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Multigenerational Mom Muses on Twin Toddlers & Twenty-Something Daughters

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Clean Feet and Wet Hands: Toddler Compliments and Superhuman Husbands

feet

“Your feet are very clean now, Mommy,” Tate announced this morning as I slipped him into his seersucker shorts – the ones with the cute little sailboats.

“Um… thank you?”

“Yeah, they are VERY clean now!”

Hmmm. Confusion danced across my brain. I may not always get my hair brushed until past noon on the weekends, and I’ve been known to go to school wearing cheerios on my shoulder and toothpaste on my slacks — thanks to hugs from a couple of twin toddler boys — but I’m fairly certain I always manage to bathe.

As I slipped him into his shirt, he continued, “And your hands are very wet.”

Nope. Pretty sure my hands were dry as dust. I know because they were craving my Bath & Body Works hand cream – the cream I apply the minute the boys head off to school with their Daddy. If I put it on before they left, they would want some. And it’s not that I mind if they smell like French lavender and honey and all things yummy. It’s really not. Shoot, right now, Tate parades around the house telling me he’s Elsa and wearing a blanket for a ballgown while singing her signature song. So, no, it’s not that it’s too feminine for them (I don’t even know what that means), it’s just that it’s too expensive.

That darn hand cream costs a teacher’s penny – which is far more precious and valuable than a pretty penny, let me tell ya. Teacher’s pennies are delved out once a month ‘round these parts, and I try to make certain my lotion makes it through at least six of those once-a-month paychecks.

So, no, the boys get their generic brand baby lotion, and I horde the B&BW for myself.

“Tatebug, my hands are not wet. Cold maybe, but not wet.”

“No, they’re wet mama. You said they’re wet.”

“Pretty sure I didn’t.” Why was I arguing with a newly-turned three-year-old? A three-year-old who can throw a tantrum the way Tom Brady can throw a football – a fast and furious spiral into his opponents’ worst nightmare. Just ask the Falcons. What was I thinking?

And that’s when my husband stepped in for the game-saving interception: “It’s because you painted your nails.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “Wait, what? My nails aren’t wet. That was Saturday.”

“Right. Saturday. But remember when you told the boys you couldn’t pick them up or play ball with them because your nails were wet?”

“Yeah…”

He continued to fill in the holes of my faulty reasoning skills, “Tate thinks the polish on your nails means your hands are wet. And your feet are clean. Not just clean, VERY clean. It’s a toddler compliment. Say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Make my feet clean,” Tate demanded as I wrestled his foot into a shoe.

“Maybe tonight,” I mumbled.  I’m not scared of painting my son’s toenails red if he wants. That doesn’t scare me.

But there are two frightful things about this exchange that I would like to point out…

  1. The boys are three years old and have never seen their mother’s nails painted. In three years’ time. I used to get manicures regularly.  That’s just sad. And it speaks volumes about my life with twin boys. AND
  2. My husband can follow the derailed, runaway train of thought of a three-year-old boy. That’s either a sign of permanent brain damage brought on by three long years of sleep deprivation or of super-human strength. I don’t know which.

But I’m going with the latter.  My husband is superhuman, which is a good thing because he’s going it alone with the twin tornadoes this weekend while I head to Chicago for some sister time with my little.

Like I said, he’s a superhero.

superhero

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NICU Memories and Musings: a hellish ride in the holiest of holies

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – a clinical cocoon of a womb for babies born too soon or too hard. For some families, it is a beautiful place. A site of unmatched miracles and grace. For others, it is a heartbreaking place. A place of pain and unconscionable loss. For all, it is a place that houses love and fear and absolute out of control situations and emotions. It is a place both holy and hellish, where innocence is taken to either heal or to die.  It is a hellish ride through the holiest of holies.

The first time I entered the NICU to see my twin boys, I was terrified. I didn’t know what to expect. Didn’t know what I’d see. Had no idea how I’d feel once I did see them. Suffice it to say, the experience was overwhelming. I vomited. Partly from the anesthesia after-effects, but largely due to the emotions that surged through me. A storm surge of terror coupled with love. My boys were so tiny, so fragile. There were tubes and monitors and beeping machines everywhere.

After that initial chaos, I calmed down. I collected myself. It was then I registered my surroundings. Everything was hushed and dimly lit and deceptively serene, considering the delicate nature of the patients and their varied conditions. But definitely hushed and dimly lit.

It felt like a church. But holier.

Holier because it was full to bursting with innocence. Six rooms, called pods, full to bursting with pure, unblemished innocence.  Innocence in birthday suits, tanning under lights, innocence bundled up to the eyeballs like cotton-swaddled ninjas, Innocence helmeted in CPAP masks and Velcro. Innocence with solitary, glowing pulse ox ruby slippers – and parents promising “There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…so let’s get there.”

Now we were unbelievably fortunate. Our boys were born at 34 weeks 5 days.  Preemies, yes. With battles, yes. But their battles were a far-cry from the wars that were being waged around them by their 24, 25, 26 week counterparts. Preemies crippled and broken and fragile and fierce.

Preemies fight hard. Famously so. They never cease to amaze the doctors and nurses and their parents. They are bony and brittle, but Lord have mercy, how they fight. They have butterfly wings for skin; they are thin and veined; there is tape pulling at their newness and needles piercing their perfection. Their surface is marred to save their soul.  And goodness, how that soul fights.

Saving innocent souls. So not like church, after all.

