Who said you could grow up so fast?

So sometime in the next few days, we will be celebrating some birthdays around here. Diva & Intuitive will be turning 7 years old.

 

Seven.

 

If I had broken a mirror on the day they were born, I’d be free of the bad luck.

 

Looking back, 7 years doesn’t seem like such a long time. Some days felt long, sure, but all thrown together, it’s just a clusterfuck of days and moments and minutes and seconds and memories. There were highs, there were lows. There were diapers. Oh, were there diapers. Sorry, landfills. I contributed quite a bit to the world being full of trash.

 

When I think back to the early days, it kind of feels like it was someone else in a whole different life. Are these two KIDS the same premature babies that couldn’t breathe or eat when they were born? Seriously? They were two mini little baby type things, and now they are, like, human-pseudo-grownups.

 

For real, who let that happen? Who said it was ok for them to sit up, crawl, walk, talk, THINK? I don’t recall giving them the ok to do all this shit. They are self sufficient, free thinkers.. With likes and dislikes, ideas and theories, strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know when these things happened. They are honor roll students, their teachers love them, they have oodles and oodles of friends.. It’s a crazy trip to see them interacting like miniature grown up humans.

 

I find something new to be proud of every single day, and I know I always will.

 

Diva, my brainy little princess, you came into the world squealing, making your presence known. I’m proud to be your mommy, and I can’t wait to see you grow up. Keep writing and reading and imagining things. Keep thinking up crazy “scenes” that you think would make great movies or tv shows. You can do it all.

Intuitive, my sweet little giggling princess, your laugh is impossible to ignore, and one of my favorite sounds. You do things your way, and you are one of the most stubborn people I know – don’t ever lose that. You are amazing and strong-willed, and I can’t wait to see where that takes you in life. I’m always here.

 

With that, I’m gonna go cry in my coffee. Happy tears, because my babies are growing and becoming amazing people… but there will be some sad tears, too.. I’ll never get those days back, and sometimes, I just wish I could.

 

 

Shit you shouldn’t say to a mom with more than one child.

As you may be aware, I’ve never had one child. I started off the whole shebang with Diva & Intuitive. Because of that, I don’t KNOW what it’s like to have ONE child. That may seem painfully obvious to many of you. (I hope it is, anyways.)

Diva & Intuitive were about 5 weeks early. They stayed in the hospital for a little over a week before being healthy enough to go home. After taking them home, I went into super-insane-overprotective-mamabear mode. Save for doctor appointments, we didn’t take them out of the house very much until they were about 6-7 weeks old. When we did start taking them out, they were always in their carseat, snapped into their double stroller, (THE BUS) with the sun shade pulled up and a blanket covering the majority of the open space that was left. I never imagined that going out with them could be more stressful than it already was.

Then it happened.

Apparently I failed to recieve the memo that having twins automatically makes you a three ring fucking circus. I also didn’t know that tickets were free for one and all.

Perhaps I was very sheltered. Perhaps The Mayor & First Husband raised me with manners. Maybe I just didn’t pay attention to anything other than my little world. I had no idea that there were people, LOTS of people, who could be very.. forward.

On our very first mall outing, the comments started. I tried to be nice, I really did. After the 87th time hearing the SAME comment/questions/concerns I lost the polite filter.

These are some of the comments that I repeatedly recieved.. While I “only” had twins. The comments that came after Handsome came along will be another section.

• ARE THEY TWINS?! – Two small infants. One double stroller. Matching car seats. No, they’re not twins. I stole this other one. Is that bad?
• Two boys? A boy and a girl? Two girls? – One squirrel and one spider monkey, actually.
• Is it harder than one baby? – Well I would sure fucking assume so, since, you know, there ARE TWO OF THEM.
• Are they natural? – Nope, silicone! Don’t they look real? (The balls on people to ask if I had in-vitro. There is obviously nothing wrong with in-vitro, but what business is it of theirs? Market research?!)
• Vaginal or c-section?! – Uh. Go away please. I don’t want my babies to catch “rude”. (This one always floored me. Why on God’s green earth would a stranger want to imagine my hoohaa expelling children OR my guts being removed to extract them?!)
• My sister’s cousin’s husband’s friend’s daughter has twins! – OMG no way! We are practically family, in that case.
• How did you have twins? – Like, literally? How were they conceived? Uh, google it, please. (There was a time I said something a BIT more crass than that, but, uh, my dad reads this. It had something to do with doing something twice in one night..)
• You’re such a great nanny! – Listen, bitch. I will SHOW YOU MY STRETCH MARKS, k? Thanks.
• It will get easier, I promise! – Uh, how? All they do is eat, sleep, and lay there. I assume that they will eventually MOVE and voice opinions.

By the time Diva & Intuitive were about 11 months old, I was pregnant with Handsome. I had no idea that the comments were about to get even better.

• Were you TRYING for another one? – What’s the difference? My uterus, not yours!
• What if it’s ANOTHER girl?! – Uh, well.. If the bun in the oven is another girl.. Then we’ll have 3 girls. Simple math, methinks.
• Do you really want a 3rd baby?? – Baby?! This one isn’t going to be a puppy? Shit. I really wanted a chihuahua.
• You need a TV. Do you know what causes “that”? – Uh… We have a TV. Cable, too. I’ll have to google what causes “that”, though. Thanks for the heads up.
• I really hope that one is a boy! – Hmm. Interesting. I hope it’s healthy & full term. Anything else is a bonus.

One of the first times I went out with the 3 kids by myself, Diva & Intuitive were about 19 months old, Handsome was about 3 weeks old. We ventured out to Target. The girls were in the double stroller, the baby in the sling. As we were strolling through the household goods, Diva & Intuitive were chatting with each other and pointing things out to me and Handsome was snoozing in the sling. We come across a woman in the same aisle as us, and I do my usual “share the aisle” dance, trying to move the stroller enough to give her room to move by us. She stops. She looks at the girls, looks at the sling, looks at me.

