Baby Squared : toddlers

Taking it Silly and Slow

Roper — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:25:00 GMT

As you may have picked up if you've been reading this blog for awhile, I am a very silly person. Or, perhaps more accurately, I have an intensely silly side which balances out my incredibly serious and sophisticated side (cough cough).

So I am therefore quite psyched that my gals are now entering the age of prime verbal silliness -- you know, when you crack up over words like "underpants" and (my personal favorite) "poop" and where nonsensical utterances like "you're a waffle head!" win big, gleeful giggles. (Just a few months ago, this kind of thing was more likely to get a solemn disputation: "No I'm not, I'm just Clio.")

Anyway, the gals and I have got a new favorite silly game, called "Hi, Mister ______ pants!" Basically, I just say this repeatedly, filling in the silliest possible words I can think of. Hi, Mister puppy pants! Hi, Mister bagel pants! Hi, Mister potty pants! (Two syllable words work best, and foods / animals / bathroom-related words are preferable.) The girls just think this is the funniest freakin' thing they have ever heard. Then they jump in, too, with their own Mister pantses: Hi, Mister yogurt pants! Hi, Mister Daddy pants! Hi, Mister Curious George pants!

And we all laugh. Clio's got this high, ticklish sounding laugh. Elsa, meanwhile, has a funny, guttural snicker. Damn, is there anything better in the world than the sound of babies and kids laughing?

So, that's the silly part of this post. Now, onto the slow. (I know, I know. Usually I stick to roughly one topic, or at least link them thematically, but I just don't have it in me today.)

We've had a bit of a breakthrough realization when it comes to Clio's tendency to freak out. Specifically, how she flips out when we don't say the right thing in response to something she says. We've felt like we're walking on eggshells lately -- one wrong word, and she starts screaming No, don't say it!! Don't say it!! Don't say it!! And there's pretty much no way to undo it we're fucked.

But sometimes, what she screams is "Don't say it yet." And what we've finally come to realize (duh) is that it's not so much what we say to her, it's when we say it. She wants to get her entire sentence out before we respond. If our "yeah" steps on the back of her sentence by even a half beat, she's pissed. She feels like she's not being listened to.

So now, we wait. Which can be difficult. Because it can take a long time for Clio to get a sentence out, especially when it's a long and complex one. In fact, she really seems to like putting together long and complex sentences (I suspect she'son the advanced side when it comes to this particular ability) and I think she's proud of herself when she does it, which makes it all the more infuriating when some big stupid oaf of a grown-up ruins the ending.

So, we're getting a lot better at waiting. Which requires slowing ourselves down a bit. We're so used to operating at full speed, in everything we do, that it's tough to change gears. But by waiting for the girls to get all their words out, by replying slowly and deliberately, and by generally taking things easier and at a more relaxed pace -- whether it's brushing teeth or putting baby dolls to bed or stacking all the books just so -- I think all of us end up feeling less stressed and more on the same wavelength. A slower, less frenetic one.

Hi,...Mister.....Pokey....pants.

Parent Shock

Roper — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:40:00 GMT

This weekend, we went up to Maine to introduce the girls to their new cousin, Deklan, who has now attained the ripe old age of three and a half weeks. He's a cute little dude. On Saturday night, my brother and his wife went out for a few hours, and my mother, Alastair and I babysat for him. I was reminded of how simultaneously sweet, exhausting and dull the newborn weeks are. It also made me think back on the surreal-ness of going from being childless to suddenly being a parent.

Once, when the girls were just a couple of weeks old, and my parents were in town, Alastair and I snuck out for a quick dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was the strangest thing to be suddenly back out in the world, doing something we might have done on a typical weekend night just months before. Since our babies were born, our lives had changed dramatically, but we hadn't yet made the full psychological shift. It was as if we were in a strange, prolonged dream, so that this -- being alone together in a restaurant, surrounded by mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings -- felt more like reality.

In general, the dawning of parenthood has been much slower than I expected it to be. The first year was challenging to be sure: exhausting, bewildering, etc. But it was also something of a honeymoon, in a way: Look at me! I'm a mom! I've got babies! Isn't this crazy? It's crazy!

In the two years since then -- as the girls have embedded themselves more deeply into my mind and my heart, as they (and their stuff) have started taking up more physical space, and as they've gone from babies to little people with their own desires and demands -- being a parent has become more woven into my sense of self. There's nothing surreal about it anymore. I feel about a thousand times more like a mother now than I did on December, 28, 2006 when I first became one.

Mostly, I think I'm pretty good at Mom-ing. And the great majority of the time I like it. Wouldn't trade it for anything. But the past month or two, I've found myself grieving a bit for my pre-parenting life. And it's not just because potty training the girls has been intense, or because Clio won't nap, or because Elsa won't poop, or because both of them can and do throw tantrums like nobody's business. I mean, it is because of those things, sort of.

But I think it's also that I haven't had the time -- or maybe I haven't made the time -- to recharge myself adequately so that the "being a mom" part of my life doesn't feel all-encompassing (when I'm not at work, that is). In fact, both Alastair and I have been feeling lately like we need a break --- a weekend away, or something, either separately or together, so we can re-collect and check back in with ourselves.

Interestingly several of my friends with kids around the same age as ours have expressed similar feelings of late. It's this sense of "Whoa, when did this being a parent thing suddenly take over our entire life??" Perhaps this is the point at which the novelty of becoming a parent wears off, and you're faced with the reality (both lovely and frightening) that this is for real and it ain't gonna stop. You're a person with kids. Just like your parents!! Yikes!

I'm not exactly sure what the answer is to resolving this feeling of "parent shock" -- or even if there is one. Maybe trying to take a bit more time for myself would help. Maybe I need to make some larger changes in my life. Or maybe it's a matter of accepting and adjusting my expectations and sense of self. In any case, talking (writing) through it to sympathetic ears (well, eyes) helps a lot. So, thanks in advance for being that.

And as you know, I don't think any of us should be afraid to air our struggles and even our occasional conflictedness about being parents, so feel free to do ye likewise.

PS -- Elsa pooped in the potty last night. I'm not getting too excited, as this may have been a fluke, but I attribute part of it to letting her run around with no pants on, and part of it to following commenters' sage advice about backing off. Thank you!

Positive Reinforcement

Roper — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:48:00 GMT

We're trying to do more of this around the Baby Squared household, as a means of fending off the whacking, kicking, hair pulling, whining, shouting, pants-pooping and other nastiness that seems to have proliferated 'round these parts over the past month or so.

Partially as a result of the suggestion made by several fabulous readers/commenters on this very blog, we got ourselves a couple of "Responsibility Charts" by Melissa & Doug. (This is not a paid endorsement, however if Melissa & Doug, Inc. would like to send me some free stuff, I'd be more than happy to be a total blog whore and write about it here.) There are a bunch of "responsibility" magnets to choose from, ranging from very preschool-appropriate stuff like "keep your hands to yourself" to stuff I hope we won't have to use for awhile, like "Don't use bad language." Next to each one, there are spaces to put happy face magnets.

There are also a couple of blank responsibility magnets you can write stuff one (dry erase!) so on each girl's chart there's currently one magnet that says "Poop in potty." (This is still a bit of an issue for Elsa.) Alastair pointed out that "potty," probably would have been sufficient. But I say, anyone who comes into our home had better be prepared for the fact that poop is a frequent point of discussion.

When we first put the charts up, we made the obvious, idiotic mistake of putting them low enough on the wall that the girls could reach them. Naturally, they thought they were toys and started moving all the magnets around. (Duh.) Now, they're high enough up that only Mommy and Daddy can reach. So, we now administer magnets for good behavior and aborted bad behavior, and shamelessly dangle the promise of magnets in front of the girls as an enticement to -- to choose a random example -- poop in the potty. Or say please and thank you, or pick up their toys when we ask them to.

We'd been a beet stymied by how to deal with the "things not to do" categories, as in "no whining," and "keep your hands to yourself." We were sort of working on the idea that we'd award a magnet if, for example, the girls managed to work out a hair-pulling / pushing / hitting bout on their own, without parental intervention, or if they nipped a whine in the bud when it was pointed out to them. But that didn't seem quite right, so now we're trying to focus on "catching them being good." (Thank you, to the potential babysitter we recently interviewed, who gave us the term!)

This morning, for example, I saw what could have been a potentially violent situation resolve itself quite beautifully. Elsa was sort of bopping a toy on Clio's head -- lightly, and Clio was laughing -- but it was the sort of thing that I could tell was about to turn ugly. Then, Clio said, as reasonable as can be, "I don't want you to do that, Elsa," and Elsa, by God, stopped doing it! It was miraculous. And I told them so (in slightly different words) and gave them each a magnet for keeping their hands to themselves.

We haven't quite figured out the best way to tie the number of magnets to an actual reward (beyond the magnets themselves) but Alastair tried telling them they needed to get up to ten, and they'd get a treat (i.e. a piece of Halloween candy), and that seemed to work well. It's also an excellent excuse to hang onto all the Halloween candy just a leetle bit longer. For them, of course.

It is kind of funny, though, to look at their charts, and see all the magnets lined up for the "easy" stuff like brushing teeth and picking up toys. (And, in Clio's case, pooping on the potty. (Can I manage to say "poop" ten times in this post? If I can, I'm going to give myself a Reeses!) I kind of feel like we should tie the rewards to a distribution of magnets across the more challenging categories as well. It's quite the science.

But we're not only relying on the chart for positive reinforcement. We're trying hard to vocally recognize good behavior in general. Not that we haven't always, to some degree, but it seems more important than these days. We're pretty pooped out from having to be constantly reprimanding and warning. It makes us feel like jumping off the poop deck of very large ship. (One big enough to have a poop deck.)

Shoot. That's only eight.

Poop. poop.

Mmm....candy.

