Riley and Rowan..."The Twins"

    So I'm in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Moms of Multiples Bloggers contest.  It's funny because I was invited to take part in it.  It's funny because I rarely blog about the twins.  I rarely think of them as twins.  I had to specifically take the above picture of them together this afternoon.  I don't have pictures of them sitting together, unless I specifically pose them.  They are a brother and a sister who just happened to be born at the same time.

    I had a lovely woman leave me a comment on one of my earlier blogs about when Riley and Rowan were tiny.  Back then they were "the twins".  This lady had one year old twins.  I assured her that in two years it will be easy, and it will.  Riley and Rowan are now no more work than Grace and Elly.  The first three years with Riley and Rowan were tough.  I would be a liar if I said "twins" were tough, because back then my life was rough.  Riley and Rowan were 5 months old when Gabe died.  I could not pick them up for a month after the accident because I had ruptured my spleen and they had been able to repair it, I also had an incision held together by staples that went from just above my groin to just below my breast bone.  Picking them up would risk re-rupturing my spleen.  Throw into that a few surgeries for me after that, and all of the problems Grace had to endure because of the mental and physical complications from the accident.  Not to mention just the physical problems, Christopher and I struggled to keep our head above water with the overwhelming grief, and pretending to act like normal parents for the kids.

    Here is what I know for sure about twins.  When they are tiny a mentor is a life line.  I knew two women who had twins.  When I was pregnant and terrified, they were my life lines.  It helped when they were tiny to have people who had been there, and survived.  They gave me tips that worked for them.

    Riley and Rowan will turn 8 in July.  I can hardly believe it.  Right now our biggest "twin" concern is saving up for their big school trips in older grades.  That's the worst I can think of right now.  Their grade 7/8 class trip to Quebec City will cost a small fortune, then double that.  I think about it, but heck that's years away.  

    For those of you reading this with tiny twins.... I promise it gets better!  I promise it gets easier!  You don't have to be perfect, just get through the day as best you can.  Cherish your moments when they are sleeping.  People will tell you to sleep when they are sleeping, you will never hear that from me.  My personal advice is get a cup of tea / coffee, or grab a hot shower (to clean off the double baby barfs, and  poops), do something that will save your sanity.  Relax just as best you can before it starts all over again.  Don't be so hard on yourself, you are only human!  If you need a mentor, you have one in me if you don't know any twins moms.  You can ask me anything and I'll do my best to help.

Remember it only takes you a second to vote, and your vote means an awful lot to me.

  Just click the pink badge below.

To Separate Or Not To Separate, That Is The Question...

    Why is it automatically assumed that you will / want to separate school aged twins?  I believe that it is thought that by not separating them you will cause them psychological damage.  What if people compare them?  What about their individuality?  Blah, Blah, Blah.  It is obvious to me that the creators of these "absolutes", were not twins, nor did they have twins.
     The topic of separating Riley and Rowan has come up a few times.  When I first enrolled them for junior kindergarden I was asked if I wanted them together or separated.  I was told that they like to separate them in grade three.  At that point I wanted them together because it would allow them a better school experience if I kept them together.  All of my children are painfully shy.  When they were little Rowan had terrible separation anxiety.  Keeping them together allowed them to be placed with their "best friend".  On their first day of school I left them, and looked back through tear filled eyes.  When I looked back, they were sitting together holding hands.  They gave each other comfort.  Comfort made them love school.
    As time has progressed their shyness has subsided a bit.  They are now very comfortable going to school.  They don't "need" to be together, but it's easier for me.  We have a small school.  There are generally two teachers for each grade.  Over the coarse of having older children I have gotten to know all of the teachers.  I know what teacher works best with my children.  When I can, I request a teacher for my children.  My kids learn their best when they feel secure and cared for.  They do not do well in chaos, nor do they do well with teachers that use harsh words, or overly yell.  Some kids need teachers like that, mine don't function well in that atmosphere.  Why would I separate them just for the sake of separating them?
    Why do they like to separate them in grade three?  I come back to why would you arbitrarily separate them?  I could understand separating if they were too reliant on each other.  I could understand separating them if they were too disruptive together.  Riley and Rowan don't look like siblings, Riley looks like a little cloned me, and Rowan looks like a little cloned Christopher with red hair.  They act as completely separate individuals.  They don't even talk to each other in class.  They have different friends.  They are complete individuals.  They are absolutely nothing alike in their personalities.  Their gym teacher was new to our school this year, and did not even know that they were twins.  She saw that they had the same last name and assumed that they were cousins.
    Last week I had a meeting at the school with our principal and vice-principal.  We were discussing what will happen next year, grade three.  It was a foregone conclusion that we would separate them.  They were both taken a little aback when I told them I wanted them together.  I explained to them that I like to request teachers that my children will thrive under, and keeping them together makes my life that much easier, and with four kids, life needs to be made as easy as possible.  I could see the understanding beginning to form on their faces.
    I come back to my question, why would you arbitrarily separate twins?  Should you not look at the individuals and then decide?  Let me know what you think.