“Are they triplets?”

I was not expecting that. At all. I mean, sure, Diva & Intuitive were a LITTLE small for their age.. but… uh…

As time went on, I got used to being asked if they were triplets, they looked alike and were close in size soon after Hadsome turned 1. That first time, though, had me speechless. Here are some more good ones.

• Are they all yours? – Nope! Gave birth to this one. Got this one at a garage sale. This one, I found at Target.
• You’re DONE now, right? – I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I want to beat the Duggars. Can we remember that I’ve ONLY been pregnant twice? That’s not unheard of. The fact that I got a BOGO with my first pregnancy is just a bonus.
• Do they all have the same dad?! – Ok, really, what fucking business is it of yours?! I would mess with people sometimes, and tell them that the twin girls had different fathers. That confused them. Job well done.
•  Lucky you had that boy so you can stop! – Yup, this whole process was just to have a boy. Lucky us! Thank goodness for a penis!
• Did you always want a HUGE family? – Personally, I don’t think that 3 kids is a HUGE family. So uh, that question is now invalid. Thanks.
• *pointing at sling* What’s THAT one? – A rabbit.
• WOW! Trying to singlehandedly over populate the world? – Why, yes! I am!

And one of my favorites, usually said to me while I have all three kids in tow at the grocery store…

Gee, you must have your hands full 

I do. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, if you see a Mommy out with her brood of small people, please, give her a smile. She’ll appreciate that.

Don’t ask her about the inner workings of her uterus. She’ll also appreciate that.

Has anyone asked you something crazy or made a crazy comment?

-Daisy

© Daisy and Violet 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Daisy’s breastfeeding escapades

By the time I reached the “Extremely Pregnant” phase of my first pregnancy, I decided that breastfeeding would definitely be in my future.  I asked the only person that I personally knew had breastfed for some advice. First words out of her mouth, “It hurts.”  Now, my extreme naïveté sure matched my “extreme” pregnant self. I had expected rainbows, cotton candy, and joy, yet… “It hurts” was what I got.

Quickly followed by, “When they try to tell you it doesn’t, they’re lying.”

She followed that up by saying something along the lines of, “The only thing that saved me for those first 6 weeks was clenching my teeth and reciting the alphabet, and usually by the time the alphabet was done, I wouldn’t want to throw the baby across the room.”  Now, did you just say the basic alphabet, or did you add the whole “next time won’t you sing with me” bit?  Eventually, we got to the rainbows, cotton candy, and joy. Bonding, yadda yadda, sweet, yadda yadda, free, yadda yadda. I never really got to use her advice with the results of that first pregnancy.

Instead, I got to become well acquainted with a human torture device, or as “they” like to call it, “a hospital grade pump.” Spawn of Satan, I say. If you enjoy feeling like Elsie, hanging out in the barn, with her udders on display, I would recommend you invest in one. Now, it did get the job done and my premature twin girls feasted on “booby milk” (hey, only the most accurate of terms here.) for about 8 months before the infernal thing got thrown out the window. (Or returned to the hospital. The rent on that thing was expensive.) Once Diva and Intuitive started  needing me to pump about 60 oz. each per day, my mammary glands protested and went on strike.

Fast forward, albeit not very far in the future, to my son’s birth. Come hell or highwater, I was gonna breastfeed this one until the cows came home; straight from the “tap”, or my name wasn’t Mommy.  Where was I? Oh yeah, birth of child number 3. The two older ones were about 19 months old. I really couldn’t fathom getting up in the middle of the night 87 times and dragging my ass downstairs to make a bottle. I also couldn’t fathom telling two 19 month olds to “sit tight” and not suffocate their newborn brother while I ran to make bottles 87 times a day. Breastfeeding, it would be. It had to be.

So, on that lovely evening that Handsome was wrangled out of me, as soon as the nurses let me, I threw him on the boob. 12 hours later, I was happy I remembered the advice I had recieved some 2 years earlier. I used my judgement and made sure to add “now you know your A, B, C’s, next time won’t you sing with me” at the end. I got a few strange looks from nurses when they’d walk in our hospital room and find the newborn suckling and the “new” mom mouthing the ABC’s. I never filled them in on my secret, I’d rather have them think I was a little crazy.

Sure as sugar, 6 weeks or so flew by, and I was finally able to stop singing myself into submission. After the initial shock to my, uh, lady lumps, everything was smooth sailing. I fed that child whenever, whereever, for FREE! The mall, Disney World, P.F. Changs, it was all good. Surprisingly, I only had a few obnoxious comments. Usually from half-dressed 20 something girls. Listen, chickie, if I can see your thong and half of your ass when you’re in your seat at dinner, don’t fuck with me about feeding my kid, ok?

17 months later, Handsome was all done. He was ready for the bright lights of big boy cups and milk from a jug, instead of from my jugs. My mom, “The Mayor” spent the first couple of nights with us after we weaned, and by golly, when she went in to comfort him when he woke up at his normal nursing hours, he just went back to sleep. The day we stopped breastfeeding was the first night he slept through the night.

With my crew well into childhood, I miss the newborn stage. Does that mean I want to pop out 75 more little darlings? Nah, not at this point. But, uh, if you have a newborn I can borrow for a few hours, let me know. I promise, I’ll keep my boobs to myself.

Oh, and if you’re wondering if breastfeeding can be fun, just ask Violet about the time that I showed her how far breastmilk can fly. Her bathroom mirror was never the same. Don’t let her try to convince you that she didn’t do it when she was breastfeeding Pterodactyl.

-Daisy

© Daisy and Violet 2012. All Rights Reserved.