A Peine For Your Thoughts

Stage Mom

June 2, 2011 at 2:27 pm | Posted in Motherhood, The Twins | 24 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, motherhood, twins

Recently, my busy sister took time from her busy job and hectic commute to call and see how things were going in the Peine Palace. When my phone rang, I was perched on our bed, carefully matching teeny tiny Henry shirts to teeny tiny Henry pants as Henry himself lay kicking and babbling on a pillow next to me.

“Oh my gosh you have to hear Henry talk. He’s so dang cute you won’t be able to stand it,” I gushed as I put the phone up to Henry’s ear. “Heeeenrrry! Tell your Aunt Lou hello! Tell her what you’ve been doing! Ask her how her day was! Tell her everything!”

Is anyone’s baby voice NOT obnoxious? Also I will NOT be posting a video of myself speaking to my children. Just a little gift from me to you, friends.

As soon as I placed the phone to Henry’s ear, he immediately halted all attempts at cute babbling and just looked at me, big blue eyes audibly blinking, mouth clamped shut.

Like a loon, I pressed on as my sister sat patiently on the line, waiting to hear all about the day of a three-month-old who doesn’t speak English. In the midst of more high-pitched squealing on my end–coming from my gaping mouth hole, not Henry’s–I had an out-of-body experience. Suddenly, I saw myself from above and what I have somehow become in the mere 16 weeks my children have existed on Earth.

I am a stage mom.

Per usual for us stage moms, my children are dancing frogs. They do all sorts of tricks when no one is around. But the minute another person or even a video camera appears to bear witness to their verbal or physical prowess, they clam up or just lay there like wet noodles, leaving me to squeal and dance even more dramatically to make up for their lackluster performances.

Sadly for everyone, a 29-year-old adult rolling over just isn’t much of an accomplishment.

Speaking of rolling over, both babies have done it.

Can do it.

Unless there’s a camera around.

Or another person.

And then?

Blink. Blink, blink.

Next up? You can see us in our stint on “Toddlers and Tiaras” where I’ll be in the audience yelling, “AMELIA LET HENRY TWIRL YOU I DON’T CARE IF HE’S YOUR BROTHER!” as my twins kick each other in the shins with their tap shoes.

Never say never, friends. Never. Say. Never.

Finally Dancing

May 22, 2011 at 3:53 pm | Posted in Motherhood | 17 Comments
Tags: babies, motherhood, twins

All the feelings and emotions of our 15-week crash course in parenting twins culminated Sunday in the 9:00 church service and our usual cafe for breakfast. The sermon was delivered by the former Archbishop of Canterbury and had Drew and I both buzzing with questions and thoughts about what he’d said. The day was muggy, but so is every day in Houston, so that’s not at all remarkable. We are still getting used to dropping the twins off in the nursery before we go to church, and picking them up continues to be a very surreal moment. There’s something about walking into a nursery and seeing my babies in someone else’s arms that has made me feel more like a mom than all of the late nights and early mornings combined. Not to mention the way the twins have finally started to recognize us when we come back for them. Sometimes they greet us with smiles, sometimes with sniffly pouts that seem to say, “I can’t believe you left me here for so long WAAAAA.” Both melt my heart equally.

We’ve been showing up at this cafe after church since before we were married and before that, I used to stagger in with my friends in last night’s make-up to re-hash the gory details of our single lives. Now I stagger in under the weight of an increasingly heavy car seat with a happily kicking baby boy inside or a baby girl who is trying desperately to shove her entire dress in her mouth, despite the number of times I’ve explained to her that showing her big belly in public isn’t proper. My order never changes: fruit with yogurt and a side of hashbrowns, extra crispy. It’s the kind of place where you pour your own coffee into big mugs stacked at the front and there’s always a messily stacked Sunday paper left on a bench.

I must show my love for others by sharing my food because it nearly kills me not to be able to share my food with the twins. Since our days in the hospital together, all I’ve wanted is to break off part of what I’m eating and let them taste it.

