Baby Squared : parenting twins

Have we reached Peak Cuteness?

Roper — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:56:00 GMT

Every time I can't think the girls can't get any more adorable, they do. Starting when they were around seven or eight months old, I think I started saying, "this is it. This is the best age ever. They can't possibly get any cuter than this." And then, by golly, they did. They did even funnier more engaging things. They said even cuter stuff. There was, admittedly, a brief period between eighteen and twenty-four months, when I was just as likely to say "It can't possibly get any harder than this..." But the past few months, things have definitely been on the upswing again.

And seriously, two-and-a-half -- today, exactly! -- has got to be the cutest possible age. It's gotta all be downhill after here, right? The girls still have a bit of that baby pudge and innocence. They still have the un-self-consciously gleeful giggles of toddlers, and take pleasure in simple things -- running around in circles and falling down on the grass, putting stickers on themselves, digging in the dirt. They like to cuddle. But they're also curious and aware of what's going on around them (I'm constantly surprised by how much they remember and pick up on.) They "read" books by themselves. And they talk -- Lord, how they talk. They crack us up on an almost daily basis with the stuff that comes out of their mouths. (Me: Clio, what is your stuffed doggie named? Clio: Cpthtoth. Me: What? Cpthoth? Clio: Yeah, Gaby Gaby Cpthoth.)

A lot of what they say is based, of course, on the words and phrasing we use. (Cpthoth and other apparently Elfin/Celtic words aside.) For Elsa, lately, the key word is "maybe." As in the other morning when she and Clio were in our bedroom while I was getting dressed and were trying on various pairs of my shoes. Elsa, while shuffling around in a pair of my flats, tilted her head to the side in her best toddler-coquette fashion and said, "So, maybe I could wear your shoes, Mommy?" (If it turns out she's the same size shoe as me when she's a teenager, I am in serious trouble.)

Another phrase they're both fond of is "how about." This is deployed chiefly as a negotiating tactic, usually for food. This morning, for example, after eating two entire homemade Belgian waffles, Clio asked if she could have a cracker (?) and I said, no, we weren't having crackers for breakfast, but she could have a peach or a banana if she wanted. Her reply "How about some pretzels?"

Live blog moment -- as I am writing this, Alastair is giving the girls a bath, and singing (to the tune of "row your boat") "row, row, row your poo poo, gently down the stinky..." And the girls are cracking up. And Clio is singing: "Row row row ro, down the down the stinky!" You can see what a sophisticated family we are.

Yes, yes. Peak cuteness. And here are some pictures to prove it, from a backyard BBQ at Aunt Heidi's house. (Photo credits to her as well.)

Me: Here, just choke up on this thing. Or something. Score a touchdown. Or whatever.

Me: Elsa, that's not for you. That's beer, for grown-ups to drink.

Elsa: When I'm a little bit older, I can drink this!

Clio: (Thinks to herself) How about some wine?

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Entering the Cute Quip Zone

Roper — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:52:00 GMT

Yes! We're here! I've been so looking forward to this stage of the girls' development. Not that I haven't enjoyed the other stages, mind you, but this is really a lot of fun: the Stage Wherein the Kids Say the Darnedest Things.

I think this lasts for a while, and probably will reach its cuteness peak when the girls are around four. But it's pretty damned cute now, hearing the funny and surprising things that are coming out of their mouths now that their verbal abilities expanding at warp-speed. I will try to refrain from posting every adorable thing they say here, because obviously the adorable things that kids say are much more adorable to their own parents than to the world at large. But I hope you'll indulge me on occasion. (This occasion being one of those.)

Elsa: (upon seeing an earthworm in the back yard): It's a eeetle worm!

Me: Yeah! Look at that. A little worm. Where do you think he's going?

Elsa: In the dirt! (In a high squeaky voice) A eetle worm, mommy!! Hi, eetle worm! (Followed by high pitched squealing noise. Perhaps Worm-ese).

Me: (laughing) Yep, that's a worm. Actually, it's a pretty big one, as worms go. (I have a flashback to seventh grade, when we dissected earthworms. The smell of formaldehyde. I wonder: at what age do you discuss dissection with kids, if it comes up? Why would it come up? Why the hell am I thinking about this?)

