Misc.

32 Replies

I wonder if Bruce Springsteen feels differently about the lyrics of “I’m on Fire” (“Hey little girl is your daddy home / Did he go away and leave you all alone?”) now that he has a daughter? _I_ sure do. *gag*

I’ve been going back and forth between our two local animal shelters, looking for our next cat. A couple of times, I’ve hesitated about a cat and it’s been gone the next time I went. I think it’s most likely at this point that we’ll adopt a kitten: I feel less shy with kittens. When I consider an adult cat, I feel a little awk about it, like it’s weird to bring this stranger to our house and expect her to just live with us because we say so. On the other hand, I love how with an adult cat I can see what it’s LIKE. So I continue to dither. I’m also dithering because I’m not sure I want to inflict another cat on our current cat. She seems to enjoy being an only, and I’ve enjoyed feeling like seeking out the company of a cat rather than brushing cats off every surface.

I’ve been on a reading kick. I seem to be getting one intense, thought-provoking book after another. It’s a little tiring. First I read Middlesex. Then I read The Help. Then I read Handle With Care, but after 100 pages I was done with that kind of stress so I skipped ahead to the last 15. Now I’m reading Olive Kitteridge.

I’m also watching the second season of The L Word, so I am just about scalp-deep in thought-provoking.

Henry just asked me if a rollerskate was a quadruped.

I registered the twins for kindergarten this fall. That seems NUTS to me. Since they were a year old I’ve been saying it would be unexpectedly soon that they’d be in school (I started saying it during the OMG Pregnant Again! panic), but it really did come up fast. Two years after that, it’ll be Henry in school. And then what? Let’s not turn our minds to it.

Adoption Help, Advice, Information, WHATEVER

106 Replies

I’m not sure how long I’ve been reading Kim at Laments & Observations, but I remember when she posted that her stepdad-in-law had given them $10,000 for a last-ditch attempt at having a baby, and that was in January of 2009 so it’s been at least a year. There were several parts of that post that got to me: her saying that she wanted one of those baby things about as much as she wanted to keep breathing, and her talking about how the stepdad-in-law was too cheap to buy eggs for a batch of cookies but had asked if he could help them pay for fertility treatments.

Re-reading the post, I get kind of teary about it again. And especially because it’s a year later, and we know what we didn’t know then, which is that the fertility treatments wouldn’t end up working.

The next step is adoption. More than half a year has gone by, and I started wondering if Kim’s personality is similar to mine on things like this: I face something unfamiliar and I freeze up. Part of it is fear of not knowing what to expect, and part of it is fear of what might go wrong, and part of it is fear of going through all that and still not getting what I hope for, and part of it is a reluctance to start doing all the boring/difficult crap that needs to be done, and part of it is just FREEZING UP and who knows why. Obviously the right way to get started is to GET STARTED: if I don’t know what to do, I need to FIND OUT; and if crap needs to be done, best get it over with. And yet do I? No. I’m frozen.

What works for me is fret-blogging to access our collective knowledge. I might not be able to face making plans for a trip, but I can put all my frets about it into a post. And then one person says, “I don’t know about the hotel, but I can tell you that taxis are a flat-rate $50 from the airport.” And someone else says, “I don’t know about taxis, but I can tell you that what I did about a room was book one myself and then then I found a roommate she sent me a check for half.” And all these bits of information come together until I have enough basic and specific knowledge to unfreeze and start to take action. Plus I feel motivated to do something so I can give updates: it feels as if other people are invested.

So I emailed Kim and asked if she was like this and she said yes, and I said can I help by posting about it and she said yes. I would really like Kim to have a child, and I feel the urge to help, and I have a feeling that “wanting a child” is a common enough feeling that a lot of us can empathize—and can turn that empathy into assistance.

Mostly what’s needed here is ANY TIDBIT YOU HAVE. Do you have information about adoption? Did you adopt? Are you trying to adopt? Did someone you know adopt or are they trying to adopt? Have you HEARD stuff or READ stuff about adoption? Do you happen to know the FIRST STEP, because I think that is the hardest part.

