the bufflogals’ best baby gear: a one year retrospective

From the top, let me make it clear: no one sponsors me. These are just the things I like after a year of this baby gig. These are all things either we purchased for ourselves or received as gifts at our showers.

Still, I know what it’s like to be hunting blogs looking for REAL information on baby gear, to be Googling “how to register for twins,” totally overthinking the baby gear, so I thought it might be helpful for someone out there to share the stuff that really got us through this past year, as well as the stuff that turned out to be not worth the hype. Let’s start with…

STROLLERS:

The thing I probably obsessed over the most was the double stroller. A double stroller is CRUCIAL for a twin mom, because you basically can’t go anywhere alone without it. I read lots of reviews and lots of message boards before settling on the Baby Jogger City Select. Mostly, I love it. It worked great when the girls were in their infant car seats, because I got the adapters. It was so easy to unfold the stroller, pop on the second adapter, and click the seats into place. I also love how smooth it pushes, how easy it turns thanks to its compact size, the giant basket, and the off-road-able wheels. Dislikes: you have to take off at least one of the seats to fold it, and really both of them to get it to fold down to its smallest size. Also: it takes up almost the entirety of our Pontiac Vibe’s hatchback.

The gals enjoying an early days walk with their car seats snapped into the Baby Jogger.

Baby Jogger with the seats facing backward and fully reclined.

For the last few weeks, the stroller getting the most use is our new one, a MacLaren Twin Triumph the girls got from their Nana and Papa for their birthday. It folds super small, is very light weight, and has worked great for getting the girls into and out of daycare and stores and even on a picnic. It’s definitely a bumpier ride, but the gals actually love that–they like to make little sounds and hear their voices go up and down as they bump along. It’s about a third of the price of a BJCS, and if you had a Double Snap and Go for the infant car seat days, would probably make a great choice as a main stroller, provided you aren’t into a lot of off roading.

Enjoying the botanical gardens in the Twin Triumph.

BABY CARRIERS:

If I didn’t have twins, I have a feeling I’d be a babywearing-obsessed hippie mama. It’s just *so much easier* to strap a baby to your body and go about your business than it is to haul a stroller around. I may get a little jealous of singleton moms who can wear their babies all the time. I’ve tried: a Moby Wrap, a linen ring sling (that I made!), a BabyBjorn, a BabyBjorn Air, a mei tai style wrap and tie carrier, and an Ergo. Here’s what I thought of them:

• Moby Wrap: was excellent when Etta the attachment baby was a tiny, clingy newborn. Once I got the hang of tying it properly, we loved it. She always felt super snug and super secure, even when she was super duper tiny. Still, getting it on and the baby in place felt like a bit of a production, and I almost never wore it outside the house. Also: you’re basically strapping a hot water bottle to your body using yards and yards of fabric. It got hot hot hot in the Arkansas summer after the girls were born, and I can’t imagine wearing it a lot outdoors in the heat.
  
• Ring sling: Once the girls were able to hold their heads up and sit on a hip, I loved it especially for hip carries, but it was great from the start, even with a front hug hold with a tiny baby. I wore a baby in it on my hip for an entire holiday party (when they were about 9 months old), and I still use it now that they’re one. If forced to choose between the Moby and the ring sling, I just might choose the ring sling, because while I’ve unloaded my Mobys, I’m still using the sling. I ordered my rings online and made my sling using these instructions.
• The BabyBjorns: I loved these when the girls were about 6 months to 9 months. I may have wondered to myself why this carrier has so many haters, and why anyone would pay all that money for an Ergo. I found it easy to get on and off, and easy to get baby in and out of. Being able to face them in or out was especially nice. But by about 9 months, they had reached a weight that really started to take a toll on my back, and the way the Bjorn put all the weight between my shoulder blades wasn’t helping. I have since unloaded the Bjorns.
  

  How you fly with baby twins.

