Admissions: The Futility of Regret, and the Practicality of Do-Overs

I've only been a mother for a little over 18 months. Some days I feel like I've got this whole parenting gig down pat, and other days it feels like I am watching myself slowly unravel in my own piloted sitcom that has just shifted into the Friday Night Death Slot. Taking lots of pictures, journaling our day-to-day vibe, and blogging about it has become a habitual release. At first, I couldn't understand while I felt the urge to chronicle these events, but it's all pretty clear now: One day in the not-too-distant-future when I'm a seasoned old veteran of a mother, I can look back on the parenting days of yore and write an entire book with "No Regrets" worked somewhere into the subtitle.

Problem is ... I've already got regrets aplenty, and a good deal of the damage done is irreversible. I figure that realizing, internalizing, and then vocalizing my deficits as a mother would be best applied while using the catharsis of humor and self-deprecation as a coping mechanism. If anything, it'll be a good reference point for when I'm grandparenting, since we all know that grandparents are a little sadistically twisted in that they enjoy watching new parents stumble around blindly in the dark making loads of the same mistakes they once did. The offspring will be too proud to ask us for advice, and we'll be too amused to offer any kernels of wisdom. I plan on breaking this vicious cycle by just handing over the cliff notes and wishing them good luck while Grandpa and I are off on that Silver Couples Cruise boozing it up and dancing till dawn. Stuck at home with a screaming newborn? Sucks to be you, sweetheart - we've done our time. Call us when they can use utensils, defecate in a toilet, and dress themselves. Don't forget to study the notes we so kindly handed down to you, as it's a luxury we never had back in the day.

So far, the list of regrets is only about as long as my forearm, given a 20pt font and a lot of double spacing. I'll spare you most of them, as there are some motherly malfeasances that aren't worth owning up to, like accidently getting poo on the couch during a diaper change and just flipping the cushion after a hurried, perfunctory scrubbing. A multi-colored earth-hued sofa pattern encourages that kind of negligence, so I'm hardly to blame. What I'm focusing on are the biggies, and the regrets I've indexed thus far are mistakes actually worthy of remorse and repentance on my part:

Circumcision

I ask myself now - was mutilating my son's genitals really necessary? Had I bothered to do actual research prior to consenting to have the foreskin sliced off my son's penis, I probably definitely wouldn't have gone through with it. It certainly wasn't to comply with any indoctrinated religious beliefs on our parts, as we consider ourselves to be in the non-theism camp. There has been a great deal of skepticism on whether the health benefits (if any) necessitates surgery, which pretty much renders it completely cosmetic, in my book. Shame on me for going with the mainstream norm and allowing a 15,000-year old antiquated ritual be performed on my son without his permission. Shame on me for not giving such a major decision more consideration, and shame on the unsteady hand of the doctor who had to use silver nitrate to patch his poor little pecker up afterwards.

Breastfeeding                                    

I gave up both times, with all three of my children. I'd start out all gung-ho and determined, and then when it wouldn't flow like a faucet and work out so that every feeding was just perfect, I'd get frustrated and beat myself (and my boobs) up. I went back-and-forth until exclusive breastfeeding turned into supplemental feeding, and then I'd pump like crazy and wonder why the stream downgraded to a slow trickle. With my son, I just wasn't producing as much as I thought I should have been. Had I persevered harder, I'd have surely gotten over the hump. We had a great lactation consultant in the hospital, too. Once we got home, it slowly went south. With my twin daughters, I convinced myself that I had several factors already working against me. First was their requirement for extra calories, as preemies. NICU instructed me that if I were going to breastfeed, I'd need to supplement every other feeding with Neosure formula at least until they hit about 8 pounds. Going back and forth from bottle to boob was going to confuse them, I told myself. I'd have to either master doing tandem breastfeeding (not an easy task, but doable), or spend twice as long at feedings by doing just one at a time. My C-section recovery was awful, and I had a needy 10-month old competing for Mommy time. Once again, I threw my hands up. While I know that formula-fed infants don't necessarily perish, I know in my heart that if I'd just had more confidence, more patience, and more willpower - I could have been more successful, and my children would have benefited greatly from it.                                                     

Mealtimes
My son has been off the bottle for 7 months now and I hope to have my daughters off by New Year's Day. The transition was an easy one for my son - he pretty much abandoned the idea of the "ba-ba" soon after receiving his first brightly-colored sippy cup, and had shown interest in table food at a very young age. My failing here is that I can't quite commit to letting him feed himself actual food. Finger foods are fine - it's the actual entrees that I struggle with. I see pictures of my friend's kids sitting in their highchairs with spaghetti-o's covering every square inch of their tray, torsos and faces ... and I just can't bring myself to relinquish the utensils and let him use his hands, which is how it almost always ends up, regardless of the fact that he makes a decent effort to use his spoon or fork before growing bored with it and flinging it at me. I know that it's extremely rare for a person to reach adulthood (or even kindergarten) and still be spoonfed by their mothers. If they're hungry enough, self-feeding will come about naturally. With a little coaching, they'll master it eventually - but I am really dragging my feet on this one. The few times I've let him have a go at it, he delighted in making an earnest attempt at feeding himself, even though his clumsy little hands and his sense of exploration towards colors and textures had him (and the high chair, and the floor, and occasionally the walls) covered in food. My husband has gently scolded me for not letting him "just have at it", but I feel inside like I'm encouraging a lifetime of playing with his food. It's not that I'm lazy and trying to avoid the clean-up, but a small part of me feels like I'm giving him a license to make intentional messes. I'm still working on it, but I realize that had I started a lot earlier, we'd already have this behind us and he'd probably be able to use chopsticks by now.

Demoting the cat                            
Before you roll your eyes, let me assure you that this one is both relevant and nocuous. It took a long  time to realize it, too. We have a beautiful marbled black and orange Bengal cat named Morrison. He is docile, friendly and very un-catlike in his demeanor. I've joked to people how he isn't really a feline, but rather a lapdog, working undercover. He isn't snobbish and standoffish like most cats. He loves water and is very vocal and playful. His front claws have been removed, so he's not a danger to the kids or the furnishings. Like all Bengals, he's hypoallergenic - which is great, because I had him before I met my husband, who happens to be fiercely allergic to cats. His only major quirk is that although he's been neutered since kittenhood, he's very amorous and gets all Pepé Le Pew on blankets, stuffed animals, or pillows. This particular behavior became worse when I was pregnant with my son, and we believe it was the excess hormones I was emitting. Regardless, he was our child before we had kids. Since the kids arrived, he's become a second-class citizen and pretty much spends all his time out in our enclosed garage. While we didn't force that on him, I know it's because he stopped receiving all of our extra attention. We just didn't have the time to play with him or have him sit on our laps and stroke his fur while watching television. As a result, he's become more like a houseguest than a loving family pet, venturing inside only to drink running water out of our faucet (another quirk of his) or to give us an obligatory leg-rubbing with his arched back when he feels the need to thank us for his shabby accommodations. It's very important to me to raise our kids to be kind, loving, and compassionate to animals. This new homesteading arrangement for him made him skittish around the kids, and understandably so. My son has all the finesse of a bull in a china shop, and "petting" the kitty who wanders in every now and then isn't something he does with a lot of grace and subtlety. My kids look upon him as more of a novelty visitor than a household fixture, and this is entirely my fault. Networking him back into the family is going to take some time, and this is another item I've been dragging my feet on.