Maybe They're Twins After All

    Riley had her first ever slumber party last night.  I can't believe it, but she lasted the night.  I kept waiting for the phone call.  As the night rolled on I kept thinking "we'll get the call at 1:00 am, just watch".  I picked her up this morning, I am in shock.  Here is the other thing I am in shock about, Rowan kept wondering about her.  I did not expect that.  It occurred to me that they really had not been away from each other.
    Riley and Rowan are fraternal twins, which means they are a brother and sister who just happened to be born at the same time.  When they were little people used to ask me if they had a secret twin language. My reply was "they are not identical, they are fraternal.  If by gibberish you mean a "secret language" then yes, but all of my kids spoke that."  They are as different as different could be.  They don't look alike, their personalities are completely different, Rowan is a full head taller than Riley.  Honestly you would not even take them for siblings never mind twins.
    Up until recently they acted like they didn't even really like each other.  As babies they used to kick each other.  In ultrasounds I could see them hitting each other through the membrane.  I remember thinking, "Wow am I in for it!".  Having said all of that they were each other's build in best friend (that best friend that you don't always like).  Most toddlers parallel play.  Not Riley and Rowan, they always played together.  They did interactive play that most kids did not do until they were 5 of 6.  It always amazed me.  I wonder if other twins do this.
    Recently the kids all invited over a friend for the PA day.  Grace and her friend went off and played by themselves.  Riley and Rowan and their friends played as a group, I did not expect that.  It was really neat to see.  A few days later I ran into a girl I went to school with.  She and her brother were the only twins I had ever known.  I was telling her that she and her brother were my example of twins, she laughed.  I was telling her about Riley and Rowan's play date.  She said that all growing up, right up even through high school she and Derrick had the same friends.  This was interesting.
    Rowan asked about Riley quite a few times last night, and then this morning he kept asking when she was coming home.  Maybe he does like her.  Maybe they are not just a brother and sister who happen to have been born at the same time.   They have known each other longer than they have known anyone else, and that includes me.

Things They Didn't Tell Me About Twins

Things They Didn't Tell Me About Twins...

    Christopher came home last night talking about double strollers.  He had been looking at double strollers on the internet with our acquaintance who is expecting twins.  "Things sure have changed in almost 8 years" he said.  Again it got us to reminiscing about Riley and Rowan.  I really do think I should write a book that covers areas that "the books" don't cover.
    When Riley and Rowan were born they were so tiny.  I was terrified of them.  I told this to the nurse at the hospital and she laughed at me.  "You do know that they are the size of most full term babies, right?  That they are huge for twins?"  I did not know this!  Keep in mind Gabe was 9 pounds 3 ounces, Grace was 9 pounds 10 ounces and our youngest was three weeks early and was 8 pounds even.  Rowan was 6 pounds 12 ounces, and Riley was 6 pounds 4 ounces.  To me they were tiny.  They were 4 weeks early.
    What no one told me is that the medical community pretty much consider 32 weeks term for twins.  32 is the holy grail for twin pregnancies.  I was 36 weeks.  My pregnancy was pretty easy, until the last month of it.  I was more sick with Gracie our oldest daughter than I was with Riley and Rowan.  It wasn't until 8 months or so that things really began to get unpleasant.  At that point we were into June.  Come July I was ready for them to come out!  I woke up every morning with everything swollen.  My face looked like a big red moon, ad my eyes were just slits.  I had to wear flip flops because my feet wouldn't fit into shoes.  At my last OB appointment before I went into labour I begged my OB to induce me.  "We'll talk about that next week" he said.  Next week, I wasn't sure if I could survive another week!  What no one told me then, and I did not discover until I was in the hospital for a month with Placenta Pre-via with Elly, was that before 37 weeks there can be lung difficulties with premies.
   Every year Belleville (our closest city) has a Waterfront Festival and Folklorama in July.  The downtown area closes off the main street and has really fun activities for families as well as sidewalk sales.  They had a bouncy castle, games, face painting and the train.  The train was made of plywood that had been all painted up and was pulled by what looked like a lawn tracker.  So Gabe and Gracie and I climbed into the train.  The kids loved it.  It was really bumpy.  That night I did not feel so great.  My Mom harassed me to go into the hospital.  I knew I was not in labour, but decided it was easier just to shut her up and go (turns out sometimes Mom does know best).  I thought I might just see if I could beg someone into inducing me.  Well it turns out there was no need, because I was already in labour.  They moved me into the labour room.  At one point there was my OB and his medical student, the next moment there were at least twenty people in that small room.  Now normally I do not like strangers to see my privates, but at that point, I did not care who saw them, as long as they got those babies out!  There was a team for me, and each baby had their own pediatrician and nursing team, it was a little like a three ring circus.  The babies were born and there were no health issues, their lungs were great.
    Turns out that labour was the easiest part.  Who knew?  Now we come to my pet peeve, not just with twins, but with babies in general.  I know that "breast is best".  I know that the human body makes exactly what the human infant needs, that's just common sense.  I know that Feminism is all about woman's rights, and that women over the years have fought hard for the woman of today to have the rights that we have, I get it.  I don't understand why society makes woman feel so degraded if they choose not to breast feed, like you are not a real woman if you choose not to.  If you told someone that you were going to solely formula feed you would get the same reaction as if you told them you were solely going to feed your baby beer and vodka.  I was formula fed, exclusively and at the age of 40, I don't feel any ill effects of it (other than that third arm I grew).   I don't understand why the nurses at the hospital harass you until they can watch you several times a day to make sure that the are seeing "a good latch".  They were not going to let us leave the hospital because they did not feel that I had a good enough latch (keep in mind I had a 9 year old and a three year old who had survived infancy).  In the end I told them that we were leaving good latch or not, that I planned to supplement with that bad word, formula.  In the end I did both.  They got the best of both.  I am not a really great milk producer, I would not have made a very good Holstein.  The formula allowed their Daddy and others to feed them, but mainly it allowed them to get enough to eat.
    In the beginning Riley and Rowan wanted to eat at the same time, poop at the same time, this made it tricky when Christopher went back to work.  In the end they settled into one would eat, and fall asleep, then the other would wake up, eat and fall asleep.  This sounds perfect, but it took up a lot of time.  In the end we found a rhythm that worked for us.