But then, like church, the NICU is full to bursting with prayer. Prayer of all kinds. Prayer, well-practiced and well-formed, or haltingly hesitant. Prayer, desperately flung like a Hail Mary, last ditch effort to bargain for what feels like the impossible. But with God and love and miracles made all-the-more-routine through modern medicine, those Hail Mary’s are caught more than they’re dropped. All types of prayer form on the lips of preemie parents. We were no exception. We prayed, often. For our sons and for all of those preemies around them.

There are miracles in the NICU every day. More than one a day, 365 days a year. Against seemingly insurmountable odds. These smallest of warriors fight. They are so much stronger than their parents. The parents crack. We cry, we rant, we bargain and beg and rage and plead and cave. But these wee ones… they fight. Hard. And often – quite often – most often – 98-percent-of-the-time often — they win. So there are many, many, many miracles in the NICU.

And there is communion in the NICU. Hunger and thirst satisfied on a physical, spiritual, and emotional level. Flesh made perfect through the transformative powers of maternal biochemistry. Doctors and nurses encourage preemie moms to breastfeed — because in the NICU, breast milk is not just nutrition; it is medicine. With this most perfect food comes antibodies, anti-inflammatories, and other nutrients (like fatty acids, digestible proteins and stem cells) that can help power these infants through the gauntlet of bacteria and viruses that lay in wait. A mother’s body responds to any hostile environment around her infant, and adjusts her milk accordingly.

Breastfeeding my boys helped transform not just them, but me.The roller coaster of hormones and emotions that always comes with the postpartum experience was a hundred times harder and rougher with the NICU included in the mix.  I was an absolute mess. I was stressed and depressed and fatigued. But the skin-to-skin bonding I felt through nursing helped ease my anxiety and exhaustion. Nursing my boys calmed my core and centered my soul solely on them: the smell of their skin, the tickle of their breath, the warmth of their weight. Their most perfect food was my most perfect therapy.

And Mike got in on the skin-to-skin communion, too, through kangaroo care. Watching him wrap his wide, warm arms around our tiny guys, seeing them snuggled safe against his chest, I saw him change. I saw  his hard edges soften; his tough-guy exterior melt away. He was instantly putty in their pouty-lipped presence.

The NICU is a hellish place. It is hard and draining and demanding. It left Mike and me feeling defeated 90% of the time our boys were there. It was a place that tested our endurance and our strength — and fortunate for our family, we were only there for 6 days for one boy and 9 days for the second. What we went through was nothing compared to what some preemies and their parents go through. NICUs are hellish places full of unfathomable hurdles. But 98% of the time, they become miraculous places full of undeniable grace.

But what NICUs are most full of is babies — very, very special babies. Babies who fight like the dickens for their chance at life. This month, the March of Dimes campaign reminds our family of that distant battle we once waged and prompts us to give what we can to help current and future little ones — and the medical professionals who look after them– bring that miracle percentage up to 100%.If you can, won’t you please consider giving, too?nicuboys

 

 

 

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C-Section Realities and Naked Mole Rats: the Birth of our Beautiful Twins

I was always jealous of those moms who had scheduled C-sections. They were always perfectly primped in their post-delivery pics. That was going to be me this time around. My hair and makeup spot on. No sweaty curls, no petechiae in the whites of my eyes and the flesh of my neck like I had with the girls — when I pushed so hard that tiny blood vessels burst all over my head. I looked like a voodoo doll’s target. The boys were going to be C-section babes at 37 weeks.  And I was going to be a glamour shot, post op, cover girl.

tatebirth

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

On a Wednesday afternoon three years ago today, I went in at 34 weeks for my prenatal specialist appointment. They took my blood pressure, did an ultrasound, and next thing I knew I was getting pumped full of magnesium and slung into an ambulance.

Let me tell you a little bit about the evil entity that is Magnesium. Not the magnesium you take as an over-the-counter supplement to prevent constipation or leg cramps. No, I mean Magnesium with a capital M, second cousin once removed from Beelzebub of the netherworld. It is given to women with preeclampsia as an emergency measure to prevent seizures when mom’s blood pressure gets too high, but it also has some nasty side effects. Like sending your BP plummeting so low you’re literally fainting while lying flat on your back. You feel heavy as lead… but MOLTEN lead. Because Mag is a stout, heavy devil that belches brimstone through an IV drip into your circulatory system, leaving you in a sulfurous state of confusion and heat. Sinners-in-the-Hands-of-an Angry-God confusion and heat. A great, fiery furnace of confusion and heat, flames and lava lapping at your body and soul for hours and hours. Hell hath no fury like a magnesium drip.

And it’s a hellish fury you tolerate because it’s saving you and your babies, but immediately after delivery, you beg, plead, bargain and bully to be taken off the drip. And if you’re lucky, really, really lucky – and really, really persuasive — your OB agrees.

Mine did. She probably regretted caving to my persuasive pressures because my feet continued to swell to the size of human lungs, and my blood pressure spiked, and my head pounded, and my vision sparked like Vulcan’s smithy. But she took pity on me nonetheless and yanked the mag bag.

But back to my first and only experience with a C-section and the delivery of our beautiful boy babies. My girls were born the traditional, squeeze and extrude through a narrow flesh funnel for hours and hours way, so I didn’t know what to expect. The OR was much smaller than I’d imagined. (They look so much larger on Grey’s Anatomy and House reruns.) And it was cold – ice cold. But that was a welcome respite from the MAG demon busily rafting rivers and tributaries of fire in my body. I also recall having a difficult time curling inward enough for the epidural because, let’s face it, YOU try curling your spine forward with double the fetuses and fluids in your frontal regions. NOT ideal.