Telling stories

Roper — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:27:00 GMT

When I was a little kid, my mother used to tell me "e-Jane" stories. "e-Jane" was the main character, and she had all sorts of e-ventures, wherein she encountered e-goats and e-elves, flew e-planes and climbed e-mountains, and engaged in other silly e-xploits. The "E" prefix wasn't because my mother was way ahead of the technology curve or anything. (While e-Jane might indeed have gotten e-mail in one of the tales my mother spun, it was most decidedly of the paper variety.)

She came up with e-Jane as my fictional handle because I went through a phase when didn't like being called "Janey." But everyone called me that, and there was no way they were going to stop -- Jane is such a serious name for a preschooler -- so she liberated me from the name in fiction, as e-Jane. And I loved hearing e-Jane stories. They were a bedtime treat that lasted well into my grade school years and beyond. Books are great, and being read to is great, but there's nothing quite like being told a story.

Thing is, it's not that easy to make up stories on the fly. You'd think that, being a writer, I'd know how to spin a tale out of nothing. Au contraire, mes freres (et soeurs). Actually, I think it's in part because I'm a writer -- I do most of my thinking on paper or onscreen -- that I'm not the best impromptu oral storyteller. This was clearly evidenced last night when I made my first serious attempt at telling the girls an "Elsa and Clio" story before bed.

We'd just read this weird book called Potty about all these jungle animals who try to use a potty, so I had jungle animals on the brain, and knew that the girls did too, so I thought they'd enjoy a story featuring jungle animals. And possibly a potty. Unfortunately, that was about as far as my whole concept went. So the story went something like this:

"Once upon a time, there were two little girls name Elsa and Clio. And one day, they came to a big jungle. Um...and they decided to explore the jungle...and..um...have a contest to see who was braver. And Elsa said, "I'm so brave, I'm going to go bring back the biggest animal of all!" and Clio said, "No, I'm the bravest, and I'm going to bring back the biggest animal of all!"

So they both went into the jungle and when they came back, Elsa was carrying a huge elephant, and it was so big that it was...bigger than all the trees and...yeah, it was just really big. But Clio also had a really big animal....a giant giraffe! And this giraffe was so big that it...I mean, its neck...reached all the way up to the sky. And, so...they both had really big animals. And they were both really brave."

The real Elsa, I should note, was totally loving this story, sitting up on the edge of her bed, looking at me with rapt attention. Clio, meanwhile, was lying down and looking over at me like, "what the hell is this supposed to be?"

I continued: "So, then Elsa said, well, I can....lift my elephant up...and teach him to stand on his head! So she flipped the elephant over with one hand, because she was so strong, and so smart and he stood on his head. And then Clio said, "well, I can also...um, I can teach my giraffe to dance!" So she...um...put on a CD and taught the giraffe how to dance and the giraffe danced all around the elephant standing on his head."

(The real Clio liked this."That's silly," she said, and smiled, finally.)

Now I was on fire: "And then, Elsa and Clio's mommy came along, and she said, 'Wow, you guys are so brave! And so....talented! But now it's time to go home..."

"And eat lunch!" said the real Clio.

"Right! It was time to eat lunch. But, the mommy said, first you have to turn the elephant back over and make the giraffe stop dancing! Because if you don't...well, that won't be good and we can't go home and have lunch. So Elsa said OK, and flipped the elephant back over, and Clio told the giraffe to stop dancing, and he did, and then Elsa and Clio went home and ate lunch. And do you know what they had? They had ... blueberries with ladybug sauce, and eggs with...elephant poop, and waffles with.... a snake on top."

The girls liked all this, but they wanted to talk more about the elephant poop. They decided that it had hair and arms and a nose and a mouth. (Thus contradicting Elsa's earlier assertion that poop doesn't have a mouth.) And they seemed far more entertained by this than they had by my finely crafted allegorical tale of human folly and the availabilty of CD players in the jungle. Go figure.

The moral of this (non) story? My mom's e-Jane stories probably weren't that good either, as stories go. But they were silly and I was the star and I sure loved hearing her tell them. Which is much more important than plot. So until the girls develop a keenly honed sense of narrative arc -- which I'm still working on at 35 -- I can probably get away with inverted elephants, dancing giraffes, and anthropomorphized poop. The end.

Clio's Afternoon Nap, 2007-2009: A Eulogy

Roper — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today not to mourn the loss of Clio's nap, but to celebrate it. Because that's what the nap would have wanted us to do. It would not have wanted us to dwell on its absence with weeping and lamention, although certainly that is a natural reaction to a loss of something so, so, SO dear to us. Excuse me -- sorry, I just need a minute, I'm fine, really -- does anyone have a tissue? Thank you.

As I was saying, this nap had a long, happy life -- longer than many afternoon naps. So let's remember the good times we had while it was with us -- all the things that the nap brought into our lives: time to write or relax or catch up on email; time to recover our energy and patience after a hectic morning; time to nap ourselves. And let us not forget the powerful sense of hope that the nap brought us. For even on the days when we were up far too early, and the morning was far too exhausting, and everyone was in far, far too crappy a mood, we could always draw strength from the knowledge that soon, very soon, we'd get a break. The nap would not let us down. Almost never, anyway.

You know, I remember this one time -- this must have been in late '07, maybe early '08 -- that the nap was just so, so -- sorry, I'm getting all emotional just thinking about it. Give me a minute. OK. I'm fine. Ahem. During that nap -- that one, beautiful nap -- I did an hour of power yoga, took a shower, wrote a short story and a blog post, baked a German chocolate cake from scratch, cleaned the house, had an amorous interlude with my husband, did my nails, caught up on all my emails, drilled myself on French irregular verbs, tutored an at-risk youth, organized the attic, changed the litterbox, called my mother, and read an entire issue of The New Yorker cover to cover.

I suppose I might be romanticizing a little in hindsight -- it might actually have been brownies, from a mix, not German chocolate cake. But the point is, the afternoon nap was a truly beautiful thing. It made so many people so happy, just by being there.

But let's look on the bright side. I'm sure the nap, all its beautiful nappy goodness, would have wanted us to. For one thing, there's still Elsa's nap. That nap is hale and hearty -- sometimes lasting for well over two hours -- and shows no sign of leaving us any time soon. And while that nap still lives, we are given the rare and precious gift of one-on-one time with Clio. And, with it, the opportunity to say to ourselves, with self-righteous indignance, "Dear GOD, this is a piece of cake! Next time anyone with one kid starts complaining about how hard they've got it, I'm going to poke my own eyes out! Wah, wah, wah, it's so hard running around after a two-year-old. ONE two-year-old? Are they kidding? Cry me a freakin' RIVER!"

Um...I'm guessing from the looks on your faces that perhaps I've gone too far. I've let my emotions get the better of me. You're right; I'm sorry. I know that parenting isn't ever easy, no matter how many or how few children you have. This is just a difficult time for me, OK? I loved that nap. Truly and deeply.

And you know what's the worst part? A few times, since it left for good, the nap has come back to haunt us. Once last week, when Clio was sick, and another time after she'd been up a bunch of times in the middle of the night. And it was so wonderful, and everything felt good and right again, and cakes got made and litterboxes got cleaned and verbs got conjugated.... And then we had to grieve all over again the next day, and it was that much harder. Nap, if you're out there somewhere, listening to this, I beg you, please: Leave us in peace. We loved you, and always will. But leave us now. We've got to move on. Leave us!! I cast you out, nap! I forsake you!

No, wait, I take that back. I didn't mean it! Forsake forshmake! Come back and see us anytime! I mean, if it's convenient for you. No pressure or anything. But seriously. Come back. Come BAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clio, asleep. January, 2007

In lieu of flowers, please leave comments below.

The frog in my throat, and other calamities

Roper — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:18:00 GMT

I've had a cold this week, no doubt partly as a result of the exhaustion and sleeplessness of our potty training intensive last weekend. The other day, my voice sounding particularly scratchy and ridiculous, I told the girls that I had a frog in my throat. Of course, I quickly realized that this would sound absurd to them, and explained that I didn't actually have a frog in my throat; it was just an expression. (Like that would really clear things up.) "Sort of like a joke," I clarified. They chewed on this for a little while (not literally), and somehow it became, "You have a frog in your mouth so that's why you make a funny joke!"

I rather like this interpretation -- that there's some kind of comedian amphibian in my mouth, and every time I open my mouth to speak, he comes out with a joke -- "What is the deal with toads? I mean, they look like frogs, but the fuckers can't swim!" -- in his hoarse (not horse) froggy voice.

There have been some other prime examples of two-year-old literalism lately. We've had some difficulty with getting Elsa to go #2 in the potty -- a very common toilet training issue, it seems -- and at one point we had the following exchange when she'd been holding it in so long that she appeared to be in some pain:

Me: You know, I think your tummy would feel a lot better if you got the poop out.

Elsa: Is there a poop in my tummy with my food?

Me: Well, sort of. The food you eat goes in your tummy, and some of it turns into poop, and then you need to get it out.

Elsa: (Delighted) There's a poop in my tummy with my food!

Me: (Abandoning any attempt at scientific accuracy) Yeah, and it's saying "Let me out! Let me out!"

Elsa: (Very serious) No, poop doesn't have a mouth.

It's true. As far as I know, poop doesn't have a mouth -- at least not one that's visible to the human eye. Poop, therefore, cannot have a frog in its mouth. This is rather comforting if you think about it. Then again, it makes going to the bathroom much less entertaining. Sorry. I'll stop talking about poop now. And frogs.

