Trick or Treat

From a cow and a ladybug!

Your Children Are Not Your Children

Today, the babies turned seven months corrected.  As many mamas before me can attest to, time is speeding by faster and faster.  It seems like every week brings with it a new skill, a new favourite food, a new aspect of their ever-evolving personalities that I get to discover.  Of course, some of those new aspects are less than wonderful - the newly-developed whining, the constant teething pain, the screaming for fun, the throwing of food during meal times, the all-out nap strikes - but every day I look at Madeleine and Reid, these amazing little people who have come so, so far in seven months, and think how lucky I am to get to be the one who sees it all.

Kicked

I was folding the babies' laundry when I felt it, a quick little thump in my tummy, likely an indigestion side effect from the copious amounts of Thanksgiving turkey I'd consumed the day before.  But there was a brief moment between feeling it and identifying its cause that my mind strayed and I thought, a kick.  It hadn't yet clicked in that, no, that certainly wasn't what it was.  Instead, I thought of Reid, the baby that used to kick me the same way in that same spot.  I instinctively put my hand over it, trying to "catch" it the way I always used to when I was pregnant, in that brief window of time when I got to feel my babies move.  And then, of course, I remembered that, nope, that's over now, and my heart sank a little.

In Good Time

At first, we were most worried about Reid.  Before we knew about Madeleine's hemorrhage, before the hydrocephalus, and the surgeries and the shunts, all we knew was that Reid wasn't doing so great.  He needed a lot of help to breathe.  He had a heart murmur and a PDA, and it might need surgery.  From the get go, we saw Madeleine pushing back against the ventilator, getting frustrated at the technology needed to keep her alive.  We saw a spark in Madeleine since the moment she came into the world much too soon - impatient from the very start.  But with Reid, we didn't really see that.  And that concerned me.

I often think that the best part of having twins is realizing how little I actually have to do with who they are.  With one baby, I would imagine you would feel a lot of pressure to do everything perfectly, to not mess up your influence on your blank slate of a child.  That's what I expected, anyway.  But when Madeleine and Reid were born, it became clear from day one that they were very different people.  They had their own personalities, their own needs and sensitivities, their own way of experiencing the world, even though I was doing everything the same.  I realized pretty quickly that my job as a mother wouldn't be to mould or influence them at all, but just to try to stand by them and try not to get too in the way of who they were naturally going to become.

This has been easier to do with Madeleine.  She's naturally curious and talkative and pushy and determined - things that, as a mother of a child who endured fairly significant neurological trauma, make me think, thank goodness.  We need her to be all of those things.  Those things will help her try to overcome the obstacles in her way.  But with Reid, it's always been a struggle.  He's so relaxed, happy to just be held and fed and snuggled.  Happy to just lie there and watch his sister squirming and scooting and reaching for things.  This is who he is - it has always been who he is - but sometimes I think, "c'mon little guy.  Try a little harder."

Madeleine is talkative.  Reid, not so much.  Madeleine grabs her toes and sticks them in her mouth and rolls and grabs her toys.  Reid, not so much.  At our most recent follow-up appointment, we were told this was probably a bad thing.  His muscles are tight, his core is weak, he needs physiotherapy.  He's getting stuck in his patterns, it'll make it harder for him to sit and stand and progress.  He's not making clear sounds, maybe he's having trouble hearing.  It was exactly the thing the anxious mother inside of me wanted to hear.  I was right!  There's something wrong!  But I was forgetting something else very important about Reid, which is that he has his own schedule.  Reid takes his time.  Reid does things when he is ready to do them, and pushing and prodding him to go any faster makes no difference whatsoever.

Eventually, Reid did come off the ventilator.  Eventually, he began breathing room air.  Eventually, his PDA closed without surgery, and his murmur became faint.  Eventually he passed his car seat test, on his third attempt (compared to Madeleine's 'one and done').  And now, eventually, he is making sounds and grabbing his toes and laughing and screaming, and not showing any signs of caring that his sister did it first.

https://vimeo.com/76074675

 

For Reid

When I finally arrived at the hospital to visit you today after a few days of staying home with your sister, I felt pretty bad.  I don't necessarily think anyone would have faulted me for not having it together enough to be spending time at the hospital with you while also figuring out how to have Madeleine at home, but at the same time, there was no question that you were getting the short end of the stick.  It wouldn't be the first time either, since I'd had to leave you before while Maddie was at Sick Kids.  But when I got there, feeling all mom-guilty about it, the nurse handed you over to me and you burrowed in immediately like usual, ready to eat like nothing happened, as if to say, meh, no hard feelings.  It was, for lack of a better term, so very Reid of you.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to admit this, but when I found out I was pregnant, I really wanted a girl.  Then, when we learned it was twins, I thought, "I really hope at least one of them is a girl".  In fact, I was completely terrified I would end up with two boys.  What would I do with two boys??!  But then, of course, you were born.  And ever since that day, I have been so, so incredibly grateful that nobody listened to my original request.

You are just one big love ball.  You weren't able to be cuddled for a while in the beginning because you needed so much help to breathe, and then when we finally did it, you soaked it all up and never looked back.  When we snuggle now you get right into every possible nook, and open your arms out wide as though you are trying to hug me back.  Even though I am more than happy to give all the love in one direction (yours), there's something that always somehow feels reciprocal.  I like to nuzzle against your face just to get you to nuzzle back, and when my hands are close by, you grab onto them.  Now that you have developed super pro star neck and head strength, you use it to pull away and stare right at me.

At the same time, you are so very impatient.  You want everything yesterday, and there is no reasoning with you if it doesn't happen.  Not only do you cry about it, but you cry about it in such a heartwrenching way - your lip quivers and your face scrunches right up - that it becomes so hard for me to remember that it's entirely okay for me to let you be upset sometimes.

Probably my favourite example of these two traits - your loveliness and impatience - is seen when you feed.  Breastfeeding is hard when your babies are born far too small to eat, but even if that hadn't happened, it wasn't something I ever envisioned enjoying.  But you are so enthusiastic - you want to eat all the time and you want it nownownowgo! - that I cannot imagine trying to take that away from you.  You get grunty and wide-eyed, and you hold on like your life depended on it.  It is pretty much the best thing ever.

I learned early on in your life, when you were taking longer than expected to come off the ventilator, that you have your own schedule.  As much as it worries and frustrates me when you have setbacks, I try to remember that it doesn't mean you are incapable - you always, always get there - but that you just need a chance to do it in your own time.  I am glad I have already been able to learn that about you, and hope that I will be able to keep it in mind as you grow (I apologize already though for the times I will forget - I think you might just get your impatience from your mother).

I am pretty sad right now that we are experiencing Madeleine's homecoming without you, because you are such an important member of our new little family.  You bring me so much joy I can hardly stand it, and there is so much love and sweetness inside of you.  I'm not quite sure how I got so lucky, but I am so glad that I did.

Come home already, would you?