I knew enough to expect a sterile sheet wall at my chin so I couldn’t see all the bloody shenanigans going on below my naval, but I didn’t expect my arms to be strapped, crucifixion-style, out to my side. To be perfectly honest, it made me feel a little out of control and vulnerable. (Like being paralyzed from the chest down and sliced hip to hip didn’t leave me vulnerable enough.) And I never expected to feel strange squeezing sensations coming from my lower extremities. When I asked the nurses about it, I was told I was wearing compression boots that were pumping my calves to prevent blood clots. Still, the ability to feel that regulated pressure and release was disconcerting. What if I felt the smooth blade of the scalpel slicing me open like a ripe cantaloupe?

I didn’t. But I did feel a whole lot of pulling and tugging and what felt like my uterus being stretched over the rim of the Grand Canyon. So much tugging. And I could hear a chorus of nurses and doctors, commanding and directing. And then, at 10:35 AM, the tiniest quivering wail rose over the sheet, and I heard Parker Isaac Candela singing heartily for his supper for the very first time, but certainly not the last.  My heart swelled to bursting at his voice. A voice that still trembles and purrs with sweetness to this day.

parkerbirth

One minute later, at 10:36 AM, Tate Michael Candela arrived. But this time, no song accompanied the entrance. Ironic, considering Tatebug sings constantly these days – a continuous refrain from sunrise to sundown: Itsy Bitsy Spider; Wheels on the Bus; If You’re Happy and You Know It… You name it, he sings it.

The NICU docs and nurses immediately shuffled Tate off to a corner of the OR and got to work. I couldn’t see a thing. All I could do was hear. And all I could hear was the sound of silence — for what felt like a millennium. It wasn’t though. Of that I’m sure. In a relatively short spell — one crammed with absolute horror and fear — the staff managed to coax and cajole his little lungs into song. His quivering wail joined his brother’s in a sudden, trembling hallelujah chorus, and Mike and I melted into a blubbering mass of unbridled relief and boundless love.

When they brought them round for me to kiss, they were beautiful. Beautiful, precious, tiny naked mole rats. Because honestly, that’s what all newborns look like, if we’re being perfectly honest. And that’s what got pulled out of my belly on March 20th, three year ago. Two of them. Only my naked mole rats had half-moon eyes. Beautiful, Korean, half-moon eyes. And Parker had lashes that fanned across his cheeks in the most magnificent display you ever did see. They still do, for that matter. And then there was Tate. Tate with the buttery-gold skin of an ancient temple Buddha. We oohed and aahed over his ancestral gift of a most-glorious skin tone. Come to find out, it wasn’t genetics. It was jaundice… But even after that bilirubin leveled out, he still possesses the most exquisite built-in tan you ever did see.Sadly, after planting a kiss on my long-lashed and beautifully-bronzed naked mole rats, they were whisked away to the NICU.

birthboys2

Now the NICU was not in my birth plan. Not even close. I had anticipated a glamour-shots delivery, remember? And then a saccharine-sweet bonding period full of soft, fuzzy snapshots. Me snuggling our newborns while they mewed hungrily at my breasts.  Mike slumbering with them on his chest in our overstuffed, deep-seated rocker. That was my vision. That was my dream. Our reality was nothing like it. At all. There were no nursing newborns at my breasts and no happenstance naps with Daddy. Instead there were incubators and oxygen lines and feeding tubes and beeping monitors and carefully measured mills of breast milk in the tiniest bottles you ever did see.

But I’ll address the NICU and its roller coaster of events and emotions next time…

 

 

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IVF Twin Pregnancy: Operation Double Doozy

Carrying twins was a blessing of tremendous proportions, as well as an eight-month war of attrition on my body. Despite reinforcing myself with some of the best defensive strategies of modern medicine and engineering, I delivered prematurely.

I had preeclampsia.

labor

But first, a little about those months leading up to delivery…

In all fairness, my body didn’t want to have twins. At forty-seven, it was biologically certain that the entire procreation thing was over and done with.

As a result, there was quite a lot of gestational gerrymandering involved in order to manipulate my hormonal constituency and ensure a victory.

We began with a preemptive strike of suppositories, injections and oral supplements, then recruited a donor’s eggs, an endocrynologist, an embryologist, and a nurse with steady hands and capable bedside manner. To seal the deal, we utilized a paper cup, a secluded chamber, a dimly lit procedure room and a straw. Okay, maybe it has some fancy, schmancy medical term, but for all intents and purposes, it was a straw. A straw meant to spit a couple of sticky buns into my baby maker. (BTW, if someone is looking to duplicate our successful campaign, it is important to note that there were five days separating the cup & the spit wads & the straw.)

So with these tools, we successfully raided my trench and left two embryos safely ensconced within my uterine walls. Now all that was left was to keep them there for nine more months.

The task was Herculean. Or, in keeping with my militaristic theme, the task was Spartan.

From nearly the get-go my body was pummeled with Braxton Hicks contractions that rocked my belly – as in, my belly was transformed to granite – close to eighty times a day. I took measures to reduce the contractions as best I could. A gallon of water a day helped. A gallon — no lie. I was supposed to drink 128 fluid ounces  of water. A day. Twins siphon off your liquid intake pretty much as quickly as you can pour it down your throat. Dehydration was a constant fear – and became a two-time reality. Two times my champion husband drove me to the hospital for IV fluids, a quick Doppler listen, and close monitoring.

