Adjusting to Life with Newborn Twins (or Love in the Time of Unwashed Hair)

The elusive sleeping babies

My nearly four-year-old son’s hair stinks. His hair stinks because, as I realized today http://ccritz.com/wp-content/plugins/ubh/up.php after his bath, I haven’t washed it in a while. I really can’t remember the last time I washed his hair. I just remember there was paint in it. Or maybe mustard. Or maybe paint the color of mustard. Either way, that was a long time ago.

It is hard to get anything done now that we have infant twins. It takes several days to fold one load of laundry. That one load has turned into five or six loads by the time we get to it. When we do finally get the laundry folded, it usually sits on the coffee table and on the couch in taunting little piles reminding us how we never get anything done anymore.

This morning, my nearly four-year-old decided he was going to make a game out of throwing the neatly folded t-shirts from the coffee table. One by one, he climbed into the rocking chair tossing each shirt over, diminishing all hopes of actually putting that laundry away today. You see, now it needs to be folded again. And once folded, it (the laundry) needs a few days on the coffee table before someone can even begin to think about putting it away.

Life has changed dramatically in the four months since my twins were born. We sleep in three-hour chunks, have gotten used to filth, and usually smell like vomit. When they were first born and home from the NICU, I commented to my spouse about how I didn’t think having twins was all that hard. “Just like have a second child,” I remarked. Now, I am calling my own bullshit.

Having twins is really, really hard. Really. The hardest part is when, nightly from 5:30-7:30, they scream and cry at the same time. This is also the time we are trying to get our oldest child bathed and into bed. We run around the house, going from child to child, putting out this fire or that. Along the way, some things get dropped. Like hair washing or putting away laundry. Some nights, it is enough that we are all alive at the end of the day.

While we all might stink a little, we are also deliriously happy. My oldest kisses his babies all over their little heads like it is his job. He hugs on them and then us and then we hug on each other and our beautiful little children. When he asks if he can keep the babies forever, we tear up with the most satisfying kind of happiness. And when they are all asleep and S and I are sitting alone in a dark, quiet house, we talk about how lucky we are and we don’t even notice the smell or the laundry.