Parenting Tip: When your baby starts sucking on the stroller wheel, it’s acceptable to stop sterilizing and to start drinking.
Only weeks after returning to our Bangkok apartment, it was time to start packing. For good this time.
Vivian and William had learned to walk, kind of. They’d each grab the handle of a plastic toy shopping cart for balance, and they’d roam around our large apartment and have their own demolition derby. In retrospect, we should’ve put helmets on them: A thin layer of parquet flooring does little to soften the concrete beneath. Once again, though, William and Vivian survived.
Packing up eight years of living overseas sucked. To pack the breakables, we hired professional movers—an oxymoron meaning people who place one thing inside each box so they can charge more. Chris, however, opted to pack our summer clothes that would never again be worn. He also packed his books and DVDs. Because nothing makes more sense than shipping a thousand books and DVDs overseas.
Chris started Operation Box Construction, which involved packing tape and a utility knife, two items that can get eleven-month-old twins into a lot of trouble. I did what a loving wife would do: I sent him to another room.
But it wasn’t the knife that would destroy Vivian and William. It was the sound of packing tape being unleashed from the roll. If the act of tearing off a Band-Aid made a sound, it would be that of packing tape. As soon as Chris unleashed an arm’s length of tape, William and Vivian would go into high pitched, incessant screams, as though they were being mauled by a cat, an angry cat that was having its hair knit into a blanket.
Chris, being in the other room, ignored the screams. He hadn’t quite figured out the cause and effect. So, with one twin on each hip, I kicked open the door.
“Stop,” I said.
“Stop what?” he said, looking up at our two sobbing spawn who were using my tank top as a tissue.
“The tape. We’re scarring them for life. Even more than we already have.”
“Really?” he said. “You mean this?” And he launched another three feet of tape. Hysterics followed. Some belonged to Vivian and William.
“You’re going to have to move onto the balcony,” I said when I’d calmed down.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Chris smiled. “Do you mean to make boxes or to sleep?”
“That depends,” I said. “Have you packed the hammock?”
THE SAPPY FILES, PART 2 (OR WHY MY KIDS’ FUTURE
THERAPISTS SHOULD BELIEVE I’M SOMEWHAT SANE)
Dear William and Vivian,
Happy first birthday. You two seem to have thrived during this year, in spite of our made-up parenting style and the fact that I don’t remember much of the second half of your first year.
Do you know that we didn’t even throw a first birthday party for you? It didn’t seem to make sense to go to all that trouble given that our shipment had gone back to Canada, we had ten days left in Thailand, and you weren’t exactly going to remember a party.
My lovely friend Sarah, however, invited us across the hall for birthday celebrations. Yes, she had made you a cake. She’s part of the village that is raising you.
Her kindness reminds me of our friend Kaye, a funky and kind Australian grandma-type. When you were only a few weeks old, Kaye visited and cradled one of you, and she told us this: “When they’re this little, you just give and give and give. You give so much you don’t think you have anything left to give. And you get nothing in return .” She wiggled your toes. “But then, starting around six weeks old, you start getting something. A smile, perhaps. Recognition . And from that point on, you start getting back. And you know what? You just keep getting from them. They give you so much in return .”
I think I sighed loudly.
“Hang on ,” Kaye told me. “You’ll get there. And then you will keep getting.”
I’ve always remembered that. And you know what? She’s right. Your dad and I have started getting. I was even getting when I was in my fog, my depression . Do you know that during my many insomniac nights I would sneak into your room and lie on the floor? You both gave me the gift of a moment’s peace. Your deep breaths somehow told me that things were going to be OK. And now, from your giggles to your pick–me–up stance, we are getting so much . Maybe not more than we’re giving. Let’s face it; there are days when I still want to throw myself in front of a tuk tuk. But I’m getting things back. And I’m going to stop keeping score. Promise. Kind of.
Welcome to One.
I love you both.
