Baby Squared

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• Bedtime madness

  We all know how important it is to have a consistent bedtime routine for our children, particularly when they're under the age of three. Establish rituals, create a sense of security, establish limits, yada yada yada. We're pretty good about sticking to our routine for the most part, either abbreviating or elongating it depending on the hour and the mood of the girls. (Abbreviating doesn't go over too well when they're tired or cranky -- ironic since those are the nights we're *most* inclined to abbreviate.)   Over time, the routine has evolved, as the girls' needs have changed. When they were still babies, I read to them in their cribs, but as they got more engaged and interested in books, we moved reading to the rocking chair. For a long time it was two books, and then goodnight. Nowadays, the reading routine is a bit more unpredictable -- Clio wants to sit on the floor instead of on my lap / Elsa wants to read a book herself / Both of them want to read books on their own in their cribs, etc. But it's all good, yo.     Read More... Posted Oct 01 2009, 09:10 AM by Roper with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: twins, bedtime routine, tantrums, twin toddlers, terrible twos

• An Adventure Gone Terribly Awry

  Let me preface this tale by saying that I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE hot, humid weather. I can't stand it. I wilt in it. I am physically and mentally uncomfortable in it. I become cranky and lazy and irritable, and you pretty much don't want to be around me. This is is exacerbated by the fact that we only have air conditioning in our bedroom and the girls' room, and the rest of our house traps heat like a ... a ... heat trap. (The weather affects my ability to construct similes as well.)   Unfortunately, Elsa and Clio are not fans of hot weather either. They've been cranky and whiney and tantrum-y the past few days. In fact, on Saturday, Clio threw a fit of such ferocity that she actually managed to lock herself and Elsa in the nursery as a result. I forget what the inciting issue was, but Clio for some reason wanted to get out of the room, and was trying to open the door while I was changing Elsa. She somehow managed to turn the little lock knob thingy on the doorknob, unbeknownst to me, and when I closed the door behind me to go downstairs and get a particular library book to read to them before their nap, it locked. There are locks on all three bedroom doors in our house, each with separate keys, because the house used to be a rental property, where multiple people lived and each had their own room. But when we bought the house, we were only were given keys to two of them. Guess which one we didn't have?     Read More... Posted Aug 17 2009, 03:19 PM by Roper with | with 16 comment(s) Filed under: twins, Twins on vacation, I am powerless, tantrums, toddlers, twin toddlers, summer, heat, i hate hot weather, humidity

• Babies and baths: A Rocky Relationship

  I don't generally give advice on this blog. I like to think of myself as a friend and fellow-traveler to anyone who reads here, not some kind of big sister or "expert." But just this once, I want to send out a word of advice / reassurance to any parents out there with children younger than mine, who have reached the ripe old age of two and a half. And it is this: There may well be phases in your child or children's development when, for absolutely no reason fathomable to you, they suddenly HATE taking baths; when they will scream and flail and resist with vehemence your attempts to get them into the tub and to wash their bodies and/or hair.   Do not be alarmed. This condition generally will resolve itself within a matter of days or weeks for equally inexplicable reasons. All you can do is wait, try to make baths as quick and painless as possible, or -- if getting your child into the bath is completely impossible -- settle for swabbing her down with a washcloth or see if you can get her near a pond, pool, lawn sprinkler or other source of water with less drama than the bath inspires.         A happy bath period -- the girls at circa 15 months     Read More... Posted Jul 21 2009, 11:34 AM by Roper with | with 16 comment(s) Filed under: bathing twins, tantrums, toddlers, twin toddlers, twin individuality, bathtime, baths, patience

• Naked Baby

  I'm not exactly sure how this started, but Clio is all about being naked -- or naked except for a diaper -- these days. It's not that she disrobes; she just wants to stay naked or undressed or partially dressed once she gets that way. A key part of the experience for her is shouting "I'm a naked baby!" or (if we're attempting to put clothes on her) "I want to be a naked baby!"  Of course, we have no one but ourselves to blame for this; for a long time, Alastair and I have been in the idiotic habit of gleefully yelling out "naked babies!" when we get the girls into the bath. That kind of humor is very funny to toddlers. And to us, apparently. And, well, shucks, naked babies are just so durn cute!   Let me interject to say that, in case you're wondering, no, there will not be a birthday suit photo of Clio accompanying this post. As cute as it would be, I wouldn't feel right doing it. Not just because there are sickos out there, but because it seems like an invasion of her privacy. Unlike the rest of this blog. Ahem. Um...er...Moving on!   Read More... Posted Apr 23 2009, 06:17 PM by Roper with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: twins, tantrums, twin toddlers, toddler-ese, Harvey Karp, naked baby, happiest toddler on the block, night waking, nudity

