Old News...

I wrote the following in March 2012, got around to posting it in October 2013... 

On Sons

Or more specifically, my son. It feels a little like "all Ian, all the time" around the blog these days. He's verbal, he's funny, and he has such an energy that he's hard to ignore. Which brings me to a recent Saturday

We were at Chris' parents house, toward the end of the day. As it was already past 5, we decided to feed the kids before we left. As we cleaned up, the kids scattered for a few more moments of play. Normal stuff, until grandma Sally walked in holding three small (and empty) syringes.

"Ian was on the bed with these and said 'I'm sorry' when I found him." she said she thought that one of these had been filled before. With his grandfather's liquid morphine.

Frantic running. I went to the bed. I felt the blanket and finally took a breath when I found it wet.  Chris located Ian. I scooped him up and in my most calm happy voice asked if he'd emptied the syringe. He happily said he had.

"did you get it on the blanket?"

"yah."

"did you taste any?"

"no"

Okay, good.

Crisis averted, we calmed enough to remember that liquid morphine tastes bitter. Even if he'd tasted it he would be unlikely to want a whole dose. And the dose to which he had access is small to begin with.

Still. This is the kid who tried to climb a shelf last year, biting clean through a third of his tongue. The only one of the three who has been in the ER. The one who thinks a flying leap off the couch is an appropriate hello.

I'm not grey yet, but I think now may be the time to buy stock in Clairol.

Smile

I enter her room, like I do every night, to turn off the light she insists stay on while she falls asleep. She is curled on her bed, the covers pushed down near her feet. As I grab the blanket to cover her back up, she turns and opening her eyes, smiles. Her smile is so broad, so genuine that I know she is seeing me, even in her sleep. After a moment I snap off the light and my beautiful daughter turns back to the window, returning to her dreams.

I lay in bed thinking about how much I love her, unable to sleep until I write this down.

What all the moms of multiples are laughing about this week

What I tell her

What I tell her, versus what I do when she is not around:

I tell her: Dessert is not every day. It is a special treat.
I do:         Almost daily indulge my desire for something sweet.

I tell her: We don't eat in the living room.
I do:         Eat in the living room.

I tell her: No more snacks, it is almost dinner time.
I do:        Snack while making dinner. (then again, I still eat dinner)

I tell her: We are eating, so let's put away the toy/book/piece of junk holding your attention.
I do:        Read/work/text while eating.

I tell her: Go to sleep so you'll be rested for tomorrow.
I do:        Stay up too late fiddling around at nothing.

What do you tell your children and then turn around and contradict through your actions?

Why Going To Work Is Easier Than What Chris Did All Summer

My stay-at-home parent friends have my undying respect. Included in that group is my husband, who this week concludes his summer-long sojourn into the stay-at-home world. This is not to say that he'll never be home with the kids again, but this week he returns to work after being our children's main caretaker over the past several months.

I have a sense of what Chris dealt with while I was at the office, enjoying the comfortable chairs and the witty banter of colleagues. I am home with our children one "work" day a week. I am all the more awed by Chris' equanimity in the face of everything that goes on at our house, having lived through the chaos of one recent day at home:

5:50 am - wake up with Ian, who for some reason wakes up 30-60 minutes ahead of schedule when I am getting up with the babies.

6:30 - Mira wakes up, Ian pitches a fit when I give Mira her morning bottle. When offered his own (pretty much empty) bottle, Ian responds by screaming harder and grabbing for Mira's milk. I get Ian some more milk and calm is restored.

7:00  Ada and her friend emerge from her room. Ian sees them and goes crazy with joy. This causes the older kids to laugh and run back upstairs. I corral the kids and tell them to come down stairs so they don't wake up Chris (or at least so that he might be able to fall back asleep).

7:10 - Ada and her friend want to play with playdoh; I negotiate that they can take over the kitchen for this activity after we all have breakfast.

7:15 - Make eggs for breakfast. Respond to special order for "flat eggs" from friend because he asked so politely, everyone else gets patented "cheesy eggs."

7:30 - Help Ada and friend set up playdoh activity in kitchen. Convince the friend that we do not need to use every one of the 24 colors Aunt Karen sent Ada for her birthday. Shut gate to kitchen so that babies don't disturb older kids' Very Important Work.

8:30 - Ian is crabby crabby crabby, so Chris and I put the babies to bed before Chris leaves for work.

8:45-9:20 - Listen to Ian and/or Mira cry, talk, sing, etc instead of sleep. Once Ian finally quiets down, Mira starts chattering for a while. Consider but eventually reject idea of complaining to Chris about this by email. Instead text visiting out-of-town friend about timing of park date. Text other friend about joining us. Call parents of Ada's play date to organize pick up, thank them profusely for doing the shlepping.

9:30 - It is finally quiet. Scrape a zillion small globs of playdoh off the kitchen floor. Clean up residual Ian/Mira messes from the morning. Get text from woman scheduled to pick up kid friend for swim lesson - her keys are locked in her car, can I drop kid off at her house?

9:40-10:00 - Participate in Ada/friend's collaborative lego play. Extricate myself from this activity to clean up a little more.  Text with friends about adjusted park timing.

10:00 - Someone is awake upstairs. Ignore noise with the hope that the kid will go back to sleep.

10:15 - Noise now includes shaking that indicates kid standing and rattling crib. Knowing it is futile to expect more nap, I go upstairs, grab the two kids and take them into the bathroom so I can put my contact in. Listen to Mira complain loudly when I put her down.

