Posts tagged as:

parenting multiples

Saving the day in a kitchen near you

by Myg on October 12, 2011

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Someone please explain to me exactly how I’m supposed to function with this kind of awesome under foot every day?

So much is new it’s hard to keep track of it all. They are now 2 years and closing in on 9 months old. They started preschool half days in September and have had runny noses pretty much constantly ever since they started, but it doesn’t seem to slow them down much.

They now say things like, “This is my family!” and “See you next later everybody!” and “It’s okay, Mom,” (usually when I am flailing because we are late for school or I am out of coffee or someone has dumped their milk and Cheerios all over the kitchen floor for the third time this morning). They go to school and if one of them is feeling shy, you can be fairly confident his brother will take him by the hand and say, “Come on, let’s play.”  And it’s hard not to get all teary eyed when you see it because that’s what you want with twins, that they have each other’s backs.

All that said, they are not even remotely interested in using a toilet for its intended purpose. I’m back and forth over whether to encourage them more or to let them take it at their own pace. It’d be real nice to be done with diapers, not gonna lie, but there’s also part of me that thinks they grow up fast enough. Why pressure them to move even faster? So for now we’re just letting them be, and waving big boy under pants around every so often saying, aren’t these cool? To mild interest, at best.

This child development stuff happens so subtly, feels like it’s hidden in the context of all this working and going to school and running around and not sleeping enough so that you hardly seem to notice most of the time. Then one day you look over and two superheroes are clamoring for the prime spot in the photo op. And that’s when you see it, right? That’s that epic expanse of life experience crammed into the few years we call childhood, right there, blinking its big ole’ candied eyes at you, all those memories you keep with you your whole life and pull out when you need to feel safe and loved and hopeful about the world being a magical, good place after all. It’s right here, in the kitchen in its new superhero costume waving and smiling and saying, Hey! Isn’t this awesome?

Yes. Yes it is.

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Worth it

by Myg on April 24, 2011


Raindrop

I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say today, other than something along the lines of, “Jesus Befuckity, that was the shittiest put-down for bed that I can recall in ages.” And the reason for that is Easter, but in being fair to Easter, it’s not really Easter’s fault. It’s the fault of me wanting to be accommodating and sacrificing the boys’ 2-hour nap so we could go to Easter dinner at 1pm (which is when their nap normally starts). They fell asleep in the car, of course, on the way there and on the way home at 6pm. And then they screamed, and screamed, and screamed when it was time for bed at 8pm.

Felt just like it was April 2009 all over again, except not really because back then the screaming was on and off around the clock. Now it’s just on occasion but it still sucks, sometimes worse because you know that they are getting to the point where maybe they will remember that you just had to walk out of the room while they were screaming and close the door behind you. As much as it killed me to do that and listen to them from down the hall with my hands half over your ears, sure enough within five minutes they were sound asleep. But I still feel terrible.

Of course, that final move of leaving them to their shrieking happened after going back into the nursery to console them six different times, six different ways, over the course of an hour and 45 minutes, and every damned time I went in it got worse. Let that be a lesson to me.

I would say that the shrieking and the guilt weren’t worth it, except I kind of think they were, because it was Easter and our family got together and we had some good moments.

And I’m all about the good moments.

Hope all your holidays were less shriek-ful than ours, but every bit as happy.

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Happy Holidays!

by Myg on December 22, 2010

I have a confession: I used to hate Christmas.

That’s right, and I won’t go into all the reasons why, but let’s just say that when I was a kid, Christmas was the time of year that reminded me most of all the things in the world I wanted that weren’t mine, and I’m not talking barbies and ponies and bikes, because I had those things in spades. I’m talking about those things you feel like you’ve lost when you’re a kid and your family falls apart in several different ways at once and you have no idea of what the future holds.

But now I think I know what the future holds.

No, wait. I meant this.

And a little of this:

What I mean to say is, I think the future holds hope for us all.

Love,
Myg

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Movers, shakers.

by Myg on January 6, 2010

Sit STILL!

Do you know how many drafts of unfinished blog posts I have sitting in my wordpress dash? Three hundred fourty eleven. Truth be told, I don’t even know, but it’s a lot.  I’ve had a lot to say, but as yet have been unable to say it. Therefore, a bullets post.