Another defensive strategy I employed was a battery of supplements: prenatal vitamins, calcium, folic acid, iron, fish oil and protein shakes. Not only would my little twin tenants deplete all my fluids, they could potentially steal my bone density, my red blood cells and my brain.(I think they successfully absconded with my brain.)

Epsom salts also became part of my nightly arsenal. I spent hours in a bathtub full of them. The salts contain magnesium, and some studies have linked them to a reduced likelihood of preeclampsia. They are also touted as a defense against restless leg syndrome – which plagued me incessantly while pregnant. I guess since I suffered from both RLS and, eventually, preeclampsia, the salts were probably a pointless maneuver. But, I do love a nice, long soak in a tub, so I’m saying, “No harm. No foul.”

Along with all the aforementioned strategies, I spent many a sleepless night sandbagging on pregnancy pillows and couch cushions with ice packs between my breasts. Not on my breasts. Between them. Why, you might rightly wonder? Because the rapidly growing juggernauts in my uterus were putting unconscionable stress on my rib cage. My sternum was ready to snap like a Butterball wishbone at Thanksgiving. Nobody told me about this horrific twin pregnancy phenomenon. I still haven’t heard of anyone else experiencing it. Maybe I’m the only one.

And finally, while pregnant, I suited up in armor designed specifically for safety and comfort. First, there were nylon compression stockings designed to combat swelling and provide support. Mike had to roll and tug and pull and pretty much squeeze me into them every morning. And then do the reverse every night. And he hand washed them. No small feat since they smelled like feet. Swollen, sweaty, pregnancy feet.  And then there was my Velcro and cotton maternity belt with an extra-wide back support and straps both above and below my giant, billowing baby bump. That belt could’ve saddled the Trojan Horse it was so big and wide. And indeed I felt like the Trojan Horse, housing tiny warriors in my belly just waiting to spill out and conquer the world. Or at least northwest Georgia.

And finally, our mechanized measures. We bought a blood pressure cuff and took regular readings four to five times a day. We were closely monitoring for any slight increase in diastolic and/or systolic pressure, or both.  Despite all our protective measures — along with meds to conquer and control the riotous numbers) — at thirty-four weeks, the nebulous, egregious  villainous Preeclampsia invaded, wreaking havoc on my body and my babies.

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Three years ago this week, I was forty-seven years old, thirty-four weeks pregnant, forty-three pounds heavier, and two cup sizes larger. My legs were the size of aspens and my ass was the size of Warren Buffet’s assets. I was an amniotic and edema filled cistern of IVF success. I looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Or a stack of stratocumulus clouds. I was so fluffy I could die. Literally. And so could my in vitro twin boys. Preeclampsia is no laughing matter.

Three years ago, this week, I was about to experience a barrage of new and scary experiences, including: an ambulance ride, an emergency C-section, two five-pound, six-week-preterm twin boys and an up close and personal relationship with a NICU.

But more on that next week…

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Blue Jeans, Cast Iron Skillets, and Fine Wine

I’m an “Older Mother.” At least that’s what my OB chart plainly labeled me. AMA: Advanced Maternal Age. Apparently, any mother over the age of 35 gets that acronym. And I suppose I am REALLY advanced – having surpassed that baseline by twelve years. I’ve always been advanced, though. I was an early walker, an early reader, and an early bloomer. And continuing in that vein, I currently teach and coordinate Advanced Placement at our school. So, yeah, I freely accept the Advanced acronym.

But what else does it mean to be a mother of advanced age – an older mother, if you will.

Well, it means I can no longer do somersaults… I found that out this past weekend as the  boys were perfecting theirs — Tate all nimble and quick and wheeling across the floor like a roly poly bug; Parker thudding onto his back from his leap-frog position like a Big Wheel with a flat tire. Me, I suddenly and foolishly felt compelled to demonstrate my long-dormant expertise. Big mistake. Frightful. I heard my neck go all crunchy – crunchier  than my granola hipster students with joggers and facial hair. I think there’s some residual pieces of vertebra rattling around in there like spilled trail mix. So there will be no more deliberate, premeditated tumbling routines in our living room.

It also means I don’t wear high heels much anymore. When the girls were little, I wore heels to work every day. That was pure nonsense. I shouldn’t have. Not because they contribute to bunions and plantar fasciitis (neither of which I have, mind you… I’m not THAT advanced), but because teetering after toddlers on stilts is not ideal. (Although, note to self, putting TODDLERS in stilts might be. I suspect it would slow down their capacity to gain speed in a short time frame. It could potentially save my nerves and their lives in parking lot situations. Plus, Tate might even like it. He did inform me last night that he’s a Disney princess.)

Being an older mother also means my hormones are in a manic tug-of-war – half my face thinks it’s a teenager and the other half is pleating and creasing its way toward Botox. The ensuing brawl is wreaking havoc on my skin. I have laugh lines and crow’s feet on one side and acne and oily patches on the other. My face is a tangled-up coastline of contradictions. With the girls, I bought and used every exciting new cosmetic fad on the market. But as the mother of twins, I no longer have the time nor energy (nor money, for that matter) for expensive skin regimens. But that’s okay – I use the boys’ products without shame and quite possibly without good sense. For example, over the past week I’ve had a ginormous zit riding my bottom lip (Yes, bottom lip. I TOLD you my skin is haywire right now) that people have mistaken for a fever blister. So last night, I slathered a bit of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste on it and woke up this morning to a barely negligible pin point of a pustule — which I promptly scrubbed away with the boys’ clinically proven, gentle formula baby body wash. Who needs fancy zit creams and expensive cleansers when your twin toddler products can ante up?  Oh, and there’s an added bonus: I smell good enough to swaddle and my cheeks are soft (and dimpled) as a baby’s bottom.

