Baby Squared

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• Have we reached Peak Cuteness?

  Every time I can't think the girls can't get any more adorable, they do. Starting when they were around seven or eight months old, I think I started saying, "this is it. This is the best age ever. They can't possibly get any cuter  than this." And then, by golly, they did. They did even funnier more engaging things. They said even cuter stuff. There was, admittedly, a brief period between eighteen and twenty-four months, when I was just as likely to say "It can't possibly get any harder than this..." But the past few months, things have definitely been on the upswing again.   And seriously, two-and-a-half -- today, exactly! -- has got to be the cutest possible age. It's gotta all be downhill after here, right? The girls still have a bit of that baby pudge and innocence. They still have the un-self-consciously gleeful giggles of toddlers, and take pleasure in simple things -- running around in circles and falling down on the grass, putting stickers on themselves, digging in the dirt. They like to cuddle. But they're also curious and aware of what's going on around them (I'm constantly surprised by how much they remember and pick up on.) They "read" books by themselves. And they talk -- Lord, how they talk. They crack us up on an almost daily basis with the stuff that comes out of their mouths. (Me: Clio, what is your stuffed doggie named? Clio: Cpthtoth. Me: What? Cpthoth?  Clio: Yeah, Gaby Gaby Cpthoth.)   Pics after the jump...     Read More... Posted Jun 28 2009, 05:56 PM by Roper with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: twins, twin language acquisition, parenting twins, twin toddlers, cute quips

• Entering the Cute Quip Zone

  Yes! We're here! I've been so looking forward to this stage of the girls' development. Not that I haven't enjoyed the other stages, mind you, but this is really a lot of fun: the Stage Wherein the Kids Say the Darnedest Things.   I think this lasts for a while, and probably will reach its cuteness peak when the girls are around four. But it's pretty damned cute now, hearing the funny and surprising things that are coming out of their mouths now that their verbal abilities expanding at warp-speed. I will try to refrain from posting every adorable thing they say here, because obviously the adorable things that kids say are much more adorable to their own parents than to the world at large. But I hope you'll indulge me on occasion. (This occasion being one of those.)   pic after the jump     Read More... Posted May 04 2009, 10:52 AM by Roper with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: twins, twin language acquisition, parenting twins, twin toddlers, cute quips, parenting toddlers

• The Weirdest Mommy on the Block

  I recently picked up a copy of Harvey Karp's The Happiest Toddler on the Block from my favorite local bookstore, the Salvation Army. I'd heard good things about it from a few people, and I'd also found the Swaddling-shushing-swaying-shishkebabing-etc. advice from Karp's Happiest Baby useful when the girls were young, though I never actually read the book. (The S's were just the word on the street.)   I haven't read all of Happiest Toddler. I've skipped around a bit and focused on the sections that dealt specifically with two-year-olds. So far, I have mixed feelings about the book. Overall, it was a little too "cute" for my taste stylistically (enough with the exclamation points, Harvey!) and a lot of the advice just isn't practical for twins. Or any toddler, for that matter. Nightly massages before bed, complete with massage oil? Uh huh. Right. But the insights into toddlers' emotional and cognitive development were great, and most of the advice seemed to make a lot of sense on an instinctual level.   There was one particular tactic Karp recommends that I'd love to know if anyone else out there has tried. He calls it speaking "Toddler-ese" -- basically, talking to toddlers in their own language when they're upset / angry. You start by acknowledging what they want or feel, to let them know that they are heard and understood, then you shift into what you'd like them to do. Sounds pretty sensible, right? But when you look at the examples of what this might actually sound like....well, here's one example he gave, of what a mother said to her 32-month old twins who were fighting over a ball:     Read More... Posted Apr 20 2009, 09:00 AM by Roper with | with 25 comment(s) Filed under: tantrums, discipline, parenting twins, toddlers, twin toddlers, The Happiest Toddler on the Block, toddler-ese, Harvey Karp, setting limits

• Pool par-tay

  When Alastair is taking care of the girls while I'm at work, a popular indoor activity -- which I think a reader may have actually suggested -- is the pool party. It's sort of like a bath -- OK, it is a bath -- but the girls wear their bathing suits, Alastair puts on Led Zeppelin or some other pool-party-appropriate music, and dumps more bath toys and tupperware containers than usual into the tub. There is bubble-blowing, too. And lots of shouting "pool party!" Needless to say, the girls love it. (Amazing how much more fun something is when you call it a party, isn't it? I think tonight A and I are going to have an applying to refinance our mortgage party. Woo hoo!)   So, yesterday, E & C were very excited to find out that we were taking them to their first *real* pool party. (AKA tot swim class.) They were definitely taken aback when we first got to the pool. An indoor pool, particularly when filled with children of various shapes and sizes, is an intense sight for the uninitiated. The smell of chlorine, the echoey noise, the damp floor -- all quite foreign and a little bit intimidating. (And I may be projecting a bit here; I was always a tad freaked by the pool at my local YMCA as a kid.) But once Elsa saw the kids in the class before ours going down little plastic slides into the water, she was sold. I had to hold her back as she attempted to make a break for the stairs into the pool. Clio, meanwhile, not surprisingly, was more hesitant.   Read More... Posted Jan 25 2009, 04:56 PM by Roper with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: twins, parenting twins, twin toddlers, water babies, pool party, swimming lessons

