Choosing This (Revisited)

          "I in there!" Sylvia says a dozen times a day, and somehow the words resonate with me. I'm in here. Two years out of the classroom, and my sense of self as a teacher is fuzzy around the edges,  like the murky shape of an action figure at the bottom of the bathwater. There are many moments each day, moments when I am reduced to the menial automatism  of full-time childcare-- changing diapers, wiping counters and noses, procuring meals and cleaning up after them-- that I, too, want to affirm, "I'm in there!" Those are the times, even when I am hardest at actual work, that I wonder about my choices. Surely anyone could do this! It is not that the work is devoid of all satisfaction. I feel the same sense of fleeting accomplishment after changing diapers from the after-lunch "poop fest" as I do cleaning out the chicken coop. It is just that I do not feel that I am bringing any special skills to bear. If the kids were in daycare, or had a nanny, their meals would be served and their bottoms cleaned. Books would be read, and naps would be taken. Often I suspect that many of those things would go more seamlessly if it were not I to orchestrate them. I've seen the miracle of the daycare classroom, one- and two-year-olds sitting patiently around a table, singing songs while waiting for their grub, whole roomfuls of toddlers sleeping all at once with their butts up in air.
 It feels impossible for me to do this job without wondering, "Why?" almost daily. The only written treatise on staying home I've read began with a defense for doing so. Despite the protestations of the writer's usual publisher, and at the risk of alienating the millions of moms without the option or the inclination to stay home, she felt compelled to compile evidence for why a parent's full-time presence in the home during the early years was good for kids. It couldn't be left out, the author argued, for how else could she tolerate the endless tedium and frustrations that came from staying at home?  In other words, there had to be a good reason to choose to suffer so.
Honestly, I don't buy it.  I'm sure most kids do fine in daycare. Most kids would probably do fine anywhere; it is in their very nature to adapt, to thrive. Although in my heart of hearts I can't help hoping that this time with me will matter to my kids in some unknowable way, when I am most honest with myself, I know that it is not really for my children that I choose to be a full-time mom.
 So why? As I contemplate going back to work, it's a good question. At Thanksgiving, my dad reminded me of a study he'd read that reported couples are happiest when both partners work outside the home at moderate-income jobs. A childhood friend raved about how happy her daughter is since she's started daycare. The other morning, when everyone needed or wanted something, urgently and loudly-- Gemma a nap, Dee Dee "CEREAL IN A BOWL," Sylvia a clean diaper, Clayton paints to color the monsters we'd made out of paper towels and rubber bands--when the radio I'd turned on in the futile hope of actually hearing some real-word news was just background noise adding to the chaos, when my half-drunk cup of tea was cold on the counter and the dog was chewing up one of the baby's pacifiers, I thought, "This is nuts! This sucks! I'm going back to work!" It wasn't even eight, a whole day of the same stretched out before me. And for what?
 In a calmer moment, it's not that hard to answer. For one, I like a challenge. Maybe anyone can change a diaper, pour a bowl of cereal, get down the paint, carry a thrashing toddler to her crib for a time-out. But to do it, to make Dee Dee say please and teach Clayton not to nag, to get the milk and rock the baby and rescue the paci and change the diaper, all while maintaining some sort of cool-- that is the challenge! (A challenge, which, to be honest, I did not master on that particular morning. "I have four kids to take care of!" I said crossly to a wide-eyed Clayton, "I cannot be at your beck and call!" Being the oldest, he often bears the brunt of my frustration.)
      Taking care of a lot of kids at once is like riding a sine curve. When you're in the trough, it's good (albeit basically impossible) to remember that things will look up soon. Ten minutes after I snap at Clayton, the baby is asleep, Clayton is happily painting at the kitchen table, the girls are dressed and fed. I'm sorting laundry and wiping marker off the kitchen chairs while the girls race back and forth from the living room, holding up animal cards and asking over and over, "What's that one say?" Sylvia is the funniest, since she's not really there yet linguistically. She just mimics her sister's words, as proud as she can be: "Whatthatonesay?" Clayton, ever attuned to my shifts of mood, looks up from his painting and says, "This is fun! Mom, are you having fun?" I can't help laughing. "I am!" I say, and strangely, I mean it. Sorting laundry is my least favorite chore, and yet, seeing all three happy and engaged, while I bask in the sweet relief of having weathered the storm--well, it is a certain kind of fun.
Another nice thing about full-time parenting is that, like teaching, it gives you the chance to screw up a lot and still do a generally good job. In the classroom, no matter how poorly a class period goes, there's always the next class, the next day. You can tweak the lesson, recover your cool, turn over a new leaf again and again and again. The times that I'm at my worst as a mom, impatient and unhappy, ready to meet every new frustration with mounting irritation and self-pity-- "Oh God, what an awful day!"--, I try to keep that in mind.  Not only will the day get better (the troughs can last only so long) but I can be better, too. Sometimes all it takes is trying on a little joy. I've learned from Clayton that the surest way to lighten the general mood is to start singing about poop and pee. We just alter the usual lyrics with a little potty humor, and soon everyone is giggling away, me included, because, as cliche as it is, there's nothing quite so heart-warming as hearing your children laughing.
I also believe in apologizing. After the chaos of that particular morning had subsided,  I told Clayton I was sorry for snapping at him. "But you're a grown-up!" he said. "Grown-ups don't have to say they're sorry!" So there was a lesson in this for each of us: mine in patience and self-possession, his in human fallibility.
In preparation for the eleven hour drive to Florida for Thanksgiving, I checked out a Sesame Street video from the library for the girls to watch in the car. It's geared for the very young (even Cookie Monster is a baby), and it opens with a doctorate in child development talking to the camera with her son on her lap, telling parents that kids learn best when they share experiences with someone they love. Her words, meant mostly, I think, to encourage parents to enjoy their thirty minutes of peace and then turn off the TV, have stuck with me lately. I do try to give my kids lots of experiences, often out of mere survival, since too much unstructured time at home makes us all crazy. But I've begun to wonder if maybe it's not just the experiences that matter: all those trips to the library and the lake, the paper towel monsters and the elaborate games of make-believe on the trampoline.  Maybe my being there for all of it matters more than I've ever allowed myself to believe.
When I think of my own young childhood, it certainly mattered to me that Mom was there. I wasn't aware, then, of the time she must have spent preparing meals or cleaning up after them, or doing any of the other endless tasks that go hand in hand with caring for young children. And yet, the fact that she did those things surely contributed to the sense of abiding security and warmth that make up my memory of those times. Perhaps all those little menial tasks that never stay done are really at the root of what it means to "take care," every chore really an act of love.  Sylvia, in her little two-year-old heart, understands this: she wants to change her baby's diaper again and again. She gets it. This is the way a mom loves.
Ultimately, I choose to be a full-time parent for me. When Sylvia wakes up trembling and tearful from her nap, I'm glad it's my shoulder she rests her head on, her little legs pulled up tight against my body. When Dee Dee, normally such a tornado of destruction, slides out of my arms at Clayton's Play-n-Learn class to sit quietly with her hands clasped sweetly in her lap, her little round face the very essence of expectation-- it is a moment well worth all the times I've had to chase her down in parking lots and libraries. I choose full-time mothering because I want to do it long enough that I do it well, that I meet each new challenge with a little more expertise, a little more grace, a little more patience, and when I do not, I can forgive myself my own imperfections. I choose it for the patchwork of memories that come together from our day-to-day: Dee Dee pretending to be "Shaggy" for days on end ("Shaggy took a bath! Shaggy went down the slide!"), Clayton unrolling an entire roll of paper towels in the kitchen trying to turn himself into a mummy, Sylvia quietly reading Little Doggie Go (more commonly known as Go, Dog, Go) aloud to herself at the coffee table while Dee Dee and Clayton chase each other around the living room. I choose it for me, because I cannot pretend to know what is best for my children. Almost certainly, there is no "best." But more and more, I find myself believing that this path were on is good, for all of us.

"I in there!"