Of course, all is not completely literal in the Baby Squared household. There are times when the girls reach amazing heights of imagination bordering on surrealism. The other day, Clio was holding her phone (a non-working cell phone) up to her ear, "talking" to her grandma Jaycee. She asked me to hand her other toy phone, which I did, held it up to her other ear, and announced, "Now I look like a strawberry!" After I stopped laughing, I affirmed that, yes, that was exactly what she looked like. A very, very cute strawberry. (With a very cute sister)

Photo by Mara Brod

Rock-n-roll Toddlers

Roper — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:27:00 GMT

Clio and Elsa will never be as truly rock and roll as some of the other blogster young 'uns here on Babble, but as the children of a performing musician, they do get the occasional opportunity to rock out. (At least, as much as it is possible to rock out when your dad plays mostly in the folk / roots / singer-songwriter scene. It's not like he does death metal.) Most of his shows happen after the gals' bedtime, but we've brought them along to some of the daytime gigs.

It's been a little tricky for them, so far, to understand that when Daddy is playing onstage, it's not like at home -- they can't just go up to him or try to talk to him or tell him to play "Nana phone." (He doesn't actually know how to play Nanaphone -- a.k.a. Banana Phone, and has told them this repeatedly, but it's still one of their favorite requests.) At a show a few months ago, they were dancing in front of the stage, then Clio got freaked out by the applause after a song and started crying, and ran up to him for comfort before I could stop her. So, of course, Elsa went up to him, too. One of the other performers, the lovely and talented Rose Polenzani, artfully defused things by letting them play her glockenspiel during the next song. I'm not sure either of them has a future in percussion, but it's probably too early to judge.

Rose Polenzani and back-up glockenspielers

This weekend, Alastair had an early show at a pub, so the girls and I went over and had dinner there. It's not a seedy place or anything, but isn't exactly family-oriented, so having a couple of two-year-olds in the house was quite a novelty for some of the regulars. We had a few gin-soaked kisses blown in our direction by twinkly-eyed, grinning old men. Things managed to stay on the sweet side of that very fine sweet / creepy line.

The girls bravely sat at the high top table and we ate our greasy dinners. I don't know why I haven't yet managed to learn that if we order something for the girls that comes with fries, they will only eat the fries. I guess this isn't the worst thing in the world, given how infrequently we eat out with them. And, in fact, I did get Clio to eat one bite of a pickle (does that count as a vegetable?) It slipped out of her hand onto the floor, and she said "I'll leave it there for the dogs and the cats." Very thoughtful of her. Meanwhile, Elsa, with ketchup all over her face, exclaimed out of the blue, "I'm excited to be here!"

Once Alastair started playing ("It's a little loud," said Clio) the girls were ready to dance. And dance they did. Elsa is majorly into twirling around and around at present, so she'd twirl and twirl, then stop and dizzily stumble around and fall on the floor. A few times I had to catch and redirect her before she wiped out and knocked into a barstool. A few times she ended up on the floor, but hey -- it's not really a night out until someone ends up on the floor, right?

Actually, both of them did some floor-moves as part of their dancing. I know this isn't the most sanitary thing in the world -- having your children roll around on the floor of a bar. But I gave their hands and faces a very thorough scrubbing when we got home, and as long as we can get through a night of clubbing without anyone throwing up or passing out, no harm done, right? I even managed to capture some of their rocking out on film -- it's a little dark, but you can catch some of their moves. The song is one of Alastair's originals, "Swing that Axe." He's on the acoustic guitar, with local fave side man Austin Nevins on electric.

"Working" from home

Roper — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:32:00 GMT

Yesterday morning, due to some childcare issues, I had to work from home. At least, that's what I was officially doing -- what I told my co-workers I was doing, anyway. (Some of whom read this blog. Hello, co-workers!) But the reality is, it is not possible to get any meaningful quantity of work done while simultaneously trying to take care of small children.

And you end up feeling like a jerk in the process: You're not paying enough attention to your kids, who you've either plopped in front of the TV or are trying desperately to keep occupied with toys, crayons, books, etc. ("Hey! I know!! Why don't you guys see if you can build me the biggest lego castle ever!! Take your time!! Make it really, really big!) Meanwhile, you're not really giving your work the attention it needs or deserves, because some kid is tugging on your leg asking you to look at their big dumb lego castle.

The impossibility of the situation was summed up perfectly for me yesterday when I suggested Elsa and Clio draw pictures (to keep them occupied while I shot off just a couple more emails...) and Clio ended up drawing all over a document from work that she found on the floor near my chair. At that point, I said screw it, and took them out to the playground.

I'm always sort of puzzled when I hear expectant or would-be moms say they'd like to work from home some or all of the time. I mean, I guess it's do-able when you've got older kids, who are in school. And it's do-able if you've got some childcare at home. And maybe it's do-able if your job is...um...testing and reviewing toys. And maybe there are even some angelic children out there who are content to quietly occupy themselves with some independent, non life-threatening activity for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Or who can watch more than an hour of TV without getting antsy. But they sure aren't my kids.

Now household work, on the other hand, is something I can manage to get done -- to a limited extent -- when the gals are underfoot. Sweeping, giving the sink and toilet a quick wipe-down, basic meal prep, laundry, and dishes are all feasible, I suppose because they are more interruptable, and don't require a whole lot of mental energy. Unlike, say, coming up with an idea for an ad, or writing a blog post about how impossible it is to work and and look after small children at the same time. Also, housework is the sort of thing preschool-aged kids are sometimes happy to help (well, pretend to help) with:

Maybe next time I find myself with no choice but to simultaneously work and look after the girls, I should give them each a non-functional laptop (I've got one up in the attic somewhere, and Freecycle would surely yield another...) and let them pretend to write. I'm sure that would keep them happy for at least three minutes. I'm curious: anyone out there had any luck working and parenting from home -- at the same time, that is -- on a regular basis? How on earth do you do it?

"I was a little sad, and then I was happy."

Roper — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:46:00 GMT

So speaketh Clio, when asked how preschool went. As predicted, she had a rough start -- a whole lotta crying and screaming. Alastair stuck around at the school office for a while (along with a few other parents in the same boat) then left when one of the co-teachers reported that Clio was down in the low-simmer territory, as opposed to a full-on, rolling boil of misery. (Metaphors inserted by the author.) When A. picked her up at the end of the day, on the playground, she was still sticking close to one of the teachers, but at least she wasn't crying.

I expect this will be the pattern for awhile, until she really gets comfortable. Which she will. But in the meantime: How about that sentence, huh? "I was a little sad, and then I was happy." Two thoughts in one sentence, a sense of time, an awareness of emotion! This is a far cry from "Pick up!" and "More milk!" Which, admittedly, are more representative specimens of the general tone and quality of toddler-speak in the Baby Squared household. But gradually, the sentences really are getting longer and more complex, and the thoughts they express more nuanced and coherent.

One thing in the area of language development that I'm finding particularly fascinating -- as a self-professed grammar snob -- is hearing the girls tussle with the mechanics of language. Pronouns still trip them up, so we often get sentences like "her was playing with me" or "We go home to we house." Often, in these cases, I'll repeat the phrase back, with the correct pronoun, and sometimes they'll give it another shot. But they's a long way from really mastering this particular linguistic skill. Past tense is still a work in progress, and irregular plurals are still pretty much a lost cause, but hey, that's English for you. (Is there any other language in the world that has so many irregularities and inconsistencies?)

It's also interesting to notice the girls' respective strengths when it comes to verbal ability. Clio tends to put longer sentences together, but Elsa is a champ when it comes to memory / recall. One of the latest manifestations of this is her enthusiasm for "reading." Lately, It's been almost impossible to read a book *to* her; she always wants to hold and "read" them herself. For a while, my reaction to this has been one of anger and annoyance -- it's incredibly frustrating when I'm trying to read a book to Elsa and Clio together, like we've always done as part of our bedtime routine, and she's trying to grab the book out of my hands, yelling "No, I want to read it!" (and then insisting that Clio and I each read our own book, which pisses Clio off, because she wants a story read to her.)

But lately, I'm trying not to fight it as much. If Elsa insists on reading a book on her own, I say that's OK, but why doesn't she read it to me and Clio? And in doing this, I've discovered that the girl really can "read" (as in, recite / riff on) entire books if she knows them well. Sure, she doesn't do it word for word, and she adds her own little twists and interpretations. Often, there are mommies and daddies inserted into the plot and interpreted from the illustrations. (If there are two people or animals on a page, it's fairly likely, in Elsa's interpretation, that one is the other one's mommy or daddy. Inter-species parentage is quite common.) But she also frequently picks up on subtleties and complexities that I'm amazed she can recall.

It bums me out to know that I was, for awhile, missing all this by intepreting her "I want to read it" behavior as sheer willfulness. I love reading to the girls -- having them both snuggled into my lap together. It's one of the few opportunities for that kind of calm, physical closeness, and I would hate to lose it completely. But there is also something quite lovely about listening to your two-year-old's interpretation of a book, and seeing how happy she is to be listened to.

A good reminder that often, when you scratch the surface of "terrible two" behavior, you see that there's some pretty exciting developmental stuff going on.

The marketing onslaught begins

Roper — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:34:00 GMT

More than two years (!) ago, I wrote about the logistics of going to the grocery store with two babies in tow. A little over a year ago, I tackled the subject again, commenting on the near impossibility of grocery shopping with two 18 month-olds. (Which made going with two infants seem like a cakewalk.) For awhile, I didn't dare bring both girls to the supermarket at once. But for whatever reason, over the past six months or so, I've given it another shot -- short excursions for basics only -- and it's gone pretty well.

Coming armed with juice boxes and toys helps. Free cookies from the bakery section help even more. (If free cookies are not out for the taking already, I've actually asked the bakery folks for them a couple of times, and they're happy to oblige. Behold, the amazing power of cute little kids!) Letting the girls hold an item or two also helps (hint: things in boxes or bags, not produce of any kind. Elsa actually took a bite of a lemon once.) Letting Elsa get out of the cart and walk for awhile toward the end of the trip when she's getting restless, is also a good tactic, and not too hard to pull off, now that she listens and understands when I tell her to stop, watch out, stay near us, don't pull every bag of bread off the shelf, etc.

