Category — Tear Jerkers

This afternoon, I was changing Althea, my little firecracker. She was doing her thing, twisting her back and legs to flip herself over, making me curse a few times in laughter and frustration. After some goofing around, she flipped onto her back and I managed to get a diaper under her. Her happy cheeks round with a smile, she grabbed the fat — er, skin on my forearm with her strong little fingers.

In that moment, an otherwise insignificant moment captured in time, I remembered my grandma.

Grama had a lingering Boston accent and enjoyed a cold beer on a hot day. She smoked. She laughed. She read voraciously and snacked on Spam with crackers, taking careful nibbles with her front teeth while flipping the pages of another Agatha Christie mystery. She took clogging lessons.

Grama was buddies with the Lord and didn’t care which church she found him in (she, an alabaster Irish woman, once attended an all-African American gospel church — even purchased traditional African garb — and found that the Lord there was the same Lord she prayed to anywhere else, goddammit).

When I was a little girl, Grama would drive me to the 99-cent store in her long, white Oldsmobile. On our walk through the parking lot, I would stroke Grama’s arms, the sagging, loose skin so soft under my fingertips. I would explore the thick veins in her hands and caress her freckled arms.

This skin was different from mine. I delighted at this discovery, the soft skin loose and saggy with age. I would rub at it with my fingers and tell her how soft she was.

When I grew up, I wanted to have soft skin like Grama.

Now that I’m an adult, I realize she probably cursed all that loose and sagging skin, probably thought it was disgusting and unattractive, a reminder of how not-young she was. But to me, it was human silk, a touchy-feel that represented all that was comforting and right with the world.

My Grama’s skin.

Althea’s fingers digging into my forearm, I slid the diaper under her tiny little bum. Those big, bright eyes. Those apple-round cheeks. The gummy grin. Grabbing at my skin with exuberance and innocence.

Rainy morning. The lack of sunlight in the windows meant the girls slept in. Althea was up first, mumbling and sucking her fingers to get our attention. Elise slept soundly by her side. I decided to forgo efficiency and nurse them one at a time, spending a rare few moments with them one on one.

I know and have read of twin mamas who feel a quiet and occasional resentment at having two babies to care for. If we had “just one” to care for, we could casually feed her, gazing down at one set of eyes, taking our sweet time to enjoy just one little body snuggled against our skin. If we had just one baby, oh! the free time we’d have to change only one dirty diaper, soothe only one crying infant, wash only one set of clothes, bathe only one wiggly little baby. Our child would be playing and babbling and sitting up and walking on time because we’d have enough time to devote to helping her learn and grow as an individual. With just one baby, we wouldn’t feel the guilt of cooing at one while the other stares at us expectantly, waiting for mom to pay attention to them, too. 

We’d go out more often without help because it’d be logistically possible to wander around the park or go grocery shopping with just one baby. We’d have a free spot in the backseat because there would be just one car seat. If we’d carried just one baby during our pregnancies, maybe, just maybe, we’d have a shot at wearing a bikini again in this lifetime. 

Do I have to quit my job? The cost of childcare for two is beyond our means. 

Althea’s little body breathing against mine. I nursed her casually, speaking to her softly and telling her how special she is, just on her own. How much I love just her.

I passed off Althea to Daddy so I could spend easy, slow alone time with Elise too. I love you, just you. These moments are rare.

I know it’s possible to love two babies with the same unending devotion at the same time. But how do we twin moms make sure that each baby knows how valuable they are as just one person?

We took the girls to the county fair today.

You don’t understand. I LOVE THE FAIR. I love it so much, only capitalized letters can possibly capture my love affair with fairs. Polish sausages with onions and peppers. Foot-long corn dogs. Multi-colored cotton candy in bags. Deep fried things on sticks. Airbrushed hats. Embroidery while-u-wait. Mechanical bulls. Teeny-boppers dressed skankily. Toothless rednecks with mullets. Carnies. The Zipper.

Yes, I love love love the fair.

Last year at this time, the girls were tiny balls of cells embedding themselves in my uterine lining. I didn’t know. I mean, I suspected. I kind of knew. But I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get pregnant again right away (I’d miscarried just two months earlier). So I drank a few beers at the Budweiser tent. Chris and I rode my beloved Zipper and the Egg Beater. I smoked. I smoked a lot, with the abandon of a woman who secretly suspects she’s pregnant but is so self-indulgent she hasn’t given up cigarettes just yet.

Tomorrow, Monday, marks one year since I found out I was pregnant. I woke up feeling hopeful. Maybe a little scared and guilty too. I had a stash of early pregnancy tests ready, two days before my period was even due. With the early spring sun streaming in the bathroom window, I ripped open the foil packet to my First Response Early Pregnancy Test. No need to read the directions — I was a pro already, having spent entirely too much time Googling pregnancy test result photos. Piss piss piss. I set the test down, went about my business, peeking out of the corner of my eye for that second pink line.

And there it was. Faint as hell, but there it was.