10:20-10:40 - Come downstairs as Ada's friend and her father arrive to pick her up. Say goodbye to Ada, get Ian and Mira ready to go (change diapers, put on shoes and socks) and walk sleepover friend to his next engagement.

11:10 - Return home and decide to feed babies before heading to the park. Ian refuses to eat more than a single morsel, but spends his time squishing cherry tomatoes so that no one else (including his omnivorous sister) will want them either.

11:35 - Prepare to leave the house. Change diapers, put on sunscreen, collect snacks and sippy cups, check bag for other supplies, attach trailer to bike, find and dust off bike helmets, strap kids into bike, put on helmets.

11:45 - Finally leave the house. Arrive at the park as friend is leaving me a message saying "I'm here, where are you?" Play at the park with two friends I have not seen in a long time. Chase children, dole out snacks, chase children, talk to friends, chase children...

1:40 - Sense that Ian is near a melt-down and head home. At home, prepare for naps by diapering, doling out milk, putting kids in bed. Listen to chatter while I make a sandwich.

2:00 - Ian and Mira are quiet. Sit on porch playing with new software. Sign up for BTA's September Bike to Work Challenge.

3:05 - Go inside as sun is broiling the back of my neck.

3:10 - Hear kids wake up from nap. Sigh and roll eyes that nap was so short.

3:16 - Finally go upstairs after listening to kids chatter to one another on the monitor. Hope that there are no poops to deal with.

4:30 - Take Ian and Mira to pick up Ada at her friend's house. Lug the kids into the house, convince Ada to leave, and lug everyone back into the car.

5:20 - Allow Ada to visit the neighbor's house to play and remind her to tell you if she wants to go anywhere else. Start cooking dinner, while running between the kitchen and dining room in order to: (1) repeatedly tell Ian not to stand on the chair; (2) stop Ian from repeatedly climbing onto the dining room table; (3) taking the blackberry away from Ian when he climbs on the table to get it. Wonder how Ian will survive toddlerhood. Consider saying "why can't you be more like your sister?" about five thousand times.

6:15 - Put dinner on the table and gather everyone to eat. Give up trying to soothe Ian, who dissolves into a puddle of (very loud) sadness when Chris arrives home and tries to do anything other than immediately pick up Ian.

7:00  - Put babies to bed, and begin the process of helping Ada with her bedtime.

8:30 - Collapse on the couch, all children now safely in bed. Remember that there are toys all over the floor and join husband in daily maintenance cleaning/toy pick up.

* ** * ** *

I only do this stay-at-home thing once a week. I am exhausted just thinking about it. If there is any doubt in his mind or anyone else's, I really appreciate all Chris did for the kids and for me this summer. Thank you, Chris. The nanny is returning this week and now maybe we can all get some rest.

Not Quite Five

I expect a lot from myself, and often expect as much from others. When I find myself getting frustrated with Ada, I have lately tried to remind myself that she is not quite five.

When I ask her to stay and keep Mira company while I put Ian in bed, she whines that she wants to come upstairs too. I start to get annoyed, but then think "she's not quite five." I tell her how much it will help me and how much I appreciate her.

When she whines "but I want you all to myself" I think, wow, that's pretty self-aware for not quite five. I tell her that we all need attention, and that the quickest way to get time with just me is to let me get the babies to bed. Slow that process down with whining and demands and "I need it NOW" and it will just be longer before you get that special time with mom. This is a lot for not quite five. She just knows what she wants, but can not always do the things that will make that happen.

When she falls asleep on the couch 90 minutes before her usual bedtime, I think about how much emotion and energy and desire is wrapped up in being not quite five. I carry her up to bed, foregoing the face-washing, books and tooth-brushing in favor of a blanket laid over her sleepy frame, a quick kiss and even quicker exit.

Even as she becomes more self-sufficient and articulate, I realize how much love and careful attention she still needs. She is my big girl, but she's still not quite five.

One Little Thing

"I. Just. Can't."

I said these words in response to a request for cups with lids. It sounds so silly to me now but I just could not transfer the orange juice to other cups, could not argue about why putting orange juice in a water bottle is a bad idea, could not do another single thing.

The whole day had been either a series of frustrating and annoying events or perfectly nice, depending on your perspective. Ian and Mira were sick, they were and crabby in a completely understandable but nevertheless fairly trying way. Ada had a friend over, which is less work than Ada not having a friend over, but still not effortless. The girls made a wreck of the playroom (to be expected) and shredded paper which lay all over the rug (infuriating). They also played in Ada's closet and drew on the walls with a highlighter from my desk (completely annoying, especially because Ada knows that is not acceptable behavior). The weather was great, and the girls finally went outside for a while. I saw them digging in the garden, which is fine with me. Then I went outside and learned that they were planting peas. As in, planting them willy nilly all over the garden. I know this is really no big deal and we are talking about maybe $2 worth of peas, but for some reason this had me on the verge of tears. I managed to contain myself when I reminded Ada that the peas need support to grow and that planting them all around the yard was unlikely to get us many pods. (Luckily we'd already planted peas by the trellis, so some of the seeds will hopefully grow.)

I can't even type this little scene without wanting to erase the whole thing out of embarrassment about what a non-issue this is. Even hours later I see how uninmportant the loss of a half package of peas is, but in the moment it felt like part of some death-by-a-thousand-cuts torture. It isn't the peas, or any of the other little annoyances really. It isn't the babies' crankiness and general sickness-induced neediness. And by now I should be used to the all consuming boredom of feeding, changing, soothing and entertaining that is life with young children. It is all of those things together. There is no end to the work, and though none of it is very onerous, taken together it sometimes feels crushing.