What can someone expect from a home inspection—is it really awful and invasive and humiliating and do you get docked points for dog hair? What other parts are there to the process? About how long does it take, and are there ways to speed it up?

How much does it cost? And how do people afford it if they don’t have much money but would make such a good home for a child? And are there ways to reduce the costs?

How possible is it to get a newborn? How about a very young child, like say 18 months or under? What are the different kinds of adoption—like, there’s the kind where you adopt a foster child from the state, right? and the kind where you adopt from a woman who calls an agency and says she wants to give her baby for adoption? and the kind where you adopt from another country? And is it all different answers/procedures for all those different kinds?

Adoption stuff varies so much by state, and Kim and her husband live in South Carolina so of course the MOST useful information would be from anyone who knows about South Carolina adoptions—but ALL information is useful to the unfreezing process. Don’t feel awk about saying, “Er, I only know this one teensy detail I heard about Wyoming adoptions…”—OUT WITH IT! We want to know it all! Help!

Avid/Voracious

65 Replies

[Edited to say more what I wanted to say.]

I’m tired of the words “avid” and “voracious” being used so surprisingly often before the word “reader.” It’s a pet peeve of mine. It particularly surprises me because those adjective/noun pairings are so overused, I would expect that an actual avid/voracious reader would be just as sick of it as I am.

How’s that? Better?

Vanilla Victory!

30 Replies

There are still a few things I buy at Walmart, despite everything. Most of them are things I can’t find elsewhere, or things that are SUCH A GOOD DEAL I CAN’T STAND IT. For example, Paul goes through more pickle relish than you would believe, and it costs $2 per regular-sized container, but Walmart had an industrial size (a gallon, I think) for $3.50. (Our Walmart doesn’t have that anymore, in case you are a relish lover who is already putting on your coat and getting your purse.)

Another is imitation vanilla extract. I use real vanilla too, but I’d just as soon use the imitation stuff in certain things, like flavoring Vanilla Sugar Milk (a “recipe” my brother and I came up with in childhood, which is adding sugar and vanilla to…well, to milk). I also use it in recipes that call for a TON of it: I have a no-bake cookie recipe that uses 1 TABLESPOON of vanilla, and that just seems like a whole heck-ton more vanilla than any recipe needs, so I use 1 teaspoon of real and 2 teaspoons of fake.

ANYWAY, Walmart carries an 8-ounce bottle of fake vanilla extract for 99 cents. That is CHEAP, my friend: our grocery store has a 2-ounce bottle of fake and it costs $2.00. Walmart, 13 cents an ounce; grocery store, $1.00 an ounce. The last few times I’ve been there, though, they haven’t had it. (This is another way in which Walmart drives me nuts: great prices, but then no stock for months on end.)

So today I was feeling frustrated about that, and frustrated with my inability to find it anywhere else at a price that didn’t make me feel like throwing a tantrum. That’s when it occurred to me to check Amazon. And look what I found:

(image from Amazon.com)


A 3-pack of 32-ounce bottles! For $16.54! That’s 17 cents per ounce! Only 4 cents/ounce more than Walmart’s store brand, and this is brand name!

Well, sure, that is a LOT of vanilla flavoring, but it doesn’t seem to go bad and I do go through a lot of it. Plus, it keeps me from having to keep checking Walmart for it; it keeps me from having to buy it for $1.00/ounce from the grocery store in the meantime; and it helps me with my goal of reducing the number of things I buy at Walmart.

Return of the Twin Questions and Answers

13 Replies

Let’s get back to some twin Q&A! And if you have a minute, go congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Blonde, who just found out they’re having twins!

Where are we? So far we have:

Twin Pregnancy
Twin Birth, and Going Home
More Twin Questions and Answers
Still More Twin Questions and Answers
Even More Twin Questions and Answers

Could I perhaps have come up with a more intuitive titling system? Such as, perhaps, #1, #2, #3? I mean for heaven’s sake.

 

Oh. Wait. We don’t seem to have any more twin questions to answer. We do have some miscellaneous questions, though, and I’ll just go ahead and answer them here since they came about because of the twin Q&A posts.