“Would a piece of pancake really be so bad for her? What’s the worst it could do?” I plead with Drew. He just cocks an eyebrow at me and goes back to his meal. I know, I know. You don’t feed two-day-olds ham sandwiches and you don’t feed nearly four-month-olds pancakes. But Lord knows I’m going to have the two fattest children in town when I can finally share my food with them because you should see how much Amelia loves the taste of her dress. She is going to do backflips for bacon.

For once in 15 weeks, both babies are happily kicking and chewing and gabbing at the same time in a public place and Drew and I each have our hands free to eat our entire breakfast. We even get to have refills on our coffee. Someone remarks to us on how well-behaved the babies are, which is really just a happy accident, since just last Sunday we’d eaten our breakfast in shifts, taking turns bouncing a crabby Amelia as the other shoveled food down their gullet. Someone tells us we make having twins look easy. I am pummelled with memories of days when burp cloths were used to mop up more of my tears than both baby’s spit-ups combined, and I smile. We’ve earned this day, I think. We’ve earned this moment. Everyone said it would get here, and it finally has.

When we get home, we change out of our church clothes and Drew reaches into his jacket pocket and hands me the scrap of paper I’d scribbled the ending quote of the sermon on so I wouldn’t forget it.

“Hope is listening to the music of the future. Faith is dancing to it today.”

In all these 15 weeks, I’ve definitely been listening. Now? I think I’m finally dancing.

They’re Not Siamese, If You Please

May 13, 2011 at 3:56 pm | Posted in The Twins | 28 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, twins

Can I just say I must have the kindest, most wonderful readers in the history of the internet. It was so wonderful to hear from all of you again! I wasn’t sure you were still out there – I missed you guys! It has been hard to figure out exactly where writing fits in this new life I’m finally figuring out how to manage, but writing has been such a part of my being for so long I know I have to fit it in somewhere, so here seems like a danged good place.

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Monday afternoon, I found myself in the grocery store, where I find myself most Monday afternoons, Henry strapped to my chest, casually licking the front of my shirt, Amelia making eyes at every stranger from her car seat perched in the front of the buggy. As a sidenote, does anyone else have kids who lick their shirts? I don’t have too many normal qualities of my own, so I certainly didn’t expect to birth two normal children, but I’m just wondering if this shirt-licking thing is a Peine baby thing or an every baby thing. Anyway, we were having a delightful time perusing the aisles until we got to the check-out line and Amelia began to shriek as if her hair (head) was on fire. This is kind of standard for our girl, which was also standard for baby Taryn, so I’m told I’m getting exactly what I deserve. Anyway, as I quickly went about the business of unloading my cart and cursed the Taryn of 2009 who would have given this Taryn with the shrieking baby the super-mean side-eye, I realized Amelia had stopped shrieking. I looked up to discover a potato-shaped woman with an actual 5 o’clock shadow shoving a pacifier in my baby girl’s mouth. I stood there agape, Skinny Cow popsicles in one hand, as the boy strapped to my chest continued to treat my shirt like a popsicle. The bearded woman just kept on pushing the pacifier in Amelia’s mouth each time she spit it out, saying things like, “Oh, poor girl. Are you yelling because your mom makes you wear those stupid bows?” “Bless your heart! Tell your mom you don’t want to be here anymore!” “Poor baby! You’d be so much happier if you weren’t in that car seat.”

Actually, I think she’s upset because she’s trying to figure out why you require both a bra and a beard trimmer. But, I digress.

After 29 years integrating with the public at large, I really shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore. People are always doing things I would never do. Piercing their noses like cows, right through the middle. Rat tails. Tattooed wedding rings. OK, I probably would do that, but being the only one in the relationship with a tattooed wedding ring takes all the fun out of it, am I right? The point is, I shouldn’t be surprised that just because I wouldn’t, doesn’t mean others see a problem with putting their hands in the mouths of strange babies or staring openly at my two babies and wondering loudly to a friend, “Are there two of them? TWO babies? A boy and a girl? Are they identical?”

Sigh. As it turns out, a basic understanding of what makes two things identical isn’t necessary for even a college degree. But, once again, I digress.

