Neither of my kids ever seemed to mind diaper changes all that much. I know plenty of babies who would be hysterical the moment you got the onesie unbuttoned, but my kids generally took it in stride.
No more.
Now we’re in full on squirm/flip/wrestle/scream mode. Good times. Rebecca just wants to be somewhere else. And Daniel has been plain fussy recently, and loses it when I lie him down. Not sure why, but he does. So now I’m all about distractions on the changing table. Rebecca gets the hygiene supplies, like the bottle of saline spray or the tube of butt paste. Daniel, above all else, loves his plastic links. Especially when he can shake them and make noise. I bought them in a package of 24 for about $3 at Target, probably six months ago. Best money I ever spent, apparently.
The heat and humidity, combined with the threat of severe afternoon thunderstorms, kept us from our longer afternoon walk. Instead, after the PM nap, we slathered on some sunscreen and sat outside for the short while we had before the dark clouds and thunder raced in. I brought out some wooden spoons and metal bowls, finally remembering one of those divinely simple toy ideas… and they were a hit! Not only were the spoons reasonably safe to chew on, but Daniel figured out how to bang it on the bowl after only being shown once or twice. Not bad! A future percussionist? 
Despite having only a 35-minute afternoon nap, my kids did really well being outside for a few hours, passed around to various friends and family. Rebecca had a hard time going to bed, and I have a slight suspicion she might be working on an ear infection, but Daniel was happy as could be the whole darn time. And who wouldn’t be, if you got to try your first rib?
I still get a ridiculous number of pictures of my children (also thanks to my sister-in-law), but basically none of the other people at the party, which is sort of too bad. Maybe next time…
I was so psyched to try it out (and wanted to do so before the promised late-afternoon rain showers) that I carried both kids outside without bothering to put pants on them. Ah, whatever, it was nice out.
She was going through that awful, overwhelmed period where you feel like you spend so much time managing the babies that you can’t actually enjoy them. Plus, she’s in a new moms class (probably the same one I took), and really only has the other singleton moms to compare herself to, so she feels like she’s really not “keeping up,” while all of the other moms are practicing the songs and reading books to their newborns… She got a lot of really positive feedback from the group, as what she’s going through sounds completely normal to the rest of us.
I loved that new moms group, because there really are a lot of things that are universal to the experience of being a first-time-mom. We’re all a little nervous, wondering if it’s normal for newborns to be so… noisy, and all of the other new-baby stuff. But on the other hand, there are some fundamental differences to the experience of having multiples that go beyond “twice as much of everything.” Because, especially in the newborn days, that can mean twice as much time feeding, changing diapers, trying to get them to sleep, etc. And that (obviously) has an enormous impact on what else you’re able to do. There’s very little time (and, in particular, energy) for things we hear that singleton moms are doing – singing songs, reading books, lots of cuddling. With two newborns, you almost never get to do those things, and it’s hard not to feel like a shitty mother for it. Especially when the singleton moms in your class claim that their 6-week-old “loves books!”, and you’ve yet to crack one open for your pair. When you hear that there’s some guideline that says you’re not supposed to leave them in the swing for more than 20-30 minutes at a time (I swear I read this somewhere), and that’s the only place you can get yours to sleep, or at least stop screaming long enough for you to pee. Oh, the ways in which we beat ourselves up over the things that we do just to survive those first few months.
The key for me, as I have said before and will say again, is social support in the form of a mom network. And much as I love my singleton mom friends, and I don’t mean to knock them, because parenting any newborn is hard, hard work – it’s just different with twins. It just is. And you need to be able to talk to people who have done it with two.
And, little by little, you start to figure it out. You pass that awful newborn stage and end up with predictable naps and happier kids. And then you realize, you’re lucky to be a twin mom when you watch your singleton friends use all of that spare time to hover over their children and freak out about every little scratch or stolen toy. As overwhelming as those newborn days are, I honestly believe being a twin mom actually makes you a lot more laid back about a lot of things, because you have to pick and choose what you’ll spend your time worrying about. You realize your kids have made you a supermom.
