Yesterday, I left my kids.  My husband, too.  Walked out the door, drove to the airport, got on a plane, and flew most of the way across the country. I ran away. And I’m glad I did.

It was about a month and a half ago that I was nearly crawling out of my own skin with the need for a break. Within a few days, I found out about a quilting retreat and booked the trip before I could have second thoughts. Just what the doctor ordered.

Last week, I was making small talk with a woman at my local quilting shop about the fact that I was looking forward to going on this trip, and made some comment about being just as excited to get away from my kids for a few days.

“You’re so bad!”, she said.

I know she was partly just teasing me, but I also know that there is some truth behind most jokes.  I could tell there was a part of her that was chiding me for being excited to leave my children.  And there was a part of me that was doing the same thing.

I got home from that shopping trip and vented to M. Don’t judge me, lady! Moms need a break, too! Taking care of kids full-time is stressful! M nodded at all the right times, reaffirmed my right to a weekend of my own, and mostly just let the issue drop.

But I would be lying if I said I felt no guilt as I packed for my trip. Part of it, I think, was the fact that I know this all came about as a way to run away. Escape my responsibilities. All of a sudden, I felt overwhelmed. I’m so lucky to have really wonderful, sweet, smart, healthy, happy kids. I’m so lucky that I get to be at home with them full-time. How could I act so thankless and just leave them, as though they’re nothing but a burden?

Intellectually, of course, I know that’s faulty logic. The fact that raising two kids is an enormous source of stress does not negate the fact that it’s also an enormous source of pride and joy.  Being a stay-at-home mom is an incredible opportunity. But even people who work at their dream jobs still go home for the weekend and take vacation days.  This weekend away is an indulgence, but not an undeserved one.

And so, here I sit. In my four-poster bed in a quiet room at an inn in Colorado. Downstairs, the innkeeper is making pumpkin french toast for breakfast. There’s a dozen or so of us who started chatting and sewing and geeking out about fabric from the moment we got here yesterday, and we will spend all of today doing the same.

M is at home with the kids, rocking the “dad about town” thing. He took them to the Children’s Museum, a bookstore, and out for dinner yesterday. Today they’re going swimming (after they get their H1N1 shots). M will be exhausted by the end of the weekend, but everyone is having a great time.

Tomorrow evening, I’ll fly back home. I’ll sneak into the kids’ room when I arrive and be so happy to see their sweet, sleeping faces.  And Monday morning, though I’ll be tired from my late flight, I’ll have a little more energy and patience.

Guilt or no guilt, we will all benefit.

I am in desperate need of a babysitter.  My friends are shaking their heads and saying “no frigging joke!” right about now, but there it is.

I needed one this winter and it never happened.  Finding a new sitter felt like just one more thing on my mile-long to-do list, and it never made it anywhere near the top.  The best I could manage is when my mom occasionally “virtually babysits.”  And by that, I mean that she chats with the kids on Skype while I run into the kitchen and get their dinner ready.  The kids think it’s fun, and my mom loves to see them active in their playroom.  But it’s not exactly a workable solution.

I emailed my moms of twins club, as that is the source of all good things.  There were a few leads, but nothing quite seemed to pan out.  At one of our monthly get-togethers, people mentioned they’d had great success with Craigslist, SitterCity, and Care.com.  Well, what the hell.  Time to get off my ass and do something about it.

I posted a job on Care.com.  Within 24 hours, I had nearly 30 responses. I’ve had at least another 30 since then. Hello, combination of college town, summertime, and bad economy!  Honestly, though, it was so many options it was almost too much.  Overwhelming.  But I’m trying to sort through, and in the next two days I’m interviewing five people.  Fingers crossed that one of them works out, but if not, there’s quite a line in my in-box.  Ideally, I’m hoping for a local college student who could keep up some hours through the school year… we’ll see.

[Witness my love for the Wii Fit over at the Ladies of Loserville today...]

A funny thing happened yesterday.  I went to work.  Well, sort of.

I still have this lingering side gig that I picked up before the kids came along.  It’s very few hours and done almost exclusively from home on my own time.  I don’t love it, and I may ditch it in the spring when this year’s cycle ends, but it’s a bit of continuity on the résumé and all that.

Yesterday, the trustees for whom I work were having a meeting, and wanted me to stop by for a few things.  Sure, no big deal, right?  Well, the meeting was at 9:30AM in Boston and I don’t have a steady supply of babysitters at my beck and call.  Fortunate for me, the meeting just happened to be half a block from my sister-in-law’s apartment and she wasn’t busy, so she volunteered to watch them. Whew.