Maybe two babies at the same time really is a free circus sideshow for regular people, and I just don’t see it because I wake up to two babies in my house every single day. I don’t happen to be a baby person, except for my own babies, so if I ever ran into twin babies in my pre-motherhood days, I never even blinked. However, I know a lot of people love babies, so I welcome the sweet comments, the oohs and aahs and the innocent, kind questions. But the group of Chinese businessmen who stood staring and pointing at them and prattling to each other in Chinese? The woman who asked me if I “took something” to end up with twins? The security guy on the horse at the mall who yelled down, “I’m sorry!” after asking if they were twins? Do I really need to charge admission to see two babies who just happened to show up at the same time? They don’t recite the presidents in chronological order. They don’t know how to bench press or do an Olympic mat routine. Just two babies.

Two babies, head-to-head. Not attached at the head...

But they are two babies who need to go to college, so maybe I will start charging.

Finally Getting Off My Recliner

May 6, 2011 at 2:15 pm | Posted in Motherhood | 38 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, motherhood, newborns, twins

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Is anyone out there? Of course I understand if you’re not, but if you are, hi! I’m sorry for the unexplained complete and utter departure from this space, and I can’t explain how much it means to me that so many of you popped by to check in on me, when I know I’m really just a complete stranger to most of you. Maybe I’m even a 70-year-old obese man in his underwear with a good stash of photos of a 20-something broad who just had twins. The internet! It’s an odd place.

But seriously, thank you for thinking of me and my family while I was gone. It meant so much to me.

And now? Well, I’m happy to say, I’ve made it THREE MONTHS. Everyone who had twins before me told me if I could make it three months, I was good to go, and I have to admit, there have been moments when three months seemed like a longer stretch of time than the entire 29 years I’ve lived prior to this. But somewhere after the seventh week, time stopped crawling and started to fly, just like all of you said it would.

Now our twins have turned from wrinkly little newborns who could only alter between screaming and sleeping to actual chubby babies who have so many different ways to express their emotions. The boy who would barely open his eyes for the first six weeks, so distasteful was this thing called life to him, now kicks and babbles and even cocks an eyebrow when he’s unsure about something. The girl, once nicknamed “the Screaming Mimi” and “Murder Train” for her ability to break windows with her ear-splitting shriek now licks everything she can get her tongue on and, in my proudest moment as a drama queen to date, has learned to fake cough for attention. Is there anything more satisfying for a lover of drama than the moment she realizes she has created a girl in her exact dramatic likeness? I think not.

Oh! And just as all of you promised me after my last helpless-sounding post, they have both finally discovered they love to smile. Two smiling babies? My heart could burst.

In the last couple of weeks, as sleep schedules have started to align and napping actually occasionally takes place simultaneously, I have often found myself sitting stunned in our recliner, slowly rocking back and forth, not even daring to blink. I liken the feeling to having amnesia in the aftermath of a nuclear fallout. Let’s see here. It’s quiet. I’ve had more than two hours of sleep. It appears there’s a whole part of my brain that’s kind of starting to work again, the part that’s in charge of things besides making my heart beat and making my lungs take in air. What did I ever do with that part of my brain?

So, very hesitantly, I got off of my recliner and baked a cake. Not even a cake with icing, just a right fast cake. No infants were harmed. The Earth continued spinning. I got braver and I made some cupcakes. Diapers continued to fill, bottles continued to be consumed. Emboldened, I knit Amelia a cardigan. She wore said cardigan, and everyone was fine. So brazen am I today that I have decided I can try to blog again. Now if you don’t hear from me after this, you’ll know it’s because I’ve been turned into a pillar of salt for daring to rise above the challenge of twin infants. That’s what I get for getting off of my danged recliner.

See you soon! I mean it this time!

Newborn Twins Are Exactly Like Cockapoo Puppies. Stop Telling Me They’re Not.

March 14, 2011 at 12:47 pm | Posted in Motherhood, The Truman, The Twins | 35 Comments
Tags: babies, cockapoo, humor, motherhood, newborns, puppy, Truman, twins

Ladies with still yet unoccupied wombs, I’m here to set the record straight for you. Newborns are exactly like puppies. Minus the biting. Or, will that start up soon too? Don’t tell me. I’m hanging on by a thread over here.

