More Challenges With Twins

It didn't take long before I realized I had new problems to solve having two babies. Without any of the new "necessary" baby equipment that is available today (carriers, newborn seats that can be moved around the house, "bouncy" chairs, swings that play music, bath equipment, etc. etc.), I had to be innovative or just plain frustrated. How do I have the babies in the same room where I was working, especially the kitchen, when they were awake. There was no place to lay them. The only way we had to set the babies down was to prop them in the corners of the couch and put a pillow in front of them so they wouldn't fall over.

And what about bath time? Since we had both babies on the same schedule, they both were bathed at the same time. Where would I lay one screaming baby while the other was being bathed and dressed? The only safe place was in the crib in another room which made for an even more unhappy baby. Daddy came to the rescue by building a double decker changing table which we placed in the kitchen where I bathed the babies in the sink. It was ingenious. I could lay one baby on the lower deck while I bathed the other then dressed her/him on the upper deck and visa versa. There was a shelf below the lower deck to hold diapers, clothes and bath accessories. It was GREAT!!.

Next problem: How do I get out of the house to take the children for a walk or to make an emergency trip to the grocery store. It was still summer and Jeanie and Debbie were still at home. We only had one car which Dad took to work. I had only a single stroller so I would have to push with one hand and carry the second baby in the other. But then how could I hang on to the other three children, especially the three-year-old. Imagine this sight: Me, holding a baby and pushing a stroller, a small child hanging on to my skirt, and two others holding hands and walking in front so I could see them. I'm sure I was a sight to behold. After one of these exhaustive trips to the store, and coming home in tears, I KNEW I had to have a double stroller no matter what the cost. Tears worked on Jim when he came home from work that I day and a twin stroller was ordered from the Sears catalogue, the only place that they were available. Even though the stroller was SO welcomed, it presented a few problems of its' own. The double seats were side by side, which made it very wide and hard to maneuver through single doorways of homes or stores. Yes, I wanted the stroller in the house at time just to have a place to set the twins so I could do other things. But the positive far outweighed the negative, so I never complained.

As that first fall and winter approached, and the weather became colder (even freezing), hanging the "massive" amount of laundry outside became a real problem for me. I couldn't drape washed clothes over the furniture to dry like I used to do in Utah. There was just too much. An automatic dryer now became an absolute necessity in my eyes. Money was still tight, but somehow we managed a monthly payment on a new dryer. What a blessing!

One more thing that was so difficult for me was bedtime without the help of Jim three or four nights a week. He would leave right after dinner to teach classes or take care of church responsibilities. Often that would leave me with dirty dishes in the sink, two crying babies, three little girls needing baths, teeth brushed, and story read before going to bed and one tired, frantic mom to deal with it all. Enter the picture my saving angel, Cheryl. Cheryl was a teenage neighbor girl whom we only knew by name. In desperation one bad night I called her on the phone and asked if I could hire her to come over and help me out. She came. She turned out to be one of those rare young adults who could see what needed to be done without being told and she just pitched in. She would pick up and soothe a crying baby, put the girls in the tub, wash a sink full of dirty dishes, play with or read to the girls, or whatever she saw was needed at the time. She was an answer to my urgent prayers. From then on, all I needed to do was call, even on a moment's notice and she was there. I wouldn't have survived those first six months without her. And she would never take a penny for her services. She was not a member of the Church, but she could have been the perfect role model for what we would like all of our young women in the Church to be. We kept in contact with her over the years and were thrilled to hear years later that she had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We were not surprised.

We survived the first year by:

1. buying a second crib when the twins got too big to sleep in the same crib

2. buying an Osterizer to make our own baby food when we realized how expensive it was

to buy ready-made food for two growing babies.

3. buying a new car, a VW bus, to accommodate our growing family.

4. teaching our three younger daughters to assume more and more responsibility

5. ....and nearly adopting Cheryl to be our personal "Nanny". She was truly my buoy in

stormy weather.