Tag Archives: babies

June 10, 2014 · 8:59 PM

Double Double Toil and Trouble

When my mama said they’ll be days like this, she was not screwing around.

I remember having a conversation about motherhood with her months ago when she said, with a shudder: “Just wait until you’re sick. You will not believe you ever thought you knew misery before that day.”

I trusted her, but by that point the babies were six months old and we’d never been sick, not one of us. So I put it on a shelf and forgot about it.

Then a month ago Henry got croup. His first illness (at nine months, which I was pretty proud of). Like the gentleman he is, he graciously passed it to each of us, so we shared colds for a week. Mike and I swam in a sea of tissues, comforting babies, low on energy. But it didn’t bring us to our knees.

Then last weekend, Arden got her first fever. She had no accompanying symptoms, so I called the pediatrician who advised I do nothing but monitor her and keep her comfortable. Her fever raised and lowered over the next two days, and then Henry caught it. I took them both to the doctor because it was strange to have fevers and literally no other issues. She did a thorough exam and said it was a virus, and that many babies had been in with the same experience. She said it would be gone in the next day or two.

Since they were nearly healthy again the next day, I decided to go on our first run since the cold I’d had several weeks before. I felt great, and was doing my best time post-birth. I got back to the house and put the babies in their highchairs for a snack — and suddenly, I felt wrong. My skin hurt and every single joint ached. At first I thought I’d pushed myself too hard during the run, but the feeling wasn’t going away as I recovered from that effort. I prepared the babies’ food and felt worse with every passing minute.

After half an hour I called Mike and told him something was wrong with me, but I had no idea what, as I’d just been healthy enough to push 65 pounds over hills in the neighborhood. Fifteen minutes later it occurred to me: take your temperature, genius. Bingo: 100 degrees.

From then on it was like being run over by a train. I had to say out loud, “Just get me to the next thing, Jesus,” as I washed dishes or moved the kids to a different area. I felt so weak and aching that I physically couldn’t play with them. I went limp and laid on the floor, holding up a book and whisper-reading it to the babies. I realized I would be laughing out loud at myself if only I had the strength.

It was soon obvious that Jesus had heard my pathetic wimper because the babies were chubby-thighed angels for the next forty-five minutes. They just sat quietly playing next to the woman heroically auditioning for the role of a starfish washed ashore: arms and legs splayed, eyes closed.

In a moment of grace I will never forget, Arden looked at me, leaned over, and put her head on my arm, right in the crook by my shoulder. She stared at me with her enormous eyes and just laid beside me, radiating empathy. I felt so impossibly in love with her I thought it would be enough to heal me on the spot. I also remembered she had felt this sick over the last five days, and maybe still did a little, and my heart broke.

I kept my hands on each of them so I knew they were safe, and then I pretended this all wasn’t happening, because I knew I didn’t have an out. My mom was out of the country, my mother-in-love was working, my husband was working. Okay — my husband was working and then had a four o’clock tee time, but I still felt guilty asking for help. As soon as that became a conscious thought — “I feel so guilty asking him not to golf to come take care of the babies because I can’t move,” I realized how absurd it was, and I called him.

He immediately offered to come home before I had to beg, which helped me to remember this was the first such call I’d ever made. He was understandably bummed about his plans, but made it home within an hour. At his insistence I went to bed, announcing as I walked up the stairs that I’d sleep probably half an hour (because what kind of a mother takes a longer break than that? I berated myself)…and then didn’t regain consciousness for more than two.

Thank God this happened on a Thursday, because on Fridays my mother-in-love comes to help (alternating Fridays with my sister) so I knew I wouldn’t be alone the next day. I felt much better through that day, but the fever spiked again as evening approached and I went to bed early, sleeping like the dead.

