Aug 09 2016
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Life

Kids Parties. Why Do We Do It To Ourselves….?

Batman party inviteAnd the birthday train rolls around for another year.

It’s the time of year that parents mothers reach peak sentimentality. Facebook feeds start to fill with Mother’s Group friends wishing their offspring happy birthday – gushing over favourite activities or personality traits, and posting fresh newborn pics alongside a cheery recent snap.  It’s early as you write (too bloody early… probably in the 5’s), and your nostalgia is untainted by the irrational meltdown to come over a jumper that’s suddenly too small, or the book you don’t own that they insist they want to take to daycare.

You track key moments of your labour in the day(s) leading up to your child’s birthday. “Oh… it was about this time my waters broke all over your shoes. Do you remember?” Fond memories.

And because your child is of an age where birthdays are now A BIG DEAL to be celebrated, you’re probably neck-deep in party bag planning, chasing bloody RSVP’s, and trying to figure out just how much food 26 adults and 14 kids will eat.

How on earth did this “small party” end up being 40 people anyway?

You Pinterest like a demon. More than half of the inspired menu you ambitiously created from fellow amateur party planners will be culled in the days leading up to the party.

That cute bat-signal fruit platter? Not with blueberries at six bucks a punnet. The individual cups of popcorn with a cute POP printable will become a plain old bowl of popcorn. Maybe you can squeeze out a POP printable if the ink in the printer holds out long enough (unlikely).  Cute little super-hero masks for the kids to wear? Meh… ain’t nobody got time for that after stuffing those damn party bags.

This year we I have the joy of planning two parties in a month. The Threenager is graduating to Fournado and the twins are turning one, so we have no opportunity to sidestep party planning.  We checked out playcentre party plans and balked at the price. Ironic, considering we will probably end up spending that and more by the time the last balloon is popped and we’ve packed the overcatered remnants of the party into the car to go home.

We have put ourselves at the mercy of the August weather gods by hosting The Fournado’s party at a nearby park. The hubby will be dispatched to secure one of the two sheltered picnic tables available well in advance of any guests arriving. I hope he has the forethought to grab a coffee on the way. We’ve already discussed whether Euro beach holiday rules apply and we can bags a table with a tablecloth and a few token balloons and return later to reclaim it. I’ve been checking the weather forecast for the past 10 days hoping that the “fine with some cloud, 20 degrees” prediction holds so I don’t need to figure out a way to host 40 bodies in my house. But mostly so I don’t have to clean up after them.

I have paper cuts of my fingers from wrapping gifts in cheap dollar store paper I picked up as I was stocking up on party bag tat. I’ve already baked a cake – the birth-DAY cake – and I’m already dreading having to bake again for the party. Less about the baking, and more about the damn Pinterest decorations I’ll be attempting to recreate on four-hours sleep with three kids baying in my ear and half a dozen party food items banked up on the bench awaiting attention.

Remind me again why we do this to ourselves? Because I’m pretty sure after our last big party (1), I said I was never doing it myself again.

Except in four weeks for the girls’ first birthday….

Best stock up on wine. I see a party in my future – and the kids aren’t invited.

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Jul 29 2016
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Life

My Year of Saying “Yes”

As the girls creep closer to turning one (6 weeks, OMG!!), I’ve started to reflect on what impact our new party of five has had on me. How I’ve changed. What I’ve learned, unlearned, let go of, and lost. Not only have I grown two beautiful little girls and helped shape a seriously funny little man this year, but I’ve also done a hell of a lot of growing myself.

One of the things I have always found difficult is asking for and accepting help. I suck at it at work (and am often reminded to delegate tasks) and I suck pretty badly at home too. Aside from organising a cleaner to come fortnightly after we had Toby, I just prefer to get on with things myself because I know they’ll be done the way I like it. I’m a control freak and I make life harder for myself because of it.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant with the girls I was overwhelmed with advice to get some help for when the babies came home. Every time my in-laws Skyped they would ask if we’d started looking for a nanny yet. I had absolutely no issues outsourcing the toilets and mopping, but when it came to getting help with the kids on non-daycare days I was hit with a massive case of mummy guilt.

“I should be able to look after my own kids!”

“Loads of other people do it themselves… some of them have more than three kids.”

“I’ve managed multiple major projects at work, I can do this.”

