Spread Thin

Photograph by Rick Regan (and Instagrammed by me).

My mind has been a jumble lately (nothing new there). I'm stretched thin, as usual.

The babies have been a little sick. Summer colds with a little teething thrown in, I'm pretty sure. Knock on wood it's nothing more serious than that but it's definitely hard to have two whiney babies. I'd venture to say that's one of the hardest things about having twins--when they are both sick (which, let's face it, is usually the case, if one is sick the other is pretty much guaranteed to catch it).

I think back on Ellie's whiniest period (Leo, bless him, was never a whiney baby) and it pretty much started at the age the babies are now: thirteen months.

I have a very clear memory of when Ellie was this age, of coming home from work, frazzled from the daycare pickup (and to think I only had to go to one daycare in those easy, breezy two kids days-- ha!), trying to cook dinner one-handed, while balancing a clingy, miserable Ellie on one hip.

I've said this many times before but it bears repeating (for me, anyway). A mother's instinct is to soothe her baby, to give her what she wants and needs but it is SO HARD to do this--I would venture to say impossible, much of the time, with twins. I mean, I KNOW I'm doing the best I can and these babies have it good and they are showered with love and attention much of the time but when it's 6:45 p.m. and Lucy hasn't napped and is pulling at my legs and Harry is pushing up onto Lucy and scrambling to climb my other leg and I pick one up (whomever is crying loudest) and the other one looks at me wearily as if to say "Really? Really? No! Pick Meeee!" It's just...challenging. I know. Newsflash.

It's like you're constantly being reminded of what you're not doing and that you are failing someone. I've likened it to feeling like someone is picking at a scab on my body. Just picking, picking, picking. Sometimes I just feel like I can never, ever do enough. I know that I'm way to hard on myself, always have been. But it's just how I feel so much of the time.

And I haven't even touched on how I feel like I let Leo and Ellie down sometimes, how I lose my patience with them over ridiculous, silly things, when they are demanding something (More milk! At dinner! How could they?) at the same time there are two babies crying in the background. Yes, yes, yes I am doing the best I can. It's just so hard to keep up with everything and everyone. Invariably it feels like someone is not getting what they need, at least at that moment.

Of course, there are wonderful moments, wonderful times. They happen every single day, amidst the messiness and the noise and crying and the whining.

Yesterday, July Fourth, we spent much of the day outside.

Lucy loved her front row seat to Ellie's water show.

We (Erin) rearranged the living room furniture on Sunday and ye old broken Lazyboy finally got the boot. (Don't ask me why Leo is making this face--I think he's trying to be a tough Superhero.)

Leo and Ellie pretty much live for the ice cream truck (seen here enjoying ice pops from said truck).

This too shall pass (the whiney, sick babies) and yes, parenting is such a series of seasons. There is the season for non-stop nursing and not sleeping and there is the season for (I can only imagine) worrying about your teenager, out on a Friday night with the car (and a few things in between). "It won't be like this for long," I remind myself often, and I am both heartened and humbled by that notion.

A year ago at this time I was sleeping in one hour increments, (talk about stretched thin--oy) and pretty much breastfeeding non-stop while also trying to keep two older kids happy, healthy and occupied. The Summer of 2011...that was...interesting.

So yes, it gets better. It has gotten better. And my goodness those babies are stinking cute. They've both finally mastered one of my favorite baby games (albeit sporadically and unpredictably): "How big is Lucy? How big is Harry?" you ask them, and then they throw their buttery smooth, chubby little arms up in the air and smile at you like you are the most wonderful, fascinating, most favored person in the whole wide world. And that just never gets old.