bonding.

Before we became parents, my wife and I both had experiences where friends of ours with singletons made comments on how instantaneous their love and bond with their child was. Not knowing what this experience was like, I fully expected to have the same emotions/feelings towards my kids. The other day, my wife and I discovered that we both do not. This is not to say that we do not love our children! But upon further discussion, we figured out that being a twin parent means a different pace of connection. Part of the connecting force (pure speculation of course) of a single baby is the team-work and bonding between the parents as well as the child. This triangulation of bonding if you will, allows for all kinds of focus and energy to be directed towards the baby.

But with twins, we are still working on figuring out who is who. Really. Plus, when one of us is burping the other is changing or feeding the other and then we swap. This little dance goes on every 2.5-3 hrs. This extra work leaves little time to sit back and enjoy the sights and sounds of our little ones. Although I have to say that listening to their little bleats does make me smile.

I did have a breakthrough moment this morning at 5 Am. Twin B was crying in the other room and without hesitation (and while mostly asleep) I said to my wife, that's "[Twin B] I know his cry." I was right. Maybe I'll just close my eyes and listen to identify who is who!

They other thing that we are getting used to is the fact that changing babies is a pain in the butt. Multiply that by two and it is enough to drive you crazy. I am sure ALL parents feel this way, especially at the beginning. If anyone out there is purchasing a baby gift or is expecting a baby, avoid, like the plague, snaps. Those cute little outfits with all those little snaps are my little personal bad place. Zippers good, snaps bad. This is especially true when you just finished feeding, burping, changing the diaper and then the outfit to lay the wee one down and the spit-up fairy pays a visit. It never fails, only after all the work was done!

So remember, next time you go to the store to look at baby clothes...especially for twins, snaps suck.