Of course I tried. I failed. I tried again.I had some success in the morning, but then the wheels fell off after lunch and I’d start message-bombing my husband to see how early he could be home to rescue me. My three little people literally sucked the life out of me. I’d like to say there was a defining moment or epiphany, but there wasn’t. It was just a big fat reality check and acceptance that I either accepted the help offered, or I ran myself into the ground.

Learning to say “yes” to help turned out to be one of the most empowering and humbling things I’ve ever done.

I’m not the most outgoing person in the world, so I find the attention that twins bring hard to deal with at times.  But I still need groceries, or to aimlessly wander a shopping mall once in a while a week.  I’ve had wonderful strangers offer to carry my pile of nappies to the Aldi checkout and said, gratefully, “yes”. I’ve accepted offers from people to feed my girls while I eat my lunch. I’ve had some amazing conversations with strangers with grown twins, a gorgeous older Chinese lady who was utterly fascinated by the girls and just wanted to talk and play with them, and an older couple in the supermarket who loaded my trolley contents onto the belt while sharing the story of how they found out they were expecting twins while in labour (!!!)

We got a nanny. She is awesome and the kids adore her.  It definitely took a few months to let go of my control hangups, but I”m now completely comfortable surrendering motherhood to her for a few hours while I run errands or meet a friend for lunch. The Threenager adores her and every week she teaches the girls a new trick. This week, they learned cuddles on demand. I melted as she said, “cuddles” and the girls took turns snuggling into her chest.

Having help on non-daycare days saves me from feeling like I’m always “angry mum”, or mum who always says no. It gives me the opportunity to spend some quality one-on-one time with the Threenager at the movies, Pokemon-hunting at the park, or having a cosy cafe lunch.  And the Threenager gets to go on exciting adventures to new parks, the beach or the zoo, that carting three kids to would otherwise put it in the “too hard” basket.

My multi-tasking skills have reached Ninja Master level.  I now boast the ability to negotiate daycare pickup while carrying two babies, a Threenager’s hand and his school bag. But recognising the logistical limitations of this, I also have no hesitation in parking up in the carpark and calling the daycare teachers to bring him out to the car if the afternoon has been curly. Or if I just can’t be bothered getting both babes out of the car.

I’ve started going to our local baby rhyme time on Tuesdays, and big kids rhyme time on Thursdays. Religiously. It’s a bit chaotic and we’re always late, but it’s a regular outing we all look forward to. I’ve met some great local mums, and the girls get lots of extra cuddles and play time.

Having a baby can be isolating. And it’s one of the few aspects of parenting where I feel that isolation is doubled at times because there are two babies. It’s incredibly easy to spend the day at home because the faff involved with organising and getting two babies (or all three) is overwhelming. Even pulling the gigantor pram out of the car to go for a walk can seem too much some days. That one is obviously not helped by a neighbourhood with no footpaths, and 30+kg of pram and baby to push around…

But my year of saying “yes” is getting me out the door. It’s forging new friendships. It’s led to conversations with strangers that have filled me with warmth and happiness and will stay with me for a long time. And it’s helping rebuild some of the bond that was lost with the Threenager when the girls came along and I was too busy to give him everything he needed.

Now I just need to learn to put away the washing people have kindly folded for me, instead of refolding half of it so it’s the way I like it!

 

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Jun 30 2016
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Life

Why I’m Taking a Family Timeout (and you should too)

Family

Love ya, but I just don’t want to see any of you for a day.

This weekend I’ve booked a night away at a hotel. Husband-free. Child-free.  20 glorious hours without anything to do other than sleep, read, watch movies and eat room service.

Can’t.Freaking.Wait.

Will I miss them? Maybe a bit. But this is all about ME, and finding a bit of my “self” again.

I’ve had a grand total of four nights away from my family in the past four years. That’s a lot more than some people, but after an intense twin pregnancy and a hectic nine months of Threenager and raising babies, I need a family timeout.

When my husband told me he would be heading to Singapore for two, six-day work trips in July and August, I knew the time had come. I needed to start the chaos with some calm… and a steaming hotel room bath, red wine, book and an enormous bed to myself is just the way to do it.

I have to laugh though. The husband keeps telling me that his work trips won’t be relaxing, or fun (no, honey). That he will have to fly economy because the work budget won’t allow business any more (oh the humanity!) But anything that involves a plane trip to another country, a cushy hotel, no kids in your ear and the option to eat/sleep and use the bathroom at will sounds like a bloody amazing holiday to me.

