Baby Squared

Melt. Down.

Roper — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:10:00 GMT

Elsa did not have a nap yesterday. This doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while we miss the window, or there are extenuating circumstances, as was the case yesterday: Clio had had an extremely gruesome potty mishap, on account of not having pulled her tights down far enough before she began doing her business. The mishap itself didn't phase her in the least. But when I didn't let her go into her room with me afterward to get her a new pair of underwear, so as not to bother Elsa, who'd just gone down for her nap, she pitched an all-out, really loud tantrum, thus preventing Elsa from falling asleep at all. (Don't you just love it when your attempts to head off a bad situation end up bringing that bad situation on faster? Like in an episode of Three's Company?)

For the first hour or so, napless, Elsa was fine. But she began to deteriorate, fast. Soon, she was exhibiting all the classic symptoms of Elsa-without-a-nap Syndrome: Excessive whining, random acts of destruction (Lego castles demolished, fridge magets swept to the floor) and total disregard for the rules of sharing.

By bedtime -- which happened very, very early -- she was falling apart completely. Dissolving, pretty much. She was rolling around on the floor, using made-up words (Me: "Elsa, come on, get up off the floor, it's time to brush teeth." Elsa: "Sassa. Sassa!") and throwing her weight around (literally) with Clio. At one point, I stepped out of their room for a minute to throw out a tissue (both girls have colds, too) and when I came back, Clio was hobbling around, holding her crotch, wailing "Elsa Pushed me! She hurted my bum bum!" (I'm not entirely clear on the physical details of the assault).

"Elsa," I said, "did you push Clio?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Why did you do that?"

"I needed to get to my bed."

I managed to suppress my laughter long enough to tell her that next time she should probably just go around Clio, not through her.

I wonder when Elsa will give up her nap. I've worried a little bit lately, given some of her recent, erratic sleep behavior, that she might be transitioning out of it. I really, sincerely hope that isn't the case, because we are not prepared to handle Total Daughter Dissolution every afternoon and evening. If she wants to keep on napping until kindergarten, it's fine with me. (Frankly, I think we should all take naps after lunch. The whole world.) She's always been a very physical kid, and I think she just needs to refuel mid-day in order to keep on chugging along.

And Elsa chugging along can be quite a glorious thing -- as evidenced by the photos below, taken at the sound check before one of Alastair's recent shows. She's quite the dancer these days. She's even got a new signature move:

All the best ballerinas take naps, right?

Pro-Choice Parenting

Roper — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:40:00 GMT

Talk about a provocative title, eh? But fear not -- this is not a post about abortion legislation (which I can't imagine how would really figure into one's parenting technique anyway).This is about giving your kids choices. Or not.

We've found that an extremely effective technique for manipulating -- er, managing -- the girls is giving them choices. Two, never three. And I'm not just talking strawberry vs. vanilla yogurt or milk vs. juice (although we do that sort of thing, too). I mean the day-to-day stuff that can end up being a headache:

Either you can go right to bed without a story, or you can let mommy have a turn brushing your teeth and have a story. Which one?

Either you can share with Clio/Elsa, or we can put that toy away for awhile. Which one?

Either you can stop whacking your sister over the head with that plastic horse or you can STOP WHACKING YOUR SISTER OVER THE HEAD WITH THAT HORSE!!!

Ahem. There are some times when things are not a choice. In which case we say, as calmly as we can manage, "This is not a choice Clio/Elsa. You need to (stop jumping on the bed / use the potty before we leave the house / put your shoes on / etc.)" And, we've learned recently that we have to be careful with what is a choice and what isn't. Lately, this sort of thing is far more likely to happen:

US: Elsa, it's time to get dressed so you can go to school.

ELSA: No.

[This exchange repeats several times, with us trying various ways to persuade Elsa to get dressed. And then...eventually]

US: Well, listen, you can either get dressed or you can stay here and not go to school.

ELSA: Stay here.

US: Doh!!

And then there are the times when we just let them have their way because it's not a battle worth fighting. But it can be hard to know what is and isn't an unimportant battle. We want to be fairly consistent about routines and rules. And at the same time, we don't want to be rigid. The complicating issue with twins (or any siblings close in age, I would imagine) is that if you make an exception for one of them, you need to be prepared to make an exception for both, or at least have a good way of justifying / explaining / persuading (all very rational verbs, often lost on 3 year olds) why you won't.

And then, sometimes, it just works out fine. Like with Elsa the other night. As I wrote about last time, she's going through a rocky phase where bedtime is concerned. And on Tuesday night she didn't want to sleep in her bed. "There's too much room," she said. Which seemed like a weird thing to say given that her toddler bed is nice and snug. I sat with her and tried to rub her back to help her fall asleep but she kept trying to climb out of her bed onto the floor. Finally I just let her.

ME: Elsa, do you want to just sleep on the floor.

ELSA: With my ga-ga?

ME: Sure. I'll get your pillow and a blanket, too. Are you comfy?

ELSA: Yeah.

CLIO: Is Elsa gonna sleep on the floor?

ME: Yes

CLIO: I'm sleepin' in my bed.

ME: That's good. Sleep tight, sweeties. I love you.

"I'm All Done Sleepin'!"

Roper — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:30:00 GMT

We're having one of those spells -- as we seem to have every once in a while -- where one of the girls is not sleeping well at night. It's Elsa this time. So forgive me if this post is a little bit groggy

First off, she's fighting bedtime. She doesn't want to sleep in her bed, she says she can't sleep, or, ten minutes after we put her to bed, she'll be at the door, yanking on it (it's got a childproof knob cover on it, which she can't maneuver, but this doesn't stop her from trying), and yelling "I'm all done sleepin'!" Of course she doesn't seem to have any trouble at all falling asleep if we put her in our bed, which we've resorted to a few times recently, moving her into our bed later.

I wonder if the fact that she still naps is part of the problem: she just isn't tired at 7:30, when non-napper Clio is eager to fall into bed (she even asks us to go to bed). But if Elsa doesn't have her midday nap, she pretty much falls apart by 4:00 pm. The girl lives hard. So it may be time to stagger the girls' bedtime, but this is tricky since they share a room.

But the bedtime end of the issue isn't really so bad. It's the waking up in the middle of the night that sucks majorly. Usually she cries first (nightmares?) then cries for her ga-ga and/or her potty wizard (that damned little figurine that was a blessing to us during potty training and is now the bane of our existence) or some other toy or book she's been particularly attached to that day. One of us goes in, retrieves the necessary object by groping blindly around the floor in the dark, then tries to rub her back and tuck her back in. But usually we get "I'm all done sleepin'!" and an attempt to get up and run out of the room. Sigh.

Most of the time, Clio sleeps right through all this, although last night she got into the act, too. It was around 4:20 am (spark it up!) and I'd gone in for the usual Elsa routine, when Clio woke up and started asking for her cookie monster doll. I told her I'd find it, and she said, quite pleasantly, "He's playing hide and seek with me." Which was sort of cute and unexpected. (I wonder if she was dreaming about one big muppet game of hide and seek. Fun!) But a quick fumbling search of the immediate area surrounding her bed turned up no cookie monster, and she informed me that cookie monster was, in fact, downstairs. So, 4:23 am (sigh) I'm downstairs fumbling in the dark for freakin' cookie monster. (Who, as it turns out, is a really good hider.)

And, to cap it all off, she's been waking up earlier than usual in the morning. Now, I realized that we are quite blessed in this area, as our girls typically sleep until between 7 and 7:30. But on Friday, Elsa was up at 5:30, which I consider to be an hour at which human beings who do not work overnight jobs or who are not farmers should in bed, asleep. We brought her into our bed for awhile, where she alternately rested quietly and poked Alastair in the face.

At around 6:15 (still too early) I brought her downstairs and installed her on the couch with some milk and dry cereal and told her she could watch absolutely anything she wanted on TV, with hopes that I could catch another 20-30 minutes of shut eye. She chose the "Maria movie" a.k.a. The Sound of Music, which she's way into of late. I thought: great! A 3-hour movie! Got it going, helicopter shots of the alps, lovely, back to bed. I was on the verge of sleep when I hear Elsa shouting, "Mommy! Maria forgot her hat! She forgot her hat!!" (Sound of Music buffs will remember that after singing The Sound of Music at the beginning of the movie, she leaves her wimple in the meadow and has to run back for it.)

Well, I thought, fuck it, and went downstairs to lie on the couch with her. I dozed, and it wasn't until somewhere around Liesel announcing that she was sixteen and didn't need a governess that I heard Clio waking up upstairs. And then, wouldn't you know it, Elsa wanted to get back in her bed and rest awhile. (Cue comic trumpet sound: wa wa waaa)

Ah, kids. Can't live with 'em, can't ship 'em off to boarding school in Switzerland.

Going Ga-Ga

Roper — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:00:00 GMT

Anyone have any advice for getting your kid to quit the binky / pacifier / whatever else you call it? In our house, it's "ga-ga," named for the weird sound Elsa used to make as a baby when she was sucking on it (more like "goy goy," actually, but as a gentile married to a Jewish man, I felt like it was directed at me, so we went with "ga-ga" instead). We used the things right from the get-go, when the girls were wee babes. We knew the risks -- dependency, buck teeth, etc. -- but basically said screw it, we're playing the twins card here.

