When you're pregnant - or even thinking about getting pregnant - people are quick to tell you what a magic-filled time of your life pregnancy and parenting will be. And they're completely correct! In both super sincere and slightly sarcastic ways, mothers become magicians. I thought about my daily repertoire of magic, then consulted some of my favorite fellow magicians - the fabulous parents in my twin mom club - and here are just a few of our many tricks:
The Abdominal Amplification
Let's start at the very beginning... (a very good place to start. Sorry, I'll stop with the lyrics now.) Our bellies get kind of ginormous. Especially twin bellies. As you're watching yours expand almost so quickly you can see it, you can't help but marvel at this super-cool magic trick you didn't even know you could do!
The Sedative Song
You may have the world's second-worst singing voice (mine's the worst), but something about it still calms your baby. Their reaction is almost trance-like, and I always picture that scene in The Little Mermaid when Ariel's voice is out of her body, swirling around toward Ursula's seashell necklace... except my voice seems to wrap around those tiny angry people and make their eyes glaze over and get very... very... heavy....
The Gibberish Decoder
When I hear a noise from the nursery, I can always tell you which baby it is, and 99% of the time, I can tell you what they want. Their voices and needs have changed, but since they were a few days old, I've been able to translate like they are my second and third languages. I'm much more fluent in Abbie and in Sam than I ever got in French... with eight years of study. And there's no textbook, dictionary, or tutor for these languages. Tell me THAT isn't magic! ;-)
The Medication Obscuration
Only by magic can we convince babies that the syringe of sickly sweet syrup they do NOT want to swallow is really an airplane they should open their mouths to let into the hangar.
The Auxiliary Appendage Acquisition
We can hold a squirming baby (or more), mix bottles, and (for many of us) keep an older child or even a pet from getting into trouble, all at the same time. Each of those tasks require at least two arms... put a few of them together... magic!
The Perplexing Plaything Prestidigitation
In this trick, a toy that two kids are fighting over (or fighting with) suddenly disappears without a trace. It may or may not reappear at a later date ;-)
The Silent Slink
This is the ability to slip in and out of your sleeping babies' nursery to retrieve the cell phone charger you left there during their morning bottles.
The Tenacity Optimization
After a long day of being pooped on (figuratively and literally), of questioning and striving and loving and advocating... we go to bed exhausted, then wake up (usually too soon) and do it all again. Because we are magical creatures, and we love those little people so stinkin' much <3
What magic tricks did I miss? :-) If you leave one in a comment, make sure I have a link to your blog if you have one... it may show up in a follow-up post down the road!