Mommy
PART THREE
THE TODDLER YEARS, OR REASONS TO START A THERAPY FUND
WE NEED TO OUTWIT, OUTLAST, OUTNUMBER OUR KIDS
If we thought flying with our dual airbags the first time was difficult, we were wrong. Now that William and Vivian were doing the drunken baby walk, this transpacific flight was like summiting Everest without the assistance of oxygen, sherpas, or our nanny.
Still, some things went our way. Although the check-in agent wouldn’t let our one-year-old twins fly in dog crates, she compensated by ignoring the weight of our hockey duffels and let the four of us wave bye-bye to our luggage. Vivian and William’s permanent passports had arrived before we left and even though they looked like one-year-old criminal masterminds, security let them through.
After a flight attendant listened to my life story, she doubled our seat allowance by giving us four seats in the middle row, with Chris and I serving as bookends to our babies near the bowels of the aircraft. We each had to hold a baby for takeoff. I believe airlines are conducting an ongoing study about the strength of parents’ arms in the event of a crash. I suspect physics wins, every time.
Chris looked at me and joked, “Should we try to stuff them into the overhead bins?”
I laughed. “Maybe. But do you want to play Catch-the-Baby at 38,000 feet?”
Once all our eardrums were blown from air pressure, three of us dozed. I still wasn’t great at this sleep thing, but I could help achieve it in others. I broke every airline code and parenting oath by placing William and Vivian on the floor. I plunked them down at our feet, shoved pacifiers into their mouths, and put the tray tables down to hide our babies from flight attendants. I figured under the seat in front of me was safer than the overhead bins. Then, with two live foot warmers asleep on my toes, I relaxed by comparing pictures of Colin Firth in gossip magazines.
There were worse ways of passing time while flying. One was when your children awoke. Vivian and William were truly toddlers at this point, wanting to move when awake. So they waddled up and down the aisles doing the baby shuffle. I’m pretty sure airplane armrests were designed to give barely mobile kids as many black eyes as possible.
They walked. They fell. They entertained other passengers, who smiled either because our babies were adorable in their topsy-turvy way or because the airplane meal-of-themoment gave everyone gas they were trying to expel.
Eventually more food and drink carts charged down the aisle, corralling William and Vivian. Our kids were now moments away from realizing that those silver airplane zambonis contained the keys to the kingdom: processed food.
A flight attendant rammed her cart into my leg. She said something like, “Would you prefer the dried-out cookies or the carcinogenic pretzel-crap?”
I ordered the peanuts. She winced. “We don’t have peanuts anymore due to allergies.”
Right. “I’ll have the cookies,” I mumbled.
“And your children?” she asked.
I looked at Vivian and William. Vivian was tearing apart the in-flight magazine and William was flinging every book and toy we’d brought around the cabin. I paused. Our kids had never eaten anything processed. Even though I’d thrown out the parenting books, I still hadn’t completely let go of the idea of perfection parenting. The only dessert our twins had ever eaten was a teaspoon of chocolate birthday cake two weeks before and even that had been homemade.
William started pounding on
the seat in front of him. I looked at Chris and raised my eyebrows, which are capable of holding entire conversations on their own. Chris shrugged in return, a movement I interpreted as “Why not?”
I took the prepackaged cookies, opened them, and watched as William, Vivian, and their salivary glands discovered cookie nirvana. An hour later, I went back to the zamboni cart for more.
Parenting Tip: On long trips, let your children eat whatever processed crap you can get your hands on.
The final leg of our thirty-hour homeward journey just about killed me. I no longer cared what Vivian and William were up to. I reverted to my not-coping strategy of humming “Jesus Loves Me,” this time while banging the seat in front of me. It was a mini-asylum at 38,000 feet for a Sunday school alumnus. Hello, Postpartum Aggression.
We landed in summery Winnipeg, home of the world’s biggest mosquitoes, an NHL team that had grown tired of winter and relocated to Phoenix, and my family.