However, since the girls were 18 months, we've restricted their ga-ga use to naptime, bedtime, and long car trips. Then, a few months ago, Clio quite abruptly announced that she was big girl, and she didn't want her ga-ga anymore.

Elsa, however, shows no sign of giving hers up. She goes for it as soon as she's upstairs in her room, and will yell for us in the middle of the night if she wakes up and can't find it. When she's upset about something, or having a tantrum, she'll cry for it or go upstairs to her bed and pop it in her mouth.

I don't think she actually sucks on the thing. She appears to just chew it / keep it in her mouth between her teeth. As someone prone to oral fixation myself -- I chew gum, I chew pens, and if it weren't for the health risks, I think I would totally be a smoker -- I sympathize. But I feel like at some point we're going to have to bite the bullet (mm! Bullets!) and take the thing away from her, right? Buck teeth and malformed jaws and stunted emotional growth and all that?

The thing is, it's going to be really hard. She's very, very attached to her ga-ga. And she's going through a weird sort of phase of being uncooperative, doing a lot of "testing." For example, when it's bedtime, she'll lie on the floor and refuse to get up into her bed, smiling mischeviously the whole time, looking for attention. We're doing a lot of "Elsa, I'm going to count to three..." with her lately. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So I feel like this might be a tough time to attempt to lose the ga-ga. Or maybe it's the perfect time? I have no idea. We probably should have done this when the girls were 6 months old. Sigh.

In any case...how to do it? I've heard of parents telling their children tales of a fairy who comes and takes pacifiers away and gives them to new babies (It's magical AND unhygienic!) then leaves a toy or new security object of some kind. Others are more straightforward about it: the kid says bye-bye to their pacifier, throws it away, and that's the end of it. Maybe they get a reward of some kind for their troubles. I've heard of others just spiriting the pacifier away without the child knowing and pretending it's lost. This feels sort of cruelly dishonest, though. (As opposed to the fairy method, which is at least whimsically dishonest.)

So, what say ye, oh wise Babble readers? What has worked (or not) for you, and how bad was it?

Elsa with her ga-ga (and her sister), circa 14 months.

What Child is This?

Roper — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:34:00 GMT

Back in December, I wrote about the issues we were having with Clio -- issues that felt so intense and insurmountable that we were seriously worried about her: multiple, unstoppable tantrums per day, triggered when things didn't go exactly in the order and manner she had in her head, or when people didn't say things precisely according to her own internal script. The girl had no tolerance for improvisation.

We were feeling like we simply didn't have the tools to deal with her, and were walking on eggshells around her. Which, in turn, was probably making things worse. But we started standing our ground more firmly but more gently; telling her repeatedly (and with a smile or laugh, when we could muster it) "Hey, you're the boss of what Clio says, but Mommy is the boss of what mommy says, remember?"; and trying to be more sympathetic and comforting when she got into one of her mobius strip-like fits where it felt like there was no way out, either for her or for us.

Things got gradually better. And better. And while she still does have a tendency to be rigid when it comes to how people respond to what she says, it's nowhere near as bad as it was. She doesn't flip out completely, or have crazy screaming fits. She is, in fact, quite a delightful child -- affectionate, funny, playful, agreeable. In short, she's much more like herself, much much more of the time. It's a total relief.

In fact, the only issue we're having with her lately is that she sometimes when she's behaving particularly well, she tries to "parent" Elsa into good behavior, e.g. "Elsa, mommy said no more raisins" or "Elsa, we have to brush teeth first then read stories." And if we have to give Elsa an extra nudge to do something we want her to do, like not kneel backward on her chair, Clio will remind us "I'm sitting the right way in my chair, mommy." Cute. But probably not to Elsa.

And on that note, I'm convinced that it really is true that twins pick up each other's slack. Since Clio has chilled out, it feels like Elsa has been much higher maintenance -- more whining and resisting things like getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc. I mean, it's nowhere near the craziness of Clio, but it's still like she's decided (unconsciously, I'm sure) that now that Clio's going through a smooth-sailing phase, she can up her pain-in-the ass toddler shtick a bit.

Theories as to the reason Clio has mellowed? 1.) She was breaking a molar in (her first dentist visit, at the beginning of January, revealed that one molar had come in, but three more remain -- ay ay ay) 2.) She was going through a difficult stretch, for simple developmental reasons -- possibly language-oriented -- and just had to get through it. Now, in fact, she is kind of amazingly verbally adept. We can't shut the girl up. 3.) Our fabulous parenting (I'm not inclined to believe that this is the entire explanation, but I hope it at least helped.)

So, in celebration of Clio's new-found happiness -- and ours -- I'll share an original Clio story. We've been encouraging the girls to make up their own stories lately, and this is a favorite of Clio's. In fact, she tells it exactly the same way, every time. Which, perhaps, helps fulfill her need for verbal control, but in a productive way:

Once upon a time there was a dragon. And he came to our house and we said "No, Dragon! Go away! This is our house!" and he rang the doorbell and knocked on the door. And then he went to the library because he was a big girl. And then he came home and went downstairs because daddy was making him bref-esk. The end.

Perhaps we have a budding writer on our hands! Except she's into dragon stories. And therefore will probably have a better shot at getting published than I ever will. (I'm confident that 15 - 20 years from now, home-invading, library-going dragons will be the new vampires.)

Photo by Mara Brod

The Sitter Search

Roper — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:01:00 GMT

We learned a few weeks ago that our regular sitter, who looks after the girls a couple of afternoons a week, won't be available for the next several months due to some family medical issues, so we've been searching around for someone to fill in. Always a pleasure.

We tried our various networks and contacts without much luck, and since then we've been using a combination of Craigslist and Care.com. We've gotten lots of inquiries, and have managed to schedule a few interviews with the qualified candidates who actually get back to us when we contact them. But it's amazing how few viable options there end up being when all is said and done. Perhaps I am too picky, but chances are I will not hire you to watch my children if:

1. You don't show up for a scheduled interview.

1a. You don't show up for a scheduled interview, and when I call you to ask if you're on your way, you say that you called earlier that morning to re-confirm. But you didn't leave a voicemail. And you don't apologize for the misunderstanding. (Reliability, promptness and communication are MAJOR factors for us.)

2. You waste my time by interviewing for our position sitting 8-10 hours a week and clearly advertised and confirmed on the phone as such when, in fact, you are looking for a full-time nannying job. But will "take anything you can get" in the meantime. (Which means you will leave us as soon as you get another job, and we'll have to go through this whole damned process again.)

3. When I call your first reference, the first thing they do is sigh and say, "Let me think how I can put this without seeming like I'm being unfair..." and proceed to tell me how the candidate was great with your kids, but basically went AWOL for a month after a questionable auto accident.

4. You give monosyllabic answers to all our quetions and barely acknowledge my children, even when we make repeated attempts to give you an opportunity to engage with them.

5. You respond to our Craigslist ad thusly: "Yeah I can do it. I like kids. How much does it pay?"

Sometimes, I swear, I wish it was the olden days, when you lived in a house with your parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and you had five kids and everyone took care of each other and you didn't have to hire babysitters and you ate a big chunk of boiled meat with potatoes and carrots every Sunday and listened to the Victrola and got your ice from the ice man and knew what an antimacassar was. And you all had tuberculosis, rickets and bad teeth. Those were the days.

Game Theory

Roper — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:15:00 GMT

Trying to explain things to young children makes you realize how complex and/or bizarre so many things are that we take totally for granted. Board games, for instance.

The girls were given a few very rudimentary, preschool-level games for Christmas and their birthday, and I've tried a few times to play them with them. One of the games involves a die with a different color on each side, which you roll to advance. Roll a red, and you move to the next red space. Roll a green, and you move to the next green space, etc. It's about as basic as a game can get, and I figured that since my children are (of course) geniuses, who can perform such complicated tasks as feeding baby dolls and putting wooden train tracks together and recognizing letters of the alphabet, that this would be a piece of cake. We'd be on to Monopoly in no time.

But, no. The first problem: understanding the concept of a colored pawn representing "you." We had four pawns. So why were we only using three of them? And why couldn't both Elsa and Clio be yellow, their favorite color?

Next problem: die rolling. Not so easy for three-year-old fingers. They proved able to drop the thing, or chuck it across the floor. But rolling? No. Next problem: getting the concept that the color on the top of the die was the color they'd rolled. They could see the color on the side facing them, too, so why wasn't that the color they were supposed to pay attention to? Totally reasonable, and totally never occurred to me when we set out to play.

Next issue: making the connection between the color they rolled and the colors on the board. They eventually sort of caught on to this; but then the problem was moving in sequence. What exactly was the "next" blue space? There were blue spaces all over the board.

Finally -- they didn't really get what the point was. "Winning" doesn't mean anything to them. What do they know from winning? When Elsa (sort of) got to the middle of the board first, with my die-rolling and space-counting assistance, and I said "You win! Nice going!" she just picked up the die and dropped it again and moved to a different space on the board. Then Clio picked up her piece and put it in the middle and said "I win!" Yes. Yes, she did.