Believe me, if I had my druthers, I wouldn't go to the grocery store with the girls at all. But "druthers" in this instance means copious amounts of free time. And I'd much rather spend my druthers writing, reading, going to the gym or doing errands that I simply can't do with the girls. (Same goes for Alastair, who also, bravely, brings them along to the store at times.) Ah, druthers. (Hey, I just realized something: is "druthers" a Cockney-ish contraction of "I'd rather," that got turned into a word over time? Somebody please google and report back. Druther not take the time.)

Anyway: yesterday marked a turning point in our grocery shopping adventures. It was the first time that the girls started, well, noticing certain things. I went to get them some juice boxes and while I was mulling the options, they both starting shouting "Doggie juice! Doggie juice!" I didn't know what the hell they were talking about, and then I noticed the juice boxes with Clifford the Big Red Dog on them. The girls do not even know who Clifford is, but they started asking for "Doggie juice," which was not the brand or size that I wanted to buy. I sort of lamely told them that the kind of juice we were getting was better ("Look! These have a pineapple on the box! Isn't that cool?" Lame.) They were OK with this, and Clio even added, sagely, "I think that doggie juice is for doggies." To which I said, "Yes, that's right, it's for doggies." (Is it wrong to lie to your children, constantly?)

But it happened again in the cereal aisle ("Bunny cereal!") and the dairy case ("Dora yogurt!") and each time, I had to explain that we didn't buy that particular product; we bought a different one that we liked better and that tasted better and was better for us. (Note use of the royal "we.") To the girls' credit, they really didn't put up a fight. But I can definitely see this changing in the near future.

My immediate instinct was to think: uh oh, time to stop taking the girls to the grocery store. But this isn't really realistic. And it's not just the grocery store, it's any store. And it's TV, if they start watching things other than Curious George and Sesame Street. (Both of which, I should point out, are preceded by pseudo-ads for Chuckie Cheese and McDonalds...)

My mom managed to raise me and my brother without buying the cereal with the bunny on it, or the peanut butter with Peter Pan on it. But there were a lot fewer brands in the stores then, and I don't think syndicated characters had colonized groceries to the extent that they have now. I don't mind giving in to the lure of the cute character occasionally (I totally bought them Elmo potty seats, because I knew it would be appealing to them). But I don't intend to give in all the time.

And I want to bring my girls up to be informed consumers, savvy about advertising and marketing. The question is: does a preschooler really "get it" when you tell them that the yogurt without Dora on it is the same -- and likely better, and cheaper -- than the yogurt with Dora on it? How do you deal with this issue with your little 'uns?

The Fall Fashion Issue

Roper — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:10:00 GMT

I have never been terribly concerned with clothes where my children are concerned. I mean, I make sure that they have enough of them, and wear them as appropriate for the weather and, to a lesser degree, the occasion. But as much fun as it would be, we just don't have the time or energy -- let alone the money -- to dress Elsa and Clio super-adorably.

Their wardrobe consists of a motley combination of gifts from grandparents and others, hand-me-downs from friends, things that I buy for them second-hand at tag sales, and a few supplemental store-bought items as needed, generally from Target or Marshall's. The dresses in the closet go largely unworn. Anything that requires ironing or hand-washing is pretty much never worn -- at least, not more than once.

As the girls outgrow clothes, I toss them into a shopping bag in the closet and periodically bring them up to the attic, where I transfer them into other bags and boxes, which I intend to sort through any day now, I swear. Meanwhile, the girls share one big dresser, which I am convinced is haunted by some small, slovenly poltergeist that gets its kicks by unfolding everything we've just folded and pulling dirty clothes out of the hamper to mix in with the clean ones. In short, I never feel quite in control of the clothing situation. But it's never been high on my list of worries in life.

Of course, I do enjoy getting the gals into a cute outfit now and then, if I can swing it. (i.e. if one of them is not throwing a fit while I'm trying to dress the other one, and if a good combination of shirt / pants / sweater / etc. all happen to be clean at the same time.) And I do occasionally feel a pang of jealousy and inferiority when I see little girls in cute-meets-funky ensembles made up of clothes that look like they came from boutiques or, at the very least, high-end consignment shops. (Just as I occasionally feel pangs of jealousy and inferiority when I see women looking similarly stylish and cool.)

But most of the time I could care less. What's the point of making your kid look like they stepped out of a Hannah Anderson catalog if their clothes are going to be spattered with yogurt within an hour of their getting dressed? And what's the point of spending fifty bucks on an outfit that they'll only fit into for six months?

Of course, four days out of the week, it's their dad who dresses them, and his sartorial standards are even lower than mine. Some days I come home from work to find the girls looking like he dressed them in the dark. Cute pink flowered pants and a grungy red t-shirt with writing on it. Jeans and a pajama top. Brown with purple. Stripes with dots. Granted, the man is fairly color blind. But mostly, he just doesn't notice or care. Which is fine. Really, it is.

Except that the girls are about to start preschool. And in the spirit of the back-to-school season (remember how important it was to figure out what you'd wear on the first day of school?) I'm feeling the urge to get a bit more on top of the girls' clothing situation. I'm going to a huge kids' tag sale tomorrow morning, and am hoping to score some cute stuff. Maybe I'll even spring for some of the big ticket items -- you know, things that cost more than two dollars. And maybe I'll start laying their clothes out the night before on school nights.

Of course, all of this begs the question, "Why?" Am I succumbing to some subtle societal pressure to make sure that my children look well-dressed and are not perceived as ragamuffins by their teachers and the other parents? Yeah, there's probably some of that. (I remember my mother's dismay on one occasion when I wore the same dress two days in a row while she was away and my dad was in charge). But I also think it's just the whole notion of them going to school. There's some part of me -- and maybe it's a little old fashioned -- that believes you should look a little nicer for school than you would for hanging around the house. (Aren't my girls going to adore me when they're teenagers?) Who's with me?

Please Stand By

Roper — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:16:00 GMT

Last weekend, we brought the girls down to the recording studio where Alastair has been working on his forthcoming kids' album, A Cow Says Moock. (Yes, yes, he loves the puns.) I sang harmony on one of the tracks -- my first studio singing experience since I was ten years old and sang on a commercial for Duncan Hines cookies (Crispy, chewy! Crispy, chewy! To the tune of "Love and Marriage." Anyone remember it?) It went fine -- the harmony track, that is -- though I don't think I have much future as a recording artist. Elsa and Clio, on the other hand...

OK, so they were more interested in the headphones than in actually saying or singing anything. Elsa was also fascinated by the microphone, and kept asking me to "turn it on!" I think she thought it was a lamp. Clio liked opening and closing the door to the booth. But we did manage to get some good little clips of them laughing and moo-ing and singing "You are my sunshine" and the alphabet song. The former, I think we would have to pay royalties on if he put in on the album, but ABC, we believe, is public domain.

Anyway, Alastair is going to find places to add some snippets of them where appropriate throughout the album. There's a song about twins, "Twins are twice as fun," where their voices will almost definitely make a cameo. And when the album comes out, they'll be joining their father on a 30-city stadium tour, with the Jonas Brothers opening. Nickelodeon has already contacted us about a sitcom and video series, which they're pitching as "the Olsen Twins for a new generation." Just kidding. We'll settle for obscure blog fame and occasional recognition at Boston-area playgrounds, thankyouverymuch.

For the next week, through labor day, however, we'll be taking our act up to Lake Winnepesauke, so the blog will be dark for a while. Well, not dark, but you know. Not updated. But don't y'all go away! We'll be back. Enjoy the last lovely days of summer.

Welcome to Chez Elsa & Clio

Roper — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:26:00 GMT

Please, won't you come in? Right this way to your table. It's a little bit sticky; the last patrons were eating canteloupe, and we didn't have time to wipe it off. Oops, look out. There's some peanut butter on your chair. Here, let me take care of that for you. Please, sit down. But feel free to get up and attempt to run out of the room whenever you feel like. Or ask to be picked up. The rest rooms? Oh, sorry, we don't have those yet. But here's a diaper. Enjoy. And can I put on your bib for you? No bib? That's fine, please, feel free to tear it off and throw it on the floor. Not a problem.

Now, I'd like to tell you about some specials we have tonight: There's some delicious leftover chicken from the grown-ups' dinner last night, served with a nice salad, and some lovely wild rice. We also have some of the macaroni and cheese you didn't eat at lunch, which the chef tells me is perfectly good once it's heated up, with a little butter in it -- No? Not interested in the specials? Of course not, I didn't think so. Between you and me, I'd stick to the menu. All of our most popular items are here, and really, they never get old.

Here you go, and let me know if I can answer any questions. Can I bring you some milk while you wait? Yes, of course, in the blue cup with the green lid. I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise.

Le Menu (Lunch and Dinner)

Les starches:

Macaroni and Cheese (made fresh to order, never left over)

Whole wheat bread with butter (spread all the way to the edges), cold or toasted

Pasta with olive oil or tomato sauce (served "wit cheese on it!! No, more cheese!!")

Sweet corn (on or off the cob)

Bagel bread with butter or cream cheese

Pizza crust (served with sauce, cheese and other toppings to be picked off / spit out)

Tater Tots (with Ketchup). Limit one order per customer per week, Chef's orders

Les Sandwiches (served on wheat bread, with side of one baby carrot)

Peanut butter and jelly

Hummus on pita wedges

Grilled cheese

Turkey and cheese (turkey and cheese optional)

Les Proteins

Hot dog, cut or "a big one"

Turkey meatballs

Veggie burger or Chik'n burger, with "lots of ketchup"

Scrambled eggs

Les Vegetables

Broccoli (One floret)

Peas (You just have to eat five. OK, four.)

