You smell like love

Chapter 18

Two weeks at home and everything seemed easy and difficult at the same time. It was easy to clean the house and find it dirty in two hours because of a diaper that they had not been able to throw away in time because the other baby had started crying, some cups that they had left half-drunk on the coffee table because the twins were hungry and there was continuous laundry, with TK's sweatshirts, which he stained because he was not used to the amount of milk that his body released every time he heard or thought he heard one of the newborns, not to mention the onesies that two such small creatures could stain in such a short time.

TK was forbidden by both the doctor and Carlos to exert himself in any way. Although he had been discharged and allowed to go home, he had to rest as much as possible.

No food preparation, showers had to be taken with help because his body was not yet reacting as it should and he could lose his balance. It seemed stupid but he had gone from carrying twenty kilos that had disappeared from his body overnight and his body felt it.

The trips to the park with the twins' huge stroller that they joked about being a tank were short when TK went out — or, rather, when TK spent a long time pouting to convince Carlos that he could do it and ended up just going around the block because he was really exhausted.

His life, both of their lives, had changed radically, in ways no one had thought possible even a day before the twins came into the world. Sleep was a vice, Mateo teased, to which everyone around him who had already had children told him, "You'll see when it's your turn, you won't laugh so much."

It was not easy to combine the sleep of the twins. Daniel could sleep for hours without problems, wake up to eat and fall asleep while TK breastfed him to continue sleeping for as many hours. When Luna woke up, she was hungry, but after eating she spent a long time suffering from painful colic, whether it was day or night.

TK needed rest and although he begged Carlos to let him take care of the children when the nights got long and heavy, Carlos flatly refused.

"Remember what the doctor said, at least the first week at home, no holding the babies and moving on your feet."

"But it's been six days already, it's the same thing."

Carlos glared at him without stopping dancing back and forth across the bedroom so as not to lose the rhythm and have Luna wake up. They had placed the babies' cribs in their room, TK wanted to keep them close to breastfeed them as soon as they woke up hungry and Carlos just had to get up to rock them and help them back to sleep.

He was on paternity leave and had four months to get through those complicated moments of lack of sleep, not eating at the right times and other out of the ordinary situations they were going through.

But they were doing well, it was clear to them when the twins finally slept and they could lie in bed in complete silence for a while.

"We're doing fine," Carlos said as TK settled into bed and onto his chest.

"It's only been a week."

"Only?" Carlos stroked TK's hair and ran his hand down his back to tuck it under his shirt. "A week with two babies seems like a lifetime, Ty."

TK just mumbled something that Carlos didn't quite make out. He stared at him, still stroking his skin, and realized he'd fallen asleep. He didn't doubt that he was exhausted, TK must have been doubly tired with a body that was still recovering from the C-section and pre-eclampsia.

He loved watching him sleep and it was so much easier for him to fall asleep when he had him next to him.

He woke up in the middle of the night with a start. He thought he heard one of the twins crying but when he sat up in bed, he realized that fortunately they were both sleeping peacefully.