He’s never been solo with all three kids longer than four hours. Each of those times my outing (a haircut) has been timed for while the girls are napping. Of course they ALWAYS do their full two-hour nap for Daddy, so he only really has to deal with Toby. Too easy! So part of me is hoping he gets the intensive three kids experience – the grizzly, clingy non-sleeping babies; the whinging Threenager who suddenly needs an escort for every toilet trip and someone to dry his hands; the joy of cooking two dinners and having neither of them eaten. Just so he can understand why I don’t answer sometimes when he asks how my day was. I can’t. After 14 hours attending to every need of our three tiny dictators I’m too drained to do anything but close my eyes and meditate on my eyelids for a while.

I’m not expecting any chores to get done. I’m not expecting the house to be tidy when I get home. But I am hoping for some empathy, and the understanding that this break I’m taking from my life to raise our children isn’t long days visiting cafes and taking leisurely walks around the neighbourhood.

It’s bloody hard work this full-time parenting shit, and I have so much respect for women who choose to continue it over returning to work. For me, work gives me a mini-timeout to reset and recharge enough to be a happier, more balanced wife and mother.

Now if you need me, I’ll be planning which PJ’s and book to pack for my night away.

 

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Jun 28 2016
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Life

Dear Darren – A Letter to the Douche Who Crashed into my Car

An open letter to the douche who crashed into our car… because calling up and abusing you isn’t a smart thing to do (even though it would make me feel better).

Dear Darren

You probably remember me as the woman who made you late for your next courier delivery, after my car magically appeared out of thin air when you failed to Give Way at the roundabout. Your Mercedes Sprinter van with its huge bullbar had only minor scratches but you didn’t think it was driveable. And let’s not forget your broken reflector. A tragedy. My car, with its caved in passenger side didn’t “look that bad”…

Your concern for my twin babies in the car after I found I couldn’t open the passenger doors to check them was touching. “Oh God, I need my van for work!” you said.  “Yes, the babies and I are fine. Thanks for asking.”

Car damage

My bunged up baby

(By the way: I know your van was fine, Darren. I’ve Face-stalked you).

“It was all my fault… I just didn’t look”, you kept saying. No shit Sherlock. If only you’d stuck to the truth when we started the claims process; I’d have saved myself a week of constant phone calls and emails with the insurance and hire car companies laying out my side of the story.

I’m so very grateful that it wasn’t worse. Just another 30cm and Sophie’s door and car seat would have taken the brunt of the impact. It’s for this very reason we got the kid’s carseats professionally installed. It’s just so, so important to have a solid install “just in case”.

But back to you Darren – I’m soooo not finished my rant at you yet. Did you know that losing use of the car has been one of my biggest anxieties? With three kids under 4, and a home in an area not well serviced by public transport, that car is my best friend. Not to mention the fact it was brandfuckingnew and now it’s going to be patchedupafteranaccident.

And the inconvenience… let me tell you all of the hoops I’ve had to jump through since your lack of attention at that roundabout…

  • Van damage

    “Damage”

    No car for a week, resulting in cancelled plans and appointments.

  • Organising a hire car that arrived with no baby car seats. The ones in our car have been written off, so my husband had to drive an hour away to get some from the hire car depot after they didn’t have anyone available to deliver.
  • Getting an invoice from the baby hire company for the written off baby capsules – that $1000 invoice is on its way, Darren!
  • Only having room for 2 carseats in the hire car, so having to drive 2 cars everywhere if we want to go out as a family.
  • That time I public transported to the city and Live Tweeted the “adventure”. Soph’s face pretty much up how shit it was.
  • Having to walk to do daycare pickup – 15 minutes on hilly grass verges with 30kg of pram and babies and a tired three-year-old who now asks why “Douche Darren” broke our car.
  • The 10 minutes walk to the bus stop, to catch a bus to Lindfield that goes HOURLY and two out of three trips hasn’t been wheelchair/pram accessible even though the timetable said it was.
  • A week of phone calls to organise a replacement hire car that we could fit three car seats into. After an hour of install attempts we found we needed extensions for the car seat straps. YAY! Another shopping trip on public transport. This particular day is wet and 13 degrees. Thanks, Darren. (P.S. Another $60 invoice on its way for those, pal!)

