This One and That One

  I would like to preface this post by asking for understanding in any typos or autocorrected mistakes. I’m writing this on my phone because my computer is downstairs and I am holding a sleeping baby.   There are the things everyone knows about motherhood, “You won’t get any sleep.” And all the rest of the obvious changes to your life…. But there are things that sprang up at me, unawares. The little things I wasn’t prepared for… like what to do when you have two snoozing babies in your bed and you have to pee. (This one may be specific to us only parents. I prefer this term over ‘single parent’ because that implies a secondary caregiver… which we don’t have.) or how very many different butt creams there are, and you will develop a *preference* on which are acceptable. Note: desitin stinks…. But A&D: the smell makes me gag. You will have to ask the pharmacist which kind of vaginal yeast infection cream is best for diaper rash because you weren’t aware that there was basical...

How to get twins to bed in 2 hours or less! Or maybe a little more… 1. Take babies upstairs to my bed. 2. Change diapers.  3. Turn on soothing bedtime lullabies.  4. Turn on star light machine.  5. Make a bottle for the first baby while making sure neither baby crawls off the side of the bed. 6. Feed first baby on boppy using right hand.  7. Use left hand and/or one or both legs and feet to stop the second baby from: • Diving off the side of the bed • Crawling on or smacking the first baby in the head.  • Attacking the dog at the foot of the bed. 8. Do the above while also making sure not to wake the half asleep feeding baby.  9. Burp and Put first baby into their bed asleep. Be very, VERY careful to not wake baby. 10. Fail because you went too fast because the send baby was making a run for the edge of the bed. 11. Put the second baby in baby jail and try to get the first baby back to sleep. Fail.  12. Repeat steps 5-9 with second baby.  • Pray t...

Coming back from my monthlong trip back home, I expected it to take a little longer for the loneliness and sadness to hit again… but it came on basically right away. It’s led my thoughts back to trying to come to terms with the idea of dating again. I don’t really think I’m ready, but who knows if I’ll ever be ready. Jamie and I actually talked a lot about dating and moving on after one of us passed. Not too long before we got sick my pregnancy hormone’s actually had me crying in the kitchen because I was so upset about what he’d do if I died. I didn’t want him to be lonely or to raise our babies alone but I also didn’t want yo think about him falling in love with someone else. I was totally crazy cakes and he told me he’d never be able to move on from me. Plus he said, he wouldn’t have any time with two babies to take care of. (He didn’t even really know how accurate that statement was.) He made jokes about swerving us off a cliff while driving “If I can’t have you no one will!” Which...

My mom was always telling me I should start a blog. “You should call it ‘This One and That One’” she’d say, referencing how we frequently found ourselves referring to the Twinkies. “This one pooped.” “I think that one is hungry.”   I’ve been generally hesitant to start a blog, because on top of preferred short Facebook posts, I’m a little embarrassed by my inevitable bad grammar, punctuation, and run on sentences. My mom was the English major, I wrote essays to my high school English teacher about why they should give me an A, though I definitely didn’t deserve it.  I was thinking about how I she wouldn’t ever write another blog again, now that she’s gone. That I want to make sure to create backups of all her blogs, to keep them online forever. I thought about how writing a blog could leave a piece of me for my babies when they’re older. It would honor my mom. Keep her memory alive, along with Jamie’s. Plus, you know, I have all this free time on my hands. (Does sarcasm transl...