Weekend Update

Firstly, thank you so much for the birthday wishes. I really appreciate it! The time around my birthday each year generally sucks, so I wasn't necessarily surprised that plans would be falling through left, right and upside-down. In the end, we went to the departmental event and each wore a baby in a carrier, as it turned out that the catering company had miraculously gotten it's crap together and actually staffed enough people at the event so that H didn't have to do any keg-pumping. And I got to have three beers, none of which I had to wait in line for, and I got to eat brats and kraut (which I also did not have to wait in line for) and got to chat with a few colleague-friends, which was also nice. We did end up with sitter #1 meeting us at the event, but ultimately decided since the boys were being extra clingy and fussy that we would rather just keep them with us, and put off the whole babysitting thing for another time.

There is an enormous Oktoberfest in our town next weekend which we have definitely enjoyed in the past (here would be a link to a post written about Oktoberfest two years ago, if I had managed to actually finish up the whole blog conversion/clean-up/privatizing baloney yet... just imagine a witty description of me drinking a little too much and saying dumb things while polka music swells in the background and German flags flutter in the breeze), so maybe we will attempt a sitter again then? Or maybe we'll just take the boys with us, and I'll once again make H be the designated driver so that I can get slightly buzzed and relax a little. As long as they aren't screaming in the carriers, I'm okay with keeping them out a little past their bedtime (especially since they generally sleep while being worn).

This weekend has been relaxing, mostly because we've been able to sleep in just a bit, and because whatever burr was up Henry's butt about not going to sleep without me has been excised and he will, once again, happily drift off with Papa. And Jack will still sleep in the bassinet mostly, which means that I can actually get some solid sleep without contorting myself around an infant and/or feeding an infant all night. FOR NOW.

I had a refreshing conversation today at Target with a set of young parents who were there with their 13-month-old twin girls. And they confirmed what I had hoped to be true, which is that there are degrees of hard and easy, and that what counts as hard for singleton moms is not the same as that for multiple moms. (Forgive me if any of you among my readership have said the following to me, but...) When I sob about the lack of sleep killing me, the most UN-helpful thing in the world is one of my singleton mom friends chirping about how it only gets harder. Really? Thanks for telling me that. When I'm literally in tears, with my eyes peeling, my brain a fuddled illogical mess incapable of even beginning to sort out sleep issues, I really need to hear that it gets worse. And see, the thing is that this statement is fundamentally unproveable. Because what's worse for you may very well be a walk through the park for me. Maybe the lack of sleep is the thing that is the most devastating to me, and maybe (just maybe) mine just might sort this sleep thing out, and maybe even sooner rather than later. Maybe it frustrates the crap out of me that they lay there like lumps, unable to do much to entertain themselves. Maybe it would be super-awesome to me to be able to hold a hand and have someone toddle around instead of me trying to figure out how to not break my back all day carrying around floppy babies.

Anyhow, my point is that it's a little silly to put the cart before the horse, especially knowing that things are just plain different for multiples. While things may suddenly become nightmarish for you when your has-been-easy-to-handle baby suddenly starts crawling rapidly toward certain danger, they may, in fact, suddenly become entertaining (FINALLY) for me. And frankly, in my informal survey of twin mamas, the consensus seems to be that while it never truly gets to be really, really easy, hard is just relative, and furthermore, most of the twin parents I speak to say that the worst is behind us, knowing that the complete insanity of two fresh-to-the-world babies/fresh-to-the-world parents is wearing off.

So. My point is that I don't need to be frightened by well-intentioned strangers, and found it quite refreshing today to speak in person with a stranger who confirmed what I hoped might be true, that the truly crazy hard part may, in fact, be waning.

Lastly, there's this:



And a rare one of these:

(Kate in FRONT of the camera, not behind! Crazy!)


I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I had a pretty okay one myself.