Baby Squared : twin table manners

Earlybird Special

Roper — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Get this: on Friday night, we went out to dinner with the girls, and it was actually quite tolerable. "Enjoyable" would be a stretch, but we didn't leave feeling like we'd just undergone some kind of military stress test. (As has happened on many a past restaurant outing, as longtime readers will recall.) And we'd gotten to eat out on a Friday night without having to factor the price of a babysitter into the equation. We even ordered drinks! We felt downright European.

The main reason it worked is because it was 6:15, and there was basically no one else in the restaurant -- just one other table of people on the other side of the room, and a few people at the bar, including and older couple who beamed and waved at the girls the whole time. Either they really liked little kids, they were happily snookered, or some combination of both. So we didn't feel *too* terrible and mortified each time Elsa screamed I WANT MORE ICE! or I WANT SOME OF DAT! or WOW, I LIKE CUCUMBAS, MOMMY!!!! I WANT SOME MORE! (The girl loves food. All of it. Loudly. She's like Dom Deluise reincarnated in the body of blond two-and-a-half year old girl.)

Would you attempt to take this child out to a crowded restaurant?

Also key to our success was the fact that this restaurant -- while good (if not great) doesn't have a big following for dinner. (Try to go there for a weekend breakfast or brunch, though, and you'll end up standing outside in line with hungover Tufts students and twenty-somethings for 45 minutes before you get a table, and then are rushed back out while you've still got eggs in your mouth.)

I'm sure there are other affordable (but a cut above fast food) restaurants in the area that would work with the girls if we went early. It's weird; back when we did such things as "eat out" (I think that's what it's called?) on a more regular basis, we always went at seven o'clock or later, when the joints were full of people. (Did I sound like a gangster just then?) But at six o'clock, or even earlier, they may well be family-friendly -- i.e., sparsely populated. I can think of a few off the top of my head, one of wich actually offers an earlybird special, w. half-price entrees.

There's also a restaurant in Cambridge, Full Moon, (I've mentioned it here before) that caters very specifically to families, and has a little play area where kids can go and hang out while adults drink their wine and eat their things with arugula and goat cheese in them. But it's always very crowded, which ups the stress factor. You also end up having to referee toy disputes between your kids and other people's -- not fun. And ironically, I've never found the staff to be -- or at least seem -- particularly family-friendly. Not that I blame them. I couldn't STAND working in a crowded restaurant full of screaming kids and their distracted parents. I'm guessing they make good tips, because everyone feels sorry for them.

On the other hand, if you go to a non-family-specific restaurant at 5:30 or 6:00 pm, you can get fawned over by not-yet-exhausted waiters and busboys (We got free plates of fresh fruit for the girls on Friday night!), smiled at by the sixtysomething early-birders at the bar, and laugh -- instead of stress -- when your daughter starts screaming about cucumbers. It's not a bad way to kick off your weekend.

Now, if we could just figure out how to spend yet another rainy afternoon without resorting (immediately) to television... This weather blows. Hope it actually feels like summer for at least some of you out there....

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Happy Passeaster

Roper — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:10:00 GMT

When we were down in New York this week with Alastair's family, his mother (a.k.a. Jaycee) threw a lovely, abbreviated Passover seder for Elsa and Clio's benefit. It ran about fifteen minutes, total, which is about as long as the girls can manage sitting at a table these days, even when mass quantities of mac and cheese are present.

Highlights were hand-washing, the parts where they get to eat matzoh, the parts where they got to drink wine, the part where they got to stick their fingers in the wine and dab it on their plates (something they might have come up with on their own), and, in Elsa's case, haroset. The herbs dipped in salt water didn't go over so well, and we didn't even bother trying to get them to eat the horseradish. I think the finer points of the story were lost on them, but they enjoyed finding the matzoh. And eating it --- lots of it. They were also not slouches when it came to the wine. After the first couple of sips of that oh-so-fruity Manischewitz, they were calling for "More wine! More wine!" They would have downed Elijah's whole glass too, given the opportunity.