• My mei tai carrier was an Infantino Wrap and Tie I got on super sale. I liked it, but not as much as the Moby or Bjorns, so I gave it to a friend. I can imagine it would have had similar limitations as the Bjorns, being hard on my back as the babies got bigger.
• The Ergo: like the one ring of baby carriers. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have skipped the Bjorns and the mei tai and just gotten an Ergo. Much like the way a backpacking pack has a waist strap to help you carry the weight on your pelvis instead of your back, the Ergo shifts the weight of baby to a much more natural, comfortable position. I still use this carrier all the time, and I know people still using them well into toddlerhood. Don’t screw around. Just get one. Or, if facing baby outward on your front is really important to you, consider a similarly-designed Beco that offers that option. You can even get an infant insert that allows this to be the only carrier you need from birth through toddlerhood.
  

  A very bundled Etta in the Ergo on a snowy day.

If you are trying to not get ALL THE CARRIERS, here is my recommendation: get a ring sling and an Ergo or Beco Gemini (like an Ergo or Boba with the added option that baby can face out when worn on your front) or Boba. The ring sling will be great for tiny baby days, or when they’re older and you do hip holds, or when you don’t want to haul a big soft-structured carrier around. The Ergo/Beco/Boba will continue to be comfy as baby grows, even into toddlerhood.

OTHER GEAR:

• Baby Gowns. Everyone told me I just had to have gowns to make middle of the night diaper changes easier. Except to me, gowns were just always a hassle. Feet were always escaping, and worse yet, the gowns kept me from being able to put the girls in the swing and the bouncer, both of which were the keys to us getting any sleep in the early days. And you know, no matter how sleepy I get, I can still snap snaps or zip zippers. 
• Bibs. People love to gift bibs, but not all bibs are created equally. After a year, I have concluded that you only need three types of bibs. My first bib love was the Aden+Anais dribble bib. It doubles as a burp cloth and is a great thing to have in a diaper bag for on the go feeding. The second type I loved are just plain terrycloth teething bibs. They were GREAT in the spit-up days, and I still put them on the girls on runny-nosed days (they make great nose wipes that are always handy because they’re around baby’s neck) or on particularly drool-y days. The third, and as far as I am concerned, the only bibs worth buying for your solids-eating baby are Bumkins bibs. They’re cute, they’ve got a handy pocket to catch drops and dribbles, and they’re super easy to wash in the sink because they’re super thin and they dry quickly. Also, you can machine wash them without them falling apart, unlike some of the laminated type bibs we tried. Seriously, don’t waste your time on other bibs.
  

  Aden+Anais bib.

  

  Terry bib.

  

  Bumkins bib.

• Swaddles. It’s true that babies love to be swaddled, but not all swaddles are created equally. I tried the Miracle Blanket, but I’m pretty sure it’s smarter than I am, and I could never get it on right–arms always escaped. Similarly, I loved the Aden+Anais muslin swaddle blankets for just about everything except swaddling– it’s not always easy to get a baby swaddled in them correctly. Ultimately, what worked the best for us were the Halo Sleep Sack Swaddles. I even ended up cutting the swaddle part off of one of the sacks so I could swaddle Etta’s arms and still put her into the bouncer.
  

  Swaddled and ASLEEP in their Halo Sleep Sack Swaddles.

