Thursday, October 7, 2010

No they will never understand...

In talking with all you twin mama friends, I hear and I say "nobody understands" but you all.  Why of course they don't how the hell could they, and why does it matter. Simple answer it doesn't matter, and it would not make us feel better if they did?  Only we can understand how hard it can be, how isolating it is, and also how wonderful it is!!!  Even our husbands don't get it, and we get irritated by that, like would it make a difference in how we feel or how our day goes if they knew exactly how we felt?  No it wouldn't, it may make us feel more validated in our stressed out meltdown moments to know they don't think we are crazy, and they know just why the littlest things bother us...or set us into meltdown crying over no vacuum bags in the house.  Yes, I did do that not so long ago, it was pure craziness, but a stressed mama wants to clean, well this one does anyways LOL.  I have really been thinking of this a lot lately because here I am a stay-at-home mom that wants to do so much with her life, but  (dare I say it) a bit held back but all the time and efforts that go into raising my children.  Now would I change that?  NO WAY, but that doesn't change the fact that it hurts to want to get up and go pursue a career, or a great love of a hobby.  I just can't, no time and NO ENERGY to do much other than cook three meals a day, clean up after those three meals, give at least two baths a day, scrub the floor a few times, pick up the toy bomb that goes off at least half a dozen time each day, and take a moment to breath after all the children are in bed.  And to all you working mamas that ask what do you stay-at-home moms do all day?  Grrrrrr watch soaps and do my nails duh what else, I don't think so, I can't even get up and take a pee when I want without a couple of shadows and a tantrum later.  Back to the point, there is no way anybody will ever understand what I do each day, or how I am feeling, so I guess now that I have finally excepted that, I can get over it and move on.  Not only do they not the frustrations of being a mother of twins, the do not understand just how wonderful it is raising two children that have an amazing bond, and get that opportunity to see them interact in such cute and precious ways.  So what is it that brought me here to blog about this?  Many of things, but one is today as I had to get out of this crazy zoo I call a home, so we went shopping.  Yes I took my 17-month-old rambunctious twin boys shopping at 2 different stores.  Oh and one of them was soooooooooo not twin friendly, barely fit through the front door with my double stroller (really come one I am not the only one in this town with two children in a stroller, accommodate PLEASE!!!), and the other had let the twinarazzi loose.  It was stressful, but fun as well.  My two little goofs cruising in the stroller just fascinated by everything from the sparkly jewelry to the clothes that would brush up against them and make them giggle, now something that little can make you smile and rethink how stressed and how you almost for a moment regretted even attempting to get out into the world past your gated off living room.  So after the giggles and eyes full of wonder, my mood had lightened, then on the way home I look in the rear view and see to blue-eye, blond cuties smiling at each other and talking to each other in a language only they can understand.  So who cares if we are all misunderstood, we are blessed beyond all belief with the two little miracles that have made us recreate ourselves and they way we live and think.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Benchmarks

I'm LDS, and because I am, I spend the first weekend of October in my pajamas, watching eight hours of church on TV; and on Saturday evening my husband and older sons put on their white shirts and ties and go to the church building to watch two more on closed-circuit television.

That's irrelevant to anything except for this: Two years ago on General Conference weekend, while my husband and sons were at that meeting, I took a pregnancy test that turned my life upside down.

I didn't know how far upside down until an ultrasound two weeks later.

So here I am now, the 44-year-old mother of 17-month-old twins. In a single day I can clean up a half-pound of butter from the floor and two sets of little hands, brace myself against the auditory onslaught of two preteen girls singing along to YouTube videos, consider the impending costs of Driver's Ed for my freshman son, breathe a sigh of relief that my 21-year-old figured out what was wrong with his (our) truck and look forward to his and his 18-year-old brother's planned visit home from what was supposed to be just a summer working together three hours away. Now the eldest plans to stay all year, and the younger is determined to attend spring semester away from home. He wants, in fact, to get there as soon as possible. I'm left wondering if the short time we all had together last Christmas will be the only Christmas I will have with all my children and only my children.

Most poignant has been my attempts recently to teach Jonathan, my verbal twin, how to say his big brothers' names so that they won't feel as bad about being away from home while their little brothers are growing up as I feel about having them away.