That Saturday we didn’t have plans, which is always cause for celebration in our house, and I told myself I was ruining it by being sick. How could we do anything fun if I was sick? How could we leave the house? I had to rally! This was Mike’s day off and the kids’ chance to get out and do something new and exciting; I had to pull it together. But every ounce of my 101 degree temperature body was saying, Abby, move to the couch. Do not move off of it. So, logically, I forced myself to get dressed and put on accessories.

What is with this mother guilt? Did I drink from a vial concocted by a gaggle of evil raccoons stirring a pot of poison in the woods labeled “Mother Guilt”? Have I forgotten this disturbingly detailed memory? Why do I not allow myself to get physically ill?

Mike walked into the room and saw me sitting next to the children, fully dressed and ready to go, but staring into the distance like one of the rubber giraffes they were playing with.

“Babe, I think you should stay home,” he admitted. “You look like…babe, you need to sleep. I’m taking the babies, we’re going walking along the water and getting lunch and you will sleep.”

He was so sincere, and so earnest about having a daddy-twins day that I finally caved. I crawled to the couch and shouted last instructions.

“Take a bottle for each,” I moaned. “Do you have wipes?”

As he left I burrowed under a blanket, freezing despite the heat radiating off my skin. I was just about to fall asleep when I remembered: “Be sure to cover their legs with the thin blankets in the back of the car so they don’t get sunburned,” I texted him.

And with that motherly duty complete, I fell into a blissful two and a half hour coma. When I woke up, my fever was gone and never returned. Mike had a fabulous time with the babies on an afternoon adventure — perfectly happy, and not sunburned, without me. Evil raccoon mother guilt be damned!

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Filed under The WORD (Faith)

Tagged as adventure, babies, Family, Mike Reph, twins

Aside

Because It’s Really Their First Car

There were a ton (okay, two tons) of items acquired to prepare for the babies, but none that I anticipated more than the purchase of our stroller. I am a member of an unusual species, one that looks at strollers like cars, and did so long before my own children entered the picture. I can’t really explain it, because I had no interest in any other baby paraphernalia, but before I had the babies I could pass six strollers on the street and tell you the make and model of each one, along with which was used by a celebrity for their spawn. File under: useless information recall.

You won’t know this stroller, or care, but before I had babies I always thought I’d buy the Orbit. The Orbit is genius, and cool, and looks like a spaceship. The seat twists on and off the base and then twists on and off a matching base in your car. I probably would have purchased it, too, if it hadn’t been for the little double surprise we encountered. Because just look at the locomotive that is the double-version:

Six wheels? The thing is about eight feet long. How do you turn? Or fold it up? Forget about it.

Next I thought I wanted the Bugaboo Donkey Twin stroller, but I test drove one and it felt forty feet wide and I knew it wouldn’t fit through standard door frames, no matter what they told me. Fitting through doors, I’d say, is kind of essential.

Easily the most popular stroller in Seattle is the BOB, and it’s popular for good reason. I just couldn’t go with it because it didn’t fit two car seats, and it was beastly to collapse and store in the back of the car.

Where to turn? What to do? After an embarrassing number of hours of research, a fellow twin mom told me she was going with the Baby Jogger City Select, which I had never heard of. At first I naturally thought, “amateur” but after further intense research, I dragged Mike to the store and we fell in love with it. I also asked for stroller recommendations at the next EMOMs meeting, and was met with a chorus of advice to get the City Select.

I insisted on adding the bassinets, because one of my long-held stroller fantasies was to push a baby in a bassinet. It’s so classic, so British, so splendidly posh. If I was going to be falling asleep at the wheel, I was going to do so behind a bassinet. Or two, as the case may be.

After ten months with our little red SUV, I can now report that it was a wise purchase. Speaking of purchase, I haven’t listed the prices of any of the strollers here intentionally; those who care will look it up, and those who don’t I won’t horrify. Just remember: Judgy Wudgy Was a Bear.

What makes the City Select so choice, as Ferris Bueller would say? The versatility. It can be configured to hold two bassinets, two car seats, two seats, or some combination of those if you have children of different ages. We can even add a glider board once we have another baby so all three are riding (which sounds ridiculous, but we’ll see when we get there).

