twins

I knew that having twins was gonna be special and fun from the minute my mom screamed excitedly into the phone as we told her about the newest additions to our family, but I had no idea what all that was going to entail!! 

Twins definitely add a new dimension to life...there are so many times I find myself saying, "this would be so much easier with just one baby" or "if I only had one baby to nurse I could..." or "with one baby I wouldn't have to..." And, there are days where I have to continually remind myself, having two babies at one time is a double blessing- God blessed us more than we could fathom by putting two little ones into our family at once. But, there are also days when I absolutely love it and I couldn't even begin to desire my life with only one baby at a time. Monday was one of those days! The girls had a great schedule going on! They ate only 6 times and were pretty quick about it each time, so I probably only spent about 4 1/2 hours of my day feeding, instead of 7 or 8. They had a good nap in the morning, a good nap in the afternoon and even a good late afternoon nap. They weren't really fussy and didn't cry much, but smiled a LOT! It was just a good day to be a momma of twins! 

Part of what makes mothering twins so hard is that I don't have any real close friends who have done it. I've met people who have, but nobody that I could watch and copy...and sometimes that makes it fun and exciting to be the one to chart new territory, but sometimes its scary and incredibly daunting. One of the things that are fun is to see Maysen and Maelle's little personalities start to come out a little bit...I already am comparing them to Hailey and Jack and they are already proving me wrong every time I come up with a "theory". Generally Maelle is the one who acts like me and Hailey- either all happy or all sad, but not Monday- Maysen showed off her smiles all day and Maelle was more stone faced and sober! Go figure, huh?! :) That should teach me to try and figure my kids out. It's just an exciting and fun thing to think about watching our twins grow up and wonder what it will be like and how it will be different than the single kids!

 speaking of figuring them out...Monday was such a great day, so I was kind of expecting that possibly we were on an up-swing and life was going to get easier over here, but it was not to be...yesterday the girls were so unhappy with life in the afternoon that they both got a bottle! Before I had the twins I saw a "make room for multiples" program and the triplet mom used these little bottle props and I thought they were horrible and that the mom should make sure that she holds her babies as she feeds them...boy was I wrong!! I'm know wishing I had two of them ;) There's only so much time in a momma's day and it's hard to spend it holding bottles when your other kids need dinner and their fingers or faces washed and his diaper changed or her butt wiped and a few snuggles of their own! Not to mention all the house work that never gets done...

Having twins in our family is definitely one of the biggest blessings we've ever had and I am really starting to enjoy the girls, but it's also one of the hardest parts of my life! They definitely add a new level of work and a new level of fun to our days. It's kind of a weird thing...(I guess like most of parenting) I love and hate a lot of the same things. Like...I love nursing both the girls- I love how they smile at me and each other, I love how they hold hands and play with each others faces and try to push each other off and generally mess with each other the whole time, but sitting down with both of my hands tied up and being "stuck" in either a chair or the couch for at least 30-40 minutes is so difficult and often I find myself almost dreading it...not to mention the amount of milk I have to produce for both of them keeps me continually hungry and thirsty and makes it incredibly difficult to go without nursing them without being in pain or leaking all over. Smiling at and playing with both the girls is so much fun, but it's so hard to have to "decide" which one to even look at and now that they're getting bigger whoever is crying usually gets held and the other one just has to fend for herself and that really goes against my grain- to give attention to the "squeaky" wheel and sort of ignore the happy one, but it really just can't be helped, they weigh 11lbs a piece and are getting pretty big and it's just not so easy to hold them both at the same time anymore! It's so much fun to see the girls smile and giggle at one another, but sometimes I worry about them growing up and "needing" each other so much because I don't know if they'll ever get much alone time with either parent...we left Jack with our neighbor's yesterday and took Hailey and the twins to visit a friend who had a new baby and she cried and was so sad the whole time without Jackson (this isn't the first time it's happened, just the most obvious) and I wonder if we're setting all our kids up for failure by having them be so dependent on each other, instead of their parents...guess when we're talking dependency it doesn't matter who you're dependent upon- it's probably all not so good! ;) 

As I sit here watching my two little girls get snuggled up by Hailey and Jack as they lay on their blanket on the floor I think the consensus (in my mind at least) is that as the girls grow the good is starting to outweigh the difficult and we are having more and more enjoyable moments and less and less stressfilled moments! I truly can be thankful and am thankful that God blessed me with two little lives, instead of just one!