Angels on the Playground

The first time I remember seeing an angel was when Andrew was three and a half years old. We were at the annual October horse show in Boeblingen and Andrew was, in typical Andrew-fashion, playing on a big circle of large rocks outside the warm-up dressage ring. He was jumping from rock to rock. It looked pretty dangerous - the rocks were spaced pretty far apart for a three year old - but it was Andrew. He'd been walking - running, practically - since he was seven months old. No fear. No way of stopping him.

I'd gotten looks at playgrounds all over Germany for the things he was allowed to do at such an early age - climbing, jumping and swinging from bar to bar since he was two - but it was either let him learn NOW or tie him down and listen to him scream. I'd read somewhere that children don't attempt to do things they physically aren't capable of and so here he was, unable to string two whole sentences together in either English or German, but jumping from rock to rock like a first-grader.

And then he slipped off the edge of the rock he was landing on. I was too far away to do anything but note the location of the ambulance (always on hand at a horse show) as he fell straight back, the back of his head in perfect position to make full contact with the rock behind of him. It fell in perfect trajectory towards the rock.

And stopped, as if landing on a cushion - or a hand, just before hitting the rock itself. His head bounced off of something above the rock. Andrew was fine.

Now, the practical part of me would attribute it to good cervical control. That Andrew just raised his head himself. Except that I saw it too. And saw the height from which he was falling, straight back, and the speed with which he fell.

Sure, call it cervical muscle control if it makes you feel better.

But I knew I'd just witnessed the act of an angel.

After that, I joked that Andrew probably had not one, but two, angels keeping him from harm. Andrew just never gets hurt. In comparison to his younger brothers, and to his friends, he has never fallen or run into or tripped even a quarter as much as the rest of them. Born athlete? Maybe. Just lucky? That too.

But my guess is he's keeping those angels pretty busy upstairs. I can imagine the rotation schedule.

"Oh man, I got that Connor kid again."

"Andrew? You're in for it. That's okay though, they give you an extra two weeks off after that detail. 'Cause you know, in addition to Andrew, you have to lend a hand with a bunch of others every now and then."

And the look of sheer exhaustion of the other angel, just coming off duty, as she staggers in for a turn in the sauna and sun bath.

Once I started looking though, I realized there are angels everywhere on the playground. My guess is they have a couple positioned near the swings at all times. I witnessed another intervention this week on the Tuebingen playground. Once again, I was too far away to do anything but plan first aid procedures as a three year old ran behind an eight year old on the swing. The eight year old was pumping strong. And there was no way that swing was going to miss that little kid and not send him headfirst into the pavement behind them.

Except it did. From my viewpoint, directly opposite the swing, it looked as if the kid's head just walked THROUGH the swing. And walked out the other side unharmed.

I don't think I have to convince any parents who visit playgrounds regularly that there is something magical going on around the swings. Sure, kids do get hurt occasionally. But not nearly as much as one expects. And we all see the near misses. And c'mon, cut the angels a little slack too. They're also the ones catching the kids who fall from the monkey bars.


You really start believing in divine aid, literal divine aid, when you have one-year old twins. Ever seen a child learning to walk? With the parent right behind to catch'em? Right behind 'em on the cement stairs. On the slide. On the swings and teeter-totter.

WHen you have two going in two different directions, you generally have a decision to make. Do I get the one heading for the cement stairs or the one about to throw himself into the baby pool? You make a quick calculation - I usually did the pool-kid (Matthew) first because water was a SURE killer and cement was just a possibility. And then scooped up Aidan from the stairs. Granted, Aidan was FASTER and maybe I should have gone after him, but....they are both still here so I guess I did okay.

My twins DID bump their heads more that most kids. I guess even the angels get tired. But noone ever got seriously hurt. And I'm willing to attribute that to a little help on the side.

Time Management with Two (or More)

"I don't know how you do it with twins." You hear that over and over.

And so you try to explain. Play it off. Laugh at the humor of an impossible situation.

But then again, it turns out they're really not interested in how you do it anyway. Just looking for something to say.

"They" are never really going to get it anyway. But let me try.

I remember the advice I got from a girlfriend of mine, who had just had a baby, when I was pregnant with my first. Let's face it, as a working woman, when you are pregnant with your first you just can't believe all the free time you are going to have off from work. What a luxury. "Just don't think you're going to be able to sit at home with the baby and finally be able to organize your old photos," my friend told me. "You would not believe how much time one small baby takes." Which I did not believe and was exactly what I figured I would be doing with all my time off - finally getting all those unfinished details of my life in order, the stuff you never find time to do because you are working full-time. You know, instead of on break at home with a baby.