Once upon a time, beloved Truman dog was a terrible, wretched, biting, pooping, peeing Truman puppy. And I, his adopted human mother woman, was no fan of Truman puppy. I spent nights curled up crying on the couch about how this little puff of a dog was ruining my life and my marriage while at that very moment, he was squatting to ruin one of my rugs. He screamed an unholy banshee scream all night for weeks, and when I would appear at work, rumpled and close to death at the hands of a 5-pound cockapoo, people would scratch their heads and say mean things like, “Wow! I’ve never heard of a puppy screaming at night for two straight weeks!” and I would limp home to my cursed fashion mutt and beg him to just be a dog already! Cuddle with me without biting my arm! Pee outside! Sleep in your crate without yelling! Be my friend already! Stop hating me!

Finally, he did all that. He became the dog he is today, a dog who, I’m not ashamed to say, is one of the great loves of my life. And it only took two years.

Sigh.

Truman dog, trying very hard to leave. The. Twins. ALONE!

So, after all this was a distant memory, I got pregnant with two babies and began to idly wonder if newborn babies were anything like newborn dogs. No one would tell me the truth. They focused in on how cute babies are. Look at their tiny outfits! Their tiny shoes! Their tiny socks!

You know what’s not tiny about newborns? Their shrieks. Actually, you know what they sound just like? BABY COCKAPOO SHRIEKS.

Fine. You can sniff one.

So here I am again, mired deep in the bootcamp muck with two new family members who I’m hoping will eventually grow to like me the way my once Hell’s Angel of a dog did. For now? By the looks of things, they don’t like me much at all. Here’s how our typical conversation goes. And by the way, I’m not going to specify a twin here, because at this point, they’re interchangeable. They both react to me the way the Libyan people are currently reacting to their loon of a dictator.

Me: Good morning babies! Are you hungry?

Them: WHAT? YOU AGAIN? WHY ARE WE HEEEEEEERRRRE? THIS PLACE COULDN’T BE WORRRRRSE.

Me: Why do you hate me so much? I just want to feed you and clean you and teach you phonics.

Them: YOUR FACE IS HUGE AND YOUR HAIR IS FAKE! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY DID YOU GIVE US MATCHING BEDDDDINNNNNNNNGGGGG?

Me: You kids don’t realize how lucky you are! You could have ended up in a Siberian orphanage! A roach-infested hallway crib in the projects! Octo-Mom’s house!

Them: AT LEAST AT OCTO-MOM’S HOUSE WE WOULDN’T HAVE TO LOOK AT YOUR HUGE FAAAAAAAAAAACE.

Me: (Sobbing) I’m sorry babies! I don’t know what you want! You don’t speak English!

Them: WE DON’T NEED ENGLISH TO TELL YOU WE DON’T LIIIIIIIKE YOOOOOOOOOOU YOU DUMB BROAAADDDDDDDD.

Go to bed for two hours, get up, repeat.

Sniff the other one too! Whatever!

Everyone tells me I don’t have to wait two years for the twins to start liking me. They say one day sort of soon, the shrieks will be replaced by smiles. I, your faithful war correspondent, will let you know when that happens. Until then, I can tell you honestly I will hear the echos of these shrieks in my dreams well into my 80s.

Hey lady! Remember how I used to hate you too, but now we’re BFF? You’re like a fungus! You need time to grow on people!

Here’s hoping I start to grow on my children very soon,

MOMMMMYYYYY DEARRRRESTTTTTTTT

Operating With Most of My Brain Tied Behind My Back

March 3, 2011 at 5:14 pm | Posted in Motherhood | 28 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, motherhood, newborns, twins

Since I became a mom a little over three weeks ago, people keep telling me things that I simply can’t seem to comprehend. Common sense things, mostly. Things that I think a girl with a college education and a history of paying her bills on time should be able to get. Maybe it’s the hormones? The lack of sleep? Maybe along with my waistline, my abs and my martinis, I gave away part of my brain to make my two babies as well?

For instance, as I sit in the nursery rocking chair at three in the morning, holding one fussy infant and silently weeping about how the many years of lost sleep I have ahead of me will probably explode the tiny cappilaries running beneath the thin skin under my eyes, making me look like I’ve been punched in the face for all of eternity, the tiny voice of every single person I know who has survived life with a newborn tries to peep into my consciousness.