Yes, I’m a mom of advanced age. I can’t deny it. But that really doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I can think of plenty of good things that get even better with age. Like blue jeans, for example, and cast iron skillets, and fine wine.

So time for a little metaphorical role play — to analyze and legitimize my Advanced Maternal Age worth and potential:

I am the mama equivalent of a pair of blue jeans… That makes me functional and durable and classy or casual, as needed. I’m always, always ready for the weekend. I’m soft and broken in, with an extra-long inseam for flexibility and just the right amount of Lycra to keep me snapping back when I’m stretched too thin thanks to my tendency to bite off more than I can chew. Still, I can cover most problem areas and make sure everything vital is covered. So that’s all good.

bluejeans2

And I’m a well-seasoned-cast-iron-skillet of a mother. I’m valuable and irreplaceable. Nothing compares to me. I’m tried and I’m true — a tough, heavy-hitter with a satin finish who serves up comfort in ample doses. I weather the generations with strength. Hell, I perform better with time. I’m certainly no poser, no wannabe, no non-stick newcomer who turns all flakey and can’t handle the heat. Me, I’m multifunctional and sturdy, and I produce quality product time after time. Take a look at my girls, if you don’t believe me?

girlsandme2

And since I started motherhood all the way over again at 47 and am currently a mother of twin toddlers at 50, I’m a miracle of Jesus. So that must make me… Fine Wine. And sure enough, all the classy descriptors fit. I’m full bodied and sweet, with high levels of residual sugar ready to be unleashed. But don’t underestimate my undercurrent of acidity – my sarcasm is subtle but ripe, and it will cut through with clarity and confidence at just the right moment. I’m strong and lush (not to be confused with A Lush), and I can make your knees weak and your head swim. I’m complex (just ask my husband and AP students – I confound them all), and I’m earthy (consider my love of Chaucer and four-letter words) and believe me, I’m far more palatable if I’m allowed to breathe a bit here and there.

So, yes, I am a mama of AMA. But just like blue jeans, cast iron skillets and fine wine, I am better with some age on me. So go ahead, put a stamp on me. A Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or a Levi patch or a fine French label.  I see your metaphors, and I raise them. I transcend them.  Motherhood is ageless. And limitless. It is powerful, miraculous, metaphysical and absolutely the most important and perfect thing I’ve ever done.

Motherhood is a category all by itself.

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Sleeplessness was born a twin

“Happiness was born a twin.” At least, according to the Romantic poet George Gordon, aka, Lord Byron. And knowing Byron, he probably dated a set. At the same time –the kinky devil. So I believe I have Byron to blame. He and his perversions saw the last of the happiness twins.

Now don’t get me wrong. My twins are happy boys. But very rarely in tandem, it seems. And for the last three months, only Parker has been a happy twin. And that’s only in spurts because he feeds off his brother’s angry elf shenanigans. But when he’s sweet, he’s quite content, my little cuddle lump. He chills sweetly in my lap with his monster trucks or he charges rowdily around the house with a smile on his face and a chuckle in his chatter. Tate, the one allergic to apparently everything on this planet, including sleep, has been a Grumpy Gus – a veritable Fussbudget on steroids. Like, literally. He gets an inhaler full of the stuff every day. And he is chock full of roid-rage. (Evidence A.)

happiness1

It all started in November, when a wind worthy of a Mary Poppins sighting whipped up – and I wish I may I wish I might have that supercalifragilistic nanny of expialidocious proportions float into our front yard with her trusty umbrella and a carpetbag of tricks to bring the sidelined sleep back into our game. We’re beginning to get desperate. Spoonfuls of sugar – and Benadryl — haven’t been working. Shots of whiskey aren’t doing it for me either. I said for ME, not Tate. I wouldn’t do that, tempting though it might be… Jail time would not sit well with my naturally frizzy hair, and I would rather not bargain for flat iron privileges.

It was a Friday night, November 4th. I remember it well: the night the Purple Hurricanes won a decisive region championship over Troup County and three of the four members of our immediate family kissed our love affair with sleep goodbye. Don’t get me wrong, we are all still very much pleading with Mr. Sandman to come home to us, but he hightailed it out of Dodge and hasn’t really been seen since. I can count on two fingers the nights he returned for a cruel reminder of the old days. We are beginning to show some neglect…

happiness4

So on that windswept and win-swept night came the first signs of a decisively drippy nose and cumbersome cough for Tate. And a return of the sleepless nights we knew for the first sixteen months of the boys’ lives. Those were brutal, but I swear, since we had such a nice long stretch of good sleep, this new trial has been that much harder. I don’t know how much more I can take before my mind suffers irreparable damage. I caught myself staring into space the other day pondering the meaning of lice. (I am a schoolteacher, after all, and I hear they’ve been making a comeback.) So I was wondering…  do they live in what they believe is their own little volatile planet, working feverishly to put blood on the table while all the while fearing climate change and their newly-elected louse of a president? I’m telling ya, lack of sleep is taking its toll.

Now we knew right away Tate’s ailment was allergies. Georgia hadn’t had measurable rainfall in months and months, and the pollen and dust and dander and other nasal irritants spun themselves into a serious sinus cyclone. Tatebug had battled allergies before, but those had been child’s play compared to these. These were full grown allergies with a nasopharynx to grind. Benadryl and Kleenex couldn’t come close to containing them.