They have another game, called "Magnetic Baby Animals," which I've also tried with little to no success to teach them how to play. There are magnets of baby animals that you place in different places on the (magnetic) board, and you choose a mommy animal gamepiece and move her around the board, using a spinner (also tricky for three-year-old fingers), to collect her babies. This also proved way too complex for them. And they didn't believe me when I told them that the gamepieces were the mommies, not the babies. And Elsa kept kneeling on the board while we were playing. So I gave up.

Nevertheless, this game is actually one of their favorite things to do at the moment. They just move the gamepieces and magnets around on the board (ignoring the colored spaces on the board completely) and say things like "I'm going to find you mommy, kitty!" in high voices, and occasionally try to use the spinner. Clio is always the kitty, Elsa is the bunny or the dog, and I am the chicken. And I always win.

Pajama games

The adventure begins

Roper — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:30:00 GMT

In a couple of weeks, that is. This is the big change that I alluded to in my kiss off, 2009 post a few weeks ago: I'm leaving my job and am going to freelance.

This is something I'd always planned on doing eventually, but eventually finally arrived -- a bit sooner than I thought it would, but what can I do? Eventually is not a fella you can ignore forever. He knocks and knocks and knocks on your door -- softly at first, then louder and louder, until finally you're like, OK, Eventually, I get the point!! It's time for me to move on. I hear you. Now will you stop that already? It's driving me NUTS. Can't you just ring the freakin' doorbell?

There are two main goals to this change: the first, is to have a bit more time to spend with Elsa and Clio -- even if it's just driving them to and from preschool and cutting out the commute to and from work. The other goal is to be able to refocus on and spend more time on my own writing, which has gotten serious short shrift in the past two years (somewhat understandably).

Of course, I'll still primarily be copywriting. I'll continue to be very involved on one of the accounts I work on at my job, and I'll also be doing other freelance projects as needed -- lots of irons are in the fire already. But I'm hoping I can be disciplined enough to also get an hour or two of "me" writing in each day. (I've got a writing project I'm excited to dive into.) This, and the variety of projects, the flexibility of schedule, the varied work environments (different offices, different coffee shops, home) and the being-my-own boss thing -- which I've done before, and have really enjoyed -- are all very appealing to me.

On the flip side, there's no job security. We'll have to pay for our own health and dental insurance. There will be times when I'll panic because I don't have enough work and probably times when I'll take on way too much. And I will miss the camaraderie of my co-workers, some of whom I've known for a very long time. Not to mention the free coffee.

But what can I say? I've been mulling this change for months, and it just feels right. For the first time in several years, I've got that I'm-about-to-go-on-an-adventure feeling -- a little apprehensive, but mostly pumped. It's the feeling I had before my semester abroad in Cameroon during college, and that I've had before other big trips I've taken. The feeling I had before we moved out to Iowa for my grad school. And -- in fact -- the feeling I had when I was about to give birth to the girls.

Of course, there are plenty of moments when I think: what on God's green earth am I doing? I'm the primary breadwinner in this family. What if I fail miserably? What if I hate it? But there other times when I think that if I don't do this I'll go crazy. And other times when I just think....wahooooo! Cannonballl!!!!!!!

Whatever the outcome may be, I've got to give it a shot. Eventually is here, and he won't take no for an answer.

The princesses are coming.

Roper — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:00:00 GMT

I can just make out their pastel gowns, heart-shaped faces and impossibly large eyes in the distance. I hear their wistful sighs, charming laughter and bell-like singing voices (Ariel, I'm talking to you) drawing closer. They have Curious George, Elmo and Thomas the Tank Engine in their sights, and they are ready to take those mofos down. "Step aside, boys," they trill. "The princesses are coming to town!"

And I'm not talking about traditional fairy tale princesses. I'm talking about those princesses. You know the ones I'm talking about: Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, Belle, Ariel, Mulan, Jasmine and Pocahantas, and the new one in the Frog movie, brought to you by Walt Disney, Inc. And now, they seem to have their own subsidiary franchise. The 3-10 year old girl merchandising appeal of nine trademarked characters, bundled into one, irresistible package! I applaud the marketing people who came up with that. The bastards.

Do I sound cynical? Hard-hearted? Unrealistic?

Again, it's not that I'm anti-princess with a lower-case p (as the commenters who misinterpreted this post from way-back when thought). I will read the girls fairy tales until the cows come home. Sure, I guess the main characters aren't exactly exemplary role models for 21st century girls. But I think they will have enough of those in their life (ahem, me, for example) that I'm not too worried. And honestly, aspiring to be anachronistic, dignified wives of powerful monarchs is far preferable than aspiring to be, say, trampy reality TV stars.

And it's not that I didn't think it was cute when, the other night, Elsa looked down at Snow White on the front of her pullups (we had to get a different brand in a pinch....I didn't even know they had The Princesses on them), asked who that girl in the picture was, and said, when I told her, "I love Snow White!" It's not that I don't think it's cute that Clio only wants to wear the pullups with Cinderella on them, for no particular reason I can ascertain. And I don't really care that the girls brought home pages torn out of princess coloring books from the daycare at the gym, where they went with Alastair the other day. I don't care that they've been given a couple of Princess(TM) items over the past couple of years.

So, what is my freakin' problem with the Disney princesses? I guess they just seem so vapid and mass-produced. I know they supposedly have different "personalities" in their movies, but those personalities could be likened to different shades of the same color (I choose pink) as opposed to distinct hues. Even their "feistiness" is such fake, sanctioned naughtiness. I realize this is irrelevant to little girls, who pretty much just like the dresses. I'm just saying.

I guess it's the merchandising aspect that really gets to me --- the fact that these damned Princesses are so ubiquitous and that they exist basically to sell products. And while, yes, the girls do have some TV character toys as mentioned -- Curious George and Elmo dolls, Thomas trains -- the PBS connection somehow makes them feel less icky. That may be totally illogical and ridiculous, but there you go. I guess there is some paranoid part of me that still suspects that the Walt Disney Corporation has a secret evil agenda to turn all American children into brainwashed consumer automatons. And then harvest their organs to sell to third world countries in exchange for petroleum.

Also, if the girls -- like so many others -- get really into the whole princess thing, they may ask if we can go to Disney World. And I really, really hate theme parks.

But will I ban The Princesses(TM) from our home? Will I not let them watch their movies, or dress up like them for Halloween, or buy the occasional Princess(TM) product? Will I give my girls lectures on the aesthetic tragedy of corporate co-option of folk mythology? No, no, no. I'm willing to make certain sacrifices for my children. And I do have a soft-spot for Belle. What with her being bookish and all. And telling that ass-hat Gaston to f*$#& off.

But if Princessmania(TM?) does takes hold, I will also make sure that the girls supplement their Disney diet with lots of non-commercial books, toys, movies, etc. Because there's a lot of wonderful, magical, little-girl friendly stuff out there other than what is shilled by the Magic Kingdom.

The End.

One more reason why twins rule.

Roper — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:15:00 GMT

Back in August of 2007, just a few months after I started writing this blog, I posted a list of five reasons why twins rule. It's been a long time since I've felt much like being a cheerleader for twin parentdom. I mean, the last year and a half has really kicked my ass. But lately -- just in the past couple of months, really -- a wonderful thing has started to happen. And this is my #6 reason why twins rule:

They keep each other entertained so you don't (always) have to.

People have said to us many times over the past three years, "it'll be great when they can keep each other entertained!" and we have nodded wearily and said yes, yes, that will be great. And we waited. And waited. And waited.

But when they did start interacting more, it tended to be more fighting than playing: grabbing things away from each other, pushing, shoving, whacking each other over the head with legos, laughing while the other one cried (stop me when my children start sounding like sociopaths.....sometimes I have wondered). We really couldn't leave them to their own devices for more than three minutes.

And it wasn't just the infighting that was the problem. For a good part of their twos they just couldn't -- or wouldn't, anyway -- do a whole lot on their own. We really had to initiate most of the activities and games, and they wanted mommy or daddy right there with them for the most part.

But these days, it is not unusual for the girls to play with each other for twenty or thirty minutes at a stretch, blissfully independent of me or Alastair, without getting into more than the occasional minor scuffle. Playing what, exactly, you ask? Cribbage? Dominoes? Trivial Pursuit? Definitely not the latter, because I would insist on joining them. No; Elsa and Clio are pretend play maniacs.

They pour tea and make cakes and "raisin juice" with their plastic food and tea set. They wrap dolls up in construction paper and give them to us as "presents." They ride their toy cars (which they're really too big for) around the house saying "I'm going to work, mommy! I'm late for work!" or "I'm taking Curious George to the grocery store to buy waffles, Mommy!" They "fix" their baby dolls with their doctor kit. And they subject Ernie, Cookie Monster, Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheik and others to all manner of domestic scenarios: being fed, given baths, taken to the grocery store, brought to the doctor, put to bed, etc. etc. Alastair and I are frequently chastened for talking too loudly while their doll / horse / monkey / etc. is sleeping. (Chastened, usually, in a very loud, sreaming toddler voice).

But there is one small secret to making this independent, imaginative play happen: we have to pretend to be busy. Or actually be busy. Doing dishes, cleaning up, updating our Facebook sta-- I mean, um, working.

