Baby Squared : twins

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!

Fear of Poop

Roper — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:12:00 GMT

After my recent post in which I goofily tried to set a new world record for the number of times the word "poop" ever appeared in a parenting blog, I feel rather ridiculous for giving bowel movements top billing in yet another installment of the ongoing parenting saga that is Baby Squared. But I must. Because we need your help!!

First, let me once again apologize to future Elsa for making this public. If technology allows, and the apocolypse of 2012 spares us, I swear I will remove this post from the Internets long before you're in fifth grade, when children turn cruel and evil. (Or did in my experience, anyway. Maybe it's earlier these days.)

So here's the deal: the girl is terrified to go #2. Clio has mastered the practice quite nicely, but Elsa wants no part of it. She's also regular as clockwork, which means that every evening, right around bedtime, the same drama plays out: every couple of minutes she runs desperately to the potty, on the brink of tears, saying she needs to go pee-pee (the girl's in denial; we know it ain't just pee pee she needs to do) and will barely even sit down before she's up saying "I didn't make any." Repeat ad infinitum until finally she can't hold it anymore, and ends up going in her pants, and gets very upset about it, even though we tell her it's OK. (Whereas, a minute earlier we were telling her we wanted to her to do it in the potty.)

Usually, at least, she goes in her "nightime underpants" -- our euphemism for Pull-ups, which we put the girls in at night. Sometimes she goes after she's already in bed. But she never, ever goes in the potty -- either the potty chair or the big toilet, with the potty seat on it.

We've started giving her a bit of Miralax to make sure she doesn't get constipated, and to ensure that she can't hold it in indefinitely, which she would certainly do if she could, thus perpetuating the cycle of unpleasant potty experiences. So, I guess it's better that she's going in her pants than not at all, as I know happens with some kids. Still. How do we help her get over this fear?

Here's what we've tried so far:

Telling her she's such a big girl, and she's so good at going pee pee in the potty, and big girls poop in the potty, too
Telling her that mommy and daddy and everybody else in the world poops in the potty (except for babies and the incontinent)
Telling her that it's OK to be scared; we get scared of things too, but they're less scary once you try
Telling her that we'll flush the poop away and she won't even have to see it
Telling her that we'll stay right there with her and hold her hand
Telling her we know she can do it! She's brave! She's smart! She's awesome!
Telling her she can have a magnet on her chart and/or a special treat if she goes
Letting her flush down the poop she's made in her pullup, to feel empowered...or something
Offering to read books to her on the potty
Letting her hold her stuffed animals and have her gaga (pacifier) while she's on the potty
Having her "potty wizard" cast a spell on the potty to make it not be scary anymore (Potty wizard background here.)
Holding her down on the potty (probably not the best idea)
Closing the bathroom door and saying we're going to stay in here until she goes (also not parenting at its best)
Getting Clio to come into the bathroom with her for moral support (Not sure either of them really gets this)
Letting her sit on the potty in her pull-up and go that way, as a first step

And I'm sure there are other things I can't remember. One thing I'd like to do is get a (children's) book on the subject, to try to get her more comfortable with the idea. I know there's Everyone Poops, and another I found online that looks good, called Where's the Poop.

Any other recommendations? On books, or in general? Do we just have to wait this thing out? I mean, I know she won't be in college or at her wedding, holding it in all day because she's too scared to go. But I do worry that it may take a while for her to get beyond this....

Now we're cookin'

Roper — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:51:00 GMT

For over a year now, I've read and been told that cooking / baking is a fun activity to do with toddlers. Yes, well, maybe I was doing something wrong, but the several attempts I made at this resulted in chaos, messes, and major intra-sibling brawls over whose turn it was to mix / pour / etc. And the girls didn't quite grasp the concept that you mix with a spoon, not with your fist. So, maybe cooking is a dandy activity to do with one preternaturally calm toddler, but with two boisterous ones like mine, it's been pretty much impossible.

Lately, though, I've given it another shot, and the results have been quite good. In the past couple of months we've made oatmeal cookies, pumpkin bread and, most recently, pretzels, using this recipe. This latest one was particularly fun, because the girls got to play around with the dough and make it into shapes. Sort of. Mostly they just put little clumps of it onto the cookie sheets, which I then stealthily reworked before sliding the trays into the oven. (They particularly liked the big "E" and "C" I made for them.)

They also, of course, ate a fair amount of dough. I know that you're not supposed to let kids eat stuff with uncooked eggs in it -- salmonella and all that. But in my 35 years, I've probably eaten the equivalent of five pounds of raw batter / cookie dough, and I've never had a bellyache, much less food poisoning. So while I try to limit the girls' dough-ingestion, I don't freak out about it either. You cook with kids, and they're gonna eat some dough. Not much getting around it.

Funniest don't-eat-anymore-dough moment: while the girls were "helping" me knead the dough on the table, which was sprinkled with flour, I caught Clio eating something out of the corner of my eye, and told her to please not eat anymore dough. She said, "But I'm just eating the flour!" We can't get the child to eat three-quarters of the real food we put in front of her, but she thinks flour off a tabletop is a real treat.

Anyway, in doing these baking projects, I've gotten pretty good at making things run smoothly: give each girl a spoon for mixing and have them take turns (it's actually a very good exercise in turn-taking, now that they're old enough to understand the concept), divvy up ingredients so they can each pour some of them into the bowl, and keep a running commentary going on the things I'm doing that they're not involved in, always punctuated by "and when they're done we can eat them!" The whole thing is a pretty decent lesson in delayed gratification, come to think of it. Cultivating emotional intelligence and all that.

Going forward, though, I need to think of ways to get them involved in cooking projects that aren't so.....calorific. For me, I mean. Fresh baked goods are pretty high on my list of pleasures in life, and it would be tempting to whip up a batch of cookies / bread / etc. every time I'm looking for a good indoor activity. But the options are limited: I don't think the gals quite ready to start dicing vegetables, they can't do anything with raw meat because it will end up in their mouths, and God knows I don't want them within ten feet of the stove top.

They could tear up lettuce leaves, I suppose. Mash up avocadoes for guacomole? Maybe we could do (vegetarian) rice balls? (Something I've never made, but have heard exists.) Fresh pasta? What else?

Positive Reinforcement

Roper — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:48:00 GMT

We're trying to do more of this around the Baby Squared household, as a means of fending off the whacking, kicking, hair pulling, whining, shouting, pants-pooping and other nastiness that seems to have proliferated 'round these parts over the past month or so.

Partially as a result of the suggestion made by several fabulous readers/commenters on this very blog, we got ourselves a couple of "Responsibility Charts" by Melissa & Doug. (This is not a paid endorsement, however if Melissa & Doug, Inc. would like to send me some free stuff, I'd be more than happy to be a total blog whore and write about it here.) There are a bunch of "responsibility" magnets to choose from, ranging from very preschool-appropriate stuff like "keep your hands to yourself" to stuff I hope we won't have to use for awhile, like "Don't use bad language." Next to each one, there are spaces to put happy face magnets.

There are also a couple of blank responsibility magnets you can write stuff one (dry erase!) so on each girl's chart there's currently one magnet that says "Poop in potty." (This is still a bit of an issue for Elsa.) Alastair pointed out that "potty," probably would have been sufficient. But I say, anyone who comes into our home had better be prepared for the fact that poop is a frequent point of discussion.

When we first put the charts up, we made the obvious, idiotic mistake of putting them low enough on the wall that the girls could reach them. Naturally, they thought they were toys and started moving all the magnets around. (Duh.) Now, they're high enough up that only Mommy and Daddy can reach. So, we now administer magnets for good behavior and aborted bad behavior, and shamelessly dangle the promise of magnets in front of the girls as an enticement to -- to choose a random example -- poop in the potty. Or say please and thank you, or pick up their toys when we ask them to.

We'd been a beet stymied by how to deal with the "things not to do" categories, as in "no whining," and "keep your hands to yourself." We were sort of working on the idea that we'd award a magnet if, for example, the girls managed to work out a hair-pulling / pushing / hitting bout on their own, without parental intervention, or if they nipped a whine in the bud when it was pointed out to them. But that didn't seem quite right, so now we're trying to focus on "catching them being good." (Thank you, to the potential babysitter we recently interviewed, who gave us the term!)

