Baby Squared : play dates

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Roper — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:01:00 GMT

In spite of some of my recent complaints about some of our neighbors, and the fact that there is a grand total of one (1) tree on our entire block, I have to say that on the diversity front, our neighborhood is pretty awesome. In the space of our one, mono-treed block, we've got a Haitian family, an Indian family, several Italian families, an Irishman (the hero who rescued our girls through their bedroom window), and numerous native-born Americans of various backgrounds and ethnicities. It's like the freakin' United Nations.

I grew up in a suburb in southwestern Connecticut where the only sizable minority represented was Jews -- and even they lived primarily in very specific areas of town when I was very young. I think there were maybe twenty total non-white kids in my graduating high school class of over 400 people. My family went to church in the city of Bridgeport, right next door, which has a very racially / ethnically diverse population, but our church was like this big, white island in the middle of the city. Many of the older congregants made no secret of the fact that they blamed Bridgeport's economic and aesthetic decline on the arrival of "the blacks and Puerto Ricans."

While I consider myself a pretty open-minded and enlightened person where issues of race and ethnicity are concerned, I do feel like it has been (and continues to be) a journey. When you grow up in a very homogenous place, around people with attitudes like those of the aforementioned church ladies (and gentlemen), you need to work hard to resist and overcome certain prejudices and assumptions. I know that I have fewer of these than my parents do, and they have fewer than their parents. My girls will probably have fewer than me. (In fact, I can just see them, years from now, rolling their eyes at me behind my back for being such a cretin when I tell them what a big deal it was when an African-American man with a name like Barack Hussein Obama was elected president.)

Anyway, the occasion of this post -- the reason I've been thinking about this lately -- is that the girls have a new pal here in neighborhood: Supreet, the six-year-old girl across the street. Her family is Indian, and her parents and both sets of grandparents all live in the house. She's the perfect age for a playmate -- older enough than the girls that I suspect they find her pretty exciting and glamorous, but young enough that she's still interested in doing many of the same things they are. They've got this little ritual now where they go over to Supreet's and she brings them each a cup, which they fill up from the spigot or garden hose and dump on themselves / each other / the potted flowers and pepper plants in the driveway. A couple of times, Supreet has come over here and hung in our backyard; she loves the playhouse and the wading pool. And saying "we had a play date!" Also, bonus: I now know how to say "hello" in Punjabi, courtesy of Supreet's grandmother, who speaks nothing but. I tried to teach Elsa and Clio, but they just looked at me like I was crazy, as did Supreet. I must not have been pronouncing it right.

All this rose-colored, kumbaya, We are the World musing aside, I'd of course be equally pleased if the girls had a new White/Euro pal across the street. I like the idea of neighborly interaction in general; it's one of the things I like most about summer -- how everyone emerges from their dens for awhile. But there's something particularly cool about the cross-cultural aspect of this new friendship. And the larger fact that the girls are growing up in a neighborhood where not all the families are exactly like ours. Whether or not it will have an impact on their lives and how they view the world remains to be seen, of course. But whatever the case, I think it's a good thing.

I love playgrounds. I hate playgrounds.

Roper — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:46:00 GMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'Cation in the 'Burbs

Roper — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:42:00 GMT

Some families go to thrill-a-minute theme parks for a spring vacation. Others, to exotic island resorts or cosmopolitan world capitals. As for us -- well, we go to the suburbs. It's where we come from, and where some of our nearest and dearest still live. It's where we are now, and why I probably won't be able to post again until the end of the week. (How will you ever survive?)

We spent a few days in my hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut, where -- fun fact -- portions of the original "Stepford Wives" movie was filmed. It is also the hometown of famed Mac guy Justin Long, tennis up-and-comer James Blake, and sensitive pop sensation / starlet swain John Mayer. You might also have heard of in the news of late as the town that lost its police and firefighters' pensions to Bernie Madoff. In other words: smokin' hot vacation spot!