Obviously, we need to be in the same general area as the girls. But it helps to be a little bit out of sight (i.e. out of mind). So I'll often try to keep myself busy in the kitchen and thereabouts while they live their imaginary lives in the living/dining room. They'll come in from time to time to tell me that Ernie is sleeping, or offer me a cup of raisin juice or whatever. And sometimes they'll ask if they can "help" me with whatever I'm doing, but they're pretty easily rebuffed with a quick "Sorry, sweetie, this is something mommy needs to do by herself. Why don't you go see if Cookie Monster wants to go to the grocery store with you?" (Sort of the kinder, gentler, more developmentally constructive version of Betty Draper's "go watch television.")

Anyway, I'm very pleased about this trend in our household. And not just for the selfish reason that it frees us up a little bit; it's also really, supremely fun to see and hear the girls playing together, and coming up with so many lovely and ridiculous play scenarios, giving us a glimpse of what goes on in those wonderful small heads of theirs.

Cupcakes

Roper — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:54:00 GMT

Yesterday morning, I sent the girls -- via their father, who actually takes them -- to preschool with two dozen cupcakes (yellow cake with pink icing and colored sprinkles) for an in-class birthday celebration. Since their birthday falls during school vacation week, and probably always will, this shall be their lot in life: late birthday cupcakes. Which isn't the worst thing, really -- sort of a last, sweet gasp of celebration after the holidays and their "real" birthday are over. The kids who really get screwed are the ones with summer birthdays. (As my husband, an August baby, can attest.)

I loved birthday cupcakes in school as a kid. Who didn't? It was this fantastic surprise that made the day a little bit special. Something to look forward to all morning when it was your birthday or someone else's. There was something slightly forbidden feeling about it (cupcakes? In the classroom?! Right here on our desks?!) and also something a little comforting -- your mom, or someone else's, coming in to deliver them to the teacher in the carefully packed cardboard box lined with waxed paper, or the snug tupperware container. A bit of home sneaking its warm way into the institution.

Given this great nostalgia I have around birthday cupcakes in the classroom --- (with the exception of the time in sixth grade a friend of mine brought in cupcakes for me on my birthday to share with our homeroom and I was mortified, lest anyone think that my mom did this, because it was MIDDLE SCHOOL for God's sake, and birthday cupcakes were totally elementary school) -- it's surprising, I guess, that in hadn't even occurred to me to make cupcakes for the girls' birthday until their teacher mentioned something to Alastair.

Part of it, I guess, is that I didn't know this sort of thing was done in preschool. I mean, it makes perfect sense that it would be. It's just that all my cupcakes-in-school memories are associated with elementary school (and sixth grade, unfortunately). I have only vague memories of nursery school -- as it was called back then -- and they involve wetting my pants, painting with roll-on containers, and playing outside on a big metal climbing thing shaped like a spider. (?) But no cupcakes.

But another part of it is that neither Alastair nor I have fully immersed ourselves in the whole preschool culture. The school where we send the girls is not one of these crunchy-creative-progressive (read: expensive) programs where parents are super-involved. (Believe me, I would love it if our circumstances allowed us to send the girls to one of these). Our school is a really nice little program, and the girls seem to like it, and we're happy. But we (and by "we" I mean Alastair) basically drop the girls off, say hello to their teachers, pick them up, ask how they did, and that's it. This -- and going to the occasional "parties" they have for the kids, like on Halloween -- would appear to be the extent of the expectation of parents.

Except it's sort of not....for example, on the day of the Halloween party, the girls came home with tons of candy, goodie bags, favors, etc. Aghast, I asked Alastair, "Did the school give them all this [expletive]?" He explained, equally aghast, that no, the school gave them a few pieces of candy, but other parents had brought in stuff for all the kids in the class and put it in their cubbies.

"[Expletive]," I replied. "Were we supposed to bring in treats for everyone too?"

"I have no idea," he said. "But [expletive] that. Why should we have to buy candy for every kid in the class? The school gives them stuff, and they'll get more on Halloween. It's too much."

I agreed, in principle, but some guilty, insecure part of me thought: we're letting down our children! The teachers think we're slackers! The other parents hate us!

We tried to clean up our act at Christmas by remembering that we should probably give a little something to the teachers, and gave them each a Starbucks gift card. But wouldn't you know it, the same day Alastair gave it to them, he spotted one of the teachers looking through a huge envelope full of cash. Which led to another [expletive]-filled conversation at home. Were we supposed to tip the teachers? On top of paying our tuition in a timely manner? Even though we have little to no relationship with them, and barely get to say more than "hello" and "good bye" to them during drop-off and pick-up time? Is there a PTA for this preschool that we don't know about?

And then there is the upcoming silent auction fundraiser for "enrichment activities for the children," which I'm of two minds about. On the one hand, sure, I don't mind ponying up a little more cash for a special performance by, say, an up-and-coming kids' musician, or in-class visits from people with ferrets or whatever else qualifies as "enrichment" for three-year-olds. On the other hand, I don't like the mild guilt associated with it (what kind of parent wouldn't want to pay for enrichment for their children?!) or the use of the term "fundraiser" as if they were a non-profit institution. Why don't they just make tuition a little higher?

What I am perfectly happy to do, however, is make birthday cupcakes. And seeing how excited the girls were to tell me about it when I got home from work last night -- sporting paper "birthday girl" crowns that they'd been given as part of the celebration (included in the price of tuition) made it doubly worth it.

PS --- Here's my cupcake recipe! 1 Box Betty Crocker Cake Mix, 1 can Betty Crocker pink "funfetti" frosting, 1 episode of Dexter on DVD to watch while cupcakes bake. Voila!

Absurd Toddler Phobias

Roper — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:03:00 GMT

There are a lot of things you pretty much expect two- and three-year-olds to be afraid of: monsters, loud noises, the dark, inflation. But my girls have developed some rather quirky phobias in the past couple of months.

1. Trichophobia (Fear of Hair). OK, so accidentally getting a piece of hair in your mouth is never pleasant. But for Elsa, it's a full-blown catastrophe. If it happens, she shouts "Hair! Hair!" and starts swatting wildly at her face, as if the hair is actually alive, and about to wriggle down her throat and breed there. (Ew! I just scared myself!).

But it's not just getting hair in her mouth that bothers her. If she has piece on her pillow or on a piece of clothing, or sees one in the bathtub, she lets out the same desperate, piteous cry and insists that Alastair or I remove it. Which isn't alway easy, hair being on the light-colored side in our household. (In fact, I suspect much of the hair that terrorizes Elsa is, in fact, her own, which is very fine and wispy and frequently in her face.) I am beginning to wonder if we need to shave all of our heads. And the cat, too.

2. Hygrophobia Sockensis. (Fear of wet socks). If the girls get so much as a drop -- nay, droplet -- of water or other liquid on their socks, they will immediately start wailing that their socks are wet, and insist on a new pair. Sometimes I can't even feel the moisture they claim to feel, but it's generally easier just to humor them and give them a new pair. We go through a lot of socks in our house. A dispenser might be nice.

3. Reprimandophobia (Fear of being reprimanded.) This one isn't so odd in and of itself; it's not surprising that a small child would be upset or frightened by a sharp reprimand -- the kind you might give if, for example, that child continued whacking her father's guitar with a plastic toy xylophone mallet after she'd already been told twice to stop. Or even the kind you'd give if the child was in potential danger -- getting underfoot while you're pouring hot coffee, or something like that.

But what's really nutso is how my children react: they burst into tears and start saying that their teeth hurt, and they want an "ice ga-ga." (An ice ga-ga is what we call those mesh feeder things, which we used to give to them when they were teething.) The only explanation I can come up with for this is that they want the comfort of having something in their mouth and know that in the past, having teething pains was the best possible way to ensure that we'd let them use a ga-ga (pacifier) or ice ga-ga. Or could they possibly be having psychosomatic tooth pain? Anything is possible, I 'spose.

4. Tryophobia (Fear of the word "Try"). This is Clio's completely weird phobia: she hates it when we say the word "try." As in, "you need to sit on the potty and try before we leave the house." Or "you don't have to eat all of (insert name of new food here), just try a little to see if you like it." It's not like she won't actually do these things. To get her to try (the horror!) to pee, we just say, "You need to sit on the potty before we leave the house." To get her to try (gasp!) a new food, we just have to say, "Give it a quick taste and see if you like it."

The other day I told her, "You're like Yoda. Do, or do not; there is no try."

"No, don't say try!" she said.

"OK," I said. "Do, or do not!"

"No, don't say 'do'!"

Oh well.

And you? What strange things freak your kids out? Sometimes I feel like I'm living with two little Bobs -- as in What About Bob. Baby steps in wet socks...baby steps!

Buh-bye, 2009

Roper — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:08:00 GMT

And don't let the door hit you on the way out. Yes, my friends, it's been a pretty sucky year for me, as years go. This may come as a surprise to some, as I generally attempt to maintain a positive demeanor here on the internets -- and in life generally. And the past year certainly hasn't been all misery, by any stretch. There have been plenty of moments, hours and days of joy and delight -- many brought courtesy of Elsa and Clio and Alastair, my family and friends, and the sense of satisfaction and virtual community I get from writing this blog.

But when I look back at 2009 (and 2008, for that matter) I will also remember them as 1.) The years during which I faced the immense disappointment of not finding a publisher for my novel, in spite of a few close calls 2.) The years during which the shit hit the fan with regard to my mental health. 2009 has been particularly rough in this regard. But -- spoiler alert -- it ends on a much happier and more hopeful note.