Three weeks later, we finally have a car that fits the whole family (go the Kia Carnival!) The Threenager is loving his seat “in the boot” and I’ve worked out how to get the girls’ pram in the back too. We even have an ETA for getting our car back!

Unbelievably, the insurance companies are STILL haggling over liability. They’ve got to justify their extortionate premiums somehow I guess.

So next time you approach a roundabout Darren, just remember – look both ways as you approach, and always give way to traffic coming from your right.

Regards,

Kate

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Jun 09 2016
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Life

Note to Self: Where Are You?

Yesterday I blogged about owning your Supermum. Today is a post that’s been sitting in drafts for a while, and is a little more raw…

When I found out I was pregnant with the twins I got a lot of advice. Advice from people with singletons, twins, and 3+ children. The overwhelming consensus was to accept the chaos and mess for a year and just concentrate on getting through each day with some semblance of sanity intact.

But here I am, 8 months later, with what feels like more tidying and “things in their place” hangups than I did before kids. Stupid stuff like the kitchen table chairs needing to be pushed in and even; beds made; breakfast stuff put away, feeding the bunny… all of this before I’ve even had a shower or eaten my own breakfast. Those precious 30-90 minutes of morning sleep are the very time I should be prioritising myself over housework.

When did I become less important than tidying? Why does mess come before me?

I don’t know if it’s because I’m home all the time and want a bit of control in the chaos. Is my husband messier? Am I just suddenly noticing what was always there?

I resent the morning cleanup – even more so if I’m cleaning up from the night before. Recycling bottles, table mess from the Threenager’s dinner, dishes that haven’t made it to the dishwasher, random splashes and mess on the bathroom vanity. AN UNFLUSHED TOILET.

fun, friends

Smiles and laughs with amazing friends.

I don’t even feel like I can begin to change things. To prioritise myself. When almost my entire being is devoted to my children’s needs.

Part of me is tempted to return to work early, just to get back some of those simple things that so many people take for granted. Time to eat your lunch when you want to, not at 4pm when you’re ravenous but still have children crying to be picked up as you try in vain to reach for your sandwich on the table which is just…out…of…reach. Thirty quiet, uninterrupted minutes on the train to read a book. I can’t remember the last time I read something other than a supermarket catalogue…. and I love reading. Time spent doing something stimulating that doesn’t involve Lego or playing shops underneath a pile of sofa cushions.

We worked so hard to become parents – the infertility, IVF, miscarriages – and now I just want a break. Something longer than the four hours every 8 weeks I get to have my hair done. I fantasise about an entire day to myself but have no idea what I would do. I still feel utterly bound to the twins despite the fact they take a bottle and the husband says he handle all three for the day if I want to do something.

Why should I feel guilt about wanting some time to myself? It’s a cruel roundabout we sometimes put ourselves on.

So where do I start? Any advice?

 

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Jun 09 2016
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Life

Supermum

I get the “Supermum” thing a lot. It always makes me feel awkward and a bit silly because I’m really not. I’m just a mum who has moments of “super” in an otherwise fairly normal family life.

As parents (especially mums), we don’t tend to recognise or own the “super” in our everyday lives. When you’re a mother, you just get shit done. You don’t have the luxury of any time to yourself. No solo pees, no food when you actually want to eat it, no time to pluck your feral eyebrows or blowdry your hair. You have a 5 minute shower once the baby monitor goes quiet, then race to put the washing out, feed the animals, make breakfast, tidy up after the hurricane of mess your husband and child created in the six waking hours between arriving home and leaving again the next day….

I’m preaching to the choir here I know.

But last week I had a Supermum moment and dammit, I OWNED it.

Our beloved nanny (a must-have for twin families) is on holiday for a month, so I have the Threenager and bambinos solo two days a week until she gets back. I dread solo days. My anxiety starts building on Monday and by Wednesday morning I’m starting the day already on a knife-edge. My (best intentions) mantra is to just let everything go – expectations, plans, housework, mess-tolerance levels…  Some days all of the planets align and the kids are (mostly) awesome. Other days are pure hell and I start message-bombing the husband at 1pm asking when he’ll be home.

I started the day by deciding that I would just go with the flow and just roll with how things panned out… within reason obviously. I’d take a deep breath before yelling at the Threenager, and if the girls decided that catnaps were the way to go then I wasn’t going to waste 40 minutes trying to get them back down again.

