Song of the New Parent

I am a new parent.

The first thing you will notice is I no longer have eyes but rather two puffy slits to see through. The word exhausted does not do justice to the way I feel because frankly, I feel nothing. I am in a perpetual haze of feeding, burping, soothing and cleaning. I drove to Target the other day and couldn't remember how I got there. A drunk driver in a Pinto with three raccoons would have been safer on the road.

I am a new parent.

Any sense of fashion has been totally discarded. If my shirt and pants are relatively spittle and pee free, then they are good enough to wear. If my teeth have been brushed in the past 72 hours, I am good to go. A shower now means jumping in some running water for three seconds and then getting dressed. If I get to dry off, that is a bonus. The fact that I simply haven't shaved my hair off should be taken as a good sign.

I am a new parent.

I have no idea what day it is. I thought Irene was a new singer a la Adele or the late Amy Winehouse. I am amazed at how much time I wasted when I was not a parent. If I had that time back, I could write a novel, scale Mt. Everest and become a mixed martial arts champ before 6:00 pm. Now I am lucky if I get to use the bathroom with the door closed.

I am a new parent.

I have never been so happy nor loved anyone this fiercely. I have never been so excited to have someone grab my finger or make mewing noises whilst I feed him. I have never simply just sat in silence and soaked in another being for hours on end. I am happy to unplug for an entire day if it means I get to see a 30 second smile.

I am a new parent. And each day gets better and better.

Today, I even got to finish -


- The 2nd Mommy

They're Here!

The twins have arrived and already I see why people were laughing at us while we were pregnant and making all of our grand plans about parenthood.

So far, not many of them have been working out so well.

For example, I was certain the sleep deprivation warnings were a bit overstated. Sure, I was expecting to get a lot less sleep than usual. I was not expecting the type of sleep we would be getting. I thought sleep deprivation meant four hours at night, not four hours over a 24-36 period broken into intervals of 20-45 minutes of dead sleep. The worst part is that I often wake up thinking I have left the babies somewhere unattended. I would saw off my right arm with one of the twins' tiny talon-like nails right now for even three consecutive hours of sleep. I suppose that will come when they are in college. Maybe.

I also thought I knew how to change a diaper already but wrong again. Andrew has peed in his eye, on the window shade, and on the bookshelf across the room. Cooper hit me in my nose. I scoffed at the idea of Pee-pee tee pees but now I am kicking myself for not getting them. By the end of the night, I expect my green lantern shirt will actually be yellow.

And I also thought I was pretty tough. I didn't cry when they were born because I was too excited to see them. But since that time, I have probably cried more than John Boehner at a Tea Party convention. Who knew that two little peanuts could worm their way into my heart so quickly.




- The 2nd Mommy

A Prayer/Meditation/Wish from The Other Mother

Dear Goddess, Lord, Allah, Buddah, Ganesha, Gaia and all others in the global religious pantheon:

Today, our lives change forever. It has been a long journey and yet we are just getting started. It is both the beginning and the end. It is not a dot but rather a dot, dot, dot. Blah, blah, blah - you're all omniscient, you get the picture.

Today, I ask/implore/beseech you to watch over The Saint closely. Let the medical staff be alert, focused and ready to offer their best care to her. Please keep her as pain free as possible. Let the delivery be safe but swift. If she can keep control of her bodily functions, I am sure she'd appreciate it but I don't want to overstep. Most importantly, please return her to me healthy and ready for the next segment of our lives as a family of four. (Somebody has to start making healthy meals again.)

Please also watch over Cooper and Andrew. May they be slippery enough to slide out easily but not so slippery that the doctor drops them. Let them be healthy, happy, smart and cute, pretty much in that order but an equal abundance of all. Please do not let them poo right when the doctor holds them up for I will surely laugh long and hard. I suspect this would not go over well with The Saint.

Finally, please hold me up in the palms of your hands. Literally. I am scared shitless right now and seriously afraid I am going to pass out at any moment. I don't like needles, so I am thinking witnessing major surgery is not going to go over well. Please let me keep my breakfast down and my head up.

Amen/Blessings/Shalom/Asalamalakum/Peace Out






- The 2nd Mommy

Is it Just Me....

