Emergency, emergency
I am getting five years older every day. I look in the mirror, and I see a middle aged man staring back at me, his eyes pleading: “Help me before it’s too late.”
Last Wednesday, I went home at lunchtime to move the car. One minute I’m walking down 17th Street, scanning the curb for empty spaces, the next I’m rolling on the pavement, unsure of how I got there. My arms and knees still hurt from the fall, though there’s no visible sign of damage — no brusies, swelling, or anything like that. Only one other person saw me go down, and she was kind, almost apologetic.
I love our girls, but they’re taking their toll on me. The lack of sleep is having a tremendous effect on my work, on my time, on my ability to carry on a coherent conversation. I wish I could say that every moment of fatherhood has brought me a bottomless well of joy and inspiration, but the reality is that I feel more like a baby manager than a parent. Feedings, changing diapers, and desperate attempts to rock one or either girl to sleep consume my spare time. I wonder if things would be easier if Tina and I were younger.
Whenever I hear singleton parents complain about their one, easy little baby, I want to tell them that it should be harder for them than it is. If the world was fair, it would be harder. I’ve never felt more jealous of anyone in my life than I feel about singleton parents. They can spend real time with their children, the quality time that makes parenting so worthwhile. Having one child would be a luxury.
Before the girls were born, I read a book called “The Poo Bomb” in which the father of a newborn baby offered endless complaints about the basics of parenting — dirty diapers, spitting up, having to clean his daughter’s private parts. He saw his daugther as a filthy little monster and made a lot of obvious and bad jokes about her.
In my case, our little girls are beautiful, and nothing they do makes me sick. I love them both so much. And we struggle to keep up with their discomforts, their colds and flu’s, their terrible teething pains. If only I had the luxury of time that he took for granted. Two parents for one child. Easy as pie.
If I can survive long enough to get them to five years old, I will consider myself a success. But if they don’t start sleeping solidly through the night again, I don’t know how I’ll make it.
Raising Twins | jeff | 11 December 2005 |
