The Favorite Child -- by Laura

When you have twins, people like to jokingly ask which one is your favorite. You can’t answer them honestly or they would look at you like you’re a cruel, callous mother. Because truth be told: you do have a favorite. You can’t help it. It’s biology at work, and it’s called social smiling, although sometimes I refer to it as passive infant manipulation. The social smile is designed to engage and elicit a positive response from the adult, which thereby creates a bond between parent and child. The parent then feels obligated to take care of the baby in order to ensure a regular source of warm fuzzies.

When my son Lyle was two months old, he began social smiling. He would spread his mouth across his face in a drunken, toothless grin when he saw me, and I would respond in kind. When I came in the room he cooed and beckoned me to him with that smile, and I fell all over myself trying to get to him like a 14-year old girl in love. Wyatt, however, wasn’t ready for the smiling and the engagement. He was born a pound smaller than his brother, and he spent his energy catching up.

My husband got angry with me because at that time I favored Lyle. I couldn’t help it. Mother and son were going through some biological and physiological changes that caused us to bond, thus ensuring Lyle’s survival. I was unsuccessful at getting my husband to understand that Wyatt as not neglected by any means. I still sang to him and fed him and cuddled with him just as much as I did Lyle. I also know that as soon as Wyatt started smiling and engaging I would form the same kind of bond with him, and the one who would get the short end of the stick would be me, because I would be frazzled from giving two babies so much love.

By three months Wyatt began social smiling, and he was better at it than his brother. He beams. Radiates. When Wyatt smiles he does it with his whole head. And he has a really big head. His head is so large I have to cut slits in his onesies to get them over that giant noggin. Wyatt’s grins are so enthusiastic that they often knock his cranium of kilter and he falls right over. And when he does this, he’s my favorite.

Lyle is the leader of their gang of two. He crawls around the house emitting shocks of laughter as he delights in his movement and his autonomy. He is the first to do everything while Wyatt watches with his mouth open and an expression on his face that says: Um! I’m telling! When Lyle doesn’t feel well, he comes to me and hugs my leg or my arm and holds on tight until I gather him in my arms and put him to sleep. Once when the entire family was sick with stomach flu, we all slept on towels and blankets in the living room. Lyle woke up and crawled around hugging us all and nuzzling his head into ours. He’s that kind of baby. Compassionate. Awake. Sensitive. The smile on his face was shy and gentle. And on that day, he was my favorite.

However, Lyle is also very demanding. He wants my attention all the time, and it is beyond exhausting. It becomes a fight to make sure Wyatt gets his needs met. One day when Lyle found new ways to request my time by throwing up, exploding in his diaper, and coloring his mouth with a pen, I was running back and forth with him from the kitchen to the bedroom to the bathroom, and I realized I had not checked in with Wyatt for almost an hour. I had left him playing in the middle of the living room floor with his soda bottle filled with pennies and his magnet dolls. I rushed by with a naked Lyle in my arms, and I paused in the doorway. Wyatt looked up from chewing on a doll, smiled his enormous smile, and fell right over. And at that instant, he was my favorite.

