Happy Birthday, Eli and Aryeh!

On Friday, some of my very favorite small people celebrated their third birthday. Elijah and Aryeh are the twin sons of our most beloved friends, Katie and Aaron. Because their birth story is so especially amazing and outrageous (Katie and Aaron were only anticipating the arrival of one baby when Katie went into labor, and didn't learn of their second son's existence until he was born, five minutes after his brother), I've been thinking about it a lot during the past week.

Mostly I've been thinking about it while working on the boys' birthday gifts. I decided to make them some bean bags for their birthday, and I started putting them together last weekend. I'm generally the kind of person who leaves everything until the last minute and then sits down and does it without getting up. But that approach doesn't really work out especially well when you add 3 young children to the mix. Because my time allotted for crafting is mostly restricted to Zeben's nap and then after all the kids are asleep at night, I've had to learn how to work on things gradually. This was a good project for that approach because there were several different steps.

First, the choosing of fabrics. Then the ironing and cutting.

Next, the cutting out of letters.

I then sewed the letters on to the fabrics, working a little bit every night. It wasn't until yesterday that I finally got a good chunk of time to devote to the project, and that's when it all came together. Usually when I make bean bags for kids, I make one bean bag for each letter in the kid's first name. Most little kids really love to spell out their names, so this makes the bean bags a little extra fun (and also opens up the possibility of playing letter games with them). But since "Elijah" has six letters, and "Aryeh" has only five, I knew that that would not be an acceptable solution this time (gifts for twins must always be of equal value). Luckily for me, incorporating the boys' middle names solved the problem. The final results:

I also made little sacks for storage (which doubled as gift wrap).

After the boys' gifts were done, I started working on a gift for their Mama. Katie has, on many occasions, hinted (not-so-subtly) that she'd like me to make her a Mei Tai. The fact that I hadn't made her one before now is pretty inexplicable. I've promised her one (actually, I've promised her TWO) several times, but for some reason I just never followed through (this is one of the reasons why I don't sell baby carriers). But when Katie brought it up a couple months ago (and even went so far as to pick out which fabrics from my stash that she wanted me to use), I realized that it wasn't too late and decided I would make her one in honor of her third anniversary of giving birth. And, since babywearing is not just for babies, maybe she'll even still get some good use out of it with her boys before she has a new baby to strap on.

This one is kind of a cross between my usual "Happy Baby Carriers," and the Kozy Carrier. I really like the way it turned out, all of the edges are very neat.

Zeb and Lena enjoyed testing it out.

Zeb's expression is a good reflection of how I feel after this burst of craftiness. It feels so good to be able to make things for people. And to know that even if the things I make aren't essential or the most favored, that still they are full of my love. And I hope that Eli and Aryeh and Katie will be able to feel that.

And now it seems, it is time to pack. There will be no more crafting until after the move. Hopefully this birthday bustle will tide me over until then.

Snips of Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

We've tried our hardest not to genderize our kids. We don't make assumptions about what they will or won't like based on their physical anatomy. We don't buy into the idea of "boys' toys" or "girls' clothes." If anything, we probably encourage our kids more in the direction of "girl stuff" just because we assume that they're getting plenty of "boy stuff" encouragement from society at large. But, for the most part, we stick to the "gender neutral" department in regards to clothes and toys and general philosphy.

And for the vast majority of their lives, I haven't really seen my kids as being BOYS exactly. They've just been kids. Kids who love pink and purple and black and red. Kids who love fairies and monkeys and pirates. Kids with penises, yes, but not necessarily "boys." All that said, lately Jasper has been seeming particularly boyish to me. And I think what it really is is just that he's seeming older, looking older, looking more like a little boy than a genderless baby, toddler, or preschooler.

Partially, it's the big kid athletic shorts he
insists on wearing almost daily.

Partially, it's the new sporty sneakers he's wearing
(his first real sneakers!)

