Twin Mama Rama

Twin Tradition

I’ve mentioned before the twin tradition that traces through my family. Besides being a twin myself, I have twin cousins in my generation and twin Aunties on my dad’s side. My boys also have twin cousins just 4 years older. This means all of the grandkids for my husband’s folks are twins. When my sister and I were little our identical twin Aunties sent us beautiful stuffed animals they had made themselves, which I now see as a sharing of a bond, from one twin generation to the next. Just recently they passed this special tradition on to the boys. Two amazing handmade dinosaurs arrived in the mail and immediately tickled us pink. The boys love sharing kisses and hugs with their new friends…

And feeding the wildlife…

I still have (and treasure) the green elephant that was made for me so long ago, so we all sat down to take a picture with our Aunt L and L masterpieces…

Another twin mom in town recently shared a story of all the twin conversations you have with the people you meet, and the typical comments that are shared (usually commiserating how hard it must be, how they just can’t imagine the craziness of it all, etc). This mom recounts bumping into a woman who revealed that she herself was a mom of grown twins. The woman leaned in to this new twin mom and simply said “It’s like winning the lottery.” 

And you know what? She’s right. I feel blessed beyond words for the twin generations who came before in my family and the new ones going forward.

Table for 3

My husband is an amazing dad and cook, so when he had to work late every night this week I decided to dine out with the boys a few times to ease up on kitchen duty.  If we hadn’t spent months perfecting our eating-out strategies, this may have proved trickier than staying in, so here’s what I’ve figured out to make a “table for three” possible:

Pick the right spot: Kid friendly is crucial of course (tablecloths or a line outside are great steer-clear signs). A diner is our #1 destination because their goal is quick service and so is ours! We first  figured out the best diner in our neighborhood, then we made a point to become regulars there with twins in tow. By establishing a relationship we’ve accomplished several perks. We got to know the staff and they got to know us. The boys are now on a high five basis with the servers and our favorite cook comes out of the kitchen to say hello. When they see our double stroller pull up for breakfast they throw a waffle on the iron as they know that’s what the boys are looking forward to. As a former waitress, and having been on the other side of kid-table-clean-up, we also find it important to always tip well.

Choose a good time: Earlier than a rooster in the morning or earlier than the senior set  in the evening. As sleeping in is a luxury of the past, if we are going out to breakfast we go ahead and get there as early as possible. Most folks are not interested in Sunday brunch when the sun is only just up, so this means we often have the place almost to ourselves. Same goes for showing up just before 5 for dinner, when there is absolutely no dinner rush to speak of. This means the food comes out quicker, and if there is screaming or general loudness emitted from our table it is way less embarrassing. One other timing trick is heading out to eat directly from the playground. This way we arrive tuckered out and less likely to treat the restaurant like a jungle gym. 

Lower your expectations: Three courses? I think not. I’ve always been a quick eater and this comes in handy when dining solo with the boys. If the actual eating lasts as long as 15 minutes I am impressed. While they are still munching happily I ask in advance for the check or any take home containers- that way if all heck breaks loose  I can load left overs and high tail it out of there quickly. We also know what the boys love on the menu and we stick with that. There is no trying new stuff while dining out. I can go wild on my own order, then if they want to expand their taste buds’ horizons they can have a bite of mine. 

What to bring: I bring a few small toys that are not in the regular rotation at home so they seem new and exciting while we wait. When the food arrives I slap on their biggest scoop bibs from home to catch most of the scrambled egg and bacon bits before they hit the floor. Also handy-a huge pack of wipes for small hands and spills, and sippy cups from home to keep huge spills at bay.

Improv 101: Who knew that dinner out on the town with your twins was a chance to participate in your own improv troupe. For example, how many ways can you play with sweetener packets? 

“Lets match the colors- here’s a blue Equal pack Sam, can you find another one in the box?” 

“Let’s load them into your truck toy Ren, and dump them over by the ketchup bottle.”

“Let’s count them up as we stack them higher and higher until they fall over!”

Next it’s craft time, and we make straw snakes. I scrunch the paper on the straw all the way down into a little tight ball.  Then I add a drop of water to the paper wad and we watch it grow into a “snake”. The boys like to slither their snakes around the table hissing with glee.  Finally, I launch into a short table-top play starring Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper (complete with french accents just like on Blue Clues). Sure the neighboring tables may think you’re nutty, but as long as there are two gigglers and not grumps at my own table that’s what counts.

I can’t say that dining out with twins is a relaxing experience, and we won’t be sampling the fine delicacies at an “it” spot anytime soon. Still, we’ve found a way to feel like home while we eat out and then return to our own home with nary a dish to wash.

The Four Legged Third Child

Recently, I’ve been thinking about our four legged third child. Willa, our dog who we had for years before the babes came along. I’ve been thinking about her because I keep hearing about families who feel the need to get rid of their pets when babies come on the scene. I’m the first to say that my motto is you’ve got to do what works for you, but while our beloved pupster is definitely an additional work load, she’s also an amazing addition to our family- she IS family. In retrospect she’s taught me so much about parenting. Bringing her up was a great set of training wheels for then raising twins.