  • Dude, you have no idea how busy I’ve been, what with the show, the holidays, a crazy amount of work to finish by year’s end and all that parenting stuff. You probably do know, but you may not know what an added layer of insanity the show was. I’m talking about being up every night until 1am or so practicing my guitar through headphones so I could possibly not suck after not playing for so long. The sleep deprivation reminded me of how much I need sleep to not just be an asshole to everyone. Up until 1am is not so bad until you remember your kids are up at 7am every day, NO MATTER WHAT, unless it’s today and they’re up at 6 for no god damned reason. And I know – we are lucky that our kids sleep like this. The question is, are we stupid for playing a show when we have no time to play our guitars?
  • Stupid or not, here we come.
  • I don’t know what that means in terms of us playing future shows. Don’t read into it.
  • Do you see that picture above? Those monsters are my sons, Doot and Bing. They will be a year old on the 22nd of this month. I cringe when I think of it. They are SO BIG (\0/). 
  • Every day I whisper quietly into their soft hair, “Can you stay my baby just a little while longer? Please?” I try not to say it audibly most of the time because I don’t want them to grow up with a complex. I don’t *really* want a 35 year old Doot and/or Bing living with me or off me. Okay, that’s a lie. I secretly dream of having my kids live with me forever and that at least one of them will get some girl pregnant in high school so I can marvel at a grandbaby while I can still walk without a cane. I’m actually not even sure if I’m kidding about that.
  • That’s fucked up.
  • Doot has 8 teeth. Bing has 2 and a half.
  • They eat EVERYTHING. They are great eaters. Messy as shit though.
  • This post is so ”eh” right now I’m going blind.
  • Fuck it, I’m posting it anyway.

It was nice to see you again. Thanks for reading.

Oh, and a little PS bullet, that has nothing to do with this post.

  • To my friend, Ms. Snarkier Than You over at Twitarded, OH MY GOD. I’m incredulously doped up on Twilight (the book). I made Alex (Mr. Wisermom) go out and buy me New Moon last night (which I haven’t seen yet, even though some innocent yet asshatish youngster told me the ending yesterday when she saw I was reading Twilight. Doh!) because I was getting too close to the end and, ugh, how can I be sagaless? As soon as I post this, I’m closing my office door and busting out New Moon. I need some “me” time.

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In the path of dead dreams

by Myg on December 16, 2009

Well, you think those dreams are dead, anyway, and then one day you discover that they are very much alive in you. And you can’t say that’s good, and you can’t say it’s bad. It just IS. Like the fact that you have green eyes or a hot temper or a certain weakness for guys doing yard work.

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You thought it was over. Been there. Done that. You were Wrong. Very, very wrong.

Prosolar Mechanics, WE Fest Wilmington NC 2000

Prosolar Mechanics, WE Fest Wilmington NC 2000

It’s not over at all. But you have no idea what that means.

And that’s okay.

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And then, and then…

by Myg on November 30, 2009

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And then the next thing you know, WOOSH. They’re graduating from college and you’re out your retirement fund.

I should really be calling this post a placeholder. It’s holding the place for a lot of things I need to tell you about. Like, the fact that the boys turned 9 months old. And then, about 15 minutes after we ordered their 9 month old commemorative plates and matching cup set, they turned 10 months old. And then they had their first Thanksgiving and their first bath in the big bath tub together. And then I cried because they are too adorable and too sweet to believe and I’m still not home with them every day like I should be and I know, and you know, kindergarten is right around the corner and what then? What THEN?

I know there are women out there who are okay with being working mothers. I salute them. I’m just not one of them. Meaning, I am a working mother. In fact, I am the sole provider working mother right now. But I’m not okay with it, other than the fact that it is what is and I have to be okay, in the most general of terms.

I also have to tell you about the band. Oh lord, the band. That’d be my band, whose name shall not be mentioned here because I’m having interweb crossover identity issues. I went back into private practice a few months ago (I’m an LCSW therapist type for kids, yo) and I just do not want people I work with finding this blog. We’re playing in 26 days (crap pants here) and this is the first time we’ve played in 8 years, almost to the day.

Before I became a mom, and before I became a therapist, I was a musician. I was very serious about it. I never had the kind of financial or  commercial success I’d hoped for, but I did make all kinds of music with all sorts of fantastic people and it made my life better. And now I’m doing it again and it feels so strange and familiar and like I’m traveling back in time but yet not. Like straddling two decades when your straddler is a little out of alignment.

And that’s just the good stuff, but that’s what I’m trying to fill my head with these days. And yours too.

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When babies attack

by Myg on November 12, 2009

I would say it isn’t pretty, but it is.

When babies attack from Myg on Vimeo.

Doot and Bing, 9 months, 2 weeks and 6 days old.

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Sometimes I want ten, no lie

by Myg on November 6, 2009

Bringing the cute, right here, right now.

Liam, 9 month Philosopher from Myg on Vimeo.

And it’s moments like these that make me ache to be younger and not infertile so I could have two or seven or nine more.

Then, maybe mother nature knows what she’s doing.

