Extreme Cases Make Bad Law

Georgia politicians have introduced a bill that would limit the number of embryos transferred in IVF, apparently in response to the Octuplet story. The bill would limit the number of embryos transferred to two, or three for women over 40. That's actually a good idea if these procedures are covered by insurance (more on that in a moment), but the next part is just ridiculous. The bill would also limit the number of embryos created to the same number they'd intend to transfer: i.e., two for women under 40. This would prevent anybody from freezing embryos, which makes sense considering that the bill was drafted in part by a Georgia "right to life" organization.

This is fucked up for so many reasons. I guess they didn't actually consult any reproductive endocrinologists when drafting this bill.

Here's the problem. Embryos die. Embryos die all the time. Even for non-infertile couples who make babies the normal way, some estimates are that 75% of fertilized eggs die before they ever make it down to the uterus and implant in the uterine wall, resulting in a pregnancy. The embryo that actually survives long enough to implant and become a pregnancy is the exception, not the rule.

So this is true with IVF as well. Most embryos die before they even become blastocysts at the day 5 mark. Let's take my case. 11 eggs were retrieved. 9 were normal enough to be fertilized. So we had 9 embryos. By the time they were 3 days old, 4 of them had died. There were 5 left. Two of them were pretty good quality, two looked so-so, one looked pretty iffy. At that day 3 mark we transferred 4 embryos (not a good decision, looking back on it, but there were special reasons for this). We saved the 5th embryo to see if it would survive to become a blastocyst. If it did, we would freeze it. It did not survive, so we had 0 embryos left over to freeze.

I had researched the statistics. There was roughly a 60% chance of not getting pregnant, i.e. all 4 transferred embryos would fail to implant and would die. There was a roughly 40% chance that I would get pregnant. If that happened, then the overwhelming odds were that we would have one baby. There was about a 14% chance of twins, and the odds of conceiving triplets or quadruplets were less than 1%. I was surprised when we ended up with twins. But back on that day when we transferred 4, I remember secretly thinking to myself "better two than none". That is bad medicine, driven by desperation, but that's another story.

So 9 embryos became 2 babies, and the rest all died naturally. And that's actually a pretty good ratio. It's not uncommon for women to have to go through multiple rounds of IVF, ultimately creating way more than 9 embryos, in order to end up with one baby in the end. If we had only fertilized two eggs, what are the odds that those two would have lived? They're very low. If we had only fertilized two eggs, they probably would have been in the group of 7 that died, not the group of two that lived. It takes lots and lots of embryos to create a viable pregnancy because embryos die more often than they live. I don't think people know that, in general. If they did, they certainly wouldn't introduce legislation like this. I also wonder if people would get so worked up about birth control options like Plan B if they knew how common it is for embryos to die naturally.

Transferring 1 or 2 embryos makes the most sense, especially for women under 35. In Britain, for example, the limit is 1 under most circumstances. The rate of multiples and higher-order multiples is very low as a result. That is healthier for everybody. So why don't we do it the same way here? Well, here we generally do not cover infertility treatments under medical insurance. The infertile people who happen to be poor are not allowed to conceive. Only those who can afford it can do so, unless you happen to live in one of the few states that mandates that insurance covers these treatments, like Illinois. 

My state doesn't have that rule (most don't), so my insurance didn't cover a penny of our treatments. Not our diagnostic testing, not our drugs, not the ultrasounds, nothing. For many couples, infertility is linked to very real health problems (not that infertility itself isn't a health problem, but I mean other health problems), and treatments that address underlying health issues still aren't covered if they happen to also address infertility issues. IVF costs, in general, about 12K - 15K for one try. Under the best of odds, with a young couple, the success rates never go above 50%. As couples get older, those rates go way down. So you're spending, say, 15K on a very, very, very big gamble.

That is why doctors and patients transfer more embryos than they should. Doctors want their clinics to have strong success rates, because they will report those rates and potential patients can look them up online and choose the clinic with the best rate. Patients want it to work the first time because they can't afford to try again. Maybe they've taken out a loan to try just the one time. If it fails, you still have to pay the bill. Imagine what that feels like, to receive bill after bill for services after it has already failed, to have to write check after check to pay off a failed attempt. I've done that. It's a bitter feeling.

In the UK and other European nations, insurance covers fertility treatments, so the stakes are lower. It is still emotionally devastating to have a failure, and it still means having to pick yourself off the ground, prepare to go through the whole thing again, the shots, the ultrasounds, the exams, the humiliation, the pain, the side effects, all of that. So it's not like it's easy, but at least the financial aspect doesn't come into play. At least you don't have to decide whether to quit because you can't afford it, or whether to take out a loan to try again, or whether to take out a loan to try to adopt, because adopting is also expensive (about the same as IVF for a domestic adoption and much, much more for most international adoptions).

So this bill would tie doctor's hands but not provide insurance coverage for these treatments. In addition, it would prevent IVF from ever working, just about, because you're not going to achieve a pregnancy when you only start with 2 embryos. In addition to that, it removes the option of a frozen embryo transfer later on. If the first round of IVF fails but some embryos survive to become blastocysts, a couple can freeze the embryos. Then they can try again with those embryos, not having to go through the time-consuming, painful route of IVF. A frozen embryo transfer is also much, much cheaper than IVF. In some cases it can cost as little as a few hundred dollars, in comparison to 12K - 15K. So for couples who have frozen embryos, it can be a great solace to know that they have the option to try again. This bill would eliminate that entirely.

I knew that the octuplet case would lead to these kinds of discussions, but I am surprised by how quickly a legislative effort has arisen. I don't know why. The terrible media coverage of this extremely unusual case is making it harder for all infertile couples everywhere. And frankly, it's hard enough as it is.

Epistemology

I teach a graduate class on learning theories and we're starting to enter the world of radical constructivism. My students are reading about Piaget, among other people, and in re-reading some of Piaget and von Glasersfeld I am always thinking about Milo & Nora's cognitive development. 

Even though I know, intellectually, that the mind organizes the world as it organizes itself, it is hard to remember this in day to day interactions with people. It is so easy to forget that the kids' universe is not my universe. Milo and Nora don't even have a sense of identity yet, in the sense that they know that they are individuals who are separate from us and separate from one another. This is most apparent right now when Milo looks at himself in the mirror. He points to his image and says "Noona!" (Nora). When I say "No, that's you! That's Milo!", this does not serve as a perturbation for Milo. 

Piaget wrote about the processes of assimilation and accommodation. We assimilate when we take something as an instance of a known thing. Any differences that might exist between our experience of the new thing and our existing scheme are not perceived. So when Milo sees an old lady on the sidewalk and says "Baby!" he is assimilating what he sees into his (very broad) baby scheme. He does not perceive any differences between the old lady and a baby. I shouldn't even state it that way, because I don't believe it like that. To state it that way makes it sound like I believe there is this external world that people are perceiving more or less accurately, and I am perceiving the old lady more accurately than Milo perceives the old lady. But I believe that the mind organizes the world rather than the other way around, and Milo's world is not the same world as my world. I am agnostic about whether the world is even there. I don't think it matters. I do not believe that any of us perceive the world in any direct or accurate way. Our perceptions are fully mediated by our existing cognitive structures.

So anyway, if a person assimilates something into his scheme and then experiences an unexpected consequence, that results in a perturbation. People deal with perturbations in all kinds of ways. Often we will diffuse these perturbations by not attending to them or talking them away or doing whatever it takes to not change our schemes. But sometimes we will change our schemes as a result of the perturbation, and this is called accommodation, or learning. When Milo calls the old lady "baby", I say "that's not a baby, that's a lady." But this is kind of dumb on my part because this doesn't lead to any accommodation for Milo. Maybe he's expecting me to say "yes, that's a baby!" and when I don't, this is sort of surprising to him. But it's not making him change his scheme at this time.

