Bananas.

The babies are on a strike.  Actually, one baby is on a strike, the other crosses the picket line daily.

Babies, I have found, are fond of exercising their right to strike, especially when unionized as in the case of any and all sets of multiples.  In the past fifteen months, we've had nap strikes, poop strikes, nighttime-sleep strikes, walking strikes, and independent-play strikes.

As a member of executive management on this parental team, I've become a master at negotiating peaceful resolutions, which might come in handy right about now, since our latest strike is a biggie: food strike.

While Quin eats every last bite of food that crosses his path, Rhys has become quite exacting in his food standards.  Slowly, he has whittled his formerly diverse diet down to one favored food - banana.  All other foods are meticulously cast over the edge of his highchair tray and onto the floor, where at the conclusion of every meal, Quin and Bella hover, sharing delectable discarded morsels.

It's been a steady and slippery slope.  First he (Rhys) cut out egg - one of his favorite foods, second only to the wondrous banana.  Then it was toast.  Then oatmeal.  And so on.  If I am crafty and incredibly casual, sometimes I will have a short-lived bout of success at breaking his strict "bananas only" rule.  He'll nibble my toast, or have a bite of melon.  Before I even get my hopes up, he is puckering his face and dramatically wiping his tongue off with his pudgy hand.  I find myself wondering if humans can live on a diet comprised almost solely of bananas.    I find myself feeling more thankful than ever that he is still nursing.  I find myself wondering how many bananas it will take to push us back into poop-strike territory.

And here's the big deal: I'm not worried.  

Strike negotiations haven't commenced.  He wins.  

Don't get me wrong - I have certainly noticed  this new trend.  I've talked about it with other parents.  And here I am writing about it. 

But I haven't run to the internet, or one of the several options in my vast baby book library, to get advice.  I know it is a phase.  I get it.  I know it will pass.

If I didn't know any better, I might even say I'm relaxed.

Break out the red pens and fill in my report card, please.  The comments section will now read: "is a relaxed and confident mother." 

***

Okay.  So maybe we happen to have our fifteen month well-baby visit this Thursday.  So what if the banana-issue is at the top of my painfully long list of questions for the pediatrician.   I want my damn gold star.  

And here I talk about poop again.

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part three.

After the initial incident with the fireflies, our first real away-from-home stint with the babies was a success. An exhausting success, but a success all the same. By the time we were packed up and ready to make the journey back home, I was drooling over the idea of a four hour date with my pillow in the front seat of the car while Kyle drove. We had the babies in clean diapers, cozied up in pajamas and ready to be tucked into their car seats for some quality car-slumber. As we said our goodbyes, Kyle's mom held Quin up and made a face. "I think he pooped."

"Nope," I said, offering an optimistic and perhaps slightly desperate smile. "We just put him in a clean diaper. It's probably gas."

She gave him another sniff. "It's poop."

I took Quin from her, ready to prove the gas theory. I took a deep breath in. It didn't smell like gas. It didn't smell like poop - at least not any baby poop I'd ever been acquainted with. It didn't smell like anything that should be coming out of an innocent and squishy little baby. I sent Kyle to dig the diaper bag out of our warming and packed car, and set Quin down on the floor. Within seconds, one of the dogs ran over to him and started sniffing and licking. It was as I reached down to intervene that I noticed the green soupy seepage coming through the back of his pajamas and making a trail on the floor behind him. I flashed to the image of my soft and warm pillow in the front of the car. I wanted to be there. So tired. So close to making it home without major incident.

I picked Quin up and held him out at arms length in a feeble attempt to remain sludge-free. He swung his legs and cooed. Where the hell was Kyle? Hadn't I sent him for the diaper bag, like, five minutes ago? I looked around the kitchen at Kyle's family. I offered an "I'm totally relaxed right now" smile. Quin cooed and kicked. My arms burned. Where the hell was Kyle? I attempted a casual yell to Kyle's brother who was heading out to pack up his own car: "can you ask Kyle to hurry up? Maybe let him know that Quin has poop running down his legs and all over the place? Maybe remind him that I'm waiting for a diaper?" I offered a totally non-desperate smile. I scanned the room again at the smiling faces of Kyle's family.

When you try to have a baby for years, it's easy to fall into the thinking that when it finally happens, you'd better be damn good at it. Like you have to prove your worthiness. That all your heartache and pain and wanting was well spent because LOOK at those parenting skills that are finally able to be put to use. I try to ignore these thoughts, and in the privacy of my own mind, I usually can. But in front of other people? I am a crazed woman on a mission to prove my worth and competence as a maternal figure.

Holding Quin out at an increasingly weak arm's length, these thoughts took over. Must do something competent! screamed the nagging little voice that had convinced me of fireflies the previous evening. I shot a pleading glance toward the doorway, willing Kyle to walk through. No Kyle. I looked around and weighed my options. Remove the pajamas. Simple. Efficient. Necessary.