I had to hold Elsa's wine cup to keep her from drinking from it. Note how she is, therefore, pulling on my hand.

"So many plagues? Oy!"

So, that was our nod to the girls' Jewish heritage. Today, my mother asked me if we were going to be doing anything for Easter. Not in a putting-pressure-on-us kind of way (my parents are not very religious these days). More out of curiosity, I think. The answer is: we may go to (Unitarian) church on Sunday, where there will surely be some mention of Easter, along with various pagan rites of spring. I'll probably pick up some foil-wrapped eggs and we'll do a scaled-down egg-hunt in the backyard, which the girls will love. But we're holding off on introducing the whole Easter Bunny mythology. I figure they'll probably get exposure to that next year, when they're in preschool, and we can hoppity hop hop across that bridge when we come to it.

And then, in the middle of writing this post, in fact, our neighbor across the street -- a very kind, lonely widow in her seventies who likes to bring the girls presents from time to time -- came by with an Easter gift for them: a Teddy Bear that, when you hold its hands, recites the Lord's Prayer. We want to introduce the girls to both Judaism and Christianity, and I've always liked the Lord's prayer, and think they should be familiar with it -- so why is it that I feel weird about having this teddy bear in the house? I guess I've never really been a fan of mixing toys and religion. It seems slightly unfair -- like you're trying to sneak the religion part in, disguised as fun. Not that religion can't be fun. But...oh, I don't know. This may be my own highly ridiculous hangup.

In other news: I'm happy to report that the word of the week in the Baby Squared household is "OK." As in (though not in these exact words) "OK, mommy, I'll come and sit down so you can put my shoes on" and "OK, mommy, I'll eat veggie burgers for dinner instead of continually, loudly demanding yogurt," and even "OK, I'll stop hitting Clio on the head with this Mega Lego, even though it's so much fun." Of course, "No," still reigns as the most popular word by far, but the growing frequency of OK is encouraging.

Happy [insert early spring holiday of your choice here], everyone.

Party Time, Excellent

Roper — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Elsa and Clio partied hard this weekend. It was non-stop cookies, apple juice and dresses with tights, plus a little dancing and sugar-high stair-climbing thrown in for good measure. The revelry kicked off on Friday, for Santa's annual visit to my place of work, as mentioned in my last post. The girls loved the cookies, the candy canes, the juice boxes, the carpeted stairs to climb on and long halls to run down. But they were definitely suspicious of the man in red. Not that I blame them. I always found the whole picture-with-Santa experience rather harrowing, even when I was much older than Elsa and Clio are now. If they never want to sit on the dude's lap or tell him what they want for Christmas, it's fine by me.

The partying continued on Saturday morning. Any fans of Steve Almond or former readers of his Baby Daddy blog may be interested to know that Steve and his wife just welcomed a new baby boy, Judah Elijah, to the family. I brought the girls over to the Almond residence for a celebratory brunch and virtual bris (Steve recounted the circumcision, which took place at the hospital, in charming detail). I thought the girls would be excited about seeing a new baby -- they like to say "baby," after all. And they enjoy dragging their baby dolls around the house by their feet, feeding them things, whacking their heads against the refrigerator, etc. But they could have cared less about real-live baby Judah. The paper cups, stirrers and creamers from Dunkin Donuts, on the other hand -- woo hoo! And the bagels. My god, did they eat a lot of bagels.

We went to yet another party in the afternoon, at my friend Tricia's house. The girls got antsy in the car on the way there, and I began to wonder if it was a mistake to try to hit two parties in one day, but, in fact, the girls had an awesome time. When we got there, music was blasting in the den, and a whole bunch of kids, mostly boys, aged 3 - 8, were almost literally bouncing off the walls: dancing around, rolling on the ground, slamming into furniture, a'whoopin' and a'hollerin'. I thought the girls -- or at least Clio -- would be terrified. But in fact, after observing the madness for a few minutes, they started dancing, too. Elsa even gave a few of her trademark squeals of joy as she busted her moves. I left the room for a few minutes to get some food, and when I came back, Clio was sitting on the couch watching, clapping her hands, grooving to the beat. It was the most comfortable and independent I've ever seen either of them at a party. In fact, I even managed to get in some actual, uninterrupted exchanges of 3-5 sentences with other adults!