So we took ourselves on an allergy pilgrimage. We visited all the traditional and not so traditional places: docs, pharmacies, herb shops. Over-the-counter remedies and holistic hocus pocus accomplished nada. The first few prescriptions, likewise. We tethered our boy to a nebulizer and went through fifteen minutes of treatments three times a day. That’s an eternity to a toddler in a tailspin. We were not having fun. And nothing was doing the trick.

Eventually, though, thanks to an exceedingly diligent nurse practitioner, we got an asthma diagnosis and a creative blend of carefully orchestrated prescriptions. We were told it would take four to six weeks for the cocktail to take full effect. Sure enough, like clockwork on the fourth week, our youngest settled in for the night with his stuffed puppy named Spider and his collection of nursery rhymes, and got an entire twelve hours of beautiful, blissful shut eye for the first time in nearly eight weeks.

And that’s when I made my egregious error. The cardinal sin of twin moms (or any mom, really) the world over. I bragged on social media.

There has been no repeat. Of the bragging or the sleep.

The very next day, the plagues of the E-jinx invaded our household. We’ve had tours of duty from stomach flu and common colds and all the anger and resentment and frustration and hostility that comes when your forty winks take an extended vacation. If there’s a quarrel to be had, Mike and I can find it. It’s easy to fold, spindle and mutilate an innocent word or gesture into a Cold War nuclear stand-off or watch it escalate into WWIII when we’re wiped out and wigging out. Every night for weeks on end, one or the other of us has wound up in the guest room, not because either of us is in the dog house (though it’s a wonder in these lethargy-laden days and nights), but because we’re carting Tate in there at 2:30 AM after he’s woken up for the fourth time unable to breathe and we’re all desperately seeking sleep.

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I am not proud of who I have become recently. They say sleep deprivation is one of the cruelest forms of torture ever invented and can cause irreparable mental and physical harm. It can completely change a person’s personality. I’m here to say I am not myself. My mind is mired in the muggy mildew of spilled sleep and the sludge and stench of a weary, wizened wit.

I am sick and I am tired, and I am moving at the speed of a barge in brackish water. I have toddlers permanently growing off my hips like barnacles. The one who doesn’t sleep lives in a perpetual state of whine and wallow, and his brother has started feeding off that whine like an angry, little drunkard ready to brawl. But, in the midst of the chaos and carnage, I utter my serenity prayer. And then proclaim…

Happiness was born a twin, my ass.

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4

Social Media Etiquette when Dealing with a Twin Mom at her Melting Point

I’ve raised daughters. Reared them into adulthood. They were a challenge, true. But I’m female; they’re female. We sort of had that thing going for us. So even as they grew and educated me in the care and keeping of them, the learning curve never felt that steep. Plus, I had them one at a time. So that was going for me, too. But twins  — and twin boys at that – I feel like this learning curve needs climbing gear complete with harnesses and carabiners.

And in all honesty, our friends and family kind of need a crash course in emotional support — particularly in terms of emergency management — for when the going gets tough. And believe me, it gets tough. Take today, for instance. Today is Day Four of what has turned into a Twintestinal Distress week. They stayed home again today. And I stayed home again today. And boy, has it been tough.

We’re all bored shitless.

Which is good, I guess, because I’ve had all the shit I can handle in the past half-a-week. I’ve changed more diapers and sheets, swabbed more butts and floors, and used more Lysol wipes than the community hospital did last year.

We are being held hostage in our own home by toddler boys’ digestive tracts. We are in dire need of some fresh air. Ours smells like retch and poo. And the boys are cranky with cabin fever. No. Cranky is an understatement. Godzilla in Tokyo was cranky. My boys are downright angry. And it could even be that they are hangry, since they’ve had nothing more substantial than a toast crust in four days. Every time they try, their gag reflexes kick in and their bowels run amok.

It’s times like these, when the perils of Twindom absolutely overcome me. It’s times like these when the poo hits the fan and I’m ready to rage against the latrine!  So what do I do? I vent to friends and family on Facebook. And what do they do? Well, the ones who get it, they give me support. And the ones who don’t, they give me clichés.

Which is why I’ve decided to pen this crash course in social media emergency management…

I’ve already established the crisis situation for you. Now let me give you a quick cry-for- help demonstration. Let’s say that as you peruse your Facebook news feed that you spy a post from a desperate  twin mom at her absolute wit’s end. Perhaps she has proclaimed her life is a festering cistern of agony and upchuck. IN ALL CAPS.  Or maybe it’s something less dramatic, but just as desperate. Something along the lines of:

I literally have not stepped foot outside my house in five days. I may go off the deep end.

You stop scrolling. You pause for a moment. As a friend, as a family member… what do you do?… what should you do? Should you like the status and end it there? Well, you can… but there is really nothing about that status to like. At all. But if you pity that poor, dispirited twin mom then don’t you think she at least deserves a crying face or a sweetly-placed heart? Give her some emoji love, for crying out loud — which is what she’s doing, believe me.

And if you want to go further, to try to preserve her sanity and your relationship with her, here are some Dos and Don’ts of the comment variety…

Do give her love and support. Tell her she can make it through. Tell her that the giant shit igloo that has formed over and around her diaper pail will soon melt into a memory – a foul-smelling, filthy, recycled memory – but a memory nonetheless. So tell her that.

Don’t tell her she’s paying for her raising. Because as she recalls, there weren’t two of her. Two versions of her squirting vast quantities of digestive detritus and retching saltine crackers simultaneously. All the while begging to be held and struggling to escape. Two. At the same time. So just hush it.