And so it began. The girls’ breakfast was my usual failed attempt at trying to trick Ele into opening her mouth long enough to get a spoon in, while Soph took a few mouthfuls before starting to retch. Meanwhile, the Threenager is in the living room glued to Paw Patrol and refusing to eat his toast. Whatever… I know he’ll eat half the pantry before days end. I spend an hour getting him excited about a trip to the park which is actually just a trip to get me coffee with the bonus of a fenced playground next door.

The girls sleep…. for 30 minutes. Our new routine says 1.5 hours. FFFFAAARRRKKK.  I decide to attempt a resettle but their eyes are bugging out in their heads so I give up and start the dressing battle. Now the girls are crawling, it’s a bit like dressing an angry octopus… Times two… That insist on crawling all over each other at the same time. Five minutes later everyone is dressed. Supermum points on the board.

Getting everyone out the door probably looks like a slapstick comedy to the neighbours. It mostly is. I usually end up going back inside at least twice to grab drink bottles or jumpers or sunglasses. More than once I’ve gone out without my wallet. Most of the time I do manage to get out of the house within 10 minutes of my estimated go-time.  (We’ll just ignore the fact I don’t actually leave the driveway for another 10 minutes because the Threenager is playing hide n seek in the back seat, and one or more dummies is missing so the babies are losing their shit.)

We arrive at the cafe. Everyone is playing nice happy family. The Threenager grabs some books to read, we order, and the girls are happily chattering in their pram. I get to eat almost all of my banana bread by MYSELF!  Then it happens…

A woman and her elderly father were sitting at the next table. She leaned over and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but we’ve been watching you and your wonderfully behaved children. You are a Supermum. I couldn’t imagine getting out of the house with twins let alone three children!”  I thanked her and admitted that a lot of days didn’t go very well, but today we were rolling with whatever was thrown at us and so far it was going pretty well and I was feeling pretty “super” about it.

BOOM – Supermum-ness owned!

Sure, everything turned into a giant pile of crap at 4:30pm like it usually does, but at least I spared the husband a constantly beeping phone during his busy meeting day.

Next time you ace an outing or just get all the kids to sleep at the same time – OWN IT. Revel in your Supermum-ness. Share it on Facebook or with a cute, cuddly child pic on Instagram. Because the moment is always gone too bloody soon!

P.S: Sabrina Rogers-Anderson wrote a great post the other week about mindfulness when doing everyday tasks. She’s a fellow twin-mama and her advice to “Rock the Baby to Rock the Baby” has been added to my list of  baby-coping mantras. Worth a read if it hasn’t popped up on your Facebook feed already!

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Apr 04 2016
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Life

A Day in the Life

It’s Monday! Which actually doesn’t really mean anything in a world where the week is divided into “Reinforcement Days” (aka The Weekend), “Non-Daycare Days” (3 under 3 vs me) and just plain old “Days”.

Mondays are about the only real structured day we have in the Casa at the moment. Mr 3 is at daycare, the supermarket delivery comes, sheets and towels get changed and there are usually some errands to run. Today however, is wet. Two babies plus rain = sofa day.

7:26am: I’m awake. I’m sure you’re thinking I have it pretty sweet getting to sleep till then with three kids. It’s a nice little arrangement the Mr and I have fallen into. I get up in the night and he gets up in the morning. Sometimes it works out really well for him because Mr 3 stays put all night and then wakes up at 6:30am. Other days I’ve needed help overnight settling and Mr 3 has been in and out 6 times and we’re all walking zombies going through the motions of breakfast at 6am.  By the time I wake, the Mr is almost out the door to work and daycare drop-off so I get the baby update (time they got up, nappy status) and they’re gone.

Silence reigns. The living room is chaos. I vow to declutter Mr 3’s toys for the 17th week in a row.

8-8:30am: Skim the news headlines (aka Facebook feed) while the babies complete their morning rolling circuit around the living room. I get up several times to retrieve Explorer Soph from half-under the coffee table where she is intently inspecting the table leg.

8:45am: Message husband to ask what time the babies got up. This happens every single morning. He could tell me 10 times and I would still forget. Brain is fried. Look at floor to see The Explorer has fallen asleep on the mat. I take that to mean they’ve been up for 2 hours and it’s time for a nap.

