I’ve been trying to write a blog entry for about two weeks now, but I keep getting stalled because I find myself just complaining and complaining and venting and venting, and I don’t want to do that. I want to be honest in my blog, but I also don’t want to come across as miserable and ungrateful, because I’m not. A lot about this is really hard, but it’s also really good. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone–controversial opinion of mine, not everyone should be a parent–but for me, it’s good. I miss my kids when they aren’t around, even though during the day, I have this emotion of “why are people on me so much?”

The adventures of parenting as an introvert, right?

So let’s see. Where are we, from a not so bad point of view?

Sam started preK about two weeks ago, and it’s got him stressed. He’s my most routine-oriented child (at least so far, who knows if the twins will be all about routines when they’re his age?), so mix some change into his life, and he gets stressed. He doesn’t know to call it that, yet, though, so it’s mostly coming out as him being clingier than usual, acting out more than usual, whining more than usual, the works. It’s frustrating because it ends up building until we speak pretty harshly to him, and we know what’s causing it, but he’s also not exactly the most open kid emotionally. I give him words to talk about his emotions, and he sort of nods and says, “But you see, Mommy, this ship here can fly with seven kitties in it!”

We all have different coping strategies, I suppose. His is to create rocket ships.

He’s doing well enough in school, learning how to make the letter “A” and that “umbrella” does not begin with the letter “A.” He goes two days a week, and I wish he could go more, but it’s out of our reach, financially, at least as long as he stays at this school (and I’m not switching his school–his best friends are here, and that would just  make things crazy). I just hope it’s enough that when he transitions to kindergarten next year, it’s not too overwhelming for him.

We’re prepping for that now, because it’s a REALLY big change, probably the biggest in his memory. He’s going to a new school, all day, and he might not–probably won’t, actually–be in the same classroom with the friends he’s known since he was a baby (unless I can work with his best friends’ moms and CONSPIRE, but I think the kindergarten teachers might be overwhelmed by having Sam and his crew all together at once). He wants to ride the school bus (meanwhile, I’m like, look–we live 10 minutes from the school, the school bus takes 45 minutes to get to the school from our house. Why don’t we stress less and drive? Yes? No? Bueller?). He’ll be getting a backpack and other school supplies. He’ll have to learn in a calmer environment.

The latter part has me a little nervous, because he’s always been learning in this playful environment, not quite a Montessori setting (I WISH, but the local Montessori school is WAY out of our price range), but still mostly informal. I haven’t had any complaints from his teachers since he went through a biting phase when he was about eighteen months old (his principal tried to talk to him about what he was doing and why he shouldn’t do it but eventually gave up because he kept repeating everything she said with a lisp, since he was still learning how to talk). I think he’ll be okay, that he’s just saving all his anxious energy for us because he knows we love him no matter what, but I still worry.

I mean. Not a lot, because if he does have issues, we can work through them together, but you never want your kid to struggle.

Otherwise, though, he’s doing well. We’re working to make sure that he feels included in things with the babies, and that he has a really great school year. And he’s planning to be Jack Skellington again this year, so we’ll have to make sure that costume is ready for him. His school is hosting a Trunk or Treat, and depending on what we can scrape together for paint and other supplies, we might make ourselves a spooky pumpkin patch and participate with a trunk.

The babies are going for Halloween as pumpkins, with little jack o’lantern onesies I got from Carter’s, stripey leg warmers, and cute socks. The onesies came with beanies, which I plan to measure tomorrow to see if they fit over the helmets, to which both babies are finally adjusting well.

It’s been an adventure! Carrie’s helmet was giving her a lot of trouble to start, and she got a pretty gross friction burn on her forehead from it one day (the burn has since healed, but there’s still a scar), but we’ve reduced friction and misery with the liberal use of cornstarch (which has replaced talc in baby powder and also smells really good). Even without wearing the helmets 23/7, they’ve seen about a millimeter of improvement, which isn’t a LOT, but it’s something.

I dove into some craftiness and decorated the helmets myself with some stickers I had lying around from adventures in decorating a calendar at work (aside: did you know that having a day planner is apparently a craft now? Because I did not, but you can get all sorts of stickers for them and it’s kind of bizarre), along with about five coats each of Mod Podge, which theoretically will allow me to remove all the stickers at once when I’m ready (probably around mid November? Or something; whenever I feel ready to do Christmas stickers instead). It’s the craftiest I’ve been in a while, and it was fun–I think I need more excuses and time to be crafty or decoupage or something.

Both babies remain mildly developmentally delayed. They hit their six month birthday on Friday, but they’re more hitting four month milestones at the moment. Isaac has just figured out rolling over as a method of transportation, so he tends to roll around the living room floor like an alligator trying to steal a chicken from its handler. This gets especially hilarious when he forgets that he can roll from his belly to his back again and wails about the injustice of being on his tummy until someone comes and flips him like a pancake.