The only issue -- as it had been at the other two events -- was trying to keep them from eating, er, everything. They're both tall enough now that they can reach up and grab things off your standard-sized table, which makes controlling their food intake at parties next to impossible. Elsa scarfed down the equivalent of an entire pineapple (chunked) and at one point managed to grab a handful of guacumole. Clio alternated between cookies and crackers. To watch how those two eat at parties, you'd think we starved them. Then again, they're always happy to eat if it's 1.) A carbohydrate, cheese or piece of fruit 2.) not served on a plate as part of an actual "meal." (Maybe, like me, they feel like if you don't actually sit down to eat it, the calories don't count?)

You would think they would be partied out after all of this, but the next day, they rocked yet another social event -- a tree trimming party at my friend Megan's house. I wasn't there -- I went to Springfield for my co-worker's funeral -- but judging by the pictures they had a fab time:

(Doing their Mary-Kate and Ashley impression)

(Captions, please?)

Table for Two

Roper — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:28:00 GMT

So, yesterday, like a naughty, impatient kid, I opened one of the girls' Christmas presents early. It's a cute little folding table and chairs I'd ordered from Leaps and Bounds. I was going to wait and set it up for Christmas morning -- maybe put some dolls in the chairs, or something; the kind of thing Santa used to do at my house when I was a kid. But I didn't.

The thing is, we've been having trouble getting Elsa and Clio to sit in their high chairs at the dining room table lately. They frequently want to sit in the "big girl" chairs, but those chairs are too low without a booster seat and too tippy with. Clio is also going through a phase of wanting to be on our laps while she eats, (sit-a mommy? sit-a mommy?) which is not a pattern we want to get into. Particularly because then Elsa gets jealous and wants to sit on a lap, too.

So, I thought that maybe being able to sit at their own little table would help. Also, they woke up early from their nap and it was too cold to go outside and I was bored, OK? Merry Christmas!

The first thing the girls did was push the chairs around for a while. Because they are currently obsessed with anything that can be pushed or wheeled around. (You should see our floors.) Then, I set them up to color with crayons. Within seconds, Elsa had scribbled on both the table and the seat of her chair and started yelling "Me mup! Me mup!" (Translation: Clean up! Clean up!) The girl loves "cleaning" things almost as much as she likes messing them up.

Later, I actually did give the girls their dinner at the table, in the middle of our kitchen, all the while spouting lots of pro-table propaganda, like "don't you love your new table?" and "what big girls you are, sitting at your own table!" etc. etc. It went reasonably well. But there are two main problems: 1.) The girls can get in and out of the chairs on their own, and did several times during the meal. 2.) The table is lightweight enough that they can -- and did -- push it back and forth at each other repeatedly, laughing laughing laughing until somebody, inevitably, pushed too hard and pissed the other one off.

So, it's still an experiment, this eating at their own table thing. Maybe it won't work out. But I feel very good about the purchase. It'll be great for arts and crafts type stuff, games, kiddie bridge parties, etc. It's nice to be able to set them up in the kitchen, where there is always other stuff to be done. And I love the fact that the table and chairs fold, so we can stash them away when we're not using them. They're also very nice looking and of good quality, all for what I think was a pretty reasonable price. (I'm not getting paid to plug this product, I swear!)

I guess I feel a little lame about jumping the Christmas gun. On the other hand, it's not like they really *get* the idea of Christmas yet -- or presents for that matter, right? It's funny -- I've really enjoyed picking out a few presents for the girls for Christmas, but it's also a little frustrating knowing they won't really recognize them as being special treats, on a special day. No gleeful cries of "thank you mommy!" and "it's just what I wanted!" (Not that furniture generally evokes this sort of response from children anyway....) Ah well. Next year, maybe?