Partially it's how giddy he is about being able
to wear said shorts and sneakers.

And how much he enjoys looking at his own reflection
in this particular ensemble.

And, partially, it's the fact that one of his baby teeth
is no longer residing in his mouth

I can see how now is when it gets tough to stick to the genderless parenting. Now when I have this little person in front of me who suddenly looks so much like a little boy. Now is when the real work begins. I need to make sure that he knows that he's made of much more than snips of snails and puppy dog tails. That he is also ginger and spice and everything nice. That what the other kids with penises are doing or wearing doesn't have to mean anything about what he should be doing or wearing. And I can only hope that he listens to me.

Belated Crafting

My friend Meg birthed a shockingly gorgeous baby girl, Liesl Jane, at the end of April. And due to a collection of poor excuses (mastitis, warm weather, the bakfiets), I only just today finally got around to making a "welcome baby" gift for her (this could also be called "procrastination from packing"). Here it is:

An Elephant Onesie

An Apple Tee

A Soft Bum Cover
(to go with the tee)

The Welcome Baby Package
(includes a "Super Big Sister Cape" for 3-year-old Aviva)

Despite the humidity, it felt great to get behind the sewing machine again. And it's a good thing too since I'm going to be spending a lot of time there in the coming week, getting ready for a very special 3rd birthday (and not packing).

Go Crazy

I get a lot of questions about the bakfiets when I'm riding around town. People want to know if I had the bike built myself, how it is to steer, and how it is to ride with all 3 kids in the box. Many folks have a hard time believing just how stable the bakfiets is, even with three kids in the box going crazy. The other day on our ride over to my mom's house, Lena (aboard "Clementine Jane") attempted to capture a video of me on Bakfietsy Rose with the kids being wonky, so that everyone could see how the bike doesn't even begin to tip despite the wiggling. Unfortunately, the kids weren't feeling particularly cooperative and none of them was especially wonky for the video. But here 's the clip, regardless. Maybe you can still get some idea of the stability.



There's only been one close call so far. I almost dumped the bike the other evening on our way home from my mom's house. We were riding really slowly up to the main intersection in town, and Zeben dropped a snorkel (yes for some reason, there was a snorkel in the bakfiets with us that day) over the right side of the box. All three kids then leaned way over to the right to try and see the snorkel on the ground, and we almost crashed into a very fancy car that was parked on the street. But we didn't. There was much screaming about "don't lean over like that!" (mine) and "Our snorkel! Go back for our snorkel!" (the kids'), but I managed to right the bike before anything horrible could happen (and Lena went back for the snorkel). Phew.

The Moving Gene

By the time I was 7 years old, I was living in my fourth home. My parents couldn't seem to make up their minds about which coast they wanted to live on (east vs. west), and their fickle feelings resulted in a lot of packing and unpacking and moving trucks showing up in our driveway. After the move when I was 7, my parents didn't decide to move again until I was 16, and they managed to hold onto that house until this past spring--a record for them. In contrast, Lena's parents built their house (with their own hands) soon after they got married, and are still living in it today. While my frequent change in environment as a little kid has helped me to catalog my childhood memories (whereas Lena has no idea if something happened when she was 3 or 8), I am often envious of the fact that Lena's parents' house holds so much history for her.

I always planned to stick in one place once I had kids. But apparently the genetic message I got from my parents was stronger than the message Lena got from hers. We are currently living in the fourth home we've lived in since Lukas and Jasper were born 5 years ago, and in a few weeks, they'll be moving into childhood home #5. While I suppose that part of this "move once a year" routine is due to our circumstances (being young, not having money to buy a house, not being totally sure about where we want to put down our roots), I do wonder if there's also a genetic component. My sister, who is 34 years old, is in the process of unpacking and settling into the fourth house she's lived in since her 3-year-old daughter was born. What is this crazy moving gene about?