It is very easy for me to forget the subjective nature of knowledge and truth and think that I can just tell people stuff and that will work. That almost never works. I know this in the context of being a math teacher (or researcher) and can often figure out what will be a true perturbation for a student. But I am pretty clueless about it in the context of being a parent, which is interesting. Trying to figure out what Nora and Milo's world is like is fascinating to me, it is like a trip through the looking glass. 

Time Traveling

Last night Nora woke many times, and was up from about 3 to 4. She is getting heavy. I rocked her and rocked her and jiggled her and swayed with her and the whole time she would almost settle down, but her little hands kept moving, grabbing me, pinching my skin, refusing to calm down and just go to sleep. She fights it with every ounce of her being. Finally I put her in the crib at least drowsy, but not asleep, and she did go to sleep. She felt hot to me and I think she might have had a fever.

Today's intense bout of neediness and whining might have had to do with one or both of the kids not feeling too hot. Nora basically cried whenever I wasn't holding her. I ate lunch holding her. I tried to cook while holding her, but that wasn't really possible. Milo was more cheerful than Nora but still pretty testy, so this adds to my suspicion that they aren't feeling too hot.

There was one point this evening when I felt like everything is just going to hell in a handbasket. I was making mushrooms bourguignon (verdict -- delicious) but the kids kept wandering into the kitchen, complaining for my attention, slipping and falling, or grabbing things from one another, the typical sort of evening witching hour meltdown stuff. Jake just wasn't doing what it took to keep them entertained and happy in order to let me cook. I was mad at Jake for not being able to do that, and wistfully remembering how much easier it is to get a meal made when my mom is here with the kids, and annoyed at the cats for scratching things and destroying the furniture, and annoyed that the kids are slowly tearing our house apart, and feeling like between 2 cats, 2 kids, and 1 husband everything is basically falling apart around me. I'm sure my feelings of being fed up had a lot to do with being up so much last night. I can handle everything better on decent sleep. But still...

And then as I was cooking I had this sudden flashback and everything in my chaotic, messy, food-encrusted present faded away and I was back in the past, cooking dinner for just myself and Jake, waiting for him to come over after he was done with work. I lived alone, and it was fall, and it was probably 7:30 or so, as we used to work late and eat late, and I would have had an open bottle of wine on the counter, and I would have been marinating salmon with olive oil and capers. I'd be steaming brussels sprouts and there would be brownies in the oven. And it would be quiet, and everything would be clean, and after dinner we would read out loud together in the quiet, dark house. I think back on those nights and remember how leisurely everything was. 

And then I remembered that the next morning Jake would go home and I would then be alone for the day, alone in my silent house, with no cats to meow or claw at stuff, and no kids to beg to be picked up. And if I didn't work I would try to find ways to waste away the hours until I saw Jake again, or until I went out or met friends, and sometimes the hours would stretch endlessly in front of me. And I remembered how I used to dream about a noisy, boisterous house filled with people and pets. How that seemed so homey and comforting.

Then I snapped back to the present. I returned to my messy kitchen and listened to the sounds of Milo and Nora babbling in the living room, and I walked in there and sat down and pulled them both to me to give them a kiss and a hug.

Giggling Take 2

I'm trying to upload this video a different way.  

Cat news: The very morning after my last post, Sam defeated my gate barrier and came upstairs waking us all, meowing for her breakfast. I believe I uttered many expletives and Sam, immediately detecting my tone, hightailed it under the bed and hid there, yowling. Now I have a giant cardboard box jammed above the gate to prevent Sam from jumping it, which should be good for a few days. Jake saw it and commented on how pathetic we're getting, with boxes and toys and crap strewn all about the house. It's not exactly classy. "These are the cardboard years," he said.

Kid news: Milo now likes to pick a book and carry it over to us and drop it in our laps, demanding that we read it for him. Or rather, that we hold it for him as he turns the pages back and forth. Meanwhile if Milo is sitting in my lap Nora will get very jealous. She basically can't stand it, and she cries whenever I hold Milo. In the mornings when it is Milo's turn to be changed, Nora will wander around the room angrily, crying because I dare to change her brother rather than hold and cuddle her!

More kid news: Milo likes to stand up in his crib in the mornings and perform a soliloquy. He gestures wildly with one hand, usually pointing, and he'll pontificate at length, saying nonsense stuff like "Shauble. Whazzat. Baby. Ball! Shauble Shabas. Whiz! WHIZ!" While he's doing this he usually points at the wall, at the ceiling, out the window. 

I am dreading the kids coming down with a cold but so far it hasn't happened. I can't imagine how they'd escape it since they love to shove their hands in my mouth on a daily basis, but so far I'm crossing my fingers. I would rather be sick for 3 weeks than have them be sick for 3 days. And that is not for maternal, loving reasons. It's for totally selfish reasons. It's way more of a hassle for them to be sick than for me to be sick. Nobody sleeps when they are sick.

I am starting to be nervous about Jake's upcoming ski trip (me and kids alone for a weekend). It's silly to anticipate it like that, of course. But I was thinking about it on Tuesday, which is my day home with them. Nora skipped her afternoon nap again that day, for some weird reason, and when Milo woke up I put them both in the stroller for a walk, hoping that Nora would fall asleep. I was feeling too sick and run down to run, so instead I walked the same distance with ankle weights (in order to make the walk a little more challenging). But this meant the walk took a long time and I'd say for the last, oh, 45 minutes Nora basically complained the whole time. By the end it was out and out crying. And by the time Jake finally came through the door at 5:45 p.m. I was so glad to see him and felt convinced that I couldn't have stood even another 5 minutes of cranky, melting down kids on my own. And that was after just one day alone with them. I pretty much always feel that way when he walks through the door on Tuesday evenings. So what am I going to do for a whole weekend with no break? I'm sure it'll be fine. Other parents do this all the time, so I don't know why I'm so wimpy. I am probably so wimpy because I am used to being spoiled, to constantly sharing the burden with Jake and the twin whisperer and my mom when she is here. Man, I make this whole parenting gig sound like a real barrel of laughs, don't I. Of course there are many wonderful, fun times. I just enjoy them most easily when Jake is here too.

The funny thing is that I actively pushed Jake to do this ski weekend since I know how much he could use a break, some time off with his buddies to have fun. He hasn't had that in ages. So I think it's a good thing, and I'm sure we'll have a good weekend here at home.

Giggling at the Door

Here's another video of Milo & Nora playing Milo's latest favorite game, which is peek-a-boo with the door. He cackles as he does it.

It's 1:20 a.m. and I am awake for reasons other than the kids, for once. I can't breathe and woke up with my back teeth killing me. Why do all of my teeth hurt? It must be a sinus thing. It hurts too much to sleep. The clock is ticking, I have to be at work at 9 tomorrow. I should be sleeping, but it's not happening.

Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep I always want a snack of some sort. Even though I don't need it, I would probably be snacking right now if it weren't for the barrier between me and the kitchen. We have a baby gate at the stairs and one of our cats, Sam, can jump the gate. So she'll come up here and meow and wake us all up sometimes, and go into the kids' room and cause havoc. So I pinned up a sheet over the gate so that Sam saw basically a wall of sheet that was way too tall to jump over. But she eventually figured out that she could get behind the sheet and jump the gate anyway. So then I doubled up the sheet and hung it a different way and tied it to the gate and did all of these hard-to-explain things to make it difficult to get behind the sheet and jump the gate. That worked for about a week, and then Sam figured out how to get around that, too. So now I have a giant posterboard contraption that I've nailed up over the gate that is harder to sneak through, but it's probably only a matter of time before Sam outsmarts that one as well. The damn cat is too smart. It's kind of a pain to put up, so I don't want to go downstairs and mess with it just to get to the kitchen. Hence I am not having a midnight snack. 