Wednesday started out well enough. I'd gotten everyone out the door by 7:45, had lifted, crunched, and lunged for an hour in "Pump" at the gym, and then done thirty-five minutes on the treadmill while reading an article about the fiscal cliff and the history of taxation in America. By 10:15 I was relaxed, showered, and ready to devote myself to my kids' entertainment and enrichment.
"Where are we going?" Clayton wants to know after we've all piled back into the van.
"I thought we'd go to the library and then the park," I say. We need a fresh lot of library books and it's a cool but sunny day.
"No! I want to go home! I don't want to go there! I want to go home! I am NOT going there! I am NOT going!" Clayton is letting his worst colors show.
"We ARE going!"  Dee Dee baits him.
"I am NOT going!"
"We ARE going!"
I turn on the radio and ignore them, but am impressed nonetheless by Dee Dee's conjugation of the verb. Her language grows more sophisticated by the day.
The parking lot of the library is crowded-- story time is already underway-- so we have to park in front of the coffee shop instead, quite a ways from the library entrance. Clayton is still complaining. I am tired of his incessant negativity and tell him so. This is what we're doing, I say, and he's doing it, too. Then I bring out the big guns: complain anymore and he loses video time. I don't buy his rant anyway. He loves the library; he's just giving vent to a general bad humor that has hung over him since we drove the six hundred miles home from Florida.
Inside his mood lifts as he pulls Halloween book after Halloween book off the shelves. "I'm not going to get them all," he tells me. "Because I don't want you to be mad."
"I'm not mad," I say, exasperated. "I just don't see why you insist on reading  Halloween books when it's almost Christmas!"
Meanwhile, Sylvia has started to bawl. There's something in the display window she didn't get to see, Dee Dee has the Elmo book she wanted, I didn't understand something she was trying to say... She, too, has been fragile since we came home. She misses her Mimi, misses all the extra arms to pick her up and cuddle her.
Meanwhile, Dee Dee has pooped, and of course I left the diaper bag in the car. I herd everyone to the check-out desk. Dee Dee is pulling classical CDs out of a revolving case while I dig in my wallet for my library card.
"Here," I say, as I help her slide a CD back into place, "Hold this!" I hand her the coveted Elmo book, hoping to distract her from Beethoven  To the librarian I say, "There is nothing quite so stressful as coming to a library with a two-year-old." (Except, of course, coming to a library with two two-year-olds.) Secretly I am hoping to hear something reassuring or affirming, something like, "Oh, don't worry about it! Good for you for bringing them!" Instead, she just laughs a grim little laugh.
With the books piled high in my arms, we head for the door. Half way there Dee Dee stops abruptly.
"Check it out!" she demands, holding up the Elmo book.
"We did check it out," I explain. "You can hold it."
"Check it out! Check it out! Check it out!" she roars. In a rage she throws the book on the floor. "Check it out!"
I set the stack of Halloween books down by the door (of all days not to have a bag!) and move to pick her up. She bolts across the library, and I have to race to catch her. An white-haired man on a computer smiles at me sympathetically, and I am grateful.
The fifty yards back to the car feels like a gauntlet, stretched before me. Why am I so empty-handed? I'd give my eye teeth for the Ergo, for a bag for these damn books. We walk along the sidewalk in front of the library, the post office. Dee Dee has calmed down, but Sylvia is walking sideways, clinging to my legs, trying to block my way. "Hold you! Hold you!" she pleads. We are almost there when, once again, Dee Dee stops in her tracks.
"Come on, Dee Dee!" I call. I feel perilously out of control. As I put the books down to retrieve her, she bolts again, this time across the parking lot! I sprint after her-- no time to tell Sylvia to wait, or Clayton to stay with his sister. It is an awful, sickening feeling, to have left the two of them unattended by the car so I    can chase after their willful sister.
In a matter of seconds I am back, Dee Dee screaming in my arms, to find Clayton and Sylvia still standing by the car. A passerby has paused to watch. "Do you need help?" she asks, looking concerned. I've already gotten the van door open; Clayton and Sylvia are climbing inside.
"I think I'm okay now," I say, although I don't feel okay. I feel tense, foolish, and unnerved, as if I've just dodged a bullet.
  Dee Dee writhes around on the floor while I get the other two buckled in. She is furious that I have interrupted her Forrest Gump routine. "Keep running in the parking lot!" she screams. I change her poopy diaper with her still howling face down on the van floor.
My first instinct is to retreat to the security of home, but I'd also rather not let Clayton get his way, however indirectly. Still, there's no way I'm going to bite off trying to get them all the two hundred yards uphill to the playground behind the library at this point. Instead, we stop at the sports park on the way home. At first, Clayton refuses to get out of the car, but when I close the door to leave him inside, he changes his mind and joins us.
There's another two-year-old at the park, which helps lift spirits. Then a good friend of mine joins us with two boys Clayton's age, and things look up even more. Dee Dee goes down the big slide fearlessly. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she says, "Do it again?" and races for the steps. Clayton, as usual, has to frame his play in an elaborate make-believe scenario:
"Mom, pretend you're a little girl and you see the monsters up here and you think it's a monster pet store and you try to buy one but it's really a monster zoo."
      Sylvia is inspired by the other little girl and abandons my legs. She climbs under the play structure. "I in there!" she says. "I in there!" It is a phrase she repeats constantly these days, sometimes as a sort-of "Look at me! I'm under the table! (in the bath!) (tangled up in string!) Often, though, there seems to be no "there," no physical place or tangible thing that she is "in," so the statement comes across more as a rumination on identity than a declaration of location. It's as if she's realized that, in fact, she is "in there," that she is a separate little being inside her skin. When she looks in the mirror, a spoon, the reflection on the oven door, she still says, without fail, "Dee Dee in there!" So maybe "I in there!" is just a joyous recognition that even if she sees Dee Dee everywhere, she knows she's in there, too.
Before long it's time to go home. "I have to poop!" Clayton says as we leave the playground. Unfortunately, the restrooms have been locked for the winter, two port-a-potties set up in their stead. I recommend holding it until we get home, but he insists on going in. I hold the door open; he pees while studying the contents inside the john. I am not easily grossed out, but that about does it. Still, it's relatively clean for a port-a-potty and I'm dying to pee, too. It'll only take a second, and I can hold the door ajar to keep an eye on the kids. I lower my jeans and hover over the seat.
"I'm coming!" Dee Dee declares.
"I'm coming!" Sylvia echoes.
Clayton obligingly holds the door open wide so they can clamber inside. Probably even the library would cede second place to a port-a-potty on a list of places I'd rather not have two toddlers. With the door wide open, I might as well have squatted by a bush as Clayton first suggested. I am exposed, grossed out, and... giggling. We are the port-a-potty version of the many clowns in a little car, and they are all so pleased with themselves. Despite the circumstances, I find myself relishing the moment of solidarity.
"I in there!" Sylvia says happily.

Back in the Saddle?

        During the summer between high school and college, and for a couple years thereafter, I was a camp counselor and "wrangler" at a homestead-style camp six hours north of San Francisco. The work-- rising early to groom and saddle twenty horses, leading trail rides, life-guarding at the river during swim time-- never felt much like work, and yet days off were still the highlight of the week. I had no form of transportation other than my own two feet, and so I'd load up my backpack with my sleeping bag, journal, book, and a few meals' worth of peanut butter sandwiches and set off by myself to climb some nearby mountain or spend a day alone along the river. I remember listening with honest bewilderment to a fellow counselor who bemoaned the solitude of his day off; he liked being with people, he said. It was just more fun. I didn't get it; being alone felt like a natural state to me. I felt good in my skin, happy to meet my body's needs as they arose, constrained by no one else's schedule. Perhaps I was just more interesting to myself back then, filling page after page in my journal, as if the lines were a map of self-discovery without which I'd be lost.
Spartanburg is not a pristine river in northern California, the bed in this rough-around-the-edges motel no sleeping bag under the stars. Still, I've been looking forward to this trip for months: two days of being by myself! No one I knew was attending this conference; I could be totally anonymous, if I wanted to. And I wanted to! I would eat, drink, think, and sleep alone.  I had my running shoes, my bicycle, my book. I had this computer, the key board jammed with crumbs from home, to write. Because more than anything, I wanted to write.
My mind had been swimming lately, all the big questions bubbling constantly to the top: Should I go back to teaching next year or the following one? ESL or something else? Full-time? Part-time? At my old school in Henderson County? (Would there be a job for me there?) At a new school closer to home? (I'd have to prove myself again...)  And if I waited one more year, should Clayton go to full-time preschool anyway? Should we shell out for Montessori even if I'm not working, or is a cheaper church-run program enough? And the girls? Next year they'll be the age when Clayton started going to his kids' morning out program. Shouldn't the girls have the same opportunity? Or is the two full years they'll spend in preschool when I do go back to work enough?
  My mind was like a great big tongue, worrying away at the questions until it was raw. I wanted to talk about them, but felt wary of others' opinions; their certainty seemed to cast an even darker shadow over my own mind's muddle.
Of course, it didn't help that winter seemed to have set in. The days were cold and rainy, the evenings short. I felt constantly frustrated by Dee Dee's stubbornness, her infuriating two-year-old insistence on getting her way. "Are you not mad at me?" Clayton kept asking. "Just Dee Dee?" She'll spend hours awake in her bed at nap time, and when I finally give up and go to get her, she has taken off every stitch of clothing and her diaper. "I have to pee!" she'll say cheerfully.  "Books on the potty!"  In the car she narrates everything. "I see a blue house! I see a red tractor!" And, God forbid, if I don't understand her, don't repeat back to her, "You see a whatever it is?" She'll say it over and over, twenty, thirty, fifty times, growing increasingly frustrated and high-pitched.  "Really?" or "You did?" is not enough; she knows when I'm faking it.
I remember when the girls were infants and people used to comment on how hard that must be-- two babies!  I always said that even the two of them together were easier for me than Clayton by himself. I thought it was his personality; he just felt higher-maintenance to me, more draining. Now I see it differently. I think that I found him exhausting and difficult because he was two, then three. And two and three are hard!
Except... there's little Sylvia. Oh, she's not perfect. She still pulls hair, still cries for an hour most days after she wakes up, still has her moments of non-compliance. But mostly she still makes me marvel, What if Sylvia were your only child? Would you look at all those parents floored by the challenges of parenting and think, what's the big deal? This is easy! At dinner, we'll be admonishing Dee Dee not to stand on the bench, Clayton not to wipe his hands on the table, both of them running their mouths every second they're not swallowing. And then I'll look over at Sylvia, tucking quietly into her food, taking it all in. It's hard not to ask her, "Why are you so good?"
There are times, though, hours even, when parenting does feel easy. Easier, at least. On Sunday when we were reinforcing the chicken run, we sent Clayton inside to check on his sisters. "They're not doing anything bad," he reported. "They're just drawing."  (Drawing on his door, as well, it turned out, but still.) Even the girls can actually help out now, too, letting the dogs in, or fetching anything you ask them to. More importantly, though, there  are moments that make the challenges seem insignificant, because they make me remember how lucky I am to get to witness them. Like when Clayton puts his arm around his sister and says, "Want to come play in my room?" Or Dee Dee grabs her twin and pulls her head to alternating sides of her own, saying, "A hug. And a cuddle. A hug. And a cuddle." Or when Sylvia spends fifteen minutes arranging her doll in baby Gemma's car seat, pulling the blanket over her head and shoving in her pacifier.
And then there are the gems of their emerging language that never cease to amaze and tickle me:
Clayton: "When I get big I'm going to live in a house in the backyard so that I won't miss you."
Dee Dee: "Mama, what are you talking about?"
Sylvia: "Baby right there!"
Oh, I know their little funny comments are a far cry from learning about the latest in literacy research or school reform or instructional strategies. Sometimes I do feel like my brain is only moments, if not days, away from total atrophy. But even being reminded this week what it's like to feel like a professional again, I still can't help but wonder... What's one more year? I'll be back in that saddle soon enough.