“It won’t be like this forever. Really, it won’t. This stage flies by. So treasure it.”

Try as it might, my feeble mind simply can’t seem to process this little pearl of wisdom. Instead, the image of myself I conjure up is of 40-year-old Taryn, hair fried, face fried, skin fried, rocking a fussy 12-year-old Henry to sleep in the nursery rocking chair, his long limbs splayed across the arm rests. He’s wearing tube socks for some reason. The kind with yellow stripes at the top.

Remember these purple booties? They’re acceptable. Just no striped tube socks.

Not my Henry, I gasp in the midst of my early morning tears. He will never wear yellow striped tube socks.

That’s the type of realization that seems to be common for me in the wee hours of the morning. Common sense doesn’t necessarily reign supreme at any hour of my life, but at three in the morning, it’s a long-forgotten ghost in my muddled head. That’s when it makes more sense to me to panic about my son’s future fashion choices than to silently ruminate on the solid scientific fact that time does pass and children do grow and eventually most of them appear to actually WANT to sleep through the night. I don’t care about science or time or the nature of children; I just can’t fathom that idea. Surely I have born the only two twins in the history of mankind who will require rocking in the nursery rocker at 3 AM well into their 50s.

I better start taking my calcium. I don’t want to crack a hip while rocking my middle-aged children.

Other common sense things people keep telling me that I can’t imagine:

I will be able to go to the movies again. Not soon. Not now. Not today. But someday. To that, I say, do yourself a favor in the meantime, Taryn, and stop crying every time you see a movie preview. Especially when it’s a preview for a movie you don’t even want to see.
The brown line running down my stomach, the one that makes it look like my skin was once folded in half and no one thought to iron it before giving it to me to wear permanently? It will go away too. To that, I say, it better. Because that’s just what the daughter of a fastidious ironer needs: a permanent crease.
I will figure out how to fit these two babies into my old life. I will find a way to write again, to knit again, to sew again, to walk around the park again. I will be able to summon the brain power to blog more than once a week. To that, I say, I hope so. In the mean time, please stick around

Peine, Party of Five

Holly Hormone

February 25, 2011 at 9:46 am | Posted in Motherhood, Pregnancy | 21 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, motherhood, pregnancy, twins

Hi everyone! I’m sorry I’ve been away from this space for so long, but you know how I try to only write about things that I can have a sense of humor about, and lately? I’ve had a sense of humor about approximately ZERO things. But wait! Just like my feet and my waist- line, my sense of humor is slowly digging its way out of the rubble. So here I am again, to tell you about it.

When I was pregnant with our twins, doctors and professionals kept cautioning me at every turn about the inevitable double-dose of hormones that was about to take residence in my body and turn me into a barfing, binging, raving lunatic. Was I spending all day with my head in the commode? No, I wasn’t even nauseous! Was I having crazy cravings? Not really! Was I overly emotional? Not so much! Hmm. Was I sure I was pregnant with twins?

Proof that I really was pregnant with twins: TWINS! And they’re best friends! Can’t you tell?

So, of course, I went on about my merry way and thought I’d gotten off easy. I could grow two children and have zero side effects. I was the maternal equivalent of Godzilla, stomping my giant lizard feet through the trimesters. I was so good at being pregnant, I could be a surrogate! I could put an ad in the paper! Womb for rent!

Imagine my surprise when I never came home from the hospital. A girl who looks like me waddled back. She has (fake) red hair and wears red lipstick at inppropriate times, but she wasn’t Taryn. She was Holly. Holly Hormone.

I didn’t realize she was here until the scream-crying started. On our second night at home, I was propped on the couch at around 2 AM, attempting to nurse a hysterically screaming Amelia, when my mom overheard the raucous from the guest room upstairs and came down to help. She held out her arms to take Amelia from me as I looked at her frantically.

“Just cry,” she said. “Let it go. You need to. It’s your body’s way of getting rid of everything.”

I nodded as I mentally opened the floodgates, only to immediately feel like my mid-section was being ripped in half. My dad-gummed c-section! I couldn’t even cry right! I was like the guy who tried to commit suicide by jumping out of a second story window! How humiliating.

