Whew! We made it! Can you believe they’re one year olds now?, my husband reaches over and pats my knee as he glances into the rear-view mirror to catch a glimpse of our twin sons, sound asleep in their car seats, on our way home from their first birthday party.

Crazy isn’t it? Good job Mr. Daddy, I respond and hold my hand out to him for a high-five.

I know what you’re thinking: High-five? Who does that anymore?  That went out when we were in grade school!  I agree, it did. But we’re just that kind of family. We do things in a big way around here. When we are upset, we’re mad. When we are happy, we’re ecstatic! And when we chose to start a family—we had twins!

When we went from being a family of 2 (husband and wife), to a family of 4 (Mommy, Daddy, and two babies), we quickly found ourselves needing to choose one extreme or the other. It’s either sink or swim when twins arrive, and we chose to swim.

Not to say that we haven’t had our crazy moments in which life felt as if it was falling apart—we’ve had plenty of those. But through the help of good friends, supportive family, and a tender faith we’ve been able to make it through our first year with twins, with only minor bumps and Jackson Pollock-esque spit-up stains along the way.

My Life as a Sleep-deprived Cow: Birth to 3 months.

The early arrival of our twin sons, Moses and Theo, meant countless hours of pumping, storing, and then freezing the pumped breast milk, plus trips to and from the hospital to attempt breast-feeding at all the scheduled feeding times. The hospital set a feeding schedule of every 3 hours for the boys and my job was to ensure that my body agreed with that schedule. I vaguely recall reading a suggested daily schedule for mommies of twins in a Baby Whisperer book that clearly laid out what a three-hour schedule of feeds would look like once the kids came home—the horror of reading that schedule, followed by a panicked call to my sister-in-law confirmed my worst fears: my fate was indeed to be employed as a full-time cow for the first 3 months of my children’s lives.

You’re going to have to think of breast feeding as a full-time job, were the words of wisdom spoken by my SIL. What everyone forgot to mention was that the job was not 9-5, but 24/7 . . . around the clock, with two babies! No sleep, plus two babies to feed . . .  I am sure that in those first three months, I flashed my much-in-demand breasts to every member of my family, countless friends, and possibly even several lucky repairmen who had the pleasure of frequenting our house during those first few months. Not a memory I cherish, and certainly not the way I had ever thought my breasts would make their big break.

A day in my life at the infancy stage had me feeding the kids for 1.5 hrs, followed by 30–40 minutes of holding the reflux-plagued babes upright which left about 30 minutes to an hour to do diaper changes, clothes changes, and for me to sleep or heaven forbid, get a pee break! And just when you thought you’d successfully gotten that elusive moment to yourself? At least one, if not two of the boys would awake hungry and ready to start the whole process all over again.

Enter Bob and the Throngs of Adoring Crowds: 4–6 Months

By the time we hit the four-month mark, I was ready for the feeding schedule to change. I had spent enough time in the cow-phase and was anxious to start feeling human again. Enter our Bob jogging stroller. We would prop our 2 little men up in their stroller and try to stretch out times between feeds by taking them on scenic walks that lasted hours on end. The awesome thing about attempting to stretch feedings out this way was that I began to find my human side again! I even found my belly button! Although we couldn’t yet run with the boys in the Bob, we did do lots of trails and cameos at the local grocery stores.

I always knew that babies were an attraction for a certain throng of women— in general, the teenaged girl and older grandmotherly types seem to be the major contenders of the populace of baby-lovers. However, I never truly knew how many people are astounded by the mere presence of adorable little babies until we became the neighbourhood equivalent to Brangelina. Every time I left the house, I prepared myself for the many stops we would have to make on our excursions. On average, I would be stopped by an adoring fan anywhere from 5 to 10 times during an hour and a half long walk. Try having to recite your babies’ age, names, eye colours (if they are sleeping), and say actually, they’re fraternal, with a genuine smile on your face 10 times in an hour to complete strangers—some who don’t even speak English but can somehow manage to get out “boy or girl?”  I kid you not—at times we even had paparazzi! People would ask to take pictures of our kids or to be in pictures with our kids. When expectant parents of twins ask me what one thing they should be prepared for, I always tell them to be prepared to let others share in their joy over their babies. If you aren’t prepared to let others be happy with you, well—you’re just not going to be happy, unless you’re okay with hiding yourselves away in your house.

