by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor (Make Mine A Double)
Elby doesn't know my mother as her grandmother. She must have a vague idea that her mommy has a mommy too, since there are pictures of me as a little girl sitting on my mom's lap around our house. But when "gram" calls and wants to talk to her Pumpkin, that means my mother-in-law is on the phone. When a package comes from Gram and Gramps it means Jon's parents have remembered Elby’s birthday or sent the babies new jammies "just because."
My mother's never seen my baby girls. I don't know if she even knows how small Sadie was when she came out or how scared we were in those first months. I do know that she knew I was pregnant with twins because after hearing it through the grapevine, I did get a card wishing me luck. I can't help but wonder if she worried about how my pregnancy turned out.
When my twins were finally home from the NICU they were insanely colicky and Jon couldn't come home from work to help me. But my brother, Michael and my sister-in-law, Racquel came over almost every single night. They held babies, refilled my wine, read Elby stories when I couldn't, and listened to me cry. Jon and I couldn't have done it without them - which, in retrospect makes you realize even more how important family is in these types of situations.
Last week, Jon’s parents, his sister, and her two kids flew out to visit us from Connecticut. They’d never met the twins and hadn’t seen Elby in way too long, although they talk to her a lot by webcam - oh, yeah, we’re like the Jetsons. Elby had a blast. Although she was a little shy at first, once she warmed up, she constantly asked, “Where are my cousin Annie and Ben?” or “Do we get to have dinner with Gram and Gramps again?” or “Who wants to see me dance?” And, of course, “Can I watch one more episode of the Powerpuff Girls?” That last question really shed an awesome light on my parenting skills, by the way.
Raising preemie twin girls plus a sassy preschooler while trying to make a book deadline isn't for wussies. In her Mommy Track'd column, Make Mine a Double, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor takes imperfect parenting to an art form. Each week she breaks the pristine laws of the mommy manuals as she reveals how she attempts to parent her three children through instinct, intelligence, and a lot of trial and error. She is the author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, and It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman. She’s appeared numerous times on The Today Show, is a member of the Us Weekly Fashion Police and writes on her blog, Baby On Bored.