8:50am: Where the hell is the supermarket order? We are now outside the selected three-hour delivery window and inside my 30-minute shower/washing/breakfast. Thanks Woolies! I change the sheets and make the beds. It’s Cleaner Eve, so I spend 20 more precious baby nap minutes vacuuming, wiping crusted pasta sauce from Mr 3’s place at the table, tidying up 356 pieces of Kinder Surprise toy and hunting for stray bunny poo.

9:20am: The baby monitor lights up. Dammit! Go in and see Ele with eyes wide open. We have the pep talk: “No no no no no. It’s not awake time yet. Mummy needs a shower. And food.” I plug her dummy back in, give her a few pats and back out slowly. There’s a 70-30 chance this won’t work.

9:30am: Soggy, harassed looking delivery driver arrives.  The rustle of the bags sounds like a maraca festival. Sleep babies, sleep.

9:35am: I race to the bathroom for my patented 2-minute shower. The babies are still asleep. I clearly earned some good karma over the weekend.

10am: Breakfast. And it’s not Easter Eggs. There are mental high-fives. Surely there is a badge for this shit. I look around for my orange juice, but it’s fallen victim to the baby brain. Maybe I didn’t even pour it.  I’ll never know.

I come across the story of baby Edison McLean, whose final day was captured by Sydney photographer James Day.  I cry a bucketload of tears. The photos and video are so raw and powerful. I smile at baby Eddy’s dad Charlie as he gives his precious son Kiss Attacks, just as we do our girls. It takes every ounce of strength not to go in and wake the girls and hold them. As if on cue, Ele wakes up.

10:30am: After ravenously attacking my neck as I carried them to the living room, I settle in to feed the baby vamps. I used to do this tandem, but it’s kinda nice to have the one-on-one time feeding. Plus having your chest scraped to pieces is more manageable when you’re only batting away one baby claw. I finish and start making a coffee.

12:30pm: I have no idea where the last two hours went. There are toys everywhere and amongst the mess, two babies. They’ve started interacting in the last few days, which is mainly stealing toys from each other and some pretty gnarly skin grabs. Still, it’s cute. We read a book – Guess What Colours – the babies are riveted. It ends with both babies chewing on the cover.

Babies reading

Rare vision of the babies sharing the same thing at the same time without tears.

12:45pm: Babies in bed. Finally drinking coffee. Spend my lunch break watching Part 2 of the Insight Twins special.

1:30pm: Soph’s awake. I leave her to free range the living room while I finish watching my doco. Ele wakes 15 minutes later. Ravenous. We feed then it’s back to the floor for some play time. Hit on an activity that combines their love of playing together and love of destruction by making various towers using Fisher Price roller blocks. Ele decides it’s the perfect time to commando crawl for the first time. I AM SO NOT READY FOR THIS.

3:45pm: Nap time. I should probably also put on at least one load of washing.  I open the machine to discover the Mr has put a load on already. The lights and darks are mixed and a tissue has gone through the wash but YOLO. (Can you even YOLO washing?)

4:30pm: Quick feed before heading off to get big brother from daycare. Since I haven’t been outside today and it’s dry, we head up in the mega-pram. This doubles as my exercise for the day so I change into my activewear. Ha! I bet you thought I’d been wearing it all day.

5:45pm: Daycare days are easy dinner days, so today’s creation is a guaranteed-to-be-eaten-without-a-tantrum snack plate of apple, grapes, ham, cheese and Mummy’s Special Meatballs (felafels). The next hour is a blur of feeding, changing, more changing (today is a “high poo count” day), settling babies and monitoring Mr 3’s food intake. This is my absolute least favourite part of the day and ranges from mildly tolerable to excruciating. Thankfully reinforcements – aka Daddy – arrive at 6:30pm.

7pm: Babies in bed. Wine glass filled. Annnnnd relaaaxxx… for five minutes before starting dinner and the goodnight ritual with Mr 3.

 

If you watched and were as moved by baby Edison’s story as I was, you can donate to the Royal Women’s Hospital Midwives Group Practice and NICU in Eddy’s honour. 

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Mar 07 2016
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Life

How Life Has Changed

I started making myself a coffee  at 9 o’clock this morning. It’s now 1pm and I STILL haven’t had it. Shit, the only thing I have done is turn on the machine to warm up (yep, definitely warm) and grind the beans. #kids right?

image

Five and a half months into adulting for three under three and any and all assumptions I made about how life would be have been smashed to pieces. I thought with one alive, relatively well-adjusted child under my belt, that wrangling twins wouldn’t be THAT much more of a stretch. Certainly not double. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the uncanny knack those two cute-but-torturous kids have to throw their “routine” (ha!) out the window by first nap.

