When my mom turned 50, she threw herself an enormous birthday bash at work, complete with a costume and a “forest fire,” her reference to the candles on her cake. She said that her 40s had been so crappy that she was thrilled to turn 50! She was welcoming a new era.

Today, the babies are 5 months old and I am celebrating and welcoming a new era! In many ways, this past month was the hardest for me out of all 5… I felt the most overwhelmed by what I don’t know and the most conscious of my inability to do and be what is needed around here! There have been many cool experiences to offset the hardships, but as the babies show us more and more of who they are and what kinds of needs they have, I feel more and more inadequate! There is a primary reason for this: they have been crying. Alot. Seemingly more this past month than ever before. I problem-solve and read books and they cry. I give up and do nothing and they cry. I try sleep-training techniques and they cry. I throw techniques out the window and just try to read their cues and they cry. I feed them their usual and they cry. I feed them more, they urp, then they cry. It isn’t like they cry non-stop, but a screaming session from one or both of them once every 3 hours is enough to frazzle every synapse in my brain. Sometimes I can figure out what they need/want and other times I can’t.

They are at a very cool transitional place where they are AWARE. They want to roll. They want to sit. They want to reach and grab that toy just over yonder or to retrieve the toy they just threw. They want to give themselves a new perspective of their environment. But they can’t. We are in the crazy in-between where they finally want to but can’t just yet, and they know it. And it is so hard because alot of the tears originate with their frustration at not being able to do all these things they are starting to figure out. Most times, it is either the whole “I want to but I can’t yet” thing that frustrates them or that they both want to be held. The inability to hold them both to their satisfaction is personally damaging for me. What if they aren’t being held enough? How the heck do you hold two babies? I can pick them both up and hold them on my lap, but we can’t do some serious cuddling with two of them there, and they both prefer the serious cuddling. Which I love too, so we are all crying about this one. So I switch off and the baby in my arms quiets down and the one on the floor cries. <sigh> This can become an endless cycle. When this is coupled with the fact that the babies are anti-nap activists (they fall asleep beautifully just like the books promise, then one or the other wakes up WAY too early and they wake each other up and want out Out OUT of their crib and they won’t go back to sleep whether I calm them or not or whether I leave them in their crib and then they cry during their awake time because they are exhausted), the tiredness and frustration has run rampant around here. And as much as I really want to, I can’t be all things to all people! Have you ever been confronted with the fact that the best you can do isn’t going to be enough and you’ll just have to make it work anyway even though you don’t have any more to offer? Yes, of course you have. So you can relate on some level, whether you have screaming twins or not.

But gloriously, month 5 is over as of today. And to start the new era out with a bang, my little activists took a 2 hour nap this morning. A TWO HOUR NAP!!!! I showered and folded like 6 loads of laundry (I’m halfway done) and did housework and washed dishes and returned emails and kept thinking, “oh wow, oh wow, oh wow…” I suppose lots of babies take 2 hour naps. And my babies sometimes do in the afternoon. But never in the morning! And never at the same time! Usually, I go get the one who wakes up first and hang out with them to give the other one a little longer to sleep. But they did it. And it was amazing. Happy “month 5 is finally over” to me!

There have been lots of external hardships this past month too. And we’re getting through those. I was praying this morning and I thanked God that I still like to be around my babies. That might sound weird, but I’m so grateful that the events of this month haven’t made me hate being a mom or feel like I just all-around suck. Sometimes I feel that way and sometimes I do actually suck, but as the Granades always say, “Hey, I’m a parent who is trying. That’s more than alot of kids get!” And when they are sweet and fun (which is more often than this email would lead you to believe; the screaming sessions are short but occur often and the aftershocks continue on), it is heavenly around here.

Here we are, me holding my two cuties. The first picture is when I’m home by myself with them and I managed to scoop them both up AND take our picture. I look tired and proud of myself, and that’s exactly what I was. The second was taken by Matt and he handed me one of them, so we weren’t quite as precariously positioned.

Take heart if you are hurting. Month 5 or whatever you call your hardship will end eventually. If you survive it (and you might not think you will), you’ll be that amazing person who survived and beat the odds! And maybe even better than survival, maybe you thrived. I know you can do it.