... or does this shelf with hooks make it look like we are expecting two baby Hefs?





I know, not much of a post today but I wanted to give my friend Liz a nice mental image for the weekend.

Anyway, Friday is the big day and my brain is in overdrive. I have a post ready for Friday but after that, the blog will go down to once a week posts. And I think that is being pretty optimistic.

I will be shooting for every Wednesday. Forgive me if I fall behind...

- The 2nd Mommy

Exercises in Mommyhood

I recently decided to get some mommy practice in and the best way to do this seemed obvious: bake some chocolate cookies.

I know, it seems cliche, overly traditional and perhaps a tad sexist to conflate cookie baking and motherhood but I have such fond memories of making cookies with my grandma that I want to carry on the tradition with my boys. Of course, the problem has already been discussed: I am not so Betty Crocker-ish in the kitchen. But armed with this awareness, I confidently sent The Saint off to nap and began the task.

I started by carefully reading the directions and gathering all the necessary ingredients. This proved to be a wise choice as I realized we were out of baking soda. I almost used baking powder but thought better of it....okay, I briefly woke The Saint up and asked if the 2 were interchangeable but the point is I averted a major disaster. I dashed off to my Mom's to borrow some, dumping a few tablespoons into a plastic baggie. I did get some strange looks from the neighbors when I walked out of my parents' house with a white powder in a little plastic bag but I will let them deal with that when they get home. (Perhaps deal isn't the best word choice - please ignore that if you are in the law enforcement field.)

After carefully combining all the ingredients per the instructions, I was ready to bake. That is when I hit the second snag: according to the recipe, I was supposed to use "rounded tablespoons" to dish out the dough in order to make 5 dozen cookies.

FIVE DOZEN COOKIES???!!? I didn't have time to sit around and wait for five dozen cookies. So I made an adjustment: I used an ice cream scooper to dish the dough out, so the cookies looked like this:




I thought this would simply save time and make for a bigger, and thus more delicious, cookie. But as I should have learned by now, directions are there for a reason.

At first, all seemed fine: the smoke alarm wasn't ringing, I hadn't burned myself yet and The Saint was sound asleep. Then it was time to take the first batch out. I was hoping to see a nice, big cookie dotted with chips. Instead, I saw big blobs of chips dotted with a little bit of dough. They looked like this:




I am not sure how they taste yet because I ate a good chunk of the cookie dough, which led to another snag in the process that I will keep to myself. Let's just say it's a good thing we have two bathrooms in our house.

Good thing the boys missed this one. These are not the kinds of memories I was hoping to create.

- The 2nd Mommy

It's Real

The twins will be here next Friday.

No matter how many times I say it, I still can't believe it. There is a podcast/website called The Longest Shortest Time that is all about early motherhood but I think the title could also refer to pregnancy.

The past two years have been a series of waiting games: waiting for ovulation, waiting to see if The Saint's plumbing was primed for a baby, waiting to see if the pee stick showed a plus sign (really wish I had bought stock in EPT), waiting for the nurse or the doctor or the ultrasound tech, waiting....well, you get the picture. I felt like I did when I was 5 on Christmas Eve, anxiously awaiting the hour I could rouse my parents and open our Christmas gifts. (Sadly, it was never 3:30 am like I thought it should be. I suspect karma will soon be biting me in the ass for all of those Christmas mornings.)

And now, the moment is almost here and I can't believe it. There suddenly seems to be so many things I wanted to do that I didn't get to. The stack of parenting books have only been half read. There is still no space in the kitchen for baby dishes and other eating accessories. The high chairs are still in the box because I haven't had a chance to learn how to build an addition onto the back of the house to accommodate all the gear we have received in preparation for the babies. I still haven't mastered the swaddle technique without cheating and using Velcro or duct tape. Where did the time go?!!!??

Our days are now punctuated by sobering realizations that the two of us will soon be the four of us. At times, I wonder if this is what the Last Supper felt like. One life is about to end for us but another one is about to begin. Part of me will miss the life that is ending.

Fortunately, a much bigger part of me is eager to start the new one....