• The Nosefrida Snot Sucker. Let me be blunt: those bulb syringes you’re supposed to use to clean out a baby nose? They suck. Or rather, they don’t. And when you’ve got an exhausted, germy baby who can’t sleep because she can’t breathe and all you want to do is sleep, you will do anything, even things that seem kinda gross, to get the snot out. The NoseFrida uses the suction you can generate with your mouth to suck that gunk right outta baby’s nose. Couple it with a few squirts of saline before you suck, and you’ve got a magic nose-clearing machine. I promise, there’s a filter and a whole lotta tubing that insures none of that gunk gets anywhere near your mouth, just out of baby’s nose. Baby will breathe easier, and you’ll all be able to sleep. Get one.
• THE BABY BJORN BABYSITTER BALANCE SEAT. This is my number one most favorite baby thing. Etta, especially, needs to have the heck bounced out of her to calm her when she’s upset and often to help her get to sleep. I can really make the Bjorn seat bounce with my feet– like, head-bobbing bounce. Also, they’re good looking. I know, we’d all put our kiddos in the ugliest thing ever if it meant less screaming and more sleep, but the Bjorn seats are just really good looking. Even better, they fold completely flat, which makes them super handy in a small apartment or house, and even better for toting them around. When the girls were still largely lumps, we’d take the seats with us to friends’ houses so we’d have a place to park babies while eating and hanging out. The covers are also super easy to remove and wash, and the seats have a high weight limit. We’re still using the heck out of them after the first birthday, and I know we’ll be using them for a while yet, but, thanks to a good design, the girls were also secure in the seats even as little tinies. I am not even the least bit exaggerating when I say I’m not sure we’d have survived the first year with twins without these seats. Best baby gear we own.

TINY Claire in the BabySitter.

Slightly older and enjoying some porch time.

Just last week. Knocks her out every time.

but which one’s older?

Last night I was reading a New York Times profile of Megan Rapinoe, a soccer star I really admire. The piece mentioned that she has a twin sister, and went out of it’s way to let readers know that her sister is “older by 11 minutes.” Cue the sound of a record scratching in my mind.

I have twin daughters. People love to ask us questions in public, and one of their favorites is “Which one is older?”

Let me stop right here. Say you meet someone. Say it comes up that you were both born on March 28. Would you ask that stranger what precise hour and minute he or she was born? Or would you just say, “Wow, we have the same birthday! We’re the same age!”

I think people ask this question because, like most of our first-meeting questions, we’re trying to “place” people and figure them out. Asking about birth order lets us know which one is supposed to be the bossy older sibling, and which one is supposed to be the attention-seeking youngest. People even seem to believe that the “older” twin should also be the bigger one, as if the 6 lb. size difference that currently exists between Etta and Claire could be attributed to a head start gained by a few extra minutes out in the world. These things are stereotypes at best, and they’re simply not useful in the case of twins, and, I believe, can be harmful. It attempts to impose a hierarchy where none exists.

I have heard about “older” twins lording it over younger twins, and about parents who truly treat their twins as if there is some sort of inborn difference that results from what is essentially the luck of the draw. Wherever an egg implants in the uterus, the twin closest to the “exit” is born first. And in the case of a c-section, isn’t it just whom the surgeon grabs first?

In a society that loves to label people and to lump twins together, I want my girls to feel loved and supported for the individuals they are, not shoehorned into some sort of role, be it birth order, or gender, or religion, or whatever. I don’t want strangers deciding that one is “the bossy one” because she’s “older” or something. I’m even thinking I may just keep mum on the whole thing if asked. Because really, from the moment of conception, their cells have been dividing the same. The entire time I was pregnant, they were the same gestational age. They still are. Who was first pulled out into the sterile brightness of the operating room really doesn’t matter much to me.

Etta and Claire’s First Fiesta

Well, it’s official. My baby girls are now leaving the baby stage behind and headed toward toddlerhood, as they are ONE! I’d be sad about how quickly time has passed, and continues to pass, but they are mostly so much fun right now that who can be sad about that? They’re exploring and learning and growing and really coming into themselves personality wise. They interact with each other more than ever, and their relationship is so cool to watch. Etta will be walking any day now, and we hope Claire will be catching up soon, as she’s getting started with PT and OT (I promise a complete Claire update soon). Basically: having one year old twins is just crazy and busy and cool, and I don’t have time to be too wistful.

We celebrated the first year of their lives, and the fact that we survived it, with a fiesta full of people we love and who love us. My fashionista sister not only came all the way from Nashville with her new FIANCE and two pugs in tow, but she also took lots of pictures with her big fancy camera. So, now you get to share in what was a truly lovely day, despite gray, drizzly skies that forced what was supposed to be a back yard party indoors. Not that location matters much when you have a margarita machine, you know?

