The Twinkies

10:30; 11:45; 12:30; 1:30; 2:30; 4:30; 7:15. Just shoot me now. *

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* A figure of speech, so, please, no one get all “Will no one rid me of the troublesome priest” on me, OK?

In a brief break from your regularly scheduled angst, I’d like to note that twins are great.

They are starting to notice one another now, and when I put them together in the morning they look at each other and smile. Then, F, rolls on top of J. and tries to chew on him. He tries to pull her hair. Fortunately for F., she doesn’t have hair; unfortunately for J. she does have teeth. As long as I am getting something close to enough sleep, this is a pretty sweet gig.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.

As much as I am an all-natural, paraben-free-soap-using, organic-apple-eating kind of girl, I’m also a fan of better living through chemistry. Thus, I am now on Zoloft. Do I contradict myself? So I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes.

Mothers of multiples are more at risk for post-partum depression, as are women with a previous history of depression. Since I get the gold star in both of those boxes, I was actually kind of amazed I didn’t seem to be falling into the pit of despair. The combination of teething, a growth spurt and possible menses, however, finally did me in.

Thursday I wrote: I feel like I’m drowning. Teething is brutal. I haven’t slept for more than 3 hours at a time in several weeks, just when I was getting used to the “luxury” of 4 hour chunks on a regular basis. Nap time is a battle every day. I haven’t been able to refill my pre-natals in over a month, so I am nursing twins without a vitamin. I feel constantly numb, hungry and dehydrated and on the verge of tears. I’ve been sobbing every day this week, what with the exhaustion and the screaming. I used to be a professional adult, and now I am just this exhausted milk machine covered in spit up.

Reading it, I realized that if someone had sent that to ME I would tell them to get their ass to a doctor and talk about their depression. So I called my midwife and made an appointment. I saw her Friday and am on Zoloft. I am also looking into day care for at least one morning a week (so far with no luck) and am preparing the applications to start the kids at Montessori next January when they are 18 months. I plan to get a “Yoga with Baby” DVD I can do at home to try and get more exercise, and have refilled the pre-natals.

I can’t do much about the sleep deprivation – I mean, I’d have to change my tag line from Adventures in Sleep Deprivation to something else and that would be bad for the branding – but I can tackle the lack of exercise, the nutrition issues and the cooped up issues. Clearly, I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home-mom. I have a lot of guilt about that. I feel like I SHOULD like being around babies all day. Every day. I should get up cheerful, do laundry with a smile, and dance the babies around the room. Singing. A good mother, in my head, would never get tired, depressed, resentful or miss her professional, adult identity. Since I am and do I must, perforce, be a bad mother. I do realize that isn’t rational.

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(Bonus points to anyone who can identify the transcendentalist to whom I alluded above.)

The Husband: Look at your fair skin, F! How can people say you aren’t a red head.

Me: She doesn’t have any red hair.

The Husband: You don’t need red hair to be a red head.

I own red leather pants. They are really sexy, and would have been really expensive, as in a-comma-in-the-price-tag-expensive, save that I found them at Filene’s Basement in Boston.It turns out that the body to wear red leather pants and the purse strings to buy them are rarely found together.

They haven’t fit for years. I think I wore them twice.

I’m thinking I should try them on and if they don’t fit now, after nursing twins, just accept that they will NEVER FIT AGAIN and unload them on ebay.

It’s been a rough couple of days. Someone described raising twins as “slamming yourself against the unmeetable demands of each day.” The kids are teething, I’m tired, it’s frigid outside. B. has to fly to Florida for a work thing next week and I find myself jealous of him. It’s sick to be jealous of having to fly to Florida on a business trip, it’s not like it will be fun. And yet. And yet. Housebound and overwhelmed, I’m feeling like I have nothing. There is nothing in my life outside of mothering. And that’s hard. Maybe tomorrow I will feel more chipper about this.