Tonight it was very nearby at a friend’s house, so I thought I’d take the night out. But truthfully, I have mixed feelings about going to these meetings now.  I mean, I certainly don’t go for parenting advice among the 4-year-old set. Not only are there very few of us with “older” kids, but it’s just not as much of an advice-asking kind of age the way those first weeks and months with twin newborns were.  And while I do have an infant of my own…  what, like I’m going to ask Ellie-related questions? For one thing, it’s a single baby, and she’s not my first. So all of the basic infant stuff, I have a relatively decent handle on, or at least I’ve heard all of the advice before. And, believe it or not, there aren’t exactly any other parents of g-tube babies in attendance.

Honestly, part of the reason I went is to pretend like I’ve got my shit together. I mean, I mostly do, more or less. I guess. We’re all alive and clothed and fed, right? But I’ve had a rough couple of days (weeks? months?), and am feeling like I barely have my head above water. Some of Ellie’s delays and issues are, while certainly no worse than before, getting under my skin and stressing me out a lot right now.  I don’t feel like I’m doing a great job, and the uphill struggle just seems so long and slow and absolutely no relief in sight.  But chit-chatting with nice, curious, nervous women who are pregnant with their first babies? Easy peasy. Makes me feel like the wizened old expert.  I can momentarily escape the uncertainty and anxiety that are specific to Ellie for a few hours.

And while that does make me feel mildly guilty, that need to escape my sweet, snuggly little girl, I’m trying not to beat myself up over it. It’s been a rough year, and it’s not like she’s going to hit some magic age and everything will be resolved and better and “normal.”  It is what it is, and that’s alright. But I need a break every now and then.

So thanks, people at N’s house, for letting me yammer on about having two babies and things related and unrelated. Whether you know it or not, you were a bit of my therapy tonight. I needed it.

You see, most of my local mom friends (and blog-friends, for that matter) are directly linked to the fact that we all have twins.  The percentage of my mom-friends with twins is drastically out of proportion with reality.

Between my own experience of a twin pregnancy and those of my friends, I know entirely too many people whose babies have spent varying durations in one NICU or another.  I know so many 28- and 30- and 32-weekers who have spent months in the hospital.  Even though my babies were a full 36 weeks, that single, uneventful week in the special-care nursery was enough to dramatically alter my early parenting experience.  As kind and skilled as the nurses and doctors were, I hope they will not take offense to the fact that I have zero desire to make their acquaintance again.

Having carried twins to 36 weeks, I suppose it would stand to reason that I should easily be able to make it to 37-39 weeks with a singleton (my repeat c-section will be scheduled for around 39 weeks).  But I know better than to think there is any such promise made or implied by my previous pregnancy.

And so, here I am, in what feels like the red zone of “viability.”  God, what a word. It seems like it should be positive, optimistic, full of possibility.  But the mere fact of having to say it out loud makes it awful. I am nearly 28 weeks pregnant.  I have friends with 28-weekers, and while I know their long-term outcomes are often good, especially with the quality of care here in Boston, I also know that every week on the inside past 28 makes exponential differences.

But man, I wish I was blissfully ignorant of this risk.  I just want to go to the hospital, have my baby drama-free, and then go home together a few days later. Is that so much to ask?

I’ll be over here on the couch, lying on my left side and drinking lots of water, and trying to be grateful for every week that passes.

I sold for the second time.  My van was pretty full upon arrival for setup on Friday night.  Two high chairs (nice timing, right??), a diaper pail, a bunch of toys, and a big Rubbermaid crate filled to bursting with clothes.  And then, my friend was selling her Maclaren.  It was in such lovely shape… and the Peg Perego that was so bugging me was right out there in the van….  I ran out, wiped it off, brought it in, and slapped a tag on it (for the same price I was about to pay for my friend’s Maclaren).  I called M on the way out to the car, and I could almost hear him roll his eyes when he said “do whatever you want, honey.”  Heehee.  So the nice black & red Maclaren was sweet loot purchase #1 on Friday night.

Saturday morning, even more people arrived with even more stuff.  I knew immediately what I wanted, and was glad that my very early arrival meant I was 5th in line.  I tried to pretend I had some pride, and barely restrained myself from running when we were allowed in (not everyone is so restrained, trust me…).  I made a beeline back to the large equipment area.  SCORE!  THE WAGON IS MINE!