Nerves of Steel

Don said to me the other night as I recounted the days events, "Do you think you care about what other people think more than you used to?" And perhaps it's true, since I can hardly begin to write this for fear of what "people" will think.
Here we are, the girls almost two, Clayton practically four.  They can all walk, talk (sort-of), feed themselves, make their needs and desires known. We can go to the park, the YW, in fact, just about anywhere without a stroller. Clayton has started to "read" his sisters books. Sometimes, even, they all disappear into his room together for twenty minutes at a stretch, or go outside by themselves to play in the front yard. Despite the girls' two-year-old tantrums and stubbornness, this should be when it gets easier. This could be the year I get to coast a little, having worked pretty darn hard for the last two.
So, why, I wonder, did I choose to disrupt that natural progression, the slow farewell to strollers and diaper bags and baby gear, the oh-so-gradual movement towards my kids' independence and self-sufficiency? Why in the world did I choose to take care of another newborn?
I know why. In the heat of last year's personality conflicts between Clayton and Townes, I resolved never to care for another child with a personality. A baby, I'd thought, would be better. A baby wouldn't bicker. A baby wouldn't whine, or push my buttons, or fight over toys. A baby would be easy! I remembered the hours I'd gotten to spend reading to Clayton on the porch while his infant sisters slept, the ease with which we'd gone to gymnastics, gone anywhere, when the twins had been immobile and fully portable. One baby, I'd thought? One baby would be a piece of cake! After all, one baby you could carry anywhere.
And so, last week, my time with baby Gemma began, a sweet little infant girl, eight weeks old. Oh, but wait. A newborn baby needs to eat every two hours, needs six, seven, eight diaper changes a day. A new born baby poops and pees on the changing table, cries for no reason, can't be put down just anywhere when Dee Dee says, "I pooped again!" On our first day together, Gemma gagged and coughed when I offered her the bottle, and I realized that I had, in fact, never given a baby a bottle. Feeding time with the girls was always liquid comfort, Mama's milk magic, so when Gemma fussed and writhed when I offered her the bottle, it shook my confidence. If what had been so easy could now be so hard, what would the truly hard things be like?
She is an easy baby, so far, calm and sweet and quiet. And yet by the end of the first day I was exhausted simply from the responsibility of keeping such a helpless little thing alive. On our second day together, we went to the park. In the warm fall sunshine with my kids playing happily in the sand box, I felt like I was getting my groove back. Her head smelled so good, and her unexpected little baby smiles pulled at my heart. By the end of the day, I was ecstatic with relief. This was going to work, I thought! What a perfect gig: to care for a baby three days a week, while someone else pumps the milk and washes the diapers and wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse.  (Although reportedly this little angel already sleeps through the night.) Clayton was enchanted with her faces-- "What is she saying?"-- and was tickled that we could "make her talk" just like one of his toy characters. "Oh no, my hats over my eyes! I can't see!" or "Is that a book? I can't read yet. I guess I'll just chew on this blanket. Yum." The girls, rather than being jealous, seemed genuinely happy that Mama had her own baby doll to play with. Dee Dee happily narrated her every activity: "Baby sleeping. Baby drinking milk. Baby crying." And little Sylvia cried when Gemma's dad came to pick her up on Friday. "No baby going!"
So, on Monday, a drizzly, grey day, I resolved to carry on with our life as usual.  Off to storytime at the library we went, along with half the other pre-school age kids in town whose mothers were equally desperate to get out of the house on a rainy day. There the moms were, waiting with their perfectly behaved pre-schoolers, the occasional baby asleep in a moby wrap or sling. And here I come with my crew, the bohemith double stroller resurrected, loaded up now with one baby, two diaper bags, a lunch box, a tote bag stuffed with library books, four water bottles, a baby doll, and my security blanket, the Ergo baby carrier.
I used to feel, under most circumstances, a certain amount of pride in my crew of kids. After all, twins were the hand we were dealt, and yes, I know, I certainly had my hands full, but I wasn't going to let it slow me down. But now it's not awe I see in others' eyes but rather something between shock and dismay, as if I had taken one too many cookies from the cookie jar. I want to make a button that says, "The baby isn't mine," just so people don't assume I'm more nuts than I actually am.
Storytime itself went off without a hitch, the girls vying with each other, but quietly, for seats on my legs, given that my lap was taken up with Gemma and her bottle. Afterwards, they begged for lunch, so I got them their sandwiches while I changed Gemma's diaper on the floor in the hallway. So far, so good, I thought. But then my luck turned. Gemma had pooped all up the back of her onesie-- how had I forgotten that babies did that?-- and as soon as I had gotten her changed, Clayton had to pee. All the nearest bathrooms were locked, so into the children's section of the library we went. "Wash your hands!" I called to Clayton, propping the door open with my foot.  "Dee Dee wash hands! Dee Dee wash hands!" Dee Dee insisted, loudly and repeatedly, while Gemma began to cry. Quickly I washed Dee Dee's hands, washed mine... That's it, I thought, my pulse rising and my underarms growing damp, we're checking out books and we're out of here. I tried offering Gemma her pacifier, and then glanced down to gather my kids. There was Dee Dee, methodically pushing a whole row of books off their shelf.  Whenever cornered, Dee Dee, compliant child that she is not, hastens to do whatever bad thing she is doing even faster, as if to be sure that it gets done before we stop her. Books were falling off the shelf faster than I could right them. Jump ship, I thought, and quickly. I fastened the Ergo around my waste and pulled a protesting Dee Dee onto my back. "Let's go," I told Clayton, only to find that he, too, was pushing down books. Both of them know better, of course, but he REALLY knows better. I was livid. "Go NOW!" I commanded. I scooped Sylvia up onto the handlebars of the stroller just as she was beginning to contemplate maybe pushing her own row of books, just a little. At that moment, Gemma spit up, and-- there is a God-- immediately quieted. Back in the hallway, I ordered Clayton into a time-out sitting by the wall, just as the children's librarian walked by with eyes averted, as if she couldn't bear to witness our shame.
Back to the van we go, up the library elevator, out the electronic doors, down the long passageway to the garage, through the double doors to the parking deck elevator. All the while I'm lecturing on why we couldn't get new library books, and Clayton, for whom fresh library books are a true highlight of his life, is ashamedly traipsing behind. Finally we're at the last elevator, which will take us to our floor of the parking deck. We reach the third floor, the doors open, Clayton goes out. But before I can manage to maneuver the stroller out of the elevator, the doors begin to close and although I'm frantically pushing buttons, the doors do close and the elevator starts to descend, leaving Clayton alone in the dark and deserted parking deck!  The elevator stops at a lower floor, and an elderly woman gets on. "My son! He's up there!" I say frantically. When the doors again open on our floor, there is poor Clayton, hand in his mouth, tears streaming down his cheeks. My anger at him has completely evaporated. My poor little brave boy.
"Let's go home," I say.
Still crying, he climbs into his carseat, tearfully accepts a cheese stick. "I'm having a bad day," he sobs.
"Me, too," I mumble. As we drive, though, the adrenalin dissipates. I realize with surprise that I feel amazingly calm. The whole incident has taken me right back to the girls' infancy, to the challenge of caring for two newborns while managing a head-strong toddler. It's a memory stored in my body, and all of a sudden I'm back there. I can immediately recall the cold sweats, the shaky surges of adrenalin  the clenched stomach feeling that things were barely under control. I remember the relief I'd feel when I had the three of them safely strapped down in the car, how I'd be so hungry from nursing that I'd have to eat peanuts by the handful before I could even turn the key. And then I realize what feels different now. It's me. Mostly, I'm embarrassed by my kids' behavior, ashamed to not have had them more in hand. (I think of a friend of mine with twins who avoided such situations when her kids' were toddlers by simply not allowing them out of the stroller. Surely there's a lesson there.)  Still, the damage was minor and could easily be set right in a few minutes by someone not containing a toddler on a rampage. Gemma was fine-- fed, changed, safe-- and Clayton, despite our scare, was fine, too. We wouldn't be going back to that library any time soon, but we were all fine. I thought of what someone had said to me at the grocery store a few days ago: "You must have nerves of steel." It was a nice change from "You've really got your hands full," but I'd been surprised. I really don't have nerves of steel;  I'm probably anxious about one thing or another more often than not.  (A good friend gave me little clay worry warts as a gift once, so they could do the worrying for me.) But as we circled out of the parking garage, Gemma sleeping peacefully, Tom Chapin's school bus song pacifying the girls, Clayton debriefing from the back-- "What happened?"-- those were the words that came to mind: nerves of steel. I took a deep breath and almost smiled. I think I'd found a mantra.

