Tag Archives: twins

Trial separation

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It was inevitable. Twins are a whole different parenting game, and the trials and stresses that come with them are sorely lacking in resources. There’s a few books on twin pregnancy and twin infancy. After that? God help you, but you’re on your own.

It’s no secret that our bugz are driving us crazy, slowly, a little more every day. They were wonderful babies…and I would almost reverse it if I could! And due to our family work commitments, they are together nearly 24/7. I can’t really separate them during the day, and nor can Leith or our babysitter separate them in the evenings. We want to spend time together as a family on the weekends, thus they are rarely separated then, either.

And they share a bedroom. They were womb-mates, then crib-mates, and still are roommates. They are always together.

Now we have a wicked case of scheming, sneaking, and worst of all: lying. Two small, frighteningly smart, brave little individuals, left to their own devices. And no matter what, they are always together, working together, thinking together. On the same wavelength, the same milestone, the same growth pattern and maturity.

It’s terrifying and fascinating, but also stressful and defeating as a parent. And these parents can only take so much.

Thus, the only solution left to us is a trial separation.

This week, I will begin the slow (painful, tedious) process of packing up my office and moving it piece by piece to its new home in our basement guest room. Next weekend, we will move C-boo’s bed into my empty office. We will install a closet system for her (as it is an empty cupboard right now), and separate her clothing and toys from Kit-Kat’s. We will tuck them into separate rooms, close a newly-installed door, and walk away.

And my heart will break a million times, because although they are near, they will be alone for the first time in their lives. And although they will always have each other, I am instigating the first real separation of their twinness. They are excited and agreeable to the move, but it wasn’t their suggestion.

And even if their behaviour improves…I still feel like a jerk :(

No beds: an update

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Remember this?

Well, it’s backfired a little.

You see, my bugz have discovered that they LOVE this empty room. They have a mattress on the floor, a throw blanket, and occasionally they have earned their pillows and stuffed princesses back.

I say “occasionally” because they tend to lose those items the morning after they get them back due to excessive whining and fighting.

So, while it’s obvious that I haven’t emotionally scarred them for life, I haven’t really made much headway in the discipline arena. They have a big empty room to run around and scream in. They love it. There’s zero motivation to get anything back.

The novelty of listening to Mommy has worn off.

Sigh.

 

Raising adults

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My goodness.

They don’t call it the f***ing fours for nothing, my friends. I am inside-out worn down from the constant struggle to raise my children. The constant begging and pleading for good behaviour. The constant threatening of irrational consequences. The constant giving in.

The ache of wanting my four-year old twins to just be consistently good for a day.

But they’re four. They have the attention span of a gnat when in comes to adult lifestyle, and the memory of an elephant when it comes to everything I don’t want them to know.

They have no concept of age other than little vs old. So, when I do something, they see it as a demonstration of how to live as a human being. It can range from the innocuous (leaving my bed unmade) to the explosive (losing my temper instead of dealing calmly). Then, when I ask them to do the opposite (make your bed, use your words…), it’s confusing.

Monkeys see, monkeys do.

I am my own worst parenting enemy.

It’s absolutely a case of watching Mommy (and Daddy) act like a spoiled, undisciplined brat day in and day out.

Let’s face it: I do what I want, when I want. I lack schedule and structure. I fly freely. But I’ve learned to do what I need to do, when I need to do it. I’m an adult, and I learned life skills as a child. Unfortunately, I demonstrating my chosen adult skills to my children now. They aren’t learning and then choosing. They’re only seeing one thing, and being told another.

Problem discovered: I need to start raising adults, instead of children. I need to provide them with structure and examples that will help them thrive in life. And I need to start by demonstrating that myself.

I need to start being the adult parent, instead of just the egocentric woman living in the house. I need to be the change I want to see in my children ;) They spend the majority of their time with me, even more than they do with their dad. In 14 months, I’ll turn them over to the school system, and my influence will be greatly diminished.

I owe it to my kids to start showing them how a responsible, mature adult acts so that they have a hope of growing into responsible, mature adults themselves. I’ll be honest: the thought frightens me. More so than sticking to their consequences, I have to stick to my word. I have to stand by my threats of leaving/not going/taking this privilege away, even if it means that I can’t do something I want.

I have to catch myself before I speak or react. I have to gauge the situation and be aware of the consequences of my own actions.

I have to parent myself the way I want my kids to be parented. It won’t be easy…but I hope (and know) it will be worth it.

Wish me luck!

99.9% wrong

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For four years, I have insisted that my twins are fraternal (dizygotic) twins. Everyone thought I was crazy…I thought they just weren’t looking hard enough. After all, if Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson are fraternal, then my girls were definitely fraternal.

After all, fraternal twins are much more common AND I have a strong family history. Identical twins are much less common.

But then there was the matching celiac diagnoses this year. Then, their optometrist saw something in their retinas (corneas?) that indicates monozygosity.  So after 4 years, I swallowed my pride and cut a cheque for $180 to have a cheek swab analyzed.

Today, I found this in the mail:

identical twins

Surprise! I have identical twins!!

I hate being wrong. Especially 99.9% wrong.

Tag teamed

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I don’t often play my twin card for pity.

I’ve spent the better part of 4-and-a-half years being blessed with twins, not curse. I think it’s awesome in so many ways.

But today? Today, I am a little bit sick of it.