Elsa: (More squealing) I love him!!

Later the same day, Alastair's parents, who were up for the weekend, came by to deliver a very cool present to the girls. Jaycee had just gotten back from a business trip in New Orleans, where she'd bought some feather boas and carnival-type masks, so we could have a New Orleans-style dance party in the living room. Alastair put on some zydeco music, and the girls promptly started dancing. But when the feather boas and masks came out, they seemed slightly bewildered. They might have been a little freaked out by the masks (let's face it; masks are scary), but we made sure to play lots of "peek-a-boo" with them, so they knew it was just us behind them. This got a few smiles from Elsa. But neither of them wanted to wear masks themselves. We got Clio to wear a boa, but she then proceeded to stand still, in place, for a full five minutes, scrunching up her lips. She would not speak or move. (I may have mentioned before, this habit of Clio's to "freeze" when she feels uncomfortable in a situation.) Who knows why the boa caused her to react in this manner? Or why she didn't simply remove it?

Anyway. She "unfroze" eventually, and in the evening, when we were reviewing the day's events, as we often do, and I brought up the dance party / masks / boas, she confessed: "I didn't like that jacket."

Just two more, I promise. Yesterday afternoon, we were drawing with crayons, and the girls asked me to draw various things for them, as they often do. Clio requested a "red moon," so I drew her one, complete with craters.

Me: Here you go, Cli. Your red moon.

Clio: No, that's a pig.

Me: It's not a pig. It's the moon. Those circles aren't a pig snout, they're craters. They're big holes on the surface of the moon, and sometimes you can see them when you look up at the moon in the sky.

Clio: (after a pause). No, that's a pig, mommy.

Elsa also asked me to draw a moon. I decided to take a little artistic liberty and draw a bat flying near it. She liked this, and soon Clio was asking for a bat, too. I drew one, right over the pig, where bats are often wont to fly. A few minutes later, Elsa was doing some very enthusiastic drawing on a new piece of paper, and showed it to me:

Elsa: Mommy, I drawing a cybot!

Me: A cybot?? (Thinking, wow, that sounds very sophisticated! Has she been watching the SciFi channel on the sly?)

Elsa: No, a BOT!

Me: Oh! A bat?

Elsa: Yeah, a bat! A stinky, stinky bat!

(Don't ask me about the stinky part. I have no idea.)

I should probably get some kind of journal to write down all these crazy quips; otherwise, I'll be very tempted to abuse this medium... But feel free to do it right back at me. I actually enjoy hearing the crazy things kids say, even if they're not my own. (And since I feel like I know some of you from your comments, I almost feel like I know your kids, too.)

The Weirdest Mommy on the Block

Roper — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:00:00 GMT

I recently picked up a copy of Harvey Karp's The Happiest Toddler on the Block from my favorite local bookstore, the Salvation Army. I'd heard good things about it from a few people, and I'd also found the Swaddling-shushing-swaying-shishkebabing-etc. advice from Karp's Happiest Baby useful when the girls were young, though I never actually read the book. (The S's were just the word on the street.)

I haven't read all of Happiest Toddler. I've skipped around a bit and focused on the sections that dealt specifically with two-year-olds. So far, I have mixed feelings about the book. Overall, it was a little too "cute" for my taste stylistically (enough with the exclamation points, Harvey!) and a lot of the advice just isn't practical for twins. Or any toddler, for that matter. Nightly massages before bed, complete with massage oil? Uh huh. Right. But the insights into toddlers' emotional and cognitive development were great, and most of the advice seemed to make a lot of sense on an instinctual level.

There was one particular tactic Karp recommends that I'd love to know if anyone else out there has tried. He calls it speaking "Toddler-ese" -- basically, talking to toddlers in their own language when they're upset / angry. You start by acknowledging what they want or feel, to let them know that they are heard and understood, then you shift into what you'd like them to do. Sounds pretty sensible, right? But when you look at the examples of what this might actually sound like....well, here's one example he gave, of what a mother said to her 32-month old twins who were fighting over a ball:

"BALL!! BALL! BALL! BALL! BALL! You both want it! You want it NOW! But no fighting, or mommy takes the ball away. I like it when you play nicely."