This morning, for example, I saw what could have been a potentially violent situation resolve itself quite beautifully. Elsa was sort of bopping a toy on Clio's head -- lightly, and Clio was laughing -- but it was the sort of thing that I could tell was about to turn ugly. Then, Clio said, as reasonable as can be, "I don't want you to do that, Elsa," and Elsa, by God, stopped doing it! It was miraculous. And I told them so (in slightly different words) and gave them each a magnet for keeping their hands to themselves.

We haven't quite figured out the best way to tie the number of magnets to an actual reward (beyond the magnets themselves) but Alastair tried telling them they needed to get up to ten, and they'd get a treat (i.e. a piece of Halloween candy), and that seemed to work well. It's also an excellent excuse to hang onto all the Halloween candy just a leetle bit longer. For them, of course.

It is kind of funny, though, to look at their charts, and see all the magnets lined up for the "easy" stuff like brushing teeth and picking up toys. (And, in Clio's case, pooping on the potty. (Can I manage to say "poop" ten times in this post? If I can, I'm going to give myself a Reeses!) I kind of feel like we should tie the rewards to a distribution of magnets across the more challenging categories as well. It's quite the science.

But we're not only relying on the chart for positive reinforcement. We're trying hard to vocally recognize good behavior in general. Not that we haven't always, to some degree, but it seems more important than these days. We're pretty pooped out from having to be constantly reprimanding and warning. It makes us feel like jumping off the poop deck of very large ship. (One big enough to have a poop deck.)

Shoot. That's only eight.

Poop. poop.

Mmm....candy.

A Not So Happy Halloween

Roper — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:20:00 GMT

I don't know if it's the full moon, daylight savings, Halloween, or perhaps all three -- and maybe a molar coming in? -- but Clio has been having a rough time of things lately.

At the girls' preschool Halloween parade / show / party whatever thing last Thursday, she wouldn't wear her costume, started crying when her class went up on stage to sing "I'm a Little Pumpkin," and spent the rest of the event being held by her teacher. It was a little bit heartbreaking to see the pictures (Alastair was there; I wasn't) but I really did sympathize with the poor girl. It's no fun being forced to wear a costume if you don't feel like it. And getting up on stage in a big room in front of dozens of parents and kids is absolutely scary. (To sing a stupid song about gourds, no less.) In fact, I'm sort of surprised more kids didn't melt down.

Her freak-out on Halloween day, when we went to the U.S.S. Constitution museum in Boston for some old-timey nautical Halloween fun, was a little harder to comprehend. We were decorating goodie bags (ahem, "sailor's bags") with stickers and stamps and markers (you know, just like 19th century sailors decorated their bags) and Clio was happy enough, though she wanted me to hold her most of the time. Then, when we started to go upstairs to do some sort of activity about the seafaring life, she freaked out. Screamed. Wailed. Writhed. You'd think someone was doing voodoo on the poor girl. I had to take her outside, she was screaming so loudly and intensely, but this only made matters worse. She ran back to the door of the museum and started trying to pull it open, screaming that she wanted to go back in.

I still don't know what flipped her switch (she thought she was about to be conscripted into the Navy?) or what she wanted, but even once she'd calmed down, she was still clearly unnerved, and fragile. There was another mini-meltdown on the way home, when Alastair picked her up a few yards before we got to the car, when, in fact, she really really wanted to walk those last few yards to the car. (BIG mistake, Alastair. Huge!)

Surprisingly, she seemed to rally in the afternoon when it was time to actually put on costumes and get ready for trick-or-treating. We'd been given a pair of ladybug costumes as hand-me-downs from a neighbor with twins, and while Elsa was perfectly content to be a ladybug, Clio had informed me that she would like to be a bird, please. So being the anti-Martha-Stewart that I am, with very limited time for purveying let along assembling the materials for a proper bird costume, I took a feather boa that we had, cut it into a few pieces, and sewed it to the leotard part of one of the ladybug costumes, for a sad but passable bird effect. (I sewed feathers onto the hat, too, but of course Clio didn't want to wear it.)

This costumed contentment lasted for all of fifteen minutes. When we were in the car, on the way to our friends' neighborhood to go trick-or-treating, Clio suddenly decided that the sleeves of the leotard were too tight, started screaming, and by the time we'd arrived at our destination, had 1.) Completely torn off the feathers on one sleeve and 2.) Fallen asleep.

We let her snooze for a little while. And when it was time for the actual trick-or-treating part of the evening, she rallied and enjoyed herself quite thoroughly. And would announce with great enthusiasm to anyone who asked her what she was, "I'm a Bahd!!" (As opposed to Freddie Mercury, a figure skater, or a drag queen who's been mauled by a bear, all of which would have been much more reasonable guesses based on what her costume looked like.)

But the next day, she was unhappy again. We had some friends over for a brunch-time playdate, and while Elsa and the two other kids played together happily (if not always harmoniously), Clio didn't want to join them, and clung to me -- or tried, anyway. And then, she started testing limits and doing "bad" things on purpose -- hitting and kicking; throwing toys; dumping sand from the sandbox onto the grass right after we told her not to, etc. It was so clear that she was doing these things for the express purpose of getting attention, so we were tempted to ignore her altogether instead of reprimanding or removing her from the situation. But how do you ignore a child who has just hit you on the legs with a plastic bat for the third time? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

And then this morning, to send me off to work in style, she hit me in the face when I went to kiss her goodbye. (She was mad at me, I think, because earlier I'd refused to give her a second helping of raisins.)

I wish I could look inside her little brain and understand what's happening there. I wish I could give her the words to explain what is upsetting her, and tell us what we could do to make her feel better. We are trying to do what seems right instinctively -- to make her feel safe, both with love and reassurance, and with firm limits. And we're trying not to lose our cool in the process. It's incredible, the depths of exasperation and love that one small child (or two) can simultaneously inspire.

Telling stories

Roper — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:27:00 GMT

When I was a little kid, my mother used to tell me "e-Jane" stories. "e-Jane" was the main character, and she had all sorts of e-ventures, wherein she encountered e-goats and e-elves, flew e-planes and climbed e-mountains, and engaged in other silly e-xploits. The "E" prefix wasn't because my mother was way ahead of the technology curve or anything. (While e-Jane might indeed have gotten e-mail in one of the tales my mother spun, it was most decidedly of the paper variety.)

She came up with e-Jane as my fictional handle because I went through a phase when didn't like being called "Janey." But everyone called me that, and there was no way they were going to stop -- Jane is such a serious name for a preschooler -- so she liberated me from the name in fiction, as e-Jane. And I loved hearing e-Jane stories. They were a bedtime treat that lasted well into my grade school years and beyond. Books are great, and being read to is great, but there's nothing quite like being told a story.

Thing is, it's not that easy to make up stories on the fly. You'd think that, being a writer, I'd know how to spin a tale out of nothing. Au contraire, mes freres (et soeurs). Actually, I think it's in part because I'm a writer -- I do most of my thinking on paper or onscreen -- that I'm not the best impromptu oral storyteller. This was clearly evidenced last night when I made my first serious attempt at telling the girls an "Elsa and Clio" story before bed.

We'd just read this weird book called Potty about all these jungle animals who try to use a potty, so I had jungle animals on the brain, and knew that the girls did too, so I thought they'd enjoy a story featuring jungle animals. And possibly a potty. Unfortunately, that was about as far as my whole concept went. So the story went something like this:

"Once upon a time, there were two little girls name Elsa and Clio. And one day, they came to a big jungle. Um...and they decided to explore the jungle...and..um...have a contest to see who was braver. And Elsa said, "I'm so brave, I'm going to go bring back the biggest animal of all!" and Clio said, "No, I'm the bravest, and I'm going to bring back the biggest animal of all!"

So they both went into the jungle and when they came back, Elsa was carrying a huge elephant, and it was so big that it was...bigger than all the trees and...yeah, it was just really big. But Clio also had a really big animal....a giant giraffe! And this giraffe was so big that it...I mean, its neck...reached all the way up to the sky. And, so...they both had really big animals. And they were both really brave."

The real Elsa, I should note, was totally loving this story, sitting up on the edge of her bed, looking at me with rapt attention. Clio, meanwhile, was lying down and looking over at me like, "what the hell is this supposed to be?"