It's true that I do get kind of giddy about getting a chance to start over again in a new place. I don't hate moving the way my wife does. But our upcoming move is different from those that came before. Generally I find that the "time to move bee" gets stuck in my bonnet in the dregs of winter, when everything feels blah and dark. "Maybe we should move," I'll think to myself. "That would be a good way to add some excitement and change to these monotonous, gray days." But when I convinced my wife that we should move last summer, it was with the understanding that we wouldn't move again until we were moving into OUR house, the house that we would buy, which we couldn't imagine happening for about 3-5 years. And that's what we told our landlord, and our parents, and our friends who rolled their eyes at the news and said, "you better be hiring movers this time." But our most recent decision to move wasn't the result of a bite by the moving bug. Instead, I was stung by the reality wasp.

The house we've been living in for the past 12-and-a-half months is a huge, gorgeous Victorian, 1/2 a mile from downtown. We chose it based purely on location (around the corner from the boys' preschool, walking distance of everything), and we knew from the start that it was more space than we needed (3,000 square feet).
What we didn't know until autumn was that it was more space than we could really afford to heat. We turned off radiators and closed the doors to about half of the house and kept the thermostat at 65° during the day. But the house is so poorly insulated (despite new windows) that our oil bill continued to be astronomical right through until spring. The idea that perhaps we shouldn't stay here for 3-5 years first came to me in December, only 5 months after we'd moved in (usually I last a bit longer than that before feeling the need to move). I had just watched the movie, "The Story of Stuff," and felt disgusted with myself for having bought into the whole consumerism plan and for having managed to accumulate enough stuff to fill a 3,000 square foot house. If we didn't have so much stuff, then we wouldn't need such a big house. And we wouldn't need to heat such a big house. Really, I theorized, we could make do with a room to eat in, a room to play in, and a room to sleep in. I entertained my fantasy of living in a smaller house by spending the winter reading books like "Little House on a Small Planet," which convinced me that we were being hugely wasteful by living in such a large house.

Lena could totally see where I was coming from, but she couldn't believe that I was suggesting that we move again so soon. After a few weeks of my relentless pouting, she agreed that if I found the perfect place, we could move. I spent months looking, but was increasingly discouraged by what I found. We still couldn't afford to buy anything, and the rental market was depressing. By the end of the spring I had resigned myself to staying put in the Victorian, and getting a job to cover the cost of oil.

And then, a month ago, the perfect house landed in our laps. Or rather, my mom moved into her new house (having moved 100 miles to be closer to us) and our perfect house appeared in the yard next door to her house.
It's tiny and cozy, and funky and rustic. The location is dreamy (the Connecticut River on one side, the bike path on the other), and even though it's in the next town over from where we're living now, it's still only 2.5 miles to our current downtown (which is where the kids will be going to kindergarten in the fall).
It's not in walking distance of as many places as our current house is, but it's in biking distance of many more places, and the biking is more kid-friendly (on the bike path), which means that Jaz and Luke will be able to ride their own bikes more. The rent is half of what we're paying now, and I'm sure we'll need less than half the fuel we needed to heat our current house. We'll have my mom next door, and her huge, amazing yard for the kids to run and play in. Before long, we hope to build a barn on her property and get some goats and chickens.

So we're moving again. In a month. And we're doing much more than simply moving, since we're also down-sizing considerably. We need to get rid of at least 1/2 of our stuff (maybe more like 2/3) to fit into the new place. Which feels liberating and fabulous. We will be one step closer to living the dream, listening to our hearts, and practicing what we believe in. But first we need to pack.