So, for the first time in a long time, I actually had to set my alarm and wake up before the kids in order to get in a shower and be ready to go.  Pulled the kids out of bed at 7:30 (they were quietly awake, but on a normal day I would have let them chit-chat for a while longer), immediately fed them breakfast (which also would normally have waited a bit), and then went straight back upstairs to get them dressed (which I normally don’t bother with until about 9:30).  We had shoes and coats on, bag of toys and snacks packed, all of us in the car and on the road at 8:20AM.

While sitting in rush hour traffic, my sister-in-law called to say that she had forgotten about an internship interview, and could I possibly be back by 10:45?  Not a problem, but still… another last-minute wrinkle.  Kids in the back, dropping hats and beloved toys. Trying to keep my eyes on the road.  Run run, hurry hurry, complications in childcare, don’t be late to the meeting, don’t be late to pick up the kids.

It was a small, small taste of what I imagine it must be like to be a working mom, dropping kids off at daycare.  And may I say?  Damn, you guys.  Hats off, I cannot imagine doing that dance with two toddlers every single day.  I’m sure parts of it, like anything, get a lot easier with repetition and routine.  But I’ve gotten so used to the pace of my mornings, and days in general, it’s hard to imagine managing to get to an actual job at a reasonable hour, five days a week.

People sometimes ask me if I plan on going back to work.  The answer is: probably, but not now. I’ve said it before, but I am finding myself really satisfied with this choice of staying home with the kids.  Is it always sunshine and rainbows? Hell, no.  Do I miss being in my own office, chatting with co-workers, and accomplishing non-poop-related tasks?  Yeah, sometimes.  But mostly I really really like it here, and can’t imagine giving it up anytime soon.

Of course, I may change that tune when the kids hit two…

My mission, now that the summer is basically over and we have no travel plans in the foreseeable future, is to find activities and have a plan for this fall. While the weather is still nice and I’m sure we’ll have good outdoor days for a couple more months, I still feel the pressure of impending cabin fever with two soon-to-be-walking toddlers.  We just can’t be home all day, every day.  I like to have set plans on the calendar, obviously with some flexibility built in.

First is a mom-and-child(ren) playgroup/class.  This will be the fourth I’ve taken at my local maternity center. They aren’t perfect, but it’s structured, in a child-friendly environment, and it’s just nice to be with other kids their age. It’s led by an instructor who does songs and books and games with the kids, and there’s always a “development” topic that we can all discuss for each class. Of course, I predict now that there will be at least one post in the coming months about me being insecure that my kids are the only ones not walking and talking. But oh well.  It’s a somewhat pricey class, especially now that I have to pay for the second kid, but there you have it.

I’m also getting recommendations on nearby library story times.  These have the obvious benefit of being free, but I think they’ll also be a nice block of time.  Get the kids in the car, drive there, unpack, story and walk around, pack up, drive home. It will fill the space between morning and afternoon nap quite nicely, I think.

Today, I went to check out a new place.  It’s a multi-purpose business that does a lot of child and adult activity/classes like yoga, self defense, pilates, dance, and the like. But they also have a drop-in play time for kids, including one block specifically for 24 months and under.  I have to say, it was just as great as I thought it would be.  A big open room with padded floors, and huge vinyl/foam building blocks and shapes for them to crawl on, over, under… balls to roll, and a parachute to flap.  And at $5 per kid per day on a no-commitment drop-in basis, not a bad way to spend an hour.  I think the kids really liked it.  Rebecca, as expected, was all over the place. Daniel clung to me a little more, but did branch out and check out the scene.  We’ll definitely be returning.  The only trick is that it’s that slot between the AM and PM naps, and the drive is just long enough that I had to work to keep them from falling asleep on the way home.  Still, though, tons of fun and a great indoor option.

I’m also hoping to take advantage of the babysitting room at my gym.  It’s only $2 per kid per hour, and has the added benefit of allowing me to get some much-needed exercise.  I thought about doing a Music Together class, but all of the times conflict with naps.  Maybe later in the winter when we switch to one nap (not something I’m exactly looking forward to).

This, for me, is the way to survive the potential isolation and frustration of being a stay-at-home-mom.  While I love it and wouldn’t trade it, there are times when it’s really, really hard and I’m at a loss for how to entertain the kids and not lose my mind.  You’ll notice that only one of the things I listed is a hard-and-fast longer-term commitment (the mom-child class is 10-12 weeks long).  Everything else is a pre-existing thing that we can go to and have on the calendar, but if we decide not to, nothing is lost.  I didn’t want to over-commit us to too many things.  And only one is particularly expensive (again, the mom-child class).  The rest are either free or relatively cheap.