In which I compare having dogs and having babies

We used to be smug first time parents.

Dog parents, that is.

See, when we got our first dog Bessie, we just went to a shelter one day, found a pretty cute pup who seemed playful and friendly, and took her home. There was some puppy chewing of throw pillows and Playstation controllers, but for the most part, she was a freakishly good dog– well behaved, friendly, easy to get along with. Naturally, we thought this was all our doing. We’d go to other people’s houses and encounter unruly dogs who jumped up or begged for food or used the bathroom in the house, and we’d leave thinking to ourselves, what is wrong with them? They’re clearly doing a terrible job as pet parents! We’d think, if only they were as good as we are, they wouldn’t allow that behavior.

Then we got a second dog.

Olive, it turns out, is a vastly different dog, despite our clearly superior dog parenting abilities. In the years we’ve had her, we’ve been completely unable to teach her not to put her paws on us or attempt to climb in our laps or onto the furniture, both places she isn’t allowed. We have had to come to a very shocking conclusion: it’s not that we’re amazing dog owners, we just had a really amazing first dog.

This is a realization I think more first time parents need to come to. It’s a realization we’ve come to yet again as we parent twins who, at every turn, seem determined to remind us that they are very distinct individuals. It started when Claire began sleeping through the night on her own at about 3 months old. Etta still hasn’t mastered that feat. Baby sleep in particular seems to be an area in which everyone fancies themselves an expert. Particularly if they have one kid, the baby equivalent of a Bessie dog, they’ll happily tell you that all you need to do is exactly what they did, and you too will have a baby who sleeps through the night. I hope their next baby is an Olive, every time. Because even though we use the exact same techniques and parenting styles on both of our girls, one sleeps and one doesn’t. We can’t anymore take credit for Claire’s awesome sleeping abilities than we can the blame for Etta’s lack thereof.

The same thing happened with food. Claire took happily to purees quite easily (around 6 months), while Etta has always refused to let us spoon feed her. Several months later, at 10 months, and Etta has only recently decided that while she still hates purees, she’ll willingly chow down on any food she can hold in her own fist. Truly baby-led Baby Led Weaning. I can’t take credit for how either of my girls eats, really, either– they each just do their thing, and I figure out what that thing is through trial and error.

So, you parents of one baby who think you’ve got the whole sleeping and eating figured out through your superior skills? Your kid is probably a Bessie. The next one just might be an Olive.

time flies: a nursery grows up

It’s been months since I posted. It turns out life with twins as a grad student is a little busy, and then you add in the holidays, and you end up with a bit of a hiatus. I also think I’ve sort of been stuck in this rut where, unless a post is some sort of profound meditation on life and parenthood and whatnot, I don’t post it, and frankly, inspiration isn’t easy to find for the sleep deprived whose days are an endless cycle of feeding, changing, snuggling, and playing with babies. So, I’m going to try to get back into posting with less pressure on myself for every post to be some sort of major epiphany.

I figured I’d start with showing you the girls’ room lately, which has gone from a baby space to a space that better functions as a twin toddlers’ room. We’ve changed it around a lot to meet their needs as they are now very nearly ten months old. I know. Two months away from ONE YEAR. It’s insanity how the time has both crept and flown. (You can find the original nursery reveal here.)

I wanted the girls’ room to be more of a play space as they are now starting to be mobile and into everything, and I wanted them to have a safe space to explore. They got a lot of awesome toys from friends and family for Christmas, so we desperately needed some toy storage. Luckily, my husband is a super handy guy, and he built something amazing after seeing a few of my ideas on Pinterest.

To make space, we took out the futon and put in a secondhand chair. I will say, I am SO GLAD we had the futon for the first 8 months. Just to be able to lie down in there, or to rest the babies on either side of me in Boppies and feed both at the same time, was wonderful. I highly recommend a bed or couch in a nursery.

Anyway, here’s the space now, with before and afters for comparison.