Ruthie:

I have a question that’s not exactly twin related but I hope you’ll still answer. I’m about to have my 3rd C-section, and my doctor has been not exactly adamant, but let’s say strongly recommending, that 3 is the limit. My husband has taken this to mean that not getting my tubes tied at delivery is the equivalent of a suicide mission. You mentioned that the twins were your 3rd C – did your doctor recommend no more children for you after that point? Did you have any problems with your C for Henry (assuming it was a 4th C)? I’ve read your archives and it seems like you weren’t sure for awhile whether you would have more children after Henry … did the C section thing enter into your decision?

So far all my obstetricians (I go to a practice with 6-8 of them, plus I had another one for my first pregnancy) have answered the “How many c-sections is okay?” question on a case-by-case basis: part of what can make subsequent c-sections risky has to do with the complications that caused the woman to need the c-sections in the first place. But so far all of them have agreed that the default answer is that the risks increase slightly for each one, but that as long as everything is normal (and continues to be normal) you can have as many c-sections as you want. “Sure, be a Kennedy,” said one of my OBs, referring to whichever Kennedy woman it was who had 9 or 11 c-sections or whatever it was.

What my OBs do is check things out during each c-section and tell me if things still look okay for another, and so far it’s always been yes. Definitely it’s not standard to say three is the limit. If I were you I’d tell the OB right before the c-section begins that I didn’t think I wanted any more children but could he/she please investigate while in there and see how things look just in case you change your mind.

During the twin pregnancy I did worry a little about uterine rupture: the uterus gets soooooo stretched for twins, and I’d already had two c-sections. But everything was fine, and then I had a fourth c-section and the OB still says everything looks fine if I want another. So for me, it’s not something I consider an issue; I’m more worried about my increasing age. (In fact, one theory for why the risks go up for subsequent c-sections is that the mother’s age is also increasing.)

 

Megan:

I have a personal one for you, but I understand if you don’t want to answer….how much weight have you gained with each pregnancy and how much did you lose before getting pregnant again? Did you try to lose weight or did it just happen? I’m overweight and about to try to get pregnant.

I’ve gained such a different amount with each pregnancy, and had such different experiences losing it. For my first pregnancy I gained 40 pounds and most of it came off quickly but it seemed to take AGES to lose the last little bit. For my second pregnancy I gained 15 pounds and lost all of it fast and then some (and then afterward I gained back the extra I’d lost, and then some). With the twins I gained about 50 pounds and lost it all in a week (a LOT of it was water retention—my legs were swollen up to my hips) and then kept losing. With Henry I can’t remember what happened, perhaps because my brain hit the limit of how many details it could hold. But I seem to remember it going about the same as my first pregnancy. I always think I’ll use an upcoming pregnancy to inspire me to lose weight, but it never works!

 

Eleanor Q.:

Independence training? I’d like to hear more about that. How did you pick what activities to start with? How did you coerce a toddler into doing something that YOU wanted when YOU suggest it? Did you see any regression of abilities once the babies came home?

 

Several of the biggest trainings were things I probably should have already done by then anyway. My friend Astarte and I have oldest kids the same age, and her oldest was already long since showering on her own when I was all, “Oh, hey, I wonder if mine could learn to wash his own hair?” And when I finally got around to teaching William to dress himself, the quickness with which he learned indicated I could have done that earlier.

I don’t remember meeting any resistance. This may be because I was too tired to hear any. Or it could be that they were just the right ages: Rob was 6 and has always liked Being a Grown-up, and William was 4 and has always liked Doing What Rob Does.

I chose activities based on the things I was finding overwhelming during pregnancy. I was spending a lot of time in the morning dozing, so I was motivated to teach them to get their own breakfasts, and this made me think of having them also learn to make their own lunches. I was having trouble kneeling at the tub and getting past my tum pressed against the side, so I was motivated to teach them to wash themselves.

Some of it was just teaching them to PITCH IN. They weren’t really able to gather up the trash, and having them lug it to the porch wasn’t much of a help to me, but having them do it took away some of my I’m The Only One Who Does Any Work Around Here feeling, and that was helpful.

I didn’t see any regression, though definitely the Fun! Of! Independence! wore off after awhile.