I continued: "So, then Elsa said, well, I can....lift my elephant up...and teach him to stand on his head! So she flipped the elephant over with one hand, because she was so strong, and so smart and he stood on his head. And then Clio said, "well, I can also...um, I can teach my giraffe to dance!" So she...um...put on a CD and taught the giraffe how to dance and the giraffe danced all around the elephant standing on his head."

(The real Clio liked this."That's silly," she said, and smiled, finally.)

Now I was on fire: "And then, Elsa and Clio's mommy came along, and she said, 'Wow, you guys are so brave! And so....talented! But now it's time to go home..."

"And eat lunch!" said the real Clio.

"Right! It was time to eat lunch. But, the mommy said, first you have to turn the elephant back over and make the giraffe stop dancing! Because if you don't...well, that won't be good and we can't go home and have lunch. So Elsa said OK, and flipped the elephant back over, and Clio told the giraffe to stop dancing, and he did, and then Elsa and Clio went home and ate lunch. And do you know what they had? They had ... blueberries with ladybug sauce, and eggs with...elephant poop, and waffles with.... a snake on top."

The girls liked all this, but they wanted to talk more about the elephant poop. They decided that it had hair and arms and a nose and a mouth. (Thus contradicting Elsa's earlier assertion that poop doesn't have a mouth.) And they seemed far more entertained by this than they had by my finely crafted allegorical tale of human folly and the availabilty of CD players in the jungle. Go figure.

The moral of this (non) story? My mom's e-Jane stories probably weren't that good either, as stories go. But they were silly and I was the star and I sure loved hearing her tell them. Which is much more important than plot. So until the girls develop a keenly honed sense of narrative arc -- which I'm still working on at 35 -- I can probably get away with inverted elephants, dancing giraffes, and anthropomorphized poop. The end.

A cousin for Clio and Elsa

Roper — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:10:00 GMT

I'm pleased and proud to announce that yesterday morning at 3:09 am, my brother's wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Deklan Patrick. He's my first nephew and the girls' first cousin. That is, the first cousin they've ever had. (Who also happens to be their first cousin.)

I'm all for cousins. I have seven of them myself, varying in age from ten years older than me to eighteen years younger. I saw them all on a fairly regular basis growing up, some more regularly than others. Family get-togethers were always so much more appealing when cousins were involved. Adult relatives were all well and good, but not terribly exciting. Cousins, on the other hand, were this cool cross between a sibling and a friend. They were (sometimes surprisingly) different from you in terms of appearance and personality, and yet you had a sort of conspiratorial connection: you were all from the same crazy family, with parents who grew up in the same house, and you a shared set of grandparents. (Although, actually, in the case of one of my grandparents, this last fact made me jealous sometimes: She's my grandma! Not yours!)

I am glad that the girls will have a cousin not too far apart in age from them. It seems like a big gap now, but it's almost exactly the age difference between my brother and me, and we have always been good friends. I'm looking forward to bringing the girls up to meet the little guy, hopefully in a few weeks, once we're in the clear from a recent H1N1 scare. (A kid in the girls' preschool class was diagnosed last week, so we've been on symptom-watch, but nothing so far....unless holding in your poop so you don't have to go on the toilet because you're scared and then letting it rip in your pants counts as a symptom, in which Elsa's had H1N1 for two weeks now.)

Anyway, I think the girls sort of get the fact that the baby that was in Aunt Emmy's tummy came out, and that he's a boy. When I got home from work last night, I asked them if they knew what the baby's name was, and while Elsa said something close to "Dek-an," Clio's reply was much closer to "Ducky." When I asked if they'd seen the picture of him that my brother had sent, Clio said, "Yeah, I think he looks like a ducky." I don't see it, but judge for yourselves:

As for me, I'm rather excited to be an aunt. First off, because "Aunt Jane" sounds so terribly, terribly elegant. I feel like I ought to be one of those willowy ladies on the cover of a 1920s New Yorker, with a long cigarette holder and a chic hat. (Which I am so completely not.) Secondly, because I'm looking forward to holding a little teeny baby that I have some biological and emotional connection with, but that I don't have to wake up with every three hours. I've already enjoyed buying little boy clothes, and am looking forward to doing more of the same.

I don't think that meeting this baby (which I hope to do on a quick solo jaunt this weekend) will flip any biological switches for me, and make me suddenly want to have another one of my own. But I wonder if it will be a little bittersweet. Lately, I've been feeling rather nostalgic for the girls' baby days. There was something so sweet about that time (exhausting though it could be) -- so focused and so singular in purpose. Feed, change, rock, hold, play, smile, burp, clean up, giggle, repeat. It was an intense time, to be sure -- not exactly a walk in the park -- but in a good way. I don't think I've ever felt as present and alive and content.

Since then, it's been much more of an emotional roller coaster, due to the more rigorous challenge (as far as I'm concerned) of parenting toddlers, as well as some of my own personal issues, both chemical and situational. Not that things are miserable by any stretch. In fact, I find being with the girls continually more fun and rewarding as they blossom into people. But I will always look back on the simplicity and wonder of that first year with great fondness. I hope my brother and his wife will have reason to do the same.

Clio's Afternoon Nap, 2007-2009: A Eulogy

Roper — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today not to mourn the loss of Clio's nap, but to celebrate it. Because that's what the nap would have wanted us to do. It would not have wanted us to dwell on its absence with weeping and lamention, although certainly that is a natural reaction to a loss of something so, so, SO dear to us. Excuse me -- sorry, I just need a minute, I'm fine, really -- does anyone have a tissue? Thank you.

As I was saying, this nap had a long, happy life -- longer than many afternoon naps. So let's remember the good times we had while it was with us -- all the things that the nap brought into our lives: time to write or relax or catch up on email; time to recover our energy and patience after a hectic morning; time to nap ourselves. And let us not forget the powerful sense of hope that the nap brought us. For even on the days when we were up far too early, and the morning was far too exhausting, and everyone was in far, far too crappy a mood, we could always draw strength from the knowledge that soon, very soon, we'd get a break. The nap would not let us down. Almost never, anyway.

You know, I remember this one time -- this must have been in late '07, maybe early '08 -- that the nap was just so, so -- sorry, I'm getting all emotional just thinking about it. Give me a minute. OK. I'm fine. Ahem. During that nap -- that one, beautiful nap -- I did an hour of power yoga, took a shower, wrote a short story and a blog post, baked a German chocolate cake from scratch, cleaned the house, had an amorous interlude with my husband, did my nails, caught up on all my emails, drilled myself on French irregular verbs, tutored an at-risk youth, organized the attic, changed the litterbox, called my mother, and read an entire issue of The New Yorker cover to cover.

I suppose I might be romanticizing a little in hindsight -- it might actually have been brownies, from a mix, not German chocolate cake. But the point is, the afternoon nap was a truly beautiful thing. It made so many people so happy, just by being there.

But let's look on the bright side. I'm sure the nap, all its beautiful nappy goodness, would have wanted us to. For one thing, there's still Elsa's nap. That nap is hale and hearty -- sometimes lasting for well over two hours -- and shows no sign of leaving us any time soon. And while that nap still lives, we are given the rare and precious gift of one-on-one time with Clio. And, with it, the opportunity to say to ourselves, with self-righteous indignance, "Dear GOD, this is a piece of cake! Next time anyone with one kid starts complaining about how hard they've got it, I'm going to poke my own eyes out! Wah, wah, wah, it's so hard running around after a two-year-old. ONE two-year-old? Are they kidding? Cry me a freakin' RIVER!"

Um...I'm guessing from the looks on your faces that perhaps I've gone too far. I've let my emotions get the better of me. You're right; I'm sorry. I know that parenting isn't ever easy, no matter how many or how few children you have. This is just a difficult time for me, OK? I loved that nap. Truly and deeply.

And you know what's the worst part? A few times, since it left for good, the nap has come back to haunt us. Once last week, when Clio was sick, and another time after she'd been up a bunch of times in the middle of the night. And it was so wonderful, and everything felt good and right again, and cakes got made and litterboxes got cleaned and verbs got conjugated.... And then we had to grieve all over again the next day, and it was that much harder. Nap, if you're out there somewhere, listening to this, I beg you, please: Leave us in peace. We loved you, and always will. But leave us now. We've got to move on. Leave us!! I cast you out, nap! I forsake you!

