Exactly three years ago, these little twerps were being extracted from a hole sawed in myabdomen. I had marched confidently into the hospital armed with a fresh pedicure and full hair and make-up, fully prepared to triumphantly and vaginally deliver my first sons and last children.
As is typical, life laughed in my face with its torrid breath and I left with two babies, a foot long gash in my ‘bikini line’ (the doctor proudly declared this as if I’d really ever wear a bikini again in this lifetime) and enough Tylenol 3 for precisely 1.5 days. It was a far cry from 13 years prior when they sent me home with a footlocker full of narcotics and baby formula after my first vagina birth. I think the feminists are somehow responsible for this.
“Here, lady. Let me chop you practically in half, rip out a couple of humans and a little bit of your intestines, sew you back up and send you home to breastfeed, change diapers and get up to pee all night long for the next 18 years because your bladder didn’t fit back in the right way…oh, and here’s 4 Tylenol. Have a nice day.”
It took four full weeks before I was convinced my guts weren’t going to randomly fall out, three weeks to change color from ashen gray to peachy pink from blood loss, two weeks to be able to cough without saying the “F” word and one week to coax out a post-birth bowel movement. Unfortunately, my sanity has never returned.
As I’ve said since the day they were born, the twins are the best/worst thing that ever happened to us. We simultaneously got struck by lightning and won the lottery. We got a free ride after we already paid.
Speaking of paying, I can assure you, twins are not two for the price of one because one has always lost or destroyed something. Inevitably, we only ever have one coat and three shoes when it’s time to leave the house. If you knew how many sets of the same.exact.pair of shoes I’ve bought, you’d throw up in your mouth a little bit.
Also, twin boys have a penchant for throwing expensive and necessary items into the yard containing all the dogs.
In some twist of parenting fiction, they are also most definitely NOT twice the work. They’re twice the fun, yes, but more like quadruple the labor and the equivalent of 3-4 diabolical souls tucked into two tiny bodies.
Two boy toddler brains working in tandem equals one bad-a$$ rocket scientist, folks. They can figure anything out between the two of them. They have two brains, two bodies, four legs and arms and unlimited brute strength and energy all working flawlessly as one well-oiled machine. It’s terrifying.
See, when you have one baby, if it’s mad, you pick it up and take care of it. If it has pooped, you change its diaper. If it’s hungry, you feed it. If it runs away, you chase it down. Your one body takes control of its one body. The math works out. A perfect 1:1 ratio.
If you have twins, however, you’ve always got another tiny, disgruntled and seemingly drunk person following you around screaming obscenities, demanding crackers, removing its diaper and poop-painting, pulling your skirt off in church, climbing unsecured bookshelves and running head-first into oncoming traffic whilst you attend to its disgruntled counterpart. The ratio becomes skewed to 1:4.
Somehow, you regularly find yourself changing a diaper while clamping the other’s head or foot between your thighs to keep it from running away. One way or the other, you learn to hold two small, slippery and sweaty mitts with one of your hands, all while carrying 27 pounds of supplies and food with the other. You quickly figure out how to poop in a public toilet stall while holding hands with two impossibly strong wildebeests with ADHD. It’s not the same as just changing one child’s diaper. It’s a whole new skill set.
It’s probably akin to common core math. 1 toddler + 1 toddler = 4 angry honeybadgers in a dirty sock. Maybe ask your kid’s math teacher about it.
As I gazed at all our pregnancy and birth pictures this morning, I breathed a sigh of relief. (But, if I’m honest, my ovary did cry a little bit) My childbearing days are over and I’m pretty excited about the fact that all my bits and pieces belong to me now. I’m a little wistful that I’m the owner of two skin pancakes, some major saddlebags and stretch mark art that rivals a Monet, but it’s all mine, dangit. No more sharing with infant piranhas.
For now, I’ll wear my twins (and all my other offspring) as my badge of honor for my efforts thus far. Three years and nine months ago, I entered a war zone like I’d never imagined existed and I feel like I’m just barely beginning to swim my way out.
It’s still a daily battle to doggie-paddle my way upstream and try to keep my nose above water as the ones with matching DNA grapple on my head like a couple of chimps, but I’m determined to go out with a bang, ya’ll. Those little midgets are my last big hurrah. I’m making it count with not one giant meatball, but two.
And as old, toothless ladies in Walmart relentlessly point out, my hands are, indeed ‘full’ and even though I’m a little worse for the wear and most days deserve a first class ticket to the nut-hut, I’ll continue to insist to them that my heart is fuller.
Happy Day of C-Section Survival to me and Happy Day of Birth to Hudson and Hayden. May the odds be ever in my favor.
Photo cred to the fantabulous: Donna ️
