From twins to quadruplets. In one day!

It feels like this morning I woke up and my babies doubled themselves. Like tribbles.

Seriously, though, I decided to help out my good friend Steph when she ended up without child care for the day. Her regular day care provider was out at a doctor's appointment, and one of the things I looked forward to with this whole stay-at-home mom gig was the ability to help out my friends in just such a situation.

So when she put a call out on Facebook last night for someone who could watch the kids today, I checked my calendar and then texted her and told her I'd take the kids.

It's been an adventure, and I've loved every second of the half of the day that's already gone by. So far, we've read books, played with cars, sang songs, played on the back porch and taught Emmy how to say everyone's name. Now we're winding down a little bit before lunch. I'm enjoying the heck out of this, and I really wish I had the chance to have one more kid - preferably a little girl. Emmy is potty training and she even went potty for me!

The four kids outside on the porch during play time this morning. From L-R: Harry, Hank, Emmy and Brecker.

It's been a great day.

When twins develop at different rates

I took my twins to the pediatrician for their 18-month checkup last week, and I had to ask the doctor about the younger twin, Hank, and his lack of words. He says between three and five words now, and only two of them are pronounced correctly. He says "bye bye" but he pronounces it "b-baaaooooouuuu". He definitely says "hi" and "uh-oh" correctly. But anything else he says is pronounced in a really odd way.

He's also very quiet and he tends to focus on some things that seem really simple and that he should be able to do while doing something else. Like, he could sit at the coffee table and roll his tractor back and forth for half an hour without moving or paying attention to anything else. That made me worry he was autistic. Among other things that make me worry, including the fact that he has a cousin who has autism, so it's just something that I worry about.

Hank is on the right. Harry and Mitch constantly engage each other in conversation, but Hank doesn't talk to other people very often. He doesn't use words like his brother does. He grunts instead and yells.

I had never really thought about the fact that I might be worrying too much. The pediatrician brought up the fact that the symptoms I was worried about might seem worse than they really are because I'm seeing the other twin  develop not only at a normal rate but at a faster than normal rate. She told me Harry's pretty far ahead of the curve. He's more coordinated than most children his age, has a stronger grasp of language, communicates better and says far more words. Because he is developing faster than normal and Hank is developing slightly more slowly than normal, it seems like Hank is further behind than he is in reality.

I'd never thought about that, so that brought it into a new light and kind of makes me feel better about Hank.

After I got to feeling okay about the news that he was behind, I started thinking about how he would feel later on if it ended up being something lasting. He'll always have his twin to compare himself to. And vice versa if Hank ends up excelling at something Harry stinks at. That would be hard. I wonder how they'll handle it.

Anyway, the plan for now is to have an early childhood interventionist come in to evaluate Hank. Because we have to use a program that helps pay for the intervention (such a funny word for developmental evaluation, but that's what they call it), we have to do it their way. They evaluate every stage of his development, even though it's mostly his speech that is affected. After they do the evaluation, we'll discover if it's something we need to be worried about, or if it's related to his mental development or his hearing.

Our appointment with the interventionist is at the end of October. I'll be posting the results and researching whatever we find out. It looks like the worst-case scenario as of now is either a hearing problem that will require hearing aids or a speech problem that will require the services of a speech pathologist. Our pediatrician indicated that autism was not at all a concern.

Have any of you had trouble with your twins developing at different rates? Maybe the same problem I'm having with one twin being ahead of the curve and the other behind it? How do you handle it? If any of you have older children, has it affected them?

This woman should be stoned to death.

I'm sure by now many of you have heard the story of Lindsey Lowe. She gave birth to full-term twins in her parents' bathroom, both of them being born into the toilet. After the first one was born, she left it in the toilet and covered its mouth and nose with her hand until it stopped breathing.

"Lowe stated that the baby was crying and Lowe did not want her parents to hear and find out about the child," police wrote in the affidavit. "Lowe stated that she put her hand over the child's mouth and she stated that she kept it there until the child was dead, which was a couple of minutes." Lowe said she never checked the sex of the child.

A few minutes later, she gave birth to the second twin and repeated the process.

