Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Choosing to Snuggle

It was a glorious, GLORIOUS night where the boys slept from 8pm to 4am earlier this week.  Seriously, those who have not gone months where the longest sleep stretch is three hours cannot process the amount of crazy that starts to accumulate and how regular brain function begins to deteriorate with the deprivation.  I felt so human and jazzed for the day, and thankful that baby-sleep gods had looked down on the husband and me and threw us a one night bone.

Bilbo, boppy, and baby snuggles.

So, it was a bit of a bummer that last night we were back to the 11pm, 1am, 3am, 4am bottle relay that we have pushed ourselves through for 800 months.  The only difference between last night and the previous many was that I had banked some sleep the night before and struggled with falling and staying asleep rather than waking up to tend to my children.  When you know you are probably going to be needed and on call for baby fetching and feeding at 11pm, the needing to fall asleep in an efficient, expedient manner is a matter of maintaining sanity.  So I was unhappy with my wakefulness when all I needed was a bit of unconsciousness to get me through the regular nightly routine.

Wall-E and Bilbo, one and a half months.
By the time we got to the 4:15 wake up and bottle feed of the early morning, I had been thinking to myself that maybe I should just haul my ass out of bed and get my day going early.  Perhaps I could get the dog's morning needs addressed and put away dishes or get a load of laundry started.  However, as I was laying in my bed feeding Bilbo and feeling his body tucked into my side and armpit, I realized that by pushing myself to clean, organize, and clean, I am forgoing time that is fleeting with my babies.  I was reminiscing earlier this week about last January when the husband and I were starting to feel the flutters and bubbles that were baby movements in my belly.  It's sad to think that what seemed like such a long time going through it is over and how the same issue of time slipping too quickly will happen as my boys grow.


Wall-E and Bilbo, party animals.
As much as I feel the impulse to declutter, clean, and straighten the things as a way of managing my anxiety and wanting to make my house feel cozy, functional, and a place I can relax in rather than feel fret-y about, I want to be with my husband, and I want to be with my children because this time will be gone before I know it.  I want my babies to grow and be happy and become amazing kids who later grow into amazing people, so I need to realize what/who is the most important even in the times where I could be working on my never ending to-do list.  At the end of the day, there will always be something I could be working on, but at this point, I am learning that I'd rather snuggle with my husband and babies while I have the time to enjoy it.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Be Gentle

Some days are just rough ones.  This day was one of them.  I have never known exhaustion to the level that I do now as a parent.  There must be a word for what happens when you have only had like five complete REM cycles in the past seven (plus the end of my pregnancy where I was up and uncomfortable all of the time) months.

The look of our bed throughout the night; often one or more babies , post-bottle catching the sweet sleep we so so are longing for.
For the most part we have had luck with babies who are willing to fall asleep without too much pomp and circumstance.  We bathe, read, eat and then they are generally conked by 8/8:30pm, with us following quickly behind.  We have been testing this with staying up little bits later here and there, sometimes reading, sometimes playing a stupid phone game, sometimes even watching an episode or maybe just half, of television.  I know this daring of time to bite us in the face would come back to get us one of these nights, and last night it did.

We had a highly stimulating day yesterday, traveling to Pittsburgh to participate in the Women's March.  I was thrilled to see my godmother, who is a badass queen of a lady who had not yet met the boys, so it was like a combination of all of my favorite things and people.  There were quite a crew of marchers for the walk downtown from the Courthouse to Market Square.  Lots of noise, speeches, cheering and booing to keep the fellas up when they might otherwise be napping.  That paired with being off our normal eating routine, I think built up a perfect storm of sleeplessness that they later rained down on all of us.

We saw them by chance crossing the street amongst hundreds of people, because the world is awesome sometimes.
It started with Baby B at 11pm, quickly followed by Baby A.  Normally when both boys are fed, we are able to slip them back into cribs for at least some chunk of the evening-not last night.  The guys were not having anything to do with sleeping by themselves, however, they were not pleased with their positioning in our bed and felt quite comfortable to vocalize their frustration through screams.

Had this been a Friday or Saturday night, I might have not been as brittle and frustrated as I was on a Sunday night going into a long stressful work week.  The PPD/PPA rears its ugly, scary-images head when I feel weak and tired and worn thin.  I made a hurtful comment to my wonderful husband that I deeply regret, causing him frustration and sadness which I never want, because he is in this 100%.  We are both slogging through the ups and downs of double-baby parenting together and he is there for me over and beyond anything I could have imagined.

I followed up my rough outlook on humanity at school having little to no patients with me kiddos.  Granted they bring their own baggage to the table that is exhausting emotionally and mentally, but if parenthood, especially the unglamorous, not-so fun side of parenting and working on the least amount of rest as possible branch of parenthood has taught me anything it is to take care of each other.  Be kind and gentle because we are each fragile and raw and working through this unpredictable stage working with the tools we have and are capable of summoning.  We don't always have the right words or the strength to make the best choices, but we can at least acknowledge that we are doing the best we can with what we are given to manage at any given moment.  So be gentle, show more grace and understanding and patience, and give hugs and listen because there are so many feelings in this business and Swiss cheese, non sleep brain just jumbles them up and makes everyone feel worse than they already do.  And when someone offers to watch one or both or all of your children for the evening or afternoon so you can catch some zzzz's, take it; you never know when you will get your next eight hours.  Happy resting.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Hello to a New Blog

Hello!  I am excited you stumbled onto this page.  This is the third blog I have kept in my lifetime, and like the previous two, I don't yet have a vision for where it will go or what it will be about.  That seems to be a resounding theme to my life at the moment, being the new mother to twin boys.  They are seven and a half months old, and from the moment they entered my life, they changed me and keep changing me everyday.  At first I found this jarring and a bit unnerving; mostly I enjoy stable, some might say boring, and predictable.  I had it-the job, the perfect marriage, the house by the river, the dog, the close friends and family, Friday night clam chowder at our restaurant.  So I traded the stability in for twins.  Now my life is messier, cuter, and much louder.  There is much less sleep, but so many more snuggles and giggles.  

I don't pretend to be an expert at motherhood or at teaching or at being adult, but I hope to use writing to reflect on the good that is happening and how thankful I am for the experiences, even the heart wrenching and challenging ones.  My blog goals are to write about what makes me happy and what helps me to learn more.  I want to reflect on what I am reading and in turn, read more as a way to generate more things to write about.  Currently, I am in search of something that I can read in my spare (read: none) time.  I have learned why people keep books in their bathrooms (is that too much! You chose to read this; you can always stumble your way to someone else's blog).  I'd like to get back to working my brain that I find personally rewarding and that will help me in my motherhood, teaching, or adulating endeavors.  

In addition to writing about life experiences and reflections, I want a place that isn't Facebook or Instagram to linger and share thoughts, frustrations, and musings on happenings.  I am weary of current events (please don't read that as I'm checking out-I just need a new space to occupy my thoughts) and how I feel trapped in a Facebook, social media bubble that echoes the same noise without moving the plot forward.  So I'm hoping this is a place to clear my head and refocus energies onto something I can do, progress that can be made, hope that can be magnified (whoa, that sounds like a lot to ask from a mum-blog 😂).  

So if you came here because you are family or a friend, thanks for your support.  I hope you don't find this too trivial or nonsensical, and that maybe you'll come back.  If you are a stranger, hopefully you found something interesting or fun and hopefully you have some hope for your own journey.