Camping with Kids (or Are We Having Fun Yet?)

At one point in my life, backpacking was one of my greatest loves. I loved the way everything I needed fit on my back, the way life's complexities seem to dissolve in the simple tasks of living on the trail.  I loved going to bed with the dark and rising with the light, loved the challenge of a hard day's hike, loved the beauty each new bend in the trail promised to reveal.  Looking back, I realize that one reason I loved backpacking so much was that I did most of it in northern California, in the summer, when it hardly ever rained. The tent I carried often went unused; sleeping under the stars was one of things I loved most.
Unaccustomed as I was to the Appalachians, backpacking in western North Carolina was, for me, something of a downer. Not only did every wooded mile seem more or less like every other wooded mile-- how I missed the granite expanses, the open sky-- but, oh, how it rained! Even when it wasn't actually raining, I felt the rain: in the soggy ground, my moldering raincoat, the dripping trees. Huddled in my tent, or worse yet, perched on my sodden pack during a lightning storm, I often thought of  my parents' gloat anytime a thunderstorm loomed beyond our cozy cabin: "What a great night NOT to be camping."
Still, I love camping, and I've been determined to keep doing it, even with our young children. Since Clayton's birth,we have camped in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and South Dakota. Those trips have been many things, but relaxing is not one of them. And yet, as with childbirth, memory seems to fade the most painful parts and leaves a rosy glow, so we've kept on.
This weekend we went camping at Cascade Lake, about an hour from our house. Don's cross country team had a meet on Saturday morning, so we didn't leave until the afternoon. I'd spent the entire morning packing up; what used to fit into a backpack now fills an entire van. The camping gear is the least of it. There are the snacks, the sippy cups, the swimming gear, the sand toys, the warm clothes, the bedtime books, the stuffed animals we couldn't possibly live without, and, of course, the thing of death. The thing of death is a red, plastic tote that serves as our camping catch-all. Don dubbed it that on our first multi-day camping trip in Virginia. "Where are the matches?" "The red thing." Where's the soap? "Try the red thing."  "Where's the flashlight... Oh, don't tell me, the thing of death." Packing up the van for our two week trip to South Dakota this summer, we weren't sure everything would fit.  "Maybe we could leave this?" I suggested, gesturing at the much maligned tote; I had assumed Don hated it. "Oh no," he said. "We've got to have the thing of death."
Last Saturday, the one thing I hadn't packed was Dee Dee's pac-n-play, a decision I'd come to while shopping at Home Depot a few days before. I had spread out an end-of-the-season outdoor seat cushion on the floor to get a better look, and Dee Dee had immediately laid down on it with her butt up in the air.  "Seeping!" she said.
"She gets it!" I thought. "She'll do fine on a pad." One less thing to bring, and I wasn't sure both pac-n-plays would fit in our tent anyway. (Last summer, they slept on the tent floor with us, but last summer they were still nursing and basically immobile.)
At first, everything went just as I'd pictured it. We set up our tents, suited up the kids, and hit the lake for a late afternoon swim. It was idyllic and peaceful, and I was looking forward to the rest of the evening, eating veggie dogs and s'mores around a campfire, the very best of non-backcountry camping. But then the storm clouds gathered and thunder rumbled, and the lake quickly emptied. Dutifully, we pulled our protesting children out of the water and traipsed back to our campsite. We were fifty yards away when it began to pour.  "Quick, quick" we said, shoving the three damp, sandy kids into the tent. I grabbed the thing of death off the picnic table and heaved it in after them, then scrambled inside myself.
"No dat-do! No dat-do!" Dee Dee said pitifully as I zipped up the tent. Then she began to cry. "That way! Lake! Dee Dee... simming!"
I glanced around the tent for some distraction; my eyes fell on the thing of death. Snacks! I thought. We have snacks!  I reached for the cloth grocery bag inside and pulled out  a bag of shelled peanuts. (In a drier moment, I had imagined Don and I drinking beer around the campfire after the kids went to sleep, eating peanuts and tossing the shells into the fire.) Now the girls fell on the nuts, chewing them up shell and all and spitting the damp remains onto the sleeping bags and Thermarests.
"Wait!" Clayton demanded. "I'm still all wet! They're making a mess!"
I got him out of his bathing suit and into dry clothes, then tackled the girls, already a perilously long time in their less-than-absorbent swim diapers. But, oh no! The diaper bag was in the car, and it was still storming. "We could just use the diapers we took off them before," I suggested. "They're not that wet."
Ignoring the gross factor as best we could, we unrolled their used diapers and fastened them on again. We had, of course, no way of knowing which girl had been wearing which diaper, and I thought, as I have so many times, that times like this must be one reason twins are so close. They eat food that's been in the other's mouth, they pee in each other's diapers...
As the storm raged on and the tent became increasingly littered with sodden peanut shells and damp tortilla chip crumbs, the general mood dampened. Don was understandably grumpy. After all, he was spending precious hours of his shortened weekend in a damp tent with two soggy toddlers spitting up peanut shells and a three year old who, even under the driest of circumstances, freaks out if he gets a drop of water on his pants. "Maybe we should just go home," Don said.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Dee Dee agreed. (Then again, she always says that.)
We can't just give up! I thought. I wasn't thrilled with the rain, either, but I was way to proud to throw in the towel now just because of a little storm. And, wasn't it sort of fun holed up in here with everyone? "No," Don said dryly. "It isn't."
"How are we going to cook our hot dogs?" Clayton despaired.  "Everything's all wet!"
I had noticed a covered picnic area a few hundred yards from our tent, and I imagined us eating our dinner there, safe and dry, while the kids scampered about under the pavilion. Then I imagined lugging everything over there in the rain: the kids, the stove, the water bottles, the cooler... Ugh.
I took a deep breath, let go of my girl scout pride, and said, "How about Taco Bell!"
Galvanized by the prospect of ninety-nine cent cheesey roll-ups, the troops rallied. We rushed everyone to the car and drove to town. The rain did not let up.
"Do you really want to go home?" I asked Don. What about our pancakes? I thought. Our morning at the lake? Our commitment to camping?
"Well, if this keeps up, it's not going to be very much fun, that's for sure."
An hour later, things were looking up. Having devoured a cheesy roll-up a piece and finished off two servings of fiesta potatoes, the kids were racing around the empty Taco Bell and pushing each other on the wiggly chairs. I was grateful that the only other customers were an elderly couple whose grandson, as they described him, was even wilder than Dee Dee. (The nice thing about eating at fast food restaurants with kids is that you don't have to worry that the sixteen-year old behind the counter is giving you a dirty look behind your back; in fact, he's too busy with his I-phone to even notice what your kids are up to.) By the end of the meal, Don had apologized for being so grumpy, and the rain had stopped! No problem, I thought. We'll go back, roast a marshmallow or two, and put our exhausted kids to bed.
Clayton, who likes to know what's coming, thought that was a pretty good plan. But, then, of course, the fire wouldn't start, even with the lighter fluid offered by a kind neighbor, who happened to be an ex-colleague of mine. And Clayton kept complaining that the ground was wet, the trees were dripping, where could he put his feet when he sat in his little camping chair? We finally gave up on the fire and negotiated everyone into their flannel PJ's. I read their books all together, and managed to cherish for a moment my sweet family, snug as bugs in the cozy tent. Now they would all drift peacefully off to sleep just like at home, and Don and I would finally get the fire going and have some time together...
With the sense of relief I feel every night at bedtime after I've brushed the last tooth and read the last book-- that's it, I'm finally done!-- I crawled for the door of the tent.  "Lie down, Dee Dee," I told her. "Time for seeping!"
Yeah, right.
"No dat-do! No dat-do!" she started up again, pawing at the zipper of the tent, the tears starting. Sylvia wailed from the pac-n-play, too, but at least she was contained.
"Mom! She doesn't want to be in here! She doesn't want to be in here! Mom, I'm not zipped up! Am I still zipped up? My coccoon! Where's Pooh? Mom! Get Dee Dee!"
Oh no, I thought. Please, no. Can't they just go the f*#@ to sleep? But what else was there to do? Sylvia sounded like she was being tortured, and there were other campsites only yards away.
"I'll go in there," Don offered. (I forgive you for being grumpy, my wonderful husband.)
So, as Don crawled inside to situate Clayton and comfort Dee Dee, I slid a squawking Sylvia through the few inches of space between the top of her pac-n-play and the tent ceiling and pulled her out the door. It will be fine, I told myself. Sylvia's easy to get to sleep.
Three hours later, I had sat with her by the cold fire under the dripping trees, rocked her in the car, walked through the campground with her on my back, laid down with her in the other tent with a still-awake Clayton who pulled at her feet and laughed at her antics. At ten thirty, I asked Don, partly in jest, partly in desperation, if we should just go home. Sylvia would surely fall asleep in the car; we'd be in bed before one... At eleven thirty, I felt her head finally relax against my back as I trudged up the pitch black road through the campground. "Big poop," she mumbled, and promptly fell asleep. I walked another few minutes for good measure, and then took her back to the tent. Stay asleep, I prayed. Please stay asleep. I lay her down in the pack-n-play; she stayed asleep! But what about the poop? I thought. I can't let her sleep in poop! I stooped over the tent and sniffed her bottom. It did smell a little poopy. But she was sound asleep, and I had just spent the last three hours trying to get her to fall asleep! Wasn't it crazy to change her diaper now? I remembered what a friend had told me when I agonized over letting Clayton cry himself to sleep as an infant: "What if he's pooped?" "That's what diaper rash medicine is for," she had said matter-of-factly.  Okay, I thought, I'll let her sleep!
Exhausted, I collapsed into Clayton's sleeping bag, since he had eventually fallen asleep in my sleeping bag in the other tent with Don, enjoying the king of Thermarests I'd treated myself to when I'd decided that if we were going to be car camping, I might as well live it up a little. Clay's sleeping bag was cozy, but I spent a restless night. Had Dee Dee slipped onto the cold ground? Had she rolled under the pac-n-play and was trapped? Was Sylvia freezing without her blanket? It was almost a relief to see the tent gradually lighten with the dawn.
In the morning, the inside of Don's old tent was so wet that Clayton, whose pajamas were as damp as everything else inside, cried out that he'd wet the bed, he needed dry pajamas, before letting Don cuddle him back to sleep. Sylvia, last to bed, was first to rise, but when I tried to sneak her out of the tent, her sister woke, too. She stood there sleepily in her flannel pajamas at the tent door and said, "Dee Dee. Look. Lake." I thought I'd never seen or heard a cuter thing. (For the record, Sylvia had not pooped.)
The girls and I walked along the empty beach, Dee Dee on my back in the Ergo, Sylvia in my arms. Mist rose from the lake, and water droplets like shimmering  jewels clung to the perfect spider webs in the reeds around the shore. Afterwards, we ate banana pancakes at the picnic table, the twins sitting side by side on the bench like two little peas in a pod. Later, although not late enough that the sun had broken through the lingering cloud cover, Dee Dee insisted on "simming." We went back to the lake, where Sylvia delighted in watching the fish swarming for pieces of Wonderbread some bigger kids had brought, and Dee Dee jumped off the dock into knee-high water again and again. Clayton and Don joined us later, and watching my son standing on the dock in the still misty air, gathering the courage to jump, while Dee Dee, blue-lipped and shivering, sprinted down the dock to her dad, and Sylvia splashed in the shallows at my feet, I felt so grateful. Here was my family, all healthy, all joyful, together in a beautiful place, living an experience that I'm sure Don and I will remember for years to come.  Later, we coaxed our shivering kids back to the campground, where we made hot chocolate and finally cooked our veggie dogs. Don took Clayton on a paddle boat while the girls and I broke our sodden camp...
By noon, the sky had finally cleared, and the lake looked irresistible. The girls and I took one last dip while Clayton sat on the dock with his dad, begging him for more stories of the Lochness monster. When it was time to leave, Cascade Lake was once again a shimmering paradise of summer fun, and we all hated to go. That night, Don built a fire in the fire pit in our back yard, and we finally roasted marshmallows. (I was also grateful for the bath the kids could take afterwards.) Later, kids peacefully in bed, Don and I sat around the fire and chatted about how we should buy a new waterproof tent, a lantern, maybe a shelter with mosquito netting to go over the picnic table... We can't wait to go camping again.