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Seven Months

by Myg on August 21, 2009

Bing and Doot, my darlings,

You’ve been on the outside for seven whole months now, which is nearly as long as you were on the inside. So if you think of it, from zygote to now you’ve probably gagoopled your size several times, not to mention your cute factor.  To be honest, I’d really love to credit myself with your good looks, but I don’t know how anyone could buy it. I think I’ll attribute some to your father, some to the innate bias inherent in parenting, and some to science.

Bing!

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Your excellent dispositions, however? All me.

Okay, maybe not ALL me. But a lot me. Or so I like to tell your family, friends and assorted admirers.

As of this week I’ve started to work a little more often, a little harder, outside of the house making some money to keep us all in diapers and dog biscuits. I won’t kid around, it’s been a strange thing to spend fewer hours a day with you. The strangest thing being that I leave you in the morning, am gone for many hours, come home for dinner and baths and you are both different. You are more here. More you. Less mommy appendage.

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In some ways this breaks me. In most ways, this is simply the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

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People who see pictures of you ask me, “Are they total opposites in their personalities?” I don’t know why they’d ask such a thing.

Happy Clown Sad Clown

To that I unilaterally answer No. What you are is individuals, close in temperament to myself and your father. I am hoping that since he and I have been compatible for oh, the last 22 years or so, that the two of you will get on similarly well, and perhaps with less bickering over guitar gear, but probably not.

Which brings me to some news. Your father and I have been asked to put the band back together for a special show celebrating the mid-90s music scene in New Brunswick. We, of course, jumped at the opportunity. Why? Because we are totally f*cking INSANE. Insane for sound, insanely eager for any opportunity to have our asses kicked (as your simultaneous appearance into our lives proves) and insanely committed to raising you both to never, ever forsake your dreams or those things that make you who you are.

Mom and dad bring the rock, 10 years ago

Mom and Dad bring the rock, 10 years ago

I have done a little too much of that lately, but it’s about to change.

Unfortunately, that means you’ll be having more babysitting. The good news? It’ll probably be your grandparents who will likely let you stay up late and eat ice cream behind our backs. Good for them.

At this point, I feel inclined to include some kind of poignant hand wringing about how fast it’s all going, how much I already miss those tiny helpless newborns you used to be, how precious every second with you is and has been, how my love for you seems to outpace the expansion of the universe and can hardly be contained by human physiology or explained in human language.

Sure, I can go there.

But my darlings, it’s 5pm Friday and instead, I think I’d like to rush home for dinner and bath time, where I can be in it instead of just describing it.

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Bing takes a bath.

May we spend the rest of our days together more inside the good feeling than outside, remembering how good it was.

All my love forever and ever,

Mama

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The truth about twins

by Myg on July 24, 2009

IMG_1916It was one of those Very Shitty Days when neither baby would take a significant nap, which wasn’t the worst part, the worst part being that the longer they went without napping, the more wretched their moods became. They take after me, after all.

It got so bad today I had to just put them down in their cribs, screaming, and walk away.  I was actually getting pissed off. Like, at them. There’s little that I’ve experienced in the world that compares with the feeling of being pissed off at them, either. I mean come on. They’re babies. How do you get pissed off at babies? It’s not like they like being miserable and overtired. But today there was something about the persistent double whining, uhhnnn uhhhhnnnn ggggnnnuuuuhhh mmgggnnnuuuuhhh, lasting hours upon hours, a tide I could not with my best mommy tricks stem, getting louder and louder and, could it get louder? Oh yes! It could! Until it crescendoed all the way into desperate double wails of misery. And then the coughing, sputtering, choking on the cries. Jesus Maria and Jose already.

When I felt that anger well up inside of me I had to just walk away. Had to. Because for a second there I got desperate myself, and in that second I could glimpse into the world of a child abuser, no lie.

It scared me.

(And many thanks to those of you out there on Twitter who provided me much needed back-up in the midst of my angst; this means you @Jells, @averygoodyear, @mommyisrocknrol.)

To compound matters, their father is escaping this weekend again to work on his MFA thesis, which is due 8/3. He’s panicking about getting it all perfect, of course, while I’m panicking about being left alone with my sons for 48 hours. I feel no small amount of pathetic for that, either. Which leads me to the truth about twins.

Twins are really, really, really, really hard.

A friend of mine is the father of 22 year old boy twins and when I was pregnant he warned me that having twins would kick my ass. Ha ha, I’m sure, I said.

A few months ago I told him, I know you said it would kick my ass, but shit, this is really kicking my ass hard. I’ve been around, done a lot of things. I’ve worked in psych hospitals, crisis centers, juvenile detention, toured in a rock band. Did a lot of hardcore stuff, you know? This doesn’t come close to any of that.

He said, My dear, I was in COMBAT in Viet fucking Nam. Having twins? Harder.

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