Our first use of it was to take Arden in for our daily visit to Henry in the NICU:

This only required one bassinet, obviously, and it worked well.

During subsequent outings I would choose bassinets or car seats based on whether they were sleeping, or likely to.

It sounds complicated to configure, but the bassinets just click in and out, and then we click little frames in to hold the car seats.

As the babies were able to sit up, I would let them ride perched in the bassinets. This was adorable, but unsafe, as they could arch their backs and fall out (theoretically…it didn’t actually happen).

It took me a very long time to switch to the big kid seats because I was so attached to the bassinets. Also it was winter, so it made sense to keep them in their little traveling sleeping bags.

But a couple of weeks after they turned eight months in late March, it was time to make the switch. We ran into our friend Matt soon after, and he summed it up perfectly: “First stop: five-point harness, second stop: college.” This was EXACTLY why I didn’t want to move out of the bassinets. It was like admitting they were ready to have email addresses.

The glimmering silver lining was that they instantly loved it. Their faces looked like, “WHAT? I can sit up fully supported!? AND touch all the things?!”

(Also please note their gender differences even in seated positions. Arden always sits ankles crossed like the lady she is, and Henry’s legs are always swinging high in the air, toes wiggling.)

We can have the seats face front, back, or each other. We always have them facing each other because then neither of them is staring at the back of a seat. Plus they interact, which is just as adorable as it sounds.

On rare occasions one of them will fall asleep in the car and one will still be awake, in which case we rock the different seating combo.

One of the key requirements in our stroller search was that it be easily collapsible, as I’d be doing it myself the majority of the time. The City Select has two knobs on either side and when I pull them at the same time they collapse the whole thing. It’s really easy, but it’s still a little awkward to load into the car since it’s not a featherweight umbrella stroller.

The name makes this obvious, but we use it to go on runs and it does just fine.

At this point Baby Jogger should be sending me a check, but since they’re not, I’ll conclude with its drawbacks. There isn’t a safety connection from my wrist to the stroller, which I think of every time we go running, as I imagine myself tripping and sending the twins into oncoming traffic. It’s not “recommended” for jogging like their sportier strollers are, so I’m sure there’s a better running experience out there, but the ride is smooth and works for us.

I’m hoping to do a post soon about other top products I haven’t been able to live without, but for now I had to start with the mothership. I’m reminded of it everywhere we go, because sometimes it gets more attention than the twins do.

I don’t like to say I love inanimate objects, so let’s just say that I deeply like this stroller.

A Little Tangle with the Law

I got a speeding ticket a few weeks ago.

I was driving near our home on a Wednesday morning, heading to the grocery store with the babies. We never, ever run errands in the morning because it messes with their first nap, but I had plans later in the day so I decided to be ultra-efficient. I was also doing something we never do: I was headed to the Grocery Outlet Bargain Market. I thought: I’m a stay-at-home-mom on a single income. This is a smart-savvy-savings ninja move that moms everywhere have discovered before me. Look at me go!

And then a cop stepped into the road and waved me over.

I was completely bewildered. I was not speeding. What the?

“Ma’am, do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No, officer, I genuinely don’t.”

He showed me the read on his radar gun: 35 miles per hour.

“Yes, but…this is a 35 zone,” I replied, still baffled.

“Yes it is,” he answered. “But it’s 9:15 on a school day.”

A tiny brain bomb exploded.

“I…I had no idea. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know…” I stammered pathetically. I glanced in my rearview mirror looking for the twins to back me up, or cry at least. Isn’t this what babies are for in a pinch?

He walked away and promptly wrote me a ticket. My giant Precious Moments eyes did nothing to garner a sympathetic let-off. I should’ve worn more makeup. Well, I should’ve worn makeup.