Carrie can roll in both directions, but she mostly chooses not to, preferring to just chill in whatever position she finds herself in. She’s a cheerful baby still, or mostly a cheerful baby. She’s an emotional baby, we’ll say that, and you always know what she’s feeling. If you pick up Isaac but not her, she’ll stare at you in cross and stern judgment until you rectify the error. If you walk past her without picking her up at all, she’ll shriek–not just a cry, but an actual, all-out SCREAM, like someone is tearing out her fingernails, until you rectify the error. On the other hand, if you smile at her, she’ll give you the biggest, sunniest, gummy smile ever.

They both babble, in entirely different voices. Isaac’s voice is throatier, and it involves a lot of “Lll” and “Gh” sounds, which is weird, but okay. Carrie is the more traditional baby sound maker, with a lot of “ooh” and “ahh” sounds, and some “buh” and “mah” sneaking in. She’s also learned to make raspberries, which is hilarious on many levels, since it’s her main way of showing relaxed pleasure now (e.g., “I am not HAPPY, per se, but I can see the little toys on my bounce seat move with me, and that is good”).

So they’re okay. We’ve got their six month appointment on October 2, and please GOD the pediatrician will tell us that we can switch to regular formula, which will still be expensive (because we’re shopping for two instead of one; hello, sole reason I wish my tits produced milk instead of just existing like useless 20 lb fleshy funbags), but not as expensive–like $20 or so less a week. So we’re not talking the miracle that will happen in May, when the twins switch to cow’s milk (technically, April 25, 2019; no, I’m not counting down the seconds, my wallet is), but it’ll still be a small relief.

They’re also starting on purees, which is fun. We give them the purees at dinner time, in hopes that it will make them sleep better, but the problem is that they’ve got so many developmental milestones hitting one after another that their nights are very fussy. Isaac graciously gave us a break from his bad sleep pattern for about two nights, but he’s back on it, so I’m expecting he’ll start running triathlons any day now.

It’s all, of course, got me thinking philosophically about a great many things, all sorts of things that I’d love to write about for ages, but when you’re running around after three small humans as a lifestyle, your brain words kind of get jumbled by the time you get around to putting them on paper. And all of the things I’ve been thinking philosophically about are things that could get things a little gross if I word them wrong, so I’ll just not.

Instead, I’ll reflect on the good and the random:

• I’m counting down the minutes until I can start Christmassing. Don’t get me wrong, I love Halloween, but dressing everyone up for Christmas, pictures with Santa, all of that? Is my JAM. I also know that I won’t be able to do any Christmassing until at least November, so I’m Planning (with a capital P) outfits and pictures and all of this stuff so that I can JUMP ON IT the second I can.

  

• We’re being mostly good with our budget, which is both surprising and nice. Kyle and I have both started paying more attention to what we buy and are learning which things we can get off-brand (most pasta, milk, cheese, pretzels) and which things we’d rather spend the extra dollar on (Ramen, fried onions, ice cream treats, frozen pizza). We did flub up a bit this week, BUT the next pay day is Thursday, so it’s not the end of the world.

• I’ve been to a playgroup for other moms with kids who are developmentally delayed (as the twins are), and it was… I don’t honestly know. Not BAD, but it felt like a lot of effort for not a lot of reward. I have a mom tribe, and I love them so dearly–they were there for me through a lot of infertility struggles and the stress of the twin pregnancy and I’ve tried to be there for them as well–so I’m not really in the market for another, which seemed to be the overall purpose. The person who sent me to the group through Early Intervention told me that there would be physical therapy there as well, which is what I wanted for Isaac, but we didn’t have any of that. Still, it wasn’t a bad experience, but was it really worth the effort of hauling two babies out of the house at naptime in the rain? Not for me.

• But maybe when they’re older it would be? I don’t know. I’m bad at figuring out socializing things, and my attempts at making mom friends in the real world largely amount to “haha yeah, babies, aren’t they small?”

  

• And I’ve been done with IVF for a whole year. I still haven’t figured out if I want to do pregnancy again or not, but unless there’s a very big surprise between now and when I figure it out, it’ll be after spending $3000 or so to test the remaining embryos and going through an FET cycle, and won’t that be fun.

And that is all!

For now.

Nothing about this is normal; everything about this is normal.

I’ve been trying to write this for a total of two weeks now, probably more, but I feel like I’ve lost count. I get writing done very late at night, at a time I used to reach without even thinking about it back when I was in college and graduate school but that now seems like the latest of late hours (seriously, the sun is coming up in three hours, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND IS AWAKE NOW and WHAT WAS I THINKING). It’s only then that the new normal calms down enough for my brain to start processing everything that’s gone into making the new normal… well, normal.

(this time of night was previously known as “way too early” and “why are you waking me up?”)

We’ve been trying to make incremental adjustments to this normal in order to improve our overall functionality. The twins are creeping ever closer to sleeping through the night, but it’s still a process. The first half of any given night typically involves Carrie being wide awake and unhappy unless she’s being held; she doesn’t care what’s going on while she’s being held, she just wants to be held. As she’s being held, she’ll contentedly babble to herself or look around or chew on her hands, but put her down at your own risk. Isaac, meanwhile, conks out at promptly 8:00 and doesn’t wake up again until 7 or 8. And Carrie typically conks out after a midnight-ish feed of 2-3 oz., so really, it’s mostly just a long night for me.

