Another reader-suggested post today: Reflections on transitioning from a professional who flew around the US and had a very full schedule. How have the skills of your profession helped you in your twin wrangling profession?
(Yes, the "reader" mentioned above is my mother. My biggest fan, ha ha :) )
Raising twins is a challenging profession. It's not like I filled out an application, had an interview, and HR said, "You are just what we're looking for. Here are your twins!" Ha ha! No. Apparently, God thought that DF and I were up to the task, and so here we are. The phrase baptism by fire comes to mind at times.
But yes, Mom, you make a good point. I did develop some skills in my previous jobs that I've been able to apply to motherhood x2.
Coping with Stress
I've dealt with my fair share of job-related stress through the years, whether it was dissatisfied customers whose coffee order hadn't arrived on time, or a host parent who couldn't get their exchange student to follow their household rules. In those stressful times, I found that often what the other party wanted was for me to listen to their problem, empathize with them, and then take whatever steps I could to fix it. I try to do the same with my kids. For instance, maybe they trip over a toy, fall, and bonk their head. I give them a hug while they cry, say, "Ouch! It hurt when you fell on your truck," then give them a softer toy to hold with until they're ready to hop up and run around again.
At work, I also had to learn not to internalize the stress from others. I had a coworker once who was fond of saying she had to "empty her emotional bucket." This means that you have to find ways to de-stress yourself regularly so that you don't overflow and dump your emotions all over someone who really wasn't prepared for it. Now, I certainly did not perfect this approach on the job, but I tried some techniques like not checking email outside of work hours except in extreme circumstances. That way I had time to mentally refresh before going back into the office. It's a little trickier as a mom since my hours aren't exactly, shall we say, confined to a certain window. But I will say that I feel better on the days when I spend the boys' nap time losing myself in a good book instead of frittering away the hour(s) on Facebook.
Juggling Multiple Priorities
I suppose nearly every job has days/seasons where there's too much to do and not enough time to do it. In those periods, I learned how to take a step back and assess which tasks needed to take priority. Sometimes it was obvious, like in a job with a daily time deadline for a certain task to be completed. In other cases, I had to consider multiple factors, like who would be impacted by a delay, my working relationships with those people, and if there was a way I could share some of my workload with others.
Now, consider my SAHM life. My top priorities are making sure my children are safe, fed, clothed, well-rested, and having their emotional needs met. (I was going to say "happy" for that last point, but I realized that's an unrealistic goal.) Anything that doesn't contribute to those priorities tends to take a back burner.
But what if the twins themselves are giving me two different priorities simultaneously? Well, that's a tricky one. I've had to get creative. I remember awhile back when the boys were sick, particularly Gus. It was meal time, but he didn't want to eat. He was too upset. Gibson was hungry, though, and getting mad because I wasn't feeding him. Solution? Grab the Ergo carrier, strap Gus in (meeting emotional need for safety/connection), then I've got my hands free to feed Gibson (meeting need of hunger).
Functioning on Little Sleep
Back when I was working, sometimes I had to keep on being a professional even when I was tired, like when I was crossing time zones in travel and my brain's sleep clock got out of whack. Or, I was in charge of events that went all day, but I still had work to complete in the evenings. Only rarely did I actually get awoken in the middle of the night by an exchange-student-related phone call.
The sleep-deprived life of newborn twins is sooooo much worse than anything I encountered when working. I was such a zombie those first 6 months of motherhood. It made me realize I'm tougher than I thought, however. Pre-kids, if I didn't get a decent night's sleep, the whole next day was shot. I was grouchy, my head hurt, and I had a hard time being productive. With the babies, I had to push on through the exhaustion. I was responsible for their well-being in a way that far exceeded the supervision required to make sure a bunch of foreign teenagers didn't convince the hotel shuttle driver to take them to Walmart without their chaperone's permission. The babies needed me to be alert enough that I wouldn't stick a bottle in their eye or swaddle them upside down. We muddled through that phase of life somehow!
Now that they sleep fairly well, I feel so much more human. And for those times when they have a rough night, I know that I'll be ok the next day. Yes, I'll be tired, but it won't be the bone-rattling exhaustion I've already endured. And maybe I can sneak in a nap while they're sleeping.
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