The girls got some quality time with their great aunts and first cousin once removed (my first cousin; right?), and had a play date with the progeny of some of my old high school pals. They hit several playgrounds, two backyards, and one Greek diner -- a key part of living in the tri-state area. Though honestly, I don't know why we keep attempting to take them out to restaurants. Because we're so darned optimistic, I suppose. Every time, I guess we think: hey, maybe this time it will go great! Maybe we've turned the corner! And every time -- like today -- they end up eating jelly out of the little Smuckers packets with their fingers, poking each other with forks, spilling at least one of our drinks, and making everyone stare in our general direction, either in anger, sympathy or some odd mixture of both.

Today, we proceeded to vacation paradise #2: Westchester County, New York, to stay with Grandma Jaycee. Getting here was approximately one-forty-eighth of the fun: Clio screamed for her gaga (=pacifier) for the entire 45 minute drive down the Merritt. I tried to keep things lighthearted by making jokey comments to my spouse ("Hey, what do you think? Is she going to scream the entire way there? Wanna put some money on it? Make things a little more interesting? Ha ha ha.) But he was not amused. He likened trying to drive with a screaming toddler in the back seat to Chinese water torture. And really, he's sort of right. Which brings us back to the whole idea of using toddlers as an interrogation technique. Seriously, why hasn't anyone tried this? Is there something in the Geneva Conventions that forbids it?

Fortunately, all was well once we got to the house and there were golden retrievers to squeal at and raisins to eat and new wind-up bunnies to play with. Alastair and Jacyee took the girls on a walk, and yours truly took a nice run in the finally spring-like sunshine. Tomorrow, A. and I are going into the city for an overnight at an undisclosed hotel on the upper west side, with plans to hit the Hayden Planetarium, the Cafe Des Artistes, and the sack. Then, it's back up to the 'burbs for a couple more days.

I'm glad we live in an urban setting, just outside a major city. The people, the pace, and the vibe -- not to mention the pricetag -- are all better suited to what we want out of life right now. But one thing I'll say for the gold coast good life: it's awfully pretty. Especially right at the start of spring. Unlike in our typical just-outside-of-Boston neighborhood, where trees are few and far between, and it is de rigeur to pave over as much of your yard as possible, here there are forsythia bushes and crocuses and daffodils and trees just about to bud. The houses are durn pretty and well-kept up. The cars are shiny. And there's also that great suburban yard/driveway/cul-de-sac culture: plenty of safe outdoor places to run around and ride bikes and play games without having to worry about traffic and trash and anatomically correct grafitti.

I wouldn't want to live here. But it's a nice place to visit.

Back in a few with pictures (I hope) and tales of spring break twins gone wild.

Baby Gym Rats

Roper — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 20:07:00 GMT

On Friday afternoon, the girls and I went to Together in Motion, a very cool indoor kids' play gym, along with my friend Christina and her one-year-old, Amelia. It was the perfect rainy day adventure. (And no shizz are allowed, let alone required!) Elsa was so excited that at first she just ran around on the mats yelling with throaty glee and waving her arms. Then she declared herself queen of a small structure some parent had built, where she discovered the fun of sliding down the mat -- and the frustration of attempting to climb back up.

She also did some great tower building and demolition:

Clio was very much into the balls of all sizes scattered around:

She also enjoyed playing "stack and destroy." Mostly the "destroy" part.

When we first arrived, there were only a few other kids, most of them the girls' age or just a little older. But it got more crowded, and some bigger kids showed up, which made it tougher for Christina and me to just sit back and yap while our kiddos ran amok. Not that you can ever really have quality conversation with your friends when you're doing the play date thing: "So, what do you think of---Oh! Look! Yes! You have a ball! That's good!---Sorry, you were saying?---No, honey, you have to be gentle with the little boy, gentle!-- Sorry, I really am listening. You were saying before that you think Obama -- Don't put that in your mouth! Yucky!"

And so on. Honestly, I find it a little stressful. I've never been good at social multi-tasking. I can barely manage a conversation with someone while I'm driving, let alone while trying to keep an eye on two toddlers. Plus, I always worry that I don't pay enough attention to my friends' children (usually just one of them) because I'm too busy trying to keep up with both of mine. So to any of my gal pals with kids who may be reading this: I'm sorry I'm a lousy play date. It's not you, it's me. I want to keep dating, but let's also make sure to go out on our own for a drink sometime, K?

