Stolen moments of sweetness

I was gifted tonight with a rare moment of peaceful bonding with my baby girl.

We put the babes to bed and it seemed to take her extra time to settle. She wasn't altogether crying, but just in there whining and saying "Mamamama.... " (Swoon!)

So I went in and was just going to rub her back, but she looked at me with those beautiful eyes and pointed both fingers up with her arms extended, her way of saying, "I want you to pick me up momma".

I obliged.

I took her to the studio couch in their room and laid down with her cradled in my left arm along side of my body with her face towards mine. I spent a few minutes just letting her snuggle in and then I began to lightly trace the outline of her face and nose and mouth with my finger. She looked up at me with a very peaceful smile as if to say, "I love you for taking this time with me, momma. Thank you. This feels so nice"

My heart is so full right now from this stolen few minutes. It's rare that my 1 year old babies stop moving enough to sit down and snuggle right now.

And yes, I said it. ONE. YEAR. OLD. BABIES!

They turned one on June 12th just a short 13 days ago. This past weekend we had a birthday party for them with our families. I can't believe it's been a year since the day they arrived in my arms. I also can't even begin to describe the amazing changes they have gone through in the past few months. They are completely different babies... Heck, they are actually toddlers now.

Tippy and Tidy tumultuous trip to toddlers has ended.. And the new one of raising toddlers has begun. I can't imagine where this next year is going to take us, how much change they will go through and how much more we will fall in love with them as they do so.

I had given thought to ending this blog here, especially because we really have completed our trip to toddlers. But I will keep this open for now and continue to pop in here and there until I figure out what to do with this blog.

For now, I will leave you with a few pictures of them and a fond hello to all of my friends and followers out there. We are doing well. Tidy is at home, I am at work. I would love for that to be the other way around, but I am grateful for the arrangement that we do have.  Parenting is insanely but the babies are thriving and that brings me peace. I'm crazy enough to even want more, but that has yet to be decided...

Blink of an eye

I start this post in my head many days on my commute to work and I often think of so many things to say, but after a day or two goes by and my brain is fried from being busy at work and tending to babies at night, by the time I get here, well... it seems no longer eloquent or it's completely gone.

So maybe I'll just start by saying that I can't believe that I am a mom to two 11 month olds. They are just shy of one month of their first birthday.

Seriously! How did we get here? Didn't we just get pregnant a few weeks ago? Oh, but wait, that was a life time ago ...

Life is going along fairly smooth these days. Some updates I suppose are due.

I am a full time working mom and I guess I just have to be that person right now. I don't want to. But I do like my job so that helps. I would give anything to be at home full time with my babies these first few years. But they are in amazing hands...

As you may recall, Tidy was given this school year off as a sabbatical from his school district, and is our full time at home parent. A few month ago, he then informed me that he had finally made the decision to not renew his contract and take his chance when we are ready for him to go back and be a full time stay a home dad for a least another school year.

Grateful is the best word I can use to describe how I feel. Sooo sooo very grateful. I don't know how parents do it who have to get up every day and get things ready to drop their kids off at day care and then pick them up and then get home and make dinner and do chores and errands and.... I know many many people have to. And I know that of course you all figure out how to if you need to do it. But I am so glad we don't have to add that extra stress to our lives right now. Not only is this helpful in the calmness of our daily lives, but he is truly amazing with these kids. I really really know that they are benefiting from his presence. He's so calm with them and loving and engaging. He talks to them constantly, and makes up these wonderful stories about their day. I do know that I would not do those things as eloquently as he does. I'm truly impressed and more in awe by him than ever.

M&M and the Bean Burrito are moving, babbling, so interested in everything, teething, and all around just engaged in life. They are so fun to watch and explore the world with. I can't wait for all the adventures we are going to have. They are also so different but yet incredibly sweet in their own ways. M&M is a bulldog. She's a fast little crawler and wants to explore everything, especially things you aren't supposed to. She says "dat?" and points to all of the objects in the room. Bean is also moving, although his crawl is a bit more unique in the army crawl style. He's such a sweet, sweet boy. A bit of a flirt and very observant. He sits back and let's M&M take on the world and then when he is ready, he accomplishes his goal in his own way and is so proud of it. They both have their unique ways of telling me that they need me and both of them still turn my heart to butter. It pains me to leave them every morning for work, even yet.

