First of all I wanted to take a second to thank Nancy for allowing me to guest blog. She is a wonderful mother and a remarkable and strong woman who cares so much about other people. She has also been quite the educator. I met her on the TTC boards and she helped me through to my BFP. She taught me so much about TTC and then afterwards about infertility. I knew nothing about it and through her struggles and her willingness to share, she has enlightened me. Never would I say that I can understand what women who have infertility go through, but at least now I feel like I know what not to say or do.
I am the mother of twin 17 month old boys and I blog at Our Janidlo Clan. They were conceived naturally and I consider them to be the greatest gift from my maternal grandmother (she had two sets of fraternal twins). It can be challenging at times to raise twins but I must say that my boys make it relatively easy. They are wonderful little men and I could not imagine my life without them. I decided I would talk a little bit about two different aspects of being a mother of twins.
We can no longer be in a hurry to do anything. Whenever we are out in public we are constantly stopped to be asked questions about the boys. These conversations generally start out the exact same way... "Are they twins???". Sometimes it is very hard for me not to respond with all the ridiculous answers I have formulated in my head over the last 17 months. This question is not quite so bad now that they are toddlers, but when they were newborns I couldn't believe how anyone could think otherwise. The next question is usually... "Are they identical?" This one is a little more understandable since their differences are a little less noticeable to someone who does not know them. But come on... they have different eye colours! I know that all these people are just curious and trying to make conversation so I try not to be rude. But sometimes I would just like to be able to go to the grocery store without being stopped. I guess that's what happens when you not only have one cute baby but two!
I find it difficult when I am asked by a singleton mother "How do you do it? I can barely keep it together with one baby/child." This to me is such a loaded question. Everyone has their struggles and different levels of what they can handle. I truly believe that we are only given what we can handle and I guess my genes were meant to have twins. I have a hard time when people try to compare battle scars and mine are not deeper than someone else's just because I had twins. My boys were not premature, they did not spend any time in the NICU, they were not colicky, etc... and they are HEALTHY!
I find it the most difficult with my friends because they feel like they can't talk to me about their parenting issues. They are always saying, "well, I can't complain to you about this because you have two of them to deal with. You must think I have it so easy." When in reality I think that in some ways I have it much easier. My boys always have someone to play with. That defintely takes a load off of me. I can leave them to play together while I go off and get something done. I also think I have been thrown in automatic second time parent mode. Mothers out there that have more than one child understands what I am referring to. You learn so much from the first baby, that things run much more smoothly the second time around (barring any kind of extremely difficult second child). I had to react as if I was a second time parent the first time around. It was hard at the beginning but now I am reaping the benfits.Well, there it is a little insight on my little life.
Please feel free to head over to my blog and check it out. I am not nearly as interesting as Nancy but really... who is???
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8 comments:
I get stopped in the grocery store all the time, it's annoying like you said. My babies are 18 months apart and I have a 4-year-old but people always stop me to say "wow, you have your hands full." or something similar. I know I have my hands full most of the time, but I don't need anyone to stop me in my busy quest to tell me that it's hard :)
People having to ask if they're identical happens to all people with twins. People can be so stupid sometimes, they think my baby is a boy even when she's in a frilly dress with pretty bows. My good friend has twins, but one is a boy with red hair and blue eyes. The other is a girl with dark brown hair and really dark brown eyes. She gets people asking if they're identical too. It's pretty ridiculous.
Great post, Lisa! Your boys are adorable by the way (I secretly wish Andrew would have been twins; I have told this to my hubby before!). :)
I second mommybird's comments. We have boy/girl twins and we get asked all the time if they are identical. Even after they notice that they are a boy and a girl. It is baffling, but many people truly don't understand what "identical" means in the context of twins!
Very interesting points you make in this post. I always thought having twins would be a million times harder, but I guess, like you say, everyone has their own difficulties. Your kids might not be quite as rotten and spoiled and attached as my son! LOL!
Lisa, thank you for taking the time to write a post out for my blog while I was out of town. I appreciate it SO much. And also, thank you for all the nice words about me!
Your post had me nodding because I have good friend who have twins just a few months before Ella was born. And then, 16 months later, I had another one and I was able to "compare" the differences in having twins to having two kids close together. While I could never play the game "who had it harder" because that's just an impossible thing to do, I did recognize what was harder and what wasn't. The having a full time playmate it huge. I really noticed that once Allie was big enough for Ella to play with.
As for the comments you get from people, I actually have a post brewing about that. So when you read it, please don't get offended (even though I think you understand the need for people to ask questions already).
Thanks again Lisa!
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It sound like you are doing a wonderful job being a mom to twin boys.
I actually do find myself thinking sometimes about how difficult it must be with two- always only thinking that my own experience with one would be multiplied. It's so helpful to hear that everyone's experience is different & while 2 may bring different challenges, it's not neccessarily 'harder'!
I also agree that we are given what we can handle!
Thank you everyone for the compliments on my post. I just wanted to give a little insight on my life at the moment...
Nancy, you're more than welcome. I am so happy you liked it. And don't worry about me getting offended. It takes quite a bit... besides I always like hearing it from the other point of view. I know why people ask and that's why I don't respond with all the silly responses I have formulated. I wouldn't want to come across as being rude.
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