I unzipped Quin's pajamas and pulled his arms out. Without his arms to hold them up, his poop-laden pj's slid off his legs and landed on the floor in a squishy, sopping heap. Poop splattered on the floor. It splattered the cabinets next to us. It splattered the wall in front of us. It ran off his legs and landed in heavy wet plops below. The room started to spin. Must look competent. Do something! Do something! More plops. I saw the smiling and expectant faces of Kyle's family. More plops. As if the heavens had opened in a festive holiday poop storm. Do something! I shot a last desperate look to the door, and there was Kyle. His eyes wide, taking in the scene. Me, standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding our now mostly-naked-save-for-the-copiously-poop-filled-diaper baby out at arms length, a puddle of mushy poop below us, totally frozen. Seconds passed, our gazes locked. Plop, plop, plop.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!" The words burst out of me, louder and harsher than I'd probably have chosen if I'd had any warning that I was about to speak. And without warning I repeated it. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!"

And then time started again. Kyle's sister came to me and gently ushered us into the bathroom. We got Quin washed up, re-diapered, into clean pajamas. The asshole in my head kept us company the whole way.

Into the bathroom. You bring a poop-covered child into the bathroom. Bathrooms have water and soap.

Kitchens are a bad place for poop.

Weren't you the one who wanted babies more than anything in the world? You, who doesn't know how to handle a poopy diaper?

Nicely played. Way to show that you're a natural.

And so on and so forth. We said our goodbyes. I attempted some casual laughter and smiled and offered seventeen feeble apologies for the poop-covered kitchen.

We drove home. I drifted in and out of sleep, stewing in my mortification and carrying on quite the internal dialogue.

Nobody noticed.

Are you kidding? Everyone noticed!

This sort of thing happens all the time.

No. No it doesn't.

You're a new mom. Of twins!

And you did a bang-up job of demonstrating your motherly prowess.

And so on and so forth.

I later learned that as a last show of competence, we accidentally left the poop covered pajamas sitting in a mushy bundle on the floor, leading to Kyle's sister having to wash the pajamas and Kyle's mother having to transport them back home for us. Which I believe kind of seals the deal on everyone remembering this for a very long time.

Poop. Yup. Poop.

So if you were so excited to get to the juicy details and skimmed over the title, let me offer it once more. This post is about poop.

Is this what it has come to? Am I forever reduced to the intrigues of BM's? Will I ever get out of sweatpants and brush my hair again? And when will Pandora get it through its thick cyber-brain that I unequivocally do not want to listen to songs by Barney?

But the reality is that this is a fleeting moment in time. Almost nine months have gone by. Nine months! And when I wanted this, I wanted it all. I'm going to savor every last drop: the faces they make when trying a new food for the first time, their fascination with Bella's food dish, the sweet, cooing mamamamamamamamama sounds they make. And poop.

Prior to motherhood, I had heard tales of this ridiculous obsession with poop that afflicts many new mothers. I knew that I would never be one of those. And for the larger part of nine months, I haven't been. It kind of went like this: Babies eat. Babies poop. Parents change diapers. Repeat. What's there to get all in a tizzy about?

And then we started solid foods.

From there, poop has just really gotten, well, fun. Kind of like the train wreck that is Jon and Kate Plus Eight. You're sick of it, sick of them. Yet you can't seem to pull yourself away. You've Googled them on your lunch break just to get one more bit of delicious juiciness. You never know what it will be next. Or when they'll pop up in the news next to important stories like current events in Afghanistan. And so it goes with poop.

Sure, my new-found interest in poop does little for the resume. I don't care. It may be wildly indulgent of me, but I'm embracing this long-awaited milestone of motherhood and sharing. Poop stories. I'll keep them brief.

***

I get periodic emails from Babycenter.com which I find mostly annoying. Recently, one arrived in my inbox titled, "Baby Poop. A visual guide." UGH, I thought. How disgusting. How insulting. Like new mothers have no need to know about more important things in this world. Three seconds later I was scooping that email out of my trash box like it was candy and scanning through the images while performing a mental comparison of every diaper I've ever changed. Satisfied that my babies are the proud owners of normal bowel habits, I closed the email and promptly deleted my browsing history. (Now you have to know, don't you? Here.)

***

The other day I was changing Quin's diaper. I love to make the babies giggle by giving them big tummy tickles and raspberries. I was going in for some good gigglage when I noticed a tiny little bead in his belly button. What a bizarre find! I scooped out a perfectly round little piece of clay. And as I was inspecting this clay, racking my brain to figure out how it got in there, holding it close to my eye to determine it's origin, it came to me. Feces. Poop! On my finger. Close to my eye. Out of my child's belly button. A perfect little ball of poop. Do not judge my diaper changing abilities, or the thoroughness of my wiping. They're perfectly fine. The poop ball just happened. I don't know how.

***

Every night before bed, the babies get a warm bath. We've gotten into the habit of changing them on the living room floor (does anyone actually use a changing table?) and then leaving the dirty diapers and clothes while we give them their baths and put them to bed. Once they're asleep, we get to the business of taking care of our messy living room, including putting the dirty diapers in the wash. The other night, one of the babies had a particularly huge blowout. After getting them to sleep, we decided a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, would be the only fair way to determine which of us would be responsible for taking care of the poopy explosion. I looked over at the two dirty diapers, hoping I would not be the one. And then I did a double take. The diapers were still there, but totally poop-less. The wipes we had used were not on the pile of diapers and covers where we had left them, but rather set aside in a neat little bundle. Even these had barely a trace of what had been there only minutes before. I looked at Kyle. He looked at the diapers. And then we looked at Bella. Laying on her bed, licking her lips.

***

I feel better. Purged, even.