How  has life changed with two babies and a toddler?

  • The meeting time on my coffee dates change at least twice because the babies are pulling an unusually long nap … or we get there 30 minutes early because they didn’t nap at all.
  • Some days the girls get so out of whack with their sleep that I need to take notes on when they woke, fed and went back down. Then I lose track and have no idea who is meant to be up, and who asleep. Usually the babies will let me know by screaming hysterically or falling asleep on the floor.
  • Sleep deprivation is part of the baby package. But being so tired, you’re overtired is the pits. Suddenly you get why your baby just won’t go to sleep when they’ve been up all day (or night, or both). Brain – GTFTS.
  • Mummy Guilt ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Are all the kids getting the same amount of attention/hugs/kisses? I know I’m yelling at the 3-year-old more than I should. I shouldn’t need a nanny to help on non-daycare days. Should I be taking the twins to more activities? If only mummy guilt was guilt at the time you’re NOT spending taking care of yourself… like ever.
  • Yes, I have lost all my baby weight. No, I haven’t been doing any exercise. My exercise is feeding two babies with my own body, jiggling said babies to sleep and pushing 15kg of megapram and 12kg of baby around on grassy verges because the local council has something against footpaths in our area.
  • I get way too excited when I find something that will put food on the table with a minimum of fuss or effort. My current faves are:
    • Cutting up veges when we get them and bagging them up. Dinner is as easy as a few handfuls in a salad or frying pan.
    • A 10-minute recipe that actually takes 10 minutes – even with fussy babies. Banana Bread by Aldi Home Cook is my current fave.
    • Serving up leftovers from the meals I’ve prepped for Toby. Which is usually the ENTIRE bloody thing because he refuses to eat anything other than fish fingers and plain spaghetti these days.
    • Something made by the husband while I nap on the sofa
  • I make constant apologies to friends who haven’t received a reply to a voicemail or text a week (or more). By the time I get a spare minute it’s 9 o’clock and the only thing I’m capable of is the zombie walk to bed.
  • Twins aren’t that unusual, but people will still stop and stare or comment (Double Trouble!) when you are near. Maximum patience is also tested when bailed up by old people asking 101 questions including how you birthed them.
  • Watching the toddler interact with the babies sometimes makes me feel like I”m going to implode. My heart is so full and my eyes brim. Every day at daycare pickup he greets them by cupping their faces one at a time and saying, “How are you my beautiful, sweet girl? I missed you today.”
  • Despite regular reminders, sometimes the babies both lose their shit at the same time. I was at a park with my new Mother’s Group and both babies started up.  Everyone literally stopped and stared to see what I would do. After unsuccessfully trying to settle them for a few minutes, someone offered a  hand. And what did stupid me say, “no thanks!” Because you should be able to settle your own babies right? Fucking mummy guilt.
  • I literally lose hours of my day smushing and snuggling the kiddos. Seriously. Hide and seek snuggles or playing trains with the toddler. Big smiles and chats with the girls. I can go a whole day and not go outside once.
  • I spent 30 minutes getting ready for our one big night out of the month – the childcare disco. The irony being I see most of these parents every day (sometimes non-shower days!) in my activewear, no makeup, glistening and probably a bit fragrant from the 10 minute trek to school with the megapram. The only difference today being the teacher is leaping around to “Everything is Awesome” with crazy yellow sunnies on and his hair in pigtails.
  • I’m getting too comfortable with feeling like I have no brain left at all – because I’m so spent by the end of the dinner/bath/bed routine that my brain is as literally as useful as a head full of spaghetti. I can’t work out how to get off the sofa I collapsed onto, let alone come up with ideas for bloody dinner. Toast anyone?
  • Touching. Lots. All day. Two babies hanging off your chest. Toddler lying across your legs or playing with your toes. Pity the poor husband needing his own cuddle time with the touched-out wife.
  • I’ve learned not to feel bad about skipping the healthy salad or wrap for lunch in favour of biscuits. Because everyone knows the 5 minutes you save by pulling biscuits out of a tin, means five more minutes you can spend on the sofa watching Mac and the team on CSI New York.
  • I swear the only washing produced in this house are little boy undies and socks, and onesies. I have no idea if the husband and I are actually changing our clothes regularly or we just forget and rewear the same stuff. Either that or there is a large unwashed pile of t-shirts, boxers and underwear that I’m yet to discover…
  • I had a good belly laugh at the hairdresser when she suggested I “forget the boring mum bun/pony” and try a style that shows off my cut. That would involve clean hair that has been dried with something fancy like a hairdryer, rather than a hasty towel or (gasp!) air dry. Currently my showers fall under one of three categories:
    1. Non-existent: By the time I get a break long enough it’s too late and I’m too bloody tired. Yes, I’m dirty and I don’t care.
    2. Interrupted – one or both babies inexplicably wake hysterical 20 minutes into their nap and I’m forced to wade out dripping wet after a hasty rinse of the shampoo coating my hair, never to return to complete the job.
    3. Blink and you’ll miss it – literally in and out in a minute. If we didn’t do so much washing (or bathe three kids) our water bill would be tiny.