- The 2nd Mommy

Lessons in Humility, Part 2

Oh, how the humility continues to rain down upon me. As you recall from last time, my lack of any actual skills has me a tad worried about impending motherhood.

Cleaning is another area I apparently lack in. My mother has been helping us clean the house ever since we moved in. At first, I thought she was just being nice. But lately, her offers are becoming more persistent. She keeps looking around the house and begging me to pick a date when she can come over and dust, vacuum and mop. The sad thing is that I have done all of that....ok, most of that.....ok, I have vacuumed. Recently. Fairly recently.....whatever. Mom, I know you are reading this: I will see you tomorrow at noon.

Unfortunately, the lack of cleaning skills isn't confined to just the inside the house. The Saint has been all about power washing the house ever since we bought it. She wanted to spruce up the appearance by adding new light fixtures as well. Both tasks have taken on a new sense of urgency because, God forbid, we bring those babies home to a house with some dirt on it and ugly light fixtures. After being cramped in what is surely an impeccable womb for 9 months, how gauche would it be to come home to such a hot mess?

Of course, these tasks required both knowledge and tools that I did not have, making me feel doubly inadequate. Enter LG and CB with their big truck of equipment and their big brains filled with all the knowledge needed to wash the house, change out the outdoor lights and install a ceiling fan in the nursery for good measure (and yep, they're gay).

When I started thinking about all of this, I felt pretty stupid looking at the laundry list of things I couldn't do. But looking at all the people who have come to our rescue makes me feel pretty good about all the wonderful friendships we have cultivated throughout the years. Who else can say they had five showers?!?!!! Perhaps we have had the one necessity for parenthood all along:

We have our village. (Or in our case, our Village People.)


- The 2nd Mommy

Parenthood and Home Ownership: A Lesson in Humility, Part 1

When The Saint and I bought our house almost 2 years ago, there were a number of updates we wanted to make. Thanks to some extra income and some very awesome and handy friends, we tackled quite a few of those chores.

This was the first inkling I had that I have absolutely zero life skills. If zombies attack, I will be among the first to go. If we fall off the grid, you will find me in the fetal position clutching the dead tv. I probably would have died before the age of 12 if I had been born in the 19th century.

At first, when we just bought the house, I wasn't too concerned since the first sign of my unhandiness came when L and C decided we needed something to go with the doormat they bought for our housewarming gift: a new deck. One that they built for us in their spare time over the course of a few weeks. My contribution? I hammered in approximately 4 nails, 3 of which I completely messed up. (If you look closely, you will spot 3 nails angled or twisted into the wood.)

This lack of skill was easy to brush off as L and C are super humans; I know better than to measure myself against them and besides, carpentry stuff takes years to master. Who has that kind of time? You have to start really early and I didn't have that opportunity when I was younger, ergo not my fault.

But then we got pregnant and The Saint started to panic. Suddenly, our lovely home was really a crumbling shack. This baby death trap needed work done and it needed to be done yesterday! And so the parade of handy, talented friends began, each one reminding me that I better pray I never lose my day job.

First came my Dad, the painting wizard who knocked out 2 rooms in less than a day. It would have taken me about a week, a case of Jack Daniels and several boxes of Kleenex to mop away the tears of frustration. The one room I did paint on my own took me an entire weekend and I still needed to call my Dad in to do the trim because I was too impatient to even try it. My contribution? I "made" dinner, which was a pizza I had delivered while my Dad was busy upstairs.

Once the painting was done, we decided to put down trim in the nursery as there were holes large enough to house a family of four between the floor boards and the walls. Unfortunately, this involved more hammering and cutting with a miter saw, which I still don't understand how to use. Fortunately, LBC came to the rescue with her truckload of fancy tools for just such a job (and she's straight!) My contribution? I made cosmos throughout the day, a role usually reserved for housewives from the '50's.

Then came the nursery furniture assembly, which took a small army to complete: LB, MD, KOY, and my Dad (again) all had a hand in helping me assemble furniture that came with directions written by an MIT grad for another MIT grad. Thanks to them, the job was done without any nervous breakdowns on my part. My contribution? I sometimes handed the tools to them when I knew which one they were talking about.

I wish I could say that was all but there is more....




- The 2nd Mommy