And I still honestly can't believe how much time that one baby took. I mean, what was I doing all day? It was one. No other kids at home. She was an easy baby. And yet I distinctly recall days in the beginning where I literally just sat on the couch with her all day, or at least felt like I had cared for her all day, without any time off, without getting anything else at all done. And I'm a really relaxed mom compared to most. Not at all panicky or worried about perfection.

Must be that parenting is a learned skill after all.

So, you remember how much time that one baby took. You could really say 100% of your time at first, but let's give it an easy estimate and say, what seventy percent of your time? You had time maybe for a cup of coffee and a shower? Maybe even slept a bit at night?

Double that. No really, do it. Double the seventy percent that the one baby takes up of your time and double it for two. One hundred and forty percent of your time. With twins. And since that isn't possible just assume that me stating that twins take up one hundred percent of your time at first is not an overexaggeration. (Please don't make me think of the poor parents of three or four or more. Please.)
When Claire, a new mother of twins, recently told me she was getting five hours of sleep at night - of course not all at once - she was justifiably proud of herself. Infant twins. Some sleep at night. Maternal love is truly miraculous. Being happy with five hours of interrupted sleep is just as miraculous. And we do it.

"Come on," you say. "Twins can't be that bad. One hundred percent of the time is such an overexaggeration." Because people without twins honestly figure you can just multi-task those two infants into one super infant. I've actually had women tell me that they always thought twins would be the way to go because (and listen to this)with two at once you could just do a LITTLE extra work and then be done with it, instead of doing two in a row. Twins are just way more efficient than two singletons.

Until you remember trying to nurse - or even just feed - your one infant. Some mothers find it really hard. Nursing is not as easy as it looks - pretty physically demanding, requiring some amount of coordination and muscle strength. You actually get sore muscles in the neck, back and arms. And then try it with two. One technique is actually called a football hold. It is not a leisure activity. It is a contact sport. It is time consuming and it is physically exhausting. Not saying it can't be done- mothers do it every day - or that it isn't rewarding. It just takes a lot of time and energy.

I remember feeding my twins - they must have been about 8 months old at the time - at a friend's house one morning. I wasn't even thinking about it. Got out the baby jars and started at it. 'Oh my God, Christine," she cried. "how are you able to do that?" Do what? Huh? I hadn't even noticed, but the speed and efficiency with which I was spooning the food into two baby's mouths was truly impressing - and I think frightening - her. You don't have time to casually do anything with twins. You don'thave time for niceties, or to worry about perfection. You just do it.

It requires double the energy at double the speed double the amount of time. At least.

Man do you turn into one super human being.

I'm not bitching. I'm not moaning. I loved every minute of it and am so proud at what I was - and still am -able to do.

BUt it doesn't help when people tell a new mother of twins that she cannot possibly do this alone, that she needs to get help she can't afford or send for family members that cannot possibly come.

Managing twins is totally impossible. I can't even imagine triplets or more - also just inhumanly possible. You just can't do it. Period.

And yet we do.

I guess it doesn't matter that noone else will ever understand.

It's an exclusive club.

Sleep Deprivation and Multiples

I've been trying to find some useful data on the effects of sleep deprivation on the internet. Most of it is useless for my purpose - lots of prattle about how most of us today are so sleep deprived that we need 5 or 6 hours on the weekend just to catch up. Since the general rule of thumb goes that the average adult needs 8 hours of sleep a night, if you only get 6 or 7 a night during the week, you need those long Saturday mornings or your Sunday afternoon nap to catch up. Our society is apparently chronically overworked and over tired - all leading to debiliating effects physically, psychologically and emotionally.

When I look back on my first few months with the twins, I AVERAGED 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night - interrupted usually into spurts of 2 hours.

When I finally found a site I thought might be useful it explained that the ethics of sleep deprivation were such that carrying out research was impossible. (I'd suggest studying the mothers of new born multiples, not in jest, but as an area that really requires research and that would benefit future mothers of multiples.) "The effects on the human body and mind are so serious that researchers find it difficult to investigate sleep deprivation." (www.insomniacs.co.uk)

Mothers often joke that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. Ha ha. According to this same site, "Sleep is a stronger basic need than food and water. Simply, the human body cannot do without sleep."