Personal Fitness                    

Prior to turning 40 and having three kids in under a two-year time span, I was one of those lucky women who could pretty much eat Cheetos and drink Coke for dinner, wash it down with some Skittles, and still fit into the same jeans I wore into high school with a very minimalist fitness regimen. After becoming pregnant with my son, I made more of a concerted effort to eat healthier foods and have more structured mealtimes. I gained quite a bit of weight while carrying him, but it just seemed to disappear as soon as I gave birth. The few pounds that refused to vanish troubled me, but my husband remarked that I "needed" it and that it made me look better. I went up one pant size for comfort, but was back in my regular jeans literally after the first month. I boasted about this, and I even admit to rubbing it in at every opportunity, to any woman who would listen. Karma came back around and bit me on that, and it bit me HARD. I had sashayed up to my OB/GYN six week postpartum check up in my tightest skinny jeans only to confirm that I was pregnant again. I was sure the stick test was lying, because 1) my boobs weren't tender, 2) I didn't cry at least six times before noon, and 3) my sex drive wasn't through the roof like it was when I first became pregnant with my son.  After giving birth to the twins just 8 months later, I had hanging around my midsection the phenomena known as Twin Skin. It just hung there like a deflated inner tube in all it's unsightliness as if to mock me for all the gloating I'd done before. Healing from a C-section scar renders your abdomen pretty useless for several weeks. Follow that up with a full hysterectomy just four months later, and you can imagine how intimidating the idea of a sit-up or a crunch must have been. I resolved to start working out vigorously as soon as my guts were healed up. 7 months later, and I've yet to do anything resembling an abdominal workout, unless you count bending over a crib or picking toys up and off the floor as a workout. Would you believe that the weight actually spread? To my ass? And thighs? And even my arms? It happened. The pre-pregnancy clothing that I fit into right after the birth of my son that I saved because I just KNEW I'd miraculously shrink again - let's just say it's made for a gross misuse of valuable real estate in my closet. I get depressed about it. I complain about it. And if I'd wipe the snack crumbs off my lap and put the Coke down, I might actually get around to working out. I already know this is going to be one of those things I'm going to have to start with a vengeance and commit to with all the willpower I have inside me. Right now, I'm too tired. The positive to be gleaned from this is that my husbands pajama pants and T-shirts are extremely comfortable.


While some of these regrets I've lamented on are absolutes that can never be rectified, I know that a little more self-discipline and resolve can fix the rest. I can get my body toned again, become a more attentive pet owner, and shrug off the messes that an 18-month old makes at the dinner table. Instead of complaining about there not being enough hours in the day, I can manage my time more effectively to be able to work in new routines and schedule new undertakings that would allow me to remove some of these items from the Regrets list to a crossed-off I Fixed This! list. Clearly, a whole new mindset is in order. But first, I must laugh at myself for being human, for being imperfect, and for failing at some endeavors. There is a fine line between harmful self-loathing and the ability to poke fun at one's own shortcomings. Some occasions in life mandate that you wreck yourself before you check yourself, and I believe that admitting my fallibilities is the first crucial step.

 

 

 

The Silliness Imperative

Three rules we hold steadfast to in our chaotic household is: stay busy, play together, and laugh often. While we appreciate the value of adhering to a routine and would probably all go collectively insane without one, we try our hardest to not let the routine suck the spontaneity out of our long days. Although my kids are too young at 18 and 10 months to follow a strict schedule outside of eating and napping, I've tried to keep some structure to our playtime so that the kids learn that some activities are a free-for-all, and others require cooperation and attentiveness on their parts. One thing I've noticed as my son hits toddlerhood is that kids are afflicted with uncontrollable bouts of silliness that they just can't - and shouldn't - hold in. I've also learned that a case of The Sillies are highly contagious, and I contract it often. I hope to never build up an immunity, as it breaks up the inevitable monotony and depression that a lot of SAHM's suffer from. It keeps me in a good, lighthearted mood that inevitably rubs off on Dad after a long, grueling day at the office.

My son is goofy by nature, a jester by trade, and delights in keeping us all in stitches with his daily antics. When I was pregnant with him, I fantasized about how we'd spend our day together: Reading classic children's stories by lamplight while he sat comfortably in my lap, mimicking each other with vocabulary exercises and singing sweet lullabies in a soothing tone while he played with my hair. I never visualized how it would actually turn out: Chasing him down the hallway when he gleefully and victoriously steals the book from my hands, making up new lyrics to classic lullabies that I sing in a ridiculously high falsetto while we dance around like lunatics, and how he enjoys not running his hands through my hair, but rather poking his little index finger into my corneas while showing off his anatomical prowess by saying "EYE!".

I fully realize that I'm cultivating future class clowns and armchair comedians, but I refuse to believe that this is a bad thing. There's plenty ... scratch that, there's too many opportunities in life to be serious, and I'm sure they'll be able to discern when they get older when acting silly and being funny is appropriate, and when it's not. For now, I just want their earliest childhood memories to be happy, fun and filled with laughter. Sometimes it's tricky to get them to calm down after an especially long afternoon of reckless folly, but my son seems to sleep better at night after exhausting his seemingly endless supply of energy by dancing around the living room acting a fool to an appreciative, familiar audience. He's actually quite shy around people he doesn't know, so I don't worry much about him going into spaz mode in public.

One thing my kids love is to look at photos of themselves, and I take at least a dozen pictures of them at play each day. They're so used to having the iPhone pointed at their faces that it doesn't seem to phase them, and that makes for some perfectly candid shots of them at their merriest. Even at my most disgruntled, in-a-funk moments, I can view these photos of the five of us having a jolly good time and it feels like the sun shines inside me. So while their happiness is my catharsis, I'm certain that Jovial Mommy is preferable to them than Serious Mommy, or Busy Mommy, or that dreaded old battle axe that no one can stand being in the same room with - Tired Mommy. Sometimes it's difficult to be "on" for your kids all the time. I find that mirroring their carefree, happy-go-lucky personas even when I'm moody and not particularly feeling it helps me be more of a kindred spirit to them, someone they can count on to not pull the wind out of their sails or pee on their parades. While conventional wisdom teaches us to be a parent first and a friend second, I don't see why the two can't be interchangeable, especially while they're toddlers. I know there will be a time when my silliness will be lost on them and probably embarrass them - as all kids inevitably grow up to be way too cool to enjoy hanging with the 'rents, so I'm going to suck every second of this up while I can.