Sneaky Sneaky SNAKY

107 Replies

Do you remember last October when I wrote about how Walmart sells sneakily smaller packages for their “lower prices,” so that they often actually cost MORE while bragging that they cost less? I used the example of Luvs diapers, which Walmart packages 70 to a box while Target puts 80 in a box: it SEEMS like the Walmart box costs less—if you don’t happen to notice there are fewer diapers.

WELL. Reader Christine sent me another example:

I thought you would get a kick out of this one, please see the attached picture. I bought packs of Quilted Northern, 12 rolls each with identical packaging, one from each store. The roll on the left is Target, the one on the right is Wal Mart.

Pretty funny huh?

(photo by Christine)

Phonebia

64 Replies

This morning I made four phone calls that have been on my to-do list for…um, a long time. These weren’t even SCARY phone calls like calling about a denied claim or a statement error or a lost payment, these were absolutely standard, non-scary, making-normal-appointment calls.

One call had only been waiting two weeks for me to make it. That’s the one where I need to schedule an evaluation for Rob with the orthodontist to see if he’s ready now for braces. They sent me a little reminder card and it’s been sitting on the counter for two weeks.

I couldn’t make the orthodontist call until I’d made Rob an appointment with the dentist. We discovered that his “brushing his own teeth” was NOT GOING WELL. The school does dental screenings and sent a note home, and I took a look for myself and was APPALLED. And this brought up my Dentist Anxiety, which is that dentists seem to charge me until I run out of money, so I don’t like to go see them unless there is pain. Anyway, we discovered the tooth situation 9 months ago, so that’s how long that second call has been waiting. I could have GROWN AN ENTIRE BABY in that amount of time.

The third call is an eye exam for myself. My current glasses are so covered in teensy scratches it’s like they’re foggy. I can’t really say how long this call has been waiting for me to make it, but the last time I had an eye exam and new glasses, third-grade William was still in an infant carrier so that’ll give you a general idea.

The fourth call I made because I was on a roll: it’s so much easier to make calls when I am already making calls, so I made the cat her vet appointment for next month.

I made these calls about 2 hours ago and my legs are still jittery and my underarms are still damp.

I have been trying to think of ways to conquer this phone problem, since it negatively affects my life. The nickel-psychology is that you’re supposed to Face Your Fear and then you will stop being scared, but I’ve been making phone calls for more than a quarter-century and I’m still scared. I even worked as a RECEPTIONIST, and if that doesn’t thoroughly explore the Extinction Through Exposure method I don’t know what does.

In thinking about it, I realized that one of my MAIN stressors is not being able to hear very well on the phone. It’s partly the inevitable household noises, partly the connection, partly a silly reluctance to say “What?” (and a near-inability to say it more than once), and partly anxiety levels that make it even harder to process what I’m hearing. Our phone is already cranked up as high as it will go, volume-wise, but surely there are phones made for, like, older people, and surely those phones can be turned up to “thinks young people are always MUMBLING” levels.

In fact, a minute’s research on Amazon told me what to search for: “amplified telephone.” Here’s a likely-looking fellow: Clarity Amplified Phone, for mild to moderate hearing loss. It says the volume can be turned up to 18 decibels; it would be helpful to know the decibel level of a regular phone for comparison. There’s another one that’s more than twice the price but goes up to 43 decibels, so perhaps 18 decibels is for sissies. Or I could get the cordless one (30 decibels) for a price in between the other two.

Another idea: hire a receptionist.

Popovers and Kittens

42 Replies

I had a vivid dream last night that I had less than a week to live and that I was mentally composing a blog post where I asked you what you thought I should do/leave for the kids—like, videotapes or letters or what. Ack.

I’ve been feeling very Low and Listless the last few days. I’m self-medicating with coffee and with the recipe my sister-in-law sent me for popovers. It’s from The Joy of Cooking, and the asides are hers:

**********

Preheat oven to 450. Grease a standard 12 cup muffin pan or 12 six ounce custard cups. If using custard cups dust with flour, sugar, or grated Parmesan cheese.

