How ironic/interesting/intriguing that just after Day 4’s post about learning dependence through having twins, we got hit with a new wave of overwhelming life events! And so now “day 5” of #write31days is happening on October 8th. I tend to panic if I’m behind what “should be.” I’m a mixture of type A and type B, enough type A to care about meeting deadlines and being on time, but too much type B to be able to consistently do so (without lots of stressing out for me and towards my family). I’d always known that having kids would prove challenging for the being-on-time part of me.

But having two babies at once? Well, that just blew right through any pretenses of punctuality and organization and having-it-all-together.

The problem is that I’ve been in denial and that I try to still act as if it’s only me who has to make it places on time. I do know after 36 years of self-observation how much time I need to get out the door on time. But five years into parenting twins, I still cannot predict how much time one or both of them will take to get out the door. We’ve had wonderful moments of speedy efficiency that surprised even me at their ability to get dressed-eat-breakfast-put-on-shoes-brush-teeth&hair-get-whatever-special-toys-they-must-have-today-and-grab-backpacks in order to get to preschool on time. The problem is that they trick me. I *know* that they can do all of the above in 15-20 minutes, so I assume that they *will* do all of the above in 15-20 minutes any given day of the week. Ha, ha, ha. Silly me. {For a hilarious YouTube video about this phenomena for all parents, check this out.}

The twin connection often means that one of them is operating under the “normal/fast/efficient” timeframe, but there is 100% more likelihood that her twin sister will not be.

And, no, it is not consistently one or the other. They trade off. So A. might be super-speedy on Monday, but L. has a freak-out because “I cannot find my LOVIE!!!!!!!” So then on Tuesday I make sure that L. has her lovie in plenty of time, but unbeknownst to me, A. is the one who will freak out because her green dress is “too SCRATCHY!!!!!!!”

It’s emotionally exhausting for someone who really, truly wants to be put-together but daily confronts the reality that I am not. The smallest things can tilt my well-ordered but precarious “balance.” And twins? Well – picture a supermarket after an earthquake (and an earthquake with multiple aftershocks). I’m still trying to put the pieces back together if I’m honest.

image from http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/4535/shop-damage

And I’m learning that there is no other better way to be than honest. Anything else? It’s too exhausting. 

During one of the hardest seasons of twin motherhood so far when the girls were 18-months-old, a friend introduced me to this poet-twin-mama, Sarah Dunning Park, who is beautiful inside and out and whose poetry book became a lifeline for me. Click here to read her poem “Resolution” which perfectly captures for me the gap between who I’d like to be and the reality of who I am – and she points to the grace needed to fill all those empty spaces.

If you want to continue to follow along, subscribe to my blog or like my Facebook page “Hidden Glory” to get updates. For the month of October, I’m participating in “Write31Days” and my series is “31 Days of Parenting Twins.”