No, wait, I take that back. I didn't mean it! Forsake forshmake! Come back and see us anytime! I mean, if it's convenient for you. No pressure or anything. But seriously. Come back. Come BAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clio, asleep. January, 2007

In lieu of flowers, please leave comments below.

The frog in my throat, and other calamities

Roper — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:18:00 GMT

I've had a cold this week, no doubt partly as a result of the exhaustion and sleeplessness of our potty training intensive last weekend. The other day, my voice sounding particularly scratchy and ridiculous, I told the girls that I had a frog in my throat. Of course, I quickly realized that this would sound absurd to them, and explained that I didn't actually have a frog in my throat; it was just an expression. (Like that would really clear things up.) "Sort of like a joke," I clarified. They chewed on this for a little while (not literally), and somehow it became, "You have a frog in your mouth so that's why you make a funny joke!"

I rather like this interpretation -- that there's some kind of comedian amphibian in my mouth, and every time I open my mouth to speak, he comes out with a joke -- "What is the deal with toads? I mean, they look like frogs, but the fuckers can't swim!" -- in his hoarse (not horse) froggy voice.

There have been some other prime examples of two-year-old literalism lately. We've had some difficulty with getting Elsa to go #2 in the potty -- a very common toilet training issue, it seems -- and at one point we had the following exchange when she'd been holding it in so long that she appeared to be in some pain:

Me: You know, I think your tummy would feel a lot better if you got the poop out.

Elsa: Is there a poop in my tummy with my food?

Me: Well, sort of. The food you eat goes in your tummy, and some of it turns into poop, and then you need to get it out.

Elsa: (Delighted) There's a poop in my tummy with my food!

Me: (Abandoning any attempt at scientific accuracy) Yeah, and it's saying "Let me out! Let me out!"

Elsa: (Very serious) No, poop doesn't have a mouth.

It's true. As far as I know, poop doesn't have a mouth -- at least not one that's visible to the human eye. Poop, therefore, cannot have a frog in its mouth. This is rather comforting if you think about it. Then again, it makes going to the bathroom much less entertaining. Sorry. I'll stop talking about poop now. And frogs.

Of course, all is not completely literal in the Baby Squared household. There are times when the girls reach amazing heights of imagination bordering on surrealism. The other day, Clio was holding her phone (a non-working cell phone) up to her ear, "talking" to her grandma Jaycee. She asked me to hand her other toy phone, which I did, held it up to her other ear, and announced, "Now I look like a strawberry!" After I stopped laughing, I affirmed that, yes, that was exactly what she looked like. A very, very cute strawberry. (With a very cute sister)

Photo by Mara Brod

A Potty Training Saga

Roper — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:45:00 GMT

Well, we did it. We survived our hardcore 3-day potty training weekend. And we've got two little big girls in underpants to prove it. It was such an intense and dramatic event, I feel like I should be writing about it in epic poetry form. Or rhyming couplets or something. But I am a writer of prose, not poetry. And I guess potty training isn't quite on par with the Pelopennesian war. Almost, but not quite.

The important thing is that, we -- like the Spartans -- triumphed. To anyone out there who feels like they're not getting anywhere with the gradual approach to toilet training, whose little ones seem perfectly content in diapers and who (like us) haven't been particularly proactive or consistent about making the move to a diaper-free existence, I'd highly recommend this cold turkey training approach.

There are lots of books and websites -- not to mention recent commenters on this blog -- who sell books and eBooks on the subject. We followed the guidelines in one lent to us by a friend. But you don't necessarily have to drop $49.99 on some kind of Guaranteed As Seen on TV Top Secret Potty Training Method with FREE bonus DVD and -- if you order now -- Handheld Diaper Shredder, to do this. It's pretty simple.

Plan to stay home for a few days, and get some help if you can. Put your kid(s) in underpants and explain that they need to keep them dry, and repeatedly remind them to tell Mom/Dad when they need to go pee or poop. Give them lots of liquids so they have ample opportunity to practice. Offer effusive praise and rewards for successful potty usage. And prepare for lots of accidents.

The first day, for us, really was a pee-fest. Lots of puddles on the floor. Luckily, we'd put a waterproof sheet on the couch and rolled back the rug in the living room. (If you have wall-to-wall carpeting...um...good luck! Maybe plan to spend a lot of time in the kitchen / outside if possible?) We did a lot of mopping and panicked grabbing of paper towels. I stepped in pee at least once.

Clio, however, pretty quickly started recognizing when she had to go, and started making it to the potty on time. Alas, then she started saying she needed to go approximately every two to five minutes. "I'm makin' pee-pee!" has become her signature catch-phrase. Better than, say, "Git 'er done!" or "Whaaasssssssup!" but annoying in its own right. She will literally go back and forth to the potty ten times within a half an hour. And sometimes, she'll just say "I'm makin' pee pee!" (Or its goofy variation "I'm makin' pay pay!) for fun, in a silly voice.

The problem, we think, is multifaceted: She doesn't empty her bladder fully when she goes, so she actually does pee some (but not all) of the times she sits on the potty. She also sees the potty ritual as a way to get attention from mom or dad (but mostly mom, at her insistence), and to earn praise -- and possibly a sticker or packet of fruit snacks. You gotta admire the girl's business sense: hmm, either I can go pee all at once and get one sticker and one big kiss from mom, or I can pee over the course of three potty visits and get three! Suckers!! When I'm feeling more generous and patient, I tell myself that she hasn't mastered her body's signals yet, and isn't quite sure when she really does have to go. I also think she's got higher-than-average obsessive compulsive tendencies, even for a two-year-old.

Elsa has the opposite problem (of course). By the third day, she stopped having accidents every time she needed to pee. But she still really resists going to the potty. She crosses her legs and grabs her crotch and dances around. She insists she doesn't have to go even when we -- oh so gently -- suggest that she do so, or try to bring her into the bathroom. I think it's partly because she doesn't want to stop whatever she's doing. But partly that she is a little freaked out by the whole concept. When we've asked her why she doesn't want to use the potty, she's said that it is "scary" or "yucky."

In a stroke of genius (if I do say so myself) I dug out an old souvenir from Russia -- a little wooden bearded guy with a pipe -- and dubbed it a "Potty Wizard" whose power was to make going to the potty not scary. Elsa was very excited about this, and it actually helped for a little while. She is still fond of her potty wizard. However, his power seems to have worn off. And as of this writing, Elsa has still not actually pooped in the potty. That is, not without some of it landing in her underwear first.

As for overnight -- the method we used recommends doing nighttime and daytime training all at once. Which sounds like suicide, especially when twins are involved. But the logic of it is reasonable enough -- be consistent. So, for the first three nights, we tried doing underwear at night. We put the potties in the bedroom. We even -- and this was arguably too much change at once -- moved the girls into toddler beds, so they could get in and out of bed more easily, and we could more easily change the sheets if needed. We told them to call us when they needed to go. We woke them up early in the morning to go.

Interestingly, Elsa seemed to do OK with the overnight thing. It was every-two-minutes-to-the-potty Clio that presented a problem. Especially in the middle of the night, when she would wake up wet, then literally not let us leave the room after we came in to change her. One more kiss, one more backrub, and then -- as soon as we left -- "I'm makin' pee pee!" It became not so much about going pee-pee, but a control thing -- right in line with some of the other recent bedtime struggles we've been having. After we'd been in and out of the bedroom multiple times, we tried letting her "cry it out." But it is not possible to win a battle of this sort when Clio is involved. Seriously. We ended up being awake in the middle of the night, multiple times, sometimes for over an hour at a time, until she finally calmed down. And she'd still wake up in the morning soaking wet. (Partly as a result of this lack of sleep, I am now sick with a bad cold, hence my free time to compose epic poetry on this subject.)

So, last night, we said screw it. We're doing Pullups at night. We hoped Clio wouldn't wake up wet, and our troubles would be solved. And -- here's the part where I start laughing like a lunatic because it's more fun than crying -- she did the exact same thing. She woke up in the middle of the night saying -- everybody, now! -- "I'm makin' pee-pee!" so I went in and helped her go to the potty, sent her back to bed with a kiss, and as I was leaving the room: "I'm making pee pee!" No sooner was I back to bed, when she started yelling again. After a few more rounds of this, we decided to just let her yell it out -- as we'd tried unsuccessfully on the previous nights. But this time we meant it. We put in earplugs and everything. (Alastair got some sleep, but I couldn't bring myself to wear two earplugs, just one, so I still heard her.) My friends, she screamed for OVER AN HOUR. Taking occasional breaks for a few minutes at a time, but never letting up. Finally, Alastair went in and rubbed her back one last time, and it seemed to work. But seriously -- how are we supposed to deal with this??