We had two weeks to visit and recover from a twelvehour time difference before we moved in with Chris’s parents in Alberta—800 miles west of Manitoba—where we’d live until I found a teaching job.
Miraculously, while still in Manitoba, I had a telephone interview for a fantastic teaching gig near Calgary. Not so miraculously, I didn’t get it. It was for a Drama/English position, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that I didn’t have much experience in theater. Apparently, raising twins while suffering from Postpartum Depression does not count as drama.
Finally, we arrived at my in-laws’, where we moved in. We were pseudo-homeless, rather jobless, and no one could sleep through the night. In spite of this, we were welcomed, even if my father-in-law counted the days we stayed there and announced the tally every evening as a joke.
“It’s Day Thirteen,” he said, handing me a beer.
I chuckled, opened the can, and toasted the baker’s dozen of days we’d been there. My husband’s father never had beer in the fridge, but he always bought some for me when I visited. We’d sit there, drink a can, and spend a lot of time laughing. I knew he loved me as a daughter.
Chris and his mom joined us in the living room, watching William and Vivian put 1960s era toys coated with lead-based paint in their mouths. But hey, they’d sucked stroller wheels and survived.
“There’s going to be a lot of screaming tonight,” I announced.
Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even our twins froze, like they could sense something foreboding.
“I apologize in advance,” I said, pausing to take a swig of beer. “But I need them to sleep through the night.” I pointed to Vivian and William with my foot.
People nodded slowly, computing what this meant for them.
“We’re crying it out,” I said with the finality of a jail cell closing.
Crying it out was precisely what the kids and I did. Ninety minutes of one twin or the other screaming from 2 AM on. Every two minutes I’d walk into their room, lay them down, and pat their bums for a minute. Then I’d leave. I’d add a minute each time, letting them cry longer. I had nerves of steel, for the first twelve minutes. Chris joined me on the steps, and we chatted while our babies cried.
“Remember the show Survivor?” I asked.
Chris nodded.
“That’s what parenting is like,” I said. “We need to outwit, outlast, outnumber our kids. That’s what we’re doing now.”
“I don’t think outnumber is part of Survivor’s motto. If it is, we should’ve only had one kid,” Chris said.
I shrugged. “If we stopped at one kid, there’d still be one in my uterus.”
Parenting Tip: To help you survive raising children, you need to “outwit, outplay, outlast” them each day. Or hire a babysitter.
I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. “Time to go pat some bums,” I said. We walked into the room together and each patted a little bum, reminding our babes we hadn’t abandoned them forever. At 3:30 AM they fell asleep. At 3:31 AM we fell asleep too.
“Do you think your parents hate me?” I said to Chris the next morning while we each dressed a kid.
“Hate? No, they could never hate you. They’re probably very tired though. And dreaming about a quiet hotel room.”
“I dream about a quiet hotel room too,” I said.
“Is that so?” Chris asked suggestively.
“For sleeping,” I clarified. “By myself.”
I sighed, walked to the kitchen with a kid on each hip, and deposited Vivian and William with their grandparents.
“Night Thirteen was a long one, wasn’t it?” I said, plugging in the kettle.
“Just a little noisy,” Chris’s mom said.
“Well,” I said, “you may wish to nap because we’re doing it again.”
Night Fourteen yielded twenty minutes of crying and bum-patting.
Night Fifteen resulted in two minutes of crying.
And from Night Sixteen on, both twins slept through the night. And so did their mom.
On Day Seventeen, I had a job interview in Calgary, Canada’s oil and gas hub. If my in-laws thought that the previous nights had been long, their day just got longer. They had the twins for nine hours while we drove 180 miles to the interview and back. At 8 AM on Day Eighteen, the phone rang. It was for me. I took a sip of tea, handed off a kid, and took the receiver from my mother-in-law. I had landed a great teaching job.