Well blogger won't let me upload this video either, which is irritating. What is the point of taking all of these cute videos if I can't upload them?  Harumph. I guess I will go back to bed and lie there awake, telling myself that resting with my eyes closed in the dark is almost as good as actually sleeping. Almost.

How to be a Mother

I think that many of us learn how to be a mother from our own mothers. I am lucky because I have a mother who is a much better mother than I can ever hope to be, but as I continue to try, each time falling down and picking myself back up, I have a model in my head for how I want to do things. Some of the things that my mother did for me, that I want to do for Nora and Milo, are these:

• Whenever I was sick my mother gave me a cool washcloth to put on my forehead. She would change the cloth whenever it got too hot. She would also give me toast, or crackers, or applesauce, or whatever I wanted, including the otherwise-contraband soda (with ice cubes, of course). Also, she would place the bowl that she used to make pancake batter next to my bed and I could use that bowl for throwing up. Then she would clean it up and never winced or complained or grimaced, so it never even occurred to me that it would be a pain to take care of somebody who was sick. Instead she was kind and sweet, and I hope that I too can be kind and sweet when I am cleaning out the pancake batter bowl. 
• My mother made Halloween costumes for me every year, and she made whatever I wanted, even if it was weird stuff like "little Dutch girl". For many years I thought that I could not have children because I didn't (and still don't) possess these kinds of domestic skills. When I try to make something, usually something ends up accidentally glued to something else, and cuss words are thrown about, and tears are shed. So I will not be able to replicate the Halloween costume prowess, but I'll give it my best. 
• When I had a birthday, I got to have whatever food I wanted for dinner and got to choose the cake I wanted. My mother made a homemade cake every year. Birthdays were always exciting and fun. She also went above and beyond the call of duty by giving me one gift on my sister's birthday (and vice versa), which I think shows a rare form of empathy for the emotional constitution of a child. I'm going to try to emulate this by helping Nora and Milo know that I see them as individuals with their own special birthday wishes and desires, even though they happen to share the same day.
• My mother always let me lick the beaters when she made cookies. 
• My mother let me read whatever I wanted to read throughout my childhood and adolescence. She would go to the library every 2 weeks and bring home the maximum number of books you could check out at one time. If she ever had any books in mind that weren't allowed, I didn't know about it. Being a reader herself, she taught us through example to love reading. It's only once I became an adult that I realized how many families actually don't read, or don't even have any books in their houses. I was lucky to grow up with books all around me and can't wait to introduce my favorites to Milo & Nora.
• My mother showed us by example how to have healthy attitudes towards food and exercise. She would make homemade fruit leather for our lunch boxes, while other kids had twinkies. She provided healthy food and never, ever talked about things like weight or dieting. We were an active family, involved in outdoor activities and gymnastics and camping and skiing and all kinds of things, but that was just a normal part of life. I have zero memories of any discussion of any of that throughout my entire childhood and adolescence. So I was spared any dysfunction about weight issues, and never even thought about my weight until I was out of college. It's only as an adult that I realized how unusual that was, and what a blessing it was. I want to do the same thing for Milo but especially for Nora, given all of the pressures that young girls face now. 
• One time my sister and I gave my mother a Siamese kitten for her birthday, and now, thinking back on it, I can only imagine what she must have thought of that little surprise. But she never let on that it was anything other than the greatest birthday gift ever, which shows an amazing amount of empathy. 
• You know that rule about how, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all? My mother actually follows that rule. Which is kind of amazing in its own right, and extra amazing given some of the things that happened to her when we were growing up. I think it helps children grow up secure, when their home is an environment lacking in negative gossip. 
• My mother never laughed at my bad haircuts, which shows an amazing amount of restraint given that it was the 80's. I never got the impression that she ever saw me as anything other than lovely, even when I was decidedly not so, and that's something I hope that I can help Nora and Milo carry around in their bones, that certainty that they are just fine and wonderful.

When Milo and Nora reach the childhood anger tantrum phase, I hope that I can be patient and return their "I hate you"'s with "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, because I love you." I hope that I can help them feel better when they're crying by listening to them and then telling them an interesting story to distract them. I hope that I'll be open-minded enough to let them have annoying pets like hamsters and parakeets. I hope that I'll remember to send them cards and packages when they go off to college. I don't know if I'll manage all of this, but I'm lucky to have a good model for it.

Oh, yeah, it's my mother's birthday today. She's some insanely young age, and looks even younger than that. Happy birthday!

Snow Day

On Saturday we had a fair amount of snow so we took the kids out to see how they would like it. They are generally not fans of walking in the snow, or touching the snow, or having anything to do with the snow. I guess they're not yet old enough to know that it's supposed to be fun! I took some more videos with the Flip Ultra I was borrowing. I think I'll have to get this nifty little camera, maybe for my birthday (hint to Jake. Oh wait, Jake doesn't read this blog). After some uncertainty, Milo eventually warmed up to walking around on the shoveled sidewalk. Nora wanted nothing to do with it.

The latest interesting word update is that Milo now has several words for Nora, and he's really connected it to the point where he's actually interacting with her more because he has names for her. Mostly Milo calls her "No-na" or "Na-nu" (like the Star Trek word). Sometimes he'll say "Na-na". It's like he's trying and trying to get it right. It's the cutest thing, he'll pat her on the head and say those words for her name, or he'll point at her and say her name. If he hears her through the monitor, he'll say her name. Over the weekend I had him in the car (just the two of us) and as I bucked him in, he said "No-na?" like he was asking where she was.

I really wonder if having words for things profoundly affects how Milo thinks and what he gets interested in. I've often wondered if his fascination with balls is linked to the fact that "ball" was one of the first words he could say. Now that Milo has a word for Nora, he uses it a lot and seems to notice her more. 

By the way, Milo just about had a conniption fit from excitement when we were in the produce section of the grocery store. Everything there is a ball -- oranges, clementines, limes, lemons, avocados, onions, potatoes, balls everywhere, piles and piles and piles of balls!

Edited to add: Hmm. I tried to upload a second video of Milo happily walking on the sidewalk in the snow, but Blogger won't let me load it. Suffice it to say, the afternoon had a happy ending, at least for Milo.

Marching

I'm borrowing the flip video ultra for the weekend and so far I'm loving it. Here are a couple of videos of the kids "marching":

Jogging Stroller Rules

1. Okay, with the weight of 2 kids plus the stroller plus the stuff in it, I'm pushing about 50 pounds. That's gotta burn more calories than running without the stroller, or at least it feels that way when I'm going uphill (really feels that way), so, conclusion: I am awesome. Do not forget that as I struggle, huff, puff, and look like a total dork. Awesome.
2. Ignore any noises coming from the children that are not out-and-out screams or cries. Since they try to steal toys from each other about 4 times a second when they're side by side in the stroller, there's bound to be some complaining. Hey, it's a toddler jungle out there. They'll work it out.
3. The trick to making myself get started and keep going when it is cold and wet and I am coughing is to promise myself that I can reduce to a walk once I've reached the halfway point. It's still the same distance, and there's nothing wrong with walking. Once I actually reach that point, of course, I'll never slow down to a walk, I'll keep running, but it's completely necessary to have that promise in place.
4. Do not spit while running, no matter how much phlegm is there. Remember that I cannot spit properly. If I spit while running, it's just going to come out in one long stream that remains connected to my mouth rather than a nice discreet glob. That stream will then fall onto the front of my shirt. I'm enough of a dork already (but awesome), no need to add spit to my shirt to complete the image.
5. Proper toys will entertain the kids for about 5 minutes. Be sure to bring along lots of inappropriate non-toy objects like keys, cell phones, dynamite, etc. So they open somebody's garage remotely. So they make a call -- I've got the minutes. And it's not like I'm giving them matches.
6. Ignore the young, thin, fit women running approximately twice as fast as me. Ignore the fact that they're wearing running tights -- tights! -- an item of clothing I would never wear under any circumstances, because nature did not bless me with legs that can pull off running tights. They're in high school and college. They're literally half my age. Ignore them.
7. Ignore the folks easily 10 years older than me who are also running twice as fast as me. Whatever. They aren't pushing a double stroller. They didn't have twins, now did they. Who had twins? That's right, I did. I'm out there, I've got the twins, I've got the spit stain on the front of my shirt, nobody can match my awesomeness. Damn right.
8. Keep going for the last mile or two, the reward miles, the ones where everything is loose and flowing and I start to feel like I am strong, and capable, and I am going to get tenure damn it, who cares if I had twins, I've spent my life doing things I was told I couldn't do, and this is going to happen because I am going to make it happen, that's right. Nothing can stop me! I am unstoppable, spit stain and all!
9. If my knee starts hurting a lot, slow down to a walk immediately. No, seriously. Do it. I know I don't want to do it. Do it anyway. If I don't, it'll be that much longer to heal and everything will get messed up. And wasn't I supposed to make that doctor's appointment anyway? (I am very bad at following this rule).
10. When we're back at home and I'm doing post-run sit-ups and Nora decides to use that opportunity to practice her sitting by sitting on my chest, don't laugh too much or else she'll start laughing herself and then bounce up and down vigorously on my chest, doing the baby version of CPR on me, which is uncomfortable.
    