The Meanest Mom in the World

Perhaps you haven't yet heard the news, but I've recently been awarded the highly sought-after title of "Meanest Mom Ever" by my five-year-old sons, Lukas and Jasper. Here's a sampling of my actions that got me in the running, and ultimately won me my "meanest mom" medal:

- After taking the kids to go swimming with one of their best pals after school, I made them leave "too early" to go home for dinner.
- I actually made them stay at the pool "too long" because they were already hungry for dinner by the time we left.
- The snack bar at the pool didn't serve any foods that my kids like.
- I was unable to make the radio play the same song twice in a row on the drive home from the pool.
- It is too late in the season for us to become members at the pool ourselves (we went as guests).
- The kids don't swim as well as their friend (who can do the butterfly stroke at age 5).
- After reminding them several times that the consequence for not listening at bedtime was no bedtime story, I did not read them a bedtime story.

Meanest. Mom. Ever.

WANTED
For cruel and unusual mothering

While clearly the kids were being a bit ridiculous (um, overtired and over hungry much?), the truth is that I was not my best mom self yesterday. Lying in bed and contemplating my new status that night, I had to admit that I hadn't exactly been trying my hardest. That I haven't been trying my hardest in general lately. There was a time when Luke and Jaz were toddlers and it suddenly dawned on me that I couldn't really control their behavior anymore. Not that I ever could control it entirely, but for a long time (their whole infancy) I had a kind of magic power over them, just by being their mom. They were happy simply to be in the same room with me (and my breasts), and I could easily solve any moment of grumpiness simply by smiling at them (and offering a boob). But then they turned into toddlers, and I turned into moldy bread. Well, maybe it wasn't that extreme but I definitely lost some of my magic. I mourned this loss deeply. I had not seen it coming. I naively thought that my mom magic would last forever.

But the thing is--and this is what I was thinking about while lying in bed last night--that I do still have some magic. It's just that it's a kind of magic that requires a lot more energy than simply smiling or lifting my shirt. I have to play. I have to pretend. I have to make everything (finding shoes, putting them on, getting in the car, buckling car seats, etc.) into a game. And sometimes it's just easier to think "I have no control over them," "nothing I do matters," "they're insane and irrational," than it is to exert the energy it takes to switch myself into playful parenting mode. I've been finding myself getting grumpy and frustrated with the kids a lot lately, and while I don't think my feelings are unfounded or nonsensical, I do think I've been a bit neglectful in that I've been forgetting to try and have fun. Despite the whining. Despite the complaints. Despite the ridiculous requests. And, now that I think about it, that's probably what the kids were getting at when they told me how mean I was.

So, the goal for tomorrow is to have fun. To be silly. To really try. And maybe I'll have lost my new title by the end of the day, but I think that's actually okay with me. As long as I don't have to give back the lesson that came with it.

Puddle Jumping Rain Lover

Yesterday morning we woke up to rain. Lukas' first comment on the weather was, "it looks like a rain cover kind of day for the bakfiets" which was optimistic and lovely. In truth, since I've started biking, I've definitely started feeling less pleased with the wetter days. It's certainly still possible to bike places in rainy weather if I need to, but I don't feel like going out for a spontaneous bike ride when it's yucky out. So I was feeling somewhat gloomy as I sat down to breakfast. Then Zeben started pushing on my legs and yelling "go, go, go!" before excitedly running to the door and asking to go outside. I figured he would change his mind once he experienced what it was like out there, but the rain actually seemed to be his motivation. I took off his diaper (I didn't want him to get the wool cover wet), and let him go crazy in the driveway.

He ended up staying outside splashing in puddles for over an hour. He was so pleased with the whole scene, and his attitude really rubbed off on the rest of us. The rain became less of a nuisance and more of a fun variation. Something to take time out of our usual hectic morning routine to appreciate.

I was standing under our big rainbow umbrella to keep the camera dry, and after a while, Zeb decided he'd like to have an umbrella too. Not so much to keep himself dry, more just for the fun of it.I think we may have found a reason to look forward to the next rainy day.

