Monday, January 9, 2012

A year in the life of a REAL mom with twins

Okay, so it's been over a year since I've blogged and I've been thinking about updating but it seems so overwhelming because let's face it, a ton of shit has gone down, and I mean that quite literally.  I finally decided to put my fears aside of summing up childbirth and making it a whole year with twins.  I have to admit that I was also intimidated because in case you haven't noticed I tend to be most parts sarcastic with a couple heaping doses of judgy, irritated, and stone heartyness and people don't like that so much when you are talking about child birthing and rearing.  Also, have I lost my funny mojo because I'm a mother?  What if I accidentally start shitting out rainbows and sunshine while talking about my darling little nuggets and can't stop myself from regaling you with their hilarious little antics.

In the past, I had friends who were straight shooters, friends who never minded telling me my ass looked fat in those pants or that it was time to ditch the perm when I had rocked it 5 or 10 years later than everyone else, friends who, I was sure would give me the real story on labor, delivery, recovery and life after kids.  I would always wait patiently after these friends disappeared into a hibernation of sorts.  They were in the newborn cocoon, and I would wait patiently to hear the scoop, only to have them emerge into this new weird alien mother butterfly where all they could talk about was the special love of their loins.  How I couldn't possibly understand what a precious gift from God a child truly is and there it was, I had lost them forever.


Yes, to some extent I get it.  I get the love thing, and the awe thing.  It used to annoy the shit out of me how people think their snot-nosed, large eared, dopey kid is the cutest little specimen on the planet and surely everyone wants to be subjected to the little drooly thing all the time at every occasion.  Now I have one of the drooliest kids on the planet and one that sports a pretty major dopey look most waking hours of the day and of course I think they are the two most precious (a word I despise), adorable, sweethearts in the world. But, do you want to hear all about how they melted my stone cold heart into mush and how I love them more than life and all of their cute antics like how my daughter just learned how to stomp her feet when we sing "If You're Happy and you Know it", and she does it really fast like she's dancing a little jig, or how my son just learned how to say the word, "ball", and he follows a rolling soccer ball around the house saying "bah, bah", with that said dopey grin on his face, or did that just make you throw up in your mouth a little and you want to know what the hell happened to the girl who spills the real shit?


Well gang, here I am...let me get down to business and sum up the past year...


Last 4 weeks of pregnancy-Ouch my back! Ouch my hips! No, that can't be what my ass looks like in the mirror! Damn, I have to pee! Ugh, I can't take a dump! Damn, I have to pee!  Get these demon seeds out of my body!!!!!! 


Childbirth- Holy shitballs, ouch, ouch...what the F***###$$$$$?! 


Leaving the hospital- No, please don't make us leave.  I promise you won't even really know we are here, we'll just hang out in this room here and clean up after ourselves, just please don't make us do this on our own!


Coming home-Awwww, this is awesome, we can do this.  We are a real family now.  We got this, no worries!


24 Hours after that- "Hi Mom, um yeah, it's me...we actually do want you to come help us, we just realized we have no clue what the hell we are doing with one infant much less two.  Is there any chance you can launch yourself in a rocket ship and be here in say, the next 12 seconds?"


Breastfeeding-Holy shitballs, ouch, ouch...what the F***###$$$$?!


Months 1-3-sleep 1 hour, wake up and take care of the babies...repeat...in the excruciating waking hours you will learn what it feels like to be in actual physical pain from exhaustion, hallucinate from lack of sleep, hate your husband and everything he stands for as a human being, contemplate running away, eat raw cookie dough or anything else that is remotely edible and will take less than 32 seconds to cook, realize your husband hates you and the person you are to the core and can't believe the two of you ever thought you could rear children together since you clearly do not agree on whether the sky is even blue, not take a shower for many many days in a row, get puked, peed, and shit on, love your husband and can't believe how much you hated him just 14 minutes before that, get hemorrhoids that will turn your asshole inside out and look like you planted enough grapes to possibly start a winery on your bunghole, wonder if your ankles will forever look like sequoias and your feet look like they belong in Bedrock, fantasize about torturing and then murdering any other mother who brags about her kids sleeping through the night from day 1, and last but certainly not least, bid your youth and every freedom that comes with it, a big fat farewell forever.


Any Months after that (it all starts to become a blur)-go back to work, spill pumped milk all over your lap at least once a day, pump in the car to the delight of many passing truckers, let your children cry it out because you are too exhausted to go up to that god damn nursery one more time, feel mommy guilt for letting them cry it out, but not enough to do anything about it, realize the crying it out method worked because they now sleep through the night, feel like a failure as a mother, employee, and wife at any given moment of any given day, but realize that it really is all worth it even though your body will most certainly never be the same and you've aged about 10 years in the last one.  Have strangers say things to you that make you want to strangle them like, "wow, you have your hands full" as they are letting the door slam in your face while you're balancing a double stroller, diaper bag, purse, and a shopping cart full of groceries.


When people say that having kids is hard, believe them.  I didn't, not really anyway.  I don't think you can ever prepare yourself for it and I read at least 72 books telling me how hard it was going to be.  Incredibly, my only sibling, Melissa, is currently 13 weeks pregnant with twins.  I am so excited for her but I hope I don't ruin it for her with all of my negative stories.  I am trying to prepare her for what it will be like when in reality, there really is no way to prepare for it.  You just have to go through it.  A good friend gave me a bag that had the words, "keep calm and carry on" on the front.  I can't tell you how often I stared at those words during the first few months of late nights and frantic moments.  It sounds so simple, but it really was profound for me in my darkest of moments.  Then again, if that doesn't work, there is always large quantities of Xanex and Vodka.


Last week we celebrated the twins' first birthday.  We enjoyed giving them gifts.  They enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and eating fist fulls of cake.  They are the greatest gift I have ever been given and the hardest thing I've ever done.  Thanks L & C...here's to another year of fun, and plenty more material for this blog. Cheers!