And yet mothers of multiples do it for months.

Looking back on the feeding charts I had for the first 6 months, I am appalled and relieved at how little sleep I had. Appalled because it is humanly impossible to survive the way I did those first few months. Relieved because I am finally realizing where I lost myself.

The twins were born on July 4, 2006. July 5 was my first night with no sleep. July 25 was my second night with no sleep. In between I slept approximately 3 hours a night, with no naps during the day. On July 12, I note that I slept from 10 PM - 12AM and stayed in bed while nursing Matthew from 1 - 2AM. (From 12 to 1 AM it looks like I was nursing and caring for Aidan.) I then slept again from 4 AM to 5:45 AM. At 2AM I had been changing Aidan's diaper and at 3AM I was still trying to nurse Matthew and get him to sleep. Looks like Aidan was nursing again at 5:30 AM.

According to the site, "Few people ever experience real sleep deprivation". My Psych 101 professor at Cornell University was a sleep expert, and I remember something about requiring not just sleep, but REM sleep, in order to function - also that it took 2 -3 hours of UNINTERRUPTED sleep before you hit the REM stage.

Some nights were better. On August 4 Aidan slept from 11 PM to 6 AM and Matthew slept from 8 PM to 1 AM and then again til 5:30. That gave me 4 and a half hours of UNINTERRUPTED sleep, to make up for the nights when I'd had less.

During the day I had the older two to get to school by 8 AM and to pick up again at noon. Since Ryan had just started first grade, I was walking with her. I'd get home at 9:30, nurse both boys with the cushion, and by 10:30, try to get up off the couch without waking them. It never happened. By 11:30 I was on my way back to school.

The afternoons were a blur of feedings and preparing meals for the older two.

A lot of twin books talk about the blur of the first few months, but sleep deprivation literally causes disorientation, impaired brain function and memory loss. When I started swaying on my feet after three months, my doctor diagnosed hypothyroidism - but even pills couldn't help a metabolic system with no sleep. A few months later, I was also diagnosed with anemia, and more pills. Also, could the fact that I now had an autoimmune disease - the Hashimoto's thyroiditis that caused the hypothyroidism - stem from the fact that my body had literally not been able to rest for months? Again, the research isn't there, because it isn't ethical to subject anyone to such conditions.

My friends with one new baby all looked fanastic, fit and happy, well-rested and content, in comparison to myself. So I took to jogging for an hour every day in the spring, when the twins were 9 months old and taking a momrning nap fairly regulary around 10 AM. (The twins, not I.) Or I took them with me in the stroller. I lost weight, I ate well, gave up meat and carbs, alcohol and caffeine. Before I finally collapsed the spring before the twins turned two, I looked good, and was still chronically exhausted.

I haven't wanted to put this into print - because it's not the picture I was painting for friends and neighbors. Or frankly, for myself. And I don't have a lesson or a moral for this. I can't tell someone who is now pregnant with twins how to avoid it. Getting night help is an obvious answer, but not real practical for most of us. (In case you were wondering where my husband was all those nights, I honestly can't remember, but he did do his best to help out as well.) And I do mean to confront La Lache at some point about their militant stance on nursing - not ALL women can or should nurse twins, and nursing two babies full-time just can't be in the best interests of most of us also trying to stay healthy enough to also raise other children - without help. (My mom was with us the first two months - during the day only, but she was as overwhelmed and exhausted as I was; it helped to have another two hands around, but they were a supplement, not a substitute for my own.)

I guess that's why we have all those books on surviving the first year with twins. But the useful hints can only take you so far. The humor, it's a way of dealing with the difficulty. Is it going to help anyone to know HOW HARD this is REALLY going to be? Honest numbers on how little sleep you are really going to get? Yeah - yeah - I read the books too - get them on a 3 -4 hour schedule, feed them simultaneously so you get it all over with at once. And, between 6 and 12 months it DID get easier, and by one year, my guys were sleeping through the night.

I think it might help to know that it isn't as pat and dried as the tips suggest, and that it wasn't as easy - or humorous - in practice as it looks in print. (And let's be fair - noone pretends it was a walk on the beach.)

And that's why the best advice out there is still to know that this too shall pass. I loved every minute of the first six months - the reality of the impossibility of my situation didn't hit me until the second six months - but I'm wondering where to go from here. What are the lasting effects of chronic sleep deprivation? How long does it take to recover emotionally? Will the physical effects ever resolve?