Then:

Now:

Then:

Now:

Here’s a closeup of the new toy storage, built by my awesome husband!

The girls can crawl right up and grab blocks and toys out of the bottom bins, and if they’re sitting up, they can reach the shelf. As soon as they’re pulling up, it will be even more accessible. It was important to me that the toys be in view so they could easily see their options and get them for themselves. I had a feeling this would work better than a box or bin, because stuff on the bottom of a bin would be forgotten and never played with.

Then:

Now:

Here you can see the bucket we got to store stuffed animals, as well as one of my favorite things in the entire room, the canvas with the Vonnegut quote. It was a gift from a friend I met through Twitter, a “you survived” gift after all I went through getting the gals into the world. It is from a story in which a character is delivering a baptismal speech for twins, so it’s super apt. It says, “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies– You’ve got to be kind.” I think it’s a great rule.

Overall, the girls have the best-decorated room in our house, and we still haven’t bought a single new piece of furniture beyond the cribs, which were a gift from their grandparents. As I type, the girls are playing in the floor and I’m sitting in the chair.

she will know that i am mother

I’m in my next to last week of classes for my MA program. I’m in the middle of a bunch of academic writing on books like Beloved, Ceremony, and Salvage the Bones, all of which explores the power and ferocity of woman- and mother-hood.

I’m also quietly in the trenches, dealing with a sick baby who’s been running a high fever and barfing so much she had three baths in one day yesterday. It’s a funny thing, the juxtaposition of all of my intellectual thinking about motherhood as some sort of abstract force against the raw power of literal motherhood as this thing that I do, this person I am as I hold a tiny person and just go ahead and let her finish vomiting all over me, just sit there and let it happen, because I know she’s not done yet and attempting to move, or get out of the path of the flow will just exacerbate the mess.

The last lines of Salvage the Bones (which, I swear, this isn’t a spoiler) are “She will know that I have kept watch, that I have fought…She will know that I am a mother.” In this case, I am the she. I am the one who knows. And I am the one who is. In caring for my sick baby, just as I have already many times before in my 8 month stint, just as I will many times to come, I just become unblinkingly confronted with this new fact of my existence. I am a mother. I am the heart that beats the rhythm of comfort under the skin and bones upon which rests the fevered cheek of the one who is flesh of my flesh. What a strange and wonderful privilege it is to provide that resting place. To encircle that tiny, weary person with my arms. To know that I am her mother.

Reading Salvage the Bones with Claire resting in my lap. Etta was napping in the bouncer that I rocked with my feet. It’s how this mother gets her schoolwork done.

the wonder of opening up

Me and one of my sick, sweet babies. Still smiling!

The other day, I wrote a really honest post about the exhausting hardness that is being a parent to two small children and trying to do just about anything else. I was feeling incompetent at life, and because I’m a writer, because literally that is who I am, because even the code of my DNA probably spells words, the way I worked out those feelings was to write them. And cry.

And then something amazing happened: that post got (as of this writing) 21 amazing comments. And on Facebook, where I also shared it, I got 12 other amazing comments, plus a couple of supportive private messages. And the support continued on Twitter. And this morning, a lovely friend took the time to send me an email that warmed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. While one commenter called me a downer, every single other woman who commented did two things: they affirmed that my feelings were normal and OK, and they assured me, things do get better. Time passes. Nothing stays the same. It was an amazing experience of the best of the internet and its power to bring us together and let us know we are not alone. I am beyond grateful. Today, even though I’m home, still in my pjs at 3 pm with two sick babies who have croup and are just beyond pitiful, my heart is lighter. And I feel strong and confident.

Buoyed by this love and more than a little indignant at the downer comment, I posted this on Facebook:

And while I’m actually kind of proud of that line and think it really says it all, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what it means to be a woman, a mother, and a writer, and what it means to put my heart out into the world through my words, and I’ve found (shock me shock me) that I still have some more to say.