From there, my c-section slowly began to heal and the scream-crying became easier. Now, Holly demanded a good cry for mostly no reason at all. Closing the blinds required a good bit of weeping. Why? Because people only close the blinds when it’s dark outside. And it only gets dark outside when it’s night. And night used to be a super-fun time when I could watch re-runs of “The Office” in my cozy bed with my cute husband and precious dog but now night is a time when I don’t sleep much at all thanks to two starving infants WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Two starving infants. And a blatant copy of Young House Love’s weekly photo of their daughter. I never pretended to be original.

And Holly didn’t just demand crying in front of Drew or my mom. Oh no. Holly showed up in front of company! Friends! Neighbors! Random people on the street who gave us withering looks as we passed by with our double stroller! Basically, anyone who aimed a pitying look my way as they said some version of, “How’s it going?”

Hey random guy in the street! Don’t tell us you’d shoot yourself if you had twins! We don’t want to hear it!

And then! Then Drew went back to work. And suddenly, I wanted to claw him every time he came home, so happy to see everyone, telling me that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and oh he had a right fast happy hour after work! Happy hour? HAPPY HOUR? HOLLY LIKES HAPPY HOURS! BUT NO HOURS ARE HAPPY FOR HOLLY! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Now I’m happy to report I think Holly is packing her bags. I won’t say she’s gone for good, but I will say I finally understand the unique form of crazy pregnancy hormones bring to the table.

Monday, I sat with my feet dangling over the exam table, visiting with my OB for my two-week post-partum visit.

“How are you feeling? Are you weepy?” she asked.

“Umm, yes. Sort of ridiculously weepy. Also, I sweat a lot. And then, as soon as I get all of my clothes off, I get super cold, only it’s from the inside.”

“Ahh,” she said, nodding sagely. “Aren’t hormones fun? Just wait until you start losing your hair.”

Neat. So much to look forward to.

At least my sense of humor is back. And I own lots of cute hats.

A Week of Motherhood

February 16, 2011 at 3:56 pm | Posted in Motherhood | 44 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, motherhood, twins

In my first week of motherhood, I’ve lost 30 pounds, cried 30 times and slept for 30 minutes. It’s been a real interesting week.

The most interesting part might be how I thought I knew myself, and already, these little ones are teaching me I really didn’t know a danged thing at all.

Miss Amelia P., all dressed up for her first afternoon beer on the patio.

The myriad of ways I was totally, completely wrong about me is already too long for this blog, but I can give you a small sampling.

Throughout my entire pregnancy, my mom and I had millions of chats about the things I was worried about.

I’m not a newborn person. I only like things that can talk and walk and at least gesture to me when they’ve pooped themselves.
What if I want to ship them back like I did Truman? Won’t that scar them for life?
I’m worried it will take me a while to love them. I mean, I don’t just fall in love with everyone. I need to time to get to know people before I love them. How long is too long to take to get to know my own kids? What’s the time limit?
I need to be in bed by 10 every night. I don’t think I’m going to make it if my babies won’t go to sleep at 10.
I don’t have ANY patience. How will I deal with two screaming babies?
What if one of them comes out a different race? I mean, obviously it would be the fertility clinic’s fault, but what then? Do we hunt for the real family or pretend like there’s a Korean somewhere in our family tree?
How will I clean up all that poop without gagging?
What if I like one better than the other?

A couple of days ago, I was making a mad dash through Target for some necessities (like jeans to fit newborns) while Drew sat in the car with the twins. We’ve had several outdoor outings with them during the past week, but I have to confess that the indoor places look to me like petri dishes absolutely dripping with things like RSV, whooping cough and all the other things my tiny ones aren’t yet immunized against. We’ve been to the pediatrician twice and it’s all I can do not to fashion a tiny little SARS mask for each of them out of a square of toilet paper as they sit innocently in their car seats amongst litters of snotty toddlers.

So, I’m trolling along through the baby aisle, searching for a bag of preemie diapers amidst all the other bags of bigger diapers with giant crawling and even walking children pictured on the labels, when it hits me: my babies will wear these larger sizes one day. One day SOON, from the looks of it, since Henry has gained FOUR OUNCES IN FOUR DAYS and Amelia has gained FIVE. My precious tiny babies will crawl. And walk! They’ll walk all the way to college where they’ll see my number on their caller IDs and press ignore so they can keep making out with other drunk college kids at raves or whatever the kids are doing in 20 years. And just like that, still scanning for the tiniest diapers in the diaper aisle, I had a mom meltdown. I started a good scream cry right there in Target.

