I've never had a singleton baby (yet... if ever), so I have nothing to compare my own version of motherhood to. And while having twins IS NOT the hell that people make it out to be --mainly those that see you in the grocery store with husband, cart, double stroller AND two babies in tow and immediately feed you the obligatory sympathetic line-- it does, certainly, come with its own set of challenges.
I am the oldest of four, and ten years older than my youngest sibling, so I was granted the privilege of watching her grow up and experiencing infancy from the outside looking in well before I became a mother. However, having your own kids is different in about a hundred ways, so while I had a small bank of baby knowledge, the Stinky Twinkies still manage to surprise me on a regular basis.
Hubby and I have had to learn to be creative, times two. Here are a few things we've learned or developed as a result of double trouble:
A mother of twins constantly looks like she's heading to the airport for a long trip. Everywhere I go with my babies, regardless of whether Hubby is with me or not, I am carrying two car seats (soon to be gone when we upgrade to convertible... my blistered hands are cheering with relief, even though I have no friggin' clue how I will manage to carry two babies out to the car, lock the front door, buckle them in and get all our shit out the car WITHOUT LEAVING AT LEAST ONE ALONE. wtf???), a diaper bag, my purse, blankets and toys (which may or may not fit into that diaper bag and purse), and a double stroller.
Twin parents know how to feed two babies at the same time, for the sake of a lovely, beautiful, wonderful feeding SCHEDULE. They also know how to feed baby food to two babies at the same time, whether in their carseats, in their high chairs, or in their Boppys (ies?) on the couch. They ALSO know how to finish bottle-feeding one baby while burping the other, and spoon feeding one baby while bottle-feeding and/or burping the other. Additionally, we have learned to use our toes to grab the remote, change the channel, shove the cat away, pick up the lost binky or toy, kick a package of diapers down the stairs, toss things UP the stairs while we follow with a baby on each hip... the list goes on. Basically, we're master multi-taskers. I can only imagine what parents of triplets or more can do.
We absolutely do not give a flying bug-f**k as to what belongs to who. In the beginning, I designated certain things to certain babies for the sake of balance. To this day, there are some things that remain specifically Dexter's, or specifically Elijah's. We get a lot of shit in green and blue, partly because they're boy colors, partly because they're two different colors, partly because they go with the nursery, and partly because we can't find anything else. So, for example, Dex has a blue puppy dog Dreamlite in his crib, a puppy lovey and matching blanket, and a crocheted blanket with a green stripe from his great-grandma. Elijah has a green dinosaur Dreamlite, a monkey lovey and blanket, and his crocheted blankie has a blue stripe. They stay there, and never switch.
However, clothes are interchanged, sometimes daily. We'll put one baby in a giraffe onesie and the other in a Spongebob onesie, and aside from looking at any photos taken the previous day, have not a clue in hell who wore what. Binkies are interchanged about twenty times a day, whether by us or the babies. They've gotten to that age where they're better with dexterity and gripping, so while I'm in the kitchen and they're on the floor playing, I may suddenly hear a banshee squeal and run in to find, simply, that Dexter has snatched Eli's binky out of his mouth and popped it into his own.
WTF is a shower? Seriously... I do manage to wash my hair every other or every two days, and at the very least I'll sponge bathe the nasties every day to avoid smelling like a homeless man stuffing his coat with rotten cheese. But a full, daily shower? I haven't done that shit since I was on bed rest, and that was only because I didn't have anything better to do.
You may become slightly dependent on alcohol where you never really even drank before. Ever since I outgrew the childish drunken bar-hopping phase about five years ago, I've been a lightweight and a terrible drinker. I have, however, always enjoyed the occasional cocktail or glass of wine, but no more than one, MAYBE two if I'm feeling particularly adventurous. Now, there is a bottle (or four) of Barefoot Pinot Grigio in my house AT ALL TIMES.
