How to get by. (and yes, some of this is made up.)

Things I have learned in the past 13 months, two weeks and four days

Are you wondering how you can get 13 month, two week and four day old twin toddlers to eat a balanced meal? Simple! Just spill the food on the floor, fake sweeping and watch as they gobble it up!

Are you wondering if “self-soothing” is good or bad? I am still not sure if my babies can “self-soothe”, but it's great for me! I turn on Fine Arts Radio and sing made up words to Italian Operas and Mozart’s Queen of the Night aria. Or I eat lots of chocolate. Or I do both. It soothes me every time!

Are you wondering how to get by an entire 13-hour workday on no sleep the night before? Your answer – coffee! Brew it up, nice and strong, and pour it into the left over milk from your cereal. That way it’s pre-sweetened and you have one fewer pieces of china to put in the already bursting dishwasher. Drink it up, girl! Don’t forget to refill the pot as soon as it’s empty, then there’s no wait when you need another hit.

Are you wondering how to get your twin babies to sleep and to get some sleep yourself when they won’t sleep unless they are actually attached to the boob? Try this! Prop yourself with about seven pillows, and lie semi recumbent and hold each baby along an arm. Sure, you wake up feeling as if you were clubbed with a bat from not moving an inch for hours, but hey! They slept! Yes, Virginia, co-sleeping with twins is not all it’s cracked up to be….

Are you wondering how to Get Something Done amidst the endless minutiae of mothering? Be sure you always bring your knitting/book/lap top along in car as you drive from donut shop to errand to donut shop to grocery store to donut shop and drink the afore-mentioned many coffees. Then you can type/knit/read in parking lots once they have drifted off. Too bad about burning all that fossil fuel, but one does what one must, right?

Are you wondering how to maintain a clean bathroom/kitchen/house? The answer is clear! Hire somebody else to do it for you. Barring that, you can always just pretend the mess doesn’t exist.

Are you wondering how to keep a pair of babies occupied while you scurry around trying to pick up some of the clutter you cannot just pretend doesn’t exist for one more minute? Stick pieces of non-shredding cloth surgical tape, in non-choking hazard lengths, like 5 inches, to their pudgy hands. It’ll take them at least 10 minutes to get the tape off both hands, buying you a few minutes of frenzied productivity, when you can clean the afore-mentioned balanced meal leftovers from the floor. Developmental bonus! This will also help them work on that pincer grasp thing.

Are you wondering how to get rid of your baby’s eczema? The solution is plastic wrap! (That is if your baby has the kind of eczema that gets better with summer / hot humid weather.) Just apply the doctor prescribed cream, wrap the area in plastic, secure with a little bit of the previously mentioned non-shredding cloth surgical tape, slip on his clothes and let him go! After a day of gently sweating under the plastic, the skin will be peachy pink and smooth as, well, the baby’s bottom, for want of a more eloquent analogy. Of course, one must be sensible in this endeavor; it would not be wise to plastic wrap a baby whose cheeks or neck are affected, duh.

Are you wondering what the hell that painful, tingly, white nipple thing could be? It’s called vasoconstriction, and happens to a lot of nursing mamas. The solution? A hot washcloth (or flannel for us ex-pats) will immediately bring relief to the area. Also, the longer you nurse, the less painful it becomes. After 13 months, two weeks and four days, I still get the blanching, but without the pain.

Are you wondering how you can possibly save a few minutes in the morning? You know, that difficult, trying hour right after the DH leaves for his necessary but wish he could be home all day job, when the babies need changing and dressing and when you need to eat something, drink your coffee, go to the bathroom, get yourself dressed and nurse the boys all at the same time. Plan ahead! I do laundry when the boys are amusing themselves by fighting over who gets to hold the dish scrubbing brush, or when they are chasing each other from kitchen to play room and back again – shrieking wildly so I know they are happy and safe. When I fold the clothes, I fold a shirt, a Gerber brand name Onesie and a pair of socks into a pair of pants/overalls. That way you can simply grab a bundle and know you have a coordinating outfit for the day.

Are you wondering how to nurse two at once without them killing each other or poking each other’s eyes out? Try this! Sit cross-legged on floor, sit each baby on a knee facing out, and not front, back to back, so they can’t see each other. Then they will concentrate on the business at hand and won’t goof around trying to shove each other off the boob. (Or, as one of mine does, try to hog both nipples for himself.) I have never seen anyone else nurse her twins like this, but works for me.

Are you wondering how to deal with crippling loneliness, solitude and the feeling of being ignored by the world around you? Put an ad in the paper! Be vague; advertise For Sale, $500, runs good. Just see how many people call! You can tell them it’s a blender, a vacuum cleaner, a weed wacker, whatever you fancy. But you’ll have phone calls to make you feel wanted and can trap the people on the line nattering about this, that and t’other for as long as you like – they called you! I placed an ad for a mother’s helper; my teenaged babysitter abandoned me. I had about 35 responses, and have hired a lady who has an eight-year-old boy in school all day. She needs something little to do for a few days for a few hours – just what I need. She’s seems very nice, her references were glowing and I hope we can get some chatting in amidst the feeding/changing/diapering/bathing/baby chasing/walking/errand running. I am still feeling lonely.

Are you wondering how much trouble a little baby can possibly cause? I have learned, in the past 13 months, two weeks and four days, that a baby who has been absolutely silent whilst in the bathroom for ten minutes is definitely up to no good. If I could make a link I'd show y'all a picture of Twin A completely wrapped in toilet paper sitting on the bathroom floor. He thought it was GREAT fun! Also, a baby, who had been sitting the study, in total silence, is most definitely up to no good. I have learned that yes, a baby can eat most of a paperbacked novel and not get sick. The book on the other hand, is rendered illegible by the drool.

Also have learned that I am pretty smart! I can do those puzzles, (you know with cow, dog and sheep with wooden handles?) much faster than the twins can, and they were designed for them, not for me!

Oh, and one more valuable lesson I have learned since becoming a depressed mama of twin boys – do not buy Halloween candy a week before hand to have it in stock like you usually do. You will find it and eat it and have to go out and buy more before your DH notices and says – “Jesus. You ate a whole bag of fun sized Peanut butter Cups AND a whole bag of fun sized Kit Kat and didn’t save me ONE?” However, the plus side to eating your way back into a plus size is that when the baby smacks your hand holding a spoon full of pureed banana towards him and goes all over, including on the walls and your was clean tee shirt, you tend to think it’s funny. I think it’s called being high.