• 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

• Les Miserables

  That's us. Having a helluva week here in the Baby Squared household. Yeah, yeah, we're not starving in the streets at the hands of an oppressive regime or dying on the barricades. And honestly, both A. and I have managed to keep our sense of humor and sanity. But it's certainly been theatrical. The dramatis personae:   Yours Truly (as Fantine): Compelled to work long, extra hours prostituting myself for the advertising agency I work at, in hopes of winning some new business for the firm. The company is fundamentally strong, but like every business, feeling the pressure  of the recession. On Monday, we found out we're all getting pay cuts (temporary, hopefully, and not too drastic, but still.) That same day, on the way home from work, the engine light in our 13-year-old Honda Civic went on. Yet again. We just can't justify putting any more money into a car with 169,000 miles on it. Meanwhile, I'm still plagued by clogged sinuses and ears and a sore throat; was officially diagnosed with an ear infection today. Surely tuberculosis and hallucinations can't be far off.     Read More... Posted Feb 24 2009, 08:02 PM by Roper with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: twins, tantrums, recession, twin toddlers, sick toddlers, Les Miserables

• Tantrum or Terror?

  Last night, Clio had what I think can only be described as a Night Tantrum. I don't think it was a night terror, because she seemed to be quite awake. She was doing all the things she normally does when she has a tantrum -- screaming and crying, flailing, making numerous, contradictory demands. (Mommy read a book! No mommy talking, just Clio!) The only difference was that it was ten o'clock at night, and she was horizontal for most of it. Was it brought on by a nightmare? A really intense case of insomnia? Or maybe it was a night terror, and she wasn't actually fully awake?   For the past couple of days, neither of the girls has been feeling terribly well -- they're congested, and both have conjunctivitis. (Ha ha -- made your eyes start itching.) Clio was running a fever last night, so I gave her some Ibuprofen before bed. She was exhausted, and went right to sleep. But a couple of hours later, we heard her crying. Alastair went upstairs to check on her -- I figured he'd be back down in about a minute's time after finding her pacifier for her or rubbing her back or whatever it was she needed. But minutes passed, and he didn't return, and then Clio started screaming even louder -- the kind of scream that yanked right on my heartstrings and practically dragged me up the stairs. I took her from Alastair and rocked her and shushed her like she was a newborn, but it didn't do a thing.     Read More... Posted Feb 22 2009, 07:11 PM by Roper with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: sleep patterns, twins, sleeping through the night, tantrums, toddlers, twin toddlers, night terrors, nightmares

• Dancing Queens

  There are days like today, when you've got a nasty head cold and sore throat, and your house is a total mess, and your desk is overflowing with bills and mail, and one of your daughters has a nearly TWO-HOUR tantrum, when it feels like nothing short of a small miracle to turn on your digital camera (which you finally have a new battery charger for) for the first time in several weeks and and discover this: Read More... Posted Feb 06 2009, 04:23 PM by Roper with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: twins, dancing babies, tantrums, toddlers, twin toddlers, John Updike, Dirty Dancing

• The Reign of Clio

  I am in need of some serious Babble reader advice, sympathy and/or commiseration here. We have the world's bossiest toddler living under our roof, and she's driving us bonkers. True, we have been basically trapped inside by snow for the past two-and-a-half days, so we're all feeling a little cabin-feverish. But this has been going on for some time: Clio has become incredibly high maintenance.   She wants to play with Play Doh now. She wants more milk now. She wants to watch the Baby Animal Songs DVD ("Baby ee-o") for the 4th time that day. She wants me to read Chickaboom to her for the 5th. But mostly, she orders us to hold her. We try to oblige when we can, but it's just not always possible. Making breakfast, going to the bathroom, playing with your other child, etc. are all fairly tricky when you've got a 26-lb. person in your arms. Unfortunately, Clio is also very specific about how and where she wants to be held: standing up vs. sitting down, with mommy vs. daddy, in the kitchen or in the living room. And she most definitely doesn't like to share a lap with Elsa. (I wonder if, in fact, this is all directly related to being a twin -- a sense of competition or jealousy, a need to have her individual desires met...) Read More... Posted Dec 21 2008, 06:24 PM by Roper with | with 21 comment(s) Filed under: twins, screaming, life with twins, chaos, clinginess, I am powerless, crying, tantrums, Clio, twin toddlers, twin individuality, twin interaction, entertaining toddlers, time out, saying no

