15 Months

I can't believe it, Milo and Nora are already 15 months old. They play:


They fight:


They do stuff they're not supposed to do:


They're definitely turning into people. Today we spent the morning with my friend Bekky and her daughter Karina, who is exactly 28 months. So she's 13 months older than Nora & Milo and it's fascinating to see how different they are. I imagine us a year in the future and it'll definitely be life with two actual kids, if Karina is any measure. Actually, she is probably not a good measure because she is BIG (35 lbs) and talks like a 3 year old. She tells stories and speaks in paragraphs and has correct grammar and everything. Milo and Nora seemed so babylike compared to Karina. Which is nice and fine with me. I like them this way still, I'm savoring it.

But, they are growing. Today off the top of my head I counted 50 words that I know they use, and that's just what I came up with on the spur of the moment. So they're using a lot of words, and more every day. They are interacting a lot, in the sense that Milo is interacting with Nora and Nora tries to ignore Milo as much as possible. Milo touches Nora, tackles Nora, points to Nora, and laughs at Nora's antics. Nora does none of those things, but she does get mad when Milo tries to take her toys. We are, however, starting to have some brief bits of positive interaction here and there. Tonight Nora and Milo were laughing and chasing each other.

Jake is gone this weekend, but so far it hasn't been too bad because Bekky and Karina were here. Nora did skip her nap on Friday and almost skipped it today, only succumbing very late in the afternoon which caused me to have to miss our planned afternoon outing. Today is, of course, Pi day, and we were scheduled to meet a bunch of people in a diner for pie. We had to miss out. Some neighbors who are having twins in May stopped by for a visit and I gave them advice while Nora tried to convince me to let her jump on the couch. She was cranky and wacked out from lack of sleep (probably not good advertising). But she did sleep a little eventually, and then we went on a nice long walk in the gorgeous, sunny, 50-degree weather.

Oh. Then we came home and I gave the kids some measuring cups to play with and they sat happily playing with the measuring cups while I ran upstairs to go to the bathroom. I came back down about 60 seconds later to see both of them gleefully scooping cupful after cupful of dirt out of the plant pot and tossing it all over the floor, the rug, Milo's pants, etc. Seriously. 60 seconds. So I guess that's the kind of thing that happens when Jake is out of town. My hat is off to those single parents out there.

So...Nora. What is Nora doing these days, other than not napping? Well, I think she is teething. She has a second tooth and I wonder if another one is coming soon, because she has been cranky lately. She also chews on things all the time. She even chewed the paint off the windowsill, which I thought was kind of cliched. Isn't that the most typical reason cited for getting lead poisoning? Come on Nora, be creative. So she is chewing and teething.

Nora has also become shy. Even though Bekky and Karina stayed with us for 2 days, she never fully warmed up to them. On Friday morning Jake's buddies came to pick him up for his ski trip. They are two very big guys and Jake went downstairs with Nora while I changed Milo's diaper. Nora immediately started crying and crying. She was okay once I held her, but it's interesting to see how she has morphed from this social baby who was happy to be held by anybody to this very shy toddler who always needs to be in my arms whenever anybody else is in the room.



Nora's favorite new thing is to be up on the sofa or the loveseat. She'll sit like a big kid for about 3 seconds and then want to STAND on the sofa, and then want to JUMP on the sofa. So it's probably not a good idea, and I've started saying no when she asks, over and over and over again, up? Up? Up? She really adores being up. Being on the sofa is a huge treat for Nora.

Nora has also started doing things that just impress me with their suddenness. For instance, today when our friends were leaving we said "bye bye" a lot. All of that "bye bye" talk must have reminded Nora of when we go out, and I often say "bye bye" to Jake when I take Nora out. So she went into the sunroom, got her coat, brought it to me, and then put her arm out so that I could put the coat on her. She wanted to go outside! It seemed like a real big kid move to me.