My Facebook friends and family get kicks out of the photos I share of me, dad and the kids acting like morons, and it's a grand opportunity for me and the husband to let our hair down, forget that we're forty-somethings with our fair share of aches, pains and stress and abandon crummy adulthood by having fun with our kids. I think I take it farther than my husband does with the childish antics, as sometimes I forget to take my voice off of playful falsetto when we're swapping stories at the end of the day. Or we'll be in a serious discussion and I'll peekaboo him, just for the hell of it. Once we stole away to the farthest reaches of our boudoir for some of that fifteen-minutes-of-bliss parents of toddlers live for, and we both ended up getting the giggles over the ridiculous sing-song music still blaring from our television because we forgot to change the channel. It might have killed the moment for us as far as savage, wonton lovemaking went - but simultaneously being afflicted with a case of the uncontrollable giggles is right up there next to the big "O", in our opinion. Both leaves us sweaty, out of breath, and deeply fulfilled on an intimate level. Quality time, that!

A couple of months ago we sat in the living room with the twins on our laps and our son zipping in and out between us, and an opportunity presented itself for us to make a game out of fashioning burp rags to our daughter's heads just for laughs. What started out as a silly game turned into what is now a standing tradition. We immediately uploaded it to Facebook with the title being:

Baby Thespians Theatre Presents: Mother Teresa, Aunt Jemima, Bad-Ass Biker Babe & The Surgeon

It was such fun, and our friends and family enjoyed it so much, that we constantly look for household props to adorn the kids with for silly photos. I know for a fact that these photos will land in their school yearbooks, their wedding videos, and will haunt them for the rest of their lives. This, we're counting on. At the very least, I know we will be able to wallpaper the walls of our retirement home with them when our kids disown us for making spectacles of them at such a tender young age.

 

If you were to stoop outside our windows with your ear pressed to the panes, you'd likely hear me singing ridiculous songs that I made up on the fly just because my kids love to hear me sing, and - dare I say - I'm rather good at it, as long as it's not a serious performance. I have many songs I remember from childhood, like the good old mainstays Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Wheels on the Bus - and my kids love these songs, don't get me wrong - but after about the 15th time you've belted it out with the accompanying hand motions - it gets really old. Have you ever noticed that a lot of the antiquated Nursery Rhymes are actually very sinister and macabre? London Bridge collapsing, the baby plummeting to it's demise from the treetops due to that breaking bough, kids voluntarily falling down into ashes with pockets full of ... what?! They're just not the feelgood vibe I'm shooting for, so I tend to avoid those like the plague, which ironically is what children in the dark ages kept pockets of posies to ward off. Instead, I've bastardized my own versions of childhood songs to either fit the moment, the activity, and sometimes just for the hell of it. Some of mom's twisted lyrics go as follows:

(Sung to the tune of Farmer in the Dell, this is a song my son has enjoyed at each diaper change ever since he was a newborn, to present day)

 

 

Powder on my nuts!

Powder on my nuts!

Momma's gonna put some .... powder-on-my-nuts!

 

 

(This next one was adapted from the nursery rhyme titled Peas Porridge Hot, and it is reserved for those inexplicably, eye-watering, nose-pinching dirty diaper changes that would otherwise be a miserable, much-loathed undertaking*)

 

 

Poo Diaper Hot!

Poo Diaper Cold!

Poo Diaper on your butt, nine days old!

Some like it hot!

Some like it cold!

Some like it on their butts, nine days old!

 

 

*can also be adapted to a pee diaper, but I've become such a pro at removing/wiping/changing those that we're barely afforded the time and luxury of a serenade.

 

I don't kid myself into thinking that I wouldn't be committed by court order if a sane person heard me belt out these ridiculous tunes, but ask me if I care! I most assuredly do not. The kids dig it, I dig it, and as long as we're all enjoying ourselves, I'll fight rehabilitation from my personal brand of crazy tooth and nail. Of course, I don't manipulate ALL lyrics to ALL the songs we sing. There's also all the theme songs and jingles from their favorite shows on BabyFirstTV, and those can't be modified or amended, else the kids will know. They have memorized those song lyrics, and they know if you try to cut it short, or forget the lyrics. You can bet that they'll call you out on it in one hot, quick minute if you dare try to alter it. Because they know. Be warned.

 

As a relatively new parent, I naively swan-dived into the rock-your-child-to-sleep trap that other parenting n00bs fall victim to before they realize it sets a very cumbersome ritual that is hell to break from. As a newborn, my son got that luxury. With the twins, we knew better than to ever go there. During our practice run with my son, I put many, many miles on that glider rocker while trying to lull him to sleep on the swell of my pregnant belly with my fat, water-retaining crankles propped up on the ottoman to help balance the weight, since my legs would usually fall asleep before my son would. I only knew a handful of nursery rhyme songs at the time, so after the first fifteen minutes, I'd run out of material. But I improvised, and my son's ears were christened with just about every genre of MY favorite music - from Ray Charles to Nirvana to Metallica and the Foo Fighters. My husband didn't think it was weird at all that I slowed down Master of Puppets a few dozen beats to accommodate a sleepy child. Nor did he think it was odd to hear me singing the sanguine or angst-filled lyrics by a dead rockstar who no longer topped the charts. For the longest time, the 5-disk CD changer in my Jeep held only one CD that was a medley of Elvis Christmas Tunes that my sweet husband burned for me one winter. If my son remembers one thing about me, I hope it's that his mother could impersonate Elvis like a pro. We spent nearly every one of those first car rides straight into the spring and summer with that CD on full blast, singing about Blue Christmases.

 

My husband and I made a promise to one another that we'd never pimp our kids out on YouTube, no matter how great the content, but for Facebook friends and family, we'd share in our daughter's favorite game of wearing bloomers on their head. My husband and I aren't above wearing them, either. Don't judge. They were inarguably enjoying themselves, and that is apparent by their big grins and sparkly eyes:

 

 

 

Our son is, always has been, and always will be a big giant ham, and he revels in dressing up in anything other than actual clothes, and it's ALWAYS better to ride around the house on your trike with a monkey hanging from the steering column:

 

 

 

There is absolutely nothing my kids enjoy more than when Dad gets down on the floor with them and serves as their personal climbing structure. My husband no doubt curses the decision to replace our soft, plush carpet with hardwood floors, but hey - you live, you learn. Don't be fooled, though - creaky knees be damned, I'm sure this activity ranks right up there for him with the Superbowl, E3, and riding the Harley Davidson he so selflessly sold to help supplement funds when we decided I was going to quit my job to be a stay-at-home Mom. In my book, there is nothing sexier than an ex-biker romping on the floor with his kids:

 

 

We hope that when our kids are older, they won't be too traumatized by the amount of photos we took of them in precarious positions, wearing silly outfits, with ridiculous looks on their faces that just SCREAMED to be captioned. Who can resist photographing your twin daughter's first bikinis? Not us. We hope they never struggle with weight issues and blame this photo on their predicament. It's just that chubby babies are awesome, the more rolls, the merrier, and so on and so forth:

 

 

 

I'm sure we're not in the minority when it comes to parents being silly with their kids. I would venture a guess that kids bring out the silliness in most everyone they influence, because after all - who can resist making a child laugh and seeing their eyes light up? My view is that at the end of the day, if the housework, laundry, mess-sweeping, spill-blotting, booger-picking, butt-wiping blues have been cancelled out by the great fun you had with your children, then I call it a win/win for all parties involved. I pity the children whose parents greedily dole out laughs on an occasional-only basis, and I weep for those parents who are so stingy with their time due to their own personal agendas that they miss out on the delightful gratification of entertaining their kids while the kids are still young enough to worship them as not only their main provider and benefactor, but also their bestest friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preemies to Plumpers - Twins Thriving!

