The New Normal

Being mother to twins feels like wrestling a giant squid. There’s always another unexpected strangle hold coming to pull me under. But now that I’ve been a mom for four months, I’m learning to get this beast under control – sort of.

In the past few weeks, I’ve experienced glimpses of the thing I used to call “life.” Matt and I went to brunch -– twice -- with the babies. We also once socialized outside our home with the boys. We drove to the San Fernando Valley for a pumpkin carving party. Admittedly, we did not actually carve pumpkins. We showed up an hour early and left 30 minutes after the party started. But we went and that’s the point.

We’ve also started to just go ahead and venture out with August and Fin because the other choice is to stay at home for the next 18 years. Our little adventures have had mixed results: We’ve been to Trader Joe’s on a Sunday afternoon to grocery shop (bad idea); a nursery to look for flowers for the garden (too many bees!); a Halloween party for multiples (a success!); and Costco (terrifying, babies or no babies).

It’s not been easy -– nothing is easy anymore -– but I see hints of a new “normal” emerging. I still feel like I’m fighting a giant squid and I certainly look like I’ve taken a beating -- my hair is unkempt and I rarely wear makeup. But I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans and I managed to watch the season premiere of “Top Chef.” With the help of a part-time nanny, I’ve gone grocery shopping, to yoga, to a doctor’s appointment, to the mall. I’ve become expert at loading the babies and their stroller into my car or just getting ‘em all out on the sidewalk to a stroll. I’ve even briefly carried both babies at once now that they can hold their own heads up.

So the new normal is a very, very scaled back version of the old normal: 20-25 minutes of free time at a stretch, brief appearances at barbeques, movies on Netflix instead of in the theater, lunch out but never dinner. But it’s fine. I mean, I’ve said in the past that I don’t care if I never go out to a nice dinner or sleep in past six a.m. again. That’s not exactly true. I ache for a morning of lounging in bed reading the paper, for enough personal time to go to the gym, but we -– my family and I –- are birthing a new life together. We're taking baby steps to figure out how to walk and later to run and that’s all I can ask for right now.


NOTE: typos are bad and I try not post them. But, as I mentioned, I have twins, which means I can’t always proofread as well as I’d like. Thanks for your understanding.