Green beans (two)

Cherry tomatoes

Have you decided yet? The fresh macaroni and cheese and a hot dog cut up. Excellent choice. Can I get you a vegetable with that? No? That's fine, just be forewarned: the chef may put a little broccoli on your plate. But please feel free to take it off and put it on the table. Or on the floor, if no one's looking. I won't tell. And one Fig Newton in a bowl, you said? Well, normally we don't serve dessert until after you've had your entree, but I'll ask the chef and see what she says. She always says no, but no harm in asking, repeatedly. Maybe this will be the night she changes her mind, right? I'll be back in a few minutes with your food. No, of course you don't have to stay seated. Feel free to get up and pester the chef while she's cooking. She loves that.

Six minutes later

Ah, I see you've finished your meal -- and, my goodness, you ate more than half of the food on your plate! You must have been starving! Very good. Now, can I interest you in dessert? You can have that Fig Newton you requested, or a popsicle, and we also have a variety of fresh fruits, yogurt....I'm sorry, you want all of them? Well, normally we ask that our patrons choose one dessert, but you know what? I'll talk to the chef and see what I can do. She's had a long day, and I think I might be able to wear her down. I'll just turn on the tears and the whining, maybe throw a low-grade tantrum, ha ha ha -- yeah, you know what I'm talking about don't you? Ha ha! All right. I'll be right back....Fingers crossed!

Break it up, you two

Roper — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:04:00 GMT

Someone asked in a recent comment if my girls break into fights pretty much any time I leave the room for more than five seconds. And the answer, sadly, is yes. YES! It's ridiculous how much of our parenting these days involves playing referee. And damn, it's tough. We're not even to the stage of She said / She said yet. There's no "she started it," or "she's lying." There's just...fighting.

And it seems to go in waves where it's either Elsa's fault all the time or Clio's fault all the time, and I start questioning my ability to be a fair and impartial judge, because I fear I am biased against one child or the other, based on her recent behavior. Or I worry that I'm subconsciously trying to even things out by under- or over-reacting to one or the other of them. (If you're having trouble following this paragraph, then you can begin to get a sense of how confused I often feel in the moment.)

The fights tend to fall into five distinct categories. There's the "You took what I was playing with and I want it back" fight; the "you are crowding my personal space" fight; the "I am mad at you for some entirely inane and irrational reason, like you put your milk cup to the left of your plate and I want it to the right of your plate" fight; and the "you are doing some silly/annoying thing on purpose just to drive me nuts" fight (Clio is frequently guilty of this -- mischeivous child). Then there are the expressions-of-affection-and-playfulness-turned-rough incidents, which, while not as contentious, still require parental intervention

In fact, it seems like almost all of their -- ahem -- "disagreements" require parental intervention. I've tried a few times, experimentally, to let them try to work things out on their own, but it usually only leads to escalation. I try to assume the role of "conflict coach" when I can, encouraging them to use words instead of screaming / crying / hitting. I'll say (for example) "Elsa, if you don't like it that Clio is swinging your Curious George around by the leg, you need to tell her 'please stop doing that to my George,' instead of crying." Not that it necessarily works. But it's a start, right? Much of the time, though, we have to get right in there and arbitrate.

It's the physical fights that I hate the most. Both girls are deep into the hitting / pushing / kicking thing, and I find it awfully disturbing. We are very firm about these not being acceptable behaviors. Our strategy, when it happens, is to physically remove the perpetrator -- sometimes for an actual "time-out," sometimes not, depending on the situation -- and have a little "talk" about how hitting and kicking are not OK responses, you need to use words. We require an apology. After that, if possible -- that is, if we witnessed what happened -- we try to address what the other child did to provoke the physical response: grabbing a toy or insulting her sister's haircut or whatever. But making it clear that violence is not an OK response is our first priority.

What I find particularly infuriating is when the girls strike out at us, which happens occasionally. They may only be two and a half, but they are strong little buggers, and a smack or a kick from them can really hurt. It's hard to remain calm and reasonable when your daughter has just whacked you on the head and screamed at you to "go away!" while you're trying to cut her waffle (for example) because she asked you to cut her waffle. (No is yes! Yes is no! War is peace! Freedom is slavery!) You are not only angry at the behavior, but you're hurt that they've lashed out at you, and, possibly, in pain.

Sometimes their "violence" is not even in anger; it's just out of punchy (literally! Again!), overtired playfulness. Yesterday afternoon, I was changing Clio's diaper and she was being kicky, but in a totally silly and playful way -- giggling the whole time. I told her she needed to stop so I could change her diaper; she didn't. I held her feet and told her to stop; she didn't. I told her, quite firmly, that if she didn't stop kicking she was going to go upstairs in her crib for a time-out. She proceeded to kick me in the boob, hard, smiling the whole time. And up she went.

Are my children psychopaths? It doesn't seem possible. So much of the time, they really are lovely, and play nicely with each other. But sometimes....good God. I feel like they've been possesed by that kid from The Omen. And I am the hapless, heartbroken mother played by some actress whose career never really went anywhere and ended up playing the main character's best friend on an 80s sitcom that was cancelled after one season. You know?

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a nose. Photo by Ned Harvey.

An Adventure Gone Terribly Awry

Roper — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:19:00 GMT

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?

It was horrible. I tried to get the girls to come turn the button, but they coudn't. Elsa started freaking out and crying "Come to me, mommy!" which was more than a little heartbreaking. (Then "I'm itchy!" which was just weird...) Fortunately our next door neighbor, who is a semi-retired painter, had an extension ladder, and we were able to climb up and into the window of the girls' room. Immediately after we got the door open, in a fit of primal, maternal anger / fear, I took a screwdriver and took that damned doorknob out. Alastair later pointed out that we could have just put tape or something over the locking button until we bought a new doorknob. But it was 90 degrees out, and my Mama Bear adrenaline had been tripped. Screw reasonable thought.

Alas, it turned out that Clio's door-locking fit on Saturday was just a warm-up. But let me back up a little: When I woke up Sunday morning, I had the immediate and urgent need to get everyone in the car and go somewhere. Not only because being in the car would mean AC, but because I felt suddenly, extremely claustrophobic. Not just in the house, but in our town and in our life in general. I didn't want to go to the usual playgrounds or the usual pond where the girls like to swim. Where did I want to go? The Swiss Alps would have been nice. Tibet, perhaps. I would have even settled for a beach north of Boston, but knew that the traffic would be horrendous and the parking impossible. So, I decided we should pack a lunch and drive west, out toward Mount Wachusett, maybe have lunch near the big reservoir if we could.

We told the girls we were going on an adventure. "An a-vencha!" they said happily. Clio put her Curious George doll up on her shoulders and said she wanted to go on a Bear Hunt. (In the book, by Michale Rosen / Helen Oxenbury, the father puts the little kid on his shoulders at some point. So, now Clio thinks that's a key part of any family Bear Hunt. Too true.) Things started off well. The AC felt good. The scenery was lovely, if slightly wilted and hazy. We stopped at a grocery / orchard store somewhere in the middle of nowhere to buy food for our picnic, and the girls ran around pointing at things and picking up ears of corn and asking to hold apples and staying on the "cute" side of that fine cute/annoying line that young children walk in such places as grocery stores.

Then, when we were standing at the checkout, for reasons which still remain a mystery, Clio started crying and asking for her ga-ga (pacifier). It was one of those slow-build cries that you know is going to be really bad -- lip starts to tremble, eyes start to fill with tears, mouth turns down at the corners, and then, all of a sudden, she's hyperventilating and screaming. I want my gaga! I want my gaga! I wanna go home and have my gaga!

And, my friends, she proceeded to scream and cry, non-stop, for the following hour and a half. Through our "picnic" (if you can call it that) and the entire ride home. Sometimes her request changed: I want medicine. I want to sit with you, mommy. I want to go home. And, because one screaming two-year-old really isn't difficult enough to handle, Elsa decided she had better join in, too. So, from lunch onward, she also screamed for her gaga, for medicine, to sit up front with me, etc. At one point, the two of them were screaming at eachother. It was a prime example of the absurdist toddler argument: Clio screamed that she wanted her yellow ducky gaga, and then Elsa screamed that she wanted her red doggie gaga. But somehow these events were mutually exclusive in their little, addled toddler brains. So it became:

Clio: I WANT MY YELLOW DUCKY GAGA!!

Elsa: NO! I WANT MY RED DOGGIE GAGA!

Clio: NO! DON'T SAY I WANT MY RED DOGGIE GAGA! I WANT MY YELLOW DUCKY GAGA!

Elsa: NO! I WANT MY RED DUCKY GAGA!!

And on it went. In the midst of all this, of course, Alastair and I started getting snappy with each other -- nearly impossible to avoid in this sort of situation, we find; especially when it's 96 degrees out and your'e trying to drive. I started wondering: are we doing something wrong? Is there something wrong with our parenting technique such that 1.) We are powerless to stop this 2.) This started in the first place? I mean, we did everything. We reassured. We held. We comforted. We tried to speak stupid "Toddlerese." We yelled. We tried to use the Putumayo CD the girls love as a bargaining chip. Noth. ing. worked. I was seriously on the brink of tears myself. (And actually did cry about it later, after we'd gotten them down for their nap, in sheer frustration / exhaustion.)

Of course, when we were approximately thirty seconds away from our house, they both stopped. And by the time we got them inside and upstairs into their cribs, they were both downright jolly. Guess they wanted to come home as badly as I wanted to get away from it.

And how was YOUR weekend??

The Defiant Ones

Roper — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:20:00 GMT

Elsa and Clio are having some authority issues. Particularly at bedtime. I suppose this isn't surprising. They're at their tiredest and crankiest at the end of the day, AND they don't particularly want to go to bed. Not to mention the fact that I am starving (we still eat after they go to bed, for a variety of reasons) and, four days out of seven, have had a long day at work and am looking forward to relaxing, so I'm not at my best, and am not interested in letting the bedtime ritual drag on indefinitely.