I guess it makes sense that she's trying to hold onto some measure of control in this new situation, testing limits, feeling especially clingy and needy. Elsa has acted out in her own way, being "wilder" and punchier than usual, even lashing out physically. It's disturbing. I hope all this will pass as they get used to and better at living sans diapers.

What I really didn't expect leading up to this milestone (or milestone in progress, I guess) was how emotional I would feel about it. The girls have not outwardly protested wearing underwear, or asked for diapers or anything like that. They love and are very excited about their new "big girl beds." But I've actually found it quite disorienting and difficult. Last Thursday, I was changing the girls' diapers and putting them into cribs at night. Even though I didn't think of them as babies anymore, there were still these rituals and fixtures that have been with us for almost three years. Now, I've got two little girls in underwear and toddler beds. And while it's all good -- who needs the financial drain of diapers, or the physical toil of hoisting 35 pound toddlers in and out of cribs? -- I've found myself feeling rather weepy and nostalgic. This is, I'm sure, exacerbated by the sheer exhaustion of the whole undertaking.

And so, I emerge from operation Potty Training, back to a diaperless version of our everyday routine, victorious, but decidedly weary.

Potty Boot Camp: Dispatch

Roper — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:13:00 GMT

Potty boot camp began this morning at approximately 0900 hours. Elsa was (quote) very excited to be wearing underpants! (end quote). Clio, more reluctant. Sat half-naked on a pair of them for awhile before finally conceding to put on a pair. (Not the pair she'd been sitting on.)

Next maneuver: proceeded to pitch all remaining diapers into a trash bag (to be given to the first worthy size 5 toddler we can locate), pitch the changing pads and diaper pails onto the porch, and start pushing liquids. No action until approximately 1.5 hours later when frequent urination began.

Vital stats (as of 1600 hours):

Ounces of liquid consumed: 32 or more per child

Pairs of underpants soaked through: 9

Loads of laundry done: 1

Trips made to potty: too many to count

Trips made to potty that resulted in at least some pee actually making it into potty: 6

Number of stickers rewarded for successful potty trips: 5

Pairs of (adult) socks changed after inadvertent stepping in puddle of pee: 1

Number of episodes of Blues Clues watched: 2 (1 Steve, 1 Joe)

Number of Froot Loop necklaces made: 2

Observations: Family morale: good. Weather: overcast with occasional drizzle (outside). Cabin fever danger level: low to moderate. Expected to rise. Contrary to expectation, Clio seeming to catch onto concept more quickly than Elsa. Parents doing well, but looking forward to a glass of wine.

The Girl Who Cried Potty

Roper — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:33:00 GMT

Make that girls. And they don't actually cry, "Potty"; They cry "I'm makin' pee-pee now!" and "I'm makin' poo-poo now!" And (what a suprise) they do this most frequently at bedtime, typically right after I've put new diapers on them and changed them into their PJ's, or -- more nefariously -- right as I'm kissing them goodnight. Suddenly, they desperately need to sit on the potty or have their diaper changed again. And the law of twin physics applies here: if one of them wants something, the other one wants it too. So if I give in to one child's demands, I'd better be damned ready to do it in duplicate.

This is obviously a stalling technique, right? But the question of how to respond still stymies me. In the interest of potty training, we've been encouraging them to tell us when they need to go / are going / have gone, and I feel like ignoring their pleas just because it's bedtime sends the wrong message. Even if I suspect they don't really mean it. So, I usually give them a chance to sit on the potty, or I check their diaper to see if it's actually wet. (It almost never is, and they pretty much never actually do anything on the potty, except point out various things in the bathroom and ask for toilet paper.)

But, being two-year-olds on the brink of bedtime, this is never enough. They want to go again. They want to stay on the potty just a little longer. They want me to check their diaper again because this time, they mean it -- there really is a wolf. I mean, pee-pee. What am I supposed to say? "You had your chance. If you have to pee, just do it in your diaper?" Is this really the right thing to be saying to a child that you're trying to potty train -- and, in fact, plan to do a three-day potty training bootcamp with THIS WEEKEND?

And what happens once they are on their way to being potty trained and they try to pull this kind of shit? Sorry. That wasn't nice. Let me rephrase. If they're wearing underwear, and ask repeatedly to go to the bathroom -- after already "trying" -- am I supposed to just ignore their requests? And risk soaked sheets and stinky stuffed animals?

I'm hoping this is one more to file under "this too shall pass," and that once they are actually potty trained (or close to it), they will feel a little more in control and at ease about the whole bodily functions thing. As it is, they're a little bit in potty limbo. We've been taking a gradual approach, but haven't been good about being consistent in our efforts -- i.e. having them sit on the potty every night before bed. (We try sometimes, but they frequently refuse.)

Meanwhile, we've been hinting at the idea of underpants, explaining what they are and how they work (?!) and all that. I suspect that this in-between-ness is confusing to them, and maybe even a little bit frightening. The way poor Clio was screaming last night for us to change her diaper -- over and over and over again -- you'd think that her entire sense of security and safety in the world rested on the diaper changing ritual -- one of the last vestiges of "babydom" in her life.

Anyway, this weekend -- starting Friday, that is -- we're going to begin Operation Underpants. (I love how with little kids you get to say "underpants" -- a word that sounds absolutely ridiculous when used in reference to adult undergarments, but that is so perfect for little ones. And I refuse to call them "panties," by the way; I have always hated the word, and it sounds too sexual, to my ears, to describe children's underwear. But that's just me.) We put them in underwear -- sorry, underPANTS -- explain that they need to keep them dry and tell us when they need to go, plop them on the potty when it looks like they're on the brink of going, and reward -- but never bribe -- them with stickers, animal crackers, etc. And we pretty much don't leave the house all weekend. Gosh, it's going to be fun.

But we've got to bit the bullet and do it. Bedtime potty absurdity, aside, I think they're very ready for this, and I am optimistic that at least Elsa will get in the groove pretty quickly. I worry a bit more about Clio, but but if we can at least get one of them headed in the right direction, it will be progress.

Someday, I hope, I will look back at this post and laugh at myself. For being so excited about using the word underpants, that is.

Rock-n-roll Toddlers

Roper — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:27:00 GMT

Clio and Elsa will never be as truly rock and roll as some of the other blogster young 'uns here on Babble, but as the children of a performing musician, they do get the occasional opportunity to rock out. (At least, as much as it is possible to rock out when your dad plays mostly in the folk / roots / singer-songwriter scene. It's not like he does death metal.) Most of his shows happen after the gals' bedtime, but we've brought them along to some of the daytime gigs.

It's been a little tricky for them, so far, to understand that when Daddy is playing onstage, it's not like at home -- they can't just go up to him or try to talk to him or tell him to play "Nana phone." (He doesn't actually know how to play Nanaphone -- a.k.a. Banana Phone, and has told them this repeatedly, but it's still one of their favorite requests.) At a show a few months ago, they were dancing in front of the stage, then Clio got freaked out by the applause after a song and started crying, and ran up to him for comfort before I could stop her. So, of course, Elsa went up to him, too. One of the other performers, the lovely and talented Rose Polenzani, artfully defused things by letting them play her glockenspiel during the next song. I'm not sure either of them has a future in percussion, but it's probably too early to judge.

Rose Polenzani and back-up glockenspielers

This weekend, Alastair had an early show at a pub, so the girls and I went over and had dinner there. It's not a seedy place or anything, but isn't exactly family-oriented, so having a couple of two-year-olds in the house was quite a novelty for some of the regulars. We had a few gin-soaked kisses blown in our direction by twinkly-eyed, grinning old men. Things managed to stay on the sweet side of that very fine sweet / creepy line.