Playing with stickers at their new pre-Christmas table, with Adriana, our regular sitter. (Who also does their hair up fancy-like.)

T-I-M-E O-U-T

Roper — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:30:00 GMT

You're probably all familiar with the need to spell out certain words in front of your toddlers once they pick up that pesky habit of understanding English. Woe to the parent who foolishly utters the word C-O-O-K-I-E without the intent of immediately handing one over to any small child within earshot. And don't mention that you're going to take your kids to the P-L-A-Y-G-R-O-U-N-D unless you intend to go THAT VERY SECOND.

But certain words, you would think, are safe to say aloud -- things that kids aren't interested in, like "credit card," "recycling," or "corkscrew." Or things that pertain to them, but that they don't find particularly appealing and aren't likely to start begging for, like "crib" or "time-out." Right? Well, yes. Except ixnay on that last one in the Baby Squared household.

We've been attempting to institute the practice of giving the girls a "time-out" when they push or hit each other, throw food on the floor, or grab toys away from each other in a patently aggressive manner. We haven't had to do it that many times, and when we have, it has tended to be with Elsa.

Unfortunately, the girls don't quite seem to grasp concept of a time-out. That is to say, they LOVE it. They seem to think it's some kind of cool privilege to get to sit on a chair by the window and do nothing. Which is why, if Alastair and I want to discuss the topic of time-outs in the company of Elsa and Clio, we have to avoid the word itself, lest we are faced with two toddlers whining and begging for a time-out.

Obviously, it doesn't work terribly well as a threat, either. The other day, when Elsa was throwing food onto the floor and I warned her that if she did it again she'd get a time out, she started saying "Time out! Time out!" and pointing over at the time-out chair. What was I supposed to do? Punish her by NOT giving her a time-out? Then, of course, Clio wanted a time-out, too. So, after helping Elsa down from the time-out chair (in spite of her protests) I let Clio sit there too. Clio also wanted her baby to have a time out. "Baby sit? Baby time out?"

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have let them have time-outs for "fun." (Let alone document the incident on film for blogging purposes.) But it was either that or let Elsa sit there and whine and/or continue to fling food, and then risk a Clio meltdown because we didn't let her have a "turn" at timeout. We've been working so hard on the idea of taking turns; how is she supposed to understand that she gets a turn with toys, but she doesn't get a turn at the awesomecool time-out game?

I suppose this is mostly a function of the fact that the girls still find it highly exciting to sit in "grown-up" chairs --- or any chair, for that matter. I'm wondering if it might help to move time-outs to a less appealing, more out-of-the way location. On the floor in the front hall? On the stairs? This would also help solve the problem of the girls bringing each other toys while they're on time-out. (Gates can be closed.) But the challenge, then, is being able to keep an eye on both girls at once. And, ironically, they would be far less likely to actually stay in time-out if it was somewhere they didn't like. See the vicious circle?

And then sometimes I wonder if they're just not ready for time-outs at all. But I feel like we have to start enforcing some kind of consequence for bad behavior, beyond just scolding and explaining, which doesn't seem to have much staying power. Ah well. It's not like they're shoplifting cigarettes or sniffing white-out, or whatever it is the kids are into these days. Hopefully, by the time we get there, we'll have put a little bit of the fear of God into 'em.

Finally, for those of you following the ongoing, not very dramatic saga of this depressive episode I've been having (sorry, couldn't think of a better segue. Something about spelling out S-S-R-I ?) here's the update: I don't want to jinx myself, but I have had two and a half solid days now of feeling darn near like myself. I wouldn't say I'm at 100% yet, but definitely somewhere between 80 and 90%. And God, it's great. It's kind of like being in zero-gravity all of a sudden. Simple, everyday things that were painful to undertake a couple of weeks ago -- making dinner, chatting with co-workers, putting the girls to bed -- seem suddenly, amazingly easy; even pleasant.