And don’t even get me started on the realities of “sleeping when the baby sleeps” or “never waking a sleeping baby”.

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Feb 26 2016
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Life

Nothing is Private… Ever

Blogging and social media are so intertwined in our daily lives we think that posting in a so-called private Facebook group or Instagram means our information will remain just that… forgetting thousands of others are also seeing that photo, video or comment.

I’ve seen countless posts in Facebook groups become “news” stories on the Daily Mail, quickly followed by group members raging about how they shared the information in a private group and the journalist should be censured. “But this group isn’t private”, I smugly thought to myself. It has 25,000 members!!

So why was I so shocked when someone took my ultrasound from this post and used it to join a twin pregnancy group on Facebook?

Because I FOUND OUT ABOUT IT.

But it wasn’t just me. It was my babies as well. My cub protection instincts were in overdrive along with the postpartum hormones flooding my baby-ravaged brain.

The fact someone took note of my name (on the ultrasound) and went to the effort of creating a fake Facebook profile and pretty convincing background story to sell themselves to group admins was creepy as hell.

The alert admin who contacted me about the fake profile was apologetic, and explained they came across 2-3 such profiles each week. People’s motivations varied – some were collecting material for pregnancy fetish groups, others had suffered a bereavement but still wanted to “experience” twin pregnancy through others. Some just did it for kicks.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t share any belly shots in the group, but it kinda weirds me out to think of someone getting freaky to a pic of my unnaturally stretched and ridiculously uncomfortable multi-baby belly home.

The experience has been a sharp reminder to be careful about how and where I share images of my children. Even in settings where a level of relative privacy is presumed.

As soon as you hit publish, your content can and will end up somewhere it’s not meant to be.

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Oct 18 2015
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Life

And then there were three

It’s been a while, and oh how life has changed. Big time.

Toby still doesn’t sleep. He got there for a while but then he learned how to climb out of his cot, we moved into a toddler bed and hello we’re back to (multiple) nocturnal visits… although this time it’s him visiting us.

And then this happened…

twin pregnancy, ultrasound, twin ultrasound, identical twins

Our 10-week ultrasound left us speechless

After two miscarriages, we had tentatively started another ICSI cycle with IVF Australia – netting one perfect embryo for transfer. We got a positive pregnancy test. Then a blood test confirmed it. At six weeks an ultrasound detected a perfect beating heart.

Still scarred after our most recent miscarriage (we lost an IVF pregnancy at 7 weeks), we booked in for 10-week NIPT testing to rule out genetic disorders. I was shaking and my heart was racing as I lay down for our pre-test ultrasound, willing the heartbeat to still be there. The images rendered on the TV screen and we didn’t register the double blobs until the ultrasound tech mentioned the word, “both”. “Both babies are looking good.”

Both?

Neil literally lost all colour in his face and I lost all ability to say anything other than “Oh my God”. There were TWO babies on the screen. Twins!

Having only transferred a single embryo, the tech confirmed they were monoamniotic dichorionic (MODI) or identical twins. And so began what was to be a long, often uncomfortable and very emotional journey.

30 weeks, a new house, bigger car and 25 long days in Special Care later – and these two angels are curled up together on my lap.

identical twins

Eleanor & Sophie

Whirlwind? Yes. And it literally feels like it  has passed in a nanosecond.

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