Heh.  It was all good after that.  Got a couple of books and an item or two of clothing for the kids.  The sale was absolute madness, and it appears that nearly every single thing that I brought was sold. There was almost a fight over my stroller, and it was sold within the first 20 minutes.  Glad my friends convinced me to bump up the price from my initial thought!  Three hours later, with the exception of one toy and a handful of shirts, all of my stuff was gone.  I’ll find out later, but I’m going to guess that I’ll be getting a check for over $200. Wohoo!

In the meantime, the kids friggin love their new wagon.  Especially, for whatever reason, the cupholders.

Yep, that was the scene at my friend T’s house yesterday afternoon.  Between us, there’s a fair amount of kid-age overlap, but here’s the rundown:

• Five adults
• Five sets of twins
  • 12-week identical boys
  • 12-month fraternal boys
  • 17-month boy-girl (mine)
  • 21-month boy-girl
  • 24-month identical boys
• Two singleton big sisters (21 months and nearly 3 years, sisters to the youngest two sets of twins)
• Twelve total kids between the ages of 12 weeks and 33 months

It was fun, it was loud.  I wanted to attempt a photo of all 12 kids at once, but that was clearly a pipe dream.  Especially since Rebecca was feeling a little clingy amongst the chaos and would have been quite unlikely to let me put her down.

But yeah, this is what happens when all of your local friends have twins.

Well, alright, that’s not entirely true.  Moving wasn’t hard. I had just graduated college and bought all of my furniture once I got here.  What’s hard about that?  No, the hard part is moving past being one of a few hundred thousand students, past being a “visitor.”  It’s hard to become a Massachusetts resident in the sense of feeling like you can say “I’m from Boston.”

New Englanders can have a reputation for not being as “nice” as other parts of the country.  That’s not entirely fair.  What they are is more private. While people can be nice and friendly and gregarious, you still don’t find a lot of people trying to become friends with the new neighbors. Or, while you might certainly say hello to the neighbor across the street, they aren’t going to invite you over for dinner.  It’s hard to really make friends when you’re not from around here.

At first, it was no big deal.  We still had our college friends. M got his undergrad degree here, so a bunch of his friends were still around.  A college friend of mine moved here the same time I did (and, in the end, married M’s roommate, but that’s another story).  But, as these things go in the years post-college, people moved away.  Friends left town, we moved out to the suburbs.  As a newlywed with no kids in a house in the ‘burbs, I suddenly realized my social circle was very small.  We didn’t really have work friends to hang out with, many of our neighbors were retired couples.

I suspected that having kids would be my big New England icebreaker.  There would be a cute baby to talk about, new groups and activities to join. In an environment where people don’t actively seek out new friends, I’d have a new outlet.  I had no idea how true this would be.

Some things were as I imagined: the new mom groups, music classes, and the like. What I didn’t imagine was how much the “twin thing” would change it all… for the better!  Finding out I was having twins was certainly an unexpected twist, but it turns out I couldn’t be in a better place.

You see, it turns out that Massachusetts has the highest rate of twin births in the entire country.  Add that to a very densely-packed area, and you can hardly turn a corner without seeing another double stroller. Now, I did read an article that suggested this was not so great, and you can see what I thought of that (spit, spit).

Truthfully, if you have twins, Boston is a great place to be. While some people might prefer to feel a little more “special” or unique, I rather like the fact that having twins is not the biggest deal in the world.  I still felt like enough of a traveling circus with the Double Snap N Go, it was nice to also run into people who’d give you a knowing nod.

I was further reminded of the benefits this week at my Moms of Twins Club’s monthly “Cope” meeting.  Half-support group and half-social club, I realized how lucky I was to have twins.  Because, you know what? There’s no “Moms of Singletons” club.  With my MOT club, I get to be in an organization that has an email group/message board for all kinds of parenting advice (not to mention things like referrals for a local plumber), that puts on events for the kids and for the moms, and is generally great for support and resources.  It reminds me a lot of my sorority – a local chapter of a national organization, all women, a big/little sister program… OK, they don’t do formals and my sorority never held a huge tag sale.  But you catch my drift.

