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• Take my twins -- please!

  I try to stay positive on this blog, and not gripe or groan excessively about the challenges of bringing up babies. Because relatively speaking, I've got it pretty good. And I don't mean just in the I-could-be-starving-in-a-war-torn-African-nation sense. Even in the mother-of-twins sense, I'm lucky. I've got financial stability, an awesome husband, a bunch of kickass virtual pals (that would be you), etc. My daughters are healthy and vibrant and almost always sleep through the night: seven to seven-thirty with nary a peep. How can I complain?   Well, I'm going to anyway. Because recently it feels like things have gotten a LOT harder. Having two mobile, basically non-verbal but very spirited 16-month-old daughters -- while wonderful in many ways -- is also freakin' EXHAUSTING. (Yes, this is going to be a post full of ALL CAPS.)   Being at home is by far the most relaxed scenario. The first floor of our house is pretty much child-proofed and the girls have their run of the place. They're capable of entertaining themselves to some extent. But they also like climbing and riding on things, which requires assistance. They want to be read to, but rarely both from the same book at the same time. They fight over toys and hurt each other by accident. They're constantly hungry.   The weather's been mild lately, so we've been taking them out into the back yard, which is a nice change of pace.  But being outside also means trying to keep Elsa from eating wood chips, then running to help Clio go down the slide again, then rescuing Elsa when she crawls up the back porch steps and can't get down, then picking Clio up to look at the birdies in the tree in the neighbors' yard. Seriously, I should have the body of a 19-year-old field hockey player given the energy I burn just running after the two of them. Instead I have a sore back, a flabby tummy, and circles under my eyes. Oh yeah, and NO BOOBS.     Note our cool new climbing structure -- forty bucks on Craigslist!   Of course, hanging out flabby, boobless and exhausted in the yard is cake compared with actually trying to go out to, say, a playground alone with the girls. In that setting, at any given moment, it's pretty likely that I'm neglecting one of my children. I am that mom at the playground that you hate: the one who is nowhere to be found while her child is eating sand or whacking your baby on the head or climbing up a precarious set of steps en route to the curly slide, leaving you morally obligated to rescue her. But it's not because I'm busy chatting on my cell phone or flirting with the cute dad by the swingset. It's because I'm chasing my other child, who is also eating sand, whacking someone on the head or climbing toward certain peril AND probably needs her nose wiped, too. I'm sorry. Forgive me.   Then there are social events. And I use the term "social" very, very lightly. We went to our friends' daughter's first birthday celebration this weekend, and while it was a lovely party, we basically spent the entire time wrangling our daughters as they traipsed about reaching for drinks, fighting over toys, stealing other babies' sippy cups, toddling obliviously toward staircases, etc. Not that we wouldn't have to do this if we just had one 16-month-old. But in that case, at least, we could take turns. And if, say, we had one baby and one child that, oh, I don't know, UNDERSTOOD AND SPOKE ENGLISH, maybe we would only be in frequent as opposed to perpetual motion?   You know, the newborn months were hard: the constant feedings, the night waking, the lack of two-way interaction. This current phase is infinitely more fun and rewarding. Every day Alastair and I find new ways to communicate with and love and enjoy our children.   But God, are we tired. (TIRED!)     (What, you don't let your kids dance on the coffee table?)   Posted Apr 28 2008, 10:12 PM by Roper with | with 38 comment(s) Filed under: twins, whining, I am powerless, exhaustion, playgrounds