So I am finding myself at my wits' end lately when, for example, one of them will refuse to brush her teeth. She'll simply refuse to leave the nursery and come into the bathroom. Or she will do something silly, like Clio did the other night: dance around the hall wearing a pair of sunglasses (upside down) and make goofy faces, while I tried to help Elsa brush her teeth. Of course, Elsa thought what Clio was doing looked like a lot more fun, and started asking me to go downstairs and find her sunglasses, too, so she could do the same thing. Oral hygiene was a lost cause. I don't even remember how I finally got everyone to shut the hell up (oh dear; did I just write that? Yes I did) and brush their damned teeth (and that? Oh, my). Somehow I did. But by the time I'd read them their books, wrangled them into their cribs and given them the ten thousand "just one more" kisses and hugs and back rubs they wanted, I was totally fried.

In general, my strategy for dealing with out and out defiance is one or more of the following: 1.) Give the defiant one a minute or a bit of space and let her comply on her own, which she sometimes will. This can work well in situations like toothbrushing refusal. But it is not so feasible if, for example, we're leaving the playground and one child is already loaded in her carseat, in a very hot car, and the other child has decided that she absolutely must continue scraping the rock she has found against the sidewalk.

2.) If #1 doesn't work or is not applicable, make it clear that there will be a consequence. As in: it's up to you, but if you don't brush your teeth, that means we won't have a story before bed. Sometimes that works, other times not. When it doesn't, in that particular scenario, it means that the defoamt one will stand in her crib and scream while I read a story to her sister. Even if I do it in the next room. And then I have to attempt to calm the screamer enough that the other sister can actually go to bed. Sometimes it is workable. Sometimes it's not.

Consequences really are a lot more complicated with twins, especially when they share a room. It can often mean that the "innocent" one ends up losing out, too. Like in the army. (Actually, I don't know if that's how it really works in the army, but in army movies from the 80s it always seemed like when one guy screwed up, the whole division would end up having to scrub latrines or jog ten miles or something. And I base much of my knowledge in life on movies from the 80s. Which is why I know that Russians are evil, an abortion costs $200 and high school principals are all morons.)

3.) When nothing else works, I will bodily remove the child (because often it's a matter of getting her to come or go somewhere -- upstairs, downstairs, in the car, into the bathroom, etc.). If I can muster the emotional energy, I do it in a silly or amusing way. With an airplane sound or with a bouncing motion. When I can't, in a very brisk and business-like fashion. Sometimes while clenching my teeth to keep from being more brisk than I need to be.

I'm thinking I should probably hit the books and try to read up on some effective strategies for dealing with defiant toddlers / preschoolers, because I obviously have -- er -- "spirited" children, and two of them, and surely this is going to be a common theme over the next few years. (Brief respite in the school years, and then...adolescence.) Knowing that it's never easy, I would still like to have some "best practices" in my arsenal. I feel like I'm winging it here, and could probably be doing a much better job. How do you cope when your kids simply refuse to do (or not do) something you ask or expect them to?

Baby Squared Reader Poll: Should we let Clio's hair grow?

Roper — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:20:00 GMT

Last weekend when A. and I were on the playground with the girls we met a mom and her boy-girl twins. When we told her that our girls were twins, she was surprised: "That one (meaning Elsa) looks so much older!" This is becoming more and more common: people on the playground think they are incredibly closely spaced (perhaps impossibly close, if anyone really stopped and thought out the math) siblings. And it's true that Elsa does look a little bit older. She's almost two inches taller and a little more filled out. I think it also has to do with their faces. Clio's got a sort of pixie-like look about her, whereas Elsa's face looks more grown-up. But Alastair thinks -- and I guess I agree -- that it also has to do with the hair. Elsa's is long and bang-less, while Clio's got bangs and a bob.

Exhibit One: Elsa's long-n-lustrous locks

Exhibit 2: Clio's chic, perky bob

Alastair also worries that when the girls look back at pictures of themselves, Clio's going to ask why we let Elsa have long hair while we made her keep her hair short. I argue that she could just as easily say the opposite: why did you make us wear our hair long like that instead of encouraging our individuality with different hairstyles?

And that is definitely part of the reason I like doing their hair differently. I like them to look different. But I also feel like their haircuts suit 1. Their faces (Elsa has a low forehead and smaller eyes like me, so bangs aren't quite as flattering; Clio has a very round forehead and big eyes) 2. Their hair types (Elsa's has a wave to it, while Clio's is pin straight and very fine) and 3. Their personalities (Clio is impish and pixie-like; Elsa is girly and gregarious). I guess I just like the combo.

But I do think Alastair may have a point about Clio's cut emphasizing the fact that she looks younger. And maybe I'm trying to hang onto that adorable little baby/toddler look too tightly. I definitely don't want to grow the bangs out. But should we let the rest of it grow? And yes, I know we can always cut it back again. But it's getting to that sort of Prince-Valiant in-between stage, and I'm dying to take a pair of scissors to it. (Or maybe, finally, take her to a professional lest I butcher her bangs again.) What do you think? To cut, or not to cut?

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Coneheads

Roper — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:08:00 GMT

This may sound crazy -- in fact, I can hardly believe it myself -- but our girls had never had ice cream cones until this weekend. They'd had ice cream, mind you; in bowls and on plates next to slices of "happy birthday to you" (their term for birthday cake). But they'd never experienced the sweet, drippy joy that is an ice cream cone on a summer day.

So, while we were out on the Cape this weekend I was hell-bent on making it happen. The friends we were staying with recommended the perfect spot: Four Seas Ice Cream in Centerville, which has been in operation for seventy-five years. That's since 1934 for those out there who, like me, are quick-arithemetic-challenged. (When I saw the sign, I said to Alastair "Wow, so they've been around since, like, the twenties! Or, wait, the forties?") It's apparently a Cape Cod institution, and a quick web search suggests that they invented chocolate chip ice cream and were/are beloved by the Kennedys. So, it seems we chose quite a memorable spot for this important milestone. And, of course, we documented it on film:

Yes, we even had the foresight to throw a couple of bibs into the diaper bag. Which is rare.

There were plenty of flavor choices, of course, but we suggested chocolate to keep things simple, and Clio immediately latched on and said yes, she wanted chocolate ice cream. Elsa, however -- in a typical case of twin expectation switcheroo -- started saying, Clio-like, that she wanted "clean" ice cream. We said yeah, yeah, it'll be clean chocolate ice cream, but that didn't fly. "Do you want vanilla ice cream?" I asked her. (As if she has any idea what vanilla means.) And she said, close to tears, "No! Just ice cream!" We thought that might be fun; to go into an ice cream parlor with 30 flavors and a line out the door and say, "Two ice cream cones, please." But we just ordered two chocolate cones and hoped Elsa wouldn't notice. She didn't.

Elsa and clean ice cream cone. (She was very excited once we explained that she could actually eat the cone, too.)

When the shop got suddenly crowded, the ice cream was quite melty, and Clio's cone several times came perilously close to a woman's very white, very expensive-looking beach cover-up dress, we decided to take the operation outside. Clio kept offering us all bites of her ice cream, which by then was down to the cone, which didn't seem to interest her as much. (She takes after her mother -- I've never been a huge fan of the cone itself.) The poor kid was punished for her generosity when Elsa accidentally chomped down on her finger in the process. Eep! Here's hoping that she won't have negative associations with ice cream cones for the rest of her life. Seems doubtful.

Want a bite?

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Parlez-Vous Toddler?

Roper — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:50:00 GMT

With Elsa and Clio talking so much, and able to communicate increasingly complex thoughts -- why, just yesterday Clio was commenting that while the media frenzy over the Henry Gates/Cambridge police issue was lamentable, it has spurred important conversations about race in America -- it's easy for me to get into the mindset that everyone should understand what they're saying as well as Alastair and I. But the fact is, a lot of what they say is still unintelligible to the majority of people.

Which I guess shouldn't come as a surprise. While it's immediately clear to me that "We goto go on da feeeeg go inda kye!" means "We're going to go on the swings and go up in the sky!" ( I also know that "up in the sky" means way up high, though the exact moment at which "sky" highness is attained remains a bit of a mystery) I can't expect someone who doesn't spend huge amounts of time with the girls to know that.

I've been reminded of this over the past week; we've seen a number of relatives and friends that haven't seen the girls since they were babies, and have had to do a lot of translating. We even have to translate a word or two for their grandparents sometimes, in spite of the fact that they see the girls on a regular basis. So, picture me, standing there there beaming with idiotic pride while Elsa walks up to a distant cousin and says, "We go wi Mommy to da TOHwah!" not quite realizing that the cousin is probably thinking something along the lines of "They go with Mommy to the Torah?...hm..are they raising them Jewish? I know Alastair's mother is...but I didn't know whether or not...and aren't they a little young to...and isn't the Torah a book? Can you physically go up to the Torah? I guess you can. I went to my friend's kid's Bar Mitzvah, and I think he...but...Am I going to sound like an ignorant Christian here if I say that back? So should I just nod? Or maybe Jane can...."

Then, finally, I realize that the cousin is looking at me quizically -- perhaps desperately -- and jump in to explain that Elsa is saying that they went to the store with me today. At which point, cousin can nod at Elsa and say "Ohhhh!" and ask some follow up question like, "Did you have fun?" to which she can reply with something equally unintelligible to him, like "An we ga gape fuh me!" (And we got grapes for me.)

Of course, I am often clueless when it comes to what other people's toddlers are saying. You'd like to think that as a mother of toddlers, you'd be able to pick it up -- at least some of it. As if it was all just dialects of one universal Toddler language. But each toddler really does have his or her own little patois and either you know it or you don't. There are times when I don't understand what my own kids are saying. Sometimes Alastair and I can translate for each other. (Most often Alastair for me, which always bums me out, because it reminds me that he spends so much more time with them.) And sometimes the other twin will translate for us. (Really!)