This week I have felt a strong urge to make something again. The return of good weather has me considering a skirt for myself (I have some great octopus fabric I bought when I was pregnant) and this has me suddenly dying to make mustaches for myself and my family. I remember this feeling from when Ada was a baby. I was so tired of doing things only to have to do everything again. With babies there is no "done." You feed them, only to have to feed them again in a few hours. Clean diapers get soiled, noses continue to run after being wiped, naps begin and end, necks become food encrusted even though you just wiped them. You get the idea. I started sewing when Ada was a baby because once I finished a project, it stayed finished. The skirts did not have to be remade and stuffed toys stayed stuffed (for the most part, at least).

So here we go again. I am going to find myself a project and carve out a piece of the dining room table to make it happen. It may happen slowly, but it will happen, and once done, will stay done. Until the next project, that is.

 ** * ** * **

As I sat down to write this, I saw a woman walk up the path. My heart sank as she knocked, knowing that I would have to interact, that she would want something from me. I opened the door to a well-dressed woman introducing herself as a financial adviser who just opened an office nearby. "Are you familiar with Edward Jones?" No, I said, but I just put babies down and I have just 20 minutes to myself."

"No problem," she said. "I have three myself. Have a good day." And she waved and walked back down the path. That little thing might be enough to salvage the day. And it might be enough to go see this woman for the financial planning help Chris and I sorely need.

Recognition

My friend Susan is so smart. She says these things, these really deep and insightful things, and it is only later that they come back to me and I realize how right she is and how smart. She tells me things about her experience parenting and being a partner to her husband, and while I am hearing them I think that they sound good, but I don't necessarily think more about her observation beyond a description of what is happening for her. Like the time at my blessing way when she talked about her experience of fatigue as a defining characteristic of parenting very young children. She likened it to the native Alaskans, who have something like 50 words for snow. She has experienced being tired in many ways. She talked about being happy tired and angry tired. Being weepy tired and goofy tired.

Listing to Susan say this I thought I remembered the fatigue of parenting in the infant stage. I had done it once before, and as a heavily pregnant person I was already re-experiencing interrupted sleep. I heard her talk about being tired and I took it in as a part of my whole blessing way experience; she, and the other women at the ceremony, shared their experiences as mothers as a way of marking my becoming a mother to two new children. 

It was not until months later that I remembered what Susan had said and found it completely descriptive of my present life. Maybe remembered is not quite the right word. It is more like that I felt it. The experience of simultaneously remembering and recognizing that her words fit me was almost physical in its immediacy.

This weekend I had another "Susan is so right" moment. Susan and I have talked a lot about the stresses of parenting, and about how those stresses can affect our relationships with our husbands. We are both lucky to have wonderful partners who are active parents and very engaged on many fronts. But no one is perfect, and all the work and time and and and of parenting can make relationships harder. Add to that the tendency to ignore the need to nurture that key relationship, and both partners can find themselves drained and frustrated.

After a week in which I realized that our finances are such that I will have to work more in the coming months and make some other changes that will likely require sacrifices for both Chris and me, I have been feeling put upon. It wasn't something specific, it was just the reality of my life right now. I don't want to get into it, and I realize that even as things stand now I have a wonderful life with completely bourgeois problems, but things feel like a bit of a grind right now. I work. I plan, shop for and prepare food for Ian and Mira. I plan, shop and sometimes cook food for Chris, Ada and myself. I do laundry. I pick up toys, blankets, clothes, food, newspapers and plastic bags constantly. I pay the bills and fret about how we will keep up. I wash the babies, I wash Ada. I run through bedtime routines and wake-up routines and in-between routines. I recycle. I fight back the rising tide of stuff in our house by giving stuff to goodwill or the swap shop. In between I get to play with the Ada, Mira and Ian, but even that involves dealing with a lot of whining and crying and other age-appropriate but parent-soul-crushing behavior.

I do not mean to imply that Chris doesn't do this stuff too, because he certainly does. But this is my blog, so let's focus, shall we? I (and okay, we) just do a lot of stuff, and it goes on all day, every day. In the midst of this effort and stress and fatigue I have been feeling crabby. (Shocking, I know.) I feel crabby generally, and I feel less than generous toward Chris, despite knowing that he is facing the same pressures and is holding up at least as well as I am, probably better. In the middle of my disgruntled blah-blah-blahs, I remembered something Susan had said. She talked about how she and her husband get into this place where they are both tired and worn down and out of sorts. Then one person gets a break - gets to sleep late, or go out with friends or in some way gets their burden lightened a little. Let's say it is Susan who gets the break. This lightening allows Susan to not feel so tired and stressed, and once she feels better it allows her to turn to her husband and say I know things are feeling really hard for you right now. This in turn lets him say yes, things have been hard. Thank you. All I wanted was for someone to recognize that!

And this can be a release, allowing both partners to feel better and to more easily shoulder their burdens.

After days of carrying around low-level annoyance I realized that this is part of what I want. I want it recognized that I am shouldering this burden. I want Chris to point to it, and to tell me he can see its contours and recognizes its heft. I want all this work and stress and fatigue to be recognized, not so that I can give it to Chris to carry, but so that I can once again pick it up knowing that I am not doing so unappreciated.

Well, that and a lot more sleep. But I'll take what I can get at this point.

