Empathy can be a good thing...........

As touched upon in my previous post, it can be a conflicting state of mind, having gone through quite a lot in our little quest to have a family, to be overwhelmed as a parent. I mean, this is what we wanted - why does it seem so hard at times? I remember a time when the girls were very young (and us as their parents very tired) when a friend commented how her baby was super-fussy and "just like twins." I'm not going to start the "who has it harder" routine, but just a friendly tidbit - do not tell an overtired, frazzled new twin parent how one kid is just as tough. Not to argue validity, but just keep that one to yourself. (If that bothers you, I'm sorry but it just something I didn't need to hear at that time. I understand how she was trying to be sympathetic, but just chose a poorly worded efffort)

Enter empathy - aka akin to been there, done that. We all need it, and I got mine on Saturday. Completely my fault, but it had been a long day. I worked at a twin sale from 7-3 (most of that on my feet) and then had volunteered for a charity dinner & auction from 5-10 (also standing mostly) Never again. Ugh.......I was beat. Nevermind driving a good 2 hours to get here and there. By 9 I decided to wave the white flag and checked with my one organizer if I could leave as our portion was pretty much over with and she was fine with that. So my friend and I went to get our things and the main charity organizer was there - we said how we were leaving and I mentioned that I had overbooked myself for the day and as my little twins would be up early, I was ducking out a tad early. I figured her "how old are they?" to be a routine question.

Well my answer of "almost 1.5 years" sparked an expression. Turns out she has 14 year old twins. She came over to give me a hug and said "it gets better." She kept on talking and almost was in tears - how it can be so hard and while children are a such a blessing, sometimes it's just too much. I said how I hate "thinking" that having two kids isn't the same (she concurred) but I feel badly in thinking that (again - parenting is tough no matter how many, how spread apart, etc........) We talked for awhile and she was just full of supportive comments and how it's okay to find it "tough" at times. It pretty much had her tearing up by the end (and for those who really know me, that sort of thing normally isn't up my alley.)

The point of the story? Again, I'm not going to argue or claim raising twins is "tougher" than anything else. I can only imagine other scenarios that would have me shutting up in a hurry. However, after a long week and an insanely long day, it meant a huge amount to have someone, a complete stranger at that, who's been exactly in my place lending such support.