14 Months

My ability to photograph the kids has deteriorated a great deal. They just don't stay still long enough to be photographed. A picture of them together is even more rare. The only two I have from this month are below.


Notice the new stool, or seat as Nora likes to say! This is courtesy of my mother, who came, spoiled us all, and left, leaving the kids confused as to where the nice lady went who played with them all the time while mom and dad got stuff done (or rested). Now that she's gone, it's back to the hard life, in which mom and dad still have to get stuff done and the kids are on their own in the wild jungle that is twin toddler land. Anyway, the stool. When there is a stool, there will be climbing. And glorious sitting. The kids love it. The twin whisperer tells me that this is the first step towards potty training, sitting on some sort of chair or stool. If the twin whisperer says it, I'll believe it, and so the kids are practicing their sitting.


Nora is particularly enamored with sitting. She loves to sit on the stool, and she also likes to sit on my lap when I'm on the floor. She likes to say "sit" and then back into my lap. What with all of the sitting and walking and stuff, the kids seem a whole lot like...kids, now, and less like babies every day.



Nora is saying new words like "quack quack" for a duck, cracker, sit, no (appropriately), turtle, mouth, bath, block, button, belt, and all kinds of other things I can't remember. Her current favorite is "uh oh" for when she drops something, either on accident or on purpose. In fact she'll say "uh oh" before she actually drops an object, cluing us in to her intentions. This is particularly funny when she's sitting in her booster seat at mealtime and about to throw the grilled cheese sandwich over the side.


This month it got warm for a week or so and I let the kids do some walking outside for the first time. When everything was covered in snow, they weren't interested in walking. But now the sidewalks are bare and they love to walk outside. It's so exciting for them. Yesterday I took Nora out and she was laughing out loud as she practically ran along the sidewalk, stopping to touch some snow or a rock. I took her around back and put her on our deck, which still has a little bit of snow on it, and Nora just stopped dead still and cried, not wanting to move around in the snow. So, dangerous bare cement is good, safer soft snow is bad. Got it.

Here is a picture of Nora as mini-me:


Usually she doesn't look much like me as a baby in photographs, but I think she does in that one. Nora continues to be shy with people and to cling to me a great deal. It's interesting to see how Milo has become more and more enamored with Jake and Nora is more attached to me. Nora is very tuned in to gesture and movement these days. She likes to dance to music, moving her arms around and swaying back and forth. She will also copy pretty much any sign we make with her. When my mom does the wheels on the bus song, she'll do the gestures with it. I can see how this time is so exciting because the things that the kids are learning keep coming so fast and furious. They change daily, and I bet it'll be like this for a while. It makes it kind of exciting to get up each day and see what new thing they'll do.

Nora is very affectionate and likes to give a lot of hugs. She also enjoys high fiving, and will say her version of "high five". Today I was reading her a book about numbers and when I said "five", she opened up my hand and patted it, saying "high five."

I am also blown away by little things that keep happening that push Nora and Milo ever more into kid territory. Today Milo took something from Nora, which is a common occurrance, but for the first time ever she ran up to me, jumped up and down and yelled, and ran back to Milo with me in tow to show me the problem. I swear she basically came and got me so that I could fix the problem (or so that she could tell on Milo). That doesn't strike me as a baby thing to do. I have a feeling that I'm going to suddenly turn around and they'll be 5.



In another milestone development, we have switched over from the baby bucket seats to the toddler carseats, which will last until the kids are 40 pounds and, what, 4 or 5? Maybe they'll be too tall for them then, but anyway, the carseats that were so enormous when Nora and Milo were born are now too small for them. Milo enjoys sitting in his new seat:


Yes, I got seats with a cow pattern. Very Wisconsin.

Milo can say all of the words that Nora says, and he understands so much too. When we say the magic words "night night" or "bath", he'll run to the stairs, laughing with glee. You've never met a kid so excited at the prospect of going to bed. Milo is also saying "hot" for the heater, and "out" for when he wants something out (or wants help more generally). I meet other kids Nora and Milo's age, or even half a year older, who talk so much less than they do. How did they get to be such talkative toddlers with such great vocabularies when Jake and I are so quiet? It must be a combination of the twin whisperer and Grandmom. Whatever it is, it seems like they're learning new words every day.


Check out this next picture. If you click on it to get the big version, you will see at the back of his head (drumroll)...a tuft of hair! No really, it's there! It's just blond, so it's hard to see, but his hair is growing and it's fluffy and fuzzy.


This week we took the ball that Milo is afraid of and put it in a new location to see if he would lose his fear of it. He likes other balls exactly the same size as the scary ball, so we thought it might be something about its hiding place behind the club chair that was frightening him. When the ball was out in its new location in the room, Milo became obsessed with it. He kept saying "ball, ball, ball" and frenetically walking all over the place, approaching the ball, but then retreating nervously, hiding behind us, constantly looking over his shoulder at the ball, approaching, retreating, never getting too close. He was clearly very nervous about the ball, so I said forget it and have now put it away for good. Maybe in a few years he'll enjoy the ball, or maybe he'll always hate it. Jake suggested that we just move the ball around to different locations every few days, sort of as an evil surprise, but I figured we'd save the traumatic fear-mongering for our next kid and spare Milo.

Here's Milo hugging the cat in his own Milo way:


Milo has become a real challenge at mealtime. He won't eat a single bite of anything unless he's holding a spoon or a metal lid or some other object. We constantly have to distract him to get him to eat. I think this means that we have spoiled him. In another situation with another kid whose weight didn't worry me, I wouldn't have let this happen. I would have just said "okay, you don't want to eat right now, that's fine, you'll eat next time" and let him get hungry enough to eat without having to hold something. But I was too afraid to do that with Milo since he is still off the growth charts and we're still monitoring his weight. It's never been as serious as with Nora, but it's not something I've felt comfortable with, either. So I've resorted to these tricks and gimmicks to get him to eat, and allowed him to continue in this behavior, and viola, we've got a kid who won't eat unless the stars align perfectly. I just keep telling myself, it's a phase. Everything is a phase. He won't need to hold a lid in his hand to eat when he's five. He probably won't even need to when he's two (I hope).

When it's not mealtime, though, Milo is a remarkably easy kid. He's pretty cheerful, he loves sleeping, he loves his bath, and he's usually game for anything. Any time Jake comes into the room he says "Da da! Daddy! Da da!" and smiles and jumps up and down in excitement. The kid just adores Jake. He's also pretty friendly these days with pretty much anybody.