By the time I reached the check-out counter, I had quieted the scream cry to some harmless snuffling, which I tried to tamp down even further as I unloaded two tiny pairs of jeans and two bags of preemie diapers onto the check-out counter. The Target employee looked up at me, completely uninterested, which is why I felt the need to tell him, “I just had twins! They’re one week old! They’re so tiny and precious!” Tiny. Precious. Cue the waterworks all over again. The guy just sat there, waiting for me to dig out my credit card, as I silently urged him to hurry it up so I could get back to the car before my babies entered middle school.

Sir Henry P, ready for his first beer drinking afternoon. Or a jaunt in his bi-plane. You know. Whatever the ladies feel like doing.

Surprise! I already love my tiny babies, even though they don’t feel like sleeping a wink at night. Even though they poop and pee and spit up and everything else people said babies do. Even though I barely know them, I feel like I’ve known them forever. And I’m PATIENT! Apparently all my life I’ve been saving up every speck of patience allotted to me to survive this very moment. And I don’t want to ship them back. I don’t want to ship them anywhere. I want them to stay right here, sleeping on their Boppy loungers on my coffee table, feet no longer than my pinky fingers, for the rest of my life. Don’t talk about them growing up. Growing hair. Growing teeth. Growing attitudes. I have a bucket of tears reserved for that idea always at the ready. And I’m not a pretty crier. In fact, you will want to ask me if I’ve just been punched in the face when I’m all done.

I have so much to learn about Taryn the Mom. So far, she’s full of surprises. And that’s a good thing.

Also, neither twin appears to be Korean. So there’s one less complication.

You’re the Mom

February 10, 2011 at 3:39 pm | Posted in Motherhood | 68 Comments
Tags: birth, c-section, humor, motherhood, pregnancy, twins

Thank you ALL for your kind words and well-wishes this week! It meant so much to hear from all of you and we couldn’t be more blessed over here. We love you guys!

This morning, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Wow. I’m so glad I got to experience motherhood before I died. I always wanted to know what it was like to be a mom.”

But then I realized. I didn’t die! I just look dead!

Apparently that’s a big part of motherhood.

Even with the pregnancy, the c-section, the pulling of two tiny bodies from my one big body, the lactation consultant shoving both screaming babies at me as she yelled over the racket about the beauty of tandem nursing even though I still couldn’t feel my legs, not to mention the various hospital staff who kept barging into my room and looking at me when they asked how the babies were doing, it didn’t really hit me that I had somehow become the mother of two humans until a woman came to take down some information for the twins’ birth certificates.

“And Mom, what is your date of birth?” she asked as I paced back and forth, trying to get my ankles to reappear so I could put on socks. Instinctively, I looked at my own mom and waited for her to respond with her birthdate. She, in turn, looked right back at me.

“She’s asking you!” she said. “You’re the mom!”

I’m the mom. Wait what?

Somehow, this happened. We got pregnant, we made up names, I took pre-natal vitamins, I spent half of my life at the doctor’s office, my mom knit tiny sleep sacks, and then on a sunny day in February, I did my hair, I put on lipstick, I checked into the hospital, and two days later, I left with two people who are now known by the names we made up and are wearing the sleep sacks my mom knit.

Friends, let me introduce you to Miss Amelia Maxwell, eldest sister by precisely one minute.

And Sir Henry James, Amelia’s bigger, yet younger brother.

Two tiny miracles. Just as I expected, Drew and I are desperately in love, and we also have no idea what we’re doing. I keep catching myself having random thoughts that a mother of two newborns shouldn’t have. For instance, Amelia is so fussy. Maybe a bite of my ham sandwich would make her feel better?

I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is yes, Amelia is extremely gifted to be eating a ham sandwich on her third day of life. We’re very proud.

Henry also gets told what a good dog he is at least four times a day.

Someone recently told me that my babies won’t remember all the stuff I screw up in these early days.