Okay. Now this is Fun! 6–12 Months

At 6 months, our boys took a definite liking to each other. The benefit of having two at once is that they become a source of entertainment for each other. Laughing at each other, taking toys from each other, discovering each other’s left-over meals sitting in the bottom of a highchair— endless hours of enjoyment! It was also at this point that our kids started training their throwing arms and I turned into the family dog. I couldn’t stand the site of leftover foods rocketing through the air and landing on various pieces of furniture, the floor, or, (if I was lucky) the countertops. And so, I would dutifully clean up our kids and then clean up the war zone that was our kitchen and put all the leftovers on a plate for myself. Things you thought you’d never do #278: Ever try eating pureed veggies and meat? Might not want to add that to your bucket list!

Add to that list of things you never thought you’d do: my first date with my husband post-babies! It took us 7 months to get to a place where we felt content with leaving our sleeping babies with their competent grandparents while we went out for a movie and a late-night dinner. Our lives were really just that intense that I didn’t want to risk any potential event that would cause detriment to our moving train of progress towards more sleep and a once-again predictable life.  A creature of habit, I must have spent hours planning that date and then another hour communicating (i.e., needlessly repeating myself) to my mother-in-law re: what to do for all the “what if’s” I could think might occur while we were out. I sat through the movie like a schizophrenic— my happy wife self holding hubby’s hand and laughing at the hilarity of the movie plot; my over-protective mommy self sweating out all the little voices in my head that were telling me that no date was worth having to spend the next three nights trying to convince my very cuddly eldest that sleeping in his crib and not being cuddled by one of his adoring fans was actually the best plan for all of us.

Is that poop on the floor? Signs and Symptoms of the 12 Month Mark.

At 12 months, I have been the lucky recipient of small treasures from my little men. I’ve received all their endearing embraces, the loving Mama!’s, and the many pieces of discovered carpet lint. This is just something that my kids do—whatever they find goes to Mama. The unfortunate side of that is that Mama also gets to be the one to be given mud, moss, bugs, and worse.

Let me set a scene for you: Little hands outstretched, inquisitive looks on their chubby faces, followed by exclamations of ooooooo . . . . unsuspecting Mama reaches down and pretends to be overly interested in what is in her child’s hand . . . Wait, what is that on this precious little finger… is that? No, it couldn’t be! But it is….. it’s poop. So into the tub goes boy #1, even though he has already had a bath. Little boy #2 stands at the edge of the tub whining to get back in with his brother. I refuse, thinking that Mama knows best, but then child #1 did not have poop anywhere else on their body other than that finger…. What is going on here? Why is there poop on the bathroom door when child #1, the suspected culprit is already in the tub? I check out child #2’s bum and chubby legs: Congratulations! You’ve found the remainder of the poop! Seems child #2 pooped on the floor, and child #1 decided to report this to Mama by sticking his fingers in the poop and sharing the poop with Mama . . . it just took Mama a little while to catch on. And so 2 boys in the tub, for the second time, poop cleaned up off the floor, poop cleaned up off of the bathroom door, and poop cleaned up off of the tent they were playing in at the time of great poop conspiracy.

Exhausting? Yes. The joy of putting one’s child to bed for the night has never been greater for me than at the 12-month mark.

More is less and Less is More?

It did not take me long to realize that with twins, more means less, and less means more. More babies means less time to pursue the things I previously held dear. Less sleep, less career time, less running time, less income—all balanced by mores. More baby time; more running around after said naked babies; more time cleaning up messes that are not mine; more money spent on strollers, cribs, car seats, diapers,  and food; more of myself extended to my new family.

Any given day I can look around my home and find more Cheerios and Gold Fish in the linen drawer, and less clean linens; more crumbs and mystery foods on my floors, and less time to sweep and mop the floor; more child-sized books and toys, less of my own neatly organized DVDs and treasured novels. But within all of the unexpected mores and lesses of life with twins, I know I will never find more love in my tiny home from two children who never notice all of our lesses.

Stephanie Price Evans is the proud Momma of Moses and Theo and, along with her husband Andrew, lives in Langley, B.C. She is a lover of all things that can be read, written, and learned, and is a Junior Behaviour Consultant,  working with children diagnosed with Autism and their families. She is also an enthusiastic runner and an excellent giver of the classic jump+high-five combo!

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