Here's to Baba and Mimi!

        Last week I took Dee Dee and Sylvia to Colorado to visit my parents at their home near Tabernash. Although neither Don's nor my parents live nearby, I am determined my children will know their grandparents. Don's parents are a long day's drive away, so we see them several times a year. To visit Baba and Mimi (the names Clayton gave my parents when he was the age the girls are now) takes more doing. But despite the three hour plane ride I'd have to endure with two squirming, over-tired toddlers, I'd been looking forward to the trip for weeks: the gorgeous mountain views, my mother's gourmet meals, the respite from the mid-Atlantic heat wave, the rare chance to spend some quality time alone with the girls. In all of those respects, I was not disappointed.  Always the early riser and still on Eastern time,  Sylvia was up before six most mornings. And although I hated to abandon the coziness  of my bed-- ah, the vacations of yesteryear, lounging beneath the covers with a novel, watching the sun creep up the mist-shrouded mountains-- it was nice to have a couple of hours alone with my youngest child, before the strength of her sister's personality nudged her ever so slightly to the side.
Thousands of miles from the relentless demands of our quotidian life-- the dishwasher to unload, the floor to mop, the vegetables to harvest from the garden--my focus as a mom shifted. Without a household to run, I found myself able to engage with the girls more fully. With my parents at the helm, preparing meals and doing laundry, I let responsibility lapse. Instead, I stacked blocks and read books and had repetitive, endearing conversations with my daughters.
"Baba?"
  "Baba's upstairs."
"Baba?"
"Baba's still sleeping."
"Baba?"
"You'll see Baba soon."
"Mimi?"
"Mimi's upstairs, too."
"Mimi?"
"Mimi will be down soon."
"Mimi?"
  Pouring water from cup to cup in the kiddie pool, ad infinitum, while Dee Dee announced, "La-la! La-la! La-la!" again and again, I found that I felt peaceful, not bored. I watched my daughters play and gazed at the mountains; there was nothing else I should be doing, and Mimi would come out soon to check on us and chat. Even the usual, tired venues-- the playground, the library, the grocery store-- felt novel with Mimi or Baba along. It is not hard for me to delight in my daughter's experiences, but  to share that pleasure with my parents, who love those girls as I do but who see them with fresh eyes, that was a delight, indeed. Watching Sylvia go wild with joy at every passing dog, or Dee Dee devour her ice-cream cone with her signature gusto-- never had the twins seemed quite so cute, so lovable, so dear.
And yet, the thing that struck me the most from our time there, I had not anticipated. I already knew what wonderful grandparents my parents are. I had heard my mom sing song after song after song to Clayton, had seen my dad take Dee Dee on his back to water the garden, pull Sylvia to his lap for patty-cake. But this time, I saw it all differently. Watching my parents with my baby girls, I thought, "This is how they were with us! This is why I loved them so!" When Mom stroked Dee Dee's chest and sang to her-- "This is the way we stroke your chest..."--  Dee Dee, who is ceaselessly on the move, barreling through life and furniture, stood still for long moments, gazing at her grandmother in rapture and begging for more. Little Sylvia is in love with her new baby doll, hugging her tightly to her chest and rocking her in her arms. Within minutes of our arrival, Mom had given her a tea towel as a baby blanket and helped her put the baby to bed in the block box. "Shhhh!" they would both say, fingers to their lips.
Dad pulled the girls to his lap after meals, pushed a cranky Sylvia in the stroller until she fell asleep, stocked the fridge with baby yogurt, bought them ice-cream cones at the beach...
"Baba!" they announced delightedly when he came down in the mornings.
"The one and only!" he told them.  "Aren't you cute, little girlie fru-frus?"
Of course, I don't remember my parents when I was nineteen months old. I have no memories of my childhood at all until quite a few years later. But as early as I can remember, I remember loving them both desperately. I was also fiercely proud that they were my mom and dad. In fact, for years and years, I remember believing so adamantly that I had the best parents and the best family, I was shocked when I eventually realized that it was possible for other moms and dads to be good parents, too, that other kids might be equally proud of their own families.
Watching my parents with my daughters, I felt like I was time-travelling. I could imagine myself in Dee Dee and Sylvia, experiencing my parents the way they did, the way my sister and brother and I must have when we were small. "This is what it is was like!" I thought. No wonder I loved them so! How lucky I was! And how lucky I still am. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for then, and for now.

Time Does Not Relent

       As one of a long list of summer projects, I've been going through all of our digital pictures since 2010, sorting out the best ones to print for old-fashioned photo albums. I try to make it through five folders a day, and afterwards, mixed with the satisfaction that I'm actually making progress, I've been feeling a little sad. There's little Clayton, looking so much like Dee Dee, laughing in the baby swing, or sitting in his high chair with mashed carrots all over his face. And there he is again, holding one of his newborn sisters. And there's little Sylvia in the baby bath tub, and Dee Dee when she first learned to crawl... In the scope of a lifetime, we are not so far from those times, and yet I never leave the computer without feeling pummeled by how fleeting they are.

       Oh, this is hardly a revelation. Every parent of young children knows it viscerally, the changes that seem to happen overnight, the others that creep up on you without you really noticing. One day Sylvia won't sing "Why! Why! Why!" in her carseat anymore; one day I might not even remember that she once did. It is enough to break your heart a dozen times a day.