Here -- deep breath, hold nose, holy crap what am I doing? -- is the full story.

As long-time readers will remember, I went into a big bad (chemical, clinical, not situational) depression in February 2008, right after I weaned my girls. Upping my medication helped immensely. And then, a few months later, I was back down again for no apparent reason. Another med uppage. Another few months of delightful happiness, then another down, out of nowhere. Up again -- now on near off-label doses of Prozac -- and boy, was I up. A little too far up. Not manic, mind you, but contented and energetic and "on" to a slightly unrealistic degree. At the peak, I felt close to euphoric. And I remember saying to Alastair: this is too good to be true. I'm going to crash any day now. And I did.

Thus came the realization -- mine and my doctor's -- that I'd edged out of the monopolar depression spectrum, and onto the bipolar one. Bipolar II is a milder version of bipolar disorder, characterized by cycling between periods of what's called hypomania (a low-grade version of mania, often mistaken for high-functioning behavior) and -- more prominently -- depression. The clincher: antidepressants, particularly SSRIs like Prozac, can bring it on. Which seems to be what was happening in my case. So, I had to wean myself off my beloved Prozac, and onto mood stabilizers. This was last spring.

The months that followed were a crapfest of medication adjustments, moodswings, anxiety, mild anhedonia and dysphoria (clinical language is fun!) and occasional, short periods of more severe depression. I was frequently cranky and snippy with both Alastair and -- more heartbreakingly -- the girls, which I hated. It was awful to feel like I wasn't being a good mother or a good partner. Somehow, I managed to stay a good employee. (Isn't that how it often goes? You work hard to keep up appearances at work because you feel you have to, but lose it when it comes to the people you love the most. I guess because you know they'll be more understanding and forgiving. Because you're not ashamed of being a mess around them. But they end up suffering as a result.)

Late this Fall, I finally went to my doc and said "basta!" You've got to put me back on an antidepressant. This is killing me. And he did -- a small dose of something less likely to cause cycling. And I am feeling like a new woman. No -- scratch that. I'm feeling like myself again.

One of the best parts of this is that I feel I can fully appreciate and enjoy and do right by my girls. (Perhaps not coincidentally, we seem to be coming out of the worst of Clio's screaming fits and tantrums. Now, I can't help wondering if her behavior was in part a reflection of and reaction to my unhappiness. My little seismograph.)

Another really good thing that has come from this bumpy journey is the realization that I need and want to make some adjustments in my life, to align it more closely with the people, goals and values that are most important to me. More on that later, but for the moment I'll just say that some major changes are afoot for 2010, and I'm really excited about them.

At the same time, I hesitate to rest on my laurels where my mood is concerned. Things may very well get worse again. Jane Kenyon captures this sentiment perfectly in a verse from her poem "Having it Out with Melancholy" (which is one of the most trenchant descriptions of depression that I've ever read):

Credo

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can't
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can't sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can't read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.

But I don't want to end on such a melancholy note. Because at this moment, I am happy and hopeful for all that the new year may bring. Here's hoping for the same for all of you, and for the world at large.

To quote Rydell High's Coach Calhoun, "It's gonna be a bettah year. A bettah year!"

An Embarassment of Riches

Roper — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:02:00 GMT

This really was a good Christmas: nice, relaxed, not-too-big family gatherings. Great food, including some rockin' apple sausage stuffing, ginger molasses cookies and a pumpkin pie, all made by yours truly. A viewing of the definitive A Christmas Carol -- the one with Alastair Sim. And plenty of Elsa and Clio adorability (is that a word?). One of my favorite yuletide quips: On Christmas Eve morning, I told the girls that it was almost Christmas, and that Santa would be coming soon. Elsa said, "Yeah? Is he coming to town?"

It was also mighty cute to watch them "playing" with their baby cousin:

Things were fun in the gift department, too. Alastair gave me a Kindle (well, I sort of commanded him to), and I can honestly say that I haven't been this excited about a Christmas present since 1986, when Santa brought me an Apple IIE complete with Dot-Matrix printer. We got our parents tickets to shows -- South Pacific for his, an evening with Garrison Keillor for mine -- which were as fun for us to give as they were (I hope) for the 'rents to receive. And, of course, the girls got a whole host of excellent stuff, including a table-top puppet theater, some preschool-level board games and puzzles, and this kickass doll house (from their paternal grandparents). And, oh yes, Santa brought them the horse and donkey they requested, in small, plastic form.

All of this would have been plenty. (Dayenu!) But then there was the girls' birthday. And I must say: it's a lot for two small three-year-olds to handle so much excitement, so much sugar, and so many gifts in a four-day period. It's a lot for their parents to handle as well. I'd advocate for celebrating the girls' birthdays at the half-year mark, but it's kind of hard to tell a small child (or two): Yes, darling, your birthday is on December 28, right after Christmas, but you don't get any party or presents until June, because it's just TOO MUCH FUN and TOO MANY PRESENTS for you to handle all at once. Dammit.

We did, however, hold back a few gifts to give to them later. And may spirit some other things away over the next few days, to be brought down at a later date. Christmas in March? Un-Birthdays in May? Why not?

Clio obediently poses with sweater sent by faraway Great Aunt, while Elsa makes her own fashion statement. Note Cookie Monster, half-wrapped under tree -- a "present" from Clio and Elsa, budding re-gifters.

Hey, we like this holiday stuff!

Roper — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:00:00 GMT

I'm so excited. This is the first year that the girls actually "get" the idea of it being the holiday season, and they're having a ball with the attendant rituals and festivities -- as am I. It's great fun to re-experience the joy of this stuff via your children. To date we have:

1. Celebrated the first night of Hanukkah with our friends the Almonds (long-time Babble readers will remember Steve Almond's blog here, Baby Daddy). The latkes were not a big hit with the kids (hey, more for us!) but the applesauce and chicken were, as was the gelt. Elsa and Clio thought the menorah (a.k.a. the banora) was a birthday cake, and we comitted happy sacrilege by letting them and Josie blow out the candles.

2. Made gingerbread men. Or "gingerbread babies," as the girls call them, per one of their favorite books, Gingerbread Baby, by Jan Brett. The four-stage process -- make dough, let dough chill for an hour, cut out and bake, decorate when cool -- was tolerated admirably by the girls. (Though I did have to tell Clio, when she asked to sit at the kitchen table while the dough chilled, that maybe she'd be better off playing in the other room...)

3. Attended our friends' annual tree-trimming party. Although as far as the girls were concerned, it could have been called the the stuff-your-face-with-hors d'oevres-and-cookies party. You'd think we never feed the girls, the way they constantly, incessantly beg for food at parties and gatherings. I mean, you could give each one of them an entire bag of chips, a plate of cookies and six juice boxes, and they'd ask for more afterward. Clearly, they take after their father.

4. Bought and decorated our own Christmas tree. Again, a good lesson in delayed gratification. We had the aforementioned party to attend the same day we got the tree, and needed to wait for the branches to settle before we decorated, so we did it the next day. "The branches falled down!" Elsa said as we got started. The girls didn't have the small-motor dexterity (not to mention stature) to actually hang many ornaments, but they "helped" by dumping out the box and taking the tissue paper off the delicate ornametns. Not very delicately. All told, we just lost a couple of elf feet and a pair of angel wings. It could have been worse.

5. Watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas and read my favorite childhood Christmas book, The Sweet Smell of Christmas, whose 32-year-old scratch-and-sniff labels now all smell like slightly sweetened paper. Which is fine, because the girls haven't quite figured out how to smell things yet anyway. They just make a little sniffing exhale with their noses. But the book's apparently still in print, so I'm going to buy them their own, brand new, richly scented copy in time for next Christmas. I still remember what those stickers smell like -- the apple pie, the hot chocolate, the pine -- and even just thinking about it takes me back.

6. Brought the girls to see Santa. Not at a mall, but at my office, where a jolly-looking, white-bearded colleague annually dons the suit at a little party for employees and their kids. (We went last year, too.) Elsa was beside herself with glee and excitment when he came into the room: "Santa's here! Santa's here!" And she now thinks that Santa lives at Mommy's work.

Clio didn't end up sitting on Santa's lap, but she did tell him what she wanted: a horsie. She's been saying this for some time now, whenever asked what she wants for Christmas / her birthday. I'm not sure if she really wants a horsie, or if she just likes saying it. Maybe she realizes that it's sort of a wish list cliche for little girls, and she's trying to be funny? Elsa, meanwhile, said she wanted a donkey, but later changed her mind to a froggie. Which is good, because I don't think our yard is big enough for a horse and a donkey.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Safe Travels and Sweet Memories to you all.

Progress

Roper — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:02:00 GMT

I so often use this blog as a place to vent about and solicit advice for various parenting challenges, and since there's always a new one, I don't often get a chance to stop and report on areas where there's actually been progress. It's partly because -- let's face it -- hearing that everything's fine is isn't nearly as interesting as the drama of the latest childrearing crisis, either for me to write or for you to read. (Not that any of it's exactly action flick material, but you get my point.)

