Do we really ever listen? And would it matter if we did?

I know a lady, a nice, intelligent and totally capable lady, with one child, who is expecting twins. I am sure she is excited and nervous, and I am also sure she doesn’t really know what to expect. Who can? Twins are totally different than a singleton, so even with a child at home already, and all the experience you have gained, twins will knock you for a loop. I have made a few suggestions; get a housekeeper, look into the high chairs that clip onto the table to save room, nurse those babies - it’ll save time, money and help take off the weight, find a gym with childcare that you like now, before it's crunch time, interview baby sitters while you’re still pregnant; but I don’t think she really heard me. Funny how we don’t listen to each other even if we can hear it.

I wonder if I should try to get her to hear me, or just let her find it out on her own. Lately, it could be the weather, the lack of sunshine, the fact that I am still toting around waaaay to much weight and no amount of running seems to be having an effect on my huge, gross legs, or it could just be lack of sleep, but I have been totally gloomy lately. I know, I know, there are those of you reading this who see me at the playgroups and out and about, and I seem fine and all that. It’s true; I am all neat and great and “fine”when I’m hanging at the children’s museum. It’s when I have one tired-needs-a-nap baby pulling on me and one let’s-play-climbing-on-the-chairs baby pulling on the other leg and I need to drink a cup of coffee and get their shoes on and get out the door so they can nap in the car and it’s already 9:00, that I feel like I am going to flip out. Calgon take me away, indeed.

Fine is one of those words that can be used in so many ways. I can say, “I’m fine,” and mean all is well in Denmark. I can hiss, “I’m fine,” through gritted teeth and know that my conversational partner understands me to mean I am totally furious. When I say the F word, in my head I add, “That is, fine meaning freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.” Yes, I got that from a movie, did you see it too?

What advice can I give to a future MOT? Should I emphasize how physically challenging it is to wrestle two slippery toddlers into a car, or would it be better to let her figure it out on her own? Should I warn her about the bone-crunching exhaustion she can anticipate from getting up eight times a night, at least, for the first six months of their lives, or just express my hopes that she will be blessed with sleepy babies? Could I tell her what it’s like to have one baby needing nursing and the other needing a diaper change and the impossibility of prioritizing when they are both so small and both so needy? Are there sufficient words to get that feeling across? Should I try to reveal the positives and negatives together, or is that too overwhelming?

Maybe a future twin mother doesn’t really want my advice at all, maybe she can hear me perfectly well, and believes that her situation will be totally different than mine, so anything I say is just not accurate or useful. Maybe I am the one who needs advice, because I am too demanding of myself, too stringent with my standards and way too self depreciating. Maybe I have made it harder than it has to be…

Am I, really and truly, the creator of my own hell? Is it too much to try to keep my life organized, to keep it all together, to be a good mother, and still keep some of my own self intact? Is it even possible, or is the attempt what is making me crazy?