Unlike most mothers, I don't have a crystal clear memory of the moment I glimpsed my daughters for the first time. An emergency c-section definitely wasn't something my husband and I had prepared for, even though my doctor had warned us that several factors put me in a high-risk category for one. Both elated and overwhelmed at the prospect of having twins, the one thing we felt most confident about was that we knew when the time finally arrived, we would be ready to face whatever birthing challenges the circumstances called for. My doctor's pessimism never once trumped our optimism, but we realized we had the odds stacked against us due to advanced maternal age, carrying multiples, severe anemia and the impossibility of me adhering to full bed rest with a 10-month old son attached to my hip. I wouldn't say we were naïve about my condition, but we definitely refused to rehearse the worst case scenarios. Besides, luck was on our side. We conceived twins naturally.

As previously posted, the birth plan we'd cultivated to mirror the wonderful experience we had with our son went to hell in a hand basket really fast. While I'm extremely grateful that there were no major complications and that by all rotes, the delivery went well - my husband and I felt robbed of the experience by the drugs administered, the cold, sterile atmosphere of the operating room, and the rushed, technical urgency in which the medical staff extracted our daughters from my womb via incision before whisking them away from us for more intensive care. The nurses had prepared us for what was going to happen after the operation was complete, but the one thing they couldn't prepare us for was the aftermath, and the emotions you seemingly drown in. Excitement was overshadowed by trepidation. The anticipation of meeting our daughters for the first time was clouded with the anxiety most all parents experience when their precious infants are in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. While you know they're in very capable hands, just the absence of having your newborn(s) in your arms immediately following birth leaves a giant, gaping hole in your chest.

They called our first little girl "Baby A", but to us, she was our little miracle bearing my husband's mother's namesake: Sophia Elayne. Although she only weighed 3 lbs 14 oz, her torso seemed so long, her limbs so lithe, her neck already appearing graceful as she craned to look around at her surroundings. "Baby B" was our precious Samantha Fae, the little rascal whose decision to somersault into breech position put us in the O.R. versus a birthing suite. Slightly more robust than her older sister (by exactly one minute), she weighed 4 lbs 3 oz and had the same slender body. I remember being wheeled into the room that held their respective little incubators and noticing how freakishly long and sinewy their toes seemed. I was trying to soak in all their features while averting my eyes from all the tubes, wires and machines they were connected to. My husband and I clasped hands and tried to hold it together while the compassionate, gentle nursing staff were reassuring us that they were, by all measures, in relatively good health save for their prematurity.

                                                             SAMANTHA FAE

              

                                                               SOPHIA ELAYNE



I got to hold Sophia first. My hands trembled as the nurse expertly maneuvered her tiny body out of her plastic, see-through second home and placed her in my arms. She seemed glad to be there, and I thought about what a rude and abrupt disembarkment they must have suffered, from the familiar warmth and safety of my womb to these cold, antiseptic containers! Although my legs were still numb from the epidural, my mind seemed to instantaneously regain full clarity from the remnants of the anesthesia as soon as I felt the warmth of her body. I held her to my chest and she instinctively started rooting towards my breast to suckle. Her lips were in an "O" shape and it reminded me of a little bird. I sat there frozen - afraid to shift, afraid to move her. I just wanted to inhale her scent and feel her movements. They had already explained to me that they weren't allowed out of their isolettes for very long periods due to their inability to maintain ideal body temperatures. It seemed like as soon as I got comfortable holding Sophia, they were ready to take her away. My heart ached.

Samantha was brought to me next, and she was getting oxygen supplementation via a nasal cannula. She looked up at me with big, round eyes and I could barely contain myself. I held her and silently wept, my warm tears hitting her like raindrops. I used the corner of her swaddling blanket to blot her little face, and it felt like the electricity of pure love, recognition and acceptance flowed through us both as I grew so bold as to touch her cheeks with my bare fingertips. My husband was right there with me, his big hands on my shoulders providing comfort and strength, and although I couldn't see his face, I knew he was going through the same emotions I was feeling. When the nurse took Samantha back, I almost felt relieved. I was so afraid I would inadvertently bring harm to them somehow, those fragile little beings! I carried the guilt of that relief all the way back to my recovery room.

The next couple of days became a little easier. I was pumping breast milk, which made me feel a little more productive and responsible for the care of my babies since I didn't have the luxury of being able to be right there with them. Select family members were allowed in to see them after a good surgical scrubbing of their arms and hands. I finally got to hold them both at the same time and marvel all over again at the magic of one egg splitting into two, creating dual embryos who shared the same placenta. At 34 weeks and 3 days old, their little features were still slight, their skulls peaked, and their eyes were like those of a hung-over, sleep-deprived, slightly disgruntled old person. What surprised me then and still amazes me is how even at that tender new age, their personalities immediately shone through! Sophia the delicate little high-maintenance diva princess, Samantha the laid-back, mellow, undemanding little beatnik.

The next seventeen days was a back-and-forth blur from home to NICU, NICU to home. They began to gain weight, lost the whole "failure to thrive" stigma most preemies are born with, and their feeding tubes were soon replaced with bottles. On the 8th day, we got to feed them for the very first time!

                         

We woke up every morning eager to make the 25-minute trip to the hospital to hang out with them for just a couple of hours. On those trips we would feed them, change their diapers, clean their cord stumps and cuddle them. We were getting to know one another slowly, and with each passing day, we grew a little more confident caring for them, still so tiny.

The day they were moved from NICU into the step-down unit was so joyous! They were placed in the same crib together for the first time, and there they lay, like two bugs snug in a rug, together again at last! That's when they really began to start gaining weight, eating better, and growing. The Twin Phenomena started to become apparent to us. They were wombmates, born together, best friends forever! They started smiling. Our hearts turned to melted mush!

 

 

 

 

We had a few ups and downs during the course of their hospital stay, but no major setbacks. When we finally received notice that they were ready to come home, we were so happy to know that we were finally going to have all of our kids under one roof! Then panic set in. I was scared and intimidated by how tiny they were. We were scheduled for a class on infant resuscitation and training on the apnea monitor that Sophia had to wear home. She failed her infant car seat test that assures she doesn't stop breathing abruptly when sitting up, and that was disheartening. I was set to spend the last night up at the hospital with them, and it was the first time I was allowed to be alone with my girls for an extended time. We reveled in it, and I felt far more competent than I had just from the short sessions we'd had in the step-down unit together. Coming home the next day was glorious! Our family of five was finally going to experience true togetherness for the first time!

 

 

 

Each month, Sophia and Samantha began to look less like preemies and more like newborns. By three months old, they were still in newborn outfits, but they were starting to get snug. Their pediatrician had them supplemented with extra calories, and the little fat rolls they started developing on their slender little bodies was good evidence that they were starting to maintain healthy weight. They were still in the minority percentile for weight at that point, but we knew we were on the right track. Once Sophia got off the apnea monitor, it became very difficult to tell them apart, and that fascinated us to no end. We would sit and look at them for hours, trying to find subtle differences. They were there, but you had to know where to look. Samantha's face was more round, where Sophia seemed to have more angular cheekbones. They were happiest when they were side-by-side, touching one another.