But today, I want to comment on one major improvement, and one area where I think we may be making a little bit of progress, and are feeling optimistic:

1. Poop.

It was over two months ago that we bit the bullet and turbo-toilet trained the girls. It was a pretty successful endeavor, although, as I've written about in far more detail than I'm sure anyone needed, Elsa has had some issues with number two. We had several weeks where once a day, when the old poop was a callin', she'd go into this crazy manic state where she'd be running around, picking random toys, asking me to read books to her, then suddenly yell "poop! poop!" and head for the bathroom. But the second she sat down on the potty she'd leap back up and say "I didn't make some!" and begin the craziness again. Until...well, it was too late.

We remedied this (sort of) by just letting her run around naked from the waist down whenever poop mania struck. We also started giving her a little bit of Miralax in her milk, as we used to when she had constipation issues when she was younger, to help get things moving a bit better. Eventually, she started getting her business into the potty most of the time (thank God we don't have wall to wall carpeting), and we rewarded successes with chocolate.

And now, I'm happy to say, she's a pretty good pooper. Not as much poop-mania (not to be confused with wrestle-mania), no need for half-naked craziness, and only the occasional accident. The only problem now is getting her to stop asking for candy every time she goes.

2. Clio Craziness

First off, I want to thank everyone for the advice and sympathy and commiseration when I wrote about Clio's somewhat obsessive control issues. We are still planning to talk to her pediatrician about her behavior, but we're not feeling quite as panicked about it. The fact that she doesn't exhibit the same behaviors at school is reassuring. And we're trying a new, two-pronged approach to dealing with her freak-outs, which seems to be working, a little. But more importantly, we feel less helpless / hopeless by having a more defined "strategy."

One prong of this approach is being stricter when Clio starts to lose it. We don't yell or scold. We just very firmly tell her she may not scream and yell -- those are the rules in our house. She may not tell other people what to say: "Clio is the boss of what Clio says, but Mommy is the boss of what mommy says. You may not tell me what I can or can't say." (This Ad nauseum.) Either she can calm down and continue to play / eat / whatever, or she can go up to her room until she pulls herself together. It's not that different from what we were doing before, and it's not like it always works, but we're definitely being more consistent about it. Not letting ourselves be pushed around by or afraid of her behavior, but trying not to get as angry in the face of it, either. Which brings me to the next prong: Compassion.

One commenter on that last Clio post said something that really stuck with me: "Think how hard it must be for Clio to be so stressed and anxious every day, poor baby." I think it was the same day I read that that Clio started having one of her meltdowns at around bedtime -- insisting that I put toothpaste on her brush first after I'd already put it on Elsa's first; wanting me to say something in a certain way from a certain place in the bathroom, etc. etc. -- and at one point I just gathered her into my arms and rocked her and said, as gently as possible, "Sweetie, everything's going to be OK. I want to help you. I know you're having a really hard time. You want things to go a certain way, and they're not going that way, and that must be really frustrating. I want to help you feel better. And to feel better, you need to let go a little bit, OK? You can tell people what you want, but you need to be OK if they can't do exactly what you want."

And she put her head on my shoulder and whimpered a little and I realized: damn. This is really, really painful for her. It's not just a matter of her being stubborn or willful for the sake of it. She truly wants and needs to control her world -- including what people say and do -- and it truly hurts her when she can't. It's infuriating for all of us around her, yes. But it's more important for us to think of our dealings with her as trying to help her stop, not make her stop.

So, did it work? Well, not exactly. After I held her and talked to her, she started flipping out again about something or another. But after I refused to say whatever it was she wanted me to say, she came over to me and yelled, crying, "Say the words!" To which I replied, "No, Clio, I'm not going to say the words you want me to say." And she screamed again: "No! Say the words to make me feel better!" and put her arms around me. Again, it wasn't long before she was revving up again, but she did keep seeking me out for comfort, and gradually, the intensity of her freak-out diminished.

I think it will be some time before we see the end of Clio's fits. But at least we're feeling a little better armed (and disarmed) to deal with them.

The Other Half

Roper — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:50:00 GMT

I've been posting a lot lately about the issues we've been having with Clio's....let's call it "passionate"...nature. As a result, I feel like I've let Elsa fade a bit into the narrative background, which I feel bad about.

To some degree, it's a reflection of how I feel in "real" life, too. We spend so much energy trying to manage Clio's behavior that sometimes it feels like Elsa gets short shrift. We're quicker to tell her "no" because we know that it won't escalate into a gigantic tantrum. Because she's fairly independent, we expect her to take care of herself while we try to manage Clio's freakouts. And because she's fairly laid back as compared to Clio, we often look to her to make accomodations (Elsa, is it OK if we read Clio's book first?) in order to avoid big dramas.

This is not to suggest that Elsa is a perfect angel, by any stretch. She can throw a tantrum with the best of them, she whines like a champ, and she can be willful and defiant. She's very physical, and we often have to reprimand her for throwing toys or food, or for hitting or kicking or pushing. (We try to give her lots of opportunities to dance, to get all that physical energy out -- she loves it, and is surprisingly good at.) In sum, she can be a handful. But a different kind of handful than Clio.

I do sometimes wonder how much of her behavior and personality is in reaction to Clio's, and vice versa. A commenter on my last post, a twin herself, offered a little "twinnie pop-psychology" about how twins may behave in ways that are complementary as a sort of coping mechanism -- one being passive and calm when the other is being aggressive and freaking out, or one misbehaving while the other one is being "good."

There are definitely times when I feel like that's what's going on. (Though mostly I just think of it as a blessing: thank GOD they're not both freaking out at once!!) A couple of weeks ago when the girls got their H1N1 shots, for example. Was Elsa, in fact, preternaturally relaxed because Clio was hysterical enough for the both of them? When Clio is having her obsessive-compulsive moments, is Elsa calm and easygoing on Clio's behalf in some strange way? Is Elsa outgoing because Clio is shy? Or vice versa?

For a mother of twins -- one who writes about her own regularly on a major parenting website -- I'm sadly un-tuned-in to the unique issues and psychology of twin children. Most of the time, I don't even think of my girls as twins. I just think of them as two small children who happen to be the same age. I don't spend much time mulling how their twin-ness affects their behavior and sense of identity. But maybe I should mull a little more. Or read a good book about twin psychology.

The below picture of Elsa was taken at Alastair's recent CD release concert. Elsa was on or near the stage throughout the show, dancing, mugging for the camera, singing along. When a chorus of school-aged kids got up to sing, she went right up and stood with them -- she wanted to be a part of it. Who cared if they were a foot or two taller? I smiled my heart out at her the whole time -- she was so enthused, so delighted, so full of joy and boldness and spirit. I couldn't stop watching. Clio, meanwhile, refused to leave my lap. And that was lovely, too.

Photo by Mara Brod

By the way, thanks, everyone for your wealth of sympathies and suggestions on my last post. Both Alastair and I read every word with interest and appreciation, and there were a couple of things people said that were quite helpful. More on that soon....

Define "normal"

Roper — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:57:00 GMT

It's gotten to the point where we're a little worried about Clio. I mean, we wonder if some of her "issues" are outside the realm of normal almost-three-year-old behavior. I'm not talking about screaming while getting a flu shot, or being a picky eater, or even just having the occasional garden variety tantrum about not getting her way. It's issues of control that seem a bit extreme, even for a toddler.

One of them is around talking / listening. As I've mentioned before, it's really important to Clio that we not cut her off before she's finished a thought, or try to complete a sentence for her. This is reasonable enough. (Reasonable in the context of preschooler parenting, that is.) But increasingly, she freaks out if Alastair or I (or even Elsa) say anything in response except yes / yeah / uh huh / that's right, or repeat back exactly what she just said -- to the word.

So, for example, if Clio says "When we go to the store we can get some more yogurt, right, Mommy?" your response must be either "Yes" (or some variant thereof) or "Yes, when we go to the store we can get some more yogurt." NOT "Yeah, and you can pick out what flavors you want!" or "That's right, but we're not going to the store today, we're going tomorrow" and not even "Yes, when we go the the store we can get yogurt." (That would be leaving out the "some more" part. See?)

Choose the wrong response, and you will get frantic, impassioned yelling / screaming: "No!! That's not what I said!! That's not what I said!!! I said..." -- and then, this is the really weird part: if you say, "OK, sorry, what did you say?" she will immediately go from furious screaming back to the chipper tone of voice she was using when she originally made the statement, and say it again the exact same way -- word for word, intonation for intonation. (Give her the wrong response again, if course, and you're back to screamsville.)

If instead of playing by her rules, you try to reason with her ("Remember, sweetie, Clio is in charge of what Clio says, but Clio's not the boss of what other people say") or tell her to stop yelling, or ask if she needs to "take a break" (a.k.a. a time out) or threaten to pull the car over (for some reason, it's always worse in the car) she will scream. And scream. And scream. Unless you let her start over and do it her way, there will be no calming her. And remember, once this child decides to throw a fit, she can go for thirty minutes, forty-five, even an hour -- easy. She is so tenacious, so persistent, (see how I'm trying to use positive terms for it?) she'll make you lose your fucking mind. (Oops. Not so positive.)

This bordering-on-obsessive need for control extends to other areas as well: the order in which we put her blankets on her when we're tucking her in at night (the order varies night to night, making it even more complex), whether or not she goes up the stairs in front of or behind us, even the direction we approach her from. And in all of these scenarios, again, it's like she needs to rewind and start things over if they don't go exactly the way they want. So, you put one blanket on wrong, and she wants you to take them all off and start over again.