Despite a comment that would minimize and silence my giving voice to my experiences with the more painful side of motherhood, I will not be minimized and silenced. Tellingly, that comment, the only one that wasn’t encouraging in some way, came from a man. I’m taking a course on women writers this term, and over and over in the works I’ve studied, women writers depict women writers with men in their lives who don’t understand why they can’t just be content, grateful even, with their lives as wives and mothers. Why they feel a yearning for more, why they simply must write. Any woman who, like me, attempts to express anything but sweetness and light concerning motherhood feels the need to qualify it with caveats about how much they really do love their children, husbands, and homes, for fear of being criticized by a society that constantly tells us to be grateful and enjoy every moment.

All that does is leave you feeling guilty when you inevitably fail to live up to that standard.

Based on the love that was poured out to me when I poured out my heart, I have to say: it is worth that risk. Because when you pour out your heart, you invite others to do the same, and they will, and you will feel less alone. The great Flannery O’Connor wrote in one of her letters: ”In the face of anyone’s experience, someone like myself who has had almost no experience, must be humble.” We don’t get to tell other people how to understand, frame, or feel about their experience. But we can let them know that they’re not alone in having it.

I’m so thankful to all the folks who let me know that I’m not alone this week or in this life. You have been a model for how I hope to respond the next time the shoe is on the other foot and someone opens themselves up.

incompetence

“Mine are three. It doesn’t get any better.”

That’s what she said to me as I wheeled my two baby girls into daycare this morning. “I’m sure they keep you busy. Mine are three. It doesn’t get any better.”

Well, I guess there’s no “It gets better” project for twin moms.

Which sucks, because for the last few days I just feel like life is hard. I feel incompetent. Like, not only can’t I do it all, but I can’t even do the little bit that I want to do. The little bit that I thought was achievable.

All I want to be when I grow up is an English professor. I’m beginning to think it will never happen. I’m beginning to think I won’t even get my freakin’ masters, let alone a PhD, because it’s all I can do to take two classes per term and stay on top of my coursework. A full load for most people is three courses, but two seriously puts me at my limit. And don’t even get me started on studying for my comps exam, which I’m supposed to be doing somehow on top of and outside of my course work. I truly cannot find the time. Not that I know where the time goes, except that there is always someone to be held or fed or changed, forever and ever, amen. Sometimes I manage to make dinner, or do a little laundry, but please don’t look at the tumbleweeds of dog hair on my floors or my dirty toilets and sinks. We’re just getting by here. Every night that we put two babies to bed feels like a victory.

And yet a few of my profs found out I hadn’t signed up to take the comps this term, and they told me I should take it, so I decided to give it a try, despite the whole not studying thing. And then I had a disaster morning and a baby peed on me, and a car seat came unbuckled in my moving car, and earlier daycare drop off was a nightmare, and I was ten minutes late for the first day of the test, and the door was barred to me, and there were many many public tears. And then someone fought for me, and I got to take it after all, and I’m still pretty sure I failed. And I still rallied for Day 2, the essay portion, and I think I did ok on 2 essays, but I needed to write 3, and I just didn’t have an answer for any of my other options, so I came home, and went to bed. I am not used to feeling this incompetent

I can try again in the spring, and I will make a study schedule and try again in the spring, but I just feel so defeated. I feel like it is such a battle to just make time for my academic pursuits, and I know that it’s not going to get any better, and then I wonder about all of it, and what I’m doing with myself. And we have to maybe move again at the end of this year, and I have to maybe start a new life in a new place all over again, and make a life for two small people, and it’s just exhausting.

I feel like a broken record lately, “But I have two babies.” Two babies. So small. I underestimated them. Perhaps I overestimated myself. It’s just so very hard sometimes, and I can’t even really explain the hardness, except to say that it is. And right now it feels a little too much for me. Two classes I can do very well on top of two babies, but graduating might just prove to be too much.

So there’s that.

I was afraid to even write this because I know my family reads this now, and I know they will freak out and also give me a bunch of platitudes about how I can do it. But I just need to feel my feelings, right now, and this is what I’ve got.

