tell you! About how I try to fill up my days; about how isolated I still can be, despite my best efforts; about how I am struggling to be happy and cheery and fun for the babies and teach them and play with them and still have mental elbow room for my own thoughts; and that it’s still very hard. It’s easier than when it was all nursing, all day, all night, but mentally it’s not any easier. Nor do I expect life with twins to get any easier any time soon. I am making changes and making do with what I am can and still on the hunt for a nice lady I can count on to be there and help with the boys in the evenings, so I can go jogging, guilt free. If you know anyone- PLEASE let me know!!!

I know everyone sees things differently, and some must think that the house help and baby sitters mean I have opportunities galore to Get Things Done. I wonder if people know the “housekeeper” only does the floors, the bathroom and a little dusting and that she takes off after two and a half hours? I still do the shopping, laundry, bed changing, kitchen counter/kitchen table/general surface washing and wiping, refrigerator scrubbing, cabinet organizing, mail sorting, office tidying and everyday keeping up with a house myself. And the cooking too – don’t forget! The baby sitters…harrumph. Not only do they keep standing us up, they are really there for my DH’s benefit. They come at 4:30; I go run at 5:30 when he gets home. I run for about 45 minutes, then stretch, take a shower and eat something. Then they leave at 7:00. Not a whole lotta time for creative writing, is there?

However, as people always say – “It would be boring of everyone was the same.” Quite right you are there. I am absolutely not the same as anyone else I have ever met, and I have done a lot of traveling, and have met a lot of people in my time. You know what? I may need a little more space than you, because when I am “on duty”, I am “on double duty,” and it’s wringing me out. The house help and the baby-sitters (when they show up) are around to keep the head just above water.

Therefore, not only I am going to continue to sacrifice sleep to write, I am going to have my DH take care of his babies for two hours at a stretch or more every Saturday and Sunday so I can get Something Done; decompress, unclench, breathe, and write as well. Who knows, if I keep hanging out at Starbucks, I might also meet another nice person or two. W.L., I am coming to the play-group soon. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to stuff my shattered self into a Ziploc baggie, so as not to be too much of a mess.

You can't take it with you, Baby

As I was nursing my twins today, I remembered a bit of advice given in those early, blurry days of being home with the new babies. A friend suggested I leave a nursing top or nightshirt in the co-sleeper with the babies so they could smell me and not miss me so much. She said – “If they can smell the milk, they might sleep a little longer.” This was when they were nursing all day and all night, 24 times a day, every hour on the hour and I was just exhausted. So, I took the tip and left an unwashed nursing top in the co-sleeper and put one of the babies on top of it when he fell asleep for a nap. A few minutes later, I heard him crying and choking. I ran in the room to see he had stuffed the milky shirt into his mouth and was gagging on it, crying for me and rooting like mad. My babies aren’t easily fooled.

I just read the clever Andi Buchanan’s Mother Shock today, and could really relate to the chapter on breast-feeding. Her view is whether you do it or not, are successful or not, whether you breastfeed for two years or two weeks, everyone has an opinion on how you are doing it wrong. I have heard sooo much about my nursing the twins to get it all down would take more time than I can ever find in a day. Suffice it to say, I’ve ignored most of it, because I knew I wanted to breastfeed my twins and I knew it would be very tough. I actually expected to have more problems than I did. I just (ha ha "just" – I was weeping in agony for five weeks – just!) got an infection on the skin and the babies would tear off the scabs every time they nursed. I am sure it would have cleared up sooner, with the cream I was prescribed by the breast specialist, but since I was supposed to apply the cream to the “affected area” and let it soak in for an hour, I had a problem. I never got an hour without someone sucking on me. The babies were nursing every 20 minutes, therefore it took quite a while to clear up. However, that was my only problem.

They are expert nurslings now. They can nurse in any position and at any time, anywhere and in any situation. I’ve nursed them in various relative’s homes, in parks, coffee shops, restaurants, museums, in the car, in the bathtub, outside in the snow, wind and rain, whilst walking, in bed, sitting on the potty, in the supermarket in the sling…everywhere. They are strong, too, and it can be hard to unlatch them. Once I was on the phone, and had to rest the baby’s bottom on the kitchen counter to have a free hand to jot down a message, because I had the phone in the other hand, and the baby refused to unplug himself to let me put him down for thirty seconds.

They are also at the athletic nursing stage. Some mamas find this bothersome; a baby who likes to hang over your shoulder whilst nursing, or who tries to nurse with his bottom in the air. I find their athletic abilities rather useful – at night I can side nurse one baby while the other hangs over my rib cage and nurses on the other side. Then, when the draped baby has had enough, he detaches and falls off me like a big tick that has sucked his fill, and falls asleep. Hey, you do what you have to do to get some sleep.