We’re at a somewhat tricky stage.  The kids are mobile and have no interest in sitting still for long, but they aren’t yet walking and still require two naps per day.  That limits our available hours and leaves only a few physical-activity options.  I have a feeling that, when I go to make plans for January through April, it’s going to look fairly different from what it is now.  Can’t get too far ahead of myself, though.  For now: concentrate on activities to last us into December.  Let’s hope the nap schedule holds until then.

I just jinxed myself, didn’t I?  Sigh…

I wrote a post today for How Do You Do It? about my decision to be a stay-at-home-mom, and marked the beginning of my second year living outside of the academic calendar.  Check it out.

Clearly, I’m not a particularly ambitious person as far as career trajectory and such things.  Not that ambition is inherently bad in any way, it’s just not my thing.  I always worked to live, not the other way around.

Which leads me to this whole Sarah Palin thing.

I know, I’m stepping way outside my usual topics.  I’m not a political blogger.  I’m a mommy blogger.  But she’s a mom, and I have a few things to say.  And, well, it’s my blog.

When McCain announced her as a running mate, I was baffled. An insulting appeal to holdout Hillary supporters?  “Look, she’s a woman! You like women, right? I mean, she’s the antithesis of everything Hillary holds dear, but who cares?”  An odd appeal to the right-wingers?  It’s been a trainwreck to watch.  She’s under an ethics investigation, McCain listed Governor, Mayor, and PTA as her executive experience. It completely undercuts his whole “ready to be Commander-in-Chief” argument. It’s just weird, and I’m at a total loss as to why on earth this was his choice.  I keep waiting for something new to jump out that would have it make sense, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening.

But hey, I’m not supposed to like his running mate.  I’m a Democrat, through and through, and wasn’t going to vote for him in the first place.  His choice of a right-wing nutter just gave me another reason.  Fine.  But as a fellow mother, I have to question Sarah Palin on her judgment.  And as everyone wants us to remember, it’s all about good judgment, right?

Let’s ignore the conspiracy theories about her youngest son actually being her grandson. It smells fishy, but I obviously have no basis of proving or disproving it, so fine. And really, I could care less that her daughter is pregnant, even if it gives me a brief laugh at “so, how’s that abstinence-only sex ed working out for you?”  But fine, things happen to teenagers.  And while it sort of adds to the media/political train wreck, fine. I have really no beef with that at all.

My beef is with putting ambition before family. I know that sometimes there are sacrifices in life. But you have a very young child with special needs.  If bits and pieces of the conspiracy theories are to be believed, you were going into preterm labor and yet continued to give a speech and then fly across the continent instead of seeking medical attention. She went back to work after something like three days. And she’s campaigning and running for Vice President with a newborn with Down’s syndrome.

Sure, I suppose being asked to be the Vice Presidential candidate for a major political party is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And it would be hard to turn it down. But with a newborn? When you have almost no high-level political experience? Ambition wins over family.

Yes, it’s a double standard. People wouldn’t be saying the same thing of a man in her position. But it’s no secret that being a mom is different than being a dad, like it or not.  Is it fair?  Maybe not, but I’m not sure that’s the point.

I’m rambling, I know.  This, among other reasons, is why I’m not a political blogger. But this Sarah Palin thing is just getting under my skin.  She wiggs me out. When she speaks, it just feels wrong to me.  Let’s just hope that my candidate actually wins for once, and I can forget Sarah Palin’s name after November 4.

I will preface this by saying I love my kids VERY much, and am really glad I decided not to go back to work in order to be with them.

But seriously, when is my day off?

I know there are lots of people who say that being a mom is one of the hardest jobs you’ll ever do. And I think that’s true for about a million reasons. But today’s reason is that there is no vacation from the mom job. No personal days, no paid time off. No weekend. And that, sometimes, sucks.

I don’t even want a babysitter right now (although I’m working on getting one, and I’m really excited about it). I don’t want a friend to come over and watch the kids so I can go out. Screw going out. I want someone to take the kids out of the house for a day. Take them somewhere else, so that I can just quietly stay in bed. I don’t care if I still wake up at 6am. I won’t have to get up. I can drift back to sleep. Or I can get up, have some breakfast, and then climb back into bed for my own morning nap. I won’t have to run and jump into the shower for five minutes the moment the twins go down for their first nap (since you never know if today will be a good nap day or a bad nap day). I just want to spend one quiet day, alone in my pajamas. Not covered in spitup.