Long Distance Cousins

While we are blessed in that we live within miles of our parents, one of the saddest things in my life is the fact that my sisters live so far away. We live in Massachusetts, while my little sister, Fiona, lives in New Mexico with her new husband, Jon, and my big sister, Jesua, lives in Oregon with her husband, Chris, and my niece, Araela. I would be so happy if we all could live in the same town, but we are all quite attached to our separate locations (and the climates that come with them). So, we make do with talking on the phone, emailing, and occasional (1-3 times a year) in-person visits. Early this morning, Jes, Chris and Araela headed back to the airport after a week-long visit. It was very hard to see them go.

Araela is 3 years old, almost exactly 2 years younger than Luke and Jaz. But since she's inherited her mother's genes (my sister Jes is 6 feet tall), while Luke and Jaz are somehow managing to take after Lena (she's 5 foot 3), the three "big" kids are pretty much the same size. Seeing all the cousins love on each other is one of the best things in the world. They had a great time playing outside at Nama's (my mom's) house, and swimming in the pool at De De and Fritzel's (my grandparents').

Eating popsicles at Nama's house

Finding treasures

Studying bugs

Jes enjoying a moment of weightlessness

Araela and Jaz jumping in

Learning how to swim (aka trying not to drown)

Doing tricks with Papa Chris

And of course, hanging out in the bakfiets

All in all, the week went incredibly well, and we can't wait until the next gathering, when there will be FIVE cousins to love each other up.

On Having Twins

Six years ago today, we found out that we were expecting twins. I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time, and we went in for an ultrasound because I was convinced that there was more than one baby inside me. I remember the exact moment when I sort of "knew" that I was going to have twins. It was a premonition, really, that happened a whole year before we even ordered our first shipment of sperm. I was reading a book about lesbian pregnancy, and in the section about "difficulty conceiving" there was a blurb about the fertility drug, clomid. I had never heard of the drug before. It stimulates the ovaries to ovulate in otherwise annovulatory women. One of the potential side effects, according to the book, was a 5-10% increase in the chance of having twins. While it was never my intention to take the drug, and for all I knew at the time I was ovulating perfectly on my own, reading that sentence gave me a very strong feeling that I was going to have twins. The first OB who we went to when we were getting ready to start the process of getting pregnant recommended that I take clomid off the bat, because my cycles weren't regular. We left the practice immediately and sought out a different opinion. But when the next OB did bloodwork on me and then also suggested that I take clomid, we reconsidered the possibility. I was not ovulating. I wanted to get pregnant. Why not take it? The odds for getting pregnant each cycle were about 20%, the odds for only having one baby were about 90% . . . the chance we'd get pregnant with twins didn't seem that significant.

Clomid made me feel crazy even though I was only taking the lowest dose. But it also made me ovulate, and that was pretty thrilling. The night after the first insemination, I was convinced that I was already pregnant. The feeling grew stronger in the coming days, and it seemed that I felt too pregnant, too early to only be having one baby. Nine days after my first encounter with sperm, I peed on a stick and two lines appeared. I was pregnant. Because I felt so strongly that I was pregnant with twins, I went into the clinic for bloodwork and was not surprised at all to hear that my hormone levels were 8 times higher than average for a single pregnancy. The nurse on the phone said that this didn't necessarily mean anything, but I knew that it did. The only way to diagnose twins with certainty is by ultrasound, which is why we found ourselves in the little dark room on that fateful day, July 11, 2002.

The ultrasound technician moved the wand around inside me and I watched as a little circle with a blinking dot in the middle of it popped up on the computer screen. I had not yet become proficient at viewing ultrasounds, but it was obvious enough that this was the baby, and that there was only one.

"Where's the other one?" I asked, feeling surprisingly broken-hearted (it wasn't so much that I wanted to have twins, just that I thought I was having twins).

The ultrasound technician gave me a look like I was crazy, and Lena explained, "she thinks she's having twins." The technician shrugged this off (like yeah, everyone thinks that), and then moved the wand a little and said, surprised, "oh, she is." It took her a little while to get both babies to show up on the screen at the same time, but when she did, Lena's jaw dropped open and stayed that way for about 20 minutes. We left the office in a daze. The next day Lena left for 6 weeks to work as a sea kayak guide in Alaska, and I started throwing up.

