By Jessica T
About this blog: I'm a late thirties mother of a ten-year-old and infant twins. My family moved to Menlo Park 6 years ago from Virginia - where I grew up, went to college, got married, had my first born, and got an MBA (in that order). I'm a manag...
(More)About this blog: I'm a late thirties mother of a ten-year-old and infant twins. My family moved to Menlo Park 6 years ago from Virginia - where I grew up, went to college, got married, had my first born, and got an MBA (in that order). I'm a manager at Google, Inc. (Please note: The views expressed in this blog are my personal views and not those of Google.) My husband grew up in Los Angeles and is a novelist and professor at San Jose State University. Our daughter attends the Menlo Park public schools, and I was a member of the Menlo Park-Atherton Education Foundation board for three years. I am now a board member for the Center for Literary Arts at SJSU. I struggled with secondary infertility for five years and recently conceived and delivered fraternal twins - a healthy baby girl and boy in May 2013. I've worked (and pursued my graduate degree) since my elder daughter was twelve weeks old. I supported my husband throughout his graduate education, and now I'm the primary breadwinner for our family. I have coped with the pressures and angst of what that means for many years. I am lucky to have a husband with a flexible schedule; he shoulders the lion's share of housework, cooking, and childcare in our home. I'm looking forward to engaging with men and women who can relate to the challenges of modern day life in Silicon Valley.
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Sleep deprivation with newborns is a strange thing. At breakfast, I try to calculate how much sleep we may have cobbled together on a given night. And lately I find that neither my husband nor I can remember how many times the twins woke and when they fell back asleep.
When my first daughter was born, my husband wrote a story about how our tiny baby would climb down from her crib and travel to our bed on the cat's back because neither of us could recollect bringing her in each morning.
This time around, the babies simply cannot linger in our bed. However around five AM, things get very surreal... Babies are handed to me, I turn on my side, lift my shirt, and nurse. Baby and I often drift off in the process, and I forget who's nursing and on what side they last nursed. I woke up last week in the dark, panicked to feel a baby in the crook of my arm, having forgotten to put someone back to bed, but reassured by her soft, persistent breath.
At about seven AM, big sister gets up and gets involved. She comforts babies, changes diapers, and hands them my way with stranger and stranger nicknames.
"Mommy, 'Little Stuff' wants to nurse."
"Here's 'Muffkin' - she's half munchkin and half muffin!"
"Bugaboo wants to say hello!"
"Make way for Mr. Cozy!"
The list goes on. We developed strange, adorable nicknames with my first daughter too, and I wonder if they were created in a similarly sleepy haze. Perhaps it's the mark of the good-humored, not-very-well-thought-through adoration that comes from being a sleepless family.
The truth is, I stay in bed and cling to an extra hour's sleep while my daughter gets ready for school and my husband shuttles her to school. Only as he's leaving the house with her at 8, do I get an armful of twins, a cappuccino, and at last drag myself out of bed.
What are the strange side effects you and your family have experienced due to the sleeplessness that comes with newborns? What are the origins for your kids' pet names?