I am a mother of twins, and I am just shocked, saddened and angry. I'm angry at this woman - not a teenager as one would expect, but an adult woman of 25 years old - for doing such a deplorable thing. Twins are such a blessing. I have lived the time since I first found out I was having twins, nine weeks into my pregnancy, praying that nothing will happen to even ONE of my children, and she intentionally kills both?

Lowe is from the Nashville suburb of Hendersonville and police from that area arrested her after her parents discovered her babies' bodies in the laundry basket she placed them in. She said she thinks she became pregnant in January and never visited a doctor for prenatal care.

This woman works at a pediatric dentist's office. She should love children. I can't imagine why a woman would do such a thing. Why a human being would do such a thing. If my twins were awake, I would hug them really tightly right now.

Should twins share a room?

When I got pregnant with the twins, I never even though about any situation other than having them share a room. I mean, they were going to share everything anyway, so why would they have a problem sharing a room? I planned a double nursery from the get-go.

I thought being this far away from each other, across the room, would make a difference in their ability to sleep.

I never even thought about having the share a crib.

As we speak (or as I write), they are SUPPOSED to be taking a nap. Instead, they are in there talking to each other because they fell asleep in the car on the way home from the mall and I had to wake them up to bring them inside. One at a time. Which meant the first one I brought in couldn't be put down quickly, quietly and in the dark.

I know many people don't have the space to give twins independent rooms, and I understand that those people may think I'm complaining about something insignificant. But it's really beginning to affect their sleep. So much so that I'm considering moving everyone around and giving them each their own rooms.

Then again, they're getting old enough to understand instruction, like, "Be quiet and go to sleep!" They are also old enough to get a leg pop when they throw their stuff out of the crib, which is one of the main things that they do to keep each other awake. They think it's funny and do it to make each other laugh. Whereas they used to go to sleep without any problems, they're now having trouble going to bed and wake each other up throughout the night. They're really bad about taking naps and, again, keep each other awake talking and laughing. 

Another problem we're having is morning routine. My husband and older son can't help but make noise when they wake up. It's inevitable. But because of that, they wake up an hour to an hour and a half earlier than they should and are cranky. Then they're overtired, which keeps them from taking a good nap during the day. And putting them to bed earlier at night to make up for it just doesn't work. I've tried that and they won't go to sleep. 

What would you guys do? Any suggestions from any other twin moms? 

Getting to know my babies.

I've been a mother for 9 years, and during that entire time, I've been a working mother. I took care of my kids, but there was never the amount of closeness I wanted because of how many hours I worked. When Mitchell was small, I worked three jobs. I rarely saw him. As he got older, I worked an average of 50-60 hours a week and just always have. It's what I'm used to.

Last fall, I was working 80 hours a week. Two full-time jobs. I missed so much of the twins' first few months. It was terribly sad. I missed Mitchell's babyhood. I didn't want to miss out on my last kids' babyhood.

So, finally, a few months ago, we made the decision for me to stay home. I've expressed apprehension about this. I'm not the kind of person who does well without someone telling me what to do every second of every day. Partially because I've been working since I was 15. That's a long time for someone my age. I'm almost 30, so that's almost 15 years in the workforce. I was terrified to leave my job.

But I did because... well, for many reasons. My health has been failing, and I wasn't able to make it into the office enough. I wasn't making enough money. We'd been on a salary freeze for four years, and we knew we were in for at least two more. And my salary was so pitiful that it was costing us money for me to work. Not only that, but I was having to work a second job to be able to afford to work my first job. Not cool.

Not only was I never seeing my babies, but I wasn't seeing Mitchell, either. So I figured I'd quit and just work for myself. It's been hard easing into a new routine, and setting up a new routine, but I'm so thankful I've done this. I'm getting to see all their little milestones. Like today, I swear, Harry kept saying "Hey now!" He's saying phrases. He said, "Hi, Mama!" the other day. It's so cute. They're both so cute. I can't get enough of hugging them and squeezing them and playing with them. My only regret is that I ever went back to work in the first place.

I'm getting to spend way more time with Mitch, too. Quality time. We have conversations and snuggle time and it's all so wonderful.

I think it's gonna work out.