Buy Now

Excerpt continued from Ready or Not...Here We Come!

Accept that you will not dine on a gourmet meal every night unless you can afford a personal chef. In fact, there are still many nights when I find a bowl of cereal absolutely delicious, and as I mention later, I still rely heavily on the power of the multi-vitamin.

Accept that your holiday cards may not go out until March. As my husband frequently comments, “There aren’t enough hours in the day or adults in this house!” If you allow it, you will have seven-mile-long to-do listsand that’s okay, provided you train yourself to prioritize three or four to-dos in a week instead of in a day, as might have been your practice in the past.

Accept that, in most cases, having uncompleted to-dos at the end of the day is not the end of the world. Most parents of twins marvel at how flexible they become. As innately organized and efficient human beings, they never would have imagined they’d choose to spend an evening watching a movie before they cleaned the dirty dishes. Or, that, pulling out of their driveway to go meet Santa Clause, they’d switch gears—literally—because one of the babies’ diapers exploded all over her brand new Christmas outfit (the white one). For most parents, this shift in mentality is as much of a blessing as the arrival of their children. They have a newfound awareness of those truly important things in life versus the merely peripheral details.

If you weren’t organized before, I guarantee you will be soon. If you were organized before, you’re going to “kick it up a notch,” as renowned chef (and father of twins) Emeril Lagasse would say.

I was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital in pre-term labor when I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, and I came home for only twenty-four hours before I went into unstoppable labor and delivered Jack and Henry at thirty-five weeks and two days. The boys were in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for sixteen days before we were able to bring them home. What the boys’ little vacation in the NICU gave us was the extremely positive chance to get things as ready as time permitted. But to be perfectly honest, the best way to organize is simply to live it and see what works for you. It won’t be more than fifteen hours before you’ll have some high-priority challenges that need solutions. Fast. And you’ll come up with them just as quickly as does every other mother of multiples. Remember, you would not have been blessed with multiples if someone didn’t have complete and utter confidence that you were up to the challenge.

Have empowering mantras at-the-ready. My mother-in-law taught me the mantra she invented to deal with challenging people or situations: Breathe. Smile. Love.

Breathing always helps. One, you need oxygen to live through the challenging moment. Two, deep breathing lowers your blood pressure and helps you calm down. One breathing exercise I recently learned is, take a deep breath, and on the exhale quietly say, “Ahhhh.” Say it almost as a whisper. For some reason, this exercise provides a subtle release of frustration, which is helpful during moments of extreme stress.

A smile—even if forced—dulls the most agitated psyche. It sounds insane, but in your most harried moment—whether dealing with crying babies or a stranger who captures that parking spot you’ve waited on for five minutes—a simple smile relaxes you.

As for the Love portion of her mantra, my mother-in-law believes everything comes down to our ability to love in all circumstances. I often tell her that I simply cannot love the idiots who steal my parking spaces. She reminds me to love myself in those moments. Choose an approach, she says, that prevents me from losing precious moments being angry with someone who is not directing an ounce of positive energy in my direction. Point taken.

I had the good fortune of meeting seven amazing women through a Marvelous Multiples birthing class at our local hospital a few months before our babies were born. (See http://www.marvelousmultiples.com for more information on this program and to find out about local class offerings.) We hit it off as though we’d known each other in a prior life. Together, we went through pregnancy, bed rest, and hospitalization; and, finally, parenting. The hospital staff still marvels at our group, often referring to it as the “multiples” sorority because we bonded so quickly.