Leave the House

Friday is the day I am home alone with all three kids. This can be great or it can be a horror show. Determined to avoid the latter, I suggested to Ada that we go to the library. Ada is almost always more fun when we leave the house. Something about staying home makes her clingy and whiny and (even when she is being pleasant) prone to asking me to play dolls, which I (parenting failure on my part, I know) hate. But really, what could be more boring? I am always trying to steer her toward games or legos or really anything but holding three dolls at once while pretending to take them to the park. Again. Plus, one doll's head tends to pop off unexpectedly, and I am always made to be that doll, so there's the added stress of playing while trying not to decapitate the toys.

But back to the day: getting all three kids out the door can be tricky, especially if (due to illness, say) Ian and Mira are not synced in their naps. And yes, the babies were out of sync, but it worked out anyway and once they were both up we scooted out the door. As expected, Ada was completely lovely the moment we went outside. We talked, looked for rocks, and avoided stepping on cracks all the way to the library. (As an aside, although a little put out that I would not let her pilfer a lovely river stone that caught her eye, Ada seems to understand why it is not okay to take "special rocks" out of people's yards. In addition to not stealing from my neighbors, this rule has the benefit of limiting the number of rocks that come home with us.)

On the way there, we passed a man sitting in his yard with a baby. We stopped to say hello and compare ages, and we entered into our usual conversation with strangers:

Man: Are they twins?

Me: Yes. Whenever you think you are having a hard parenting day, you can think of us.

Man: Wow. (Making small bowing motion) I'm impressed. I feel like one is hard!

Me (backpedaling): Actually, they are pretty good. It helps that I had practice with her (pointing to Ada). And she's a really good big sister.

Immediately I thought to myself, why am I such an asshole? Why do I need this nice stranger to acknowledge my workload? All parenting is hard, and why make him bow to my superhuman parenting abilities? I need to stop implying that things are so much harder with twins. I mean, they are harder in some ways, but there are a lot of ways in which just having one baby and a preschooler would be just as challenging. It really depends on the day, or maybe the moment.

Speaking of the day, the rest of the day Ada was a joy. After the library we popped into our local biscuit shop for eats. When we got home (just in time to feed Mira and Ian before they passed out) Ada decided she wanted to stay outside. So, fine. We agreed she could play on the porch or in the yard, as long as I could see her my perch in from the dining room. Ada is so good about this kind of thing. She played on her own for an hour while I got Ian and Mira fed, diapered, nursed and in bed. Then I went outside and we played until Mira woke up. Then we read books and hung out outside most of the rest of the day.  At some point I thought to myself that I needed to remember to tell Ada how much fun I had with her, what a joy she was to be around. (I did tell her that at bedtime, but I am not sure she actually heard me, as she was practically asleep when her head hit the pillow.)

 

Maybe the wrong photo for a post on the virtues of going outside.

He really does like leaving the house.

On Saturday, Ada was crabby, crabby, crabby. She insisted she could not go upstairs to get something from her room because she was afraid. She didn't want to be lonely. Never mind that it would take 30 seconds to run upstairs, grab the shirt and zoom back down, which was about one tenth of the time she took whining about the idea. Everything was a struggle, and it took all my will not to yell at her. Luckily some friends called and we forced Ada out the door to go see them. When Chris took the babies home for lunch and nap, Ada and I played in the park. Later that day I took Ada and a friend to a local art center, where they had a fantastic time. By the time the friend's parents came to get her at 8:30 that night, the girls had also built a complicated block and toy city, acted out a complicated story in which they were "super baby kittens" and eaten the (fantastic) brownies I made on a whim. So we were back in the "happy" category, family-wise.

The main lesson for me is to leave the house. No matter how hard the kids make that, leave the house. They, and I will be the better for it.

Balance Shmalance (or, I Need More of Everything)

What I want to do:

Take better pictures
Sew a groundhog ipod cozy
Be more fun as a parent
Get back to sewing clothes for myself and the kids
Make a crown for Ada
Read more
Laugh more

But I feel so stretched as it is. Tonight after dinner I suddenly literally could not keep my eyes open. Retreating from table to couch, I lay down and fell asleep. I woke up only when Ada and Chris were getting ready to go upstairs.

I don't know if the answer is to work more or work less. Right now I am entering a busy time at work, which means more working in my "off" hours. So far it is not too much, but I look at a friend/coworker who has put in a super-human number of unpaid hours and wonder when I would be able to say it was too much. Financially I need my job, and intellectually I really enjoy it. I also enjoy that I work part-time. I want to spend more than two days a week with my children. And yet, at the end of one such day with them I am emotionally and physically spent.

How do you find balance, or is that a myth?

We Shall Not Pass This Way Again

Nursing Ian tonight, I started thinking about another reason I am not sure I want to give up nursing: this is the last time I am going to do this.

I know this is a crazy reason to want to keep nursing. The fact that something will never happen again does not make it on its face worthwhile. Of course, there are a ton of good reasons to keep nursing: it is good for the babies; it is way cheaper than formula; it lets me eat an extra cookie a day; and I love the sweetness of having a baby in my lap, cuddling with me. I love when they reaching up to touch my shoulder blade or face. I even love when they break off nursing to smile and babble. When I am working at home I take breaks to nurse. It is time with Ian and Mira that I won't likely have when I stop nursing. I know myself well enough to know that once I stop nursing, I won't have those minutes alone with each baby on work days, even though I would like to think I would still stop during the day to play.