       Dee Dee says, "Teee!" when she wants more of something. She used to sign for "more" with her hands, and we would always say, "More, please!" So, "more" for her became "teee!" and, of course, Sylvia, who imitates her sister at every opportunity, now says it too. Clayton used to say "Mmmm" for water, who knows why, until one day he didn't anymore. Now he says things like "Absolutely!" and "Mama, I was wondering if you would mind if I took quiet time?"

       It is the irony of these times. While our hearts are constantly wrung out by all that we cannot hold onto-- if they would only nod like that, forever, their whole little bodies bobbing up and down emphatically!-- we are counting the months until things are easier. The other day I had made a perfect salad: greens fresh from the garden, just-picked raspberries I'd managed to hide from the kids' begging mouths and reaching fingers, crumbled feta, and almonds roasted a golden brown. It was a simple thing, but how I was looking forward to it! I set the table, put the salads and dressing out, helped the girls into their seats, went to fetch whatever unmemorable entree we were having for dinner that night. Within seconds I heard the crash: Dee Dee had dumped my salad off the table, the precious little jewels scattered across the deck. Howard, our new little dog, had lost no time in devouring the feta, and all those perfect almonds that for once I had managed not to burn. I shoved him out of the way and fell to my knees, trying to salvage what I could, pathetically close to tears.

       In our house, there's no point crying over spilt salad, or spilt cheerios, or dog water spilt so many times the bottom of the kitchen island has turned black with water damage. The dogs help out with a lot of the clean-up; they have to earn their keep, we say. But even that has its downside, since Sylvia will feed Soca yogurt with her spoon, alternating his bites with her own, and Howard has such poor manners he will eat the girls' food right off their trays if given half a chance.

      It's hurricane season, now, and Don jokes that Debbie should have been called Dee Dee. She is a storm of destruction, breaking the wind chimes that hang off the deck, dumping out boxes of screws for the chicken coop, chewing up tampons, systematically dropping the cats' food by fistfuls out of the cat door. A fearless climber, nothing is reliably out of her reach. In seconds, she is on the toy chest, grabbing at picture frames on the windowsill or a cell phone left on the railing. She knows what she is doing, for when she sees us coming, she'll make a break for it, then, just when she senses she's about to be caught, will throw the stolen item to the floor with all her might. The only hope is to call on the better side of her nature, to give her a task that she'll feed proud of accomplishing. "Dee Dee! Can you put that mug in the dishwasher?" (instead of throwing it on the kitchen tile.) "Dee Dee! Can you be a big girl and give Mama her phone, please?" (instead of dousing it in the toilet.)

      Sometimes it seems impossible that the chaos could be as fleeting as the cuteness. It seems to have dug in its heels to stay. The other day I was showering with Clayton, getting ready to meet a friend for a drink. Don was getting the girls ready for bed, Dee Dee on the changing table, Sylvia in the bath. I hopped out of the shower and heard Sylvia sounding distressed. "Uh-oh!" she kept saying. "Uh-oh!" I looked in on her-- she was pressed up against the end of the tub, pointing at an enormous poop floating and disintegrating in the bath water. "Uh-oh! Uh-oh!" Her legs were streaked with it, the shower curtain soiled. I'm scooping poop out of the tub in the buff, the dogs careening around the house as they play, claws skidding on the wood floor, Sylvia singing her refrain-- "Uh-oh! Uh-oh!"-- and Dee Dee looking on. "Big poop!" she says, pointing. "Big poop!" Clayton emerges from the shower, dripping water all over the floor.

       "Uh-oh!" Sylvia tells him.

       "Uh-oh is right!" he says. "I need to get dwied off!"

        I wonder, will we remember this? Years from now, collecting eggs, will we look at the chicken coop and marvel? How did we manage to build this-- together, no less-- with three small children to take care of? Will I remember how I put all three of them in there with me, the girls playing with screws and Clayton making up some elaborate game of pretend-- "Mom, pretend I'm a chicken, but when you get to the zoo and look into the cage, I've turned into a chicken man!"-- while I hurried to attach the last of the chicken wire?

       At two, I seem to remember, things were easier, the mindless destruction mostly over. "Only five more months," Don and I console each other, "until they have some sense." But no sooner do the words leave my mouth than I regret them. Everyday, overwhelmed by some endearing cuteness, I wish I could keep them this age forever. How dare I rush these times?

     When Sylvia woke the other day from a typically short nap, we cursed when we heard her cries. We were working on the coop, and wanted to finish that day. I was sweaty and impatient, in the middle of putting hinges on a door, but I sat with her in the rocker, letting her doze off again against my chest. Momentarily I regretted not grabbing a New Yorker. If I was going to be doing nothing, I could at least catch up on some reading. But then I called to mind a similar moment with Clayton. It was winter, and I held him against me as he drifted back to sleep, rocking and rocking while the thud of Don chopping wood echoed in from outside. The memory has always seemed to me a bulwark against the erasure of time, a precious sliver saved as the moment became buried in the years, the Clayton of then so thoroughly consumed by the Clayton of today. I adjusted Sylvia against my shoulder and stroked the tears and damp tendrils of hair from her face. I sat with her a long time, even when she seemed so asleep I wondered if I could put her down and finish the coop door... Instead, I tried my best to etch the moment into memory, her pudgy limbs limp against me, her sweet mouth fallen open as she breathed against my skin. It may not have been the last time she will slept against me, but it could be-- time does not relent. I held onto her as long as I could.

Mother's Day

        It is Mother's Day and my sweet husband has taken all the kids out for the morning. "You say you never get time alone at home," he says. It is true, but I can hardly complain. I don't feel that I lack for time to myself these days. I have the YW, of course, and Don graciously handles the evening routines alone once a week while I go out, to dinner with a friend, or book group, or a blood donation. But time to myself in our home, when I am not half-listening for a baby to wake up-- that is a rare treat.

         I know I'm not alone, of course. The cover for this week's New Yorker was of a scene at a bustling playground. At first, I didn't get it. Playground, babies, slides, strollers. The point? I turned to the table of contents to find the cover title, hoping that would help: "Mother's Day." Flipping back to the cover, I finally noticed--all the parents at the playground, save one startled mother with a stroller, were dads. Ah, the irony. Mother's Day, and the greatest gift we can receive is time without our children.

          It brings to mind an article I read a few months ago, which cited a study that seemed to suggest that people without children are happier. When asked how pleasurable parents found various activities, from talking on the phone to taking care of their kids, spending time with kids came out at the bottom of the list, just above cleaning house. Oh, I get it. Every morning Clayton begs me to read him a book, tell him a story, play with his toys. "Just let me unload the dishwasher," I say. "Hold on, I just need to put up this laundry, change your sisters' diapers, sweep the floor..." I'm relieved if he relents and plays by himself, so I can get the table cleared or the bathrooms cleaned. In those moments, I honestly feel like I'd rather scrub the toilets than make his toy animals talk to one another. Partly, it's that I really do need to do those chores. I hate coming home and trying to fix lunch with the breakfast dishes still cluttering the counters. But it's also that playing with toys is boring. How many variations of some bad guy (the zebra, for instance) trying to catch some good guy (a lizard, perhaps) before the zebra turns "nice" can one stand? Plus, I know that as soon as I sit down the girls will swamp me, wanting to nurse, or grabbing Clayton's toys out of my hand. "Just a second," I'll tell Clayton, "Let me find something to make your sister happy." I'm up and down a zillion times, fetching books or drinks for the girls, or chasing them down to recover stolen toys, while Clayton gets increasingly frustrated. "Come on, Mom! Will you just make them talk!" Of course I'd rather be accomplishing something.

        Even today, when Don left with the kids, I had to resist the urge to clean our bathroom without having to worry about Dee Dee chucking a toy in the toilet. Instead I filled our giant tub, lit the eucalyptus candle Don gave me for my birthday, and took a bath. A light, steady rain was falling outside, the birds were singing despite the damp, and the house was deliciously quiet. I opened the windows wide and just lay and stared at the trees, my skin steaming.

       But so what if right now "taking a bath" comes out above "spending time with my kids?" That study misses the point. I'd rank the bath higher, probably even cleaning the bathroom higher, because that's what I don't often have the freedom to do. It is certainly no indication of my happiness.

       And, I am happy. More than a year and a half after I left my job, I feel like I'm finally at peace with it. Oh, when I went to the middle school last week to vote, and saw the teachers in the hallways, looking official with their ID badges and their keys, dodging adolescents and smiling at coworkers, I admit I felt a pang. That used to be me... But mostly the world of teaching feels more and more remote. I'll be back there one day, I'm sure, but it feels good to have let it go for now.

       And then there's my marriage. The other day at playgroup, one of the moms said, "Someone should have told me I'd be annoyed at my husband for the first year of my son's life." It was hyperbole, of course, and we all laughed, but really. I think of those childbirth classes, the cheerful, excited couples acting out C-sections, the soon-to-be dads showing off their new vocabulary: dilated, effaced, transition... We breathed together lying on the floor and came up with code words for when the pain became unbearable, but I don't remember any hint at what was to come after the birth: your relationship will be tested like never before. Maybe we couldn't have heard it then, anyway. (Although I do now often recall our teacher saying "Scrambled eggs is a fine dinner," so there's no real knowing what will stick.)