It's a complicated life.

It's strange to think of all that's happened in the last two years--besides the twins' birth. My second son graduated high school; my third son entered high school. We moved from the northernmost end of the state to the southernmost, and my eldest son moved with us (and therefore, back home). Three weeks of job-hunting later, he and his brother suddenly were offered work at a resort in the Sawtooths, and the next day they were both gone--one moving back out, the other moving out for the first time, literally overnight. Nothing over the past 24 months has occurred as I expected, beginning with that General Conference weekend when I thought I'd put some stress to rest with a ten-dollar pregnancy test.

And I can look forward and know that there's more to come. My eldest is 21, an age at which I was married; within two years he'll be almost 24, older than his father was on our wedding day. My second will either prepare to serve a two-year mission beginning in early summer, or he will assert his agency as his brother did and choose not to go; either will be a monumental event. My third son will reach our family's threshold age for dating, and significantly will also demonstrate whether he will be a solid, dedicated scholar like one of his older brothers, or a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy like the other, or (more likely) some other stress-inducing brand of student for his parents to fret over. My daughter will enter junior high. She will likely get her period and her first bra; she's already showing signs. The boyos, of course, will go from toddlerhood to preschoolers with all the growth that attends that.

And me. I'll move onto the wrong side of my 40s, dragging my aching knees and bad hip with me, and doing my best to enjoy the pivotal moments of motherhood the next two years will bring. I'd never have imagined myself as the mother of so many children in so many stages of life, but it does make one thing clear. The days--they can be long...but, oh, the years are short.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Time Flying Fast

I think we are all in the same boat as I have been reading the recent posts, that time is flying quicker than we thought. I never thought time would fly fast with kids, but boy was I wrong. My duo will be 2 in March...2!!!! I can remember being at the doctor's office being told I was pregnant, then 5 months later SUPRISE your having twins!!! I have to say I am just not with the pictures as the rest of you have been, and I think I will regret it majorly! We even bought a new video camera but it sits in our closet waiting to be used. I regret not putting more into these guys, I had started their scrapbook but now it's laid dormant for about 3 months. Working with Special Ed kids sucks the life out of me, and when I get home it's all I can do from crashing to spend time with my kids. I wonder if I will look back and become sad that I haven't spent more time capturing the moments of their growing up. I am thinking once they turn 2, it will be soon they will enter into preschool. We are preparing to change daycares from one that is basically babysitting to one that teaches, it will be a hard move since they are used to the one daycare but I really want them to get their education started, although we do read and count at home.

I think for my birthday I am going to ask for a better camera, the one I have is not bad but I need one where it's easy to post the pictures without having to do many steps. Any suggestions? I am not looking to spend over $300, the one I have is about $100 so I have to watch what I buy. I really want to capture as all of you have been doing so wonderfully, each step of their growth. I do get professional photos taken 3 times a year but it's the natural at home photos I am lacking in, well not lacking just too damn lazy to put them up on the pc. I need some advice, and some encouragement to do so. Heck, blogging right now is hard cause I just want to sit and veg when the kids are down for their naps on the weekends...its constant go go go from M-Fri from work to home; although I will say for those that are SAHM...BLESS YOUR HEARTS, I AM IN AWE OF YOUR GREATNESS...just the weekends alone with my duo tax me out, cant imagine 24/7...though I know I will miss out in the end.

I swear I am just rambling on here, guess I just need to really think about what I want to say before sitting behind a computer and just blogging. I guess the overall message is I feel I am missing out on their lives by choosing to go to work, but then it's not a choice I have made lightly due to the fact my husband is unemployed since the construction business took a major dive here in California. Going from making $80k to virtually nothing has been very very tough on us all, and I just hope somewhere he can find something else to make as a career. My goals are to go back to school once he is back on his feet, I'll do part-time schooling as I want to spend time with the kids, getting them prepared for school and I may even dabble in home-schooling for the first couple of years and enter them into school around 2nd grade, but we shall see about that. Anywho, thanks for letting me ramble and putting things out there...maybe I'll be able to look back on this blog and say WTH were you talking about?? LOL

Kelli