I know that I keep saying that breastfeeding is ending soon. Earlier, I needed to know that I could stop, that things would be alright for Ian and Mira whether or not I exclusively fed them my milk. Later I thought that one or both of them was rejecting the breast. Now I see my milk supply waning as the babies take strongly to solids. And pumping sucks. (not to mention reduces my productivity at the office) At six months, I thought I'd try to stick it out until 8 or 9 months. Now that I am at 8 months, this still seems like a reasonable goal, but I am not quite ready to give it up. Maybe I will be entirely sick of this in a month, we'll see. For now I am enjoying the warm babies while I have them snuggled up against me. (Even when those warm babies come with ice cube fingers. Brrr!)

A Special Relationship

Chris and I put Ian and Mira to sleep each night with a bottle and some snuggling. One of us sits with a toddler in our bedroom, while the other uses the rocker in the kids' room. Ada likes to be upstairs while we do this, and more and more she wants to be in the room with one of us. This used to be a problem, as her presence made it hard for the babies to relax and fall asleep. These days it is easier for her to lounge on the bed next to where I sit cradling Ian in my arms. (We do have somewhat of a loosely enforced "no squirming" policy, however.)

Recently I sat on my bed with Ian as he drank his pre-bed bottle. Ada lay under the covers, peeking up periodically to see us and try to grab my attention. At some point she started singing Ian a lullaby of her own invention. Hearing her sing to him, Ian strained to sit up a little and smiled around his bottle. Ada was thrilled, and thus inspired she continued singing until the bottle was finished and Ian was ready for bed.

There was something in their reaction that made me think for the first time about the relationship that Ada and Ian will have one day. It isn't that I do not notice their interactions. Just today I laughed as Ada whipped Ian into a frenzied laughter, getting him to chase her and keeping close enough to hold his attention without making it too easy for him to grab her. He and Mira watch Ada like hawks, taking in her every move and mimicking her in so many ways. She is often the first person Ian and Mira asks about when they get up. It is clear that they love her, but now I saw a glimmer of the special relationship they will develop and thought how that relationship will have nothing to do with me or my relationship with either of them.

This realization came with the recognition that my children will have other relationships that will quickly eclipse the bonds they have with Chris and with me. It was an electric moment, because this hits at a big part of why I wanted to have more than one child. I wanted to give my children the opportunity to have this kind of relationship with a sibling, the kind I have with my sister.

It isn't that my parents are not important to me. On the contrary, I am quite close with my parents and have a full relationship with them that runs from chatting about how wonderful my children are to health policy "shop" talk. But my relationship with my sister, even when we are not a period of constant communication, is one of the most important in my life. She is my confidant, my entertainer, my adviser and my shoulder to cry on.

I know not all siblings have a close relationship, either as children or adults. And I know I can't engineer things how I want them for my children. But I do hope that Ada, Mira and Ian will be as lucky as I am and have close and lasting relationships with one another. It doesn't seem too much to ask.

Do I really WANT her to be the good kid?

Ada is very good friends with Lila, the girl down the street. Ada has told us that when they are grown, she and Lila will get married and have babies together. Lila's mom reports that Lila has the same plan.

This close friendship is as I'd hoped, but it is not without its down-sides. Specifically, Ada and Lila are what you might call "naughty" together; they do not attempt to burn down the house or try to suffocate their siblings, but they misbehave together much more than either of them do with other children. Over the past few months, together they have: tried to pee standing up (unsuccessful from the vantage point of getting the urine in the toilet); drawn on each others' arms, bellies and faces; cut Lila's hair; torn apart a very nice book; colored on all manner of things that should not be treated that way (a wall, a stuffed Minnie Mouse, my papers...); tried to poop standing up (again, with decidedly unhappy results for our bathroom floor)... This is not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.

On Tuesday Ada and Lila were using glitter pens in the kitchen, making art while sitting on the floor. I had given them newspaper to put under their masterpieces, and felt reasonably comfortable sitting in the next room feeding Mira. This was foolish of me, because once merely squirting glitter paint on the paper lost its thrill, the girls decided to drag out the glue and stick some pages together. This might have gone alright, except that they decided that, having used a fair bit of glue, they should protect the floor with a kitchen towel, which of course became saturated with glue and glitter paint. Actually, I am not sure if they were trying to protect the floor, but in any case we are down a dishtowel. At least they had the decency not to ruin one of the new ones, so there's that.

Together Ada and Lila get into trouble. Or rather, they make trouble. It isn't clear to me who is instigating these misdeeds, but it has occurred to me that as Ada is not prone to this kind of behavior on her own or with other friends, she may be following Lila's lead. While I might be glad that she is not coming up with these ideas, I am not especially thrilled with the idea that my daughter is the kind of kid who goes along when someone tells her to do wrong. Okay, she is only four, and maybe it is not fair of me to expect her to use common sense. Maybe common sense is just beyond the capacity of any four year old, no matter how smart and charming the child.

As a parent, I want my child to be able to play independently without making me worry that she'll destroy the house. So far I have been very lucky in that Ada is both fairly willing to follow a limited set of house rules and disinclined to engage in what one might call "wet mess" (she doesn't like to be wet or sticky). As she gets older and more willingly tests the waters of independence, I can not help but feel a little shocked by her small rebellions. She is still great, but I can see parenting getting increasingly harder on this dimension. I want Ada to experiment, to think for herself, to try new things. But I also want her to listen to me and think before she acts. I think she and I both have some maturing to do on this.