• My Bookish Babe

  I have always been a bibliophile. Not only do I enjoy reading books, I enjoy looking at and holding and smelling them. If it were socially acceptable, I would probably lick them. When I was a kid, I used to build little dens and forts in closets and nooks for the express purpose of crawling inside and reading. When we got a clubhouse for our backyard and started a club for neighborhood kids, the first thing I did -- after appointing myself president and writing the club handbook and anthem, naturally -- was set up a lending library. A long-held dream of mine is to one day have an office with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and one of those sliding ladder thingies. And given the choice between going to a movie, watching TV or curling up in a comfy chair with a good book -- well, you get the point.   So, how psyched am I that Clio is suddenly obsessed with books? Quite! She is constantly thrusting them at me, demanding that I read them to her, eager to point out everything that she recognizes. If she sees a bird or butterfly, she'll do the fluttering hands sign for butterfly. An elephant gets our own made-up sign for elephant: arm as trunk, and a sort of trumpeting sound. Horses get bronx cheers (close enough), and cows get "mmm."  Mouths (ma), eyes (ah), shoes (shz), cats (ba), fish (shh) and babies (dieh dieh) also get mentions. If she doesn't know the word, sign, or sound for something and wants to know, she'll point at it and say "da da!" and I'll tell her. It's like she suddenly *gets* this notion of words being connected to things, and is desperate to learn them all.   I've always read to the girls before bed, once they're in their cribs. Lately, Clio has been demanding to have her own book, too. The only trouble is, she's very picky. She reaches out toward the bookshelves making that terrible grunting "I need!" sound that toddlers (mine, anyway) are wont to do (ieeeh! ieeeh! ieehh!) and I bring her book after book. She pushes them away, one after another, until I hit on the right thing: The Very Hungry Caterpillar? No, no, too predictable. Noah's Ark? Religious propaganda! Hop on Pop? Don't insult me. Touch and Feel Farm Animals? Touch and feel this!   Eventually, something will strike the right chord. The Rainbow Fish? Hmm....yes, that looks interesting. Let me read the back cover blurbs and the author bio. Hm. Yes, all right. I'll give it a try. If The Guardian liked it, I suppose it can't be too bad... And then she'll plop down on her butt in her crib and read, sometimes with the book right-side up, sometimes not. For the past week, I've left her with a book in her crib to fall asleep with after saying good night. (And several times I've had to go in an hour later and remove said book because she is lying on it, uncomfortable and crying.)   Alastair thinks I'm being too accomodating by bringing her all these books until she finds one she likes. He suggested I just offer her two or three and let her choose one.  Yeah. Well. I tried that tonight, and she handily, annoyedly rejected them all and resumed grunting and reaching (ieeh! ieeh! ieeh!) until I brought more. A book from the second round, Baby Kittens, held her attention for a while, but then when I attempted to read some nice, imperialist poems aloud from A Child's Garden of Verses while she looked at her kittens, Clio decided that that was the book she had to have. So I scooped both her and Elsa out of their cribs, held them in my lap (something they're very into lately, to my extreme delight) and started reading them "My bed is a boat." I got about three iambic pentametric lines into it before Clio was crawling across the room looking for something with more farm animals in it.   I don't blame her -- in fact, I commend her -- for being picky. I'm the same way; when I'm looking for a new book to read, I'll often flip through a bunch of them before I hit on one that feels right. And it doesn't always work out. I don't feel compelled to finish books just for the sake of finishing them anymore. There are too many great books out there, and too little time.    I love that Clio wants to read, but not just any old thing. She's a nerd after my own heart.   Posted Apr 16 2008, 07:18 PM by Roper with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: twins, I am powerless, children's books, Robert Louis Stevenson, reading to toddlers