In a public place like Together in Motion, there's also the challenge of trying to figure out how / how much to interact with other parents. The obligatory small talk sort of reminds me of freshman orientation at college. Then, it was What's your name / Where are you from / What dorm are you in / Do you know what you're going to major in / Awkward Silence / Drink some more. Now, it's How old is she/he, What's his/her name, She/He is so cute / Thank you / Where do you guys live? / Awkward Silence / Cheerios, anyone?

And I still have no idea what the proper protocol is for dealing with other parents when it comes to intra-kid refereeing. Example: At one point, Clio was sitting playing in an area where a couple of older boys, four or five years old, decided to start building something. They kept barelling obliviously past her, wielding giant, vinyl-covered pieces of foam, missing her head by mere inches. Their mother was very much aware of this, and told them repeatedly to please be careful, look out for the little girl, etc., which I appreciated. But since Clio would be equally happy playing elsewhere I scooped her up and said to the other mom, with a smile, "It's OK, we can just go play somewhere else."

And then the mom--who was probably only a couple of years older than me, if not the same age--said, with what I think might be described as a "wan" smile, "Well, they also need to learn to be careful. It's something you'll find out."

Oh, well gosh, Madame Veteran Super Mom, I'm so sorry for disrupting your important parental lesson. I really should have been more considerate and left my diminutive 15-month old child there to get trampled on by your sons, for the sake of their social development. Forgive me. I'm just so new at this.

Ah, well. Maybe I read the situation all wrong. Maybe I just looked so clear-eyed and youthful that she assumed I was a 19-year-old au pair, and that was why it was OK to talk down to me. Yes. That must have been it.

Why I'm no longer a fan of Baby Daddy

Roper — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:15:00 GMT

I was going to write about the girls' (too big, too loud, but quite fun) birthday party, but before I do that, I just have to vent. If you're readers of Baby Daddy you know that both Steve Almond and I live in the Boston area. We thought that, in the spirit of blog-raderie, it might be fun to get our kiddos together for a play date of sorts. Yeah. Well. BIG Mistake. Josie seems so sweet and sociable on her dad's blog, but in reality, I'm sorry to report, she's a total prima donna. Get that girl a onesie that says "Princess" on it, stat.

Here, for example, is Josie is holding court in one of Elsa and Clio's bouncy seats. Note how my girls are sweetly fawning all over her (the mean girls always do hold a certain sway over the nice ones, don't they?) while all she cares about is trying to get into a more flattering pose for the camera.

Of course, you really can't blame the child in these situations. It's all about the parents. Or, one parent in particular, in this case. Within five minutes of their arrival, Steve started in with his stage-dad one-upmanship: "Hey, Josie, can you tell Elsa and Clio how many unique hits your blog gets per week? Remember how to say ga-jillion?" and "Josie, why don't you ask Elsa and Clio if they've ever been recognized in public by their readers?" and "Josie, remember how we talked about being extra nice to Clio and Elsa because their mommy hasn't published a book yet -- not even one, let alone a ba-jillion, like your daddy --and how that's very, very sad and pathetic?"

What was even worse was the running list Steve kept of "bloggable moments" during the visit. Every time Josie did something cute or funny or impressive (in Steve's eyes), out would come the list. (I had to lend him a pen, which he stole, incidentally.) He advised me, in his condescending way, that I really should start doing the same. "Not that I read your blog much," he said, "Because I'm too busy answering Josie's fan mail in the funny little voice I've created for her, but I've noticed that your material is a little repetetive. I mean, you've posted three videos of your girls doing their so-called 'dancing.' It's cute once, maybe cute twice, but three times? Come on."

He then turned on our animatronic, singing snowmen and told Josie to show us the routine he'd choreographed for her. And yes, I admit, it is impressive when a 15-month-old can do two grand jetes and a pas de bourree couru followed by the "running man" without missing a beat. But I don't think that automatically makes her "high superior queen of the baby blogosphere" as Steve kept calling her, in an annoying cutesy-wootsy voice. And it certainly doesn't justify this kind of behavior:

Honestly, I feel sorry for Josie. How could she not be expected to turn into a little monster with this kind of parenting? I just hope I won't repeat Steve's mistakes with my precious, perfect little angels. (Who, incidentally, you can buy autographed 8x10 glossies of for $20 each. Suitable for framing. Contact me privately.)