Do send her texts, and love… and groceries. When her family has been eating toast and applesauce for five days – not merely for the fact that it follows the BRAT rules for stomach flu (Bananas, Rice, Apple sauce and Toast) – but also because they have nothing else left in the house. Their cupboard is bare. And so are their bowels. And they could really go for some chicken soup. It’s good for the soul and the shits. So do do that. (But don’t doo doo. They’ve had enough of that…)

Don’t tell her it comes with the territory. It’s not her first rodeo. She knows the territory. It is, however, her first rodeo with twins and she’ll tell you, the rules of engagement are entirely different. Unless you have ever parented twins… especially twins purging their innards for seventy-two hours straight in a snow storm (well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. They live in the South. They had a snow flake), then don’t act like you’re the fucking Lewis & Clark of parenting territory. You’re not. So hush it.

Do tell her she’s doing a good job. Tell her that you know kids are hard because you’ve been there. And then tell her you’ve heard many, many, MANY rumors that twins are harder. Way harder. And that she is way beyond Wonder Woman to you. That she belongs in Marvel comics. Or is it DC? Shit. She has no fucking clue. Boys love super heroes.Just one more thing she has to study up on. That learning curve gets steeper and steeper. It’s never ending. But she can do it, you say. Because she is Way Beyond Wonder Woman. Tell her that.

Don’t try to lighten the mood by cracking jokes. Believe me, she is not amused. That’s not laughing you hear. It’s tears. And choking. She’s crying hysterically while drowning in an endless sea of projectile poo and vomit and sippy cups of ginger ale. So unless you can throw her a life line – or a kind line – Just. Hush. It.

 

 

 

2

Snow Days and Stomach Flu: Happy Birthday, Daddy!

snowmageddon

It was Mike’s birthday weekend. We had hoped to do dinner and a movie. We had  a sitter on reserve and everything.  But then Snowmageddon 2017 hit the greater Atlanta area with a hearty warning from the forecasters and a half-hearted hiccup from the ensuing cold front. The result? A foamy upchuck of about an inch-and-a-half of the white stuff — and about a half-a-week of impassable back roads. Facebook became littered with pictures of empty bread aisles and sparse milk coolers, families “sledding” on laundry baskets and garbage can lids (not many folks in these parts have ever purchased an actual sled. The cost/benefit ratio just doesn’t pan out.), and Frosty and Olaf look-alikes flecked with mud and dried bermuda grass (an inch-and-a-half doesn’t really contribute to porcelain-skinned snowpeople).

None of the afore-mentioned photos could be found on our family’s Facebook pages. Instead, we were bundled up beneath blankets and bathrobes battling stomach bugs times two. (Because twins always make sure they double the pleasure and double the fun.)

There was no half-hearted hiccup involved in OUR upchuck. Nope. We had literal, bonafide, bile-filled, food-splattered, smelly stuff. As a result, our milk stayed on its shelf. And our bread – well, we did toast an insane amount of bread, which sadly, quite often sat neglected and slowly hardening on the boys’ Minion and ladybug plates. As far as snowmen, we’ve watched a lot of Frozen. Apparently, Elsa and Ana have a soothing effect on wayward tummies. The boys lay in listless lumps on our laps while Kristin Bell sang “Do You Want to Build A Snowman?” over and over and over, their eyes glazed and their foreheads hot, their appetites absent and their bellies cramped.

They looked wretched. So wretched, that at one point I called big sister the surgeon and Mike called his student’s mom the nurse practitioner. We were worried that the listlessness was bordering on lethargy – with Tate, in particular. He hadn’t said a word all day long. He wouldn’t sit up and he wouldn’t eat. Nor would he leave my side. I had to nap with him three times yesterday just to help him rest more comfortably — and so I could quickly supply the puke bucket in the event of an emergency. Finally, ‘round about three o’clock he strung a sentence together — a forceful “Mommy sleeps with Me” — and my fears subsided. But then new ones quickly took their place. I feared I had created a monster: a pint-sized, possessive sleep dictator with Mommyitis.

I’ve always heard it takes twenty-one days for an action to become a habit, but my youngest cleared that up for me post-haste. Turns out a toddler can develop a habit in a scant twenty-four-hours. Last night, he demanded, “Mommy sleep with ME” and “Daddy sleep with Parker.”

Thus sayeth the toddler.

And because his eyes were purple, sunken orbs of pitifulness, I acquiesced.  Probably a big mistake. Huge.  I have a feeling that breaking him of this habit is going to be about as easy as finding milk and bread in the South in a snow st…er, hiccup (or a substitute teacher in Bartow County on a sick day – but more on that in a moment).

So today is Day Three of our Snowmageddon and our Flumageddon. It’s Monday. Thankfully, school was cancelled, so no endless hours of sub shopping for me. As the snow and ice slowly melt, the boys slowly improve. They’re still sitting sedentary on our sofas, but they are actively surfing YouTube Kids on their iPads, searching for such riveting toddler favorites as Pez dispensers being dispensed and elevator rides being ridden. Dad is manning the pink plastic puke bucket, and I am penning my blog amidst toast runs and ginger ale refills. Periodically, the unmistakable sounds of poo percolating in a diaper interrupt the Frozen soundtrack. Yes, the vomiting has subsided, but the diapers are still piling up in drifts of unbearable stench. Hopefully the roads will thaw and the trash will run tomorrow – and the boys’ bowels will NOT.

Yes, the streets and the boys are improving, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Because in the South, snow days are about as unpredictable as a bout of the stomach flu. Things can look like they’ve improved on the surface. The sun is out. The coast is clear.  You’re cruising along nicely. Then, out of nowhere, those dark, twisty places rear their ugly underbelly and suddenly you’re careening out of control in a slippery riptide of hidden wretchedness.