As for you, my dear fertility warriors... I am here, rooting you all on with a passion. I don't get here much, but I'm here, sending all of my hope for your success and all of my strength for you to keep fighting. I hope that this past Mother's day was tolerable for you and that you felt loved or recognized by someone in your family or support network for what you are going through, especially on that day. It's a hard one and I didn't forget.

On my first Mother's day last week, we spent the day with my family and had dinner together. It was low key, no gifts and just family time... just as I wanted it to be. I spent so many of those days lying around in my house, avoiding the public and television and radio because I didn't want to experience the pain of not being a mom on the day that the rest of the world celebrates. I know you understand. So for me, this day was still more of a reminder of all of you who are still struggling and who were hiding in the wings, waiting for the pain to pass. I thought of you all and honored you. It's just one day... it's just one day I would tell myself....

That's about all I have right now. I am toying with ending this blog in the very near future, after all they are toddlers now... no more little babies. Tippy and Tidy HAVE traveled a tumultuous trip to toddlers.

It is an honestly bittersweet feeling. I can't describe it. So all I can do is hold on to them, very loosely and stay as present as I can in the moments we spend together, soaking it all in... because I do truly still soak it all in. I have to... if I blink an eye, I still feel like this could all be gone in a heartbeat...

I love you babies, more than you will ever know.

I'm still infertile

I still am infertile, sub fertile, suck at getting pregnant.. whatever... That's still who I am.

But I own it now. I own infertility, it doesn't own me.

I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but it's place in my life is one of an identity, a battle scar, a little thing that I "show" people here and there when the timing is right as part of the fabric of who I am. 

I wonder sometimes how others feel after they've reached the other side and have succeeded in having a child or two after a long fought battle. I still think about it. And I still think about you all who are on the other side, struggling to get to this one. Rooting for you with all of my hope and might. You are in my thoughts, even though I'm not here often.

It comes up in conversation. People ask if twins run in our family, but I usually say something like, "No, it took us a long time, we had to use fertiilty treatmeitns"

(Yeah, just doing my part at perpetuating the myth that all fertility treatments end up in multiples... You can thank me later ;-) )

It comes up in the quite times in our house when the babies are asleep and Tidy and I look at eachother and pause and think, hmm... this is how quiet it was before kids. Remember? And do you remember all of that pain?

We kind of look at eachother with a little nod but we don't go back there. It's strange. It's this weird feeling to know that for so many years (5 to be exact), we were in a lot of emotinal pain and sometimes anger and often sadness. But somehow, we haven't dug deep back into those depths to really feel that again. It feels so very far away.

Having our babies has made it hard to feel that again.

I'm glad.

And I guess I want to let others of you out there who are still going through this know that hopefully, once you have your babies woven into your lives, you will let go of that pain too and it won't be as easy to access as it once was.... or at least I hope that's how it feels for you.

Sure, you can hold onto it, and let it rot inside you, and be bitter... and there will always be reminders here and there of what that used to feel like... Like when a friend tells you she they got pregnant the first month trying, or you over hear conversations of people talking about how they planned the month they wanted to have their baby. Meh.

But overall, the pain is gone. My heart is filled with so much joy and awe that these two crazy little babies are ours. (Mommy loves you guys, more than I can even find words for)

First Day Date and My Baby Boy's Eyes

I often write blog posts in my head, but when I finally get here, I just don't know where to begin. There is so much that I want to say... 

Parenting really is the hardest thing one will ever do. This love is so intense that it absorbs much of your time and thought. For that, I am somewhat thankful, as it forces you to stay in the present, which we all need very much.

Here are a few out takes from last month's "photo shoot" (I do one every month on the same couch with the same outfit, changing out the month sticker for documentation. I'll post the 8 month one soon since we will be taking them this weekend)

Tidy and I had our first real day date a few weekends ago. We had two of my sisters and my parents come to hang out with the babies from noon on Saturday till about 4 or so. No, I didn't require a 2 to 1 babysitter to kid ratio, but I opened up the offer to my family and well, there were a lot of takers. They all live about 3 hours away, so they don't get to see the babies as much as maybe they would like. I gave them enough notice, so I think that they all jumped at the chance. They did a great job at babysitting... the house AND kids were both in tact when we came home. I might even let them come back and do it again!