Then there are times when we're all just at a loss. There was a time when Clio kept asking, in the kitchen, for what sounded like a "Peet." We asked back: A plate? (No.) A peach? (No.) A beet?? Which you've never had in your life? (No...A Peeeeeet.) So, I asked her, "Clio, what is a peet?" And she explained "A peet is a keet." I'm pretty sure she was just messing with me.

"We make da cone!"

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Babies and baths: A Rocky Relationship

Roper — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:34:00 GMT

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

We have had several bath "strikes" in the Baby Squared household since the girls were born. I wrote about one of them here, when the girls were a little over a year old. There have been others as well. Sometimes it's one child or the other, sometimes it's both of them. Lately, it's sort of both of them. Elsa doesn't want to get into the bath to begin with. (Which is kinda weird, given her penchant for getting wet in other circumstances.) When I try to get her into the bathroom, she'll run and hide behind her crib or curl up on the glider with her pacifier.

If I manage to get her into the bathroom and close the door, she'll squeeze herself into the tiny nook between the sink vanity and the wall. If I can get her undressed and wrestle her into the tub -- like, it's the second day without a bath and she's sticky with melted popsicle and dusty with sandbox sand and muddy from playing in the dirt in the backyard (ah, summer) and she really needs a bath, like it or not -- it's usually a screamfest. (Ever wonder if your neighbors think you're beating your children with a log chain, given the volume and intensity of their tantrums?)

Clio, on the other hand, has developed a bizarre phobia of things being in the tub -- washcloths, bath toys, the soap, nail brushes, etc. The only thing she wants in the bath is herself and/or Elsa. Even if Clio's not in the tub, she will freak out if any of the above objects are in it -- even if there's no water in the tub. I have no idea why. I guess I might understand feeling like it's creepy to have stuff floating around in the water that might bump up against you unexpectedly. But this takes it to a strange extreme. And the intensity of her object-in-the-tubs reactions can be unnerving.

The other night, she threw a five-alarm tantrum because after I'd taken Elsa out of the tub, she came back into the bathroom (I'd bathed them separately to try to deal with Elsa's reluctance) and saw that I'd left a washcloth in the tub. She was inconsolable for ten minutes. It was a little scary. I know todders can be weird in this way, and I suspect this is linked to her recent neat-freakness. But sometimes I worry that she might actually have OCD.

But I am going to take my own advice -- and reiterate it once again to anyone else out there who might be dealing with a bath crisis of their own: be patient. This, too, shall pass.

Squeaky clean and happy after a bath, watching Curious George.

Fancy PJs from China courtesy of Grandma Jaycee, who got them on a recent business trip.

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I love playgrounds. I hate playgrounds.

Roper — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:46:00 GMT

Nothing beats a playground for an outing with toddlers / preschoolers (which one applies to two-year-olds? I'm not quite sure these days...) They're free, they offer exercise and fresh air, they're a great way for kids to practice various gross motor skills and learn to play nicely with others. For parents, it's a nice change of scene from the house or backyard, requires relatively little mental effort, is a fun way to interact with your kid(s) and can even have fitness benefits. (I'm sure someone has done a piece for a parenting mag on this kind of thing -- Playground Pilates! Tone your Triceps with your Tots! Swings, Slides and Rock-hard Abs!)

Yes. Playgrounds are good. The one we went to this morning -- Beaver Brook park in the suburban oasis of Belmont -- was especially good, with its many different play area options and -- best of all -- a big water play area with all kinds of spray jets and big rocks for little 'uns to play on and amongst. We'd never been there before, and it was well worth the trip.

But here's why playgrounds also stress me out. The first is twin-specific. (And probably also applies if you've got two small children close in age.) If the playground is anything other than a very small "tot lot," it's a constant challenge to keep an eye on both kids at once, as they will almost inevitably want to go in two different directions and do two different things. Today at Beaver Brook, true to form, all Elsa wanted to do was play in the water, while Clio only wanted to go on the swings. The place wasn't set up such that I could push Clio and keep Elsa in sight, and even if that was an option, it wouldn't have been ideal. Because Elsa might have tripped and done a full-frontal face plant, nosebleed and all, and it would have taken me that much longer to get to her, and everyone would be thinking "where on earth is that poor girl's mother? Somebody call social services!" Or she might have blithely grabbed a bucket away from some other kid, and gotten scolded by some judgy, helicopter mom thinking, "where on earth is this girl's mother, and why hasn't she raised her daughter properly? Call social services!"

All of which leads to other, related reason that playgrounds stress me out -- the other parents. (If you hadn't guessed already.)

I fully realize that this is partly, or even mostly, my own problem. I know that I'm a good mother, that I do the best I can given the challenges of twin toddlers, and that I shouldn't give a crap what other parents think -- particularly judgemental parents. They're probably the same people who think that feeding your kid non-organic produce or letting them watch television is tantamount to abuse. Who needs them? Meanwhile, I suppose it's silly for me to assume that anyone's judging me in the first place.

But the fear of judgement is just one aspect of the intra-parent playground dynamic that I never have felt totally comfortable with. And I think this may be in part because I'm not a stay-at-home mom who does the playground thing on a regular basis. I get the sense that there's some kind of unwritten code of interaction and etiquette that I'm not quite cued into. Like how friendly you are or aren't supposed to be with other parents. Whether or not you're supposed to let your kids use other kids' toys that are lying around. How much you're supposed to interact with other people's kids, and how "parent-y" it's acceptable to get with them.

Today, for example, I was standing next to a slide, and a little boy who'd just come down it needed a boost down. He was calling for his mom, who was a few feet away, chatting with another mom, and I found myself quickly deliberating: his mom will be over in two seconds, but should I just help him get down? Or would that be weird? Or is it even weirder to ignore him? (Plenty of parents have ignored my girls in similar situations.)

I guess I just find the whole thing odd. Parenting is such a private thing in our culture. You'd think that might change in a place like a playground; instead we're all there together "parallel parenting." Which, on the one hand I like -- I don't particularly want to feel obligated to look after anyone's kids but my own -- but on the other hand I find oddly unnatural and isolating. Especially, admittedly, as the harried woman who's running around trying to keep after two toddlers while other moms are happily hanging out with their one child.

And then there's weird, random, bad vibe stuff that crops up -- like today: at this playground we went to there's a big long bench in the shade, and a number of people had parked their strollers in front of it and/or put their diaper bags on the bench. I sat down with the girls on an empty segment of bench to give them their snack. We were sort of between two strollers, but there was nothing on the bench, and the owners of the strollers were nowhere near. Then this guy comes over and gives me a sort of dirty look and very purposefully takes his stroller away and parks it in front of another section of bench a few yards down. Then proceeds to go back and play with his kids some more. So, I'm thinking: what? If you park your stroller in front of a certain section of bench, does that mean that part of the bench is yours? And nobody else can sit there? Even if you're not currently there? And even though it's PUBLIC FREAKIN' PROPERTY??

On the other hand, I may have been completely misinterpreting his actions. What do I know? I'm just a working mother of twins. An interloper on the carefully constructed, highly coded society that is the sub/urban playground.

But please tell my I'm being paranoid, in this and the other things I mentioned. It would be a great comfort.

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The Odd Couple

Roper — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:21:00 GMT

For a long time now, it's been clear that Elsa is a bit messier than Clio when it comes to playing and eating and life in general. These shots taken back in December at the girls' second birthday pretty much sum it up. (Photos taken seconds apart.)

Exhibit A: Clio and cupcake

Exhibit B: Elsa and (no more) cupcake.

But lately, it seems, Clio is not just casually more careful when it comes to getting messy. She's actually becoming something of a neat freak. After taking a few bites out of something or a sip of her milk or water, she'll often try to hand it back to us and demand a "clean" one. (Needless to say, we do not generally accommodate these requests.) Yesterday, I took the girls to a birthday party in our neighbors' back yard (more birthday parties! These girls are in heaven!) and as usual, Elsa devoured her cake and ice cream (plus some of Clio's) with sloppy gusto. But Clio was so put off by the messiness of the whole endeavor, she barely touched hers -- and this is not a child who usually refuses sweets. She had me cut off all the frosting (not an unreasonable request) but then kept asking me to wipe off her hands and face as she ate, saying over and over again, "I need another nap-kin!"

There was also a wading pool at this party. The girls came prepared, with bathing suits on under their sundresses. Other little kids, however, were going into the water in their clothes. Elsa was happy to follow suit (or dress, I should say; ha ha) and wade around and get the bottom of her dress soaked. Since we were two houses away from our own, it was fine with me. Clio stepped into the water in her dress, too, but quickly realized that she'd made a grave error and poutily asked me to lift her back out. She was very upset that she'd gotten water on her dress, and started saying she wanted to go inside, go home, etc. I suggested that we take off the offending wet dress instead, and she could hang out in her dry, *clean* bathing suit. She liked that. (Meanwhile, Elsa was over at the wading pool helping a tattooed twentysomething fill water balloons.)

This may be a phase. But if nothing else, it is more evidence that Clio takes after her father in more things and Elsa takes more after me. Not that I am a slob, by any stretch. Actually, Alastair and I are both fairly neat people in general. But that said, Alastair does tend to have a lower threshold for disorder. You should see the way he folds his T-shirts. And how annoyed he gets at me when I leave apple cores or banana peels in the cupholders in the car by mistake. (Confession: sometimes I leave them there on purpose, just to mess with him.)

It will be interesting to see how the girls' attitudes in this department develop over time -- especially if they continue to share a room, which is the plan for the immediate future. I can totally see it being like a sitcom episode at some point: the line of tape or string down the middle of the room, with Elsa's happy mess on one side and Clio's ordered world on the other.

In fact, the conversation I had Elsa -- our budding poet -- the other day makes a lot more sense now that I think of it in light of all this. She said to me, apropos of nothing, "Clio is a doughnut." To which I replied, "She's a doughnut? What are you?" Elsa said, "I'm a peanut butter sandwich." Makes sense, doesn't it? A doughnut (a plain one, anyway) is sort of neat and self-contained and symmetrical, while a peanut butter sandwich is generally a pretty messy, chaotic affair -- At least, the way I make them.