The girls bravely sat at the high top table and we ate our greasy dinners. I don't know why I haven't yet managed to learn that if we order something for the girls that comes with fries, they will only eat the fries. I guess this isn't the worst thing in the world, given how infrequently we eat out with them. And, in fact, I did get Clio to eat one bite of a pickle (does that count as a vegetable?) It slipped out of her hand onto the floor, and she said "I'll leave it there for the dogs and the cats." Very thoughtful of her. Meanwhile, Elsa, with ketchup all over her face, exclaimed out of the blue, "I'm excited to be here!"

Once Alastair started playing ("It's a little loud," said Clio) the girls were ready to dance. And dance they did. Elsa is majorly into twirling around and around at present, so she'd twirl and twirl, then stop and dizzily stumble around and fall on the floor. A few times I had to catch and redirect her before she wiped out and knocked into a barstool. A few times she ended up on the floor, but hey -- it's not really a night out until someone ends up on the floor, right?

Actually, both of them did some floor-moves as part of their dancing. I know this isn't the most sanitary thing in the world -- having your children roll around on the floor of a bar. But I gave their hands and faces a very thorough scrubbing when we got home, and as long as we can get through a night of clubbing without anyone throwing up or passing out, no harm done, right? I even managed to capture some of their rocking out on film -- it's a little dark, but you can catch some of their moves. The song is one of Alastair's originals, "Swing that Axe." He's on the acoustic guitar, with local fave side man Austin Nevins on electric.

Bedtime madness

Roper — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:10:00 GMT

We all know how important it is to have a consistent bedtime routine for our children, particularly when they're under the age of three. Establish rituals, create a sense of security, establish limits, yada yada yada. We're pretty good about sticking to our routine for the most part, either abbreviating or elongating it depending on the hour and the mood of the girls. (Abbreviating doesn't go over too well when they're tired or cranky -- ironic since those are the nights we're *most* inclined to abbreviate.)

Over time, the routine has evolved, as the girls' needs have changed. When they were still babies, I read to them in their cribs, but as they got more engaged and interested in books, we moved reading to the rocking chair. For a long time it was two books, and then goodnight. Nowadays, the reading routine is a bit more unpredictable -- Clio wants to sit on the floor instead of on my lap / Elsa wants to read a book herself / Both of them want to read books on their own in their cribs, etc. But it's all good, yo.

What's more complicated is the actual, final good-night, when the girls are in their cribs and the lights are out. Until they were around twenty months (I think?), they were satisfied with a couple of kisses. But ever since then, the good-night has been a constantly changing series of mini-rituals. If we ever, in our folly, dare to introduce any new element -- singing a song, for example, or having a back rub (or "rub back," as the girls call it) -- the girls will latch onto it ferociously, and demand that it be part of the routine. For awhile, anyway, until they come up with something new. And then, of course, there are the various stuffed animals and dolls to be fetched, the blankets to be arranged, the books to be brought into or taken out of the crib.

Sometimes I am probably too accommodating. But for the most part, I don't feel like quirky bedtime requests are a battle worth fighting. Better just to put the blankets on in the right order, give one more kiss on the nose, and go downstairs and get the Elmo doll if need be. But there are times -- like last night -- when even my best intentions and most concerted efforts cannot satisfy my daughters' peculiar demands.

Clio was in her mode of wanting to rewind what has just happened and re-do it in exactly the same way, but with one slight variable altered. Only it's not exactly clear what that variable is. Example: when I moved her blankets aside for her to get in her crib, she flipped out. When I moved them back, she flipped out even more. When I told her SHE could move the blankets herself, she further flipped out, because, in fact, she DID want me to move them back, she just wanted me to have done it the right way. Whatever that was.

A few minutes later, when she was in her crib and I thought she'd calmed down, we had the following absurdist exchange:

Me: You've got your Bert doll there to go night-night with you?

Clio: Yeah, I want my George, too.

Me: OK, here's your George. (I get her Curious George doll from the chair and put it next to her.)

Clio: Now I have them both!

Me: OK. Good night Cli. (I start to rub her back - this is a required part of the ritual these days)

Clio: (squirming out of my reach) NO!! DON'T SAY OK!!! DON'T SAY OK!!! WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Me: All right, I won't. (I try to rub her back again.)

Clio: Nooo!!! No!!!!! No rub back!!

Me: All right, good night, Clio. (I start to leave)

Clio: No!!! No!!! WaaaahhHHH!!!! You say yeah!!! You say yeah!!!

Me: Yeah?

Clio: No!!!!! No!!!!!!! Not yet!!!!

Me: (Sigh) What do you want, Cli? Can you use your words and tell me what you want?

Clio: (Whimpers and Hugs Bert and Curious George close) Now I have them both.

Me: (With great trepidation) Yeah....now you have them both.

Clio: (Satisfied. Finally.) Can I have a rub back and a kiss?

If only they would give me a copy of each night's bedtime script to study ahead of time. It would make things so much more pleasant, for all of us.

But what really disturbed me last night was what she said after her series of fits were over, when she'd finally calmed down, and I was kissing her goodnight: "You don't love me anymore."

What???!!!

I assured her that I most certainly did love her, I would always love her, I loved her loved her loved her. This (of course) didn't satisfy her. "You still love me?" she asked. "Yes, of course I do," I said. She tried again: "You still love me?" "Yes," I replied, "I still love you." This was the response she was looking for. She snuggled into her pilow and closed her eyes.

I had NO idea where this came from, or where she picked up this phrase. She didn't sound particularly angry while she was saying it, and I suspect she didn't even really know what it meant. But -- interestingly -- she'd said something along the same lines earlier in the evening, when I came home from work, and the sitter was there: "You don't love me because I didn't eat all my eggs. I just ate one for you and one for daddy."

At the time I'd laughed it off, thinking maybe I'd heard her wrong, or she was mixing up two different things. But now I wonder: has our babysitter been saying things along the lines of "If you don't eat your [insert food here], your mommy / daddy / I won't love you anymore"? She's a wonderful sitter for the most part, but she can be a little odd at times, and her methods aren't always what we'd prefer. Plus, there is the language issue.

But I need to talk to her about this next week when she's here again. If that is what's going on, it is most definitely not cool, yo.

Not Yet

Roper — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:35:00 GMT

This is one of the girls' favorite phrases these days. Can you please give Elsa a turn with that toy now? Not yet. Are you all done with your English muffin? Not yet. Are you ready to get off the potty now? Not yet.

As the girls grow and change by leaps and bounds, it's amazing how much more able they are to communicate their needs and wants, and it's delightful to see them able to participate in an increasing number of activities. This weekend while we were in Maine visiting my parents (and giving my sister in law a baby shower -- my first nephew is on the way!) it was fun to see them doing things that just a few months ago they would not have been able to do: playing downstairs in the basement playroom independently for a good fifteen minutes or so while the grownups were upstairs -- without needing toy refereeing; riding tricycles and actually starting to use the pedals; making sardonic comments. (OK, this isn't exactly true. That is, I'm not sure it was intended to be sardonic. But if it hadn't been spoken by a two and and a half year old, it certainly would have come across that way. Then again, it was Clio, who has a pretty good sense of humor. I said: "Clio, how about we go upstairs and take a bath now." She replied, "How about no.")

Clio played with my old childhood dollhouse for nearly half an hour, on her own. Amazing!

And yet, we still bump up against things that we realize -- often after the fact -- they aren't quite ready for. The not yets. Like when, while trying to keep them occupied for a little while when we were getting dinner ready, and for lack of appropriate entertainment choices, we put on the movie The Cat in the Hat -- the live-action one with Mike Myers. It's a pretty trippy movie -- not to mention a trippy book, that I never quite liked as a kid, as I've mentioned here before. But it proved to be a bit too intense for the gals, especially Elsa, who was a bit freaked out the whole time, but couldn't quite take her eyes off it. It was like a technicolor car accident. Toward the end, when the little girl character was getting sucked up into a tornado-like thing and Elsa started saying "Oh no! Sally!" and then actually screamed, I finally whisked her away. (But brought her back a little later to show her that everyone was OK.)

They also weren't quite ready for the too-long day trip we took up to the Common Ground Fair -- a country fair put on by the Maine Organic Farmers Association. It was an hour and a half each way and, stupidly, we forgot to bring their ga-gas, a.k.a. pacifiers, which we still let them have on long car trips. (You'd think after this calamity we would have learned our lesson.) They were cranky and exhausted the whole time, wanting to be picked up, wanting to go home, wanting to eat but not particularly excited about the grilled cheese sandwiches we got them, on super-dense, all-natural, gluten-free, organic, grass-fed, free-range, fair trade, cruelty-free, 22-grain bread made by rehabilitated prisoners. (Kidding, of course. But seriously, the bread tasted like shit.)

