On Sunday, I did something I've never done before: I spent a few hours alone with just one of my daughters. And it was lovely.
Alastair and I had talked in the past about trying to do this at some point -- "breaking up" the girls so that each of us could have a little one-on-one time with each of them -- but never managed to do it. In fact, the only time I've spent a signficant amount of time alone with one of the girls is when I took Clio to the hospital back when she was four months old. (She had broken blood vessels in her legs which could have indicated a bad infection; she was fine.) That wasn't exactly what you'd call "quality" time.
But on Sunday, it just sort of happened. I hadn't left the house in nearly 48 hours, owing to snow and my general lethargy, and thought it might be good for my mental health to get out for a few hours. I suggested that the four of us attempt to go to Full Moon, a kid-friendly restaurant in Cambridge I'd been wanting to check out. But Clio, who had a cough and had been feverish the day before, was in no shape for an outing, as indicated by her refusal do anything but lie sleepily in my or Alastair's arms on the couch. And bringing a sick baby into a restaurant full of other babies and toddlers is definitely not cool. So Alastair suggested that he stay home with Clio and I go out with Elsa.
"But I don't want to go out to brunch alone," I said.
"You won't be alone," replied my husband, who is much wiser and saner than me. "Elsa will be with you."
Elsa, meanwhile -- I kid you not -- had toddled into the front hall and gotten her coat. So, it was settled: Elsa and I were headed out for an adventure, just the two of us.
If she took note of the fact that the carseat next to hers was uncharacteristically empty, it didn't seem to phase her. She grinned and laughed and said "nana!" as we drove. ("Yes, Elsa," I assured her, "we're going to go eat, very soon.") The restaurant was a zoo -- crammed with young parents and their kids, most of whom were either a year or two older than mine, or still in the newborn-sleeping-obliviously-in-the-carseat phase. We were told there was a twenty-minute wait, but I wasn't about to pack up and go somewhere else, so we hung out in the little play area near the back of the restaurant, where there was a train table, a little play kitchen, and lots of dolls and plastic toys for Elsa to infect herself with.
There were also a lot of two, three, and four year-olds. And can I just say: little kids can be real jerks. I know, I know, it's normal for kids to go through a developmental phase of being possessive and grabby; they're all id and ego, no superego in there yet to temper things. But still, I wanted to smack some of these little buggers. More than once, bigger kids came over and grabbed toys right out of Elsa's hands. (Fortunately, she didn't seem to care. At home she's usually the one grabbing toys away from Clio, so I think she was shocked more than anything.) At one point, when she dared to reach toward some dolls that a little girl was shoving quite violently into a toy dump truck, the little girl yelled "no!" and glared at Elsa and then at me like I'd just tried to bite her. Next, Elsa reached for a plastic toy celery stalk which apparently "belonged" to the slightly smaller girl sitting nearby. That girl screamed "no!" and grabbed it and glared. Then the first girl threw her arms protectively around the smaller girl, still glaring at me, and said "That's my sister!" Well, excuuuuuuse, us! We didn't realize you and your sister were QUEEN OF THE FUCKING WORLD.
I know. I'm so mature.
I'm sure my girls will go through the exact same phase, and surely they won't seem like little monsters to me. The thing is, at this point, I just have no idea how to deal with or even talk to two and three-year-olds, especially in a public setting where I don't know them or their parents. Must I yield to their demands? Am I supposed to act parental? Hell, I don't know. I think I said something to the little glaring girl (the older one) along the lines of "you know what, she's just a baby, so she doesn't know about how to share toys. She wasn't trying to take your dolls away. She just wanted to touch." I believe this elicited further glaring.
During the whole outing, I was just so proud of Elsa. She toddled around picking up toys and bringing them over to
me, and charmed the pants off of other parents waiting nearby by
patting their legs and smiling up at them. She hung at the train table with the little boys, totally calm when they grabbed trains out of her hands or shoved past her on their way somewhere else, ignoring their parents' cries of "look out for the baby!" (It's funny; Elsa seems so toddler-like to me now that she's walking and understanding more, but seeing her among kids a year or two older, it's very clear that she's still a "baby.") Once we were shown to our table in the corner, she sat across from me in a highchair like a little person, and we shared pancakes and chunks of melon and
played peek-a-boo and talked about the Democratic primaries (she's for Hillary, I'm for Obama). She only once flung her sippy cup to the floor intentionally, and was just generally chill and well-behaved.
In fact, she seemed much more at ease than me. Part of it may have been that I was still feeling rather foggy, owing to this depression. But mainly, I think it was that because I'm so used to juggling two babies at once, being with one was a little disorienting. When I'm out in public with both girls, I think I feel immune to the judgement of others, in part because I assume (modestly) that they're thinking "wow -- twins; how does she do it?" and in part because I'm too busy and distracted to worry about what other people think. But in the restaurant, surrounded by all these other parents, I found myself wondering: am I doing this right? Is this how you're supposed to interact with one baby? Do they think I'm her aunt or her babysitter or some deranged kidnapper? Granted, going to a restaurant alone with a baby isn't the most typical thing to do in the first place. But the oddness of being on my own with Elsa certainly added to it.
The whole thing was so...what's the word I'm looking for....um, EASY! Easy in and out of the car (no need for a stroller; I could just carry her). No chasing two babies going in two different directions. No worrying about what to do with the other if one has a meltdown or a diaper disaster. I could even go to the bathroom without a major production. I just brought Elsa in with me. Just like that!
What was especially nice was that I could focus on just her. All my attention, my eye contact, my energy was 100% for Elsa. And you know what? By the time we got home, I really felt closer to her. Like I knew her a little better, and had bonded with her a little more. I felt bad for not doing this sooner. A little guilty for not being able to give her (or Clio, for that matter) my full attention all the time. Even a little jealous of all my friends with just one baby. But mostly, I felt good about finding this new way to spend time with my children.
I want to make a point of spending time with the girls separately from time to time, throughout their childhood. Because as conscious as I am of treating them as individuals, it's still easy to get used to thinking of them as a unit. Or at least an inseparable pair: salt and pepper, yin and yang. And that's not right.
I don't just have twins; I have two daughters.