I often think about my past. The way I’ve treated my family. The dangerous situations I’ve put myself in. All the horrible things I’ve done and said to the people I love most. Sometimes, the guilt and shame make me want to stab my ears with steak knives. Honestly, that bad.

So, while stuffing my face with a pretzel dog at the fair today, I glanced at these two (two!) little beings who trust me and their father more than anyone else in the whole wide world and I wonder what the fuck I’ve done in my miserable life that has given me this incredible privilege of raising two (two!) painfully beautiful little people.

Happy first year together, little people.

The girls have discovered their feet.

It’s been a couple of weeks, actually. But it’s just now striking me how remarkable and profound this is.

It started with a diaper change. I had Althea up on the table. I pulled her teensy feet up in the air to slide a fresh diaper under her tiny little bum, and I saw it. 

The Stare.

It’s the same stare that they’ve been using on their hands for a while now. Exhibit A.

Althea staring at her fist

You also see it in this footsie video. At about  :40, Althea  briefly holds her fist up in front of her face to look at it. Sort of like, “Hey. It’s my fist.”

Well, on this day, Althea saw her foot. The world stopped. Her mind was overwhelmed. She needed to figure out what this new limb was.

Ever since then, she and her sister have been reaching, grabbing, pulling and playing with their feet.

Althea playing with her feet

Yes, it is freakin’ cute. But do you realize, people, that there was a day when you were like that too? One day, when you were 14 or 15 weeks old, you suddenly saw this fat little object with five little toes and you said, “Holy. Shit. Look. At. That. I WANT IT NOW.” And it was marvelous and amazing and momentous? And your parent(s) looked at you and laughed and smiled and thought that you were surely going to be a card-carrying member of MENSA because you had discovered the existence of your own foot?

In case you’re wondering where I’m going with this: These moments with my babies makes me feel deeply apologetic to my mother. I realize now that she felt this wonderful way about me at one point or other. (Who am I kidding. She still feels this wonderful way about me.) She looked at my tiny little face, when I couldn’t even hold up my own head, and thought that I was the most amazing, smart, talented, beautiful, capable, perfect, lovable little thing that ever was born onto this god-forsaken planet.

And then I became a teenager. I told her I hated her. I treated her like she didn’t even deserve to live. I told her to go to hell when I was 11 years old and she spanked me like a child. I deserved it. And then I told her even worse things as I learned even worse words. And she probably bit her tongue. And I probably made her cry more than I am even capable of imagining. 

Now I get it. Ama, I love you and I’m sorry and I surely don’t wish for my kids to treat me the way I treated you. But I know they will. Because that’s what kids do. Generation in and generation out, kids hate their parents. And perhaps . . . well, perhaps parents maybe even hate their kids sometimes. 

But for now? For now, my babies have discovered their perfect little feet, and all is right with the world.

Elise and Althea at 16.5 weeks

It’s Friday.

A few years ago, Friday night meant PARTY. It meant booze and cigarettes and staying up till 4 a.m., gabbing with my girlfriends or throwing a party. It meant falling asleep to bad TV and waking up late, hung over in my hedonism.

Now, it means time. Time to spend catching up. Time to spend with my daughters. Time to snuggle next to my husband under our clean, grown-up-people sheets. It means Chris asleep on the couch at 9 p.m. And tonight, it means staying up late to cry alone.

Tonight was bath night for the girls. I spoke softly to them in Spanish, gently soaping their tender baby skin. I quickly dried them to keep them from getting too cold. I slipped their tiny hands and arms through the tiny sleeves of their tiny clothes. I pulled them up close to me and nursed them, snuggling their little bodies closecloseclose to my sides. They hummed and breathed and swallowed the food my body worked so hard to make just for them. Their short little breaths went from an eager suck-swallow-breathe-suck-swallow-breathe, to the contented hum of a full belly, to the soft, rhythmic breaths of sleeping infants snug up against their mom. They were safe, happy, full, tired.

And then . . . 

And then I cried. I cried and cried and cried. I cried at the feeling of them close next to me. I cried at the sound of their peaceful little sighs. I cried at the realization that these moments will never ever happen again. Their happy little feet won’t dance while nursing at my breasts forever. Their little bodies won’t fit on my nursing pillow much longer. Their clothes are straining at the snaps, their pleasantly chunky bodies outgrowing everything they wear. 

Elise and Althea are going to be three months old on Monday. Is it significant that I’ll be 31 on Monday, too? That Chris turned 35 yesterday? The very thought of it makes me ache and hurt and bleed all over. I feel like screaming NO NO NO at whoever is controlling this whole thing. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts some more. And most of all, I hate the feeling that the everyday just happens and I can’t ever fill myself enough with the now to remember every detail, engage in every sight sound smell taste touch of these painfully perfect babies.

I’m terrified of forgetting today. 

I want to trap these moments in a bottle so that someday I can tell my daughters all about how smitten I am with them.

I can’t believe I ever said I didn’t want to get married or have children. My life has never been more complete than it is with them and my husband.

(This emotional breakdown is courtesy of this slideshow from Dooce and this post from Mommy Melee. Thanks, bitches.)