 

 

 

 

 

When they turned four months old, I received a call from my OB/GYN regarding the results of a post-partum checkup. My pap had come back irregular and they scheduled a colposcopy to get a better tissue sampling. Long story short, the biopsy revealed I had superficial cervical cancer. A complete hysterectomy was scheduled for Valentine's Day, and I knew that the recovery was going to be extremely difficult with three infants to care for. I knew that the most important thing was to have the organs removed before the cancer had a chance to spread, and we did just that. It was a long and arduous recovery (and I'll post about that later), and I was glad to have gone through it and put it behind me so I could proceed with the most important thing to me: Raising my children. Sophia and Samantha continued to thrive!

 

 

 

 

 

Below are some age progression photos from five months to present day, and now they are just a little over one month shy of their first birthday! It was so hard to look forward back in the NICU phase and imagine them growing into healthy, roly-poly little chubbies. Although they're still small for their age, their pediatrician assures us that by two years of age, they'll be caught up to the average size for their age group. We can't wait to watch them grow into beautiful little toddlers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Organizing Kid Clutter

I title this post as if it's even a feasible undertaking at this juncture. At 18 and 10 months of age, my kids aren't exactly mommy's-little-helpers, and Mommy's hands are so tied at any given point throughout the day that the long, never-ending To-Do list gets edited and divided each day into a short, trimmed-down Must-Do list. These lists usually get loosely formulated and then revised in my head during the sixty seconds before becoming fully coherent in the morning. I'll usually try to prioritize chores while making that first pot of coffee, and certain items from those lists are highlighted for immediate action status, such as the Finish-Laundry-Or-We'll-All-Be-Naked / Throw-Out-Last-Week's-Casserole-Before-Fridge-Becomes-Contaminated kind of flash bulletins. Nonetheless, the less urgent duties rarely get completed in the timely fashion that I'd prefer, and there's always certain tasks that roll over to the next day, and the next, and the next - ad infinitum. I've learned to embrace the urban advice that suggests that a messy household = happy kids, but there are just some things that can't be overlooked that take an inordinate chunk of time out of your day when you're saddled with three kids under two. Learning to prioritize in seconds flat so as to not eat away even a few precious minutes of a busy day is the real magic trick. The point is, there are enough household chores to do in a day just to keep things barely functional to have to spend time you don't have dealing with kid's toys, and kid's messes, and kid's UH-OH! genuine accidents. I'd rather be playing with my kids, or shaving my legs, or texting my husband at work if there is any free time to be had. I'm all about eking out any shards of free time.

Before kids, our home had that clean-but-lived-in vibe. Guests weren't asked to remove their shoes, socks could occasionally be found on the floor, and there were probably numerous smudges on the window panes. White glove treatment be damned, we didn't spend every minute (or even small chunks) of our spare time cleaning out vents with alcohol-swabbed Q-tips or polishing our baseboards with oil soap. My husband and I have only been married for three years, and we both carried into our merged lifestyles some hobbies and collections that may not have qualified us for an episode of Hoarders, but took up a fair amount of space in our living quarters. For the Mister, it was an insanely large quantity of video games, movies, and action figures -  an entire room of them, which was unceremoniously dismantled to make room for the twin's nursery and an extra linen closet. I must say, he took it like a champ. It seemed unfair that my wooden cat collection was easily kept intact upon one shelf in our master bedroom, so to take one for Team Richardson, I stopped collecting wooden cats altogether. I also had at least two tall, stuffed bookcases full of books that I considered to be the Holy Grail of my personal possessions. I had no reservations about throwing out the paperback horror fiction and the trash novels, but I wasn't about to part with my hardback non-fiction with the likes of Daniel Dennett, Stephen Pinker and Richard Dawkins. The third-edition Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman was quite expensive. The Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain and George Carlin books were keepers, too, even though they fell into the paperback category. Pretty much any dead, highly-acclaimed author had a permanent slot on my shelves, but in the spirit of fairness, I got rid of a huge lot of books. Oh, the things you do for love! And then ... the children were born. A whole new level of clutter and disorganization started to surface, and who would have time to play video games or curl up with a good book again? Not us.

 In just two short years, what seemed like a spacious 3-bedroom house (complete with a large outdoor storage that once served as a man cave) began to shrink before our very eyes. The addition of three children brought about so much extra stuff, it felt like we were just one changing table or diaper box or bouncy seat away from having to sleep in our Jeeps. We had to act fast to get it under control. It's still a work in progress, and if a visitor popped in unannounced tomorrow morning, they'd probably trip over some foam building blocks or step on a Lego. There's no longer an extra bedroom for overnight guests, and even if we were hard pressed to accommodate a family member, they'd likely find a stray hair or two hanging around the bathroom sink. We joke about the hazards an unsuspecting burglar would face while casing the inside of our home in the dark. There are child gates to hurdle at three strategic entry checkpoints, a wide array of musical-toy-booby-traps to be stepped on, and an obnoxious Bengal housecat who occasionally makes it inside from his lair in the attached garage to weave ninja-like underfoot while you're trying to walk a straight line. Suffice it to say, we slumber soundly every night, and an elaborate home security system isn't to be thanked for that. But don't get any ideas ... as parents of multiples, we're practically seasoned soldiers when it comes to sleeping with one eye open and one ear cocked.



A stay-at-home Mom has a responsibility to keep some kind of order in the household, and that loosely translates to being able to find matching socks for the entire crew, have clean dishes to eat off of in the event we run out of paper plates, and to keep the fall hazards to a minimum when you're housing a toddler, two infants, and two very ungraceful 40-somethings. I've devised a Tip Sheet based on organizational strategies that work for us, and I'm eager to share it:

TOY CONTROL

• Rotate, rotate, rotate. I can't stress this enough. Toddlers amass so many toys in their first two years of life that it's almost embarrassing. While we're happy to be able to provide our kids with an abundance of play goodies, to a third world citizen, it would surely seem gluttonous. Since their little brains haven't quite mastered the art of keeping a tight inventory on their goodies, it's easy to sneak out pieces and rotate in new ones without them ever becoming aware that they've been jacked. We try to keep one medium-sized wicker basket full of small, assorted playthings such as blocks, jumbo Legos, balls and miscellaneous crap that our son loves to scatter, stack and litter our floor with. These can easily be scooped up in one large sweep and thrown back into basket for quick clean-up. When they're not looking, throw out those unnecessary, overused items. Do they REALLY need to hang onto that plastic water bottle that makes a cool rattling sound when shaken? If the kid no longer claps at it after it performs it's function ... get rid of it.

• Larger items, such as dump trucks, ride-on toys, stick horses, that godforsaken ball-popping noisy lawnmower - only a handful allowed out at a time, the rest stowed away out of eyesight of both us and Junior. They can't whine for what they cannot see, and since an 18-month old has absolutely no real need for order, it's not as difficult to pick up and put away in a flash. For us, "putting away" usually means quickly yet neatly lining these items up near our fireplace mantle so that we can remember what shade of wood we once enjoyed as our floor space.

