Baby Squared : holidays

A Day of Firsts

Roper — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Yesterday was one of those days where it felt like there were lots of new things going on. (How appropriate for Easter, yes?) It wasn't actually the girls' first Easter, but it was the first one we celebrated. We went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon, the girls partook in their first-ever (chocolate) egg hunt. This was totally a last-minute, minimalist effort -- I'd picked up two baskets and a couple of bags of chocolate eggs at CVS the day before. But the girls loved it.

I feel like it was the first holiday activity we've done with them where they seemed less like"babies," being dragged along for the ride (say Trick or Treat! Open your present! Etc.), and more like kids. When Clio first came down the back porch stairs, she spotted a chocolate egg, picked it up and said "Where did that come from?" (One of her new favorite expressions). Once we gave them their baskets and explained what they were supposed to do, they "got it" immediately, running around the yard and scooping up eggs, each time shouting "I found another egg!" And, like true kids, they were NOT happy when, after they'd each had some chocolate, I put their candy away to be doled out over the next few days (and eaten by me. Ha). In fact, there was a brief but intense crying jag until I distracted them with the idea of going around the living room and "finding" toys to put in their baskets. Of course, with older kids, this diversion technique never would have worked.

The girls also moved into their first home -- of the play-variety, that is: a playhouse, complete with toy phone, doorbell, sink (as Clio pointed out repeatedly), faux fireplace, and working, lion's head fountain in the wall next to the door. It's called the "old world" cottage or something. Really, you'd swear it was plucked right out of Italy or Southern France. That is, if it weren't made of molded plastic andonly four-feet square. (Details, details). Anyway, the girls were totally thrilled when, at last, we'd finished putting the thing together and they could go inside. Elsa gave many of her signature squeals of delight. I love that.

We bought the thing new, which I'm a little bummed about. When it comes to large plastic things, I really prefer to buy them second-hand. I don't like encouraging the production of still more large, plastic things. But our Craigslist effort failed miserably (after we'd already recruited friends and their trailer to help us out) and we're too impatient to keep trolling for another option, and this particular playhouse was on sale. We also figured it will be a damned long time before we can ever take the girls to Europe, much less rent a cottage with a lion's head fountain, so this really is the next best thing. So, if spring ever truly springs (it continues to be awfully chilly here in the northeast) the girls are going to have some kickass backyard days. Next goal: a sandbox. I'd like to avoid a plastic one, if possible, so the mister and I may attempt to build one ourselves. That should be comical, to say the least.

The other first? Clio asked to pee in the potty, and did. Elsa accomplished this feat exactly once, back in January, but this was Clio's first successful, intentional potty endeavor. We are all very proud.

Before I go, just wanted to put in a plug for my friend Anna Solomon's excellent piece in yesterday's New York Times magazine -- a funny personal essay about her experience with the "three-month itch" that she got when her daughter was around three months old; in the haze and fatigue of new motherhood, she found herself suddenly thinking a lot about her exes. I myself did not experience this phenomenon; when I get an "itch" it's generally for people in the past that I crushed on but never dated. Or Matt Damon. But check it out -- I'm sure some of you out there will be able to relate.

Our Very Own Stroller Derby

Roper — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:10:00 GMT

As I write this, the girls are downstairs with Alastair, whining and yelling and crying, as they seem to have been for most of the morning. It was my day to sleep in, and I did it with a vengeance, and earplugs. I probably should go down and give Alastair a hand. Wait....they're quieting down...must mean their mac and cheese is ready...Thank God.

Who knows why they're suddenly in terrible moods? Maybe they realize that Christmas is over, and they're feeling the inevitable let-down? I suppose that's one advantage (perhaps the only) of their birthdays being on the 28th. At least, it may prove to be a comfort to them in future years. Just as the thrill of new Christmas toys is starting to wear off, they get another little hit three days later. Actually, we reserved a number of their Christmas gifts for their birthday, because it just would have been too overwhelming for them to open them all at once. As it was, Christmas morning was a little manic.

They got some great presents from the grandparents, as well as far-flung uncles and aunts, family friends, etc. But I would like to spend this post congratulating myself (and Alastair) for the awesomeness of the gifts we gave them. There were really only three things -- we wanted to keep it simple; besides, what do they know from presents? -- but well chosen.

The first was a very basic, wooden train set -- you know, the interlocking wooden rails, little train cars that stick together with magnets. If I set up a loop of track on the coffee table, the girls will spend up to ten, fifteen minutes just pushing the trains around, saying "choo choo!" About every 10 seconds, a piece of track falls apart, because they don't have the most delicate touch, but no matter -- easily fixed, and around and around they go again. Only problem: they fight over the blue engine (you may have heard of him -- a Thomas something or other? English chap). There is only one. I plan to remedy that ASAP.