Getting Out

I just watched John and Kate Plus Eight for the first time. The episode centered around the family's trip to the pumpkin patch, and the parents talked about how they get organized to leave the house with all those kids. Putting aside the fact that just the fact of having six children at once seems crazy to me, it is a little humbling that these people could have ever left their house or gotten anything else done with so many children. It feels like a lot of work to get out of the house with all three of my children, even when there are two adults involved.

When Ian and Mira were newborns it was actually a bit easier, as they were small enough to cart around for hours. Plus, they would sleep wherever we were, so we didn't worry much about their schedules. Now that they have a schedule of sorts it is hard to coordinate everything so that Mira and Ian are diapered and fed with enough time left over for us to get out before they need to go back to sleep. (And wow, the whole eating thing? I had forgotten how much time that takes.) Even when we can get out, recently Ada has taken to declaring that whatever outing we propose is not to her liking. (We are hearing "that's boring" a lot.)

Mira, enjoying the outside world

For some things, like doctor visits, we just deal. When you need to go somewhere, you go even if conditions are not ideal. For "fun" stuff, I am finding it much easier to leave one parent at home with the babies while the other takes Ada out on an excursion. Sometimes our friend Juniper visits and can coax Ada out of the house for a few hours.

Last week Juniper was here with us, and for once the stars aligned. Not only were Ian and Mira awake and fed, but Ada was willing to go out. It helps that it wasn't raining, but the real reason Ada was willing to go out was that the outing was to Stumptown for hot drinks. Ada will do almost anything for cocoa. We popped the babies into the new double stroller and zipped down to Stumptown for sugar and caffeine. After a quick side trip to the , we headed over to the Swap Shop to play a little. When the babies got hungry and tired, I took them home while Juniper and Ada stayed behind with friends.

Cocoa!

When Juniper and I saw the opportunity to get out, we hopped on. It took us a little time to get the kids bundled up and into the stroller, but we were out. I was so proud of myself for getting us all out the door with such speed, but in retrospect my speed masked a total lack of organization. What was I thinking? We didn't bring diapers or extra milk, either of which could have spelled disaster. All in all it went well, but only because Ian and Mira are so easygoing. Watching John and Kate... in which the parents are forced to be totally organized and prepared reminded me of how lucky I am to have things work out even when I let things slide. I also watched the parents crab at one another and be stressed by the normal things of life, and was reminded how much harder it could be. Not just if we had more kids, but if the kids we have were different.

Sadly, this may the least dried snot on Ian's face in two weeks

One of my resolutions for the year is to not let the fact of having two babies keep us from doing the things we want to do with our kids, whether that is an outing at the park or fun day trips. As my confidence as a parent of twins increases, this becomes easier and more fun. Now if I can just remember to bring diapers and snacks...

Bedtime and Torn Books

The monsters were a smoke screen, as we'd suspected. I think that Ada subconsciously realized that she'd just lost a very big control lever (the toileting) and found something to replace it. I don't think this was a purposeful decision, but the time proximity between her starting to use the toilet and her belief that she can not sleep alone is just too much to ignore.

She will go to sleep if one of us is lying with her in bed. I refuse to do this, leaving it to Chris to coax her to sleep. But a few nights ago I thought I might give it a try. After ten minutes I was fuming, and got up. Ada immediately freaked out. She followed me downstairs, and Chris took her back up. He spent a good chunk of time trying to get her to stay in her room; she shrieked her opposition. It was horrifying. I sat on the couch not helping at all, but I don't know how I could have helped if I had tried.

I don't know what to do with Ada other than to meet her stubbornness with my own resolve not to let her take over. I was apparently not like this when I was a child. I was, to use my father's phrase, more "go along to get along" when I was Ada's age. When I talked to my parents about Ada's new-found refusal to sleep alone, my father also told me that I might have been taught not to wake up my parents by seeing what my tired, cranky father was like when he got up too early. So where does Ada get this stubbornness, and what makes me respond in kind?  

Compared to me, Chris is generally more practical about Ada-related matters, wanting mostly to get through a given crisis without permanent scars on any of the three of us. On this night he attempted to keep her in her room while she screamed and threw things. Just as I was starting to cry, the screaming stopped and Ada yelled: "I ripped a book." "Daddy, I'm ripping a book! Mommy, Mommy, I'm ripping a book"

Right, she's four. She knows ripping books is bad. In fact, we talked about it earlier this evening. So she does the worst thing she can think to do; she rips up her books.

When Chris let her out of her room, she told him, "Daddy, I ripped books. I was too mad!"

How can it be that I have absolutely no idea what to do with my maddeningly smart and stubborn 4 year old?

* ** *

We moved Ada's bedtime up a half hour based on the idea that if someone Chris has to lie down with her for a half hour until she falls asleep, we should start that process earlier in the evening. Also, it was a way of making things less fun for her in the hopes that she might decide not to do this "I can't sleep alone" crap much longer. Such a thought is, of course, foolishness. This should be clear to anyone who talked to me in the past two years in which Ada refused to have anything to do with a toilet, until she was ready. No amount of negative lifestyle impacts motivated Ada. So telling her that she can't watch movies, can't play with the ipod, can't play as long because she has to go to bed earlier, pretty much none of that is going to change her mind on this issue. And yet. Still I tell her these things. You'd think I would have learned by now.

The cake from Ada's "big girl party" - this party was something we suggested to Ada she could have once she started being a kid who peed and pooped on the potty. Our bribe did not actually motivate a behavior change, but once she accepted the toilet she called in this chip nonetheless. 