I’m sick of it in the way I imagine any parent with children close in age would be. I’m tired of being constantly tag-teamed by this biological loyalty the two of them share. I’m tired of not having anyone older to point to and say, “Why can’t you follow _____’s example?“

Here’s the thing: being sent to you room with your best friend isn’t punishment. It’s AWESOME. And being put to bed with your best friend? Also awesome.

And when Mommy says NO, you can make waaaaaay more noise with your best friend than you ever could on your own.

And when Mommy gives you separate chores to help with, she can only really check on one of you at a time. So if it’s not your turn to be checked on, you’re home free!

And if she separates you, you can scream really loudly for your dear, sweet sister and you know that it will make her heart bleed.

Oh, and you can both totally play on Daddy’s guilt about being away. And you can totally pretend like you’re both angels when he IS home, so that he doesn’t really know what you act like every day. Basically, you can totally lie to him!!

So here I am, with my twins physically separated after a very long, disobedient, disrespectful, trying week. I am at the end of my rope. We’ve talked. I’ve avoided a LOT of yelling…much more than I would normally dole out. We made house rules together, which were promptly broken five minutes after we all agreed to them. As I was reminding them of the rules. In real time.

So I’m done.

I’m torn between a glass of wine, and locking my kids in a room while I go outside to garden. Neither is possible: the only bedroom door we have doesn’t lock, and I’m out of wine.

So in the meantime, you can all enjoy that I am having one of my rare twin-pity parties. They’re few and far between, but when they do sneak up, I go all out.

Yay.

Love is a battlefield

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Today?

I feel like the worst parent ever.

Today, I have yelled more times about more things than I care to believe.

I’ve yelled about placemats, milk, table manners.

I’ve yelled about pee, both child and dog.

I’ve yelled about EATING FOAM ROLLERS AND WHY IT IS STUPID!!

I’ve yelled about chasing the dog. I’ve yelled at the dog.

I’ve yelled about getting dressed, brushing teeth, brushing hair, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE STOP JUMPING ON THE COUCH.

I’ve yelled so much that I’ve actually gagged on my own voice and had to step out into the cool air of the sunporch to compose myself.

I’ve sent children to their rooms more times than they are years old. I’ve locked the dog in her kennel, and she hasn’t whimpered once.

I’m coming down from a great weekend, but an exhausting and busy one. One where I didn’t get to spend any time with my kids, and now they are acting out. C-boo has peed herself FOUR times today. Four. The dog has had more accidents than I can count. The only peace I’ve had today was when I sent them downstairs to watch TV for a bit, only to find that they’d eaten chunks out of my foam roller. We’ve been fighting with each other since the moment they woke up, feeding off each other’s anger, and I am DONE.

I am so done with today. My temper is past its maximum, and I’m tired. I’m throwing out my to do list and curling up on my couch. I’m making my kids lunch, and then we are having a nap because I am done.

I love getting time to myself, but not at this price. We are all out of whack, and it makes me sick and sad :(

Today’s fights aren’t worth it. I need some reiki love, because today sucks.

March: a month in review

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Oh, what a month March was! I am still shaking my head that we are 2 days into April already…

Highest highs, a few bumpy lows, and lots of wonderful growth this spring:

Finding my voice

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I spent the past weekend at the first blog voice of the West:

I’ve had friends and family ask me for the past 4 years why I blog. This is a change from the beginning of this humble journal, when I first had to explain what a blog was! This weekend’s events were a refreshing change in the cadence of the question. It shifted from the normal,

“WHY do you blog??”

to

“Why DO you blog??”

When I first started typing on that May day back in 2008, I was a new mom to 2-month old preemie twins. I was barely a year out of college, and hadn’t even celebrated my first wedding anniversary! To say that I was trapped in a land of transition was the understatement of my life.

Preemie twins

I needed a place to recapture the therapeutic calm that writing provided me in my adolescent. I needed somewhere to be accountable to my goals; after all, every sane person decides that they need to fulfill a lifetime of experiences in just over 3 years while they’re nursing their babies one night, right??

I needed to find out who I was! I was not-quite-27 years old, and had just had every area of my life change in less that 12 months!

So here I was, armed with a keyboard and a lot of free time. I wrote. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I wrote about nothing, and I wrote about something. I wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly. I wrote about heartbreaking decisions, and about the sheer ridiculous awesome that is twin parenting.

Somewhere along the way, I became MagzD…I became Me.

who is magzd?

I became a woman who loves her family fiercely, who learned to cook, who tried to garden. I became a socially-conscious person, and a passionate fitness professional.

I journeyed through uncharted territories, falling back onto my writing as a means of decompressing my mind and using my words to help shape my decisions. The characters that spilled out of my fingertips became my sounding board: I could look back on them and see if I really was on the right path in my life, or if I needed to change course.

I became the editor of my own life.

MagzD started as a nickname. Then it became a domain and a twitter handle. Then, one day I woke up and realized it was me.

Through this crazy social media platform, I had found my voice. For the first time since high school, I felt like I had an identity. Someone could read my writing and feel as though they knew me. With every tweet-up and new friend, this becomes more and more apparent to me. I’ve lost the fear of introducing myself. Blogging has helped break the first awkward moments of introduction, and instead provided me with an instant connection:

I am MagzD. This is my life.

This is who I am. The voice in my head as I typed out words for 4 years became the voice that I spoke with in the real world. The laughter, the cadence, the inflection. @kimpagegluckie asked us in one session if our blogs reflected our voices. My blog does, but only because it helped me to find that voice in the first place.

So why DO I blog?

Because this blog is who I am, and I will never cease to be me.