I'm just not sure I can't bring myself to talk to Elsa and Clio like this. For one thing, Alastair will ridicule me mercilessly. I tried using some Toddler-ese the other day when Clio was loudly and angrily demanding to go to the playground when we were in the car on the way to an Audubon Society farm in Lincoln (Drumlin). I said something like: "Playground! Playground! You want to go to the playground! You want to go now! But we'll go to the playground later! Now we're going to the farm to see some animals! Won't that be fun?"

Alastair looked at me like I was demented. I'd told him about this notion of mirroring back the children's feelings before saying "no" or making a contrary demand, but I hadn't exactly mentioned the Toddler-ese part. "Wait a second," he said. "You're supposed to talk like them, too? That doesn't seem right."

Honestly, that was my initial thought, too. It does feel almost too accommodating in some way -- like you're relinquishing too much of your dignity for the sake of your child. Then again, trying to reason calmly in grammatical English with a screaming two-year-old isn't the most dignified activity either. There's also the issue of self-consciousness. Because let's face it: an adult imitating a toddler sounds pretty ridiculous, unless he's got his hand up an Elmo puppet. Karp, to his credit, addresses this point directly, urging parents to give the Toddler-ese approach time -- they'll get used to it -- and reminding them that the benefits far outweigh the embarrassment.

So, how did Clio react to my attempt at Toddler-ese? Like her father, she initially looked at me like I was deranged. She was silent a few, shocked seconds, which was nice. But then she resumed yelling "I just want to go to dee playground!"

Of course, Rome wasn't built in a day. I do believe that the technique might have merit, and I'm willing to keep at it. But I've modified the language a bit -- developed my own dialect, if you will. Instead of yelling (for example) "Ball! Ball! Ball!!!" I'll say something like "You both want to play with the ball!" trying, as best I can, to mimic the same tone and cadence the girls are using while keeping the words in Grown-up-ese. Then, I'll shift into my normal voice and say something like "But you need to play nicely with the ball, or I'm going to take it away." Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Like most parenting techniques. But there is something reassuring about having a technique at all, instead of feeling like you're in a constant battle of wills.

What do you, gentle readers, think? Have you tried the Toddler-ese approach, or something like it? What's your "method" for dealing with toddler defiance and demands? Do you think Karp is a brilliant parenting guru, or a silly man named after a fish?

Pool par-tay

Roper — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:56:00 GMT

When Alastair is taking care of the girls while I'm at work, a popular indoor activity -- which I think a reader may have actually suggested -- is the pool party. It's sort of like a bath -- OK, it is a bath -- but the girls wear their bathing suits, Alastair puts on Led Zeppelin or some other pool-party-appropriate music, and dumps more bath toys and tupperware containers than usual into the tub. There is bubble-blowing, too. And lots of shouting "pool party!" Needless to say, the girls love it. (Amazing how much more fun something is when you call it a party, isn't it? I think tonight A and I are going to have an applying to refinance our mortgage party. Woo hoo!)

So, yesterday, E & C were very excited to find out that we were taking them to their first *real* pool party. (AKA tot swim class.) They were definitely taken aback when we first got to the pool. An indoor pool, particularly when filled with children of various shapes and sizes, is an intense sight for the uninitiated. The smell of chlorine, the echoey noise, the damp floor -- all quite foreign and a little bit intimidating. (And I may be projecting a bit here; I was always a tad freaked by the pool at my local YMCA as a kid.) But once Elsa saw the kids in the class before ours going down little plastic slides into the water, she was sold. I had to hold her back as she attempted to make a break for the stairs into the pool. Clio, meanwhile, not surprisingly, was more hesitant.