When I think back on it now, I can't believe how crazy it was that we, at the ages of 22 and 24, 3 years into our relationship, were going to suddenly add twin babies to the mix. We had two dogs and a cat, so we'd had some practice in responsibility and caring for other living beings, but we didn't really have anything planned out for the future. We didn't have any money, for instance, or any idea of how we'd survive without me working, or pay for childcare if I did go back to work. But it all felt pretty fine at the time, and we were so excited by my rapidly expanding uterus. We got married that October, when I was 16 weeks pregnant, and it really felt like all of my dreams were coming true.

After our Civil Union in Vermont, Lena and my 16-week belly

Everyone would exclaim over how perfect it was that we were having twins. "One for each of you!" They'd say, and we'd shake our heads and correct them, "No, two for both of us." But the truth was that it was pretty perfect to imagine us both walking down the sidewalk, each with a baby in a sling. I was glad we were having two babies at once.

35 weeks pregnant

After my belly got so large that it really appeared it might split open on its own, I went into the hospital and the doctor used a knife to cut it open instead. The c-section devastated me more than I ever thought it could, but we became the mamas of two healthy baby boys who together weighed nearly 15 pounds.

Lena holding the babies for the first time, while they sewed me up


Me holding the babies for the first time, on my way to recovery

Our early days with twins passed in a milky blur. Lena had 4 weeks of maternity leave, and we spent the time watching several seasons of television shows on dvd (Queer As Folk, 24, and Six Feet Under), nursing babies (me), changing diapers (Lena), and learning how to live on very small amounts of sleep. On my first day home alone with the babies (they were 4 weeks old), I started the day by vacuuming the house (and was so pleased with myself that I made a video about it . . . please pardon the ill-fitting pajamas and the poor camera skills).



My wife would probably appreciate my mentioning that this vacuuming did not turn out to be the start of a pattern, and I quickly learned to let the housework slide and focused all of my attention on taking care of Lukas and Jasper. Lena would get home from work (she was teaching high school) around 2:40 every day, and if she was so much as 10 minutes late, I'd be in a state of panic.

"Where were you?!"
"I had to get gas on my way home."
"Today?! You had to get gas today?! On the way home? Isn't that what your 10-minute break between classes is for?!"

Naked 3-month-olds (Jaz on the left, Luke on the right)

By the time Luke and Jaz were 3 months old, things were a lot calmer. That's when I really started to have fun with them. It no longer seemed that I spent my days sitting on the couch, nursing babies. Each day brought with it new developments in the babies, and we became more and more adept at meeting their needs without too much struggle. The first year with Luke and Jaz wasn't exactly easy, but it was a very happy time. I certainly enjoyed being a mother of twins and all of the challenges that it presented.

Jasper (left) and Lukas on their first birthday

Things were going amazingly well when the kids turned one, but by the time they were 18 months old, life was fairly miserable. Our previously sweet, loving twins had all at once discovered the joys of fighting, whining, and being irrational. I think I've blanked out some of the horrors of that time period. What made it all the more difficult was the fact that we'd thought we'd already survived the worst of it. I mean, doesn't everyone know that the first 3 months is the hardest time? But I would have happily traded my two 18-month-olds in for a pair of newborns and a little peace (well, not really, but you get my point).

Jaz and Luke in a rare moment of matchiness at age 2

There was nothing particularly terrible about having two-year-old twins, and it was definitely a huge improvement over having one-year-old twins. With the advent of advanced language skills, we finally got to hear a bit about what the kids were thinking. And they made us laugh a lot. Hearing them profess their love for each other was certainly heart warming. There were, of course, also plenty of instances of less-than-friendly brotherly behavior. I remember Jaz popping off my breat after nursing and saying, "mom, now close my nursing so that Lukas can't have any!" Each of our kids went through a phase of being covered with bruised bite marks given to him by his brother. We absolutely had to have two of every toy and label everything and there was still enough competition and jealousy between the kids to keep us feeling like we'd failed them somehow.