He handed me the ticket, I rolled up my window and promptly burst into tears. I felt royally ripped off, also like a fool, and worse, I glanced down at the ticket to see a colossal $271 staring back at me and cried even harder. The brutal irony was not lost on me of getting hit with a nearly $300 fine on my way to save nickels and dimes.

Naturally, I decided to check the little box for “mitigation hearing” so I could hopefully lower the fine.

Three weeks later I packed the kids in the car and drove across town for my hearing. More than a few people said I was insane to bring them; I said I’d be insane not to. They failed me in front of the cop but I was confident they’d do much better in front of a judge. This was nothing if not parenting at its finest.

We rolled through the door in our locomotive of a stroller, causing the security guards to react with such glee I knew their jobs involved slower policing than Mayberry. We made it through the metal detector and I got a full body wanding, just for good measure. The security guards made all kinds of exclamations about how I got around with that thing, and how full my hands must be, and how it’s a wonder I’m out of the house at all. I smiled and faked laughed as they tried to escort me down the hall to my courtroom. I told them I was fine, and they just shook their heads and chided each other about this wild twin mom in their midst.

I sat in the back row of the courtroom and quietly talked to the babies and gave them the toys I had packed. There were only five or six other people (defendants?) in the room, and it was so, so quiet. Every squeak the twins made sounded like a holler through a bullhorn.

Suddenly the security guard walked in the door at the back of the room and started talking to the judicial assistant. I paid no attention until I realized they were talking about me.

“Can you imagine? Two at once? Boy oh boy you’d never sleep!”

“I have two five years apart and it was so exhausting.”

“She said it’s a boy and a girl!”

“Well I’d be done. I wish that had been me I would’ve only had to be pregnant one time.”

They were speaking so loudly it became awkward for me not to respond. Again I fake-laughed good-naturedly, and they started to openly include me in the conversation. In front of the defendants.

“How old are they? Is it hard? Oh my gosh!”

I answered and then occupied myself with Henry who was starting to fuss. Too soon, Hank! I need you to cry when Her Honor is here!

Finally, ten minutes late (which is about thirty in twin time), the judge entered the room. She made a quick announcement about our options for dealing with our tickets, stating that we could get them reduced if there were appropriate circumstances. I felt so hopeful and then she added, “unless it’s a ticket that cannot be reduced by law, like speeding in a school zone, for instance.”

Womp womp.

My crime would be too obvious if I left immediately. I was crossing my fingers that she’d call me last and I could plead in the privacy of my own patheticness.

Before she began the proceedings, she asked if anyone wanted to defer — to pay $150 to keep the ticket off record, and if you’re ticket-free for a year it never shows up on your record at all. I got my hopes up again, but then started mentally calculating when my last ticket was…since you can only have a deferral every seven years, it would be close.

Henry was fussing, louder and louder. I picked him up knowing that he would never go back in without crying. Of course that’s when it was also time to decide to defer.

After several others took her up on her offer, I raised my hand. She looked up my name to see if I qualified — bingo.

“Please step forward,” she told me.

I balanced Henry on my hip and pushed the stroller forward with one hand, careening around slightly and smiling sheepishly, because, remember, that’s why I brought them: sympathy points.

“Do you understand the terms of the deferral?” she asked me.

“Yes, your honor,” I replied, bouncing Henry.

“Alright, as long as you don’t get a ticket for the next year, this will be wiped from your record. So don’t speed in any more school zones,” she added.

I was offended by this, mostly because she said it like I did it as a hobby. Here I was toting two babies and she thought I was a reckless driver out to mow down the schoolchildren of America.

That comment aside, I considered this a victory. A one hundred and twenty-one dollar victory, to be exact. Provided I don’t break the law for the next twelve months. In which case, it would be not a victory at all, but rather a $321 defeat, plus the cost of the new ticket.

Ergo, the next time you see a sloth-like vehicle with two carseats in the right lane of the freeway, just give me a wave and try not to judge. At least I’m not snowplowing elementary school children.

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Filed under AwkWORD (Humor)

Tagged as adventure, babies, money, twins