However, the athletic nursing has its drawbacks – it can be painful and embarrassing. Just picture a baby who tries to crawl away whilst nursing, attempting to pull the nipple along with him on his travels. No, Honey-baby! Haven’t you heard the expression “You can’t take it with you?” And there are babies who whip their heads around to see what’s going on, again trying to take the nipple along, just in case. Yikes!

The embarrassing part is when you are in a public place, like a café or the supermarket, and the infant Olympian suddenly writhes out of your grasp and screams to be put down so he can crawl. Ok Ok, Mr. Universe! I know you can get around on your own. This happened to me in Stop and Shop, when I just couldn’t hold my twin A anymore. I had to put the baby down to crawl on his own for a few minutes and I could see people glancing over. “Ah,” I thought, “They are admiring my lovely baby.” But it’s more likely they were startled at the sight of my boob sticking out of the nursing top – I forgot to put it away. Good thing I'm pretty shameless - but bold as I am, I almost blushed.

Addendum: I can't say I ignored all the advice given. My sister, of course, gave me some useful tips, as did the lactation consultant who came to see me during week seven, but, like many, many first time nursing mamas, I had to invent the wheel all over again, by myself.

Whoo Boy! I was recognized tonight

I was recognized tonight –“Look! It’s the Mother of Twins!” I heard, as I was in the children’s department of the new neighborhood Ikea. That store is going to be the Barnes and Noble pick up joint of the 21-century. Remember when everyone used to troll the aisles of B and N in the late 90’s to see who was shopping for what… and for whom? But Ikea is much better for that, number one, if you are cool enough to go there, you are bound to meet cool people. Number two, the whole showroom is set up for socializing – “Please come in and sit in my bedroom and hang out!” coax the signs. “Please sit down, put your feet up and read the biography of Ingmar Bergman!” That is, if you can read Swedish. The thing that didn’t really work about B and N (or so I heard) was that people felt somewhat surreptitious about pretending to shop, when they were really just mangling the glossy periodicals and flipping through books trying to check out that guy in the Home Improvements Section. In Ikea you can literally go in, play on the furniture and stroll out, and no one is any wiser about whether you are going to stop in the Warehouse to collect the items you were lolling all over, or if you are just going home.

Anyway, we had gone to the store to pick up the kitchen cabinets we had ordered on opening day, and went upstairs to have some meatballs before shopping (as one does). I had taken one of boys over to this blue Ultraseude covered air filled thing on the floor, which looked rather amusing. It was a floor cushion/dog bed/extra mattress for guests/toy like thing and few little ones were bouncing around on it. My DH was in the aisle with the other baby, and I had just put the baby on the amorphous object when I was “recognized”. I thought the lady who knew me looked familiar, but wasn’t sure until she called out to her friend – “This is the mama I met in Char-Bucks; I just sent you her blog today!”

Needless to mention, I felt a little buzz – oooh! I’m so cool! Immediately followed by a dad fish out of Finding Nemo feeling – Oh, dear…do I have to be funny now? But the ladies, including the one I had encountered in the ubiquitous home of overpriced cappuccino about a month ago, were very nice and invited me to a playgroup. Gosh, a play group…what should I wear?

It was pretty surreal hearing a practical stranger ask how my baby sitters were working out. I am sorry to say they really aren’t. Well, one is; the older one relates nicely with the munchkins and is pretty reliable too. (Yeah, “older.” So, that makes her what? 17?) But the other was supposed to have been with me five times so far and she has shown up twice. Into each life…I’ll have to keep hunting. (Note to self: When you commit a gloat/celebration/an oh-yay-this-is-working-out to blog entry, it seems to fall apart (see June 29th – Two Dwarf Day), so be sure it’s workin’ before you start a-braggin’.)

I really need to get this baby sitter thing organized so I can blog/write/create during the daylight hours when the old bean is more fizzy with life. Right now I have one baby in the nursery bed (on an Ikea duvet cover with matching pillow cases, circa 1993 (Ikea new Jersey, thank you!)) making those sweet little sleeping baby heavy breathing noises. The other one is still in his car seat – sniffle sniffle snore. He got all worn out crawling around in the Entrega de Muebles Department (That’s Furniture Pick-up to you, Gringo. I think it’s funny to read the Spanish sub-texts and pretend I am a stranger in a foreign land. I will select Spanish over English on the screen at the self-checkout at the market just to hear – Gracias por comprate al “Stop y Shop”) then he fell asleep in the car en route home. He’s now on the floor of the bedroom. It’s 10:45 PM – and yes! I do know where my children are!

