Our Week

It has been a rough week. The weather is finally cooling off which makes me very happy, but it's been raining non-stop for pretty much the entire week. I really can't get out with the boys by myself when it's raining without getting them completely soaked, so we stayed home all day, every day this week. Both boys have been teething, Evan worse than Carter. We thought he was getting 4 teeth at once and we found at least one more but I think there's two more (it's hard to spend a lot of time looking in a fussy toddler's mouth without getting bit) so he's getting between 5-7 teeth at once, and they're the molars and canines and obviously very painful. He has not been himself this week and is fussy pretty much anytime he's awake. The upside is that he's taking great naps, though. Thursday the rain finally let up a little, but I had signed up to be a drop off location for from 9-2 for baked goods. The MOMs group is holding a Diaper Drive and Bake Sale tomorrow and it's a pretty big event for our group, it was even featured on the news (we live in a small town, so I guess that's not that big of a deal) so I had to be home until 2:00. It was definitely the worst day so far for Evan's teething (ever--like, in his entire 12 months) poor Carter got his fingers shut in a door and fell down some stairs--two seperate incidents. It was an awful day. When Greg got home, we loaded up the boys and went for a drive, they fell asleep and we were able to get an early dinner and eat in the car and then ran to Sam's Club to pick up a few things before going home. One of the sweet sample ladies there has 24 year old twins and always talks to us while we're there. She was giving out free diapers, wipes and formula that day and when she saw us, she made her way over to us to make sure we got some (so nice!!) and we hadn't been talking about anything with the boys, the boys were being really good, we were just looking at kids books and she started telling us about her twins and how she thought this was the hardest age. When they're smaller they sleep all the time and when they're a little older they're easier to entertain and can talk and understand what's going on, but around 1 was the hardest time for her. She said she'd have days where she would say "why did I want this again?" She said they would bite or pull each other's hair, teeth, etc. and it was exhausting. She said it just gets better and better, so much so that she actually had two more kids after her twins. It was exactly what we needed to hear! Greg told her she was describing our situation exactly. I could have cried right there in Sam's Club. It's such a relief to hear this from another mom of twins. Nobody knows what having twins is like, except for other mom's of twins. We love our boys and most of the time, things are great, but we definitely have our days and it's really hard when those days seem to happen all at once. It can be discouraging. She was so sweet and it was really nice talking to her. A lot of situations with twins are specific to having twins. A lot of people we know offer very simplistic suggestions that just aren't possible with twins, a lot of people think that having two kids is basically the same thing as having twins-it's not. I think having an older and younger child has it's own unique challanges that we know nothing about, but it's definitely not the same as having twins. (not harder or easier, just not the same) We know a lot of people are very well meaning with their advice that we didn't ask for, but sometimes it's hard to listen to because they have no idea what it's like with twins.

This random stranger in Sam's Club really made our day. It really helped us put things back in perscpective and know that this is just a season and it will pass. I just think it's so weird that somebody else came up out of nowhere without knowing our situation that day and said the EXACT things we needed to hear. I love how things have a way of working out.

I hate writing about teething or being stuck in the house due to rain. I like my blog to be a fun update of all things positive with the boys, but it's been a rough week. I wanted to remember this other mom of twins who made our day and I also want to remember the hard days of teething, falling down stairs (he's completely fine) slamming fingers in doors, etc. Especially when we're completely past this stage and on to new things. One day, I know I'm going to look back on this and think "teething, I'd take teething any day over this" or when their injuries are broken arms or sprained ankles because of sports or playground equipment--I'll be thinking "I remember when a bad day was a squished finger and all it took to make it better was singing the abc's"