Whisk together thoroughly in a large bowl:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Whisk together in another bowl:
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 tbsp warm melted butter
Pour over the flour mixture and fold just until blended. A few small lumps may remain (Me=HA! Lots of lumps remained.) Fill the cups 2/3 to 3/4 full. Fill any unfilled cups 1/3 full with water so pan doesn’t burn.

Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees then reduce oven temperature to 350 and bake for 20 minutes more, until well browned and crusty. Do not open the oven to check on the popovers until the last 5 minutes to avoid deflating them. Remove from the oven, unmold onto a rack, and puncture the sides with a sharp knife to let steam escape. Serve immediately and TOTALLY RUIN YOUR DINNER BUT IT IS WORTH IT or return to a turned-off oven for up to 30 minutes for extra crispness.

**********

They’re easy to make and fun to watch in the oven because they PUFF UP. I like them with Nutella—also the sister-in-law’s suggestion. I think they’d be most perfect for breakfast, dipped in maple syrup. Or if I were having people over for dinner (ha ha ha) I think they’d make a fun surprising dinner roll.

On the way home from a shopping trip last weekend, I spontaneously stopped at the animal shelter to look at kitties. Well, as spontaneously as I ever do things, which is to say I thought about it on and off for weeks, then told the kids we MIGHT stop that day, then decided three miles before the shelter to stop there for sure, then reminded the kids it might not even be open, then wondered if I should change my mind, then used my right turn signal well in advance of the turn.

They didn’t have any kittens; apparently kittens are seasonal. Did you know that? That kittens are like produce? The shelter worker said we could start to call in mid-March to inquire as to kitten ripeness.

We’ve mostly decided to get a kitten, but we looked at the cats. I saw one I was drawn to, but she was already taken. I saw several more I liked well enough to get to know them better, but they were labeled as being for homes with no children or no other cats. Another was very nice but was 13 years old. Another was very nice but was in a bonded pair with a cat I didn’t like as much. I was happy not to find The Perfect Cat yet, since the shopping experience is so fun.

Even More Twin Questions and Answers

36 Replies

Cayt: “Did you dress them in lots of pink/blue so that they would be easier to tell apart later? If so, what would you have done with two of the same sex?”

I did dress them in a lot of pink and blue, to help tell them apart in photos and also because it was so! dang! cute! My mom gave me two three-packs of footed outfits, one pink set and one blue, and those were the best: each set had one solid, one striped, and one patterned, and also there were MATCHING HATS.

I found that I pretty much ONLY wanted to use outfits that coordinated. I used the non-coordinated clothes when I had to change a baby midday because of a blowout or something, but in the morning they were almost always coordinated.

It was pretty easy to coordinate them at first: lots of companies make their infant lines basically the same but one pink and one blue. As they got out of infant stuff, though, the coordinated stuff was way harder and soon I stopped doing it.

If both babies had been girls, or both boys, I think I would have chosen a color for each—probably pink and purple for girls, blue and green for boys. Well, or maybe not, because one of the things that appealed to me about same-sex twins was that they could share clothes. Maybe I would have used a pin-on ribbon or a fake beauty mark or something.

 

Anonymous: “I have one very important question. How did you come up with their names? Please share with lots of details!”

Oh, man, that was, like, the biggest naming project of my LIFE. “Elizabeth” and “Edward” are pseudonyms, which makes it a little tricky to discuss the naming process without giving away the real names but I’ll try. Early in the pregnancy I’d started lists of boy name candidates and girl name candidates. When we found out there were TWINS, I started combining from the lists, making three new lists: Boy-Boy, Girl-Girl, and Boy-Girl. The problem was that our first choice candidates didn’t really coordinate with each other—or went together TOO well, like John and Jane.

My IDEAL would have been to have some small gimmick: matching initials, or same number of letters/syllables, or SOMETHING. But we tried again and again to come up with something like that for boy-girl twins, and there was just nothing we could find that didn’t mean choosing a less-liked name just for the sake of the gimmick.

Finally we decided to treat each name separately: we pretended we were having a girl, and we chose her name; then we pretended it was two years later and we were having a boy, and we chose his name. We ended up with two names that are very different in style, popularity, syllables, letters, and initials; they have NOTHING in common. The names are something like Joe and Clarissa. I love both names but still wish there was a little Twin Gimmick.

