In one month, these once little butterball babies will be 2. It's amazing to think about how much they've learned and grown in just a year, but I assumed it would have gotten easier. It's been just as hard, just different...
This past Friday, we had a snow day, and I decided babies would stay home with me. This turned out to be a bad decision.
We had - screaming all day (screaming because we just like to test how loud our voice can get, screaming because we're having a tantrum, and screaming because our sister hit us in the face with a toy car); hitting, pushing and pulling on each other's shirts; fighting over the shopping cart and the Little People farm; an endless cycle of climbing on the couch - smacking the picture frames - getting put in time out; flinging yogurt around at lunch; feeding strawberries and apple sticks to the dog (who threw up, and thank Jesus, no one went over to investigate before I got to clean it up); coloring with crayons turned into STAB STAB STAB the paper, oh and maybe rip the paper; play in the dog crate and kick our sister when she tries to come in; use toys/boxes/stack of books to climb onto things we shouldn't.
Then there was naptime. I thought I would stick with the schedule from daycare, but apparently we weren't that tired and just caused chaos for 2 straight hours.
We had - climbing on our bookshelf (which mommy then removed); hitting the shades with books; climbed and stood on the rails of our toddler beds; pulled all of the clothes out of the dresser (why weren't there locks on this already, Grant?); locked the bedroom door twice; pulled the crib rails out from under the bed and blocked the door from opening (this was a nice heart attack...); ripped some board books; pulled everything off our beds; and pulled the duct tape off the humidifier that was preventing us from turning the knob.
Luckily, this weekend, naptime was pushed back a little later and I had back up there so we could each take a baby and lay with them.
Which brings me to the main point of my post. It's still insane. Your first year of having twins- you're still figuring out how to be a parent, you don't get a full night of sleep, there's lots of crying and it seems like all you do is feed them and put them down for naps and hold them and change diapers and clean up spit up. Now, it's constantly trying to stop them from doing whatever dangerous thing they're trying to do, except they're mobile now and they seem to coordinate to make it all that much harder for you.
By the end of the day, I have no patience. I understand why shaken baby syndrome exists, or parents beat their children. I have to fight the urge to scream in their face, and just walk away and cry out my frustration. Days like Friday make me want to walk out the front door and just keep walking. I'm envious of anyone without twins. Like, you can have 2 kids too, but you don't have this chaos-
either one of your kids is old enough to speak English and understand you, or they're old enough to not be trying to kill themselves accidently all day,
or, they're too young to get into too much mischief or you can contain them somewhere more easily.
I feel trapped watching them. There is just the playpen now to contain them. On Chaosday, they were both in 'time out' in there because they were standing on the couch smacking the picture frames again, and I figured oh, I can actually go to the bathroom, and now Delilah is wailing because her sister either hit her or pushed her, but where can I put her to keep her away? They both need to be contained!! Add in Grant complaining about the screaming while he's trying to work, I swear I'm going to have a mental breakdown. We can't do anything even in the house if it's just me. Walk upstairs to their bedroom? Delilah is immediately running into our room, fucking around. Bring them into the bathroom with me so they actually know what a toilet is? They're opening up all the cabinets and throwing stuff in the bathtub. We basically live in a fox-rabbit-carrot riddle, where we have to have one baby contained to move the second baby, but then second baby needs to be contained to get first baby.
When we have tantrums, we like throwing ourselves backwards on to the floor, or crawling into mommy's lap, which is always an alert to the other baby that she needs to be in mommy's lap too, but no one wants to share. And then there's more screaming. Any diaper change we do is miserable - constant spinning away, kicking, crazy leg swinging, scooting away, hands in lady bits, trying to see what sister is doing. This was new- Madeline came over during Delilah's diaper change and was pushing her fingers into her sister's eyes. I can't do anything with Madeline because Delilah's #2 diaper is open and needs to be taken care of.
(6am edit to add in about toys) they can't handle toys. Every toy is a weapon against their sister. If it's handheld sized, it gets thrown down the stairs. If it's awesome, it gets fought over and then taken away- sharing is very har. If it's sturdy enough, we'll just it as a step stool to get to the counters. Before they were really mobile, I had bins of toys I would rotate on the play pen. Now, everything gets thrown or taken away, I feel like what's the point
I'm considering leashes for walking them to the car after daycare. While I get Delilah in her seat, I have to block Madeline with my body and hope something on the floor on Delilah's side holds her attention long enough to get her in. Then when it's Madeline's turn to get in to her seat, she rolls over, stands, and then with her tiny vice grip hands, holds onto the headrest of the seat in front of her. Luckily today, she lost interest quick enough, but then screamed bloody murder when I strapped her down.
I'm just tired, all the time. I wanted to do a 'temperature' blanket, where you crochet a row a certain color that corresponds to the temperature that day - I figured I needed some quiet 'me' time every day. If that happens, it's only the weekends, and usually even then, I just want to go to sleep instead. 'Self care' is usually on the back burner (aka not even on the stove?) because any free time I get needs to be laundry, or organizing lunch and naptime stuff for the next day, or my school stuff, or SLEEP.
I realize this is just me complaining right now, but I can't get over how insane living with these two is. Just a few months ago, it was still crazy, but it's MORE crazy now. Double tantrums with two instigators. 2 babies doing bad things in opposite directions. A nurse at the doctor's office last week was like oh, I hate to tell you, I thought age 3 was worse than 2! I'm like, they aren't EVEN 2 yet, and it's bad.
Now that this took 30 minutes to write, I don't have time to fold laundry or watch TV like I wanted, I can't keep my eyes open! Off to shower and bed!
I know, this is all a phase and it gets better, and I'll miss it when they're teenagers and they tell me they hate me. I know I know I know. But right now, it's HARD. and I'm tired.
Comments
Post a Comment