A New Perspective

My baby is 18 months old today. We had carrot cupcakes after dinner and sang "Happy Half-Birthday To You," and Zeben gleefully blew out his one-and-a-half candles, and clapped for himself. I've always been into celebrating half-birthdays, but no one else in my life has ever really been that into it (until Luke and Jaz, of course). I guess I'll just take any excuse for a little party.

The 18-month mark is pretty significant for me because, as I recall, this is when it all went bad the first time around. Here's an excerpt from the journal I kept during Lukas and Jasper's toddlerhood:

This is really hard. It was seeming like as the boys got older, the twin aspect of their existence got easier and easier. They started playing together, entertaining each other. . . they could walk and communicate their needs. We were doing great.

And now we're just about at the 18-month mark and we are just DROWNING. I feel like it was easier when they were newborns. They still play together, but they fight together too. If we don't have two of any given toy, I'd rather not have one at all. I am just so exhausted. They can make mischief together so quickly (four little hands pulling everything out of a drawer, faster than my two hands can put it all back in). There is so much jealousy all the time. I feel I cannot possibly meet their needs. They want to nurse all the time, all the time, all the time.

They are still not sleeping through the night (they wake 3-4 times each)--although they are nightweaned now--and I think the sleep deprivation is really starting to get to me. I don't have the patience I want to have.

Of course there are still sweet and wonderful moments, and my boys obviously care about each other very much (they call each other "Duke" and "Jas"), but I am finding myself in that state of wishing I didn't have twins more and more and more (this does not mean that I wish I didn't have my children, just that they had been born one at a time).

I admit that I am a bit scarred from that time in my life. The whole thing of it was just so unexpected; I still thought that mothering would just get easier and easier as the kids got older, and then had the rude awakening at 18 months, and realized that there was no truth to that at all. I really have to search hard to find happy memories from that section of Luke and Jaz's development (in keeping with their insane status, they managed to break our film camera, our digital camera and our video camera all right at about 18 months, so we have no documentation of the months of misery). So there's part of me that's been sort of dreading going through this stage again with Zeben.

But, of course, it's completely different this time. Some parts are actually remarkably the same. Like the totally unreasonable tantrums and random meltdowns and ear-piercing screaming stints. The times when Zeben yells at me to pick him up and then arches out of my arms only to demand that I pick him up again . . . it's definitely familiar. BUT--and it's a really big but--there's only one of him. Instead of spending my days managing the relationship of two one-year-olds, I spend my days (while Luke and Jaz are at preschool), in total bliss with my one one-year-old. We've been going on a lot of long bike rides, with Zeb in the seat on the front of my bike. We've been spending a lot of time playing at the parks, and just sitting, watching birds. Life is calm when it's just Zeb and me, despite his 18-month-old state of disequilibrium. I have no trouble meeting all of his needs, and I love being able to meet them so entirely. And he is learning new things (words, mostly) everyday, and it's really quite fascinating to witness his rapid development right now.

I think the other part of the difference the second time around is just that we've done this before. I know how fleeting this stage is, I know that really, Zeben is still a baby, and I know that I will miss this part when he's 3 and doesn't need me the way he does now. He nurses all the time, he empties drawers, he doesn't come close to sleeping through the night, but I just feel so much more Zen about it all. Mothering Zeben still feels easy breezy compared to mothering my five-year-olds, and I'm guessing that this is a trend that will continue throughout Zeben's childhood.

Here I am, with one-and-a-half-year-old Luke and Jaz, tandem nursing standing up. Looks totally peaceful, right? I think I did sort of enjoy the craziness of it all.

And here I am with my current one-and-a-half-year-old nursling. So much simpler. . . But wait, what are those hands doing on my shoulder?

I remember being so excited to have just one baby, and everyone reminding me, "well, but you'll still have your twins even if you have only one baby." And thank goodness I still have my twins. And, yes, they do still make things a little crazy. But, compared to nursing two toddlers while standing up, nursing one toddler with a 5-year-old strapped to my back is a piece of cake.

Lukas needed some time in the Ergo after a sandbox incident, and Zeben needed to nurse. This is multitasking at its finest (note that I am not only nursing a toddler while wearing a five-year-old, I am taking the picture too!). My one wish for the rest of Zeben's toddlerhood is that I am able to keep my current perspective and enjoy him through all the crazy moments to come.