The second gift was a small Elmo doll for each of them. Things didn't start out very promisingly with this one: the first thing they did was start jabbing the poor little guy in the belly and squeezing his feet, saying "Make it sing! Make it sing!" How inadequate did I feel for having bought them the $6.99 inanimate Elmos instead of the $69.99 super-deluxe Elmo that sings and dances and makes omelettes, or whatever? They'd seen and played with this -- and other -- "singing" Elmos in a toy store, so they'd had a taste of the good life. I know I could have spent a few more bucks and gotten them even basic battery-powered Elmos, but I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO. We have too much battery-powered crap already. Fortunately, just like at the end of a holiday special, where everyone learns the true meaning of Christmas, the girls learned to love their floppy little Elmos, and now insist on cuddling with them in their cribs. They also enjoyed using them in conjunction with gift #3 -- the very best gift of all:

Doll Strollers! (Dolls already owned.) OK, I realize that the girls don't look particularly happy in this photo. In fact, they look rather like the twin ghost girls in The Shining. But the fact that we got them to stand still and pose like that was a feat. Because all they wanted to do, all day, was push those strollers around and around the house, with various dolls and stuffed animals in them, including non-singing Elmo. By the end of Christmas day, they were navigating over the thresholds of the childproof gates like pros.

If your home has a circular floorplan, and you have a toddler, you really must get one or more of these things, or something similar. (What is it with toddlers and pushing / pulling things?) Hours of entertainment, with only occasional need for parental intervention, in the case of minor wheel entanglements. Honestly, it took a lot of willpower to wait until Christmas to give them these. I knew they would adore them, having seen them glom on to the strollers at other kids' houses. Only drawback is that they also want to sit in them themselves, which they really are too big to do. We're working on enforcing a dolls/stuffed animals only policy, but it's tricky.

Anyway. The best part of Christmas was the family and the food and the memories and blah blah blah. All that unmaterialistic stuff we're all supposed to say and remember. But seriously? Giving toys to little kids is a blast. It's fun to see their excitement, it's fun to play with them, and it's really fun that they are perfectly content to play with their new toys by themselves. At least for a little while, until the novelty wears off. (On that note: I think we need to start instituting some kind of toy-rotation program, where we take toys in and out of circulation for a few weeks at a time. Our house is just too small to keep everything out, and half the toys don't get played with anyway because they're buried under other ones.)

On a completely different note: holy crap! The girls turn TWO tomorrow!!

Enjoying a short winter's nap with Grandma Jaycee and special occasion out-of-the-crib ga-gas (pacifiers).

Two times two equals f#&%

Roper — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:02:00 GMT

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. Really, we did. There was lots of good food and no family drama. We got some serious, slothful relaxation in, too: the night before Thanksgiving, at my brother's house, we drank wine, ate pizza, and watched five straight hours of Top Chef. I've decided I'm going to start talking to Elsa and Clio like one of the contestants to get them more interested in their food: "What I've done here is taken circular oat cereal, rustled it into a bowl and then quickly doused it with just the right amount of fresh, cold milk. Finally, I've topped it off with some thinly-sliced, ripe banana. Enjoy."

We also had twenty-eight glorious child-free hours together on the Maine coast, which we spent doing the sort of things we used to do way back when: browsing in shops, eating more frequently than is biologically necessary, talking about everything from our college days to our future plans to how Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination. (A. is reading Team of Rivals.) We were silly and stupid and flirty. And man, it was nice to go to sleep in a big, soft, king-size antique bed and not have to negotiate which one of us was going to get up with the girls in the morning.

Though I can't say I really *missed* the girls, by the time we headed back to my parents' house, I was eager to see them. They greeted us with bright smiles, said "Mommy Daddy here!", let us kiss them, and then proceeded to have total, screaming meltdowns. Both of them.

I don't remember what exactly triggered said meltdowns -- maybe it was just release of pent up emotion having to do with our being gone -- but I've come to believe that getting at the root cause of a tantrum is not terribly relevant when you're dealing with an (almost) two-year-old. Once they go into that mode, fugghetaboutit. Giving them back the crayons that you took away, letting them eat the third cookie they wanted, picking them back up after you put them down against their wishes -- useless. Pretty much NOTHING can comfort them. Things just have to play themselves out.