• Another piece of advice: Give friends and family member subtle hints when it comes to buying gifts for your child. Don't be afraid to ask for clothes, if your kids need them. Books, rather than stuffed animals. If your child is still in diapers or Pull-ups, let them know how much it would help to not have to buy those, and how you can recycle the box for fun craft projects. For my son's first birthday, he received toys that to this day he hasn't even played with yet, and probably never will get around to, and will be lost on his twin sisters, because it's icky boy stuff. If the toys can't be handed down, or returned to store, or if you think your child just has too much of a good thing - don't be afraid to donate them. If your toddler is like mine, they're more fascinated with and get more miles out of the actual boxes and tissue paper that they come in.

KID'S CLOTHING

• Get over your nostalgia. Sure, there's going to be a few monogrammed or embroidered newborn items that's always going to hold a special place in your heart. That's understandable, because us women are very sentimental creatures, and letting go of things that once made our hearts go pitter-patter is an extremely difficult and guilt-tinged undertaking. But do you really need to save their first blanche white hospital onesie with the little hand mittens attached? I can promise you that as the years go on, you will find dust rags with just as much utilitarian purpose. Keep a small (and I stress: tiny) box of newborn things that are dear to you, or that you'd like to perhaps share with their children someday, but be willing to part with the rest of it. A good rule of  thumb would be: If it can't fit inside the baby book, it goes.

• Be thrifty and exchange, consign, or become an online yard sale aficionado with the clothing your kids have gently used and grown out of. Just last month I earned over two hundred dollars peddling kid's clothing online. You'd be surprised how many pages on Facebook alone there are just for that very enterprise. Group them according to size, sell them in lots instead of piecing them out, and be sure to throw out anything damaged or stained. No one wants to dress their kids in a formula-stained onesie or a pair of footed pajamas with fabric so pilled that it's scratchy to the touch. Don't expect what you paid for it either, unless there are items new with tags or boutique clothing in excellent condition. You may even get lucky and find a cool mother or two that happens to have a child growing out of clothes in your child's size group who also has a newborn (or two, like I did!) that needs clothes for some even swaps. Out with the old to make room for the new!

• For my twins, I keep one dresser drawer full of clothes that they can grow into, separated by individual drawers for every 3-month growth/size increment. By default, girls have more clothes than boys, and WAY more accessories. Most of these items you cannot live without, because, well - they're girls, and photo-ops are fun. That said, you'll want to keep them organized, or their nurseries are going to look like a women's dressing room the day after a Macy's black Friday sale. I keep headbands and barrettes either attached to their respective matching outfits, or rolled up nicely in a see-through mesh bag. Socks are kept in a basket, as are burp cloths, fancy bibs, run-of-the-mill lunch-time-at-home bibs with green bean and prune stains that refuse to come out, and hats or other head coverings. We bought two cribs, but the girls are inseparable and I use the one they don't sleep in to keep at least two week's worth of outfits at the ready, so I don't even have to get into the dresser drawers. This eliminates folding altogether, another massive timesaver. Dressy clothes are kept hanging in the closet, as they aren't used as frequently, because really - who gets to go to formal events with three kids under two? Moreover, who would want to?

BATHTUB TOYS AND TOILETRIES

• We keep most of our after-bath items near the changing tables, like powder, lotion, aquaphor, etc. For the actual soap, bubble bath, head-rinse cup, soft washcloths and baby scrubbies, we go old-school and keep them on the back of the toilet lid for easy access, as it's an arm's reach from our tub. I suppose you could get fancy and devise some sort of cool basket or hanging apparatus, but we're usually in and out of the tub pretty quick, and I just haven't bothered. I keep a small plastic bin that I can throw all the adult shampoo/body soap/face wash, etc. to be stowed away quickly and out of the reach of a grasping 18-month old.

• I'm not going to fib and say I've done this yet, but it's absolutely one of the most clever ideas I've seen on Pinterest: affixing a shower curtain rod low in your shower and hanging wire baskets to keep the tub toys in. They are all in one place, are able to drain completely so mold or mildew won't accumulate in or around them, and it just looks tidy. MUST TRY THIS! Right now our twins are too small to play in the tub, and little enough to be bathed inside the tub on one of those mesh hammock bathers. We just pile my son's toys on top of the bather and keep it on one end of the counter. I have vowed to get crafty and do the shower curtain rod job before the year is up.

• All that excess water that gets splashed on the floor at bath time? Have a spray bottle of Pine-Sol or 409 handy and a towel dedicated to swabbing, and BAM! Your bathroom floors get cleaned every time.

I hope to add more tips and tricks of the trade as time goes on, but for now I will leave this long diatribe with a warning I wish I'd heeded: Do not, under any circumstance, get into the habit of saving your diaper boxes for anything. You'll think that you'll need them for something. You'll do an occasional craft, or pack something up, but before you know it, you will have a garage full of Huggies and Pampers boxes and it will take DAYS to break them down and dispose of them. If you're a family with multiples, they pile up really fast, and I'm here right now to tell you: It's not worth the extra clutter or the time it takes to break them down and recycle them when they are stacked eye-level in rows of twenty in your garage. I implore you - don't save the boxes. Save yourself the headache, and just break those mothers down NOW! Odds are, your To-Do list is full enough with other chores, tasks and pipe dreams of making your house more tidy and organized.

Co-Sleeping: A Year in Review

Like most first-time parents, the amount of research I delved into during the time my little humans were gestating inside my body was staggering. Books, blogs, magazine articles, forum posts - you name it. There was no shortage of people opining about child-rearing, and sometimes the discussions that generated in the comment sections became quite heated. I noticed what was a very similar camp to the breastfeeding vs. formula militants: The Co-Sleepers. I came across several articles written about parents choosing to let their children sleep with them, and they usually touched on the inherent dangers or the lasting benefits. There were very few middle grounders on this subject. Having absolutely no basis to chime in with my own experiences, I usually just observed these co-sleeping discussions as a lurker-in-waiting. I thought I'd be ready to jump right in with some solid opinions of my own once I established some hardcore parenting clout by rote of experience. I had already formulated what I imagined my stance would be, and if you'd have asked me then, I'd have been pretty adamant and steadfast on which position I backed: Absolutely, positively NO WAY would my husband and I be willing to share our over-sized king bed with our offspring.

 My, how things change!

When our son Adler was born, it was relatively easy to stick to my pre-conceived notions regarding the seemingly negative outcome that would result from co-sleeping. Besides, we were practically inseparable during the first 8 months of his life. Being an only child definitely has it's perks! He was held constantly not due to crying a lot, but because we just couldn't get enough interaction with him. When it was time to get things done around the house, I'd wear him on a sling, cuddled close to my chest, his forehead easily kissable by just barely leaning my neck down. We'd lounge on the couch together. He'd do a great deal of tummy time laying on me or Dad's chest. For the first six weeks or so, he slept in a bassinet in our room. After that, our bedtime routine was very consistent: A bath, a bottle, then I'd rock him to sleep in his nursery before laying him in his crib where for the most part, he slept through the night. And I can't kid my readers: I had full-blown new-mommy-itis, and it caused me to do ridiculous things like tiptoe into his nursery at night just to watch him sleep, because doggone it, I missed the little guy! However, Dad and I continued to enjoy the privacy and abundant real estate of our huge bed, something we'd later covet at times.