Oh yes, I’d miss them. Because even though I was on the verge of tears this morning because they weren’t sleeping well but I really wanted to, they can then turn around and smile and it really does lift my spirits. They’re sweet and funny and I wouldn’t give them up for anything.

But I feel like maybe I’d be OK with a day of absence making my heart grow fonder. Ah well. My heart is pretty fond already, I suppose.

I have learned one of the fundamental truths of motherhood: there are no sick days.

By mid-day on Friday, I had a stomachache that just didn’t seem to want to go away. Of course, in my infinite wisdom, I continued to eat junk, so you know that helped. By the time I got home from a quick pediatrician visit (all is well, just a re-check), I started to become convinced that I would throw up soon.

You know that feeling. When your stomach hurts and you’re starting to get dizzy and achy, and all you can think is: “please, just let me throw up so I’ll feel better.” That was me at about 3pm yesterday.

So, there I sat on the floor of our half bathroom, praying that the porcelain god would make it all alright. It got worse and worse, but the relief never came. Finally, 45 minutes later I realized I was starting to doze off. I decided to try to curl up on the couch. Rebecca was already there, sitting in the Boppy, sleepy and crying for a pacifier replacement every few minutes. But once that was taken care of, she settled down. And blessedly, Daniel was still in his carseat, having the best nap he’d had all day. Thank god.

All I could think of was, “please let me feel more human by the time they need to eat again.” At one point, I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to sit up to feed them. Thankfully, by the time they woke up the edge had gone from the worst of it, so I was able to do what I needed.

The other good thing was that this all took place in the late afternoon, so I didn’t have to wait forever for M to come home. I called and asked him to pick up some Pepto on his way home, but stopped short of asking him to leave early. Since he had left early last Friday when my back went out, it seemed a little suspect for him to tell his boss that I needed him to come home early on Friday again.

When he did get home, I went straight to bed at about 7:30pm. And, such a kind person is he, I was able to sleep all the way until about 4:30am. He took the babies all night long, and now I feel about 80% better. Hooray for beloved husbands!

I can only imagine how bad this will be when I get really sick, and he can’t come home at all. Twinfants are so much work, it’s close enough to impossible sometimes when you’re 100% well. These are the times I wish we had family around. My mom seemed to think the same thing when I talked to her on the phone in the midst of my nausea. She felt terrible that she couldn’t just come right over and help me out. Alas.

Now, let’s just cross our fingers that what happened to me was food poisoning and not a stomach bug. I really don’t want to have two sick babies on my hands.

It’s official. I am a stay-at-home mom.

Oh, sure, I haven’t been to work in about three months. But, technically-speaking, I’m on maternity leave. I could theoretically go back. I didn’t really think that I would, but I liked having the option. Plus, keeping my options open meant that I’d get paid for sick time and short-term disability, so why not take the leave?

However, my time is running short. I’m 12 weeks in to my 16 weeks of leave. My boss called about 10 days ago to ask (in the nicest way humanly possible) if I would give some thought to what my plans were and let him know. No longer could I put off the final decision. So, yesterday I called and told him I would not be coming back to work.

Just like me, he was bummed but not surprised. He obviously knows how much money I make, and though he doesn’t have any kids of his own, he knows that childcare is expensive. For me, I’m not inclined to send my infants to a day care if I don’t have to, even though I know plenty of them are high-quality. And around here, there are six-month waiting lists for the good ones. Not that it’s any more affordable. And a nanny/sitter would run me enough money that I’d likely be paying $50 more than I take home per day. Just so I can have a two-hour round-trip commute so someone else can spend time with my kids? I really did love my job, but I think going back to it right now would just cause me to resent it.

I’ll go back to work at some point, and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to pull off doing part-time when they’re in preschool or something. Or maybe I’ll go so stir-crazy at home with them that I’ll need to find a job so I don’t crack. But for the forseeable future, I’ll be here with my kids. We’ll take classes, have outings with friends, run errands. Maybe I’ll start making dinner more often. Homemaker, housewife, “just a mom.” Domestic Goddess in-progress.

Here we go!

As a sidenote, when I called my boss, both babies decided to have a screaming meltdown. I sure hope that wasn’t foreshadowing on what a bad idea this was…

I came to yet another funny realization about my new life the other day. The school year is starting. And I almost missed it.