These pictures above and below involve Nora in different hats. She and Milo got into the hats today and kept bringing me all of the hats, saying "hat?" and asking me to put them on their heads.

I love the fact that both Nora and Milo sort of talk to themselves these days with words that I can understand. It's like I have access to what's going through their minds now. Today on our walk Nora just started saying "quack quack quack" out of nowhere, so she must have been thinking about a duck, or the song we sing about ducks. Nora likes to sing along to parts of songs, so with the song we sing about ducks she'll chime in on the "quack quack quack" part.


I guess I would say that things are a little challenging with Nora right now, for me specifically, because Nora is so clingy to me. She doesn't want Jake, she doesn't want to play on her own, she wants to be held all the time. She cries when I leave the room. She does love the twin whisperer so that helps, but she still gets unhappy when I go to work in the morning. I know that this is a phase and in some ways, it's a sweet phase to be wanted by her so much. I'm sure there are going to be times, like when she's 12, when the very sight of me will cause her to gag and have to choke down her own bile. So I'm hugging her as much as I can right now, and loving it, but frankly it'd also be nice to be able to go take a leak without Nora spontaneously combusting from sorrow.



The thing I like about Nora is that she wears her heart on her sleeve. It's all out there, exactly how she feels, with no pretense or mystery. Nora wants what she wants, and that's all there is to it. If she gets it, she'll smile and settle in. If she doesn't, she'll cry and kick her feet. I'm glad we're still at the stage when I can give her what she wants, when it's as simple as being held, and kissed on the cheek, and maybe in a dire moment a wooden spoon and a pot to bang on will be necessary. That's all it takes to make my girl happy, and I'll gladly do it. Once we graduate to a pony, or a car, though, all bets are off.


Milo...Milo has become a happy, happy guy these days. It really drives home the point that it makes no sense to label either kid in one way or another because they are always changing. I remember when they were tiny Milo was the one who struggled and cried so much. We viewed Nora as more mellow. And now, Milo couldn't be any more cheerful. He was so tickled to have Bekky and Karina here. Every time he woke up from his nap and came downstairs it was like a glorious surprise all over again. He'd say "hi!" and grin and grin, and he would play with Karina and have a grand old time. Milo has become more outgoing, which is again quite a reversal from how he was as a smaller baby. He likes people, as long as they're not giant 6 feet tall men (those still scare him a little).



As you can see from the pictures, Milo too loves being on the couch. It's a huge treat.

Milo's new phrase is something that I've started interpreting as "what's that?" It doesn't sound much like it, but it sort of sounded like it and he would say it while pointing to things, so I just started responding by telling him what the things are. And now he says it constantly. He'll point to some new thing and say "what's that?" and I'll say "that's the speaker" and half the time he'll try to repeat whatever I've said. He's learned lots of words that way recently, like "socks" and "cup" and "outside" and "light" and all kinds of things. He probably says it about 50 times a day. Maybe 100.



Yesterday we went to the park in front of our house and it was wet and muddy, but not overly so. I put Nora down in the rubber tire pieces that line the ground around the play area and she freaked, but Milo was actually cool with it. He sat down, kicked around, held some leaves, stood up, and figured out he could actually walk on the stuff. Then he took off at a near jog straight towards the street, and he walked all over the playground, the basketball court, and onto the muddy grass. Milo had a ball. He just loved walking around outside so much that he was laughing the whole time. I've never seen such a joyful kid!



Here we have Milo playing dress up with various hats and one of the red wellies that they babies are borrowing from the twin whisperer. He loves putting on one boot and stomping around.

