twins

twins

My SIL and BIL aren't comfortable with too much info about their babes flying around the world so this will be short, vague, and hopefully sweet.

I got to spend the night helping on Sunday. Twin S has been home while Twin M still needed a bit of care. They were early but they are amazingly strong and perfect. So I spent the night doing the late/early feedings so the parents could get one last good night's sleep before having both babies home.

I could go on and on about the smell of a baby head and the perfection of the grunts and stretches and how awesome it is when they snuggle into you ... but instead I'd like to remark on how amazing I found my SIL and BIL to be.

BIL made dinner and cleaned up and SIL did some work from home and they both seemed to have time to do everything. I was amazed. No 'shushing', which was my full time occupation. No madless running about, which was my only source of exercise. No stressing about how I was feeding baby S, which, of course, I worried about every single drop going into Rio's mouth. Just a general house with a new baby in it, versus the way I felt which was a tornado with a new baby in it. It occurs to me that although things are 'fine' and Rio's 'doing great' and blahblahblah, I'm still in a twist because I haven't had some fundamental shift. I'm pulled between my past paradigm and my present reality. I literally feel like they're two islands and I have my toenails on one and my fingernails on the other and my body is suspended above the waters which contain sharks and snapping alligators. Fun.

I vaguely remember being absolutely insane when Rio came home. Totally stark raving mad. Arguably I didn't really relax until early this year, but the whole first 6 months was so terrifying for me. I'm so proud that my BIL and SIL are calm, cool and collected. And they are. You'd think it was their 6th and 7th children. They are complete naturals ...

So, I guess with everything going on in my life, I'm feeling not so natural at this mother thing. Evidently I need to learn, still - nearly 3 years into it - that I must:

*do more.
*ask for less help
*get better organized
*say 'no' to things from my old paradigm otherwise the aforementioned 3 are even more impossible than they are now
*prioritize better
*learn to be more of an island. one island.
*figure out how not to miss the old island and its inhabitants and strange but wonderful customs....

As a social butterfly my whole life, this devotion to a single purpose is a tough transition. But in consideration of the way my life 'feels' right now, I need to get on a different course of action. Be more and do more and be better at more than I am right now. So, I gotta fly. Lots to do.