On our date, Tidy and I went to a day spa for a steam and a couples massage. It was absolute bliss. My body is so beat up from pregnancy, tending to babies, sitting at a desk and typing much of the day and not getting as much time in my life to do yoga as I once did. Needless to say, he worked quite a few knots out of my back. I should probably go back every few days... Ha!

After our lovely time at the spa, we headed to a local coffee shop/wine store/cafe and grabbed a beer to sip and have a late lunch. We found a spot on a couch in there in front of a fire and snuggled up. I cried a few times. I think working out the knots releases emotion and pain and things that have been stored up. The tears were of joy, of gratefulness and of realization, that even though Tidy and I are doing great together, we do need that time to reconnect with each other. It was nice to just sit next to him and not talk about much and feel like you have to accomplish chores at home or sleep because you are tired, or plan for something the next day. I missed him, even though we are together so often.

It reaffirmed that we are doing a great job at this thing we call life and parenting and marriage.

Also, it made me feel good that I did this in my own time. Some might say that we should have done this along time ago, but you know what, we did it when I was ready. And because we waited until I was ready, I was able to go away with him for those hours and be at peace, and present with Tidy.

So thank you my sweet sisters and parents. And thank you Tidy for giving me the space and time to do this when I was ready. I love you more for that than you know.

I also promised a few entries ago some thoughts on the Bean Burrito since I did write a little blurb about M&M and her dancing hands, so below are some observations about my baby boy... the boy with the light in his eyes.

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 My sweet Bean Burrito. We've dropped the Burrito off your nick name quite some months ago, as we don't need to swaddle you anymore. You have such a beautiful soul inside those eyes and I can not wait to hear your voice and have a conversation with you. For a few months now, you have been struggling a bit with pain from teething, we think. I wish you could tell us what is wrong. It's so hard to see you unhappy from time to time.  You had always been my happy baby boy, easy to self soothe and snuggle yourself into bed at night. The past few months though, you need a lot of reassurance and cuddling (I don't mind of course, as I love to extra snuggle time with both of you when I can get it. I know it won't last forever). I think we are getting close to some teeth for you, so I hope hope hope that the fussiness will lessen.

Your eyes melt my heart, baby boy. You smile through them and they sparkle. Months ago, when we had to sooth you and your sister to bed for quite some many hours, I would sing to you "The Rainbow Connection" song and it would quite you and help you rest into sleep. Now, as I nurse you sleep at night, I still sing this song from time to time and I see the recognition in your eyes. You pause and look up at me and those bright smiling eyes make me see the kindness already within you. Your Aunt Coco said to me, "He doesn't look at anyone else the way he looks at you"

I hope that as we walk through life together, I will see that sweet look in your eyes from time to time.

7 Month - Eve

M&M and the Bean Burrito will be 7 months tomorrow. They are now closer to a year old than to the day they were born. (Well, they were the day they turned 6 months, but... whatever).

So how's life, you are wondering?

I would say we've found a bit of a rhythm. Tidy is an amazing stay at home dad. I am tolerating being a  working mom and doing my best to kick some serious butt at work during the day so I can come home and focus on these two joys of my life. Here's a recent picture of them over the holidays...

The cutest, right??

M&M is my sweet baby girl. She is so inquisitive and bright and cheerful and patient. Sometimes she has a little scared, easily startled streak, especially when she is tired. It's the saddest thing when she gets upset and her little bottom lip curls down and you can see the beginning of her cry. I just want to hold her and tell her it will be ok and she's fine. 99% of the time, however, her face just lights up the room.

Bean is my amazing baby boy. He's been a bit fussy for a few months. I think we finally have figured out that he did indeed have an ear infection (even though the doctors wouldn't believe me for a while) and have got him on some meds. Evenings were very challenging with him as we would lay him down and he would just hold his head in pain. Tylenol didn't help much nor did Advil. We just had to hold him and cuddle him. There have been some long nights but I definitely feel like we are turning a corner. I will say that he does let us know when he's tired or in pain and needs to just go take a nap. This I love about it. M&M had her 'tell' as well... which is a little far off stare. Adorable.