This is especially true of Clio, who has more intense and frequent freakouts than Elsa. (Elsa can be a bit of a drama queen, but she's also easier to calm down and comfort, and has been since she was a newborn.) Once Clio gets going, there's no stopping her. (Also the case since day one.) When she's in this state, she doesn't know what she wants, or how to feel better, and rejects everything we try. We pick her up, she screams "Down now! Down now!" We put her down and she screams "picka up! picka up!" She pushes or flings away anything we try to give her -- a toy, a snack, a cup of milk. The only thing to do, it seems, is to put her in her crib with her pacifier until she collects herself. In other words, a textbook "time out."

It felt like there were a lot of tantrums this weekend, both small and large. A lot of intra-sibling bickering. And they both constantly wanted to be picked up, or to sit on our laps. Part of it, I think, was the fact that they're both getting over colds. Also, Clio appears to have a big old bicuspid busting its way through her gums. The change of scene and routine may also have contributed to their fragile states. But I'm afraid the larger truth is that the terrible two's have arrived. And it's going to be rough.

Dealing with one toddler's whining / stubbornness / neediness / etc. is challening enough. But when you've got two going at the same time -- or even one in a bad mood and one in a good mood, but still wanting attention -- hoo boy. Both Alastair and I lost our cool at times over this past weekend. We yelled. We handled inanimate objects more roughly than was necessary. We shouted "Serenity Now!" (Well, I did, anyway.)

I hate that stressed-out, angry, powerless, exasperated feeling. Heart pounding, nerves frayed, temper short. I can almost feel my skin wrinkling, my hair turning gray. I wish I could take it all more lightly and easily -- respond with more humor, grace and patience. I wish I knew how to keep them happy more of the time, or help them more effectively when they're not. But sometimes it's just so damned hard.

And then they go and do stuff like this, and I just want them to stay 23 months old forever:

(Filmed at my brother's house on Thanksgiving Eve. You may hear snatches of "Top Chef" on TV in the background if you listen carefully. And my goofy laugh and dopey commentary even if you don't.)

Thankful

Roper — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:00:00 GMT

I could offer up a predictable litany of things I'm thankful for -- my family, my friends, my health, my relative financial security, the results of the presidential election, etc. etc. But let's face it: that would be kinda boring. So, I thought I'd mention ten of the stranger and less obvious things that I'm thankful for this year, while attempting to stay within the topic(s) of this blog. In no particular order:

1. I'm thankful that I'm not pregnant. Right now, so many of our friends are having -- or gearing up to have -- their second child. I'm terribly happy for them, but every time I hear the news, I can't help smiling to myself and thinking: thank GOD it ain't me! I never wished or hoped to have twins, but I did always want two children, and now that I've had them both in one fell swoop, I'm really appreciating the efficiency of it. I get tired just thinking about going through the whole newborn-sleepless-nights-constant-nursing thing again, so soon. And I can't imagine having both a toddler and a newborn. Then, I guess I automatically think about what it would be like to have two toddlers and a newborn, since that's what I would have. And that would obviously be a lot crazier. But still. I'm very happy not to be expecting. (Congrats to all of you who are -- I'll bring you a casserole.)

2. I'm thankful that Elsa and Clio are such good sleepers. Except for Clio's occasional nap boycotts and early wake-up spates, the girls really are amazing. They sleep twelve hours every night with little or no night waking, and take a two-hour nap after lunch. This means that we can pretty much count on having an evening to ourselves, get a good night's sleep, and have a bit of a break in the middle of each day. I am very much aware that this won't last, and am therefore very consciously grateful for how somno-rific life is now. (Another reason for #1 on the list.)

3. I'm thankful for PBS's Curious George (and being able to DVR it). I don't know what it is about that little monkey and the enigmatic man with the yellow hat (How old is he? Where does he work? Is he gay? Why the hat?), but that show, like no other, can get the girls to chill out, calm down and laugh in the midst of even their crankiest, whiniest, most exasperating moods. It leaves them much mellower afteward, too. Whatever works, right?

4. I'm thankful that I finally got a permit parking space at work. Because now I don't have to deal with the parking garage and the 10 minute walk from the garage to the office, which is particularly horrible in the dead of winter, when the wind is whipping in off of Boston harbor. And it may sound ridiculous, but even just 15-20 minutes of extra time per day in my jam-packed life feels like a major bonus. That's over an hour per week! The thrill will wear off soon, no doubt -- probably the first time I have to go out and scrape seagull poop and/or ice off my windshield. (The one disadvantage of not parking in a garage.) But for now, I'm enjoying the novelty.

