I had to stop uploading pictures to break up Carrie and Melina's first fight. From The Pen just to my left I heard a struggle. Carrie had taken off one of Melina's shoes and was putting it in her mouth. Melina squawked like a cat and grabbed it back. Carrie leaped onto Melina, who deflected and thumped her sister on the ground like the professional women's wrestler with whom she shares a name. I'm reminded of something I said often about Devon when he was about this age.
Parenting was so much easier before he was old enough to have an opinion!
My big girls are drinking sippy cups,which brings on a few new challenges. First, Devon recognized the infant Nuby sippies and wanted to swipe them away and drink them himself, retaining exclusive sippy rights in our household.
"Not supposed to be chewing on it!" he said.
"Yes," we explained to him, "Those are the baby sippies. The babies are drinking!"
Then he decided he liked the idea of everyone sitting around drinking after a nap, lifting their sippies and clinking them together companionably in an apple juice Happy Hour. He ran around the kitchen grabbing up the sippies and shoving them in the girls' mouths. This was fine if they felt like a drink. Not so much if they didn't.
"Good job!" said Devon. "You're doing very well!"
I'm also shocked that they learned on the first try to drink through a straw! It happened completely on accident. We were having lunch out after a trip to the library for story time, and Devon wasn't drinking his juice box. Usually when this happens I'm able to play Sneaky Mommy and convince him that he wants it by offering to feed it to the babies. This time it worked like usual, with Devon reaching for the juice as soon as I waved it in front of Carrie. Also, Carrie's mouth had closed around the straw in the meantime and she was sucking it down. I offered it to Melina, fascinated, and she also was able to figure out immediately what it was for.
Cheerios are a big favorite. I look forward to one day soon when I won't have to get out the Beaba and spend time making purees for the girls, but I also wonder how I'll be able to keep the floors clean.
I won't. It's that simple.
These are also probably the last two pictures of the girls eating off the table pulled up side-by-side like contestants at a pie-eating contest. Carrie started hooking her legs onto the table edge and pushing off frog-style, tipping her chair and making Mommy very nervous. Melina sealed the deal by grabbing onto Carrie's armrest and tipping herself toward it. I looked up from my coffee three feet away and saw her hanging onto Carrie's chair like a kitten on a fire escape, still strapped into her own precariously tilted chair and supporting its entire weight by her bony little forearms. I ran to break up the antics and got the trays down from the closet. I suppose it's time.
Sippy cups. Solid food. Nap schedules. A bubble of anxiety rises slowly from my heart and lodges in my throat as I type these words. I've been avoiding trips to stores that play music because I'm afraid I'm going to hear Taylor Swift's "Don't You Ever Grow Up" and have to stop and bawl my eyes out right there in the frozen foods.
This unseemly rush of maternal nostalgia could be brought on by a recent surplus of unpleasant hormones that brought back my most unwelcome gal pal. Yep, I was opening the bag of Dove chocolate that I didn't even want but felt compelled to buy and diving right in while Craig was asking me "What's that spot on your pants?" Ugh. It wasn't the high point of my month, even aside from the trip back to the store to buy things I hoped not to need for a few more months. I was more disturbed by the question rising in my mind: Is this the beginning of the end?
I don't understand myself anymore. As my kids nap in the next room I'm flipping through photos like an empty nester, blubbering in a way my before-kids-self would find repulsive.
Did I cherish them enough?
Did I take every opportunity to enjoy my babies?
I had no idea at the time these pictures were taken how precious they would be to me now. I don't remember the lack of sleep or the post-delivery puffy ankles or worrying that I was going to drop my baby if I couldn't put him down for ten minutes to eat a sandwich.
I remember the pushed in look of Devon's little mouth, and the way he would startle every few minutes and lift his head and peer at me like he was asking "Who's got me?", recognizing me and collapsing back down on my chest like a puppet with the strings cut. Devon was never much of a co-sleeper. By six months he was thrashing and restless when he was on me but settled immediately into a deep and inert sleep as soon as I set him down. Babywise would say he was a well-adjusted, independent baby. Dr. Sears would say he had poor attachment skills. Dr. Dobson would say that he, like every baby, had his own personality. I resorted to waiting until he had been asleep for a few hours and then sneaking into his room to see if I could pick him up and hold him for a few minutes without waking him.
I remember the two precious months my girls were small enough to hold side-by-side on my chest. During that time I recovered from surgery, sold our house, moved 900 miles, packed and unpacked our stuff, pumped three times a day to increase my chances of successful twin nursing, and paid attention to Devon who was still every bit my baby. If anything, it made me choose to take every moment I could and hold my girls.
I know the girls will never remember these moments. Who are we kidding? I don't think I even remember some of them. Look at my eyes! This one must have been sometime in month two when the girls would tag-team all day long. One would wake up and have fussy time as soon as the other would drop off to sleep. All day long. I'm holding Melina in the crook of my arm because she won't sleep on her stomach and Carrie on my chest because she won't sleep on her back. I probably really have to go to the bathroom but am too afraid to move unless one would wake up and fuss again. I look exhausted!
I also look happy. Since I knew I didn't have all the time in the world, I figured out what was important. The twins didn't even have a bedroom until they were six months old. They often wore hand-me-down sleepers that didn't match because I didn't shop for cute clothes. Some days I held them all day, stopping only to spend enough time with Devon so he wouldn't feel replaced.
The only thing I would do differently is figure out how to make it last a little longer. If I could start the year over and live it again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Lately when I least expect it I have to smile a little too brightly or blink a little too hard. It keeps me from starting to hum the words to THAT SONG, the one by the skinny little twenty-something teenybopper who couldn't possibly know how I feel because she DOESN'T EVEN HAVE KIDS!
Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up.
Don't you ever grow up.
Just stay this little...
It's been a big week for the girls. They're each cutting new teeth: Melina's #5 and Carrie's #6. On Thursday, Melina let go of the wire shelf in the pen, raised her arms like an orchestra conductor, and took a single unassisted step toward me. Carrie followed up with a single step toward Melina during book time later that evening. This morning I set the girls in the exersaucers and ran to get something out of the car, only to be met by a triumphant Melina crawling across the kitchen floor to tell me "Look what I just found out I can do!"
I admit with a shudder that this same child wiggled her way out of her high chair harness this afternoon. Devon started calling my name:
"Krista! Krista!"
I frowned and started explaining to him that my given name was for Daddy and other people. He is my special boy and therefore one of only three people in the world to call me Mommy and so I really would prefer that. I turned my head and out of the corner of my eye saw what he was trying so hard to bring to my attention: Melina suspended in mid-air, hands planted on the dining room table, her feet on the high chair tray.
They're getting so big!
Once in a while I still get my cuddles. Devon wants to "Hug the Mommy, blanket on head" and we lay on the Big Boy Bed together under the afghan that Auntie Amy made for him. Carrie wakes up an hour before the rest and she pushes her head up under my chin to enjoy a long, leisurely hour of thumb. Melina goes limp in my arms at afternoon nap time so I pick up my book and let her rest on me instead of in the pack and play.
I'm addicted. I'm not ready to give this up yet, not even for playgroup and preschool and Little League and the thousand things I can't wait to experience with my kids.
Oh, darlings, don't you ever grow up...
Sniff.
What am I going to do?
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