When Bean is happy though, which is the majority of the day, he is such a sweet and cuddly and almost innocent looking baby boy. His eyes melt my heart when he looks at me and hold his arms towards me to pick him up.

They both melt my heart.. especially when I come home from work and they hear my voice and turn to me and smile. Knowing that they will be getting milk for it's source instead of a bottle, since they have never really taken well to the bottle, might be the reason they simile, but I choose to believe that it is also that they are just happy to seem me. Being away from them during the day breaks my heart, but luckily work is so busy that my days go fast and I can rush home to cuddle, feed and do bed time with them.

Life is moving on as we know it... We are getting out to do family adventures on the weekends, we are learning how to get some more decent sleep, we are able to keep the house in somewhat of an order and even start to cook most of our meals again.

So of course when life gets into a groove, I want to go and mess with it :-) I start to think about what our next steps are. I should listen to myself sometimes and just enjoy these moments, which I truly do. Really. My favorite times of the week are Saturday and Sunday mornings when we sit and have coffee in the nursery with them and play in our pajamas. We FaceTime with their aunts and grandparents and simply just revel in the fact that we have two beautiful children, who we waited ever so long for.

But soon, we will have to make harder decisions. Does Tidy go back to work in the fall when his sabbatical is over? If you recall, his school district was gracious and gave him a year leave to stay at home with them. He can go back in the fall and retain his tenure and pretty much have his dream job of teaching 8th grade history. It's a hard call though because we'd have to adjust to life with getting the kids ready in the mornings to go to day care and we would not really be saving any $$ from his salary. What he makes would go to child care, and possibly more. In my mind, it's a no brainer. Just stay home until the kids go to school. But that's because I would give my hand and foot to do the same. But what makes sense to me in my head doesn't necessarily make sense to him. And I don't want either of us to regret the decisions we make. We will, of course, make a big pro and con list and we will talk it over. Whichever way we decide to go, we will be fine, I'm sure. But it's hard knowing this decision is looming over us and neither way we decide will be perfect.

On top of that, and luckily this is a decision we don't have to make right now, we have some really nice frozen embryos sitting at our clinic. And I really do want to have more kids. (I think). Again, another big pro and con list is in my head. I'm nostalgic for my pregnancy and also for the infant stage of having babies.  M&M fell asleep in my arms the other night as I nursed her and it reminded me of the days where I would just hold them and feed them and they would sleep there for hours. I cried, knowing that I may never experience that again. I'm every grateful to HAVE experienced it, I know. Really and truly, I do know this.

It's just another option that we are lucky to have and I have not been able to put the thought of having another baby out of my head. For now, I've decided to wait unit after their first birthday before we revisit. Tidy, I think, would be happy being done.

Finally, Tidy and I are doing well. We don't, of course, get as much time for each other as we would like. But we are finally having some peace at night to sit next to each other and fall asleep. It's bliss :-)

For now I will leave you with one more picture of our babies from over the holidays. They had a blast with our relatives and were just so joyful to be experiencing all these new faces and holiday fun. I honestly love trying to look at life through their eyes. It makes all of the worries and future decisions go away... I could stare at them forever...

My Everythings

Hi!

Remember me?

I'm Tippy. This is my blog. I write here.

Clearly not much, lately.

I suppose that's what happens when you are a working mom of twins.

First things first. The babies are amazing. Hectic, fussy sometimes, not the best sleepers, but absolutely amazing. Each day I love them more and more. They will be 6 months next week. I can not believe it. This half year has gone warp speed, yet we seem to have come so far. I know you understand. Life changes affect your life at warp speed.

I feel like having the twins caused my life to go from zero to 60, heck zero to 100 in like 1.1 seconds and then adding back in the full time work gig, well that accelerated it even more. I spent so much time in those first few months in a heightened state of function. go go go go go.