5. I'm thankful for fruit, and the fact that it is somewhat nutritious. Because there are days when it is literally the only non-carb food that I can get Elsa and Clio to eat. Apples, grapes, oranges, bananas, melon, canned peaches, pineapple, pears -- you name it. They will devour it happily. I really need to start getting more creative about hiding vegetables in stuff. Luckily -- inexplicably -- the girls are also quite fond of broccoli, so at least we get some of that into them fairly often. But easily 50% of their food intake, in terms of sheer mass, has got to be fruit. (And Elsa still gets constipated.)

6. I'm thankful for online bill pay, self-scanning and checkout at the supermarket, drive-up ATMs, prescriptions-by-mail, and all the other conveniences of the modern American consumer landscape that actually save time and make life easier. (Hm. I think I just plagiarized a brochure I wrote once for a client at work....)

7. I'm thankful for antidepressants. Even though they have not been as effective for me this year as they have in years past, I still don't know how I would get by without them, or the hope of recovery that they offer. Not that I don't appreciate the value of things like exercise, nutrition, positive thinking, therapy, B vitamins and all the rest in managing depression. But at the end of the day -- fork over the pharmaceuticals.

8. I'm thankful that Elsa and Clio are finally past the phase of putting everything in their mouths. Except for crayons, play-doh, rocks....OK. Maybe they're not entirely past that phase. But they're a lot better than they used to be. As a result, we don't have to be constantly moving things out of their reach. It also opens up a new realm of play possibilities. The Bean Box, for example, would not have been possible a few months ago. We still have to keep our cat's food and water dishes up on the kitchen table where the girls can't reach them, but I'm hoping that in the near future we'll be able to get it through their small heads that the kitty's food is not for them, and put the dishes back on the floor. (Because I'm not kooky and eccentric enough to love the idea of cats on the kitchen table.)

9. I'm thankful that my parents agreed to take the girls overnight this Friday. It's going to be Alastair's and my first-ever night together away from the little 'uns. We're staying at a B&B in Camden, Maine -- one of my favorite places in the world -- and have dinner reservations at a restaurant on the harbor that is supposed to be fantastic. Throughout the many years of our relationship pre-children, one of our favorite things to do was walk aimlessly around towns and villages of the "quaint New England" variety: Bar Harbor, Portsmouth, Marblehead, Northampton. I am extremely excited to have a chance to do it again -- although, no doubt, all we'll do the whole time is talk about Elsa and Clio.

10. I'm thankful for you, my readers. For the advice, opinions, questions, support and community that you offer up here. Not to mention your tolerance and appreciation of my somewhat erratic blogging style. Have a safe, happy and otherwise excellent Thanksgiving. See you next week.

A Very Baby Christmas

Roper — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:31:00 GMT

As I've mentioned, I'm a big fan of Christmas. Commercialism aside, there really is something magical about the season to me, which I guess goes all the way back to childhood. We did the whole nine yards when I was growing up: cutting down our own tree, making tons of Christmas cookies, hanging stockings by the chimney with care, etc. But during the past ten or fifteen years--that long, carefree stretch of young adulthood--the holidays were always kind of disappointing. Still enjoyable enough, sure. But something was missing.

Then last Christmas was just strange. I was 36-1/2 weeks pregnant, gigantic and incredibly uncomfortable. (Aching pelvis, aching back, swollen feet, horrible heartburn, braxton hicks contractions.) I was too exhausted to go to any Christmas parties. Not to mention the fact that I had exactly two pairs of pants and two pilly maternity sweaters that fit me, and was sporting seven chins. We couldn't leave town, in case I went into labor, and didn't particularly feel like entertaining, either, so we had a quiet little Christmas at home, just the two of us, bored out of our skulls, waiting for it to become the four of us.

And this year, it is. Not coincidentally, I've felt more Christmas-y this season than I have in a long time. The snow certainly helps (we've gotten dumped on three times here in Boston), but I think it's mostly the babies' doing. It's funny; they're not even old enough to be conscious of Christmas, or understand the concept of a gift, or get into the whole Santa thing. (They did, incidentally, have their first Santa encounter last week, when "Santa" visited my workplace. They were totally unimpressed.) And yet, something about having them in our life has put the shimmer back on Christmas. I guess what it really comes down to is that thanks to these two little buggers, I'm happier than I've been in years. Maybe happier than I've ever been.

More importantly, for the first time in my life, I understand the value of singing, animatronic decorations:

Happy Holidays, Babblers. Catch you on the 28th -- Elsa and Clio's first birthday.