Having been pregnant with twins just six weeks after giving birth to our son, I knew there would come a time towards the end of my last trimester that I'd be uncomfortable, bed-ridden, and unable to lift my son all the time. Unfortunately, it started right at about the 27-week mark. My feet, ankles and calves were HUGE. My belly was swollen and massive, and I had absolutely no energy whatsoever. As my condition worsened, my son's behavior was showing marked changes, and for the first time in his short life, he was thrust into a new stage of independence. This wasn't an easy transition for any of us, but it really became difficult when he no longer slept through the night. We'd take turns trying to get him back to sleep, but it usually made for very long nights, followed by an uncharacteristic fussiness the next day. It got worse as my due date approached, and several weeks of premature labor sent us running to the hospital at weird hours, completely disrupting our usual routines.

Adler had never spent the night away from home until the night the girls arrived. He was in perfectly capable, loving hands with his big brother Sean and his wife Sarah, but having been abruptly whisked off to their house right before bedtime when my water broke was equally as miserable for us as it was for him. I remember crying all the way to the hospital, and it wasn't due to labor pain. A C-section landed me a four-day hospital stay, and although our son returned home with Dad, the weeks that followed after my homecoming also proved to be erratic. My recovery was very painful and slow, coupled with using a breast pump every two hours and trekking back up to the hospital for the next 17 days to see the girls in NICU. Adler's schedule had been changed, his routines had been modified, and the poor little guy had no idea how much his world truly was going to be rocked once we brought the twins home. It was during the NICU interim that we began letting him sleep with us. I felt that he needed the extra time with Mommy, as he couldn't possibly understand why I was unable to pick him up and hold him during my recovery.

Although we didn't mind having him sleep with us, we had mutually agreed that we'd somehow transition him back to his crib once things got back to normal. Clearly, we failed to grasp that with three babies in the house, "normal" was going to be completely redefined for us. He was sleeping better, we were sleeping better, and to be completely honest - my husband and I both enjoyed having him so close to us. We were already feeling pensive and a little guilty for how we expected him to react to the girls, even though we followed the suggestions of *experts* and tried to introduce him to the idea by taking him up to the hospital to see them, showing him their nursery, and working the word "sister(s)" into his very limited 10-mo old comprehensive vocabulary.

Everything changed once the girls got home. Sophia was on an apnea monitor, and the cords and wires were very cumbersome to tote around. Feedings were every two hours, around the clock. Everything we'd (recently) experienced with handling a newborn had pretty much escaped us. There were TWO newborns to change, feed, burp, rock and put to sleep. Whole other ballgame. In addition, we were sure to give Adler more than adequate attention so he wouldn't feel left out. He hardly paid them any mind at all - he had started walking steadily on his own and could really care less about the two squirmy little sisters who were so needy and loud. He was happy to sleep with us, and since we weren't sleeping anyway, we weren't about to rock our boat any further by potentially adding another crying baby into our graveyard shift. I began the whole "sleep when they sleep" routine, and somehow managed to get his naptime aligned with their extended nap during the day between feedings. It was easier for us to nap together, and my son really enjoyed the one-on-one time with mom without the sisters in the same room.

As luck would have it, I was diagnosed with a superficial cervical cancer four months after the twins were born. After a full hysterectomy, I was faced with another 6-8 week bout of recovery time. You can't begin to imagine how absolutely off-kilter our schedules became after that. It took a long time to get something resembling a solid routine put into place, and our only saving grace was that miraculously, Sophia and Samantha were excellent sleepers who barely made a peep through the night once they no longer required nighttime feedings. To this day, they still share a crib and sleep soundly throughout the night. With twins, I don't worry about them waking up and feeling scared or lonely. They have each other to cuddle with. Even when they wake in the mornings, they usually spend time babbling and playing with one another without a care in the world as to what the rest of the household is up and doing.

As of this writing, we have an 18-mo old and two 10-month olds. The sleeping arrangements with our son was never transitioned back to his crib. In fact, we got rid of the crib and upon Dad's gleeful insistence, bought him a sleek black racecar bed for his room. Suffice it to say, we've used that racecar bed more times than my son has even sat upon it. You get it. Co-sleeping with our son might have been initiated out of necessity, but we've found the valuable benefits that we once read about actually coming to fruition. He's very well-adjusted and happy. We're very well-adjusted and happy. As an added bonus, we've learned that there is a lot of excitement to be had by sneaking off to make love in a plastic racecar bed when the kids are asleep. I often wonder if my husband had secretly harbored a *get-freaky-in-a-racecar* fetish prior to making the purchase under the cover of "he'll be a toddler who needs a cool bed" when he talked me into disassembling his nursery.

I can honestly report that the only drawbacks to co-sleeping with us is that due to the fact that our son is quite big and tall for his age, you can almost always count on there being a foot, elbow, or a head full of curls in your face, ribs or stomach at any given hour. Nothing, and I mean nothing - can compare to having him roll over and hug us in his sleep, or the excitement he exhibits when we get ready for bed at night. To him, this continued privilege helps him remember that there's plenty of time and love to go around, and his special time to play with and love on his parents without any interruptions gives him something to look forward to at the end of our sometimes hectic days. He has been patient with the extra workload I took on with the girls, and is even starting to become more fascinated with them, as is evident by the glee he gets from putting objects on their heads from time to time, or squatting in front of their bouncy seats dangling the sock money that he'll never, ever allow them to play with.

I don't believe we're setting him up for a lifetime of co-dependency, either. He is a very independent, headstrong little fellow who enjoys his space. He's not clingy to the point of it being annoying, except for the typical almost-two-year-old leg-grabbing shenanigans when I'm attempting to step over a child gate with a baby in one arm and a laundry basket in another. I don't anticipate having a sleeping child in my bed for the next decade. I'm certain that he will be back sleeping in his room probably over the course of this next year, and I'm also quite confident that the transition will be easier for him than it will be for us. We don't see any reason to ever co-sleep with the girls, as they are quite cozy with one another, and we aren't inclined to fix things that aren't broken around here.

Certain people have asked me if having an extra occupant in bed with us has affected the intimacy of our marriage. I ask them to stroll down memory lane and remember the fevered excitement they may have experienced in their younger years when sneaking off with their lover to get their spontaneous groove on in unusual places ... and that is usually all the explanation they need. What can I say? We might be over-40 parents, but we're still adventure junkies.
 

The S.U.C.K cont'd - (Sick Unruly Crying Kids, v 2.0)

Week two in the trenches, and although we haven't completely unraveled - I feel like the core of my spool is now in plain view. It became clear reviewing my last missive that one should probably draft their post and review it during more cognizant moments before being so quick to hover the mouse arrow over that orange "publish" box in the upper right hand corner. Fever, chills and lack of sleep tends to skew your grammar, slay your punctuation, and makes for extreme long-winded rambling. Proofreading be damned, it was still a pretty concise account of the rigors a parent goes through when their little darlings fall ill. Since we're on our second week and I'm feeling a tad more optimistic that we'll be back to our old selves soon, I've had time to reflect on both some of the highlights and low points of our first major family-wide illness.