I’m looking at my name lists now, and it’s so strange to see names I don’t even remember considering. Iliana! Jenica! Laken! Perrin! Brindle! Abbott! Dutch! Cullen! Joren! I still really like Brindle.

 

Rah: “Have their developmental milestones come together–did they walk/talk at the same time, etc.?”

Sort of, but not much more than any two siblings. The one thing I noticed was copycat developing: if one did something, the other noticed and tried to do the same thing, so this may have made some of their developmental milestones closer than they otherwise would have been.

 

Shelly Overlook: “I want to know if what you hear about twins developing their own language is true.”

My particular twins haven’t, though I’ve heard a lot about this. I wonder if it happens more with identical twins? I HAVE found that they seem to understand each other better: if one of them is saying something and I can’t figure out what it is, I ask the other one.

 

Beth: “What’s been the thing that surprised you the most about having twins, either in a good or bad way?”

I think what surprised me most is how little their twinness affects our household. I guess I’d expected it to be more of a big deal, or for Twin Issues to be something we would have to deal with often. Part of it is that they’re not only fraternal twins but also boy-girl fraternal twins—so they don’t really seem Twinnish. They look different, they like different things, they don’t dress the same, they don’t seem to have any Magical Twin Bond.

 

Jive Turkey: “My appetite was INSANE when I was nursing – was it twice as insane for you having to nurse twins?”

I do remember eating quite a lot, but what was amazing to me was that I was eating TONS but LOSING WEIGHT. I dropped all the pregnancy weight and just kept going. I have it written down somewhere but can’t find it, but I lost something like 15 pounds past my pre-pregnancy weight. (I got it all back later.) It was like I couldn’t keep up. It was fun to see what it would be like to be one of those actresses who says she has to work to keep her weight up.

Still More Twin Questions and Answers

30 Replies

Nellyru: “Did the nasty ultrasound tech change her tune at all when she knew she was going to be the one to tell you something exciting?”

She softened slightly, but she stayed brusque. She was working in a fast, panicky way, pressing WAY too hard on the tum and saying things like, “SorryIDon’tHaveTimeToDoMorePicturesButHereAreAFew.” We had to go give the results to the OB, and she walked so fast I literally couldn’t keep up (I had two little kids with me) and got lost in the hallways. (For all my other ultrasounds I went to the hospital, even though the OB’s office was more convenient. The scheduling nurse asked why, and in a rare moment of bravery I told her. That technician was too rough and brusque even when she WASN’T in a rush.)

 

Eleanor Q.: “Here’s what I’m still wondering: How were the early days (months) different with the twins than it was when William was born? How did you have to adapt your ‘bringing home baby/dealing with an older child’ plan to the twins? How did you feed them? Did you schedule like crazy? Do you think the twins are closer to each other than their other siblings? Do you think that being a boy/girl set takes away some of the difficulty of establishing ones own identity that some twins have or does it not matter? Did you feel awesome when annoying strangers would say ‘must be twins’ and then you could retort ‘actually, it is.'”

YES it was satisfying to say it was twins when strangers made what they thought was a joke! Or someone would say, “You must be due any minute!” and I’d say, “Not for another 3 months.” Hee!

Bringing the twins home was easier than bringing William home. For one thing, William’s homecoming gave me a toddler and a newborn, and I’ve written before about how difficult I think that combination is—but when I brought the twins home, I had a 4-year-old and a 6-year old. And during the pregnancy, I’d done some “Independence Training,” mostly with Rob but some with William too: teaching them to wash themselves in the bathtub, teaching Rob to make easy breakfasts and lunches, teaching Rob to go get the mail, teaching them both to put on their own seatbelts, teaching William to get himself dressed. So when I was stuck in a chair nursing the twins and feeling half-crazed with all the things I needed to be doing instead, I could set Rob and William in motion like two little Roombas: “Clear the breakfast dishes, please. Now Rob take those letters out to the mailbox and put the flag up. William, can you please get me more water? Now both of you please pick up the toys on the floor.” It was much slower and less efficient than I would have done it, but it was GETTING DONE.