But I’m confident we’re at the tail end of both… no pun intended.

PS… In between the boys’ bouts of intestinal distress, I did manage to bake up Mike’s favorite  birthday cake — carrot.  We had a twenty-minute window to celebrate before we were once again swabbing  floors and bottoms. Happy Birthday, my handsome husband. I wouldn’t want to do life or twindom — and all of the ensuing madcap mayhem and unbridled awesomeness — without you. ILY

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#SoulfoodSeoulfood

Our dishwasher has the longest cycle of any machine I’ve ever encountered. An elephant’s menstrual cycle is only slightly longer. It runs for 2 hours and 83 minutes.(The dishwasher, not the elephant.) Not kidding here. It seems unheard of. I’ve never been around one as dedicated and hard working. What makes this so incredibly irritating is that we can’t run the dishwasher unless the boys are asleep or absentee because they like to push buttons. All buttons. The ice and water buttons on the fridge (we had to put it on lock-down mode– I didn’t even know a fridge had such a thing!), the buttons on the oven, the buttons on the remote control, the buttons on their parents (every damn day), the buttons on their parents’ cell phones… the list goes on and on. You name it, they push it. So if we run the dishwasher while they’re awake, inevitably it gets stopped somewhere, mid-cycle. And they’re so stealthy about it that we never see or hear them do it.

We’ve tried for four days to run our dishwasher. Four. But, sadly, because we are the parents of twins who have decided that sleeping is overrated and shouldn’t necessarily be applicable to them  – well one twin in particular these days — we continuously forget to run said dish washer because our minds are M.I.A. So we currently have no dishes in our cabinets. None. Every dinner, salad, and dessert plate – even every coffee saucer (because we ate breakfast off of those this morning) — is dirty and festering in its own detritus waiting for us to run the load. And we just can’t seem to manage it.

Which makes the task at hand – preparing our New Year’s Day feast – rather difficult. I’ve been closely examining the contents of the dishwasher – sniffing glasses and squinting at fork tines – to determine whether or not I need to take forensic countermeasures with a brillo pad and hot water. I decided it was easier to just pull out the Vodka and pour myself a drink and let the alcohol kill the germs. Besides, I hadn’t properly rung in the New Year yet. Mike and I fell asleep last night before 10:30. Tate and his propensity for middle-of-the-night wake-up calls are beginning to take their toll.

But let’s talk about New Year’s Day in the South. It’s a beautiful conglomeration of country fare: black-eyed peas and collard greens, buttermilk cornbread and sweet tea. And I do it all. Well, except for the sweet tea. I told you already, I’m not a tea-totaler 😉 And I may be Southern, but I’m not Southern Baptist. So I threw back a couple of vodka tonics while I cranked up my veggies because I like my potatoes fermented. Not mashed. And not fried.

But it’s not all peas and greens and potato juice at our table on New Year’s Day. Remember, we’re a mixed marriage, so we’ve got ourselves a mixed menu.  Mike contributes his cultural heritage, too.  He makes his family’s duk guk. It sounds incredibly wrong — like something feculent at the bottom of a millpond. But it tastes incredibly right — like seventh heaven in a soup bowl, complete with seaweed and rice cakes. It’s my second-favorite thing my husband does for me… but I digress.

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Now the boys won’t eat any of the above-mentioned goodness. And it’s not that they are the kind of kids who will only eat chicken nuggets and French fries (although they love those too.) They’ve been raised on multicultural menus their entire two-and-a-half years on this planet. Their favorite foods are Korean curry and chicken n dumplings. Sadly, though, they draw the line on vegetables of almost any variety, so beans and greens are entirely out of the question. And it saddens me, but while my mom and Mike and I feasted on soul food and Seoul food, the boys feasted on Cheez-its and the bacon reserved for crumbling atop the collards. Oh, and some random bites of cornbread. If tonight’s any indicator, I won’t be winning any mother of the year awards in 2017.

But I am winning. Even when I fail.

Even when the boys have minor (and major) meltdowns in Aisle 3 of the new Kroger — and then again in Aisles 8 and 12. (Which happened today while we were shopping for our duk guk and greens, by the way.) Even then, I am still winning. Because I have been given the opportunity to mother four exquisite, perfectly imperfect children who show me the secrets of the universe every single time that they smile. They bring me a joy that cannot be described nor contained.

So, yes, I am winning. Even when I fail. Even when I have minor (and major) meltdowns because I feel like I am inadequate. Like Mike deserves someone better. Someone younger and more energetic and maybe even more Asian who can truly appreciate his passion for all things Ramen and Star Wars and technological. Even then, I am still winning. Because when he wraps me in a big, warm hug and looks me squarely in the eyes, I know I am right where I belong. He is my destiny and I am his. Star Wars fanatic or not.seoultrain

Yes, I am winning. Even when I fail. Even when I have minor (and major) meltdowns because I feel like I can never be all that I should be as a teacher for my students. Hell, if I can’t even remember to run my own dishwasher, how in the blankety-blank am I supposed to properly impart kernels of truth and wisdom to the young minds of Bartow County? But I am still winning. Because even though I teach them about life and literature, they teach me so much more. About life and about living it. The wisdom of American youth should never be underestimated.

Yes, I am winning.

By the way, my first favorite thing my husband does for me is his curry. His thick, brown, spicy, Korean curry.  Happy New Year, ya filthy animals.

 

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