The determination a mother feels when attempting to alleviate their child's suffering knows absolutely no bounds. The helplessness she feels when she is unable to make 100% of the *achies* go away is closely akin to a punch in the gut. You'd literally be willing to siphon the sickness out of them and into your own body if that were an option. You'd cut deals with the devil. Sell your own mother. Anything to restore them to perfect health. At least that's how I feel, and this is regardless of the fact that it isn't something fatal they are afflicted with, like botulism or leprosy - it's the common cold, albeit an especially nasty strain. A bit over-the-top and dramatic? Maybe. During their teenage years when I've got a few hundred illnesses under my belt, I probably won't react as though the world has halted to an end when the kids get sick.

So now that we've established that most new mothers with very young children have a form of paranoia and neurosis that is virtually incurable - we can leave the apologies behind and continue on with the dreadful account of how this virus has affected us. I'm also going to offer some tips for other new, inexperienced mothers on how to 1) hold themselves together, and 2) stockpile their medicine chests with effective medicine, instruments and assorted soothies for their precious little darlings. It's also important to keep in perspective that when they're sick, you just love them more and affectionately promote them to *precious little darlings* while developing a certain parental amnesia that makes you forget all the times they have flung poo at you, or broke your favorite pair of glasses on purpose, or refused that can of ravioli you were forced to open when they turned their picky little noses up at the elaborate REAL dinner you were just certain they'd eat. I believe it is very important that we never, ever clue our kids in to the fact that all is immediately, irrecusably forgiven in the event that they're sick - else I can assure you that they will learn to hone their acting skills so that we can be convinced that they are.

Like I mentioned in my last post, we're never quick to administer medicine unless absolutely called for, but our pediatric medicine cabinet is stocked with the following Rx's and tools:

• (3) Thermometers - one digital for the ear, one digital for under the arm, and then the digital rectal thermometer that we differentiate by wrapping a few colored rubber bands around the case.
• A jar of Baby Vicks rub for their chests. I've heard people who also put them on the soles of their baby's feet, but my twin girls can bust out of a pair of footed pajamas like it's nobody's business when they're determined to play with their own (or each other's) toes.
• Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin, with marked dispenser syringes. We like the clear ones, because those little mL lines are just impossible to read if the plunger and the color of the medicine is similar.
• Simethicone drops for gas.
• Little Tummies Gripe Water for stomach upset.
• More than one bulb-type nasal aspirator. You're going to want to have a spare when the booger-crusted one you've used recently is drying after a good cleaning. Get new ones as often as possible, because there's a chance mold can grow inside and it's impossible to tell since it's impossible to see inside that tiny little opening.
• A jar of Aquaphor -we've used this miracle ointment for so many things, most notably: redness and irritation around deep creases (our girls are little butterballs), to dab under their raw little noses after constant nasal drip, dry skin, and to help ward off slobber rashes by applying a protective film on their chinny-chin-chins.
• A good cool-mist humidifier - remember to keep the filter clean.
• Glycerine suppositories. Cut length-wise, not in half - and be prepared to catch those slippery little suckers when you realize that your kid has very powerful sphincter muscles and it shoots back out towards your general direction.
• Baby nail clippers 

I would love for comments and suggestions on what else I'm missing out on. The more homeopathic, the better. But please note that I don't have the time, inclination or know-how to go all out and grow my own eucalyptus, brew my own gas remedies, or make salves and homemade ointments out of herbs I grow in my own garden. With 10-mo old twins and an 18-mo old, I just can't be bothered to get in touch with my inner hippie, although I'm sure she's buried in there somewhere. Perhaps for my grandchildren, when I can enjoy something resembling leisure time again. Right now the concept seems like a very far-fetched fantasy.

Last but definitely not least, it really helps to have a parenting partner who is calm, cool and collected in times of crisis. My hat is off to single mothers, because I truly believe I'd lack the conviction to keep my marbles intact if I had to survive a multi-child illness on my own. On the days Dad was at the office, I learned a few coping mechanisms on my own:

• Don't get freaked out by the amount of mucous that comes out of their noses. As long as they aren't gasping for air, or it's yellow or greenish colored (signals infection) - babies make a LOT of snot. They can't blow it out themselves, so it just kind of pools in their noses until you either remove it for them, or they sneeze on your shirt.
• Take their actual temperatures before deciding that they feel "warm" to the touch. Odds are, you've given them extra layers of clothing and extra chest cuddling when they're sick, and coupled with a few crying bouts, they're bound to have hot skin. Fevers really frightened me until a very wise sage on BabyCenter.com managed to convince me that fevers are actually very useful in helping their tiny bodies ward off illnesses.
• Pay close attention to their disposition and let that be a good indicator of how they're feeling. Cold symptoms seem harsh, but if they've still got the energy to laugh and play, odds are they aren't feeling quite as terrible as you fear.
• Be willing to deviate from your daily schedule and routine. Just like us, they tend to lose their appetites when they're sick, they might want to take longer naps (or no naps at all), and if you feel that a warm bath in the middle of the day will make them comfortable - don't be afraid to go off the appointed grid and change things up to accommodate their needs.
• While I'm a firm believer of being extra touchy-feely with my kids even on a good day, try to resist the urge to hold them next to you 24/7 while they're ill. I'm totally convinced that the stress and anxiety we feel resonates with them on some level, and sometimes too much extra coddling can be more suffocating than soothing.

Being a first-time mom, I've had to wing it these last couple of weeks, but I'm sure time, retrospect and more experience dealing with sick kids will prompt me to update this list. Hopefully a few suggestions from readers will help me expand on this too, as I'm always open to suggestions and advice. Please keep the admonishments to a minimum, though - I've been pretty upfront about my lack of experience, and hope that my ability to poke fun at my many shortcomings lends an idea to  how honestly I'm willing to admit when I've made mistakes.

As an update -

Samantha is nearly completely on the mend, and all the sticky snot has turned to crusty boogers. Sophia is still pretty snotty and has to be salined and aspirated a few times a day. Adler, KID TROOPER - well, let's just say that he proverbially stuck his middle finger up at his cold and decided he was well enough to play outside TWICE today. The little guy just can't be slowed down! And I'm pretty sure he's getting tired of being cooped up indoors with his twin sisters, who attempt to steal his thunder at any given turn. I believe the sunshine did him good. Dad caught it last, and he went to see the doctor for an inhaler, as he's asthmatic and can't risk a bad chest cold. As for me, I still feel like the left side of East Hell, but I've noticed that each passing day I feel a little better. I'm positive that once my babies are completely healed, I'll be back to 100%. I'm glad that as mothers, our "nerves" are regenerative by nature. What remnants I have that haven't been tested this week are quite frayed, but I'm confident that next time a virus turns my household into a S.U.C.K fortress, I'll be better equipped to cope with it.