It is all hard

Twin Mother Haiku

Two souls in one womb
Three hearts beat together
One mother finds joy ~ Lizzie

I have been visiting twin blogs lately. About 30 in the past two weeks. I have found some delightful blogs- check out Katies Paper Haven in my links, she has time to raise twins and nurture her artistic talents, too! I was so impressed! I am glad to have found her.

I noticed a recurring theme in other twin blogs that just makes me uncomfortable. Not all of them mind you, but roughly half of them (if you are visiting my blog because I commented in your twin blog- I only commented on the blogs I LIKED, so yours isn't one I am venting about). And that is frequent vents about how much harder twin mothers have it than mothers of singletons. All sorts of little antidotes about singleton mommies who have time to diet, stay athletic, dress their babies in 'oh so cute' clothing, drive around in their small sports cars, show off their post pregnancy abs etc etc etc. Very snide remarks.

(I suppose you could take this one step further and mothers of high order multiples of quads and sextuplets could blog about twin moms and how they complain about how hard life is when they have less than half the newborns the mom of quads or sextuplets has.)

I have to say that I really can't tell that raising two sets of twins is any harder than other moms have it raising a larger family. I take that back- both my grandmothers had four daughters and spaced their birth order out far enough that their eldest daughters could help with the newest babies. That was savvy parenting, in my opinion! But in general, we seem to share the same challenges, joys, and lack of sleep and "me time".

Everyones parenting choices and the way they decide to build their families will have pros and cons. Everyone has luxuries and everyone has made concessions and sacrifices. Whenever I find myself leaning toward feeling jealousy of another mother, I try and put myself in their situation looking in on *me*. It is funny how from an outside perspective you can often see your own experiences anew. Reminds me of a friend of mine... when she learned I was having a second set of twins she said "Four babies and only having to be pregnant TWICE, oh wow are you lucky!". Before she said this I had been feeling overwhelmed and frightened. Hearing her naive perspective on pregnancy and childbirth made me laugh! She was right, I hate being pregnant! If I could have four healthy children but only endure pregnancy two times, I would choose twins.

Yesterday, when it was time for Lucas and Tilly to go down for their nap, we were walking down the hall together to wash our hands and faces. Both of them now exhibit a "happy run"- its the sweetest combination fast walk and skip. They look side to side the entire time, trying to see if there is anything they could grab in a hurry before nap. Lucas, in particular, keeps a pile of "sticks" he has collected from our front yard outside under the settee in the foyer. He often will stoop and try to grab one before jaunting toward the bathroom yelling "Stick! Stick!". I was watching them and it dawned on me how they have become the tiniest, sweetest, most charming people I know- my favorite people in the world. To be able to watch them blossom, to be able to experience their unique personalities and gifts...four very different children.

Its difficult for me to see such sweet dispositions and experience such joy and define my daily life as hard. I would prefer to say my life is rewarding.