Search results matching tag 'twins'

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.