• A Day in the Life

  Friday, January 2. 7:40 a.m. -- The girls wake up. Clio first, as usual. She babbles to herself for a while, then starts calling, "Mommmmmmmyy!! Daddddddy!!" I nudge Alastair with my foot. It's his turn to get up with them, so I can catch a little extra rest.   9:15 a.m. -- My alarm wakes me up, and I'm surprised that I was actually asleep. The girls had been screaming and yelling downstairs -- for milk, for waffles, to sit in the big girl chairs -- who knows. While I lay in bed, I wondered a few times if I ought to get up, go downstairs and give A. a hand, but I had to deal with the more or less the same scenario the day before. It's his turn now.   9:30 --  After a quick shower, I come downstairs, eat half a banana (Elsa and Clio catch me in the act and, of course, ask for the other half) and warm up a cup of yesterday's coffee in the microwave. While Alastair takes a shower and gets dressed, I put the girls' shoes on, change Clio's diaper (she dirties it right after I put her shoes on, of course), and tell them that we're going to go to some friends' house and have pancakes. A few minutes later, as I'm getting their jackets on, Clio says, "Go friends! Have pan cakes!" I am amazed and delighted, and shower her with praise.   10:00 -- The usual mad scramble to get out the door: girls get all excited and start yelling for things (Elsa hat! Clio milk! Picka up! Picka up!) while Alastair can't find his glasses and I can't find my cell phone and we almost forget the diaper bag, and as usual in this kind of situation, we start snapping at each other. He's annoyed because I'm not positive what our friends' address is, I'm annoyed because he has no sense of direction, the girls are yelling "Nana phone! Nana phone!" but we don't have that CD in the car, and every other driver on the road is an asshole and all the lights are red and we should have listened to the GPS instead of my gut feeling, because this is a really stupid way to get to Jamaica Plain (then, what isn't?) and we're totally late and the girls are yelling for pancakes and my blood pressure must be through the roof.   Read More... Posted Jan 03 2009, 08:26 PM by Roper with | with 17 comment(s) Filed under: twins, exhaustion, parenting twins, parenthood, twin toddlers, mommy and daddy time, stress

• T-I-M-E O-U-T

  You're probably all familiar with the need to spell out certain words in front of your toddlers once they pick up that pesky habit of understanding English. Woe to the parent who foolishly utters the word C-O-O-K-I-E without the intent of immediately handing one over to any small child within earshot. And don't mention that you're going to take your kids to the P-L-A-Y-G-R-O-U-N-D unless you intend to go THAT VERY SECOND.    But certain words, you would think, are safe to say aloud -- things that kids aren't interested in, like "credit card," "recycling," or "corkscrew." Or things that pertain to them, but that they don't find particularly appealing and aren't likely to start begging for, like "crib" or "time-out." Right? Well, yes. Except ixnay on that last one in the Baby Squared household.       Read More... Posted Nov 19 2008, 09:30 PM by Roper with | with 26 comment(s) Filed under: I am powerless, depression, Elsa, Clio, discipline, parenting twins, twin toddlers, parenting and depression, twin table manners, time out

• The 18-month Lull

  As of this weekend -- Saturday, to be precise -- Elsa and Clio are 18 months old. Or one-and-a-half, as Alastair prefers to say. He thinks they're old enough to be referred to in years now, but I want to hang onto their babydom just a little while longer, so I shall keep referring to them in months. But only until they're thirteen.   The last few months have been, admittedly, rather challenging at times. I think it peaked at sixteen months, around the time I wrote this post, whining about the physical exhaustion of running around after two very active, very needy toddlers. But I feel like in the past couple of weeks, things have turned a corner. Maybe it's because the girls have gotten a bit more physically confident and independent -- they don't fall flat on their faces quite as often, or get as upset when they do. Or maybe it's because their language skills are suddenly blossoming, so it's a little easier to understand what they want -- not to mention a helluva lot of fun teaching them new words. Or maybe it's just because we've adjusted. Just as the line of babyproofing in our house grows higher and higher (They can almost reach the kitchen counter now! Damn!) our patience and endurance climb to keep pace with their level of energy and interactivity. Read More... Posted Jun 30 2008, 09:33 PM by Roper with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: twins, pediatrician, exhaustion, playgrounds, twin language acquisition, throwing food, parenting twins, toddlers, parenthood, 18-month twins, twin toddlers