This is very strange. I have lived my life by the academic calendar for about the last 25 years. I didn’t take time off between high school, college, and graduate school, so I was a perpetual student until I was 22 years old. After finishing my master’s degree, I worked in a high school for two years, and then moved straight on to working at a college. Sure, the jobs changed a bit (no more summers off!), but the general rhythm of my year did not. I always liked this aspect of working in education. Though any given day can be an unknown, there’s a very predictable pattern to the year. You know that November will be like this, March will be like that. Forget January 1, Labor Day is the beginning of my new year.

Not anymore. This Labor Day weekend is coming and going with no change in my (new) daily routine. No orientation for new students, no chaos of the start of the semester, no shock to the system after going from lazy summer to crazy fall. Oh sure, my routine has changed plenty in the last month. Life is both busier and not. But it is independent of the semester. No more life in 14-week blocks.

At least, not until they hit kindergarten.

Chalk up the lack of posts to the fact that today is day 5 of me being solo with the twins. Things are going well, but I’m obviously left with much less time to do things like blog… or shower.

Actually, things are going pretty well. I have indeed managed to shower nearly every day. I also make it a goal to take a walk with the babies every day, for my dog’s sake as much as my own, and I have accomplished said goal three out of four days already (and things are looking good for today). We’ve made trips to the doctor’s office, the store, and the Breastfeeding Moms Support Group at my hospital’s community health center.

Speaking of breastfeeding… it is slowly improving. My pump did, in fact, come back to life after a short hiatus. But I’m also only pumping a couple of times a day at this point. Once I was alone, it was one of the first things to fall by the wayside. With the three-hour feeding rotation, I just couldn’t devote so much time to sitting at the pump. However, I am now pretty much breastfeeding one twin for each feeding. Sometimes they still take a little supplement when they’re done, but not always.

Itty bitty Rebecca nurses really well, her only problem being that she sometimes falls asleep. I frequently strip her down to her diaper before nursing, so she isn’t too warm and cozy. Her tiny body is starting to fill out, and her cheeks are already chubbier. She’s gaining an appropriate amount of weight, but still adds up to only 5lb9oz as of Tuesday. So despite being my stronger nurser, she is still alternating feeds with high-calorie formula. I won’t be sad to see that stuff go.

Rebecca is generally pretty calm, sleeps well, and makes awfully funny faces. Beware when she decides she’s unhappy, though. She’ll go from calm to screaming herself purple. Thankfully, those occasions are somewhat rare, and she tends to be easy to calm. She’s frequently quite red in the face, and much like her mom, reacts somewhat strongly to the warm temperatures. On the 85-90 degree days, she is often found in diaper only. She’s sweet as can be, and we often just call her “itty bitty.”

Daniel is finally catching on to this whole latching/nursing thing. He’s still quite frantic, shaking his head and smacking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. But eventually he figures out where he is, and sucks away. Speaking of sucking, he needs to have something in his mouth seemingly at least 12-15 hours per day. He screams bloody murder if he looses his pacifier, which he does approximately every 6 minutes. But he’s a stellar eater overall, and is currently tipping the scales at 7lb14oz. Yes, he outweighs his sister by about 2.5 pounds. He moved right on into size 1 diapers yesterday, while his sister still hangs out in the newborn size, and swims in newborn-sized clothes.

Due to the seemingly constant pacifier replacement issues, Daniel spends more total fussy time than his sister, earning him the nickname, Señor Fussy-Pants. (There are songs about it, too.) And yet, if he has his pacifier, very few things seem to bother him. Heat is no problem, nor is the carseat or a full, stinky diaper. He makes the sweetest sounds when he’s falling asleep.

As for me, I’m doing pretty well. My blood pressure is back to normal, and I can see my ankles again. I still have plenty of fat and flab (I got my first postpartum “when are the babies due?” last night… alas), but I do think it’s coming down. The batteries are dead in my scale, so I have no idea how much I may have lost. I’m morbidly curious, but not surprisingly, have not actually managed such a time-consuming task as putting batteries in the scale. My incision has run into a few minor complications, but nothing some antibiotics can’t fix.

Emotionally, I’m doing well. Very infrequent attacks of the weepies. As an example, within 10 minutes of my husband leaving on my first day solo, both babies were hungry and screaming, and the dog threw up. And you know what? I didn’t cry! I take that as an accomplishment. I’m not sleeping a lot, but it’s not like that’s front-page news. I think it’ll catch up to me soon, but for now, I’m functioning.

Both babies are now fed and in their carseats, so it’s time for our walk. And hey, this post only took me two hours to write! Well, OK, more like five days of thinking about posting and then two hours, but still… Hopefully I’ll manage to write more frequently, but for now, know that I’ve got my hands full!