Muscle Building

When people ask me about how it’s going with the twins, I keep thinking about the metaphor of muscle building. When you start exercising for the first time in a while, everything hurts. You start with weights that might seem laughably small but 15 reps in, your arms are screaming. But after a few weeks, those weights don’t hurt anymore and you’re ready for more. You got stronger and so the things that used to feel impossible now feel somewhere between possible and even easy!

The last two months of parenting, the twins have been a nonstop exercise in parenting muscle building. I am stronger now than I was two months ago. Things that seemed impossible and took all of my energy now seem totally possible.

I think most parents experience this when they have a second child. All of a sudden the things that seemed so hard when you had your first baby now seem second nature. Taking a quick trip to Target with a newborn? Bring a diaper and wipes and call it an outing. Nursing on the go? No problem. Instead of exhausting and terrifying, the newborn stage means ultimate portability— babies that can’t move and can sleep anywhere? LFG!! But of course, it’s not that these things are inherently easy. It’s an easy mistake for second-time parents to say, “I can’t believe I thought that was hard… this is hard!” Whatever, “this” may be (chaos of toddlerhood, challenges of elementary school, drama of the teenage years). The truth is, unless you’re a unicorn parent (in which case, God bless you and your good favor!) those early stages probably were hard for you because because you’ve never done it before. It was hard because you’d had no practice and hadn’t worked those muscles yet. Now it doesn’t feel hard anymore because you’ve put in the work. Whether you wanted to or not, parenting required you to build the muscles that you now use with your second kid.

We jumped straight into the deep end from one kid to three, and it’s required a lot of new muscles. I definitely did not want to build these muscles but parenting is one “I can’t do this” followed by, “but I literally have to” moment after another. That being said, the first few months of the twins lives have been made easier from the fact that we weren’t starting from scratch. The muscles that I built from parenting Jack as a newborn have come in handy this time around. I’m less afraid and more confident in my ability to get out of the house even with three tiny children. After a few months of parenting all three, just taking one kid somewhere genuinely does feel easy in comparison. I remember with Jack thinking that bringing a baby with me somewhere it was such an ordeal but now if I take just taking one of the twins somewhere, it’s almost like taking no kids at all. But that is only because whether I wanted to or not, I’ve put in the work. I built those muscles and now I get to use them.

I hate comparison among parents. I used to feel insecure when I heard parents say “you think having one kid is hard wait till you have three!” or something like that. It made me feel bad for feeling like what I was going through was hard because these parents made it sound like it was so easy. I never want to talk like that. The truth is, those parents either forgot how hard it was then (most likely!) or it genuinely wasn’t something they struggled with, but they struggle with something else.   

Doing something new for the first time is hard. Full stop. That’s just how life works. But if you keep going, it gets easier. The mountains become scalable, the weights liftable, and the parenting can even be a bit fun.  

When people ask me how to get out of the house with twins, I like to say it requires two things, “the right gear and the right attitude.” When you’re outnumbered, the right gear is essential. I could go on and on about my favorite gear purchases that I scoured Facebook Marketplace for and the steal of deal I got them for. Having the right gear makes things like hikes or trips or even just a walk to the park possible. But no amount of gear can overcome your attitude. Capitalism can’t save us!

To get out of the house, you have to believe that you can do it. You have to be willing to accept some chaos or crying (yours & theirs). You have to believe that you’re going to be tired no matter what, so you might as well be tired in a fun place. You have to remember that you don’t have to have all the right gear in order to have a good time. And you have to trust that you have built the muscles to get yourself out the door.

Whether you’re a soon-to-be parent daunted by the onslaught of parenting information your mind can’t quite process, or an overwhelmed new parent who feels like they’re drowning, or a more seasoned parent who is trying to get a grip on the new challenges this stage of the journey has brought, I want you to know— you can do this. You will be abso-f*ing-lutely amazed at your capacity to do hard things. You will be amazed at the parenting muscles you will build through middle of the night blowouts, toddler tantrums, illnesses, sleeplessness, and more.

You might not think you have all that it takes to be a good parent. Here’s my real hot take— you don’t. But you’ll build it. Day by day, trial by trial, you will build the skills and the strength to be a great parent. You don’t have all the skills yet, but you will. And you do have what it takes to build them.