Milo has developed a troubling habit lately, and it's got me pretty flummoxed. He loves to spit his food out in a giant spewing blubber, landing droplets of pureed sweet potatoes onto me, the tray, his shoes, the floor, the wall, etc. He then laughs hysterically at his own joke. Ignoring hasn't extinguished this behavior because he finds it so inherently delightful. It really tries my patience, especially because I'm still kind of uptight about making sure both kids get enough calories. I could go to finger foods only, but the number of foods Milo will eat that way is about 5 (and by eat I mean a few bites), whereas the number of foods he has rejected outright is about 100. So he doesn't get many calories from finger foods yet. I could end the meal when Milo does this, but see above about being worried about his calories. Plus, I don't think he has the impulse control yet to remember not to do it the next time, so if I ended the meal every time he did it, he'd probably never get to eat. So it's a challenge. Recently I've figured out that he tends not to do this when he is actually hungry and the food is something he really likes. So maybe this is Milo's way of trying to assert some control over his own body and what he eats, and maybe I need to start listening better.


Milo's just a little ham. He loves to make people laugh, he loves to laugh himself, he loves to march and dance and chase. He cracks me up all the time. When he was a colicky 5-week old I never would have guessed that he'd turn into such a happy little guy. He's also social. Most 15-month olds basically ignore other kids, or at most engage in parallel play, and here Milo is already trying to initiate chasing and peek-a-boo with other kids. And, let's face it, the kid is easy on the eyes. Look at those chubby cheeks! Look at that bald little head! I could just eat his fingers and toes for breakfast. I'm going to miss the cuddly, roly poly Milo as he grows into a bigger kid.

New Milestone

Today Milo strung two words together for the first time. The cat jumped over the gate and headed upstairs, and he said "bye kitty!" He's been saying it again and again all day long, probably because I encouraged it so much. I'm pretty impressed that Milo did this today; I wasn't expecting to hear something like that for several months.

Tuesdays are nice days. They're the days when I stay home and pretend to be the domestic kind of mother. I work during their naps and I also cook one or two meals for the week and do laundry and other chores. I like making a meal while the kids play and then cleaning up the kitchen. I like putting everything in its place and having the house be all organized and sparkly. Tuesday is the day when there is time for that because I am at home. It's pleasant. I can only imagine how great the house would look if I stayed home every day. In the afternoons I take the kids out in the stroller if the weather permits. By the time Jake comes home I am exercised, dinner is ready, and the kids are usually banging on pots with spoons. It all gets smoother as the kids get older.

The kids know the word "outside" now and so I can talk to them about going outside. They like to look through the window (or bang on it) and say "outside". We had a nice run with the stroller this afternoon, and I pushed pretty hard at the end. This is because I was on my way home when I passed the entire high school track team going the opposite way. There were like 60 of them. I knew I was going to get lapped by the track team, but I didn't want to get lapped by all 60 of them. The fast guys out in front lapped me before I got home, but I started going faster and faster and faster to avoid getting lapped by the second group of kids. I barely made it. Then I got home and was unable to stretch because Milo and Nora kept crawling all over me (and whoever wasn't on me at the time was crying at the injustice of the other kid getting mama time). It's hard to share a parent, and it can be hard to be a twin sometimes!

Where's Milo?

Here's a video of Milo and Nora -- Milo is hiding behind the curtain. It cracks me up how he keeps giggling as he's hiding, and then he "hides" with his little legs sticking straight out.



The kids have developed a fake coughing habit, which is really annoying, and a fake sneezing habit (they say "aaaa-choo"), which is cute. New words lately include "car", "light", "boo", and "pot". (The kind you cook with, not the kind you use to relieve glaucoma symptoms in California). Milo has settled on "Noon-a" for Nora, and he calls himself "Money". Nora calls herself "Nana" and calls Milo "Mama", which is confusing because that's also the word she has for me. Milo is much more into Nora than the reverse. He likes to tackle her and "cuddle" the way he does with the cat. Nora is less tolerant of this behavior than the cat.

Nora asks to be picked up about a hundred times a day. It's the first thing she says in the morning and she keeps saying it all day long. Milo has become very interested in the windows and looking outside. Now that it's light out in the mornings I'll open up the window shades and Milo will excitedly peer out the window of the nursery.