I don't regret giving everything I had and was to my children. I'm just wondering if I can have her back again.

HELP!

helpw
My God, you find out someone you know is pregnant with twins and it is actually painful NOT to offer advice. It's well-intentioned; why have her spend three weekends looking for a twin stroller, and another on car seats, when you've already done the research and figured it out? You 've already read the books - and in retrospect figured out which advice to heed and which to ignore - so why not share this vast wealth of knowledge you've accumulated?

Don't worry. I know why. It's because, like anything else in life, everyone has to find their own way. I found the 500 Euro stroller small enough to fit through a single door and manueverable enough to take off-roading, but you may want to fork out the 1200 Euros for the Urban Duo - let's face it, I still do a double take and stop to admire one whenever I see it, kind of like my husband checks out classic automobiles.

The "stuff" is the least of it. The rest you will also read in books and on websites - the schedule keepers to keep track of feedings, the pros and cons of dressing the kids alike or not, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah. One could write a book about it - and so many have - that it is really NOT worth repeating here - in a blog that is SUPPOSED to be helping you MAINTAIN your sanity!

Two things you'll read and hear over and over. And you won't believe them until you've been there yourself. And then you'll repeat them to other future twin moms who will most likely not believe them either. But they are worth repeating. And maybe if you hear them often enough, you'll at least want to believe them even if you can't quite bring yourself to do it yet.

The first is that you too will wake up one day after the twins are two to three years old and realize you have made it past the hard part.

You're not going to believe it until you are there but you too will wake up one day after the twins are two to three years old and realize you have made it through the hard part. (Did I mention it was worth repeating?!)

The second is hard for me to bring up. Only because I promised myself not to preach. And also because I really didn't listen to this one myself. HELP! As in, get it. I think twin moms have it tough because, let's face it, with triplets NOT getting help is out of the question. But with twins, we're still on shaky ground. One COULD do it alone - and many do. And I, for one, felt I should be able to.

So I'm not talking about help as in a nanny or a nighttime nurse, even if you can afford it. Because that is a personal decision in any case and because I think the form of help is going to differ for everyone. I'm also not going to suggest finding time for yourself - because for the first six months I was totally content to immerse myself in the kids and to think of nothing else. Why should we feel pressured to be MORE than a mother, at a time when mothering is challenging - and rewarding enough - in itself? Others will need time alone at the mall, or an evening out with girlfriends - although my guess is that what most of us wanted those first six months was sleep.


Everyone's help will be different. Here's MY list:

1. Cleaning lady. I lasted three months without one. After that I had someone come once a week for the first year. I did it myself again the second year, again this need to prove I could do it alone, and now have someone come every other week. It's a luxury we really can't afford - but on the other hand we can't afford to have me lose my mind either. And a sparkling home every other week - even for only a few hours - keeps ME sane.

2. Daycare. It really helped me that the older two were in kindergarten and first grade respectively. It didn't seem like enough - they only go from 8 to 12:30 here in Germany- but it gave me time to devote exclusively to the twins. My big dark secret is that the twins started morning daycare early too. They are now in a morning "kindergarten" group for two year olds and will move to the regular German kindergarten (for three to six year olds) for four hours in the morning starting in September. There are endless debates on this - with more material for another blog entry! I did it for ME as much as for the twins.

3. Getting out. Definitely a personal decision, but for me, it is easier to be outside somewhere with the four kids than it is to stay inside in a cramped apartment. Plus, I get compliments and admiration for my fantastic mothering skills from strangers who don't know I was pulling my hair out and yelling at the kids to get into the damn car NOW please, on the way there. The kids are happier, I am happier, and the afternoon flies by.

4. Flexible husband hours. Not everyone can do this, but it certainly DOES help if dad can be home in time to help with dinner and with getting everyone to bed. OUR Dad works from home since he was laid off when the twins were six months old - with lots of cons but some pros - but we have used this to our advantage. He is able to help take the older two to music class for 45 minutes on Mondays and Andrew to soccer for an hour on Wednesdays. All little things that add up to a lot. If Dad can't do this, find some neighbors to help - you will be amazed at how many people are willing to help - especially if they are driving there anyway with their kid - if only you ask.

Like I said, I didn't listen to a word of this when I had my twins. (Have I mentioned that I'm a slow learner?!) Especially that part about asking neighbors for help.

You too will wake up one day after the twins are two to three years old and realize you have made it through the hard part.