Milo and Nora have both learned the word "doodle". I play a little game in which I wiggle my finger and say "doodle doodle doodle doodle" and zoom in and tickle them under the chin. They both love this game, and Milo will say "doodle" to get more of it and wiggle his finger. Milo loves being tickled. He also loves playing "where's Milo" and hiding out under a cloth and then removing the cloth. He cracks up like a little kid now, which is awesome.


I was just thinking the other day that the hardest day that we have nowadays with the kids is so much easier than the easiest day we had with them a year ago. Things are just so much better. A lot of that has to do with sleeping and not stripping down to my waist and getting milked like a cow 6 times a day (on top of breastfeeding), but a lot of it just has to do with enjoying Nora and Milo as little people with their own personalities. I always felt like I liked the toddler age the least. I've always enjoyed babies, and kids, but toddlers with their stickiness and whining and incomprehensible language and complete self absorption were just irritating to me. So I assumed that the toddler years would have to be something I'd just have to sort of get through, until I got to the good stuff, the school-age stuff. But I was wrong, because so far I'm loving toddlerdom with the twins. It's great to be able to communicate with them more and more each day, to be able to tell them stuff like "go find the ball" and have them do it, or explain to them that I'll be right back and have them understand it. It's great that I can get a sense of what they're thinking sometimes because they have some language. It's fun to watch them learn new things. Of course their language is, I'm sure, incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't know them, but I have the translating abilities, so it all works out. All in all it's much more enjoyable so far than I would have imagined.

Valentine's Day

I am composing a post about the kids' 14-month update.

Meanwhile, it is Valentine's day. Milo & Nora turned 14 months on the 14th! Is that some kind of golden monthiversary or something?

I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day as an adult. All of the restaurants are packed and what fun is it to go out on a night when everything is crowded and rushed? We have historically enjoyed making a nice dinner at home, but that's something we do regularly and doesn't require a special holiday. I also prefer not to exchange gifts because, I don't know, it just seems made up and silly. I don't really need anything, and neither of us has time to search for gifts for the other, so it seems easier and more relaxing to skip that whole thing. I like not having to deal with Valentine's Day. I typically enjoy Feb. 15, aka half-price chocolate day, but I'm going to try to reign myself in this year.

Valentine's Day always seemed like a kid holiday to me. I remember making Valentines for the entire class and decorating a shoe box with construction paper and other stuff. Then we'd make a hole in the shoe box and it would become our Valentine's day mailbox. I remember using doilies to make fancy Valentines, drawing on construction paper, and making hearts. That stuff was so much fun. It is fun to make things when you're little, and then in school we'd get to have a little party with cupcakes and we would all go around and pass out our Valentines and put them in everybody's shoebox mailboxes. Do kids still do this? Do they still get parties with cupcakes? I hope so.

Maybe it is the element of surprise or uncertainty that lends interest to Valentine's day, which isn't there when you're married. In high school, there was a Valentine's day custom that involved sending flowers to people during second period. You could send different colored carnations and each color would represent a different message, like white for friendship, pink for "I like you", red for love, and so forth. It was fun to send and get those flowers, and to wonder endlessly over the anonymously-sent ones.

In college I got an anonymous Valentine during my freshman year from somebody, which again lent to the mystery and intrigue of the holiday. Actually it sparked this whole thing in which flowers led to anonymous letters which led to a cassette tape mix which led to notes in my mailbox about how he'd watched me at dinner but had been too shy to come up to me, so...yeah, that got a little creepy in the end I guess. But it was fun in the beginning.

Anyway, those are the things of childhood and youth, so those are the things that say Valentine's Day to me, a holiday for young people. Fortunately Jake and I are on the same page about this, so we can enjoy romantic nights out whenever we're lucky enough to get them, which is not usually on a holiday. I'll take an evening on the sofa, grading papers on my laptop with my feet tucked under Jake's legs as he reads his book -- I'll take that any day over construction paper hearts or pink carnations.

Edited to add: In a new twist, tonight we get to go out with friends for Mexican food and margaritas! Hooray! I am psyched about this turn of events.

Octuplets

All of the vitriol being directed at the mother of the octuplets bothers me.

Yes, okay, having 8 babies at once is bad medicine, risky, and the result of poor judgment. But when the Iowa couple had their septuplets in the 90's, they got a house, a van, and a congratulatory phone call from the President. It was okay for them to have all of those babies (who were born premature and tiny with serious health issues), just as it's okay for the Duggars to have 18 kids, and for Jon & Kate to have the 8, but it is not okay for Nadya Suleman to do it. Why? Because she already has 6 at home. Because she doesn't have a job. Because (and I think this is a huge subtext that angers everybody) she doesn't have a husband, and she is not white.

I look at that picture above and I know I'm an old softie now and everything, but damn. Just look at her. That's one tiny baby. That's a tiny baby who is going to need a lot of love and attention and food and diapers to survive. But nobody wants to given vans or houses or vasts amounts of diapers to these babies because their mother had the audacity to do what she pleased with her uterus without the sanctioned permission of the cultural authority. All I can think is that we're all foaming at the mouth in devilish glee at ripping on this mentally ill woman without thinking too hard about what this is going to do to the actual babies. Who are, you know, here and are probably going to need some help.

For the record, I'm not a fan of people having so many babies, especially at once. Even twins are not a good idea. Babies who have to share a uterus don't do as well, period. It's not good for their health and it's not good for the mother's health. Having more children than you can support and properly care for? Yeah, that's gonna suck for the kids, even if you have them one at a time. I'm not suggesting that we encourage any of that. But frankly, we do encourage it. How many t.v. shows are out there about unusually large families or lots of multiples? We fetishize it. We worship at the alter of motherhood as long as it occurs within acceptable conditions: you must be straight, married, with an employed husband, you can't be too young (definitely not a teenager, you slut) or too old (babies at 45, gross). If you're Mrs. Duggar, then that's fine, but if you're a little too young, or a little too brown, or a little too single, then you have no business having children.

The hypocrisy is bothering me and I keep thinking about the fact that now that all of these kids are here, we should be showing up on her doorstep asking how we can help. While we're at it, maybe we should ask how we can help with all of the other children who are forced to live in poverty every single day, even if they're not octuplets.

Peer Partnership -- How It's Going

The twin whisperer watches the kids on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I stay home with them on Tuesdays, and Jake stays home with them on Fridays. We both share duties over the weekends.

I miss the kids when I am at work all day, especially on Wednesday because I teach an afternoon/evening class and don't get home until they have already gone to bed. Jake feeds them dinner and puts them to bed without me on those days. I did the same thing one night a week last semester when he had a night class. We trade off who gets up with them in the mornings. So far, the balance feels pretty good.

It has been harder than I'd predicted to share parenting duties so evenly with Jake. It is something I believe in, intellectually. I believe in it...in the abstract. In reality, though, it can be hard to relinquish control. (Stop smirking. Yes, I know, you believe I am a control freak). So yeah, I admit it -- it's hard to let go. It is hard to leave them with Jake sometimes because frankly, I just feel like I am better at it. I'll try harder to get them to eat or drink. I'll spend more time playing with them. I'll rush to their side more quickly if somebody bumps a head. I talk to them more. I'm more attentive. I'm more anal. I'm more uptight. In reality, I know that being with Jake is good for Nora and Milo. It's good for them to spend time with a parent who is more easygoing, less likely to get frustrated, more willing to take a step back and let them do their own thing a little more, go with the flow, make some mistakes. They definitely cry more when they are with Jake. On the other hand, I'm the one who is probably more likely to give them some sort of complex about food because I'm always trying to control them so much.

One benefit of splitting the care so evenly is that Jake and I are totally on the same page about family matters. He and I both get how hard it is to take care of kids. We are both equally exhausted at the end of the day. We both have the same awe and reverence for stay-at-home parents, knowing how truly challenging it would be. I think Jake gets that in a way that a lot of dads probably don't. His respect for people in that role is enormous because he knows how drained he is every Sunday night after 3 days chasing two toddlers all over the place. It's nice that I can commiserate with him, the way I would with a girlfriend, knowing that he knows what it's like and what I'm going through, and vice versa. 