I think that in another year or two, a trip like this might actually be do-able for them. But while we did have a few nice moments -- Elsa enjoyed getting a ladybug painted on her hand (below); they were fascinated by the giant merino sheep "getting his hair cut"; and thought the old-fashioned farm equipment was pretty fun to play on (below below); overall, I'd say it was a not yet. It was also, I think, a case of something being a not yet because of the twin thing. One kid might have been a bit more manageable. Having twins, I think, can at times prolong the not yets by a few months.

They can be frustrating, the not yets. And they will always be there. But there's a nice hopefulness to the phrase. Can we take the girls on a longish day trip to a big and somewhat overwhelming event like a fair? Not yet, but we will in a year or two. Have I found a publisher for my novel? Not yet, but I still have hope. Have I figured out the right balance of work and parenting and writing, all while managing to keep my depression at bay? Not yet, not yet, not yet, but I will.

"Working" from home

Roper — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:32:00 GMT

Yesterday morning, due to some childcare issues, I had to work from home. At least, that's what I was officially doing -- what I told my co-workers I was doing, anyway. (Some of whom read this blog. Hello, co-workers!) But the reality is, it is not possible to get any meaningful quantity of work done while simultaneously trying to take care of small children.

And you end up feeling like a jerk in the process: You're not paying enough attention to your kids, who you've either plopped in front of the TV or are trying desperately to keep occupied with toys, crayons, books, etc. ("Hey! I know!! Why don't you guys see if you can build me the biggest lego castle ever!! Take your time!! Make it really, really big!) Meanwhile, you're not really giving your work the attention it needs or deserves, because some kid is tugging on your leg asking you to look at their big dumb lego castle.

The impossibility of the situation was summed up perfectly for me yesterday when I suggested Elsa and Clio draw pictures (to keep them occupied while I shot off just a couple more emails...) and Clio ended up drawing all over a document from work that she found on the floor near my chair. At that point, I said screw it, and took them out to the playground.

I'm always sort of puzzled when I hear expectant or would-be moms say they'd like to work from home some or all of the time. I mean, I guess it's do-able when you've got older kids, who are in school. And it's do-able if you've got some childcare at home. And maybe it's do-able if your job is...um...testing and reviewing toys. And maybe there are even some angelic children out there who are content to quietly occupy themselves with some independent, non life-threatening activity for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Or who can watch more than an hour of TV without getting antsy. But they sure aren't my kids.

Now household work, on the other hand, is something I can manage to get done -- to a limited extent -- when the gals are underfoot. Sweeping, giving the sink and toilet a quick wipe-down, basic meal prep, laundry, and dishes are all feasible, I suppose because they are more interruptable, and don't require a whole lot of mental energy. Unlike, say, coming up with an idea for an ad, or writing a blog post about how impossible it is to work and and look after small children at the same time. Also, housework is the sort of thing preschool-aged kids are sometimes happy to help (well, pretend to help) with:

Maybe next time I find myself with no choice but to simultaneously work and look after the girls, I should give them each a non-functional laptop (I've got one up in the attic somewhere, and Freecycle would surely yield another...) and let them pretend to write. I'm sure that would keep them happy for at least three minutes. I'm curious: anyone out there had any luck working and parenting from home -- at the same time, that is -- on a regular basis? How on earth do you do it?

"I was a little sad, and then I was happy."

Roper — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:46:00 GMT

So speaketh Clio, when asked how preschool went. As predicted, she had a rough start -- a whole lotta crying and screaming. Alastair stuck around at the school office for a while (along with a few other parents in the same boat) then left when one of the co-teachers reported that Clio was down in the low-simmer territory, as opposed to a full-on, rolling boil of misery. (Metaphors inserted by the author.) When A. picked her up at the end of the day, on the playground, she was still sticking close to one of the teachers, but at least she wasn't crying.

I expect this will be the pattern for awhile, until she really gets comfortable. Which she will. But in the meantime: How about that sentence, huh? "I was a little sad, and then I was happy." Two thoughts in one sentence, a sense of time, an awareness of emotion! This is a far cry from "Pick up!" and "More milk!" Which, admittedly, are more representative specimens of the general tone and quality of toddler-speak in the Baby Squared household. But gradually, the sentences really are getting longer and more complex, and the thoughts they express more nuanced and coherent.

One thing in the area of language development that I'm finding particularly fascinating -- as a self-professed grammar snob -- is hearing the girls tussle with the mechanics of language. Pronouns still trip them up, so we often get sentences like "her was playing with me" or "We go home to we house." Often, in these cases, I'll repeat the phrase back, with the correct pronoun, and sometimes they'll give it another shot. But they's a long way from really mastering this particular linguistic skill. Past tense is still a work in progress, and irregular plurals are still pretty much a lost cause, but hey, that's English for you. (Is there any other language in the world that has so many irregularities and inconsistencies?)

It's also interesting to notice the girls' respective strengths when it comes to verbal ability. Clio tends to put longer sentences together, but Elsa is a champ when it comes to memory / recall. One of the latest manifestations of this is her enthusiasm for "reading." Lately, It's been almost impossible to read a book *to* her; she always wants to hold and "read" them herself. For a while, my reaction to this has been one of anger and annoyance -- it's incredibly frustrating when I'm trying to read a book to Elsa and Clio together, like we've always done as part of our bedtime routine, and she's trying to grab the book out of my hands, yelling "No, I want to read it!" (and then insisting that Clio and I each read our own book, which pisses Clio off, because she wants a story read to her.)

But lately, I'm trying not to fight it as much. If Elsa insists on reading a book on her own, I say that's OK, but why doesn't she read it to me and Clio? And in doing this, I've discovered that the girl really can "read" (as in, recite / riff on) entire books if she knows them well. Sure, she doesn't do it word for word, and she adds her own little twists and interpretations. Often, there are mommies and daddies inserted into the plot and interpreted from the illustrations. (If there are two people or animals on a page, it's fairly likely, in Elsa's interpretation, that one is the other one's mommy or daddy. Inter-species parentage is quite common.) But she also frequently picks up on subtleties and complexities that I'm amazed she can recall.

It bums me out to know that I was, for awhile, missing all this by intepreting her "I want to read it" behavior as sheer willfulness. I love reading to the girls -- having them both snuggled into my lap together. It's one of the few opportunities for that kind of calm, physical closeness, and I would hate to lose it completely. But there is also something quite lovely about listening to your two-year-old's interpretation of a book, and seeing how happy she is to be listened to.

A good reminder that often, when you scratch the surface of "terrible two" behavior, you see that there's some pretty exciting developmental stuff going on.

Preschool

Roper — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:00:00 GMT

The girls had their preschool orientation yesterday, and start preschool for real tomorrow. The orientation was, well, a little harrowing. For starters, I wasn't in the greatest state of mind. My moods have been playing havoc with me of late, and I was feeling a bit unhinged and over-emotional. Granted, it's an emotional thing to grasp the fact that your babies are old enough to start preschool. But in my un-depressed state, I'm not one to tear up repeatedly in the midst of this kind of thing, as I did yesterday. Meanwhile, the fact that I was feeling foggy and depressed on this significant occasion made me feel even worse. (Depressed about being depressed -- who needs that?)

Fortunately, Alastair was there with me, and able to play the role of sane and stable parent. And Elsa, not surprisingly, was totally in her element. When we arrived at their classroom, she was off to the races, immediately checking out all the new toys. (We even witnessed our first interaction between her and a classmate! She yelled "mine!" when he tried to take a play teacup from her. Ah, our feral, un-socialized children.) Clio, though, clung to me and didn't want to let go. After a few minutes, we managed to get her to go over and play with a tea set on the play table that she'd been eyeing, and she soon seemed quite happy, pouring imaginary tea and serving up plates of plastic waffles.

But a few minutes later, when it was time for the parents to go down the hall for coffee, mingling, and a word from the directors, Clio totally lost her shit. It was awful. When we told her we had to leave for a few minutes, the lower lip immediately curled down (an expression which, I'm convinced, is genetically programmed to trigger maternal tear ducts, depression or no) the face turned red, and she started wailing that she wanted to come with us / she wanted us to stay / mama, mama, mama, etc. Oh, dear God, I'm getting teary just writing about it.

