The Twinkies

1. You won’t remember much about the first three months.
2. It really does get easier after a year.
3. People do finally stop asking you really stupid questions in public once they are toddlers (and, no, I don’t miss it.)
4. You have to pace yourself.
5. I can lift about 50 pounds at once (and increasing every minute) (Eva)
6. I can live on less sleep than I thought.(Eva)
7. I am emotionally weaker and stronger then I ever imagined. (Dawn)
8. Lifting 50 pounds daily and chasing two babies all day WILL NOT make you lose weight. (Lesley) (or it will make you lose too much ~ me)
9. There is nothing more precious that twin love. (Lesley)
10. You will do things that will not only amaze others, but also yourself. (Lesley)
11. If you didn’t have patience before twins, you will afterwards. (Lesley)
12. Unlike with a single baby, you have to come to terms with a certain degree of otherwise avoidable crying; changing one baby and then the other will usually result in the first one crying when put down, or the second one crying until it’s his/her turn. They won’t break and they will turn out to be a little more patient and sharing than single babies. (Jano)
13. It is very difficult to deal with TWO crying babies. But you do, because if you don’t, who will? (Jano)
14. It’s important to remember that they are not merely a unit of more than one child - they really do benefit from having one-on-one time with the important people in their lives. (Jano)
15. Getting poop on yourself is not the end of the world. Gross, yes, but less gross as time goes on and it keeps happening. (Claudia)
16. You will somehow make it through the day. Every day.(Claudia)
17. Nothing is sweeter than watching them laugh at each other or hug each other. (Jenn)
18. You feel like complete and utter crap when you just can’t meet everyone’s needs.

I’ll add more as they occur to me (and update the list from the comments with links back to the sources’ blogs.). What have you learned so far?

There was recently a totally random comment on the old Multiples are Not a Freakshow post that claims (I think) that the triplet mother who made the video was just an attention whore.

I remember when I was out with infants; Brian and I would take bets on how many people would stop us. I hated the attention. People would stop the carriage, touch the babies and make the most inane comments. Whenever I complained about this people would tell me to enjoy it because once the babies were older it would stop and I would miss it.

Well, they were right about one thing. Now that I have toddlers the attention has plummeted. If people comment while I am out it is either a quick “Oh how cute” or “How old are your twins? Mine are 6.”

There are a lot of twin parents in the world. Last week in one walk I met a man in the line at the bank who had 50-year-old twin daughters, on the way out the man who held the door for me had 3-year-olds and the woman ahead of me in line at the grocery store had 6-year-olds. The woman behind her was a twin. Oh, and I saw one other parent out with twins. We are everywhere.

About that other thing? Missing the attention? Missing the “double trouble”s and the touchers and the “Oh, I’d kill myself if I had twins” comments? Not so much. Oh, I still get a weirdo now and again but now that the frequency has dropped off I can be amused rather than exhausted and grumpy. I was right. I don’t miss being a short-term twin-mother celebrity. I LOVE being right.

Do you hate it? Love it? Miss it? Feel relieved it’s over? Are you thinking, “I have triplets and for us the celebrity status NEVER goes away, you wench!” Well? Anyone? Anyone?

When the twins were quite young I tried to go out to lunch with their grandmother and a family friend. The restaurant refused to seat us because of the double stroller. They would not even put us on the patio. Double strollers are a big, unwieldy pain. But to refuse to seat us? Well, Bricco, I didn’t want your warm pistachio crusted goat cheese salad (with cider vinagrette) anyway. I won’t eat there now. Ever. I like to eat out. We eat out a lot. But not there.

Of course, as a restaurant they can choose to drive away business. But a library? Heather of It’s Twinsanity was told she couldn’t bring her stroller in to story time at the library. Single strollers were OK, but not hers. The solution offered by the library manager was to not go out alone with so many children. I beg your pardon? When Heather wrote a formal complaint letter asking for an apology she was told nope, no apology. “They have decided to refuse an apology, instead stating that “large strollers” are not welcome at their libraries.” I don’t know about your town, but in mine we pay for town services via property taxes. High property taxes. Property taxes that entitle me to use the town services.

Taking twins (or triplets, I assume) out is hard. They go in opposite directions. Neither has any judgement at all. They work together to make you nuts. So many activities for stay-at-home-moms presume one child, not two. Even shopping carts are designed for one child. Oh, sure, there are the occasional carts that seat two, but they are inevitably seem to be taken by someone with one child and a large purse. So when a library - a library! - declares that double strollers are forbidden that makes me mad. Maybe Heather should bring her kids and let them destroy the place, then smile sweetly and say, “Well, most places I can keep them in the stroller which contains their whirlwind of chaos but since you don’t allow large strollers and I want them to learn to love books, story time and the library…”

Is this common? Do other twin parents find themselves excluded from children’s activities because of twin related problems?

If your babes are identical - how similar do you think they are vs what other people think? If they are fraternal - are they very different or do you find it difficult to differentiate?

Totally different.

At home F is pushy, adventurous and a take-charge kind of girl. She does everything first and, well, she is strong-willed. She is the one who gets into mischief, climbing up onto the window ledge or finding a box of cookies left out and helping herself to a chocolate bisquit. On the other hand, she is a cuddler, our little snuggle-bug, though co-sleeping with her can be a nightmare as she kicks. Last time I co-slept her after kicking me she insisted on sleeping draped across my chest. If I tried to move her she vocally objected. Did I mention she is strong willed? However, for all her bold exploration, when we are out at the park she is the one who checks back with me regularly. J, meanwhile, runs off without a backward glance when we are in the park but at home has a meltdown if I leave the room. J is very methodical and will repeat the same activity over and over again, putting blocks in the box, for example, then dumping them out, then putting them back again. He is more easily upset, more vocal and less easily distracted. He lets his sister pick on him and looks to me to rescue him. Just the other day someone told me, surprised, that the twins were not at all alike. Umm…yeah. Other than sharing a womb they are no more alike than other siblings, though there are some behavioral things that I think are twin specific. For example, both are social creatures, flirting with adults and playing with children whereever they go. Supposedly children of this age don’t play with one another, instead they parallel play. That does not appear to be true of my children. I’m assuming it’s a twin thing.

The round robin “home base” is over at Double Delight. After you answer the question (because, of course, why wouldn’t you) let Amy know by leaving her a comment and she’ll link out to your post.

Amy at Double Delight has posted this month’s Round Robin question. How do you deal with the challenges of sleep training multiples? How successful do you think that your strategy has been?

For me this is the ongoing question. The short answer is “damned if I know.” The longer answer is that I am keeping a sleep log and have standardized my night-time routine. Just being in the room as the twins fall asleep seems to help them tremendously.

Sometime in the month of July write up YOUR answer to this question, and post a comment on Amy’s blog. If you let me know as well, I will put a link to your post here. And, of course, in the spirit of a Round Robin, it would be very civil of you to also link to all the responses to this question.

Someone has the answer.

Postings answering this (that I know about? Have I missed you? Let me know…)

Kim