Clearly, for most families, Saturday morning tot swim lessons are Daddy's job -- I was one of only three moms (or women guardians, I guess) in the class. But for us parents of twins, swim lessons -- like so many things -- are a two-parent undertaking. I held Elsa and Alastair held Clio, and we kicked and splashed and sang songs and practiced "swimming" by reaching for floating toys. Elsa seemed to love every minute. And if she weren't there blazing the trail, I doubt we could have gotten Clio into the pool at all. Clio still didn't seem to have a particularly good time -- she did a lot of crying and whimpering. But I think that as time goes by, she'll get more comfortable in the water, which is, of course, the point.

Elsa, having no sense of danger or her own mortality, would have tried to start doing laps if I weren't holding her. As it was, she had one sub-aquatic adventure, but it was totally my fault. At the end of class she wanted to go down one of the toy slides into the water, so I let her climb up, and waited there at the end of the slide in the water to catch her. Except, I didn't quite succeed. I caught her, but she was coming so fast and was so slippery that I didn't quite manage to keep her above the water, so in she went, for a brief, underwater dunk. Doh! She was fine, of course, only under for a fraction of a second, and I had her the whole time, but I sure felt like an ass. Elsa seemed a little stunned by the experience, but not in the least bit traumatized.

I really enjoyed the chance to spend some one-on-one time with her in such a close, physical way (when I wasn't inadvertently drowning her, that is.) There's a sweet kind of intimacy, holding a toddler close to you in the water, keeping her safe, helping her learn. And, of course, it's one of those rare opportunities to have some one-on-one time. Next week, I assume we'll swap and I'll take Clio -- who, incidentally, immediately after we left the pool started acting like she'd had the time of her life. ("Clio swim! Clio go pool party!")

We didn't manage to take any pictures, I'm sorry to say -- it was enough of a feat just managing to pack up everything we needed in terms of clothes, towels, bathing suits, diapers, etc. (I still can't believe we didn't forget anything.) But now that we know the routine, maybe next time we can capture the bathing beauties on film.

Until then: does anyone happen to know what "gaby gaba, gobey gabo, gaby goba" means? Clio keeps saying it, in a sing-songy sort of way, with a twinkle in her eye, and I have no idea what she's talking about. (She very clearly does.)

A Day in the Life

Roper — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 01:26:00 GMT

Friday, January 2. 7:40 a.m. -- The girls wake up. Clio first, as usual. She babbles to herself for a while, then starts calling, "Mommmmmmmyy!! Daddddddy!!" I nudge Alastair with my foot. It's his turn to get up with them, so I can catch a little extra rest.

9:15 a.m. -- My alarm wakes me up, and I'm surprised that I was actually asleep. The girls had been screaming and yelling downstairs -- for milk, for waffles, to sit in the big girl chairs -- who knows. While I lay in bed, I wondered a few times if I ought to get up, go downstairs and give A. a hand, but I had to deal with the more or less the same scenario the day before. It's his turn now.

9:30 -- After a quick shower, I come downstairs, eat half a banana (Elsa and Clio catch me in the act and, of course, ask for the other half) and warm up a cup of yesterday's coffee in the microwave. While Alastair takes a shower and gets dressed, I put the girls' shoes on, change Clio's diaper (she dirties it right after I put her shoes on, of course), and tell them that we're going to go to some friends' house and have pancakes. A few minutes later, as I'm getting their jackets on, Clio says, "Go friends! Have pan cakes!" I am amazed and delighted, and shower her with praise.

10:00 -- The usual mad scramble to get out the door: girls get all excited and start yelling for things (Elsa hat! Clio milk! Picka up! Picka up!) while Alastair can't find his glasses and I can't find my cell phone and we almost forget the diaper bag, and as usual in this kind of situation, we start snapping at each other. In the car, he's annoyed because I'm not positive what our friends' address is, I'm annoyed because he has no sense of direction, the girls are yelling "Nana phone! Nana phone!" but we don't have that CD in the car, and every other driver on the road is an asshole and all the lights are red and we should have listened to the GPS instead of my gut feeling, because this is a really stupid way to get to Jamaica Plain (then, what isn't?) and we're totally late and the girls are yelling for pancakes and my blood pressure must be through the roof.