These things have been happening for the past six months, I'd say. But in the past few, it's gotten markedly worse, to the point where we feel like we're walking on eggshells around her. (I do, anyway). And this is not something that happens every once in awhile, when she's overtired or in a bad mood. This happens multiple times, every day.

We're constantly trying different strategies to manage and change or even just cope with this behavior. Offering two choices, one with less desirable consequences. ("You can either stop yelling, or you can go up to your room and stay there by yourself until you cool off"). Talking so she'll listen and listening so she'll talk. ("Wow, you seem really angry!") Telling her to just stop it. Now. Enough.

But when she gets in these states, she's pretty much beyond reach and reason. The sweet, silly girl we know is gone, possessed by an obsessive-compulsive demon.

Maybe all this is within the realm of "normal" behavior for a strong-willed, spirited three-year-old. Maybe all we can do is wait it out. But I can't help wondering if there's something slightly amiss. Nothing I've found in the toddler parenting books speaks to this level of need for control. None of our friends with kids the same age are dealing with this to the same extreme.

We're going to talk to the girls' pediatrician when the they have their annual check-up in a few weeks. At the very least, I think we could use some guidance on how best to deal with her behavior. I feel like we're flailing.

Fun with the H1N1 Vaccine

Roper — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:13:00 GMT

How many people does it take to administer an H1N1 shot to Clio? Read on.

Our city had a much anticipated free H1N1 clinic today. Alastair had to work, so I came home early from work to take the girls over. I brought our babysitter along too, which, as far as I was concerned, was essential. Me on my own (sick with a cold no less), pouring rain, possibly long lines, and two toddlers -- one of whom was very likely to totally freak out -- would have been a recipe for certain disaster. And besides, we were paying the babysitter for the afternoon anyway. Why not bring her on a road trip!

We didn't tell the girls where we were headed; only that we were going on a little adventure. We filled out the forms, no problem. We walked down the hall to the gym -- smooth sailing, though Clio was looking a little wary. Then, just before we went in, I made the grave error of telling the girls that a lady was going to look at their arms and make sure they were OK. I thought I was doing the right thing. Clio especially tends to do a lot better in unfamiliar situations when she knows ahead of time what's going on. Not fair to totally spring it on her, right?

But the second I said this, she started screaming "I DON'T WANT A SHOT!!!" Which is pretty impressive when you consider that I hadn't actually said anything about a shot. Of course, she probably would have caught on pretty quick even if I hadn't said a thing. Alastair brought the girls to a regular flu clinic back in October, and I suspect that Clio found the whole thing eerily reminiscent. She's also sharp as a tack (or hypodermic needle?) when it comes to sensing a bad scene. You might say her sixth sense is "things you're going to make me do that I want no part of."

Anyway, when the nurse at the door of the gym told us to take Clio's jacket off, she hit full screaming throttle. It took both me and the babysitter to wrest the jacket off of her, while the nurse stood there chatting up Elsa. (Blessed, blessed Elsa, who was completely calm and pleasant the entire time.) I had to hold a writhing Clio, screaming at the top of her lungs in a very echo-y gym, while two nurses debated whether we should give them the under-three baby shot or the three and up children's shot.

I tried to distract Clio with anything I could in an attempt to calm her down. Look at that baby's doggie hat! Look at that big net! (The cargo net for climbing.) Do you think it's a giant spiderweb? Hey! Look! A basketball net. Daddy plays basketball, right? Remember we played basketball at the playground and I picked you up to put the ball in the hoop? Hey, look! Lollipops! When we're all done, you can have a lollipop! Won't that be GREAT?!

The nurses finally decided, after what felt like several hours of discussion, that since the girls were technically under three, the baby shot it was. Which meant that we had to pull the girls' pants down to expose their thighs. This was actually probably a bit easier than exposing Clio's arm would have been. "Easier" being relative. I still had to exert all my strength to get her pants down, and hold them down when she tried to pull them back up.

In the end, it took me, the babysitter, and two nurses -- not counting the one who actually administered the shot -- to hold Clio still on my lap. That's five people to subdue one child weighing less than 35 pounds. From the bewildered looks on the nurses' faces, I don't think they'd ever seen the likes of her. Which, in some twisted way, made me feel slightly proud. (Hey, when you're the parent of *that kid* -- the one having a total and complete meltdown in public -- you look for the upside wherever you can.)

Setting an example

Roper — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:28:00 GMT

It snowed here in Boston on Saturday night. Just a little, but enough that we had to put on our boots to venture out on Sunday morning. We took a drive up to Marblehead -- a quaint little coastal town -- because we figured it would be picturesque, which it was. Snow-glazed trees. Purty Christmas decorations. There were even sailboats out on the water.

During the drive up, Alastair and I were talking about this and that. Work, family, the nuclear test-ban treaty, who knows. Every once in a while, as we were driving, one of the girls would ask, apropos of nothing, "Are you talking about my birthday?" They know that their birthdays are coming up soon, so it's a hot topic of conversation. And as far as they're concerned, what else could we possibly be talking about, right?

Then at one point, I was laughing at something A. said and Elsa -- who likes to be at the center of the action -- asked, "Mommy, why are you laughing?" I told her that Daddy was very silly, and he said lots of funny things. "Yeah?" she said (which is her favorite response these days when you answer any question she asks. It's pretty cute). She was quiet for a little while. Alastair and I continued in whatever silly vein of conversation we'd been in. But the next time I laughed, Elsa laughed, too. Just because it was clearly the thing to do.

Both of these things made me realize that, whereas we once were able to converse freely in front of the girls without them really even registering it, we're moving into quite a different phase now. They're keenly aware of what people around them are saying. Our front seat conversations are no longer quite as private as they once were. Little pitchers have big ears. (I've never understood that expression. Pitchers don't have ears at all. Is it a reference to the handle of a pitcher or something? Who thinks these things up?)

And little potatoes have big eyes. (See, now that sort of makes sense, right?) At one point on our outing, the girls were playing with handfuls of snow from a little snow bank, and I made a snowball, which I lobbed at Alastair. And then he lobbed one back at me, harder. And I called him a jerk and playfully tossed some snow back at him -- the sort of silly, flirty horseplay we've done throughout the course of our very long relationship. Natural as breathing to us.

Except now we have an audience: Before we knew it, Elsa was flinging snow -- rather hard, crusty, icy snow -- at both of us, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world. Alastair got a good whack in the face at one point. And we felt like idiots, because it's pretty hard to turn around and say "snow isn't for throwing at people!" when, as you've just demonstrated, it clearly is.

"Look at us," I said. "We're supposed to be setting an example."

"We are," he said. "Just not a very good one."

But at least we're still having fun with each other, right? That's got to count for something.

It's funny -- while we were in Marblehead, I remembered that we'd actually gone there on a similar weekend drive three years earlier -- almost to the day. I was hugely pregnant, and getting to the point where walking was getting pretty unpleasant. We knew that it was probably the last time we'd go on this sort of day trip before the girls came along. We even had someone snap a photo of us to mark the occasion. It's mind-boggling, how much has changed in the three years since this photo was taken. And nice that not everything has.

December, 2006.

Picky, picky, picky

Roper — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:00:00 GMT

I was quite relieved to read this recent article right here on Babble, which reassured me that it's not the end of the world if your toddlers don't eat vegetables. I mean, not that the authors are pediatricians or anything. But it was an affirmation of what I've always suspected, which is that while in an ideal world your toddler would eat 2-3 servings of vegetables per day, he or she will not perish if it's more like 2-3 servings per week. And if one of those servings is actually ketchup. And if 3 partially chewed and then spit out peas counts as a "serving."

When the girls were babies, in the land of purees, I could get them to eat all kinds of veggies -- peas and squash and avocado and carrots. Once we were in "real" food land, they liked broccoli and peas for awhile. But now, it's all I can do to get them to eat a bite or two. And I totally use dessert as a bribe to get them to eat a tiny bit. According to the article, that's wrong. But I'm not entirely sure I agree. Unless they vehemently hate a food, I don't think it's overstepping my parental authority to ask them to have one bite before they can have applesauce or a fig newton.

And yes, I know that there are ways to sneak vegetables into all manner of foods. I've got that Jessica Seinfeld cookbook, where everything is made with pureed vegetables (not that I've ever made anything in it). And I know there are lots of other kinds of foods that sneak veggies in, too. Maybe now that the girls are a little less high-maintenance (well, sort of) and starting to be more interested in cooking, we can try making some of those on the weekends, when I've actually got time for such things.

But sneaky veggie recipes or no, the problem remains that the girls are highly suspicious of anything other than breakfast foods, fruit, mac 'n cheese ("No, MacaMO and cheese!" Clio says whenever I call it this), PB&J, hummus, grilled cheese, chicken (sometimes), and pasta. (They *do* eat spinach ravioli, I just realized!) And sweets of any kind. And that just about covers it.

To be fair, Elsa actually does have a slightly more adventurous palate. She'll do cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, and sometimes avocado. At Thanksgiving she ate a good deal of mashed potatoes. Clio, meanwhile -- after she was denied a second piece of pumpkin bread (pumpkin! That's a vegetable too, right?!) -- lay down on the carpet and rolled around singing "Happy Birthday" and "ABC" to herself while the rest of us ate.