Today was kind of an annoying, tiring, lousy day but it's really true that coming home to the kids makes all of that other stuff seem relatively unimportant. They really do have a way of reminding me of what really matters, and the rest of the stuff is just water under the bridge.

Under Pressure

I think teething must be very painful for Nora. The other night she cut her second tooth. I didn't know it was happening at the time, but I suspected so because she was up every hour or two all night long. Then in the morning she had blood on her lip and had also bled onto the sheet! 

Milo was a cheerful little dude today. He got to do two of his favorite things, go to the store and take a bath. He loves the store and both kids adore the bath. All I have to do is say "do you want to take a bath?" and both of them will run to the stairs, laughing with glee.

One of my FB friends is a professor at my university who came in the same year I did. Her current status is that she wished that she were tenured so that she could take a night off. (It is Saturday night). This status update stressed me out. I am taking the night off. Maybe she will get tenure and I won't because she works every single night, even Saturday nights?

I should probably be working more. I have to leave the office at 5 every day to relieve the twin whisperer. I do miss the days when I could just stay until I was finished with whatever I was doing, or had reached a good stopping point, even if that meant eating dinner at the office and walking home at 10 p.m.  It is frustrating to be right in the middle of a good piece of data and have to stop because it is time to go home. I can pick it up later in the evening when the kids are in bed, but it is hard to re-gain momentum. 

Part of me kind of thinks that it is unhealthy to work like that year after year, and having a family forced me to stop and turn to more normal habits, which is sort of a great experiment as far as the tenure bid is concerned. It is a high-stakes experiment and in this economy it feels even more serious. I would not be surprised if Jake were unable to find a job once he graduates. There just isn't work in the state for folks like him right now, and I am prepared to continue to be the sole wage-earner for the foreseeable future. So that makes the whole tenure thing even more huge. Losing my job, especially in this economy where universities are putting on hiring freezes and calling off searches right and left, it would be a pretty serious disaster. The entire family is depending on me and my income. I feel like I can't afford to mess it up. 

But I also don't want to be a completely absent mom the way I see some parents (to be honest, dads) doing among my colleagues. Maybe it is a necessary evil, though, and it's worth it to sacrifice the next 2 years for the security of the family. On the other hand, Milo & Nora will never be this small again, and these are formative years for them. 

I feel like I am under so much pressure all the time.  

I think that it should be possible to be a normal human being and also get tenure. So I shouldn't let my friend's FB status get to me. I am doing it differently than she is doing, and that doesn't mean it can't work. I can make it work, right?  ...?

The Twin Whisperer

The twin whisperer thinks that our babies are geniuses and that she is the reason why.

I can see her point. She's always teaching them interesting stuff. Today I came home and she proceeded to sing the alphabet song, and then Nora chimed in, singing "D-E-E-E-Geeeeee". The twin whisperer said "I've never seen any baby that young sing like Nora!" She teaches them to dance, and to turn the pages of the books, and to press the buttons on the music cube to make music, and she teaches them all kinds of words. 

It's kind of funny because the twin whisperer definitely has, shall we say, generous interpretations of Milo and Nora's behavior. One of them can say "Whiz-ZAT-ow?" and the twin whisperer will say "Did you hear that? Milo just told me that one plus two is three! He's adding!" I just nod and smile, as Milo proceeds to gnaw on the arm of the chair and drool.

Every time the twin whisperer babysits or visits toddlers around Nora & Milo's age she always comes back and tells me about how they're not talking at all, not even "mama", and she feels so sorry for those toddlers. "Aren't you glad yours aren't in daycare?", she'll say, pointing out that in daycare the toddlers don't get a lot of verbal stimulation. I am glad, actually, because the twin whisperer probably talks to the kids more than Jake and I do. I know that they get a lot of words from her, and they probably wouldn't have gotten that from me, so I'm glad that the twin whisperer gets such a kick out of teaching them stuff every day.

She's either going to stay with us until May or until August, and then I have to find a new situation. I just don't know what we're going to do once she leaves.

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