 

Awareness

I found out today that October is Spina Bifida Awareness Month. My first thought was: what a crap choice in awareness months. I mean, everyone knows that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as pink has pretty much blanketed everything we see.

But then I thought, well, it’s just as well, since I’m generally skeptical of “awareness” in general. I mean, I’m not usually sure of what it accomplishes. Half of the pink I see this time of the year seems to have no real point, as most of us are aware that breast cancer exists, and the pinkwashing is often unaccompanied by anything about breast exams or early detection or risk factors or anything.

Feeding tiny Claire in the NICU.

I guess people are less aware of the realities of spina bifida. SB is a congenital defect of the “neural tube” which is the part of a fetus that eventually becomes the baby’s head and spine. Claire’s neural tube didn’t close properly, and when she was born, she had 4 centimeters of her spine visible from the outside. As a result of this defect, things like nerves weren’t hooked up properly, so she has/will have certain amounts of disability in her legs, bladder, and bowels, in addition to hydrocephalus, or fluid building up in her head (which for many people with SB requires surgery to place a shunt and drain the fluid, though we haven’t had that yet). While her spinal defect was one of the more severe types, she seems to have good enervation and musculature in her legs, and her doctors and physical therapists believe she will walk and will only need braces to support her ankles, though some people with SB require more extensive bracing or even use wheelchairs.

I certainly didn’t know all of this or really much about SB at all, and it really wasn’t even on my radar until my birthday last year, when we went in for a 20 week ultrasound, excited to finally learn our babies’ sexes, and instead learned that the baby we’d later name Claire had SB. It was a really scary, sad day.

But the thing I needed awareness of that day wasn’t just “spina bifida” as some vague concept. I needed to be aware of the beautiful reality that would be my daughter’s life. Yes, we both had a rocky start. She had surgery at two days old. She was separated from me for 9 days. She was in the NICU for two weeks. She had to stay on her belly for 6 weeks while her back healed. But despite all of that, she’s really just a baby. They’re all very needy. They’re all very fragile. They’re all very tiny. They’re all amazing little creatures. If you looked at my two girls today, you might not be able to guess which one has SB.

If I could go back to last December 16 and make myself aware of anything it would be this: Claire is beautiful. She is funny. She is sweet. She has a radiant smile. She loves to eat. She loves her mama and daddy. She is exploring and learning and growing every single day.

I was so worried about all the ways she’d be different from her able-bodied twin sister, but the reality is, they’re both just babies. They are completely different and yet so very much the same. And almost all of my worrying was completely unnecessary. That is what I needed to be aware of: that there was nothing to be afraid of.

So, no, you likely won’t see NFL teams raising awareness for SB this month, or yellow covering all your favorite products in the name of raising funds. And while you may not personally know anyone affected by SB, now you know a little more about our story, and a little more about my baby Claire, who is special, just like everyone else.

Claire the Bear today.

they come in peace (I hope)

Today, I have 6 month olds. I am still trying to wrap my mind around it, because in my crazy mom way of thinking, it’s like their babyhood is half over.

I’ve also recently come to a new understanding of the babies. I know in the past I’ve said that babies are pandas. And I still stand by that comparison. But I’ve come to a new way of understanding these tiny beings: they’re aliens, sent to learn about our way of life and report back to their people.

They watch us, but they don’t really understand what we’re saying, and we don’t exactly speak their language, either. They find our culture strange and often bewildering, but they’re generally willing to humor us, with our strange rituals and insistence on things like giving them baths and changing their diapers. They’re observing us and compiling data for their report to their leader, usually with a sort of detached wonder, the appropriate posture for a tiny scientist or anthropologist sent to another world, but occasionally their faces betray other emotions, and sometimes, they break down altogether under the strain of their difficult and top-secret mission.

I often wonder about the stories they’re going to take back to their leaders, but sometimes, when they scream in the middle of the night, I’m not so sure they really come in peace.