• Two times two equals f#&%

  We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. Really, we did. There was lots of good food and no family drama. We got some serious, slothful relaxation in, too: the night before Thanksgiving, at my brother's house, we drank wine, ate pizza, and watched five straight hours of Top Chef. I've decided I'm going to start talking to Elsa and Clio like one of the contestants to get them more interested in their food: "What I've done here is taken circular oat cereal, rustled it into a bowl and then quickly doused it with just the right amount of fresh, cold milk. Finally, I've topped it off with some thinly-sliced, ripe banana. Enjoy."   We also had twenty-eight glorious child-free hours together on the Maine coast, which we spent doing the sort of things we used to do way back when: browsing in shops, eating more frequently than is biologically necessary, talking about everything from our college days to our future plans to how Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination. (A. is reading Team of Rivals.) We were silly and stupid and flirty. And man, it was nice to go to sleep in a big, soft, king-size antique bed and not have to negotiate which one of us was going to get up with the girls in the morning.   Though I can't say I really *missed* the girls, by the time we headed back to my parents' house, I was eager to see them. They greeted us with bright smiles, said "Mommy Daddy here!", let us kiss them, and then proceeded to have total, screaming meltdowns. Both of them.   Video (not of the meltdowns) after the jump. Read More... Posted Dec 01 2008, 09:02 PM by Roper with | with 16 comment(s) Filed under: twins, holidays, I am powerless, tantrums, discipline, twin toddlers, Maine, time out, thanksgiving, grown-ups only

• Screw the bedtime ritual.

  Really, sometimes you just gotta. Like tonight. I got home from work, and the girls were all smiles and happiness, having spent the afternoon with Jaycee (A's mom), going to the park and eating Cheerios and so on and so forth. Big hugs for Mommy, adorable "bye bye"s for Jaycee and Abu, la la la, everybody's happy, all is well. Time for a nice dinner and cozy bedtime wind-down with mom after a long day's work, right?   Ha.   Flash forward fifteen minutes: Elsa is straining at the straps of her high chair, red-faced and screaming, begging to come sit in my lap while she eats. It's something I made the mistake of letting her do a couple of times last week when she was acting especially fragile, and which both grandmothers -- who have been here to help while Alastair is away -- have naturally indulged, being grandmothers and all. But I want to break her of this habit, so I try letting her sit on a "big girl" chair (no dice) and offer to hold her on my lap for a little while, but move her food out of her reach. This doesn't go over well. Read More... Posted Sep 30 2008, 09:17 PM by Roper with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: table manners, bedtime routine, tantrums, reading to toddlers, librarians, Read for the Record, Corduroy, Literacy

• And we're back.

  Home again, after a week at family camp in New Hampshire, followed by a few days in Vermont, where Alastair played in a folk festival. I am pleased to report that we had a really lovely time. In fact, this is the first time we've gone away with the girls that I wasn't dying to come home by the end of it. The secret: expectation management. As I mentioned in my last post, I went into this vacation with my eyes wide open, knowing it was going to be tiring and chaotic and nothing like pre-child trips of yore. But I very consciously decided not to be grumpy about this, and try, instead, to savor what is so fabulous and rewarding about having Clio and Elsa along for the ride.   Like introducing them to the wonderful game of bocce. The balls were a little too heavy for the girls to pick up, so we played a little-known, ancient variation on the game where you run up and down the bocce court waving your hands over your head and squealing, and occasionally kicking one of the balls. (It's still played this way in a certain village in Sardinia, I'm told.)     (More pictures after the jump)   Read More... Posted Sep 01 2008, 09:17 PM by Roper with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: Zen masters, Sandy Island, vacation with twins, traveling with twins, tantrums, twin toddlers, summer, Aerosmith, carbs

