Spare me the obvious
Following is the veritable gold mine of insight unearthed by googling ‘twins’:
- Being pregnant with twins is really, really complicated.
- Parenting twins is really, really difficult.
- Be prepared for sleepless nights.
- Stock up with lots of diapers.
- MARY-KATE & ASHLEY! TRIPLEXXX NEKKID!!!!
Pregnancy? Complicated? You mean my body is in as much peril as THE REST OF MY LIFE? Phew. Thank goodness you told me. Now I’ll really saw logs.
Twins? Difficult? The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Every second. Of every minute. Of every hour and day since I found out.
Sleepless nights? Oh, really? Is that how it is for OTHER parents of twins? ‘Cuz it won’t be that way for us. See, my twins are going to be kept in padded, soundproof cubbyholes. Kibble will be dispensed as reward for good behaviour. Meanwhile, I will be on the dance floor boozing it up without a care in the world, chain-smoking and flashing my puddy tat to passerby. That is, when I’m not at the spa.
Stock up with lots of diapers.. because as soon as you give birth, a fleet of Vorgon Constructor ships will unexpectedly arrive and demolish the rest of the planet to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.
Naturally, all these helpful brainwaves are preceded with I don’t mean to scare you, but… But what? Let me finish that for you: …but planting giant, festering stress bombs on you — and then vanishing without providing a single useful piece of information — helps to make me feel that I’ve done better than you will. Besides, I get off on reminding you that hell is in your future, and in my distant past. Suckerrr!
Coincidentally, I don’t mean to scare you, but… also precedes the pictures of tweedle-skin and tweedle-bones. I checked.
Sheesh. It’s almost enough to make me crave a little Aww, shucks, ya’ll be FINE. Almost.
Or at least a little Hey, we're with you. Here’s what worked for us: 1) For the first two months, put a sign on your door that says SLEEPING BABIES + DISHEVELLED MOTHER + EXPLODING ZEPPELIN BOOBS = NO VISITORS. PLEASE LEAVE CASSEROLE ON DOORSTEP, THEN KINDLY BUGGER OFF. THANK YOU! 2) Buy several of This Particular shirt/cape/muumuu/tent for public tandem nursing to escape unwelcome attention from roving National Geographic reporters, fetishists and rabid fundamentalist Christians alike. 3) If you’re worried about X, try asking your doctor about Y and Z. Beyond that, eat. Just eat. 4) No, you won’t need to mark on their foreheads with sharpie pens. You’ll always be able to tell them apart. 5) We didn’t relish in the prospect of twins either — but we love it. Love, love, love it. You’ll get there too.
Those vets who have given us gems like the above, you know who you are. We bow to you. And to the faceless trolls and pontificators who populate most quasi-supportive websites — I've taken it upon myself to have you kindly bugger off by vowing to never google you again.
sweetsalty kate
12 Comments
Reader Comments (12)
Hang in there!!Kel
It might be of interest. They're also two of the coolest, most down-to-earth people I know (the parents, haven't seen the girls since they were babies).
She's got twin two-year-old girls and is very down-to-earth and honest about it all. She had a normal, healthy pregnancy, a vaginal birth, breastfed them for a long time, etc. so no horror stories to scare you, I promise. She also has a ton of links on her site for other twin blogs and twin information places. Hopefully some good reading. Anyway, I enjoy her blog and you might find it useful.
I like the idea of the sign about the boobs and casserole - I might have to adopt that next summer.
i read your words like i am slurping up the wittiest and wise soup.
PeaceMaryBeth
And that is a bloody BRILLIANT idea about the casseroles! Do you think 9 months later is too late to put up the sign?
And Kel, glad you like my exploding zeppelin boobs! Err.. you know what I mean.
Trish and Jen, thanks for the blogs. I haven't had much luck at all finding candid, moderately well-adjusted twin blogs (with the exception of Eve!) ... so this is great. I've skimmed them so far but definitely plan on digging in with a pot of tea. Also, good idea Jen on the doula front - I am lucky in that we do have family closeby, but I'm still considering some outside help as an option. Our only challenge is living out of the city.. I'll have to look for a specialized 'hick-friendly doula'...
MB, thank you for your ever-amazing glow. I like to think it's contagious. :)
Eve, you are one of the foremost vets! But I'm with you on the stroller thing, overrated, I say. You say string worked for you, well I was going to fashion something out of velcro. Hey! Maybe I could just use velcro everywhere.. on top of the car, and we could save having to get two carseats! wohoo!
Irene, you are speaking from the other side of some sort of great abyss.. your twins are five and yet you're still so creative and productive and have all your wits intact. I'm glad you commented so I can go and skulk around your life a bit, see what lies ahead...
Chin up, young person. I'm sure you're a great mother, and once you're no longer playing host to two tiny parasites, you'll have the energy to be an even better one.
But we got so much doom and gloom from everyone - so much 'your life is gonna suck, HOW are you going to cope?' etc etc that the reality was actually a pleasant surprise.
Now the twins are almost six, our eldest is 7 and our youngest (yes, we had another son) is 3.
Our life is busy, noisy, messy and chaotic but it is bloody good fun too.
As soon as your twins a and b (or thing 1 and thing 2) are born you'll feel like it couldn't have been any other way.