I am still the one who makes the doctor's appointments, figures out when the kids need new shoes or sleepers, researches car seats, buys all of the food, makes all of the baby food, and worries about things like getting them out of the house because they might be bored. Our division of labor isn't perfect. Part of it is that I as a female have been socialized to do all of these tasks, and Jake as a male has been socialized to expect that they'll be done for him. But part of it is also that control thing. We've both been trying to shift some of this stuff a little bit. Jake will plan and prepare some of the meals each weeks, and I will do the others. Jake has taken over responsibility for the pet maintenance, so I make doctor's appointments and he makes vet appointments. He is just as likely as I am to do most of the cleaning tasks, and is more likely to do some of them (like clean the bathroom). So, it's a work in progress, but I feel pretty good about how it is going.

I have read a lot of articles recently, like the one in Parenting magazine (which I'm not going to link to because it's such a stupid, crappy rag), about how moms are mad and resentful. They're mad at their husbands for not carrying their weight, they're mad that their husbands take them for granted, they're mad that their husbands don't see all of the hundred little tasks that need doing every day and get done every day. 

Whenever I see these articles I share them with Jake and then he asks if I am mad, too. Being honest, I might tell him that yeah, I do get mad sometimes because things still don't feel as equal as they should be. Mostly, I get mad because I feel like he should be doing things differently...but then I realize, what I'm really saying is that he should be doing the kind of job that I am doing with the kids. And that's just dumb. He's not me, and thank goodness for that.

Jake is so responsive to these issues that it diffuses any resentment that might build up, and I reflect on how lucky the kids and I are to have him as a father and a husband.

One last thing -- it really bothers me how many people thoughtlessly toss around phrases like "I don't want strangers to raise my kid." Funny how you never hear people worrying about that once the child is 5 and in kindergarten. Kids are in school for as many hours a day as they're in daycare, but once they're in school people magically stop worrying about "strangers" raising (or teaching) their children. Having somebody else care for your child during business hours does not mean that a stranger is "raising" your child. And of course, for us, the twin whisperer is anything but a stranger.

Last Night

It took one more hour for both kids to finally fall asleep, shortly after 11 p.m.  That was weird.  I managed not to yell at anybody but I did have a dream, once we finally got to sleep, in which I threw a block at Jake and it hit him in the head!

What do you do...

When somebody just won't go to sleep, and cries for 3 hours and counting no matter how many times you go in, or don't go in, and change diapers, and give a bottle, and give medicine?  I don't think she's sick or in pain because she cheers up immediately when I take her out of the nursery. I think she somehow got too jazzed up to want to sleep and instead is in play mode instead of sleep mode. 

It's been 3 hours and I'm currently listening to her scream.  Milo is awake too.  

My only coping mechanism at this point is a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills. Hopefully I can physically relax enough to not lose my temper no matter how long this lasts. I wish I could have worked tonight instead of holding an angry baby.  I wish I could sleep tonight instead of...this. I wish I had access to real drugs. Must get on that as soon as possible.

Ready to Go Out

Worms

A reason not to clean up too much?

Updates

Milo is picking up all sorts of words from Nora, like "nice" and "night night". He also says "apple" and "no" for nose. Milo can now point to his nose and sometimes his mouth, ear, head, and belly. Milo has also turned cranky (teething?) and spends a lot of time complaining every day. Fortunately I don't really understand what he's saying because I don't speak the language of Utter Discontent.

Nora can also say "apple" now, and "nose", and can point to all of the parts of her face. She repeats signs easily and just today she repeated the sign for "change" (as in change a diaper). Nora's crankiness has passed so now she's generally the content one, basically walking to and fro all the time holding on to little toys. 

Milo likes to carry giant, heavy things as he walks. We have this little piano that he carries everywhere, and a big heavy ball that's bigger than his head. He carries that too. 

I feel like I'm starting to get a sense of how the kids think every now and then. The other day I told Nora that it was time to go upstairs for a nap and she said "bunny!"  The bunny is one of her loveys that she likes to hug and play with when she naps. Meanwhile, any time we have brussels sprouts on our plates at dinner, Milo will excitedly say "ball!" (This has not, however, translated into any interest in actually eating a brussels sprout).

Both babies have started saying "eye" and pointing to their eyes.

Their receptive language is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Recently the twin whisperer asked Nora to go get some blocks, and she went to the container with blocks, picked out two of them, and brought them over. If I tell Milo to go give his bear a hug, he'll do that. The kids will also sometimes hug each other, both saying "nice". 

The way that Nora says the word "shoe" is a little strange, and it comes out sounding a lot like "shit". So Jake started telling her to say "oh shoe", and "take a shoe". Ah, fathers.

Nora is also saying, sometimes, "Mino" for "Milo". Milo's word for Nora is simply a very loud, angry yell.

It's fun to watch the kids learn so many new words and gestures and different ways of communicating. It must be hard to be in that stage where you can understand so much more than you can say. That stage probably lasts a long time. I think sometimes they understand more than we realize, which has resulted in some surprises, like Nora saying "bunny" when I talked about taking a nap. Just the other day Milo started fussing and yelling when we were talking about the President, and I had to remind him that it's okay, Bush is gone and we've got Mr. Obama now. He cheered right up at that.

Age

Recently a friend wanted to get some advice on having kids at an older age.

I do admit that I think about age all the time now. I do a lot of mental calculations. When Milo and Nora are 10, I'll be 47. When they're in high school, I'll be in my 50s. When they go off to college, I'll be as old as my parents are now. Will I seem ancient to them? Will we have too much of an age gap for me to be able to empathize with them, for them to be able to relate to me?

When my parents were my age, I was already in college. Meanwhile, I have two one-year olds.

When Nora and Milo turn 30, I'll be 66. Will I still be youthful enough to be free of major health issues, able to get around? What if they have children in their 30s, will I be too old to really help out the way my mom helped me? Will they have to deal with young children and aging parent issues at the same time? Is that too much of a burden to place on them?

On the one hand, I just hope that I will live a long, long time. Tonight I listened to an interview with a man who wrote a book about dying. He is 51 and his father is 97. I think, okay, if I live until 97, my children will be 61. That seems fair. To lose me when they're in their 60s seems fair. But it also seems like a stretch. It's what I hope for, but I worry that it won't work out that way.

I worry that I will be older than all of their friends' parents. That I will seem old to them, just ancient. That I'll cease to be helpful and become decrepit too early in their lives. That I will miss out on them having families of their own.

I take some comfort in the fact that Jake is younger. I was 36 when the kids were born and Jake was 30. When the kids are 15, Jake will be 45. That still seems pretty young. Jake's grandparents lived long lives so hopefully he'll be around for a long, long time.

I wanted to have children in my twenties, but it didn't work out that way. I'm okay with that because I'm happy to have Milo and Nora and Jake. I just hope that I live to be at least 97.

YMCA FAIL

You know what, when it's 10 degrees out, I do not feel like going outside. I feel like staying cozy indoors under my fluffy blanket. I do not feel like putting on shorts and running shoes, bundling up the kids into their layers, coats, and hats, putting on my own coat, packing the diaper bag, warming up the car, shlepping each kid out individually into the car while freezing my own ass off, driving to the Y, parking, opening up the trunk, getting out the double stroller, getting kid #1 out and strapped into the stroller, getting kid #2 out and strapped into the stroller, and then booking it to the building before the kids break into 800 pieces because they froze to death.

I do not feel like doing those things when it is 10 degrees out. But I do them, because of how I feel when the first mile is under my belt, when I'm warmed up, when my body is running smoothly, when everything is working together and my muscles are getting tired and my heart is light and happy. I do it because of how I feel after the run, when I am loose and motivated, when I am ready to stretch and lift some weights. I do it because of how I feel when I am going back to the car for the drive home, and I don't even notice the cold because my core is warm. I do it for those feelings.

