Life With Twins

I imagine that life with twins is different than life with one child or even multiple children. Is it harder? At times. But I think it can also be easier!

The early days, when the babies were just coming home from the hospital until they were about 4 months old, must have been the most difficult. I love my sleep so when I was up every three hours trying to breastfeed the girls separately, one at a time, it was hard. When you're tired, everything is harder. I struggled with that for about a month but wasn't producing enough milk even though I was pumping in between breastfeeding sessions. The girls' pediatrician finally told me I was going to kill myself if I didn't get some sleep!

Then the girls got bigger and my challenges changed. How would I put them both in the car and go grocery shopping? For a while, I had callouses on my hands from pushing the stroller and pulling the grocery cart. Did we get stares? Yep, but the grocery shopping got done and I was able to get out of the house!

We became "friends" with one of the ladies who cleans tables at the mall food court - she's known the girls from when they were 3 months old and we still wave to her and she stops to say hello. I just HAD to get out of the house, even if it was just to push the girls around the mall, feed them their bottles and have a bit of lunch by myself.

To this day, shopping always takes a bit longer with twins. We get stopped by all sorts of people, but mostly older folks. I've taught the girls to say hello back, although they can be a bit shy at times. Especially to the lady who asked if she could share Hannah's cookie! I figure that twins are interesting and older people can often be lonely. If we take a few extra minutes to chat, what does that hurt?

Today the harder parts of having twins is going through the terrible twos at the same time, trying to get them to sleep at the same time and having a big enough lap for two when they miss their mama. The really good part is they are starting to play with one another and they enjoy the same things. I love hearing them call each other sister (Sister, this is your baby doll. Sister, I want you to have this sticker.)

There's nothing better than two little girls running up to me after I've been away for an hour and giving me double hugs. It makes all of the sleepless nights worth it.