Chris lay down with Ada to get her to sleep tonight. Over an hour later, he came down, followed by Ada. When she comes down after bedtime we ignore her, and she is not allowed to play or read or to do anything.  We may not have figured out how to keep her in her room without a lock on the door, but we can deny her entertainment after bedtime. Within 10 minutes she'd fallen asleep. On past nights Chris has been able to carry her upstairs and put her in bed once she falls asleep like this. Cross your fingers that he can do it again.

Uses for Clove Oil

For anyone who has suffered with a child who refuses to stay in bed at night or naps, this is going to sound crazy, but until two nights ago Ada had NEVER gotten out of bed on her own. She has let us know when she wants to get up, mostly by yelling out or kicking the wall, but until this week she never, ever got up out of bed without Chris or me coming in to her room first. Even when she went diaper-free last year and she was regularly wetting the bed in the morning, she would just lie there until we came to get here. I don't think this was so much a sign of her compliance as it has been a weird way for her to control us.

I mention this, of course, because two nights ago Ada came into our room in the middle of the night. She'd had a nightmare, and as we'd never considered what to do when our eldest appeared at our bedside, we brought her into bed with us. It wasn't perfect, but we all slept reasonably well for the next few hours. The next night, Ada woke up at 2:30 with a wet bed. Chris got up to help her, but then she refused to go back to bed. I woke up to them arguing, and by the time I collected myself enough to engage, Chris had brought her into our room saying that she could sleep with me and he would sleep in her bed. Not perfect, but Chris decided that: (a) he wasn't going to convince Ada to sleep in her bed; (b) he needed to do something so that he could get back to sleep; and (c) three in our bed was not a great solution two nights in a row.

In the morning Chris and I agreed that we needed to talk to Ada about the fact that she would not be sleeping with us again, and the talk needed to happen before bedtime (when such a chat would be clouded by fatigue on her part and a desire to get her to sleep on ours). We talked to Ada about the bed situation during dinner, without a lot of receptivity on her part. At bedtime we got through the bath and books, and then Ada declared she was not going to sleep. I declared that she would be. She said she could not, as when she went to bed there were monsters in her bed. After first trying the "there are no monsters in your bed" gambit, I decided to follow a different course. I asked her if she wanted some anti-monster spray that we could shpritz around her room. I held my breath, waiting for her to call bullshit on the idea of monster repellant. Amazingly, she agreed to get some spray.

Clove Oil: Hated By Monsters, Loved By Hippies

We headed downstairs, where I grabbed some clove oil and searched briefly for our spray bottle. When I could not find the bottle, I grabbed a clean cloth diaper and we headed back upstairs. I put some oil on the cloth and started to wipe the side of her bedframe.

"No, the monsters don't come on the bed there."

"Where do they come on?"

"They are just on the bed."

I wiped the sheets, pillow and comforter with the clove-doused cloth. Then, with Ada's approval, I rubbed the cloth on the head and foot boards. Ada thought we should also wipe my bed, saying "when I was in your bed I saw a monster there too." I wiped my comforter, pillow and sheets, focusing on the top of the bed where Ada said she'd seen the monster.

We returned to her room, where I told her she should take the cloth. That way, if she saw a monster she could put the cloth on her chest to keep the monster away. Ada asked "why don't monsters like this?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe it smells too strong for them. I kind of like it, though."

"Me too."

And then Ada got into her bed, I told her a woodchuck story, and left her with my usual "I love you" and other soothing words. Now I am crossing my fingers. I hope that the smell of the clove oil helps, that it is strong enough to make her feel it is working. I love my little girl and I hate for her to be scared. And yes, I hate to wake up at 2:30 on a night the babies actually sleep through.

I wrote this on Friday night. Ada slept through the night and was not eaten by monsters. Now it is Saturday night, and Chris and I have been talking to, arguing with and practically wrestling Ada. She says she needs us to sleep. She is refusing to go to bed, and wants to sleep in our bed. She says that the monsters will eat her. (I tried the logic of "if the monsters had eaten you last night, you wouldn't be here now." This worked not at all.) I finally left the room, figuring that my presence was making things worse. After a full 40 minutes of arguments with Ada, Chris finally told her he was done and walked out.


What do you do when a child refuses to go to sleep? What should we do?

The first day of winter

I know that "real" winter is still about six weeks away, but for me winter started last Thursday. That was the evening I looked out the window and saw the red light. The light is a stoplight a few blocks from our house. It is weird that we can see this stoplight at all, but from the top of the stairs things line up just right so that the houses between us and the light do not block the view. All summer and well into the fall the trees make the light invisible. Once enough trees have lost their leaves, the light is again visible. 

Before Ada was born, I did not notice the light much, and when I did, I didn't place much importance on the sightings. But then Ada came along, and I learned all about the magical thinking that comes along with parenting an infant. You know, "I will  hold my baby for the count of 100, then slowly, slooowwwly get up and she'll stay asleep as I put her back in her bed." Total insanity if taken too seriously, but necessary in those early, sleepless months.

During Ada's first winter I spent countless hours nursing her while sitting in a rocking chair in her room. From this position, at night I could look through the gap in the curtains to the distant stoplight. Rocking and nursing, I attached special significance to the color the light showed. Red was the norm, as the light presides over a side street that runs into a bigger road. Red was okay, but it offered no special protection. Looking up to see a light green was good. It meant that I would have a relatively easy time putting Ada back to bed. Even better was a yellow light; it was a sign Ada would definitely fall back asleep with no problem. (oh, if only!)