Chris and I spent three days looking at thirty-six houses with a real estate agent who doubled as a babysitter before we found a home I liked. We got possession of our suburban abode after spending Day Forty-Eight with my in-laws.
“If you count part days, it was technically forty-nine,” my father-in-law joked.
“It didn’t feel less than eighty-two,” I said, giving him a goodbye hug.
I’M SWEARING MY WAY TO CLEANLINESS
We moved into our new house without furniture. Nothing makes a first night in a city where you know no one more welcoming than two sleeping bags on the floor of a curtainless master bedroom when the sun doesn’t set until 10 PM.
Chris bought us a bed the next day.
Vivian and William fared better. When we moved back to Canada, we didn’t bother shipping their two cribs. First, we didn’t know if they would meet Canadian standards, and we didn’t want the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to ride up on their steeds, inspect the width between the crib bars, and haul the beds away. Instead, we shipped two playpens that didn’t meet North American standards either. At least our little suckers had beds.
Settling in was difficult. I spent the first week crawling after William and Vivian, shoving plug protectors into electrical outlets before our babies channeled their inner Benjamin Franklin. Chris, meanwhile, assembled IKEA furniture for the duration it would take a drunk person to say, “Allen key” six billion times. We also put up mini crowd-control gates everywhere, turning the first floor of our house into a baby Alcatraz.
We went on outings, too, trying to find things in our quiet suburb, like a bank. We were there setting up accounts, getting credit cards, and ensuring our mortgage wasn’t going to have us eating at the soup kitchen. It was all a little depressing.
We were loading Vivian and William back into their car seats when I confessed to Chris. “I robbed the bank.”
“Yeah, right,” he said.
“No, really,” I said. “I stole something.”
“A pen?”
“Better. Much, much better.”
I shut the rear door and climbed into the passenger seat. “It’s in here,” I said, motioning to the diaper bag.
“Let’s see the bounty,” Chris said.
I pulled out a phonebook and flashed my best Ma Barker smile.
Parenting Tip: If you rob a bank, don’t brag about it in front of your children or in a book.
We’d been told the previous day that the city was out of phonebooks and that we wouldn’t be able to get any until November. Given that neither of us had a smart phone, this proved challenging. How could
you call the Internet providers or cable companies if you couldn’t find their phone number?
“Well done,” Chris said. “It’s not quite as big as the flower arrangements you used to walk out of Bangkok hotels with. Remember? You’d even get the security guards to help you.”
I nodded. Maybe the next time I’d steal a plant. We didn’t have any of those either.
Our first “fun” family outing was to the zoo. It was nearing the end of August. The temperature was 65°F when we arrived. Within two hours, the mercury plummeted to 39°F.
William and Vivian were not only being chased by freeroaming peacocks, they were shivering. Snow clouds gathered in the sky. “What kind of city did you move us to?” I asked Chris.
“One with a mountainous climate.”
“We aren’t in Bangkok anymore, that’s for sure,” I said. “I want our nanny. Or at least a winter coat.”
The night before I started teaching, I decided to quit breastfeeding. Vivian and William were fifteen months old and pretty unimpressed with this whole boob thing. For the previous week, I’d been waking them up at 10 PM for their only feed of the day. With them drinking cow’s milk out of glasses, my udders became redundant.
My timing could have been better. I could have waited for a long weekend or for any weekend. But I didn’t. So by the second day of school, I was engorged and desperately praying I didn’t see a baby anywhere. I wore three shirts and five breast pads just in case.
One night after putting our kids to bed, I was cleaning the kitchen and about to start on a mountain of grading.
“What’s that thumping?” Chris asked.
I paused hockey practice, my euphemism for sweeping.
Our house came with a VacPan—an automatic dust pan in the kitchen—which made sweeping a sport. Abandoned Cheerios made great pucks, the broom a decent hockey stick, the VacPan a net. I was perfecting my broom slap shot. The fact that my ratio of crushed Cheerios to actual goals was 3:1 did not deter me.
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