I am so tired. Faces covered in yogurt, crumbs from cornbread pizza, goat cheese, and pears. Filthy High Chairs, floor dirty, yawn, yawn. Yesterday was a one nap day. We met our friends, Bettina, Willa, and Eliza at the Corte Madera Play area. I was already tired from the day before. Bettina and I try to have coffee and salad while the babies are loose. I feel bad, I am that distracted mom now. Jack goes one direction, Fiona goes another. I try to eat my salad, I walk around taking bites, screw it, throw it away. I’m not that hungry anyhow, the babies wouldn’t eat their cream of wheat with blueberries so I ate it for them earlier. There’s no gate on this play area. Jack keeps running out into the concrete, the janitors with their orange and yellow paraphernalia are most intriguing. I need eyes in the back of my head. I’m afraid someone’s gonna snatch one. Other kids and moms filter in and out, all older than Jack, Fiona, Willa, and Eliza. The older kids push Jack and Fiona in the face, Jack and Fiona push Willa and Eliza in the face. I wonder if the other moms think I’m letting my babies be too free. I can’t be by both of them at one time. I see other moms with much older children staying right near, monitoring their activities. The other half of the moms sit and look at their iPhone. Two one year olds just learning to walk, going in all directions, oh, and putting everything in their mouth is totally exhausting. Jack was eating something, I went over expecting it to be a leaf, and it was an old wet cracker. YUCK! This morning I turned on a cartoon. They were intrigued for 5 seconds. They are good babies, as they stand there and look at me shaking the super yard fence. I need to go now.
Tag: motherhood
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I feel strange, almost nauseous as the pink silicone mold material is squirted into my ear. It’s cold. I can feel it expanding. I am getting my own listening tube made so I can check Fiona’s hearing aids. I try to get Fiona’s attention, show her I was going through what she has already gone through today and for the past seven months. She wasn’t very interested. We have been at the audiologist for an hour and a half, she is ready to go explore. Fiona sat in the hearing test room on my lap while Linda distracted her with toys. Dr.Robert made different sounds and Fiona was tested to see if she would turn to the direction the sound was coming from. There is a box with a flashing light on and a little stuffed teddy that bangs cymbals when she looks the correct direction. Dr.Robert is outside the room using his audiometer box to test her hearing frequencies. She’s doing so well, this is our second time doing this test. The first time Fiona didn’t respond to the soft sounds and I was told our household was very loud and Fiona was most interested in loud sounds, not soft ones. I felt like a child being scolded, people always tell me I have a loud voice. I have made an effort to reduce the volume around here and Fiona did respond to the quieter sounds this time. This morning we are hanging out in the living room, Jack starts to grab Fiona’s hearing aid. I take it out and put it in my ear. It sounds like hearing under water, there’s a delay. It must be strange how Fiona wears hearing aids sometimes and not others. It’s like two different worlds. Her hearing aid molds are too small now, they buzz all the time. The new ones won’t be ready for two weeks. When we are finished with the examination. We go to the front desk to make our next appointment to pick up the new molds. Dr. Robert is really busy, the receptionist says. She looks on her computer, talks to the doctor and tells me we can come in on March 19th. I pause: Thoughts are running through my head, that’s my birthday, I want some time to myself on my birthday, is that selfish, Fiona should come first, don’t I want her to hear? I can’t put off picking up her hearing aids, she’s already losing two weeks of language development. I don’t have anyone to watch the babies that day anyhow. We’ll make a day of it. The three of us can go have fun then stop by and pick up the ear molds. O.K., I tell the receptionist March 19th is fine.
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First Jack then Fiona. I am wondering if the smell of the alcohol reminds them of the last time. There’s a delay after the first shot is given, then the face turns beet red, the mouth opens wide, the eyes shut, the cries and screams start. I pick up each baby after their turn to get shots. I hold them close and tell them everything’s O.K. cuddles and tickles, they are fine. AAAAAAHHHH, I take a deep breath of relief, one year vaccinations done. After the two week incubation period I can go out with Jack and Fiona, not worrying about the measles. It’s the first time I’ve brought Jack and Fiona to the doctor by myself. The morning goes smoothly and we’re in the car by 9:40am. We’re calm and we don’t need to rush. The waiting room is filled with sick children wearing face masks. I think to myself we’ve already had so many flu’s and cold’s I’m not going to worry about this today. In the exam room Fiona and Jack point to everything, “Eh” they point to the otoscope “Eh” they point to the door and the light on the ceiling. They point to the drawers with the masks, tongue depressors and alcohol swabs hidden inside. It’s Fiona’s turn for her examination, I take off her clothes, put her on the scale, 20lbs, a lot lighter than Jacks 25. She’s measured, grew 3 inches. Jack was examined last week, while Fiona was home sick. The nurse comes in with the vaccinations. She remembers us from our visit six months ago. I wish I remembered her name, she’s really sweet and gentle and wears a pin that says I speak Baby.
We leave the doctors and I decide to go to the mall for a chai and to let the babies check out the toddler play area. At Peets I see a customer there, an older man who I saw four months earlier. I was sitting outside with Joanne, Jack and Fiona were sleeping in the stroller. This man asked me if the babies call me “Grams.” I said “no, I’m their mother.” He said he was sorry for putting his foot in his mouth. He has a daughter who is pregnant with her second. I am older than her but I’m not sure by how much. While I was trying to have kids as the years went by I would say not after I’m 35, not after 36, not after 40. Jack and Fiona were born when I was 42. I was so worried what other people would think, or more that I would die early like my Mom and her parents and leave the babies too soon. Now I see none of these worries even matter, although as I crouched down and played with my one year old twins in the dingy, dirty carpet, mall play area I felt uncomfortable with the old man and his daughter looking at me. I felt like they were wondering how old I was. Jack went over to visit them and try to get a piece of their Peets treat. The old man asked me when I knew I was having twins. I couldn’t think of the answer, Jack was trying to run out of the play area into the mall. I decided it’s time to leave.
Jack, Fiona, and I go to chipotle and have the best time sharing a quesadilla I feed to them in tiny little pieces. After we buy a frozen yogurt and take our yogurt onto the large fake grass area. I take the babies out of their stroller and have to run and catch them every 2 minutes, they keep running onto the concrete area. I worry they will fall and crack their heads and skin their little knees. I try to entice them with the frozen yogurt. I dip my spoon into the chocolate vanilla swirl yogurt, it’s so good. I give Jack and Fiona tastes, it comes right back out of their mouths, they don’t have the same experience as me. Jack starts to like the raspberries with just a bit of frozen yogurt. We make our shirts all messy, I chase them around the lawn, and we laugh. I’m feeling good. Jack cries once when I start to run from him thinking he’ll chase me. I run back, grab him, spin him around and he looks delighted. I manage to keep the babies awake on the drive home, I’m listening to Sirius new wave, first the Clash then Yaz. We come into the house, play for a while, I give them showers and bottles, and dress them in clean clothes. Then put them down for their nap. Now I am enjoying my time to write.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 