All right. Maybe that's a stretch.

Our little Felix Unger keeps it clean.

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Activity of the Week: Happy Birthday To You

Roper — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:06:00 GMT

I haven't done an 'Activity of the Week' in a while, I guess because with the weather being better and the girls being more self-sufficient, it hasn't been as much of a challenge to figure out ways to keep them entertained. And actually, this particular activity is one that they pretty much came up and do all by themselves. I just keep them supplied with the necessary materials, and suggest helpful enhancements from time to time, when they'll let me.

See, Clio and Elsa are obsessed with birthdays. This began shortly after their own birthday, back at the end of the December, and kicked into high gear when they went to their friend Amelia's 2nd birthday in Februrary. The obsession has manifested itself in a variety of ways: first, they just sang the Birthday Song constantly. Then, they started constantly asking for / calling everything sweet "Happy to you" cake. (We successfully introduced the idea of *pretend* happy to you cake, as well.) Then, for a while, they wanted us to draw birthday cakes for them. If you looked through our recycling bin anytime this March through May, you would find page upon page of crayon drawings of birthday cakes -- usually double tiered, with lots of fancy, squiggly decorations, and candles, of course. (I really honed my birthday cake-drawing technique. If for some reason you ever need a drawing of a birthday cake, I'm your gal.)

Now, the big birthday activity is making "Happy birthday to yous" -- their term for birthday presents. It's quite simple: you take a piece of paper, draw on or a put a sticker on it if you like, and carefully crumple it up. Then, you hand it to the nearest adult and say "I made you a happy birthday to you!" As the lucky adult recipient, it's your job to say, "Oh, wow! It's beautiful! Thank you!" and carefully unwrap it to reveal -- nothing. (I tried, once, to introduce the idea of wrap little things up inside their "presents" --- toys, legos, etc. -- but that just pissed them off. They obviously know what they're doing.) One thing I have contributed to this game, which they like, is giving them new materials to work with -- aluminum foil, construction paper, wrapping paper scraps, pages torn from old magazines, bows, etc. This, they like. But pretty much, they just like me to hang out and do my own thing -- check email, do the dishes, sweep the floor, etc. -- while they work, then act very excited when they hand me the treasure they've created. It's a pretty freakin' good activity.

We added birthday hats to the mix yesterday, which as a hit, until Clio snapped herself with the elastic.

Happy to you!!

Thanks, by the way, to everyone for your sage thoughts and advice on my last post. It's great hearing about different people's experiences and perspectives. I think those who said that a happy mom = a better mom really hit the nail on the head. I am definitely more patient and focused with the girls when I feel like I'm getting the time and space I need for my writing. It would make me so proud -- and I hope it would make them proud, too -- to one day be able to show Elsa and Clio a book and say, "Your mommy wrote this." And tell them that they can and should do what they can to follow their bliss in life, too, whatever it may be. (Birthday party planning, perhaps?)

My stinky winky daughters

Roper — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:53:00 GMT

I thought that the whole phase of finding it funny to say things like "stinky poo poo" and "Pee-yew, stinky winky" and so on, came later. Like, at three or four or later. When the sense of taboo around these kinds of things was a little more developed. But apparently, two-and-a-half is not too young for kids to have a sense of the silly stinkies.

As usual, of course, we are partly to blame, for asking such stupid things as "who made a stinky poo poo?" And their regualr babysitter is apparently a big "Pee-yew"er, because sometimes when I change the girls' diapers or take their socks off they'll say "Pee-yew!" followed by a giggly "Adriana say that!" I suspect she is the one who put "stinky winky" into their vocabularies as well, because I don't recall either Alastair or I ever saying it. But this morning, the girls were drawing all manner of stinky-winky animals: a stinky winky penguin, a stinky winky whale, a stinky winky sheep. Our friend the stinky stinky bat was back, too.

But really, the stinky winky poo poo stuff is only one part of a recent language explosion that seems to have taken place. In the last week or two the girls' verbal skills have taken another quantum leap, and all of a sudden -- wow. They're yakking up a storm. Talking in full sentences and conjugating verbs like little madwomen. Starting to really get the concepts of past and future tense, even if they don't quite yet have a solid concept of time. Building their vocabularies daily. The things that come out of their mouths are constantly surprising me. (A recent favorite: after the girls got up from a nap, I was commenting on the girls' hair being a mess. Elsa held her hair out to the sides and said "My hair is WILD!!")

I'm feeling quite jealous right now of parents I know who are bringing their kids up bi- or tri-lingually, because it's so clear that this is the optimal time for kids to soak up a foreign language. We obviously can't do the full language immersion thing with our girls -- well, I suppose I could start speaking only my intermediate-level Spanish or French to them, but it would severely limit what I could actually say. I have no idea, for example, how to say "stinky stinky bat" in Spanish. In French, I think I could manage "Chauve-souris tres, tres malodorant," but it just doesn't have the same, peurile ring to it, now does it?

But I'm thinking of getting some Spanish language music CDs and maybe some DVDs. (Any good recommendations? Besides the Muzzy program, which is, like, a million dollars?) And when they girls are a little older, there are some Spanish language playgroups and music classes around here that they could do. I'm also going to keep on encouraging their sitter to do some Spanish with them -- giving her some Spanish books and games to work with would probably be helpful. And yes, yes, French would be nice too, of course, as would countless other languages, but I'm sticking with what's most practical for now. So, pipe down, all you Francophiles out there. (That includes you, Grandma, rolling in your grave because you think French is the "international language," and because, let's face it, you were kind of a bigot.)

In the meantime, we will continue to work on expanding our lexicon of English words for bodily functions, odors and excretions. Poop-o-rific!

The stinky winky sisters! (featuring my recent hatchet job of Clio's bangs and Elsa's WILD hair)

(Not Exactly) A Walk in the Park

Roper — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:55:00 GMT

Over the last six months, things have gotten so much more manageable when it comes to going out in public places with girls. But every once in a while, I get a little cocky. And those gals put me right back in my place.

Mother's Day in Boston was a gorgeous day, sunny and breezy. After a morning of indulgent "me time" (I slept in, was brought Dunkin donuts and coffee for breakfast, read for awhile, went to the gym, then sat outside in the sunshine with a magazine) I wanted to spend a little quality mother-daughter time with my gals. I decided to take them into the city, to the Public Garden. It seemed like a terrific idea at the time. On my own with the girls (and their doll strollers) at a city park that also happens to be a major tourist attraction, on a beautiful Mother's Day? Sure! No problem! Piece of cake!

Yeah, well. Not exactly.

Things started off well. We got up and out of the Boston Common garage and across the street into the park without incident. First stop was the "Make Way for Ducklings" statues, mobbed with other small people and their parents, snapping photos. Elsa and Clio saw the other kids sitting on the ducks and figured they probably should do likewise. I snapped the obligatory photos.

Actually, during the course of our outing a lot of other people took photos of the girls, too. Or just grinned and commented and "aww"ed. They did look pretty cute, I guess, so purposely pushing around their twin Curious Georges in doll strollers. And Curious George is something of a Boston icon, so he fit in nicely with the ducklings, the swan boats, the skyline views, etc. (The Curious George books are published by Boston-based Houghton Mifflin and the authors were longtime Cambridge residents. Bit of trivia there for ya.)

We headed over to the lake next, to feed the ducks. The girls each had a bag of crumbled bread, which they attempted to fling into the water. Much of the time it didn't travel much farther than a few inches, owing to a strong headwind. But some pieces managed to make it in. I was feeling all cooler-than-thou because I let my girls go right onto the stone curb at the edge of the pond to throw their bread, while a mother nearby was freaking out anytime her daughter -- probably six or seven years old -- got within two feet. The water in the pond, at the shores, is about a foot deep so, while a fall would have been a messy proposition, it wouldn't have been life-threatening.

But my laid-back mom bravado quickly vanished when we attempted to go further into the park. While Elsa charged ahead at a breakneck speed with her stroller, Clio dawdled behind, stopping to point out the Swan Boats for me (here comes another one, Mommy!), stare up at trees, gape at a mounted policeman's horse, etc. In retrospect, she was probably also stalling to avoid the crowds we were headed toward: the bridge across the lake was like a freeway, more jammed with pedestrians than I've ever seen it before. Many of these people were attempting to take photos of each other standing against the rail, so the traffic periodically stopped and started and generally followed erratic and annoying patterns.

Meanwhile, I couldn't hold the girls' hands, because they were pushing their strollers. Until they decided they didn't want to do that anymore, so I got stuck holding both strollers, trying to maneuver my way through the crowds, while at the same time trying to keep Curious George and his twin brother from tumbling out onto the pavement. Meanwhile, Clio continued to dawdle and Elsa ran back and forth from one side of the bridge to the other -- totally oblivious to the other people there, several of whom almost tripped over her -- to see the Swan Boats go under on one side and back out the other. Trying to get the girls off the bridge onto the (only slightly less crowded) paths on the other side was like herding cats, and I had a few moments of sheer panic when I couldn't find one or the other of them for a few seconds.

Honestly, it was lousy judgement on my part. The doll strollers, the bridge, the crowded setting in general....I will not attempt something like this again on my own. At least not in the immediate future.

Once we were off the bridge, it was a little easier to keep the gals corraled, but not much. I tried to get them off the paths and onto the grass, where they'd be less likely to get tripped over by people. This was slightly better. Now instead of herding cats, it was like herding dogs. But I didn't feel like I really had things under control until we made it back across to Boston Common, where I quickly bought a couple of Italian ices for the girls and found us a shady patch of grass to sit in. Dealing with the slurping, spilling and stickiness that ensued was -- compared to the rest of our excursion -- a walk in the park.