‘They didn’t understand until I got them both in a mirror.’

Melinda Gastil works at Olive View Hospital’s Mid-Valley facility, attends Valley College and has 4-year-old twin boys, Michael and Sean. Melinda and her husband, Ron, live in San Fernando with the twins and their daughters, Michelle, 16, and Dawn, 7.

I found out during my fourth month. The doctor said I was gaining weight, that I was eating too much. But I said, “Oh, but I haven’t been eating at all.” He asked if there were twins in the family. I said, “Yes, my mother had twins.” The next day I went in for an ultrasound, and they detected two little heads. I was happy, and at the same time I wondered what my husband was going to say. My grandmother said I was blessed.

When they came home from the hospital, I had to wake up and feed both of them in the middle of the night. It takes twice as long when there are two. I’d get up when they’d start crying. They were my alarm. I was feeding them with two bottles, and I would start to nod off, and all of a sudden one of them would start crying because the bottle fell out of his mouth. It was really sad. It took an hour between getting up, the feeding and the changing, then back to sleep for another two hours. Then they’d wake up again. It took the twins about four months before they slept through the night.

Michael would look at his reflection in the mirror and say it was Sean because he couldn’t comprehend what a mirror was. They would get confused. Sean would look at his reflection and say, “That’s Michael.” They didn’t understand until I got them both in the mirror.

It was hard carrying Sean and Michael at the same time. I have a little Volkswagen and it was hard to bend over and flip the seat forward to put them in the back. I used to hit their poor little heads. I felt so bad, it would make me cry.

When I’d take them to the park, both of them would see dogs. One would go off this way chasing one dog, and the other would go off that way chasing the other dog. Grocery shopping? Forget it. You have to keep them both in the same grocery basket, you can’t push two around; they fight, they sit on the food. It’s just terrible. Clothing stores? They’d come home with tags that they’d yanked off the dresses as I was pushing them through the aisles.

You have to laugh a lot. It’s the only thing that keeps me together--just laughing everything off. I have earplugs that I wear at times when it’s too much. I know a lot of moms who wear earplugs, and it helps--especially if they’re crying. You tell them, “Mommy’s going to put her earplugs on so you can cry all you want and she cannot hear you.” So I put them on. And they still cry, but they realize, “Mom’s not paying attention to me, it must be true, she can’t hear me.” And so they stop. Psychology, huh?

I think I’m doing the right thing. I try to discipline them as much as I can without spanking them. And, if I do spank them, I warn them in advance. “Mommy’s going to spank your bottom, three times, if you don’t behave,” so they listen. Sometimes they don’t, and I’ll spank them three times, and I’ll say, “I told you, and you didn’t listen.”

I have this bumper sticker that says, “Proceed with caution, mother of twins driving.” I dance a lot in my car. If they are being obnoxious, I’ll turn the music up and pretend that they’re not there. People will look at us like we’re crazy.

Or I’ll dance around the kitchen when I’m doing the dishes or making dinner. People think I’m nuts. My older daughter says a lot of her friends can’t believe I’m a mother because I’m not like a regular mom. I don’t understand what a regular mom is supposed to be like.

I’d tell a woman who’s going to have twins to laugh, think positive and remember that there’s always a bright side to everything. It’s not as hard as it seems. It’s really hard in the beginning, but later it’s easy. Every time I look at the kids, all four of them, my heart hurts because I love them so much.