Tricky as the social circles can be in Massachusetts, I was right in thinking that having kids would be the break-out that I was looking for.  I had no idea that, by doubling down, a whole new world would open up to me.  Looks like I was destined to be a Massachusetts Mama, after all.

Well, one of the required photos, as my friend LauraC pointed out to me, is the both-kids-in-the-playground-swing picture.  She warned me, months ago, that I should make sure I get that picture before they’re too big to fit.  Well, today we were at the playground, I had my camera with me, and I finally remembered. Size-wise, I think we just made it. My duty is done.

Holy. Crap.

It really is quite something.  Setup began at 6pm on Friday, with tables and signs going up, and the first batches of people’s stuff.  It resumed at 6am Saturday, when all of the sellers were required to come and finish setup and put out everything in its proper place.  I thought I had a lot with my three big rubbermaid crates full of clothes (plus carseat and other assorted things).  Yeah, I know someone else who had at least eight crates full.  Yikes!

It was still dark when we arrived, but you couldn’t miss the sea of minivans.  The scene at all of 6:45 in the morning was a sight to behold.  A several dozen strollers, high chairs, swings, and exersaucers.  Tables full of toys.  Mountains of clothing.  Bins full of shoes, racks sagging under the weight of dresses and parkas and Halloween costumes.

And that, as I say, was at 6:45 in the morning.  There were still carloads being brought in, and doors wouldn’t open for shopping for almost three hours.  At about 8:30, those of us who were selling were allowed to start shopping.  Having remembered all of my clothing and equipment, but apparently not my checkbook or even a single dollar, I had to borrow a check from a friend to get the toys and three pairs of shoes that caught my eye.  (Thanks, K.B!)  I couldn’t even wade through the clothing and coats.  It was too overwhelming for me, and my kids are doing fine with clothing.  At 9:30, it was straight to work for the sellers – that’s when twin club members enter.  I was working in the area with all of the strollers and carseats, so all of the pregnant women made a beeline to that side of the cafeteria.  At 10, the general public joined in the madness.  I’m told there were not as many shoppers as usual, but it sure seemed like a lot to me.  And hey, someone bought my carseat, so I’m psyched.

There were over 70 people selling.  Everyone is responsible for their own tagging and setting their own prices, so identical items varied widely in price.  You could find two of the same swing, and one would be $8 while the other would be $30. Crazy.  I was definitely on the low end.  I cared more that my stuff would get taken than about how much money I would make from it.  And, though I’ve yet to see the final total, I think I did reasonably well.  I believe all of my non-clothing items sold, from carseat to unused Diaper Genie to the BundleMe’s that kept my kids warm last winter.  And though the infant clothing has a reputation for not selling well, I would say a majority of my stuff was purchased.  There was some that wasn’t, of course, but I just tossed a few of the items back into my crate at the end of the day, and donated the rest.  It felt great.  Of course, I didn’t get home until nearly 3pm, and am exhausted.  But it was a good time and nice to get rid of all that stuff.

Sadly, my house does not really feel less cluttered at the end of the day.  Sigh.  So much yet to be done.

In my spare moments when the kids are sleeping, I’m plodding my way through the bins of baby clothes and tagging them for my twin club’s fall sale.  It’s hideously tedious work. Pick up an item, write my name, a description, the size, and a price on the tag… twice.  Cap the marker so I don’t stain my guest bed’s comforter, jab the super-sharp tagging gun into the cloth.  Fold and put in appropriate bin.  REPEAT.  AGAIN. AND AGAIN.  I’ve got two diaper boxes and one big rubbermaid container filled already, it has to be at least 100 individual items so far.

And I still need to go through the preemie-to-3-month box, and then do a sweep through the drawers and closets for the stragglers.  And even that hasn’t started on the larger items like one of the carseats, a Baby Bjorn, two exersaucers, and various assorted other baby stuff around the house.  It’s a little overwhelming, and I’m glad there’s still two more weeks until the sale.

