BY: Linda S. Clare
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
A few days after I brought my surprise twins home from the hospital, I was exhausted. My husband and I already had two boys. Overnight, our family had doubled in size to six. The wise advice to "sleep when the babies sleep" proved elusive when I was also chasing after a first-grader and a preschooler. By the end of the new babies' second week, I'd put the milk jug in the oven, brushed my teeth with hand cream and left my purse at the grocery checkout.
Friends and relatives dropped by with casseroles, but everyone I knew seemed terrified to take two newborns for even an hour. Life became an endless parade of feeding and changing, with my oldest son Nathan's math homework thrown in for good measure. Had I ever known the answer to nine take away three? As Nathan reminded, "That's easy, Mom. Just count how many in our family." After that, he asked his dad for help with arithmetic. I was a mom in desperate need of sleep.
Every day I plotted what I'd do if I found time. If only I could get the twins comfortable and down for a nap, I kept thinking, I'd do something important, like get dressed or wash my hair. But the kids always found my time before I did.
I finally broke down. I told my husband he could either entertain our two older boys for a few hours or else watch his wife have a meltdown. He wisely said, "I'll take them fishing!" I waved to the three of them as they drove off.
That afternoon, I sat on my bed and reveled in the quiet. The babies, looking cherubic in their bassinettes, both napped longer than usual. They each had the sweetest little rosebud-shaped mouths, the same wispy brown hair. My head touched my pillow, and I fell asleep, too.
I awoke with a start. At 5:00 P.M., my three fishermen were still gone. The babies weren't crying. I checked the twins, thinking that I shouldn't have let them sleep so long. I woke them -- something no mom should ever do -- and fed them, but the rest of the family still wasn't home.
On a whim, I decided to give my bundles of joy their first tub bath. I brought out the cute hooded towels I'd received as gifts and the miniature bottles of baby shampoo, lotion and powder. I used my elbow to test the bath water. One at a time, I bathed my newborns, and then swaddled each in a towel.
I dressed them in fresh diapers and laid them side by side on my bed. They kicked and cooed, two perfect children waving their newborn arms. But their hospital ID bands, which read "Baby A" and "Baby B," caught my eye. Wasn't it about time to snip those bands off? I grabbed a pair of scissors and went to work, thinking about how I'd scrapbook the bracelets in their baby book.
Suddenly, terror gripped me. Which baby was which? I stared down at my two-week-old twins and tried to think. I began to sob.
Just then, Nathan and Chris burst into the bedroom. "We're home!" Chris shouted. I nodded, still crying. My husband rushed to my side. "What's wrong?" He anxiously eyed the babies, still on the bed.
I sputtered and blubbered, but managed to blurt out what I'd done. "Now I'll never be able to tell them apart," I wailed.
My husband looked stunned for a moment, and then put his arms around me. "Take off their diapers," he whispered, grinning. I was so tired I'd forgotten that boy/girl twins aren't exactly alike.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/01/Seeing-Is-Believing.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter
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