SLIDER

one year old

11.05.2018

We made it!

Reese and Rowan turn ONE today and I can barely believe it. A year ago today, we had absolutely no idea that the twins would be making their very early debut.

The first 36 hours of their life was intense. After rushing to the hospital when my water broke and delivering a few hours later, I was in complete shock as I sat alone in the recovery room.

We have come SO far since that terrifying night. We weathered two long, stressful, and scary weeks in the NICU. We got through the first four months of sleep deprivation and witching hours. We swaddled and re-swaddled. We changed thousands of diapers. We made the tough choice to switch to formula. We made twelve bottles a day. We flew across the country. We sleep trained. We nap trained.  We found a nanny. We found time for work and working out. We started solids. We hated solids. We drank wine, a lot of wine. We took a kid-free vacation! We found a new apartment. We moved. We drank more wine.

The last twelve months have been the hardest months of my entire life. I was wholly unprepared for how incredibly overwhelming and intense it would be to keep two infants alive (and thriving!). In the beginning, it was pure survival mode. We did whatever we could to just function. I spent countless hours pushing the stroller up steep hills. I spent the same number of hours crying about everything from a spilled bottle to actually drinking hot cup of coffee. I had a hard time admitting how hard it all was.

But it's absolutely true what everyone says about blocking things out, I barely remember those early days. I feel like I never snuggled my babies enough. And at the same time, I kept wanting them to grow up. To grow out of the fussy, needy phase.

And now, on the verge of being toddlers, I feel like the days are slipping away. The days are still really hard. They are into everything and have a lot of opinions. Sometimes the skip a whole nap and the day is totally derailed. Sometimes they both need me to hold them at exactly the same moment. Some days I want to lock myself in a closet and never come out. And yet, I want them to be little forever.

There is absolutely nothing that could have prepared me for this first year as a mom. Not a thing.



How We Built Our Babysitting Team in San Francisco

11.02.2018

When we moved out to San Francisco last summer, we left all our family behind on the East Coast. That also meant we left all our built-in babysitters behind as well. As soon as the twins were born, I became keenly aware of how challenging it would be to find a babysitter. I also knew that while it terrified me to leave my babies with a relative stranger, it was going to be imperative that my husband and I maintained the occasional date night.

Read the full post here!


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