BUT IF NORA CANNOT HANDLE THE CHILDCARE ROOM THEN I DON'T GET ANY OF THAT GOOD STUFF.

Instead, I get only one mile under my belt before I'm pulled away from the gym by the childcare lady, who has a desperate look in her eye and tells me that Nora has been crying inconsolably for the past 10 minutes. 1 mile is crap. It's barely enough for me to get warmed up. I don't get anything out of a measly freaking mile. I don't get the benefits of a workout. I don't get to feel good. Instead I've gone through all of the crappy parts, the cold, the shlepping, the packing, the strapping in, the coats, the hats, all of that stuff for NOTHING.

I put Milo into the childcare room first and he was fine, playing with some sort of miniature bus. Then I put Nora down and she was fine too...until I started to leave. Then she freaked. So I stayed for a while, playing with the kids with some baby dolls and books. Nora can point to the nose of the doll and say "nose". But she didn't want to let me out of her grasp. I couldn't get her to walk or play with anything, she just clung to me. The childcare lady said that I might as well give it a try, they'd hold her and I would leave and we'd see how it went. So that's what I did. And she cried the whole time. When they pulled me out of the gym I returned to all of the childcare workers (there were like 4 or 5 at the time) holding at least one baby, and all of the babies were crying, led by Nora. She had set up a giant crystorm among all the babies. Except, curiously, Milo. He was still playing with the dolls and the cars and the giant legos and having a good old time. He was watching the bigger kids, the preschoolers, with total fascination and saying "hi!" So Milo was just fine today, but Nora most decidedly was not.

What a crock. The head of the childcare team told me that I should just keeping trying, and hopefully she would eventually be okay with it. But the motivation to go through all of this giant hassle week after week with no actual payoff is small. It is frustrating.

Oh, and that lady who had octuplets? I'm amazed at how big and healthy they all are. All I can say is, good luck to her. She'll need an army to take care of that many newborns.

Random Bullets of Randomness

• I'm going with the popular term "random" instead of the correct term "arbitrary".
• I am teaching two graduate courses and one is a very informal seminar that we hold each semester for our math-ed cohort. Today was our first meeting and as one of those tired old get to know you exercises each person told us something nobody in the room knew about them. Thus I found out that one of my students has produced several movies, another student went to an Ashram in India when he was a kid, a third student once worked in a cheese factory, and another student likes to do crazy endurance racing and has run 100-mile races. His goal for this summer's 100-mile race is to complete it in 20 hours. Straight. Of running. Running for 20 hours in a row. Still can't wrap my head around that.
• Nora woke up twice last night and Milo woke up twice, and the kids were up for good at 6:15. I am a person who changed careers due to not being able to handle getting up early. I left a perfectly good job in order to find a job that would allow me to sleep in.  Then I went and had kids.  How dumb am I?
• The power cord on my computer only works intermittently and tonight it has decided not to work. I have 2 hours and 46 minutes left on the battery.
• I've noticed that many things I used to think were caricatures of baby behavior are actually true. For instance, when young infants cry, their tongues actually do waggle back and forth like you see on the Simpsons. Also, babies (or more specifically, Milo) actually do thrust out their lower lip in a giant pout without any sense of irony. In addition, babies (again Milo) will actually say "boo hoo" as they cry.
• I have noticed that a lot of the people I knew from high school now look super, super old. I mean, if I saw them on the street I'd never think that we were the same age. It is a huge shock to realize that this just means that I am actually pretty damn old, and I don't even realize it. People probably see me on the street and think "dang, she's old."
• In the first gesture of goodwill in a while, I actually saw Milo hand a toy to Nora today. She took it, then hugged me and said "nice". Both kids love to come running for a hug, which is definitely nice.
• After a long, long day at work I came home to a cheerful Nora and a cranky Milo who cried unless I was holding him, so I tried to make dinner while holding him the entire time. The kid must weigh 20 pounds. It's really hard to make dinner with one hand. Frankly, this is not conforming to my fantasies of parenthood. In my fantasy world I will come home from yet another fabulously successful day at work to greet my clean, smiling, happy children. Jake will also come home and entertain the children while reading them educational books as he tells me, "you look like you've had a rough day. Why don't you take a hot, relaxing bath before dinner." After my bath, which is silent and not punctuated by piercing screams of any kind, I'll come downstairs to find that dinner is being delivered from L'Etoile by none other than John Cusak. And not the older, saggy-faced John Cusak of today, but the younger, cute, Lloyd Dobbler John Cusak from Say Anything. After John Cusak drops off our meal of brioche-crusted jumbo sea scallops and tagliatele tossed in a lemon cream sauce with spinach and chive oil, Jake and I will dine by candlelight as the children delightedly partake in the meal by finger-feeding themselves and quietly praising the food. Again, the meal will be decidedly absent of any screaming or yelling. Then I will snuggle with the children, content in my lap, as I read them creative and educational books, which they will enjoy immensely. They will then trip off to bed, leaving me and Jake to an evening of scintillating conversation over a glass or three of wine.

Good from Bad

Yesterday Nora skipped her afternoon nap entirely. She sleeps in a pack 'n play in our bedroom, and usually likes to hug her bunny and go right to sleep, but this time she spent almost an hour and a half chattering to herself instead of sleeping. I went in there 4 different times to get her to fall asleep, but she never did. Instead she just kept up a constant conversation, saying "Libble DOW! Du DOW! Shoe. Shoe. Buhey (her word for bunny). [hysterical laughter]. DOW!"

After "nap" time we went to the Y and I dropped off the kids, who were happy playing at the table with cars, and got to work out for a whole 10 minutes before they came and got me saying that Nora was inconsolable. I calmed her down and then played with both kids for a while until they were happy. Then I left to attempt to continue my workout, which lasted 5 minutes before they came and got me again. No success at playing in the playroom without me this time. Nora was crying and Milo had a single lonely tear tracing a line down his cheek. So I gave up and bundled them up and put them in the stroller and bundled me up and hoofed it on out of there, only realizing once we were on the way home that I had left the diaper bag there. Oh well.

Then Nora struggled with sleeping, waking up before 10 and staying awake until about 11:30. Although not terribly upset, she just couldn't settle down. I eventually gave her some warm milk and after she drank a couple of ounces, she seemed to feel better and finally fell asleep.

I went to bed exhausted and irritated at not having gotten my workout, thinking "THIS is why mothers always look like crap", thinking this never seems to get better, it's just the same thing again and again, and then woke up to discover that no, it's not the same thing again and again. Change does come, in the form of a TOOTH for Nora! Finally! At 13 months and 1 week, Nora is finally sprouting her very first tooth.

Tips for Getting Toddlers to Eat

Tonight was an eating disaster for Milo. He had one jar of mushed up meat, and then refused his vegetables, refused bananas (one of his favorites), refused toast with sunbutter (another favorite), refused banana bread with chocolate chips (I mean, come on!) and even refused Cheerios. The kid wouldn't eat anything.

And yet it's always Milo who has something in his mouth, it's always Milo with a black smear on his face because he's been eating dirt again. It's always Milo eating paper or picking 3-day-old pieces of macaroni off the floor and popping them into his mouth. If you give him something incredibly delicious at mealtime, he'll gingerly touch it with one finger, maybe hold it for a while, bang it around some, perhaps briefly bring it to his mouth only to retreat quickly, smear it across his forehead, and maybe, maybe if he's feeling adventurous, touch it ever-so-briefly to his tongue, before dropping it on the floor. But if he comes across something on his own he'll pop it into his mouth immediately before I can even reach him.

So this suggests creative means to get Milo to eat. I could:


1) Scatter food across the floor. In fact, why bother putting him in his chair with the tray? He won't eat anything off the tray anyway, but as soon as it falls on the floor, it's fair game. Might as well set him on the floor and let him go at it.