But I swallowed it back, bucked up, and walked out of there and down the hall with Alastair, trying to ignore the fact that my daughter was wailing. The only one wailing, I might add. Down the hall, as we got our coffee, we could still hear her. I felt like someone had punched me in the heart. And I fully expected one of the teachers to come in any minute and summon us back to the classroom, whispering, "maybe she's not quite ready for this yet..." It didn't happen. But when we finally did go back, about fifteen minutes later, Clio was still crying. And then it was the same thing all over again: clinging and wanting to be picked up for a few minutes, then gradual willingness to be released, and then, before you know it, she's dishing out plastic waffles and serving tea.

I know she can do this; we've left her before -- at church childcare a handful of times, and at the childcare at the gym -- and while she's cried a lot the first couple of times, she's eventually gotten used to it, and gotten comfortable. I think this will be the case with preschool, too. But she is going through a clingy-with-mama phase. And I'm going through a sad phase (to put it in preschool terms). Which is why I think it's a very good thing that it will be Alastair, not me, dropping the girls off at their *real* first day of preschool, tomorrow.

Photo (in which I don't quite look like myself, but my arms look skinny so I'm not complaining) by Heidi Miller

The marketing onslaught begins

Roper — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:34:00 GMT

More than two years (!) ago, I wrote about the logistics of going to the grocery store with two babies in tow. A little over a year ago, I tackled the subject again, commenting on the near impossibility of grocery shopping with two 18 month-olds. (Which made going with two infants seem like a cakewalk.) For awhile, I didn't dare bring both girls to the supermarket at once. But for whatever reason, over the past six months or so, I've given it another shot -- short excursions for basics only -- and it's gone pretty well.

Coming armed with juice boxes and toys helps. Free cookies from the bakery section help even more. (If free cookies are not out for the taking already, I've actually asked the bakery folks for them a couple of times, and they're happy to oblige. Behold, the amazing power of cute little kids!) Letting the girls hold an item or two also helps (hint: things in boxes or bags, not produce of any kind. Elsa actually took a bite of a lemon once.) Letting Elsa get out of the cart and walk for awhile toward the end of the trip when she's getting restless, is also a good tactic, and not too hard to pull off, now that she listens and understands when I tell her to stop, watch out, stay near us, don't pull every bag of bread off the shelf, etc.

Believe me, if I had my druthers, I wouldn't go to the grocery store with the girls at all. But "druthers" in this instance means copious amounts of free time. And I'd much rather spend my druthers writing, reading, going to the gym or doing errands that I simply can't do with the girls. (Same goes for Alastair, who also, bravely, brings them along to the store at times.) Ah, druthers. (Hey, I just realized something: is "druthers" a Cockney-ish contraction of "I'd rather," that got turned into a word over time? Somebody please google and report back. Druther not take the time.)

Anyway: yesterday marked a turning point in our grocery shopping adventures. It was the first time that the girls started, well, noticing certain things. I went to get them some juice boxes and while I was mulling the options, they both starting shouting "Doggie juice! Doggie juice!" I didn't know what the hell they were talking about, and then I noticed the juice boxes with Clifford the Big Red Dog on them. The girls do not even know who Clifford is, but they started asking for "Doggie juice," which was not the brand or size that I wanted to buy. I sort of lamely told them that the kind of juice we were getting was better ("Look! These have a pineapple on the box! Isn't that cool?" Lame.) They were OK with this, and Clio even added, sagely, "I think that doggie juice is for doggies." To which I said, "Yes, that's right, it's for doggies." (Is it wrong to lie to your children, constantly?)

But it happened again in the cereal aisle ("Bunny cereal!") and the dairy case ("Dora yogurt!") and each time, I had to explain that we didn't buy that particular product; we bought a different one that we liked better and that tasted better and was better for us. (Note use of the royal "we.") To the girls' credit, they really didn't put up a fight. But I can definitely see this changing in the near future.

My immediate instinct was to think: uh oh, time to stop taking the girls to the grocery store. But this isn't really realistic. And it's not just the grocery store, it's any store. And it's TV, if they start watching things other than Curious George and Sesame Street. (Both of which, I should point out, are preceded by pseudo-ads for Chuckie Cheese and McDonalds...)

My mom managed to raise me and my brother without buying the cereal with the bunny on it, or the peanut butter with Peter Pan on it. But there were a lot fewer brands in the stores then, and I don't think syndicated characters had colonized groceries to the extent that they have now. I don't mind giving in to the lure of the cute character occasionally (I totally bought them Elmo potty seats, because I knew it would be appealing to them). But I don't intend to give in all the time.

And I want to bring my girls up to be informed consumers, savvy about advertising and marketing. The question is: does a preschooler really "get it" when you tell them that the yogurt without Dora on it is the same -- and likely better, and cheaper -- than the yogurt with Dora on it? How do you deal with this issue with your little 'uns?

The Fall Fashion Issue

Roper — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:10:00 GMT

I have never been terribly concerned with clothes where my children are concerned. I mean, I make sure that they have enough of them, and wear them as appropriate for the weather and, to a lesser degree, the occasion. But as much fun as it would be, we just don't have the time or energy -- let alone the money -- to dress Elsa and Clio super-adorably.

Their wardrobe consists of a motley combination of gifts from grandparents and others, hand-me-downs from friends, things that I buy for them second-hand at tag sales, and a few supplemental store-bought items as needed, generally from Target or Marshall's. The dresses in the closet go largely unworn. Anything that requires ironing or hand-washing is pretty much never worn -- at least, not more than once.

As the girls outgrow clothes, I toss them into a shopping bag in the closet and periodically bring them up to the attic, where I transfer them into other bags and boxes, which I intend to sort through any day now, I swear. Meanwhile, the girls share one big dresser, which I am convinced is haunted by some small, slovenly poltergeist that gets its kicks by unfolding everything we've just folded and pulling dirty clothes out of the hamper to mix in with the clean ones. In short, I never feel quite in control of the clothing situation. But it's never been high on my list of worries in life.

Of course, I do enjoy getting the gals into a cute outfit now and then, if I can swing it. (i.e. if one of them is not throwing a fit while I'm trying to dress the other one, and if a good combination of shirt / pants / sweater / etc. all happen to be clean at the same time.) And I do occasionally feel a pang of jealousy and inferiority when I see little girls in cute-meets-funky ensembles made up of clothes that look like they came from boutiques or, at the very least, high-end consignment shops. (Just as I occasionally feel pangs of jealousy and inferiority when I see women looking similarly stylish and cool.)

But most of the time I could care less. What's the point of making your kid look like they stepped out of a Hannah Anderson catalog if their clothes are going to be spattered with yogurt within an hour of their getting dressed? And what's the point of spending fifty bucks on an outfit that they'll only fit into for six months?

Of course, four days out of the week, it's their dad who dresses them, and his sartorial standards are even lower than mine. Some days I come home from work to find the girls looking like he dressed them in the dark. Cute pink flowered pants and a grungy red t-shirt with writing on it. Jeans and a pajama top. Brown with purple. Stripes with dots. Granted, the man is fairly color blind. But mostly, he just doesn't notice or care. Which is fine. Really, it is.

Except that the girls are about to start preschool. And in the spirit of the back-to-school season (remember how important it was to figure out what you'd wear on the first day of school?) I'm feeling the urge to get a bit more on top of the girls' clothing situation. I'm going to a huge kids' tag sale tomorrow morning, and am hoping to score some cute stuff. Maybe I'll even spring for some of the big ticket items -- you know, things that cost more than two dollars. And maybe I'll start laying their clothes out the night before on school nights.

Of course, all of this begs the question, "Why?" Am I succumbing to some subtle societal pressure to make sure that my children look well-dressed and are not perceived as ragamuffins by their teachers and the other parents? Yeah, there's probably some of that. (I remember my mother's dismay on one occasion when I wore the same dress two days in a row while she was away and my dad was in charge). But I also think it's just the whole notion of them going to school. There's some part of me -- and maybe it's a little old fashioned -- that believes you should look a little nicer for school than you would for hanging around the house. (Aren't my girls going to adore me when they're teenagers?) Who's with me?