        But here we are, a year and a half after the birth of our second and third children, and it's like the sky has cleared. I am overwhelmed daily by my love and gratitude for the father my husband has become. When he used to change diapers, I'd listen with annoyance to the curses. Spit-up on his shirt, or poop all over the changing table... Now I listen for Sylvia's shrieks of laughter; a diaper change with mom is rarely so much fun. This morning Clayton complained of his stomach hurting-- "I think the Special K is poking it!"-- and I brushed him off. He just wanted attention, and I was eating my breakfast. But Don took him in his arms, and watching them, I was overcome by how much they love each other, how easy it is for Daddy to make everything all right.

        Don and I hug more now, and laugh. The other night, Clayton, up past his bedtime and casting about for something to distract us from sending him back to bed, caught sight of the figure of Ganesh on the bookcase in the living room.

        "What's that?" he asked, pointing.

         "It's a Hindu god," Don explained.

         Clayton stared at the Buddha-like belly, the elephant trunk, the four raised arms. "That's God?" he said in disbelief. You could almost hear him thinking, that's who we're talking to when I say my prayers? He looks like he could be a monster from a Scooby Doo episode. Don and I cracked up. So much for our stern reprimands to go back to bed.

         I remember when Don and I were newlyweds who wouldn't shut up about our dogs. All of our conversations turned to them eventually. "Did you see how Dulce..." Even having started that sentence, I can't for the life of me think what we had to talk about. But it's worse now. We follow each other around the house to tell our stories. "You should have seen Sylvia at the playground. She got this woman to pick her up!" (Sylvia, my serious little girl, in so many respects far less outgoing than her sister, flirts unabashedly with total strangers.) Or, "Dee Dee loves that trampoline! She stops nursing to tell me, "Dumpa-dumpa!" We're both bursting with pride over how well she jumps. "Look at her!" we say in amazement. "Look how much air!"

         We had friends visit from out of town this weekend. Their daughter is almost exactly the twins' age, and for the better part of their visit, we alternated raving about our kids, politely waiting for the other couple to finish their anecdotes so we could share ours. I know their daughter must be as cute and extraordinary to them as Dee Dee and Sylvia are to me, but I don't feel it. Nor, of course, do I expect my kids to be as interesting to other people as they are to me. (Sort of ironic, I suppose, that I'm blogging about them.) Only Don truly gets it. So, yes, I miss the mountain bike rides that started us on our journey together, miss the way we used to dance in the kitchen on weekend mornings while the cheese grits bubbled on the stove. But our love for our kids, and the joy we both find in our family, has brought us together in new and unquantifiable ways. Sure, I'd probably rank a kid-free overnight at a B&B as more pleasurable, but cracking up in the bathroom together--yet again-- over Clayton's incredulous "That's God?" or watching Dee Dee and Sylvia holding on to each other's hands as they stumble down the hill towards the trampoline....Well, I'm pretty darn happy.

More Than Double

        Does it seem odd that after seventeen months into mothering twins, it has started to feel really hard that there are two of them? Maybe it's because, for a long time, having twins meant that the chores and the challenges were mostly just doubled: twice as many night nursings, twice as many diapers, twice as many babies to console and cart around. But now, just as the girls are getting easier in some ways-- they feed themselves, wet fewer diapers, can transport themselves more reliably-- I'm feeling the challenge of mothering multiples in other ways. It's hard not to point fingers. Dee Dee is a beast, stealing toys and sippy cups, knocking Sylvia down and piling on top of her, taking Sylvia's shoe and making a run for it with an evil little grin before tossing it down the stairs. But even sweet little Sylvie dishes it out, pulling her sister's hair with a vengeance, as if to make up for all the times Dee Dee kicked her in the head in utero. And even when they're not intentionally pissing each other off, there is still the simple fact that there are two of them and one of me. Sylvia will be screaming her head off, only relenting when I get out the Ergo and resign myself to hauling her around. Ah, a moment of peace! But when Dee Dee sees her sister in the Ergo, she's irate. She clings to my leg and howls: "Up! Up!" Sylvia is content and quiet now; I imagine her looking down at her crying sister with a smug little grin. Down Sylvia goes-- I'll just switch them out, I think-- but the moment her feet hit the floor she's howling again. Now, instead of one screaming baby, I've got two.

       And so it goes. Sylvia will be perfectly content on my hip, but the moment Dee Dee gets in the swing, she's suddenly desperate to swing, too. Dee Dee will want nothing more than to push the ball around in the little stroller, until her sister gets on the bike. Then, mayhem. Do they make tandem tricycles, I wonder? If they do, I'm sure the girls would find a way to make it not work. In the side to side stroller, they hit and flap at each other until one or both are in tears. When one's in front of the other, it's the hair pulling again.

        The prospect of weaning, daunting in itself, suddenly feels doubly so. The other day, the girls and I were hanging out in the sandbox while Clayton and Townes jumped on the new trampoline. Dee Dee was merrily filling a bucket of sand; Sylvia was in a constant state of fuss. Finally, her shrill and constant refrain of "No! No! No! No!" wore me down, and I offered her my breast. Within seconds, Dee Dee had dropped her shovel and barrelled over. And if she was a nuisance while I was nursing her sister, grunting and demanding, when Sylvia finished and was finally content to sit quietly in my lap, Dee Dee ramped it up. She knew it was her turn, and she wouldn't relent. Gently, I set Sylvia down in the sandbox, hoping that mama's milk had worked its magic. She was screaming again even before Dee Dee could dive into my lap. I tried bringing her onto my knee while Dee Dee nursed, but that wasn't good enough. For a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like to have just one toddler. In that moment, I could have nursed and cuddled Sylvia indefinitely. I could have moved her onto my back and trimmed the hedge or thinned the lettuce or simply walked around the yard in peace. I think back to my ennui when Clayton was a baby-- it certainly didn't feel like a piece of cake back then. I have a vivid image of myself, cooking dinner with Clayton on my back in the Ergo, willing him to sleep with every once of my being, wearily resigned to the fact that I'd be stuck carrying his thirty plus pounds around for the next hour and a bit. I didn't know how good I had it. But isn't that always the way?

       A few weeks ago, a paperback at the used book store caught my eye. It's called High Heels to Bunny Slippers and it's part memoir, part self-help, written by a woman who left her career to care for her young children full time. It is not the book I would have written-- a whole chapter is devoted to the perils of daycare-- but parts of it definitely resonate. She writes of finding herself especially resentful of the perks of her husband's job: the travel, the lunches with coworkers, the freedom to leave the house unencumbered. But then she reminds herself that her "job" has its perks, too. Although the perks she identifies are not mine (she sleeps later than her husband, and has an hour or two while her youngest son naps to read or write-- ah, one can dream!), still I found myself thinking, "Of course!" I, too, often envy Don his ten-minute, kid-free commute, his faculty breakfasts, the camaraderie he has with his co-workers. But I've got perks, too. I get to be outside a lot during the day. I can go to the gym. I have the freedom to structure the day the way I want.

       That last paragraph was not meant to be a complete non sequitur. It's just a reminder to myself how much our attitudes about something are determined by what we choose to focus on. Sure, having three little kids is harder than having two. Even as I write this, I find myself watching with envy the families of four who come into the bakery, each parent with a child in arms, making it look so easy. But being able to go one-on-one defense with their kids is their perk. Having twins has its own. Like when Dee Dee comes with me to get Sylvia up from her nap, sees her in her crib, and enthusiastically announces, "Baby!" Or when Sylvia takes morsels from her tray to give to her sister, or Dee Dee offers Sylvia a toy when she's in tears. There are so many, really. They kiss each other with exaggerated smacks, make each other laugh, bounce up in down in opposite ends of the wagon, stumble around together on the trampoline. And even when they inspire each other to mischief-- I'm embarrassed by how many times I've looked over to find them both standing up on the kitchen table, their chubby arms plunged into the cereal boxes, pleased as punch with themselves-- it's pretty darn cute.

        I remember how I talked the midwife into doing an ultrasound on my first prenatal visit. "I just want to be reassured I'm not having twins," I'd said.

      "Yep," she said nonchalantly as she prodded me with the wand. "There's another one. Let's see if there are any more."

       "Oh shit!" I said. "Oh shit."

        But of course I came around. I'm lucky, I told myself. Not everyone gets a chance to have this experience, and I do. It may be double the trouble at times, but it's my path. There are rocks and troughs and times when the ascent is so hard I wish I could have stuck to the flat, but, oh, what a view!

Sick

       My first year of college, I was not wild in the traditional ways. I did not have one single drink. I stayed up late in the library, doing physics problem sets that would not be graded and went swing dancing on Saturday nights. The first time it really struck me that I was a thousand miles from home was the day of my first college track meet. I didn't make it to the meet. Instead, I spent the day puking into the toilet of my dorm's co-ed bathroom.