2) Hide nutritious meals in the potted plant. That's where he goes for a snack anyway. Mix in some peanut butter sandwiches with the dirt.


3) Make food look like a book or a catalog. If it's paper, he'll eat it. Hmmm, very thin crepes? Maybe he'll be fooled if I put food into the catalog. I'll have to think about that one.


4) Put food in the cat's water dish. He can't wait to get his hands in there anyway.

I'm sure that if I get weird enough, I can eventually trick the kid into eating.

p.s. I wrote this last night. Tonight, Milo ate a full bowl of cheesy-potato soup (now with extra cheese!), an entire jar of peas with brown rice and avocado oil, and a bunch of sunbutter. Then he gagged on like the very last bite of sunbutter and regurgitated his entire meal in a giant green lava flow of grossness, smiling the whole time. Aaaaa, all that hard work down the drain!

New Semester

Our semester starts this week, which is a week later than most semesters. It makes sense given our northern location; this way students can stay away during one of the coldest weeks of the year, and go a little later into May, when the weather is nice. It's generally not too hot here by May.

Two of my graduate students are already missing class this week (the first class of the semester) because they're going to the inauguration. This year I'm becoming a bit more of a hardass and am implementing grade penalties for missing too many classes. My courses aren't lecture courses, they're interactive seminars in which students' contribution to the discussion is a key element of class. So missing class means that you really miss out on a lot. Anyway, I can understand why somebody would want to go to this historic inauguration. I want to go, too. But I can't, because I have to teach this week. It doesn't make a great impression when you decide to miss the first class of the semester.

But...tomorrow will be an incredible, uplifting day.

Thanks to a Christmas gift from my mom, the twin whisperer will watch the kids 3 days a week this semester and so Jake and I will each have 4 full days on campus during the week. I'll need it, as I'm teaching two classes instead of my typical 1 class. To non-academics that probably doesn't sound like much at all, but the non-teaching aspects of my job already constitute a full-time, 40+ hour a week job, so adding in two classes on top of that is a lot more. This morning when the twin whisperer came, both kids lit up and started laughing, squealing, and saying "Hi! Hi! Hi!" It's going to be hard when we lose her.

Speaking of the kids, Nora's crankiness has largely disappeared now that her walking is better. I think she was frustrated about walking. Now she can walk like a pro, and she's much happier. Meanwhile, Milo is in the phase where he can walk across the room, so he's practicing walking all the time, but he also falls down about once every 30 seconds. So he is very cranky. I swear, this weekend he practically spent the entire time just crying and yelling. Milo can already push himself up to a stand from the floor, though, which impresses me. Nora is still pulling up on objects.

Milo and Nora have entered an extreme sibling rivalry phase. It's almost like they're brother and sister and they irritate one another just by existing. The nerve! Sometimes Milo gets ticked off just because Nora has the audacity to be there next to him. He yells at her and grabs at her. Then she'll grab at him and the next thing I know there will be a full on baby wrestling scene going on, which ends in both of them crying angry tears. The twin whisperer said that it's a phase that she's seen every pair of twins go through. I haven't worked up the courage yet to ask her how long the phase might last. I keep telling the kids the whole reason we had two at once was so that they could play together and allow mama to neglect them as she hits the bottle cooks dinner or cleans the kitchen, but so far they don't seem to be buying it.

Bath Time

There are some things that just can't be posted on a blog, even a private one, but suffice it to say that Milo and Nora had a great time playing pirates in the tub with Jake, who can't resist anything to do with pirates. So here are some postable pictures of the kids having a great time in the bath.

Bathing with two 13-month olds is really a lot harder than you'd think. They always want to stand up, and they're slippery as hell and constantly going in two different directions. But oh, they love it so much that it's worth it.

Weather

The cold front has left us and now it's 14 degrees and snowing! Hooray! It feels so much warmer today. Also, I have lost a pound and a half. Hooray! Here is something I wrote a day or two ago when it was freezing:

As I write this it is -18 degrees, something like -45 with the wind chill factor. When I breathe in, my nose shuts together. If I were to spit, my spit would turn into a little ice ball before it hit the ground. There is no question of taking the kids outside. It's bright and sunny outside, but schools are closed today due to the cold. (Not the university, of course. The university never, ever closes).

I remember it once got cold like this when I was in high school. School was not closed that morning. I was a senior and drove my Volkswagon Rabbit to school. The heaters couldn't keep up with the cold, especially given that the wind rattled through the closed windows. By about 11 a.m. the school decided to close and they sent us all home. I had a problem with my car. Any time it was colder than about 10 degrees out, the car would stall out if I slowed down below about 10 miles an hour. There was one stop sign between the school and my house, and my goal was to try to slow down enough to make it safely through the stop sign without actually stopping and having my car stall out. (This isn't quite as dangerous as it sounds as back in those days the road was pretty deserted).

Unfortunately there was a car or two in front of me and I had to slow down almost to a stop at the stop sign, and sure enough, the car stalled. I couldn't get it to start again. I sat in the car wondering what I should do as everything got colder and colder and colder. This happened in the 80's. Back then, we never ever zipped up our coats because it didn't look cool. We also never wore our backpacks with both straps over our shoulders. So basically we spent all winter going around with crooked backs and freezing our asses off because we were too dumb to actually zip up our coats. I'm quite sure I never wore a hat or a scarf. I sat there in the car and thought about what to do, and I zipped up my coat for the first time since I was a kid.

I decided to get out of the car and walk to a nearby street with houses on it. At that point a nice lady from my own neighborhood happened to drive by. She stopped and offered me a ride home, which I gladly accepted. I have no memory of when or how I got the car home.

My own memory of this day is that it was kind of an adventure, but it's not an adventure I necessarily want Nora or Milo to have when they're older and driving. Why do I live here? This is just miserable. The cold keeps ruining all of my plans. Why did I move away from the west coast?

Oh, I remember why. Summer. Summer is why I moved here.

I have never been a fan of west coast summers or west coast vegetation. It's all too dry out there. In California everything is barren and deserty. In Washington and Oregon all of the trees are spiky and not condusive to climbing. In Pennsylvania, in contrast, the trees are huge and leafy with great sturdy branches for sitting all afternoon. In Pennsylvania, the crickets chirp a constant whirring sound that grows louder and louder as the evening wanes. In Pennsylvania, the air is moist and hot and luxurious, and the trees and plants and grass are an intense shade of green you just don't see out west, and thunderstorms roll in bringing torrents of warm rain that never quite cool anything down. In Pennsylvania, grandparents have freezers in the basement with chocolate eclaires. There are streams to explore and tire swings to swing on and sheds with roofs you can climb on, and lunch happens at noon and dinner happens at 5:30 and everything is more delicious and perfect than you can imagine.

While summers on the west coast were in black and white, summers in Pennsylvania were in technicolor. They were so great that I regularly dream about being there, even though I haven't been back in, oh, more than 20 years.

I knew I wanted to go back to something like that, and when I had the chance I went far away to college and got to enjoy that gorgeous, almost-southern humidity once again. Summers during the college years were just as hot and humid as they were in Pennsylvania. The trees were just as big, the grass was just as green. My friends and I would go to the park and sit outside at midnight, eating frozen custard, lying back on the grass and watching the stars. I would walk to and from campus through beautiful neighborhoods with brick streets and ivy-covered houses. The slightest breeze would set all of the leaves moving overhead. Everything about those summers was steeped in mystery, excitement, and romance. Something wonderful was just around every corner. The heat and the humidity had everything to do with those feelings. I can't explain why, but I just love it. Give me an 85-degree day with a thunderstorm lurking in the distance and I'm going to be happy.

So that's why I'm here. Waiting for days like that, days that I relish even more because I suffered through winter days like today. It's hard to remember this in January, but summer will come around again.