10:45 -- Pancakes, coffee and conversation with friends we haven't seen in a while. Once we recover from the trip there, a good time is had by all. The girls play nicely and enthusiastically with our friends' 2-1/2 year old girl, while their 10-month old baby boy crawls amicably around watching the action and mouthing toys. Elsa rebukes him adorably when he pulls at the string on her sleeve: "That not for you!" Then the girls all sit at a kid-sized table in the kitchen and eat their weight in pineapple, melon, and strawberries. (Surprisingly, they only pick at the pancakes they were so excited about.) Later, they all dance adorably to a "baby loves jazz" CD.

12:30 -- We say our goodbyes and head home. I talk and sing to the girls the whole way so they won't fall asleep. Success: they make it home awake and go down quickly for a nap at around 1:15.

1:40 -- Clio wakes up (or maybe she never actually fell asleep) and starts babbling to herself. I am lying in bed, trying to read The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but soon realize that it's just not going to happen. Clio is trying to sing Banana Phone: "doo doo Nana phone! Doo doo doo doo Nana phone!" I go into the nursery hoping I can soothe her back to sleep, but she's got an extremely poopy diaper. I change her and take her out of the nursery so Elsa can keep napping, then bring her into bed with me and pretend to sleep, hoping she'll konk out and I can go back to my book. Instead, she pokes at various parts of my face with her index finger and giggles. When I say, "Let's go night night," she will squeeze her eyes shut for a few seconds, then smile and start poking me again. We lie there for a half hour or so, Clio alternately poking, babbling, and crawling on top of me.

2:30 -- Having accepted the fact that Clio is not going to sleep, I bring her downstairs and putter for a little while -- Clio is happy to play by herself while I do this -- then get her coat on. Per New Year's Parenting resolution #2, I'm taking her for the rest of the afternoon, while Alastair will stay behind and look after Elsa. Clio and I go to the grocery store, and it is so easy, so simple, so delightful and calm and fun that I almost find myself in tears. This is what I've been missing. She calls out the names of things on the shelves. She keeps tilting her head back to look at the lights, and I tickle her and she giggles so adorably that people around us turn and look and smile. I feel painfully jealous of my friends with just one kid, or even two kids of different ages.

4:45 -- The second we get home, Clio goes from being happy and contented and calm to whiny and cranky and impatient. She wants to be picked up. She wants crackers. She wants crayons. Elsa becomes equally loud and wound-up. We put Curious George on, but it does little to distract them as I try to put the groceries away and get their dinner ready and Alastair hurries around getting his gear together for his gig that night. (I'm going, too.) When the babysitter arrives at 5:15, I have approximately five minutes to run upstairs and get dressed, throw my make-up bag into my purse (I'll put it on in the bathroom at the bar) and we're out the door.

5:25 -- In the car, on the way to the club, A. and I apologize again to each other for having been so cranky and snippy to each other in the morning. I tell him how sweet and unstressful it was to go to the store alone with Clio. He is quiet for a moment, then says, "You know, when our friends say to us, 'having twins must be so hard; I don't know how you do it,' we're always so careful to say, 'well, having two or more kids at different ages is just as hard.' But you know what? Fuck that. Having two two-year-olds is ridiculous." We agreed we should pat ourselves on the back a little more often for how well we manage. We agreed that during long weekends and time off from work like this, we should get more daytime babysitting to avoid burnout. We realized that it had been almost a month since the two of us had gone on an actual "date," alone, and that that's too long. We get a parking spot right across the street from the bar.

6:30 pm -- Alastair is onstage playing, and sounds great. People filter in -- a good crowd is working up. I am drinking a glass of crappy but strong house chardonnay, and have a powerful urge to smoke a cigarette. I've never been an actual smoker, but there have been times in my life -- mostly during grad school -- when I would often have a cigarette or two in social / drinking situations. I feel suddenly nostalgic for my twenties. For uninterrupted conversations with friends and long, lazy weekend mornings at the diner. For eating out and going to movies. For the ease and lightness and spontaneity of it all. At the same time, I am self-aware enough to remember that by the time I was twenty-nine, thirty, I was getting bored with that life. I wanted a less self-focused existence. I wanted children.