Luke (left) and Jaz showing their true selves at age 3

Three-year-old twins were definitely easier to live with than two-year-old twins. At 3, the kids started really playing together without interruption for long periods of time. They began to enjoy having separate time from each other (and were always superbly well behaved during these "dates," as we call them). They still fought frequently, but we also got to see how their relationship could be an asset when they started preschool together. Their teachers were amazed by how they supported each other in the classroom without being overly dependent on one another. Little shows of affection between them were enough to bring tears to our eyes.

Jaz (left) and Luke on the beach at age 4

I had such high hopes for the four-year-old year. "4" is just such a nice, calm, even number. It sounds rational and kind. From when they were little babies, I'd often think ahead to all the amazing things we'd be able to do when the kids were four and we no longer had to work so hard to keep them in harmony. I was wrong. It could have had something to do with the new baby and the fact that we moved during this time, but we found "4" to be incredibly challenging. The kids really learned how to be mean. They were mean to each other in new ways (their fights became mostly verbally-induced rather than toy-induced), and they were mean to us in new ways. It was harder and harder to see them as the babies they had once been. And likewise, we, the mothers, were no longer always enough of a comfort just in ourselves as we had been when they were younger.

Jaz (left) and Luke being Red Sox fans at age 4

Another trickiness of age 4 was our difficulty in finding separate activities for the kids to excel at. With all of the same interests, but differing approaches and abilities, every single thing in Luke and Jasper's life was a competition for them. Drawing, block buildings, puzzles, bike riding . . . there was always room for one kid to be perceived as "better" in his or his brother's eyes. We outlawed board games (even the "cooperative" kind) because they always ended in tears. It also became increasingly difficult for the kids to have a friend over to play and share his or her attention. Perhaps the hardest thing for me about age 4 was making the realization that the fact of the boys' twin status wasn't just going to become a non-issue now that they were independent little people. It would be a factor for their entire lives.

I was so looking forward to the twins' fifth birthday if only to be done with having four-year-olds. And so far, the experience of "5" has in many ways been the break I was hoping for. Having learned a good deal about conflict resolution, the kids are much less likely to need us to manage their relationship on an hourly basis. We occasionally have whole days without needing to intervene at all. In exchange, we've been given the challenge of controlling this crazy ball of energy that is two five-year-old boys together in a room. Things that might prove taxing for parents of a single five-year-old boy (bathroom talk, lack of listening, sneakiness, defiant behavior) can really escalate to extreme levels. Sometimes it feels like a never-ending playdate.
I'm so glad that the kids can play together so swimmingly, but sometimes I almost wish they'd get along a little less well (like when they won't stop talking at bedtime, or when they run around the house in a giggling, mess-making riot, or when they insist that "majority rules" and they are the majority). Sometimes I'm jealous of both of them for getting to know each other in a way that I will never be able to know either of them. They spend every moment together, and their relationship is so hugely important to both of them. I wish my opinion could matter to them as much as either of theirs does. I wish I could remain part of the trio that we were when they were inside me.

Six years ago today, I lay in bed staring at the ultrasound photo of the two little blobs who would become my babies. I had so many hopes for them. That they'd survive the first trimester. That they'd be born healthy. That they'd love each other. That they'd be glad that we chose to bring them into this world. I had no idea what was in store for us, what the next 6 years would look like, what it would really mean to have twins. And today, I am feeling grateful to them for choosing us. For defying the odds and being twins, for teaching us all that they have taught us. About patience and love and strength and forgiveness. May the next six years be just as fulfilling, but hopefully a little less challenging.