• Understanding Clio

  Over the past few months, Clio has gotten increasingly...how do I put this?...particular. First it was books, as I wrote about in this post, a few months back. Then, it started happening with sippy cups. We noticed that if we filled two different colored cups, Clio had strong preferences about which one she wanted: pink trumped all, and purple or orange were better than blue or green. Try to hand her the wrong color cup, and she'd push it away and say "no" until you offered her the other one.   Then, just when I thought I had her color preferences all figured out, she changed her game. She started consistently refusing the first cup I offered her, in favor of the second one, regardless of color. And then sometimes -- in a cunning and exasperating twist -- once she had that one, she'd whine until I swapped it for Elsa's cup. (Elsa, bless her heart, could care less.) So now I just hold up both cups and let her choose.   What's even stranger (or cuter or more exasperating, depending on my mood) is that she also has preferences when two items are EXACTLY THE SAME. Por ejemplo: we have two identical toothbrushes, which we use interchangeably on the girls. The same color, the same design, everything. But lately, Clio won't accept the first one I hand her. Or she will, after I try offering her the second one. Or maybe, if Jupiter is aligned with Mars and the date is a prime number and the Sox are playing at home, she'll take the first toothbrush the first time. Who can predict -- let alone understand -- the ways of the Clio?     Read More... Posted Jul 22 2008, 08:22 PM by Roper with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: twins, I am powerless, tantrums, Clio, pictures, OCD, twin individuality

• Cry Baby

  Elsa is really starting to get on my nerves. I know, I know, I'm not supposed to stay stuff like that. And most of the time she is, of course, delightful. But it seems like she's doing a lot more crying and whining lately: to be picked up, to be fed, to be given her cup or bottle, to be taken out of her high chair.   A couple of times over the past few days, she's even thrown all-out tantrums. This is definitely a new development. Both times, she was in her high chair eating and then suddenly -- seemingly out of the blue -- started freaking out. We tried giving her different food, holding her, giving her her cup, etc., but she was, for a few minutes, inconsolable. She even kicked and flailed when I tried to hold her. So finally, we just let her walk (more like stomp) around the room crying and screaming until she calmed down.   I have no idea what she was upset about. Her food wasn't to her liking? Her peas and carrots clashed? She was worried about the economy? I don't know if it's normal for 14-almost-15-month-olds to start throwing tantrums, but if it is (please tell me it is....) I would wager it's due to communication frustration. There's so much now that she can tell us -- she knows the sign language for "drink" and "eat" and "more." She can lift her arms up when she wants to be held and shove a book at me when she wants to be read to. She even sometimes points at her rear end when she needs to be changed -- a new and promising skill. But I'm sure there's much more going on inside her head that she can't get across: I'm sick of mac and cheese! This bib is scratchy! I'm tired and bored and my college savings funds are nosediving while you sit there trying to get me to eat chunks of over-microwaved Boca burger! Agggghhghghgh!!   My instincts tell me that at this stage of the game there's not a whole lot we can do during these outbursts except just give her some space to cool off. As for the other, more low-grade whining and crying, I don't know. Since day one, Elsa has been a bit of a drama queen (not that I'd ever dress her in a shirt that said so...), and her crying has always seemed somehow very *emotional.*  I love the fact that she's passionate and intense and stubborn. But it's definitely becoming more of a challenge. Although I am generally able to keep my cool ("Everything's OK, sweetie, Mommy's getting your milk right now, please be patient," or "Mommy can't pick you up right now because she's changing Clio's diaper, but I'll play with you as soon as I'm done" etc. etc.) -- the occasional, "What is up with you, Elsa? Chill, girl!" does slip out. I'm beginning to have dire visions of the future -- tantrums in the grocery store, battles over bedtime, notes sent home with the principal, squad cars pulling up to our house with -- OK, OK, I'll stop.   At least this is one time where the twin thing is a comfort. While Clio certainly does her share of crying and whining, too, she's generally much more mellow. So at least we can be reasonably sure that Elsa's behavior isn't a result of our doing something horribly, dreadfully wrong. I don't think...     Posted Mar 19 2008, 03:14 PM by Roper with | with 21 comment(s) Filed under: Drama queen, crying, Elsa, tantrums