11:30 -- We get home and say goodbye to the sitter (who reports that everything went fine, except that Elsa had a fit about sitting in her high chair; not surprising). I go into the girls' room as I do every night before bed and touch their cheeks and pull their blankets up over them. Tomorrow, I will be the one to get up with them, get them dressed, feed them breakfast. And though it would be nice to sleep in, I don't mind. In fact, I am looking forward to it. The next morning, when they wake up and Clio starts calling "Mommmmmy!" I will not groan and bury my head in the pillow. I will smile and get up right away. Because I just can't wait to see the little buggers. As exhausting and unrelenting as parenting -- and parenting twins in particular -- can be, it also brings me more joy and fulfillment than anything else I have ever done. Crazy how that works.

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

Roper — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:30:00 GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 18-month Lull

Roper — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:33:00 GMT

As of this weekend -- Saturday, to be precise -- Elsa and Clio are 18 months old. Or one-and-a-half, as Alastair prefers to say. He thinks they're old enough to be referred to in years now, but I want to hang onto their babydom just a little while longer, so I shall keep referring to them in months. But only until they're thirteen.

The last few months have been, admittedly, rather challenging at times. I think it peaked at sixteen months, around the time I wrote this post, whining about the physical exhaustion of running around after two very active, very needy toddlers. But I feel like in the past couple of weeks, things have turned a corner. Maybe it's because the girls have gotten a bit more physically confident and independent -- they don't fall flat on their faces quite as often, or get as upset when they do. Or maybe it's because their language skills are suddenly blossoming, so it's a little easier to understand what they want -- not to mention a helluva lot of fun teaching them new words. Or maybe it's because we've adjusted. Just as the line of babyproofing in our house grows higher and higher (They can almost reach the kitchen counter now! Damn!) our patience and endurance climb to keep pace with their level of energy and interactivity.

My arm strength, I think, has kept pace, too. Babies are the ideal form of weight training: a gradual increase over time, so you don't even notice that they're getting heavier and that your arms are, in turn, getting more buff. On the flip side, I'm definitely noticing that my back is more frequently sore. Though I try to bend my knees when I'm picking the girls up, it's not always possible. Like when I'm lifting them out of their highchairs or cribs, or out of swings at the playground. The ole lumbar region has definitely seen better days.

Still, I'll take 18 months over 16. As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that maybe one of the big reasons things feel a bit easier is that the girls have started calling me Mommy / Mama now. Does that make me a completely vain and narcissistic person? (Asks the mommy blogger...) Just because my girls call me Mom -- which turns me to Jell-o pretty much every single time -- I find it easier and more rewarding to be with them? Add in the fact that they crawl into my lap when they want me to read to them, and occasionally even offer up a spontaneous kiss, and what can I do? I am at their mercy. The sore back, the endless cleaning of thrown food, the temper tantrums (theirs) and futile reasoning (mine -- as in, "Clio, you already had a turn with that puzzle; it's Elsa's turn now...") ...are all much more tolerable when they're balanced by cuddling and giggling and earnestly anunciated attempts at words. (Wa-foo!)

Which isn't to say that I'd call things "easy." This morning, for example, Clio pitched a total fit at the doctor's office. (Their 18-month checkup.) She was happy as a small, pudgy clam in the waiting room, but the second we got into the exam room she got decidedly tense, and when we took her clothes off and tried to weigh her -- forget about it. She was one angry little baby. Not that I blame her. It's humiliating to strip down and get poked and prodded at, no matter how old you are. And it adds insult to injury when the doctor keeps getting your name wrong. (I'm not Chloe, I'm CLIO, dammit! And I don't care if you have cute frog stickers on your stethoscope, I do NOT like being objectified in this way! Give me my clothes!)

But still, somehow, this sort of incident doesn't rattle me or stress me out like it might have a month ago. This is the way of parenthood, it seems: you go through times when you feel like you're at your wits' end and wonder when you'll ever get a break when, suddenly, it gets a little easier. And then something changes and it gets harder again, but soon enough, the rewards recalibrate with the challenges, and you reach a sort of happy medium; an equilibrium. For a little while...