The next day, however, she suprised us all. We gave the girls plates of Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner (because, what else do you eat the day after Thanksgiving, right?) and Elsa ate happily. But Clio refused to touch hers, and kept asking for "a bone." We thought this was kind of weird, but tried to find her a little piece of something she could gnaw on -- part of a wing or some other scrap. But she said no; she wanted a BIG bone.

We figured, well, what the heck. We gave her the drumstick. And she went at it like you wouldn't believe. I mean, give the girl a flagon of mead and she'd be right out of the 11th century. It was amazing. And a little bit scary. But hey, at least we got a little protein into her. Maybe if we gave her an entire bunch of broccoli or a whole butternut squash, she'd eat those, too. It's all in the presentation, right?

Bad girls

Roper — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:17:00 GMT

Well, the girls just had their first official F*#@ with the babysitter caper. The poor woman. We were down at Alastair's parents' house for thanksgiving, and left the girls with a sitter on Saturday night so we could all go out to dinner. This babysitter, who we'll call Dotty, is actually Alastair's parents' dog sitter, not a babysitter. But she's sat with the girls before, after they were in bed, and it's always worked out just fine.

We figured it would be the same this time: we'd put the girls to bed, we'd be right down the road at the restaurant and come right back afterward -- no problemo. And anyway, you figure if someone can handle two boisterous golden retrievers, they can handle a couple of sweet, innocent toddlers, right? (Cue menacing music...)

Problem is, last time Dotty sat for the girls, they were still sleeping in portacribs. This time, they were in a twin bed and an air mattress on the floor. And -- most problematic of all -- they could open the door by themselves. So, even before the night of the babysitter caper, bedtimes hadn't been going particularly well. The girls were all wired and excited to be at grandma and grandpa's house to begin with, then additionally wired about this new sleeping arrangement. When they discovered that they had the power to come and go from the room at will -- well. Forget about it.

Still, we hoped that if we could get them down to bed on Saturday night before we left, everything would be OK, and all the sitter would have to do would be, literally, sit. We tried our best. We started early. We got them bathed and PJ-ed and storied up and tucked in, all with plenty of time to spare. But they popped right up out of their beds and into the hall. So I ushered them back in, told them very firmly that it was time to stay in bed, no more talking, etc.

Then, for good measure, I stood outside holding the door closed, so they wouldn't be able to open it. And this is what I overheard:

Clio: Are you going to get out of your bed, Elsa?

Elsa: Yeah. I am.

Clio: Can you open the door?

Elsa: Ya, OK. (Tries to open the door. Mom tries to keep from giggling.) I can't open it.

Clio: Here, let me. (Tries to open door.) I can't. You do it.

Elsa: (Tries again) I think it's locked!

Clio: Oh.

Elsa: Mommy! Poopie! I got poopie!!

Can you believe it?? My darling angels, blatantly scheming together. I can't decide which one is worse: Clio, the mastermind of the plot, trying to get her taller and more manually dextrous sister to do the dirty work, or Elsa, who totally plays the fake poopie card in an attempt to get me to spring her. Unbelievable.

Anyway, I gave them one last stern talking-to, through the door, and after a few minutes they seemed to be settled down for real, and we left. But a half hour later we got a call from a distraught Dotty saying that the girls were both awake, they wouldn't stay in their beds and that, in fact, they'd emptied an entire box of tissues into the new baby doll crib they'd just been given.

Apparently they'd also gotten into a bit of a spat because Elsa tried to take the tissues out at some point, and Clio wanted them to stay in, because the baby was cold. (I mean, duh, Elsa, why else would you dump the contents of an entire box of tissues onto a baby doll?)

We suggested to Dotty that she sit outside their bedroom door for awhile, until they settled down, but I think the girls just waited until she'd gone downstairs to pop out of bed again. Dotty may be good with dogs, but faced with our little Pinky and The Brain, she was definitely in over her head. In the end, the girls didn't get to sleep until about 9:30, shortly before we got home. And, as we learned the next morning, it was three boxes of tissues, not just one.

I tried to talk to them about in the morning; how they weren't very nice or cooperative with Dotty, and how they got out of bed when they weren't supposed to. Clio added, "yeah, and we got out again and again and again and again!" Smart kid.

So, we were looking forward to getting back home to our routine, normalcy, and a bedroom door that the girls can't open on their own. But their time at their grandparents' house mastering their breaking and exiting skills served them well: tonight, a few minutes after we'd put them to bed and closed the door, we heard their little voices and giggles in the hall.

I went immediately to our stash of babyproofing equipment in the basement, where I was pretty sure we had one of those doorknob cover things -- the kind that make it nearly impossible for most adults to open doors, let alone three-year-olds. And we did have one. And now it is on the inside doorknob of the girls' bedroom. And while it did make me feel a little wicked stepmother-ish to "lock" the girls in their room in this manner, when I heard the same routine playing itself out again (Clio telling Elsa to open the door, Elsa complying with gusto, failing, and then starting in with the mommy-i-gotta-go-potty-ing while Clio giggled in the background) I knew I'd done the right thing. (Unless there's some safety reason why this isn't OK?)

So, yes, we are really in for it with these two. But as exasperating as this behavior is, I can't help smiling about it. It's an endearingly innocent sort of naughtiness.

And so, in the spirit of twin mischief, we (my husband and I, that is) are currently giving away a FREE DOWNLOAD of "Twins are Twice as Fun" -- one of the tracks on Alastair's new kids' album, A Cow Says Moock. At the beginning of the song, if you listen carefully, you'll hear the diabolical giggles of Misses Elsa and Clio. Download it here, and enjoy. (And, of course, feel free to buy the whole album if you're so inclined!)

Hulk Hogan Wants a Cookie

Roper — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:45:00 GMT

We have major toy storage issues in our house. Because we don't have a dedicated "playroom" for the girls, and because their bedroom is upstairs (and we're not, most of the time), the majority of their stuff is in the living/dining room, wedged in wherever we can find space for it: on the shelf underneath the coffee table, on the floor underneath our wall-mounted bookshelves, and (sigh) on and in our antique tiger maple sideboard. We've also got a couple of big square baskets where we keep smaller toys, but they're really too large and deep for the job -- you can't easily find things in them -- and as a result, Alastair calls them the place where "toys go to die."

This weekend, in an attempt to recussitate some of said dead toys, I dumped out the contents of the baskets in front of the girls. They immediately seized on the WWF (now known as WWE) action figures from Alastair's childhood: Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheik.

"He's wearing underpants!" Elsa said (of Hulk Hogan). "He got a muck-tack!" Clio said of the Iron Sheik. (Translation: mustache.)

So, all weekend, the Hulkster and the Sheik (a.k.a, their "mans") were the toys of choice. They slept in the girls' beds, they went to the playground with them in the girls' doll strollers, and they got "baths" in tupperware containers full of water in the kitchen. (Which is really a good thing, because, you know -- wrestlers get sweaty.) It was particularly sweet to see the girls attempting to cover Hulk and Sheik's eyes with washcloths while they were washing their hair, to keep the soap from getting in their eyes.

By the way, this baths-for-toys thing is actually a pretty good indoor activity for toddlers / preschoolers -- one of those "why didn't I think of this sooner?" ideas. All you need are a couple of tubs and some water -- plus a little dish soap, if you want to make bubbles -- some towels and/or washcloths, and various plastic dolls, animals and action figures. Our baths started out with just the Hulk and the Sheik, but it was so much fun that Dora, Dora's mom, a frog, a fish, some Playskool people, and some random plastic clown figures of uncertain origin all jumped in too. It kept Elsa and Clio occupied for a solid half hour. Bonus: if your kids are as messy as mine, part of your kitchen floor will end up getting washed as a result!

But back to wrestlers. Hulk Hogan (who Elsa, inexplicably, started calling "Mrs. Hogan" at some point in the weekend) and the Iron Sheik (or the "Ironing Sheik" as Clio called her -- perhaps a housewife pal of Mrs. Hogan's?) also came with us in the car to our friends' house on Sunday afternoon. The whole way there, they demanded milk, waffles, yogurt and other of the girls' favorite foods, which I had to imaginarily hand back to them from the front seat. At one point, we heard Elsa say to Mrs. Hogan, "Oh, you want a cookie? OK, but you have to finish your dinner first." The Ironing Sheik also got his diaper changed while we were en route, which must have been embarrassing for him, with Mrs. Hogan already being in underpants and all.

Within a few days or a week, the girls will probably have moved on to other toys. But it's been fun watching them bond with a couple of 1980s professional wrestlers. Especially since -- confession time! -- I have a special bond with professional wrestling myself. Not many people know this, but when I was a kid, I did some acting and modeling, and one of my plumbest gigs ever was a job for the WWF fan-gear catalogue, circa 1985.

Yes, I'm absolutely dead serious. (And if posting this photo here isn't proof that I love you and am thankful for your readership, I don't know what is.)

Hulkamania!!

Happy Thanksgiving, Babblers.

PS -- Shameless husband promotion: Alastair's new kids' album, A Cow Says Moock, is now available! Take a listen and place your holiday orders at www.moockmusic.com

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!