         I dragged my garbage can next to my bed and longed desperately for my mom. How could one be sick alone? I wanted mom to rub my back while I vomited, to take away the bile-filled bowl and bring me ginger ale and ice chips and saltines. I wanted her cool hand on my forehead, the comfort of her footsteps in the hall, the reassuring clangs of pots and pans that echoed up through the floorboards of my bedroom from the kitchen below. Not yet nineteen, I was hardly a grown-up, despite my pretensions. (At my liberal arts college, I had quickly learned to say "woman" instead of "girl.") But that day I thought that I understood what being an adult meant. Cleaning up my own vomit, I had never felt so alone, or longed so much for childhood.

        Last week, almost exactly twenty years later, I missed my mom again, with a desperation that made me catch my breath. She and my father were in the middle of a month long vacation in India when my whole family got sick. It began on Thursday morning. Sylvia, who usually wakes long before six, had slept in. When seven o'clock, then eight, came and went, I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe this would be the new norm, I couldn't help but hope. When I finally heard her cry and went to get her, she was standing in a cold orange puddle of puke. Perhaps something she ate had not agreed with her, I thought. She seemed okay. A little subdued perhaps, but then she had just woken up. I rushed her through a bath and loaded her into the car-- we were late for Clayton's school.

      Later that morning she fell asleep on my back in Amazing Savings, but still I didn't clue in that something wasn't right-- she has always loved her morning nap. But by afternoon she was puking again, with a vengeance. She wanted to nurse, but couldn't keep the milk down. Her vomit-soaked clothes and sheets piled up in the laundry faster than I could do the wash. The next morning she woke early as usual. I felt her bed in the dark-- dry! It had been 24 hours; probably the bug had run its course. I brought her to our bed to nurse as usual, and she drank greedily. Afterwards she lay quietly for a moment and then began to writhe and fuss. An instant later, we were both drenched in milk. More laundry-- our sheets and mattress cover-- went into the pile. The washer ran all day.

      By afternoon she seemed better. It was a beautiful, mild day, and we were all a little restless. We headed to the park. Sylvia fell asleep in the car on the way there, and when she woke up, puked all over us both. Driving home, still in my shirt that reeked of her vomit, I heard retching behind me. Again? I thought. I was sure she had fallen asleep. And then I saw Clayton's horror-stricken face in the rear view mirror, the vomit streaming down his chin.

    "Mama!" he wailed. "What happened?" Despite the fact that he had spent the first six months of his life spitting up profusely after every feeding, this was his first conscious experience really being sick. He was terrified, and covered in vomit, but there was nothing I could do. I concentrated on the road, telling him over and over, "We'll be home soon. We'll get you in the bath, clean you up..."

      Finally home, Sylvia was listless. She hadn't eaten for two days, had barely kept down milk. Clayton whined in the bathtub, " I don't want to be sick!" while she cried pitifully, rubbing at her eyes in exhaustion. It was after four, so I called Don at work. Please come home! Clayton's vomit-soaked clothes were still in the garage where I'd stripped him down, his soiled car seat still in the van. After his bath, I foolishly let Clayton watch videos on the laptop with a bucket beside his chair. He puked on the kitchen table instead.

      Don still wasn't home, but things started to look up. Sylvia went to sleep without complaint, and Clayton made it to the toilet for the next round. Dee Dee, bless her, charged happily around the living room, the last one standing. With Clayton resting in bed and Sylvia asleep, I made her scrambled egg and green beans for dinner. She scarfed it down with her usual zeal, and I clung to hope that she might be spared.

      At bedtime, I was reading to Clayton when I heard Dee Dee cough, then Don swear. All her dinner was on the living room floor, the pyjamas Don had wrestled her into moments before now covered with scrambled eggs and beans. In a few minutes Clayton was at it again: more soiled pjs, more dirty sheets. In the morning, the stench in his room was revolting, his comforter reeking of puke.

      Probably I should spare you any more of the gruesome details. Suffice to say that it was a very challenging week. Sylvia vomited sporadically for five days. Both girls had horrendous diarrhea that no diaper could hold, so pair after pair of pants had to be hosed down and added to the laundry. Don and I both succumbed, as well, despite relentless hand washing. (Don, after throwing up on Saturday evening, ran a 10K on Sunday in forty minutes, winning his age group!) Clayton recovered quickly from the stomach bug, but a couple of days later developed a hacking cough and fever. I blamed myself. On Sylvia's fifth day of puking, I had taken her to the doctor's, with Dee Dee and Clayton in tow. Without my mom to call for moral support, I had called the phone nurses at the doctor's office several times, wanting reassurance that five days of vomiting was in the range of normal. "Why don't you bring her in?" they said. Although I wondered if it was necessary-- it was so clearly viral, so what could a doctor do?-- it was a relief to follow orders. After the visit, Sylvia never puked again (supposedly even 12 days can be normal for a toddler) but all three kids quickly developed colds. Why hadn't I trusted my instincts, I wondered, and avoided bringing them to a waiting room surely teeming with sick kids' germs?

      For over a week, the scope of life narrowed. I did load after load of laundry. I changed diaper after diaper after diaper. I washed my hands so many times my already dry skin cracked and peeled. I hosed down carseats, scrubbed vomit-splattered walls, wiped down mattresses, changed sheets. Worried about the girls staying hydrated, I nursed round the clock. I served up Pedialyte popsicles, mixed Culturelle into apple sauce, coaxed down Tylenol mixed with ice-cream. I rocked and stroked and soothed and worried. And through it all, I longed for my mom. Not so she could help me, although if she had been here, she surely would have. I just wanted to talk to her, the sympathy in her voice as comforting as her cool hand on my brow so many years ago. I wanted her moral support, her advice, her concern. Maybe, too, in the midst of taking care of so much and so many, I wanted to talk to someone who would have wanted to take care of me. Thirty-seven years old, with three kids of my own, presumably I really am a grown-up now. But when the going gets tough, I still want my mom!

Mama's Milk

          I began the new year resolved to wean the girls before spring break. I was having fantasies of jetting off by myself somewhere, even if just to West Asheville, spending my first night ever away from my children in the three plus years since Clayton was born. I've been pregnant or nursing so long now that I've almost forgotten what my "normal" body looks like, although I do vaguely remember a time when I could run without doubling up on jog bras. But it wasn't eagerness to reverse my natural boob job that motivated me to wean, although, honestly, I do prefer my non-lactating bust. I just had the sense that it was time. Clayton had stopped nursing cold turkey at eleven months, when three teeth coming in at once made it just too painful to nurse. And although the suddenness of it made for a few painful, engorged days, I was glad in retrospect to have totally avoided the challenges of weaning that so many of the nursing moms I knew experienced. There are enough power struggles with toddlers, I told myself. I didn't want battles over nursing to be one of them.
       The girls, though, seem to have other ideas, their interest in mama's milk showing no signs of slackening. At the playground, the library, the Y, they beg to be picked up, then arch their backs and fling themselves to one side. But while the theatrics of their insistence irks me at times, I never cease to be amazed by the transformation a few minutes nursing can work. Sylvia, who has been loathe to give up her morning nap, by late morning is often near the end of her proverbial rope. She pulls on her hair and rubs her eyes, wailing if I put her down, thrashing even in my arms. I nurse her to buy time while the others go down the slide a few more times, or listen to one more story at the library. She is almost always invigorated afterwards, sliding off my lap to go and play herself, as if my leche were a double latte. Dee Dee, on the other hand, charges through the morning tirelessly, but often wakes from her nap flushed and grumpy. She refuses food and drink, shaking her head wildly and flinging anything I offer to the ground. A few minutes of nursing, though, and she breaks away talking-- "Dad-dee!" she says to anyone these days-- and slips to the floor to march around with her little bow-legged gait and jutted chin. It's as if mama's milk is some kind of magic elixir. It can make a tired baby lively, a grumpy one content. And how easy! I can let Dee squawk and fuss, raising my voice over hers to read Clayton a book, while she grabs at the pages and claws at my legs, or we can all sit quietly reading on the couch, Clayton playing tenderly with her feet while she nurses.
       Nursing feels like the "get out of jail free card" of mothering, a sure-fire way to comfort, soothe, quiet. And despite the elaborate plans I devise in my head for how I'm going to cut back-- three times a day by the end of February, two weeks of twice a day, just once by the end of March-- there's no time of day that I really want to cut out. I love the way nursing eases us into the morning, how, when Sylvia wakes before the alarm goes off at six, I can bring her to bed and cuddle with her quietly in a cocoon of warmth beneath the blankets. Bedtimes, too, I treasure, the way, after nursing, Sylvia collapses willingly into bed, how Dee Dee quiets in my arms, all her boisterous energy of moments before dissolving as we rock.
      So why, I wonder, if nursing is such a boon for me and a comfort to the girls, do I want to-- or, rather, feel like I should-- wean? When the girls practically tackle me in the childcare room at the Y, arching over backwards in my arms, why do I feel like I have to apologize, "I'm trying to cut back!" When the only comments I've heard from strangers have been positive-- "I can't believe you're nursing twins! Way to go!"-- why do I fear the judgement of others? At not even fifteen months, the girls are hardly pushing the envelope when it comes to nursing longevity. And anyway, who, other than myself, is counting? When it comes down to it, isn't it just between us? Maybe I'll tire of it before they do, maybe not. I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it, and hopefully we'll manage to do it with a little bit of grace.