We had a rough night...Sniffles and I...

We had a rough time last night. I love my sister and I love her children and I love my godson, her youngest, but my oh my! The germs these children collect at day care! Her little one had a runny nose, and my mother gave my Younger by Twenty Seconds Twin my sister’s baby’s sippy cup to drink from. Whoops. Thanks, Mother. Now my youngest has a bit of a cold, and was very congested yesterday. All the mamas reading this are thinking – “Oh boy! She was up all night!! Yep. I was up all night with Sniffles.

Older Baby has been doing a wake-up-three-times-a-night-and-cry-for-mama thing. But that’s normal now. Try tossing a snuffly, stuffy, crying (no, make that full throttle screaming) baby into the mix and you have yerself one heck of an evening. After thrashing around, trying to get us all comfortable and keep Stuffy’s head elevated, for a few hours in the queen size bed in our room, (the one with bed guards to stop little bodies from rolling out at night – it gets a little claustrophobic) I finally I went into the nursery with both boys at 11 PM. We have another big bed in there. It’s the same size as in the master bedroom, but feels bigger, because we have taken it off the box springs and put onto the floor. (Older Twin likes to go off the bed headfirst and he makes a perfect-ten landing from the six-inch bed-on-floor height) Snuffly Baby nursed to sleep like a long distance swimmer; he kept turning his head to the side to take a deep breath, then put his head down for more nursing; and once he was out, I put him into the car seat. Then I could nurse Older Twin, who was pretty crabby at this point, not having had his needs and wants met. (I know he was upset, because he glommed on to me like a suction cup whenever I put Sniffly down.) When Snuffles woke up an hour later, we did it all again, slept an hour or so, and did it again, and so on until about 5:30 am. The DH was asleep in the other room – I told him too; there’s no point in having two non-functioning staggeringly sleep deprived zombies in the house. Besides, if we’re both out of it, who’s going to make the toaster waffles?

At 5:30 ish the DH came in and took one of the boys, I really can’t remember which one, and went into the kitchen to play/make his coffee/feed him some Cheery-Oats (I like the old name better, more friendly) and get something to eat himself. I feel asleep at that point and woke up at 7:45 to the DH saying – “Honey, I have to leave for work in 15 minutes. Do you want a waffle?”

So in 15 minutes I washed my face, pulled back my rocker-chick hair (yes, I went to bed with wet hair) ate my waffle (they go down pretty quickly if you grease ‘em up well with a lot of butter and fold 'em in half. I can eat two waffles in about 45 seconds. Maybe my true calling is speed eating competitions…) had some vitamins and settled down with the two angels to have some morning nursing and playing. Snuffles was much better in the AM – why? I do not know! (Why can’t they be congested all day and clear at night? What bizarre fact of science makes them stuffy and miserable when the rest of the universe wants to sleep? Why ask why?) But he was better and we had kind of a nice day. Except I was just beat…but I’m cool with that. (RIGHT!! Hahaha – see all previous blog postings…)

However, the night of carrying on made me appreciate all those nights when they weren’t screaming. Oh, they have cried a lot in their day; nursing babies generally do cry when they get accidentally unplugged, etc. But never have they screamed at night like the poor, unwell baby did last night. The volume and pitch of the shrieks were plate shattering.

Darling boys, thank you so much for not screaming on a regular basis! I love you all the more for it.

My computer called out to me last night – “Don’t you love me anymore?” I have been trying to relax and hang out with my boys and not necessarily Get Things Done (see previous blog). However, the bad part of attempting to stay calm and sane, and go with the flow of the day, and not rush around doing a million unnecessary things and go nuts over it is; I’m not really getting things done. Hmmmm. There’s the rub. One of the things I have not been getting done is writing – the blog and my novel.

Oyo… a Novel! (Such a word should be capitalized.) What a “novel” idea; a book about a new mom and the agonies and ecstasies of her day-to-day existence. Actually, if you like this blog, you’ll probably like the book I have in progress. It’s just a fictional version of what I’ve been doing for the past year. I had a conversation with someone about this a few months ago, before I started posting on blogger. I said – “Gee, I’d like to write a book.” She said, with this sort of poor-deluded-you look on her face – “I tried to do that too. I was going to write a children’s book, and have one of my in-laws illustrate it. I had so many ideas, but I got caught up in my children and never could get around to doing any writing.” She said it with a you’ll see how it’ll never get off the ground sort of tone. Maybe I wanted to prove to her that I'm special, and show I can do something good and interesting, or maybe the combination of a challenge and the desire not to have all my dreams squashed has led to taking time to write whenever I can.