It feels a little gluttonous, sorting through all of these clothes.  The sheer volume is amazing, and it’s sad, bordering on embarrasing, how many things were never worn at all, or only worn once.  So many were gifts from even before the kids were born, and the sizes and seasons just ended up being wrong (tricky to estimate correctly, since Rebecca is always a size “behind”).  But I’m pricing them pretty cheap (most shirts and pants are $1.00), and I hope some other family can get good use out of them.  I’m not exactly going into the sale with the hopes of bringing home big bucks.  I don’t feel the universe owes me some refund when I’m done with the clothes that we bought.  But hey, if I can make a few dollars here and there, why not? It can go towards this year’s fall/winter wardrobe, right?

I’ve come across a few items that have made me a little bit sentimental, but I may yet still stick a tag on ‘em and sell them.  They’re cute, I remember the kids wearing them, but why would I keep them?  We’ll see.  I’ll go through the boxes again before the sale just in case there’s some I want to keep at the last minute.

Here’s the interesting thing: as much as I look at some of these shirts and things and say “oh, I loved this one, she was so cute in it!”…  I don’t find myself with any real pull to keep any of it.  Maybe it’s because we’re most likely done having kids, and even if we aren’t, I’m not going to store it all on the off chance that we have another kid three years from now.  Maybe it’s because much of it, while super cute, was purchased on sale from Old Navy, so I don’t feel like I’m wasting a ton of money.  Maybe it’s because I’m just not into hand-me-downs.  Maybe it’s because I have nearly 5,000 pictures from their first year and nearly every outfit they wore is well-documented.  Or maybe it’s because they’re just clothes.

I don’t want to kick myself down the road, wishing I had kept some of this stuff.  Kept it, maybe, just so I could pull it out of the attic every now and then and marvel at how tiny they once were and see if there’s a little whiff of baby scent still on there.  But then what?  I still have my bouquet from my wedding, but it’s just sitting there in a box in a closet.  I’m never going to do anything with it, but haven’t been able to make myself throw it away.  Will I be the same way with the baby clothes, or shouldn’t I just bring them to the twin sale and donate whatever doesn’t sell?  Let someone else marvel at how adorable their child is in that little shirt.

So, we’ll see what happens when I actually put a price tag on these little things.  I’m sure there will be some that I keep, but I think the most are getting passed along.  I don’t even much care about making a lot of money, I just want to free up the space.  Like anything, it’s a little bittersweet to be done with some of the “baby” stuff.  But at the same time, would I really go back if I could?  Not a chance.  Let the tagging begin.

Tuesday was not a ton better.  It started off with a bang, as the dog decided to find poop in the yard (not her own), eat it, and then throw up all over my first floor.  Delightful.  I’m so glad I took that 6 years to convince M we should get a dog.  I then had to go to the doctor for my foot.  We still don’t know what’s wrong with it, but now it hurts more than before.  The doctor said he’d take an x-ray and see me back in 3 weeks.  Lovely.  I’ll limp until then.  Had a nice lunch with a wonderful friend of mine who is 30+ weeks pregnant with her first baby, despite Daniel throwing his sandwich all over the floor.

Daniel then completely skipped his afternoon nap, and was not a happy camper later in the afternoon while the plumber was here (again!), trying to make my bathtub drain properly.  But I had my monthly twin club meeting last night, which was lots of fun (and blog-tastic, with Mommy, Esq. – 36 weeks pregnant, c-section on Monday!!! – and Nancy in attendance).  I stayed entirely too late, but it was worth it.  Until I got pulled over on the way home.  For a damn expired license plate.  So guess what I got to do all morning today? Yay, RMV and unpaid Boston parking tickets.

Hopefully, though, this is all just to make me appreciate the upcoming week even more.  Because on Saturday morning, we leave (at the crack of dawn) for a week in Virginia Beach with some dear friends and their two kids.  We rented a house on the beach, how cool will this be?!  One 10-month-old, two 12-month-olds, and one nearly-3-year-old.  And anywhere between four and six adults, depending on the day.  Sure, the trip presents some new logistical challenges, since it’s the first time we’re not primarily staying with family who can shop ahead and all of that.  But I think it will be great, and if not totally relaxing, at least lots of fun.  And if we can get the stars to align just so, I might even be able to meet up with Cheryl!  Blogosphere and real world collide!

Now, I just have to do laundry… and make a grocery list… and pack… and make a reservation for the dog at the kennel….  oy.

In completely unrelated, but incredibly cute, news… Rebecca is getting a big kick out of playing peekaboo by herself:

Where's Rebecca?

There she is!