And then something clicked. I finally relaxed into this. I found my groove with the babies and the house and the husband and I just let go. I let go of the feeling of always having to accomplish something each day, like cooking a meal, or getting to the grocery store, or sorting through their clothes that they have outgrown quickly. I let go and realized that that feeling wasn't how I wanted to be around them. I wanted to simply enjoy them and look back on this year with a sense of peace and joy that I was able to soak it in as best I could. Especially since with being a working mom, my week day time with them is so limited.

I miss them immensely during the day. Immensely. I don't think they will ever know how deeply I wish that it was me who was helping them navigate through these young years. I fantasize in the car on my commute to work about being able to go into my boss and say, "Tidy and I have talked about it and we decided that he was going back to work and I am going to stay home... indefinitely". I know it's not all roses, and I'm sure that there would be many days where I wish that I was back at work, but I wish I could give it a try.

I do my best to "own" my role (wink wink.. that's for you Tidy) and do a good job. I try hard not to bring home the stress that I feel from my work right now. I try hard to switch it off and come home and just soak in the 2 hours or so I get with my babies during the work days. I try hard to just have that be enough on those days.

It not enough though.  It's never enough...

But I have to learn how to let it be enough for now.

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So what's up with those sweet babies, you ask? Oh man... so very much. They are close to sitting up on their own, they are teething (drooling like mad, feet and hands in their mouth at all times, a bit fussy here and there), they are starting to acknowledge eachother and want to reach out, they reach out to me and to their favorite toys, they laugh when I make silly face at them and play peek-a-boo, they sit in their high chairs when we are eating dinner and they watch us and want to be a part of it, they are so just open to the world... its amazing. When we take them new places, they are the stars of the show. They open their eyes and look around and soak it in and smile and coo at everything new.

This openness reminds me that I need to be open too... open to the life that I have right now and not the life that I want... once again, the world's gentle way of telling me to just... be... here, because as a wise woman once said (in a book I am reading called Momma Zen)... "here is everything and everything is here"

So here is a picture of my everything...

A resolution and little dancing hands

Writing my last post really helped me free some of the frustration I was feeling and re-focus my energy.

I've resolve to do the following:

1. I will stop reading about everyone else's "perfect" kids on the internet and how they got there. I don't need to get anywhere. I am here.
2. I will stop asking for advice since everyone has some and they usually feel very strongly about it. I don't need advice. Every kid and family is different.
3. I will trust my instincts... I will take the time to listen to them.

I can now let go of the fact that my babies aren't sleeping exactly like babycenter.com says they should be and just focus on them. I can be comfortable in the uncomfort, in the unpredictable-ness of their ever changing patterns and I can be hopeful in the trends that we are starting to see. But mostly, and I say this because this is hard for me, the analytical, process following, predictable natured mathematician... mostly I can just let go and really really just enjoy these babies and their ever changing natures.

They are absolutely fascinating. Truly. Every day I see them again after work, or when I wake in the morning on my days off, I am in utter awe of their inquisitiveness, of their seeming growth over the night, of their sweet sweet souls. And I am in love... deep deep love. 

Here's an example of the moments with them that I want to absorb, relish, dive into and just experience: 

My little M&M and I have developed a dance we do with our hands when she nurses, especially at at night. She is a very delicate nurser, light in my arms and quiet at my breast. Her hands explore and reach out for mine. She's only 4.5 months old and yet she seems to want to grab and move and caress my own hands, exploring the space between my fingers and pulling and pushing my fingers in various directions as she nourishes herself. Eventually, deep in the night, her little fingers slow down and she rests my finger on her chest, her sucking slows and I gently persuade her back to her bed. But as I do this, I think to myself, burn these memories into your brain, Tippy, because this too shall pass... 

It's a very tender time in my mind, since during the day, she's so alert and attentive to the environment and goings on around her that her attention darts from place to place. Once in a while she will sit on my lap and look at me, smile and coo and coo and coo, telling me about her day. These moments shoot me forward a few years into when she will be talking. I envision myself coming home from work and she greeting me, babbling excitedly about her day, wanting to tell me every little detail of the new things she saw and learned. But for now, I hold on dear to those little sweet hands when they reach out for mine and hope at some level, she always wants to hold my hand.

(a post on the bean burrito yet to come...)