• Laughter is not the best discipline

  As I've noted on previous occasions, Clio is a silly baby. From the very beginning, she's made us laugh. Something about her expressions, her mannerisms, her overall demeanor is just...silly. She loves to giggle, particularly when broad, physical humor is involved. And she's prone to doing random, silly things, like tilting her head from side to side and saying "blah blah blah blah blah" (my best guess is that this is an imitation of me) or spontaneously going into a perfect downward dog. We never taught her this; she just does it. And with such excellent form!     The latest twist on Clio's silliness, however, is not so innocent. It turns out she finds it very, very funny when I say "no" to her. And she finds it downright hilarious to test limits. Por ejemplo: there is a floor lamp in our living room that she likes to grab onto and shake. It's got a pretty sturdy, weighted base, so I don't think she's likely to topple the thing, but still. This is not behavior I want to encourage. So I firmly tell her, "No no, Clio, please don't touch, I don't want the lamp to fall and hurt you, etc. etc." And Clio finds this very funny. She takes her hands off the lamp, smiles, and then holds on again, waiting for my reaction. So I say "no" again. She laughs. I say no some more, and finally she lets go. Then she tries just touching the lamp with one finger, grinning and twinkly-eyed, to see what I'll do.   And my friends, I can't help it: I simply cannot keep a straight face. I try so hard, but eventually I break down. I just can't look at her (That smile! And one finger! That's sophisticated humor!) and not laugh or smile. And I know that this is not helping her learn that when mama says no, mama means it. Granted, I don't think I'd have a hard time staying stern if she was, say, putting her finger into an electrical outlet. But I'd like her to respect my "no's" in general, whether she's in mortal danger or just doing mischevious stuff like throwing her food on the floor or shaking lamps.   What should I do? Should I ignore her when she tests limits? Not look at her when I say my no's? Or do I just need to work harder on my poker face? I will admit that there's also this (weak. weak!) part of me that does't want to show anger or displeasure with her, lest she think that it's not all right to be silly and playful sometimes. I mean, I'm guessing it's pretty tough for a toddler to try to sort out why some things are OK and some things aren't. Why is it all right to stand up in the crib, but not in the bathtub? Why is it OK to throw a ball, but not a cup? It's my job to teach her these things, and hopefully to get her to realize when mama means business. But I suspect it's not going to work too well if I'm giggling the whole time.   Who among us is not powerless in the face of a baby with good comic timing? Help!     Posted Mar 26 2008, 08:56 PM by Roper with | with 16 comment(s) Filed under: silliness, I am powerless, Clio, discipline

• Twins at the table

  Now that everybody's digestive tracts are more or less back in functioning order, I thought I'd take a few minutes to document the unique systems of table manners that the girls have developed. I personally find many of these rather annoying and exasperating, but who am I to judge what may seem like perfectly reasonable practices to Elsa and Clio? I'm talking etiquette relativism, here. Just because I don't understand it or agree with it doesn't necessarily make it wrong.    Elsa's rules of etiquette:    1. Just as wine should be served in a stemmed glass, milk should be served through a nipple. Plastic or real, it doesn't matter. But under no circumstances should milk be served in a sippy cup. Water in a sippy cup is fine. Milk in a sippy cup? Gauche, gauche, gauche!   2. If you do not feel like eating something, you should bunch your lips up, close your eyes, and shake your head "no." But a lady always has the right to change her mind. Just because you refuse a spoonful of something in one instance doesn't mean you can't open your mouth and whine to be fed that same food six seconds later.   3. The graham cracker Clio is eating is better than the one you have. Take it!         Clio's rules of etiquette:   1. If mommy is going to eat or drink in front of you, she has to give you a bite or sip of her food or drink. You don't have to actually accept it. In fact, you can turn away when she offers it to you. The important thing is that she offers. Repeatedly. It's just a matter of respect.   2. Food is always better when served to you directly out of a bowl, plate, or tupperware container. It doesn't matter if you already have some of that food in front of you on your highchair tray. Point at the container it was taken from and insist that mommy let you take some directly out of the container. Again, you don't have to actually eat it. (Don't be silly!) Feel free to throw it on the floor or drop it onto your sister's highchair tray, if that's what you're into.   3. After taking a slug of milk or water from your sippy cup, it is traditional to fling the cup gleefully aside onto the floor. (You know how sometimes people do a champagne toast, then throw their glasses at the fireplace? Same thing, pretty much. Except be sure to cry for your cup back several seconds later.)           Both Elsa and Clio Agree:   To indicate that you are finished eating -- or if you just feel like having a little fun -- use both hands and, with a rapid wiping motion, clear all of the food off of your highchair tray onto the floor. It makes mommy say that "no" word, but seriously, what's she gonnna do about it? Stop feeding you? She is powerless. Your high chair is a throne. You are the sovereign. Show no mercy!       Posted Jan 27 2008, 09:35 AM by Roper with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: sippy cups, feeding twins, table manners, I am powerless