The Age of Motherhood -- by Laura

Last week I turned 45. I have never shied away from stating how I old I am, but on my birthday something happened that made me lie for the first time. I was in Central Park with my 10-month old twins taking a break from my jog when a woman in her 60s approached and ogled the boys as they slept in the stroller.
“Isn’t being a grandmother the best?” she asked.
“I’m actually their mother,” I said. “Not their grandmother.”
She was embarrassed and apologized, but I stopped her and explained it was OK. I have a crown of silver hair; I was disheveled from exercising. It was a natural mistake.
“Well, women are having babies at older ages these days,” she said.
We chatted briefly then she asked the question I knew she would: “So exactly how old are you?”
Before I could think I told her I was 40. Only 40.
On the way home I stopped at the drug store to look at hair color, and when I got to the apartment I went online and ordered $200 worth of skin care products. I also got down on the alphabet mat in the playroom and did 100 sit-ups and then 100 bicycle kicks, which left me barely able to move the next day.
I am embarrassed at being an older mom at times. I feel out of place with orthopedic inserts in my shoes, gray hair, glasses, and a heavier, slower body as I push a twin stroller down the sidewalk among the 20-year old nannies and the fit, fashionable, younger Manhattan mothers. And I am embarrassed that I am embarrassed by it. At my age I should know better. There are so many pluses to being an older mom – far more pluses than minuses.
But the real reason for the discomfort with my age is not just my crepe paper eyelids or the cricks in my back and ankles. It’s the time. If what I said were true, if I were only 40, I would have five more years – five more years of time at my disposal with my sons and husband. My lie wasn’t just a lie. It was a wish. A sincere wish.
While I write this, my father is struggling with declining health. As an older parent himself, he made a conscientious effort to be a fit man. My father learned to rock climb when he was 40. He hiked all over the Rocky Mountains with his children. He played tennis four or five times a week. But in spite of his excellent health and diet, he didn’t get a choice whether or not he got Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. For several years now, he is not able to participate in his own life, much less mine, and he has never met my boys. Yet if he did meet them, he wouldn’t know them because in spite of his best efforts to stick around and be there for his grandchildren, a horrible disease is scrambling his brain.
Even more sorrowful to me is that my sons won’t get to know the kind, quiet man who taught me the secrets of happiness: dogs, books, tomatoes, and camping. Lyle and Wyatt won’t have the chance to try to keep up with his long stride as he winds his way over the trails to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise. They won’t hear his steady voice singing a cowboy song as he strums his guitar.
Some of my life’s greatest moments have been spending time with my father as an adult – two grownups together with a shared history and a deep understanding. I love that my father stuck around long enough see who I turned out to be, and he genuinely admires who he sees when he looks at me. I want to look at my children like that through the hallmarks of their lives. But when they are entering adulthood, which I believe is the best part of life, I will be coming to the sunset of mine. Thanks to my advanced maternal age, I may not get to meet the life partners they choose. If they wait as I did, I may not get to meet their children. I may very well miss seeing them achieve the things in life that can make them happy, whole, fulfilled human beings.
The next time someone asks me if I am the boy’s grandmother, I will try to be more grounded. I will tell myself I can live with the liver spots, the lines around my mouth, and the impending bifocals. But what will send me spinning is the thought of missing out on a minute of my boys’ lives. By waiting these extra years to have children, I am afraid I am going to have to lose a few years on the other end. And that kills me. Because this thing called motherhood is a wellspring of happiness, wisdom, pain, ache, joy and longing, and as Lyle and Wyatt grow through life, I don’t want to miss a thing. Not a single, tiny moment lost. The bitter. And the sweet.

Unlike My Mother -- by Laura

I’m new to blogging, to motherhood, to New York, and Motherhood Later...Than Sooner. My name is Laura Houston, I am 45 years old, and I have twin boys Lyle and Wyatt who are 10 months old. I recently moved to Manhattan from a farm in Oregon, and I transitioned from having my own business to being a stay-at-home mom. We’re a different lot – we mothers of advanced maternal age – and I find older moms bring a richness to their job that opens up a treasure chest of insights and wisdom. I hope we can all share.

I didn’t have much of a role model when it came to mothering. After four kids and a desperately common life in the suburbs, my mother got tired of being a mom and she checked out. And I got tired of being her kid, so I checked out. I did whatever it took to get out of the house, out of that Midwestern suburb, and as far away as possible from her life, her bitterness, and her unhappiness.

That was the start of my journey into motherhood. I called it the Do-Not-Turn-Out-Like-My-Mother Plan, and I hoped it would serve me when I finally became a mother, which is something I desperately wanted some day. I made most of my life decisions based on this question: “Would my mother do it?” If the answer was no, I would do it. If the answer was yes, I would not.

In order to have a life unlike my mothers, I wanted an extraordinary man who would want an extraordinary woman. I made a list of everything I desired in a man, and I set about to be that person. I went back to school to get my master’s degree. I spent a summer kayaking in Glacier Bay, Alaska. I started my own business and became financially solvent. I bought an old house, remodeled it, and flipped it for twice what I paid for it. I volunteered as a tutor for at-risk youth, and I ran a half marathon. I became a temporary foster mother. My life was almost as full and as rich as I wanted it to be.

But at the age of 35, I still did not have that extraordinary man, and I was running out of time to have children. My friend Valerie and I made a pact that at the age of 37, we would rent a limo and take it to the fertility clinic in downtown Portland and get inseminated.

When you’ve got a backup plan in life, it often seems you rarely need it. I ended up finding that extraordinary man one year before the artificial insemination due date, and this man was worth waiting for. Together we bought a farm that would be the ideal place to raise children. After going through six years of fertility treatments, we were finally able to get pregnant with twins. Finally, I could be the mother I had been training to be.

But five months into my peaceful, blissful motherhood, the phone rang with a job offer for my husband. It was a big job. In Manhattan. I asked myself, “Would my mother do it?” And of course she would not. So we left the farm, the chickens, my gardens, and the grape vines and headed to the city with our twin boys. And here we are trying to figure it all out and navigate the new challenges of motherhood and a fast city.

Living my life trying not to be my mother is not easy. At all. In fact, it’s downright hard. Manhattan is a challenging place to live for a mother of twins. My stroller doesn’t fit through some doorways, on the bus, the subway, or in the trunk of a taxi cab. The winter weather alienated me from my walks in the park. My dearest friends and helpers are 3,000 miles away. But I’m not living my mother’s life. Sometimes that’s the only gauge I have for measuring how I am doing. And most of the time, that’s enough.