I have quite a bit written for my Novel, and I took out a snippet to send to my favorite chick lit publishers, Red Dress Ink. What I did not realize is that Harlequin Romance purchased RDI, and their chick lit novel editors seem to be hidden behind the bodice ripping pseudo-historical novel editorial department. I sent the bit of my book to the email address listed on the Red Dress Ink website, and received back a form email, obviously the automatic slush pile response. I think it was entitled "How to write a Romance Novel, 101". While I appreciated the tips outlined and found some of them kind of funny, the book I have in mind ain't exactly romantic. (If I don’t write pure fiction, I might write a baby care guide/amusing life with twins anecdotes/survival guide. In that case I’d entitle it: The Survivor's Guide to Twins.)

A romance novel…although having two babies is love personified, (Eros and Cupid in diapers) my book is not going to have any Harlequin Romance style steamy, sexy, love scenes. You know what I mean- he looked deep into her eyes and breathed, "I must have you, and now." She gasped at the unfamiliar feelings that flooded her trembling body and whispered "Oh, yes..." surrendering to the fiery emotion she saw in his impossibly blue eyes... blah blah blah. Anyway, none of that rubbish. (Even though I did enjoy a lot of that rubbish in my younger years) The Survivor’s Guide would be more like – What to do when Twin A needs a diaper change, and Twin B needs to be nursed: which comes first? It is best to do the diaper change first, because if you nurse one, the other will see and want to nurse too, then you may have two sleeping babies, but one will be stinky and you should not wake him up to change him. Or, what else may happen is, the diaper change twin (Twin A) will nurse next to Twin B, then B will fall asleep and you’ll find yourself doing a diaper change with a sleeping twin on your lap. It’s possible, but not easy. Therefore, Twin B can wait the 9.8 seconds it takes to change a diaper, and, if you have been following the diaper change technique outlined in section 12/B, you might be able to change the diaper in 9.1 seconds. Of course, if Twin A rolls over onto his tummy during the afore mentioned diaper change, and Twin B crawls over and grabs the diaper, getting poop on his hands, and wiping it on the changing mat, you are going to have to employ the hold-down-the-baby-with-your-leg technique, to control Twin A to expedite the change, as outlined in Section 12/B, paragraph 6. Or, you could just yell for help. My husband generally employs the latter method.

I am going to return to the getting-out-of-bed-when-everyone-else-is-asleep trick, and then I can get a little something done. Yes, it is still a work in progress. My life, I mean…and the book.

DH asks me to shave his head

I took a bold step a few weeks ago and went to a hairdresser. My, what a bold step you might say to yourself, in a sarcastic tone, of course. However, it was a bold step, for the hairdresser was previously unknown to me, in New Jersey, and I asked her to cut it short and give me bangs.

For the past 10 years I have had my hair as long as I can, and had it cut about twice a year. I have worn it one length, so I can pull it into a ponytail or up on my head, and have only gone to salons owned by those I know personally or that I’ve read about in Vogue. The New Jersey cut was fine (after I went to my friend-the-genius-who-does-hair-too and had her make the bangs a bit heavier, so they are easier to manage) and I can still get it in a ponytail, when I use about 14 bobby pins. It takes a bit of fussing to make it stylish; if I don’t blow-dry the back and side I have a rocker-chick hair do, kind of channeling Joan Jett, if she were about 40 pounds heavier. BUT the bangs were a revelation. I am still not totally accustomed to looking in the mirror and seeing a China Doll look back. I look….younger. Which can only be a good thing.

My husband (my DEAR husband) must have been inspired, for last weekend he said – “You can shave my head, if you want.” We didn’t have a lot of time, what with two babies and all and a batch of brownies to make (I had promised our neighbor to bring baked goods to her tag sale in a fit of domestication) and the lawn to mow and rake and the garden to weed and laundry to do – you know, the usual relaxing weekend of fun and games, so I had to make the haircut quick. I sat him down, took out the electric clippers, put on the number two guide and zzzzip. Now he looks like he just came home from the Middle East.

I hope I get better at this hair-cutting thing – I don’t want him to appear moth eaten. He really likes it short, and actually asked me to “tighten it up” for him today. His friends at work like it too. He told me one of his co-workers said – “ Man, I wish I had the balls to shave my head.” And one of his VPs, with very short hair, said – “Looking good!”

