Soccer mom

People say motherhood changes you. I guess it is true. There are things that I gamely accept now that I wouldn't have been able to Pre-Twins. Some say it's a matter of priorities changing, some say you just grow up, whatever it is, things change, people change. Now that I've been on leave a couple of months, I've had time to reflect on them.

1. Staying Home.

For one, taking leave for these past months. As a uni undergrad, it was unthinkable for me to even conceive of staying at home to be with the kids. I wanted a high flying job. I wanted to be successful. No doubt, I wanted kids but I found it offensive for it to have been suggested that I stayed home with the kids. Now, I would still like to be successful and a high flyer; I think that's the ambitious and driven part of me talking, but I'm happy to be with the kids. I'm happy to happily relegate the job to the second or third position. No doubt, my days are occasionally filled with the desire for adult conversation and doing girly things like nails, tea or shopping- things that I feel are social rather than solitary. But it is great fun to do silly things with the twins and be there to tickle them when they wake up.

2. Puke.

My clothes are dirty. I don't mean for them to be, but I have shoe prints on my pants most of the day and paint staining my t-shirts, my face and my limbs. Packrat knows if I've let the twins loose into their paints because there's paint everywhere on me, including my hair. Pre-Twins, I would have shrieked my clothes were dirty or if mud spattered on my white pants. Same with spit/drool/ puke. It's become a blase thing to have drool on me, or ejectile vomiting right into my face. It's happened before, it'll happen again. I never realised how much having been spit up or drooled on has caused me to look on such blase-ness. Case in point. I sit here smelly of puked milk. Evan's cough is back and he just upchucked a whole lot of phlegm very unglamourously on me. I need a bath but I also need to express. Express first. Then bathe. All the while, reeking of sour milk.

3. Couple and Mommy Time.

I used to roll my eyes at all-consuming moms. Moms who do nothing but revolve their lives around their kids. Husbands and their own lives take a very distant second and third place. I still strive not to be like that but I am aware of how increasingly difficult it is. It's a cycle of sorts. I hang out so much with the twins now, they're part of my daily routine. Because they are imbued in my daily routine, I find it difficult to extricate myself for some alone time. And so I hang with them so more, facing an increased challenge. All the while, feeling like I'm drowning and suffocating and needing some time out to do a facial, do my nails, go shopping or god-forbid, take a vacation. That's been the topic of discussion lately as well. A vacation. I'm exhausted by the constant caring and ferrying and mommy-ing that I'm doing, I feel like I'm running on fumes. I think my relationship with Packrat is headed in the same direction not because there's anything wrong but because there's plenty of exhaustion going around. So, he's decided that we need to take a vacation for a couple of days just to regain our bearings. I know, this must sound quite indulgent to some moms so I apologise before hand. It's something we've always had to do. Even Pre-Twins, we always needed to just leave during vacation times. Something about the local air that bugs us. Post-Twins, it has become all the more essential and increasingly difficult. Our first vacation when they were 6 months old, we didn't bat an eyelid. When they were a year old, it was a bit tougher. And when they were 18 months, it was close to excruciating. So, now, nearing their 2nd birthday, I suspect it will be like tearing a fly of fly paper. And every where Packrat suggests, I find reasons to turn it down. I am however aware that it is necessary and I will this. Pre-Twins and even sometime Post-Twins, I couldn't imagine NOT wanting to leave the kids. Now, I know.

4. Soccer-mom/ Mommy Taxi-mobile

Pre-Twins, we used to zip around in a hatchback. When we found out the twins were on the way, the first thing we thought was how we were going to stuff them into the back. The car was a couple-car. Even when we had passengers in the back, it was a tight squeeze, especially if said passenger had looooong super-model or daddy long-leg legs. What more, two infant/ child seats and someone in between. Everyone told us we needed an MPV. I outrightly resisted. I couldn't wrap my head around driving a Mommy Taxi. I wanted something that still looked like a car and did not shout "I HAVE 2 KIDS!". So we bought a nice, in my opinion, big and roomy saloon with an equally roomy boot. It was only roomy until we added another person into the fray who wasn't small enough to sit between the two child seats, unless we shaved off some of the hip. And when we brought out both our helper and my in-laws' helpers, we were violating many traffic laws.

And then, this week, we've been car sitting my brother's MPV and all of a sudden, I'm a convert. It doesn't matter that it brands me as a soccer mom, I like it. I like that I'm higher up. I like that my kids can look out the windows and see things that they like, like garbage trucks, cranes, trains (you sort of know what their latest obsession is) and I like that everyone is not squeezed! The only thing is it is like driving a whale. Not at all zippy. And the kids love the car too.


































Of course, to them it is "Bec-Bec"'s car. Bec Bec is their cousin and they lurve making associations. So, yes, I have changed. I think I am becoming a soccer mom of sorts. My day does revolve around picking them up and sending them to school. It used to also revolve around sending and picking Packrat up but this week, I am spared as he rocks up to work in his parents' car.


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