Another thing we did differently: we put a bassinet out in the living room. Instead of having to FREAK OUT that if we let the baby cry the toddler would wake up (newborn William had shared a room with toddler Rob), we had a whole different set-up. If one or both twins needed to cry a bit, the crying was still stressful but at least not because it might wake up the other children.

We didn’t need to buy much for the twins: not only did we have a bunch of stuff already, but when people found out we were having twins they donated all kinds of things: a second crib, a second bassinet, a second swing, a ton of clothes. We did buy two La-Z-Boy recliners and those were the best and most practical purchases we made. Each of us could rock a twin in comfort, and the recliners were comfortable to sleep in if it came to that and it often did.

I mostly tandem-nursed the twins, mostly using a twin nursing pillow my cousin gave me. I would put the twins on the couch, then strap the pillow on, then scoop up a twin in each arm, then sit and arrange. It took a minute or two, but once we were all arranged I had my hands free to read or do Sudoku puzzles or whatever. It was so awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone planning to try breastfeeding twins.

The only downside is that it was hard to doze with it on, because the back-support pillow kept me so upright. So sometimes at night I would settle into the recliner instead, with regular bedpillows and throw pillows arranged to support the babies. The problem is that this usually resulted in all three of us waking up in the recliner in the morning.

With twins, you don’t have to switch sides mid-feeding as you do with a single baby. Some books recommend switching each feeding (Baby A on the right with this feeding but on the left with the next feeding) to keep things balanced; other books recommend keeping each baby to his/her own side so each baby can regulate his/her own supply. I switched in the beginning, but one baby REALLY PREFERRED to nurse on a particular side so eventually they each had their own side pretty much.

I also did some one-at-a-time nursing, and then I would switch mid-feeding and use the cradle hold and a regular pillow (rather than the football hold and the twin nursing pillow).

I didn’t do any scheduling per se, but I did keep a rigid RECORD. I had a legal pad where I wrote down EVERYTHING: nursing times and lengths and sides, diaper changes and contents, baths and shampoos and cradle cap treatments, and any medications I was taking. Otherwise I seriously couldn’t remember which baby I’d changed or how long it had been. After a long time (months? many months? I can’t remember anymore) I stopped keeping track of diapers and nursing lengths and baths, but I still kept track of feeding start-times/sides until they were weaned. I also used it to keep track of when I introduced which solids.

I do think the twins are closer than any other two siblings in our family, but I think a lot of it is being the same level of development. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they’re all adults.

Yes, I think being boy-girl twins helps HUGELY with the identity thing. I’d go so far as to say it’s barely been an issue. When they were teensy it was easy to dress them in the blue/pink versions of the same outfit/jacket/hat and I did that a lot—but as soon as they were out of baby sizes, it became difficult and we stopped doing it.

 

Safire: “Aww…this is taking me back 2 years to my own twins’ birth. Those first weeks home from the hospital were killer but I feel like I’m coming out of it now. Yes, 2 years later! When did you feel like you had a handle on things and then, when did you have another?! My hubby really wants another baby but I’m not sure I can wrap my head around that yet.”

I’m not sure when I got a handle on it. I feel like I mostly have a handle on it NOW, but…. I mean, FIRST I felt like things started going way better when I wasn’t nursing them so often. Then it seemed like things were better when they could sit up and play—but that was so quickly followed by MOBILITY, which was WAY WORSE. Then it was about 2 years before they reached their current stage of being relatively easy.

I’ve read that the average spacing between singleton babies is 2-point-something years, but that the average spacing between twins and the next baby is 5 years. We had an unexpected pregnancy when the twins were 15 months old, which resulted in another baby just before the twins’ 2nd birthday. It worked out okay, but it was too close: I think it would have been way better with a 4-year spacing like we had when the twins were born. As it was, I had the Newborn Plus Toddler problem, but with TWO toddlers—ACK.

OMG

Still, we did get through it (the toddler/newborn thing, I mean), and now I’m glad Edward has a boy just 2 years younger than him to play with. (If Henry had been a girl, I would have been glad for Elizabeth.)

More next time!