Isn’t it funny how a little thing like, a new haircut, or bangs, can make a big thing like, your life and how you see yourself, so much better?

Let's Get Something Done.. or NOT

I took a nap with the babies the other day and woke up all discombobulated and confused. In the first place; I am not used to napping during the day, I have been trying to Get Something Done when they are asleep; and in to second place, I shifted positions in my sleep, and when I awoke there was a little plush ducky, with a bell in his tummy, ogling me, eyeball to eyeball. I was so startled I actually jumped.

It was very nice, to get 45 minutes in the middle of the day, and I hope I can get the boys to make a habit of this. We nursed until they were milk-drunk and bloated , my piggy baby’s belly was spilling over the top of his diaper, as appealing as C-cup in a push-up bra on a Saturday night. They were so asleep, I got them off the lap onto the bed. I had curled up next to Twin A and nursed him a little more when he stirred. But my Twin B, who came home at 4 and a half pounds, and is now a full two pounds heavier than his brother, (guess who is the bulgy one?) slept like a hibernating frog in the cozy mud of a pond. In other words, he didn’t budge for over an hour. Therefore, I slept.

What do you do when you have some time without a baby attached? Do you Get Something Done, or do you sleep? I have heard the advice – nap when Baby naps. I have also heard – when Baby naps, you can GSD. For me, it depends on the day of the week, the time of day, and whether I think they’ll sleep without me. It doesn't depend on whether or not I want the nap - I always need to sleep. A friend of mine, whose “nugget” was a month old a few days ago (you know who you are) generally opts for the GSD thing. My sister, Queen of the Blog and Ruler of New Jersey, always Gets Something Done. One of my SIL does the nap thing, but she’s a big sleeper as a rule. I have heard from her siblings that if she didn’t get 9 hours plus as a teenager she would take a big, bloody, bite-sized chunk out of the unlucky sibling who was sent to get her up in time for breakfast.

My DH tries to let me rest a little in the morning before he heads to the office; he’ll play with the frisky baby and I’ll nurse the sleepy baby. He definitely wants me to rest, as much as I can. The babies are often awake and asleep at opposite times like that. (When I shared this tidbit I got to hear, from friends and family – “get them on the same schedule!” (So I can Get Something Done…right?) Well, number one; they are twins, not trains, so they aren’t on a schedule thank you, and number two – you try to get a non sleepy baby “down”. If they aren’t ready, it ain’t happening.) On a given morning I will be nursing one in bed and from the Romper Room (which was the dining room until we pushed the chairs and table against a wall, fastened the china cabinets shut with rubber bands and put down an old duvet and the Tiny Love floor gym. ) I’ll hear – “Dadadadadada-hic-dadadadadada-hic-dadada. Giggle giggle – hiccup! Yahyahyahyahyah – hic!” Twin A still hiccups – he started at 6 months in utero and hasn’t let up yet. It’s very sweet.

So, I’ll settle the sleepy one down in the bedroom and come downstairs and see my DH holding the baby’s hands and helping him prance around, high kicking like a Lipizzaner stallion at show time. Then he’ll see me, and look out – attack mama! Nursing time! Yummy Yummy! How could I ignore that happy, eager face? How could I turn my back and try to Get Something Done? My midwife, the one who didn’t notice I had pre-eclampsia, thereby almost killing me and my twins (I mean come on, she should have taken a urine sample every visit, instead of just once sometime in July, and instead of lecturing me on eating too much (!!?) when I gained 30 pounds in a month, she should have thought – Gee! What’s wrong here? If I hadn’t taken myself to the hospital that Tuesday morning, and walked upstairs (I know, here I was with a BP of 140’s over 120’s and I’m driving and walking up stairs…) I could be cuddling two babies 6 feet under right now) anyway, that mid-wife called me the other day to ask how we were doing and How are They Sleeping for You? I said – “They nurse to sleep and nap on my lap and sleep in my bed.” She replied – “Oh, you’ve got to stop that. You need time for yourself.” While I wholeheartedly agree (see all previous blog postings) I didn’t think she was in any position to tell me ANYTHING. So I told her – “Ya know, I will not look back on his continental shelf shattering experience and say to myself – Gosh I should have held them and snuggled with them less.” She was quiet at that.

Okay, I’ve figured it out. For me, it’s better to hang out, to nurse, to play and to just be than to make myself nutty trying to get something done. Maybe I’ll give myself a manicure in time for their third birthday…or maybe not…Mothers of Toddlers - do three year olds let you get anything done any more than infants? Who is cracking up out there?