BUT I wouldn’t trade it because I can’t do early mornings to save my life. I’ll stay up until 4 if I have to, but don’t make me get up at 4.

(no, I don’t understand it either)

So with the twins creeping towards sleeping through the night, Kyle and I have tried at least once to actually make it through the night sleeping, but that hasn’t happened. The twins’ daytime schedule got thrown off the last time we tried, which resulted in them freaking out all night and poor Kyle getting no sleep (per his suggestion, he slept downstairs with them, since he’s better at sleeping on the couch than I am; he got me up at 5 a.m. and slept until 9 a.m., when he started work). Worse, I didn’t get any sleep either, because when your body and mind are used to staying up until 2 a.m., you can’t shut them down before at least 1.

This is the new normal: so little sleep that when allowed to just wake up “whenever,” both Kyle and I will easily sleep well into the afternoon, which didn’t seem like a big deal when I was younger, but now I panic because most of the day is gone, and I have STUFF TO DO.

The new normal is chained inexorably to a schedule from which I hate deviating because deviating from that schedule ruins everyone’s day. It’s the twins’ eating schedule: bottles at 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7 p.m., plus a mini bottle at 11 p.m. for Carrie. Deviating from that means that trips out of the house must be postponed, that the night will be fitful at best, that the adults’ meals all get thrown out of whack (or at least breakfast and lunch), that everyone is cranky and exhausted. Even when we leave the house, I’m adamant that we follow the schedule until the twins reach a point where we can drop one of the daytime feeds and just feed them three times a day, like we do with Sam.

That, I figure, will happen around the time they’re able to hold their own bottles, which is one of those milestones you don’t really think about before you encounter it, and then you’re suddenly like “oh my god, I have HANDS!”

(shown: me when feeding the babies at present)

This is the new normal.

Sam has a hard time with the new normal, because he has to share us with the babies, and even though it doesn’t (usually) make him mad or sad, he still struggles with it. I try to keep him in the daily schedule as well: a movie of his choosing in the morning, lunch, learning time, Kindle time, dinner and cuddling, bedtime. This doesn’t always happen, particularly the after lunch stuff. Sometimes, I’m just so exhausted that I give him a second movie after lunch so I can try and sleep. Sometimes, I rush through learning time and give him his Kindle early so that I can help whichever baby is panicking because I’m no longer in their line of vision (I forgot about this phase; it’s exhausting, and I miss leaving the living room).

I miss being able to give Sam more consistency, and I know a billion people will comment places and say, “You just have to…” and to them I say, no, you come and try and do this. This is not. easy. It’s never just doing anything. There’s a schedule that I want to be ironclad because if it’s not ironclad, if anything gets slightly thrown off, everyone struggles through it.

Honestly, I think that’s the most frustrating part: when you’ve got twins, you get a lot of unsolicited advice. Thankfully, it’s rarely from people Kyle and I know well, so we can just brush it off, but you still get the occasional, “Oh, you should do XYZ!” suggestion that’s completely unhelpful, if well-meaning. And those are the worst, because you want to tell the person with that suggestion “hey, go eat a diaper,” but they mean well, so you put on a pasted smile and say, “I’ll try and remember that, thanks.”

(also funny, whenever someone sees that you have twins, they’re compelled to say, “Oh, my brother’s best friend’s cousin’s coworker’s nephew has twins!” especially if they’re a stranger, and you’re just like, “…okay?”)

This is a little bitchy. I apologize. I’m tired.

Unhelpful suggestions abound towards a new corner of the new normal. We took the twins to have their heads looked at and came away with an official diagnosis of moderate-to-severe positional plagiocephaly. The doctor was… kind of a jerk about it, honestly. You could hear the “this is all your fault” laced through every sentence, and I came away feeling chastised and clutching only a confirmation of a follow-up appointment in 6 weeks. He mentioned physical therapy, but he didn’t give us any details. He said, “They’ll definitely need helmets,” but didn’t do anything else at the appointment.

And, well. It was frustrating. I came away just this side of furious, because it’s like… dude, can you come down off your high horse and put yourself in our shoes for a minute? These guys were born six weeks early. They didn’t reach the newborn phase until they were six weeks old, and they’re behind on a lot of things because of that. They’re only just now starting to be more awake during the day; up until probably 2-3 weeks ago, they just slept. A lot. They were born with weaker necks and softer heads that should’ve had at least 4 more weeks in utero to move around and get firmer, but they came early and slept in cribs when they should’ve been sleeping in me. Their neck and chest strength isn’t where it would be for four-month-olds born at term because they weren’t born at term. And all the tummy time and holding and therapy in the world isn’t going to change that.

I don’t know. I may be reading some of my own guilt into his tone (though Kyle picked up on it, too). I wish I could be as ON them as I was with Sam. I wish that I could reach a point with them like I did with Sam where my arms felt empty without him, not because I was like “Gosh, I wish I was still holding a baby” but because I literally held him so much that it felt weird not to have him on me.  I wish we’d be at the point where we’ve moved from survival mode to the previous sense of normal, but.

Well. Here we are. Normal helmets. Normal babies. Normalcy that’s anything but.