Don't worry, I will inevitably be sharing recollections until that acquaintance has their twins.

The Twins

 The Twins

                                                                            

    My husband Christopher came home last week and told me that people we know just discovered that they were expecting twins.  The husband had a lot of questions for Christopher.  I called the next day to tell them that we were here to answer any questions that they might have.  After I got off of the phone  I started thinking back seven and a half years.
    I had always wanted twins.  They run in my family, and I thought it would be marvelous.  That is until I discovered that I was carrying twins!  I remember it so clearly.  I had to get an ultrasound done early because I thought that I was miscarrying.  I was so worried.  We had two at home (Gabe was 9, and Gracie was 3).  As soon as that pregnancy test showed positive, I fell in love with that baby, that was always the case.  I had miscarried three times before, and was so worried about this "baby".  I lay in that tiny little dark room while the technician ran the wand over my stomach.  "Do you see the baby's heart ?", I asked.  "yes" he replied in a bit of a reserved tone.  I began to sob hysterically, such was my relief.  The poor Indian man was terrified of me.  "Is your husband going to be upset?" he asked.  "No, I told him, "I am just so relieved." I was still sobbing as I said this.  I then asked what I asked every time that I had an ultrasound, "Is there just one baby?'  "yes" he said, he looked very uncomfortable and quite terrified.  I went on my merry way, skipping out of the office.  I had been going to see my obstetrician in Kingston, we were going to investigate why I was miscarrying.  My OB was very ill at the time and I had seen his partner.  Nothing was said.  It was three months later when I went for a routine prenatal check up that I saw my family doctor.  He asked me what the technician had told me about the ultrasound.  I replied that he had seen the baby's heart beat.  "heart beaT?" my doctor asked.  "yes I replied heart beat."  "heart beaT?" he asked again, "yes, heart beat".  I was beginning to get worried, what was wrong with my babies heart.  He then let the cat out of the bag. "There are two heart beats, you are having twins!"  It was a good thing that I was sitting.  I felt like he had knocked the wind out of me.  As I opened the door to leave the room, there was a crowd of staff members outside of it.  "You really didn't know" they all asked.  I walked around in a daze for a week.  I kept asking the kids and Christopher "Did I dream that I was having twins?"

    I was very luck to know two women I had gone to school with who had both had twins who were a little bit older.  I also had an older aunt who was a twin.  They were my sources of information.  I read the books about twins.  Common sense tells you that life is going to be hard, but there was a different reality.  They had warned me that the first year would be rough.  Really it was the first two and a half years.  I sometimes think that I should write a book and call it "TWINS: The book with the information the other books don't tell you."  No one tells you that when you have twins every stranger will feel the need to stop you and ask you questions about your babies.  Strangers will try to touch your new babies (do they think that touching twins brings good luck?).  People will ask you asinine questions about your babies.  My favourite asinine questions were the following ...
#1  Are they identical?  No they are a boy and a girl, they are fraternal.  Well they sure look a like, are you sure they are not identical?
#2  Do twins run in your family or did you use fertility drugs?  (oh that's not personal at all)
#3  My kids are a year apart, it's just like having twins (first of all, why would you do that to yourself?  Second of all ahhh no it is not the same at all, you mental case) This is not as much a question as much as a comment I heart A LOT!

    I find that as the mother of twins I want to rush up to mother's with new twins and tell them it gets better, but I don't want to harass.  For some reason having twin babies is like traveling in a side show parade.  Everyone feels the need to stop you.  People would be walking past, see the double stroller and then stop and chase us.  I had several occasions, where old women grabbed the stroller to prevent me from leaving.  A quick five minute trip to the store would take, no word of a lie, an hour.  Everyone thinks that they are the only ones that are stopping you.  I did wise up.  When I had to shop, I took a friend with me, and we split the babies up.  No one stops you to ask questions about a single baby, they just smile at them.

    Riley and Rowan really are a gift.  Now that they are 7 it is actually easier than having single babies, because they are built in playmates.  As toddlers they never parallel played like single toddlers, they actually played with each other.  All I know is that this couple is in for a real learning experience.