And the more serious things that I missed -- having the urge and ability to write (other than here), being able to joke around and be affectionate with Alastair, being able to be a more fully engaged, silly, loving Mom -- feel almost miraculously satisfying. I guess in some weird, backward way, that's a perk of depression? It makes you appreciate just how great life is when you're not depressed (even if not everything your life is great).

I've said it in my comments, but I'll say it again here, because I know not everyone reads the comments: thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all your support, advice and understanding -- silent and otherwise -- as I've struggled through these past weeks. It helps immensely. (And I am so happy to know that I may be helping a few other folks out there, too.)

I like these guys. They're funny guys!

Roper — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:15:00 GMT

First person to get the title reference gets a big, virtual high-five. (No Googling allowed!)

In this post, however, I'm referring to Elsa and Clio, who -- as I was reminded yesterday -- are two very funny little girls. Exasperating at times, yes. But also extremely entertaining. Clio seems to actively try to be silly, with funny faces and noises and goofy antics. Her humor tends toward the absurdist. Last night at dinner, for example, she decided it was very funny to pretend she was asleep.

Elsa doesn't work the comedy angle quite as intentionally as Clio (though she thinks Clio is a riot); she just does things that happen to make us laugh. Example: in the past few days, she has discovered how to use her eyebrows. So now she periodically makes this absurd frowning, glaring face that makes her look like a cross between Bonnie Blue Butler and Sam the Eagle. (I'm just full of outdated pop culture references today, aren't I?) She hasn't yet started connecting the expression with anger or sulkiness. She just does it randomly, as she did several times last night during dinner:

The other funny thing they're doing is adding the suffix "-bama" (as in O) to other people's names. When we ask Clio, "Who's the president?" (yeah, yeah, president-elect) she will usually say "Brock-o-bama." But then she'll frequently launch into "Mommy-bama, Daddy-bama, Sessa-bama, Kio-bama..." Just goes to show what a good campaigner Obama was, I suppose. Even toddlers got the message that the election wasn't about him. It was about all of us!

They have also learned the word "funny," so now when we laugh at something they do or say, they'll often say "funny! funny!" When they're a little older, we'll explain to them that a good comedian doesn't point out her own jokes. But for now, we'll let it slide. It's just good to see that our kids appear to be as appreciative of silliness and humor as their parents are. Laughter has always been a big part of Alastair's and my relationship, and I hope that it will always be a big part of how our little nuclear family relates, too. (With the understanding, of course, that for several years in their teens, the girls will probably think that NOTHING we say is funny.)

Yesterday was really the first time in several weeks that I was truly, genuinely able to enjoy and appreciate the girls' company; to laugh and be playful with them. Not that I haven't remembered throughout this spell of depression that they are sweet and fun and all the rest. But one of the symptoms of depression -- and it's a big one for me -- is not being able to take pleasure in the things that your normally do. I might know in my rational mind that something pleasurable or fun is happening, but I don't really feel it the way I normally would. At the same time, I'm painfully aware of this fact, and it makes me sad and frustrated and annoyed. I have missed my girls these past weeks.

It's hard to explain what it's like to someone who hasn't experienced clinical depression, but imagine walking around all day inside a cube made of thick, dirty glass. (With leg holes, I guess....?) You can sort of see your life out there, and you can sort of do the things you need to do, but everything is muted and dark and dull. And you're tired. Because this cube you're wearing is really fucking heavy and cumbersome, and there's not quite enough air to breathe inside it. But no matter how hard you bang your fists against the glass, it will not break or even crack. You are trapped inside. (A better writer might come up with a lovelier metaphor -- a bell jar, perhaps -- but I'm sticking to my big goddamned dirty glass cube.)

Anyway, yesterday I felt better than I had in quite a while. I happen to think it was because I had an acupuncture treatment the night before. Got the ole Liver Qi moving. As a result, I felt motivated enough to take a run, which I think further lifted my mood. All those endorphins and whatnot. I am not out of the woods yet, and I fear there may be more not-so-great days before I can fully step out of the dark, step into the light. But even one afternoon of feeling relatively normal and being capable of delighting in my children's company is a great relief.