After a while, I could not keep myself from staring out the window with the hopes of seeing a green or yellow light. Realizing that whatever magic I'd ascribed to those colors could not be counted on if I watched the light (instead of taking an occasional glimpse), I started using the light as a magical timer. I remember thinking "If I rock Ada for three more cycles of the light, then sit still for another three, I can then safely get up and put her back in bed without her waking up."

After that first winter, I did not need the light the way I had before. Ada had become a good sleeper and there were few 2 am rocking chair sessions. But I still looked to the light for signs. Now that I no longer sat in Ada's room looking out the window, I mostly saw the light as I walked up the stairs. If I saw a red light, bedtime was not necessarily going to be rocky, but I still hoped for the green or yellow that would portend good luck.

And now I am back in the days of night-waking and magical thinking. Ian and Mira's room does not face the light and in any case I kind of forgot about it over the summer. Now that the leaves are falling, I am happy to report that the twins get up a bit less than Ada used to. Chris and I still wake to feed them in the hours that most sane people are in bed, but except when bothered by a cold or a phantom or a neighbor's incredibly loud muffler, they sleep well for fairly long stretches. Seeing the light the other night reminded me of how hard it had been with Ada. I recalled that at this point with Ada I was still crying a lot. I can not really express how much the color of the light meant to me, even as I knew that it was just a stoplight, and not a parenting sign meant only for me.

I cry a lot less with Ian and Mira. Even with two, I find the experience of parenting newborns less stressful the second time around. A green light still buoys me a bit in the evening, but these days I don't need the reassurance of an inanimate object the way I used to. Now the light tells me that winter is coming, and with it my twins are getting older and more capable. Soon we will face new challenges, as they learn to roll, and crawl and (heaven help us) stand and walk. I look forward to these challenges, and to the joys of winter. 

Walk the Walk

NB: Somehow this got resaved as a draft, then reposted here, even though I originally posted it in September. Oh well. Technology burp. 

Did anyone else read this article? It is about how many parents won't allow their children to walk to school (or other places), even when the walk is a block or two. Parents are too afraid that their children will be abducted. Included in the article is a bit about a mom who let her 10 year old son walk a mile to soccer practice. Not only did several people call 911 to report a child walking alone, but the officer who found the kid drove him to the park (before chewing out the mom). I'm knocked out that (a) multiple people found the sight of a kid walking alone worrisome enough to report it to police, and (b) they called 911, the emergency number. The kid was 10, not 4.

The article upset me for a couple of reasons. To begin with, it busts into the fantasy I have had since we moved to this house that my children will get to walk themselves to school. We live 5 blocks from our local elementary. Of course I will be walking Ada to kindergarten, but will I be expected to walk her to and from school until she graduates from 8th grade? When Ian and Mira are ready for kindergarten Ada will be entering 4th grade. At what point can she escort them without me along for the stroll? Why couldn't a 4th grader walk her younger siblings to school?

The other thing that really bugs me is that refusing to let kids walk to local schools is an environmental nightmare. The article may have picked out really extreme cases to make a point about modern, fear-based parenting, but wow. A mom let her kid walk the five houses to a friend's place, only to have the kid driven home at the end of the play-date. Really? Driven? The host mom was what - too busy? Too lazy? to walk the length of five houses?

The Unexpected Joy of Parenting

2:26 A.M.

Mira had been crying on and off for an hour. I got up and fed her, then rocked her and put her back to bed. On my way downstairs to pump, I stopped in Ada's room to make sure she was warm enough. She has taken to sleeping on top of her down comforter, covered only by her baby blankets. Sometimes she kicks off the covers early in the evening and spends the rest of the night without blankets. Tonight she was covered by two of her favorites, but her toes were sticking out. I laid a third blanket over her so that her feet were covered. She stirred, and as I was leaving, said, "I love you Mama."

I love you too, Ada.

We May Need to Eat Our (Incredibly Soggy) Words

Chris and I have always been very anti-bib. Or rather, we have a long-standing practice of making derisive comments about people who put cloth bibs on their kids in order to catch drool.* The fact that Ada was not especially drooly cemented our belief that this all-day bib thing was pure parental vanity. Plus, if your kid was going to drool, didn't the use of a bib just create more laundry?

As recently as this weekend I stared in confusion at the bibs a friend included in a huge box of clothes her boys have outgrown. Should I put them in the drawer or take them to Goodwill? We wouldn't use them, right? But this morning Chris said, "I'm beginning to have more appreciation for why people put bibs on their kids. I've changed Ian's clothes three times today."

It was 10:04 am.

Ian had been up since 7, with an hour nap at 8.The boy is a drool machine.

We have not busted out the bibs yet. Thanks to the generosity of our friends and their hand-me-downs, we have a ton of baby clothes. But now I see the advantage of bibs. Instead of taking off a whole outfit and dealing with the attendant squirming and crying, you can quickly swap out a soaked bib with minimal fuss.  I get it, but I am still resistant because it just seems so fussy.

We'll see.

Apropos of nothing, I finally got around to taking a 4 month picture. After 500 tries in which one kid wasn't smiling or wasn't looking at the camera or was drooling profusely, we got this one with them both at least kind of smiling. Don't be fooled into thinking Ian is reticent. We have a lot of photos in which Ian is smiling broadly while Mira stares at him in disbelief.

* I am a huge fan of the mealtime use of bibs made of oil cloth or plastic. We made heavy use of such bibs when Ada was a messier eater.