Let’s hope that’s correct.

How to Handle a Crisis Situation

February 3, 2011 at 1:57 pm | Posted in Conversations | 24 Comments
Tags: babies, humor, husband, marriage, pregnancy, wife

Thank you all for your sweet comments about our nursery!! I loved reading all of them and really can’t believe it came together the way it did. Well, actually I can, since I mostly just sat in my rocking chair and ordered everyone else around. Photos of actual babies IN the nursery SOON!

I have been blessed with an incredibly uneventful twin pregnancy and because of that, somehow I’ve made it almost 37 weeks without having any idea what a real contraction feels like. After being the girl who cried pregnant every single month for almost a year, I have tried very hard not to be the girl who cries labor, so I make a serious effort not to freak everyone else out over aches and pains that I think might be normal when someone is carrying 12 pounds of baby around in a formerly small uterus. After all, I want some real, genuine freak outs when the time actually comes. I want sweating, and running around and making a fuss as I calmly straighten my hair and watch my water break all over our bathroom rugs. The last thing I want when I can tell life is legitimately ready to enter the world is for Drew to peer at me and say, “Again?”

Sunday I reached the celebrated 36-week mark, in which our twins are probably full -term and delivery could happen any minute and life would probably, hopefully be fine. My doctor told me that when I made it to 36 weeks, I could go back to exercising a little if I felt like it. I’ve really missed taking nightly walks with Drew and Truman, so on Monday, I decided a walk was in order. We leashed up Truman, I made a mockery of myself by attempting to zip up my coat, and we were off.

An hour after we’d returned, I was sitting serenely in the recliner when I felt it. Pressure. A little pain. A little cramping. I ignored it. Fifteen minutes later, I ignored it again. Finally, I calmly said something to Drew.

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T: I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about, but I’m having a weird thing go on over here. It’s sort of painful. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never felt it before.

D: Is it a contraction. Are you having a contraction?

T: Surely not. Naah. No. Oh, but whatever it is, it’s happening right now.

D: (Starts stopwatch.) OK. Tell me when it lets up. I’m going to keep track.

T: I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t think this is any big deal.

D: Has it let up?

T: Oh. Yes, it has.

D: (Making notes in his iPad.) Is it in your back? Do you feel like the pain gets more intense even if you change position? Does drinking water help? Does walking help?

T: Did you just look this up on Web MD?

D: Do you think you should call your doctor?

T: No. They’ll probably laugh at me, like the time I thought I had cancer and it was just razor burn.

D: T this could be serious. Shouldn’t we install the car seats?

T: No! Won’t there be someone at the hospital to tell us how to do that?

D: Shouldn’t you go upstairs and pack your bags?

T: Ooh it’s happening again.

D: (Clicks stopwatch.) These are coming 10 minutes apart and lasting about 60 seconds each. I really think we should call the doctor.

T: Let’s play Words With Friends.

D: Are you serious? (Gets up, starts pacing.)

T: And watch something funny on TV so we won’t think about this anymore.

D: I think we should put some stuff in the car! I’m going to get some food ready for Truman.

T: No! We’ll just have to take the stuff back out of the car later because the kids aren’t coming tonight. This is just practice….ooh. There’s another one.

D: (Clicks stopwatch.) They could come tonight! You have to have a c-section! We should call someone! Or do something!

T: There. I just played “jute.” It’s your turn.

D: (Looks over in disbelief.) You’re driving me crazy. I can’t handle the way you deal with a crisis situation.

T: THIS ISN’T A CRISIS SITUATION.

D: (Pours a highball full of bourbon.)

T: JUTE! TRY TO BEAT JUTE!

D: (Shakes his head.)

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By the way, I’m pretty sure of two things. 1) Those were Braxton Hicks contractions, brought on by walking a mile with a dog who never stops pulling on his leash and a coat that wouldn’t zip, and 2) when I told the kids they weren’t going to be born Monday night, they obeyed.

I have a very authoritative voice.

Needless to say, we’re still hanging in there! And now, when I go in public with this giant belly and employees eye me warily, already looking for their mop bucket, I say, “My water could break today. It seriously could.”

I haven’t waited in line since week 34.