When she first came into my life she was spitfire puppy, who was NOT potty trained. It was the worst 3 months of my life, but I trained myself on how to train her and we did it together. Then there was the nipping puppy phase, the chews through anything within reach phase, the eats things she really shouldn’t phase that took us to the emergency vet at 3 in the morning. One important lesson I learned from her is that a phase is indeed just that- a phase.

 
When, on our first date, my future husband grabbed a frisbee and was happy to play with the pup at a local park I thought he might just be “the one”. When he met me at the vet on his birthday (cancelled our birthday date reservations on the waiting room pay phone), and sat with me while they figured out if the dog would make it through the night, I knew he was “the one”.
We were worried about the dog’s excitable nature when the twins first came on the scene, as little kids (shrieking, running, chaos in general) seemed to freak her out, but she has transitioned with our boys beautifully. In the beginning their cries sent her running (even though I had spent previous weeks playing a “baby crying” MP3 on repeat to which she never batted an eyelash). That these freakish alien babies had invaded her turf was a little scary at first, but quite soon they became “her” freakish alien babies.

Then the solid food hit and whoa boy- these three are best friends now that the dog realizes the connection to the twins means food. She “cleans up” the spills and meals off the floor quite nicely. There is nary a cheerio around as she hoovers them right up if they miss their destination into a toddler’s mouth. I heft a boy down from his high chair and the dog licks the plastic seat clean. Disgusting? Perhaps, but I never have to scrub those seats, just a wipe down when she’s done. The dog has also figured out her position on the totem pole-the babies come first. Perhaps it’s all the Dog Whisperer we’ve watched, but she has really amazed us with how gentle she is. When we throw a ball for her it is usually takes a hostage negotiation to get it back for the next throw. Negotiation isn’t in the boys’ vocab so my heart was in my chest when Sam grabbed for the ball in Willa’s mouth the first time, and my jaw was on the floor when she immediately dropped it at his feet. They love throwing a soft ball for her inside and watch her run and pounce on it, and she loves that someone around here has time to play! When she’s had enough she lets the boys know and we have a safe haven for her in our room where the toddlers aren’t allowed. Our rule is simply not to ever leave them alone with the dog and one perk of tiny Brooklyn apartments is that this becomes an easy rule to follow. 

Every morning the whole family pushes, piles into, or gets leashed up to the stroller and we walk my husband to the train stop, which also serves as the dog’s morning outing. Sounds idyllic, but this has to happen in rain, snow, sleet, or intense heat- as does planning for 2 more dog walks throughout the day and figuring out how to include the boys in that equation.  So yea, the dog is an extra responsibility, but for us the benefits far outweigh the costs. As one of our refrigerator magnets reminds me: “Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative.”  

Cleaning? Come on Down!…

I’ve posted before about cleaning the house with the help of toddlers, but just recently I have been experimenting with getting the boys to help clean up their own messes. As a former enrichment teacher I am very familiar with the clean up song, but that seemed a bit advanced for the under 2 set. As a former seasoned babysitter I’ve employed tricks including siblings competing against one another to fill their bin with the most toys off the floor. I’ve tried race-against-the-clock style cleaning where we see how much we can get done in 60 seconds, and if we’re not done we try to beat our clean up record in a second heat. Again, these seem better for the school-age variety. So instead I invented a few new techniques…

Before the experiment my status quo for cleaning was waiting for the boys to be in bed, then performing a hunched over scurry I’ve perfected to run around tossing the toys that litter the floor (like confetti after New Year’s) into various bins around the apartment. 

This evening, however, I rallied the troops to attack the mess: “Guys!” I said in my best Guy Smiley game show voice. “Look at these blocks! I PICK UP the block and I THROW it in the box! Can YOU pick up a block Sam?!” Sam eyes me suspiciously. I demonstrate dramatically how fun this can be and applaud wildly for myself when I score with the block into the box. Sam leaps into action and before I know it he has run a block over to the box and chucked it in. I respond like an entire live studio audience rolled into one. This rallies Ren into the game and as they run back and forth with blocks I call out their moves like a sports caster during a heated playoff. When the boys have finished (and our clapping and jumping for ourselves have concluded), we take it down a notch as we head to the living room and I hand out “really TRICKY tasks.” I give each of them a specific task as if I am a king sending knights off on a Grimm’s fairy tale quest:

“Ren, can YOU take this fire truck into YOUR room, and put it UNDER your crib?” I ask him solemnly. He takes the firetruck and trots off uncertainly. He looks back at me. “Don’t forget Ren, YOUR room, UNDER your crib,” I say as if the world hangs in the balance. I follow him into his room where he is attempting to launch the truck up into his crib. “Remember, not IN, but rather UNDER your crib Ren”. He squats and rolls the truck under the crib where 15 other vehicles are parked. The studio audience immediately returns in full force. 

I send Sam off on the wild adventure of putting magnets back on the fridge and am on a roll, when I discover my Achilles’ heel. I ask the boys to pick up the balls that are here, there and everywhere, and bring them all to one shelf. There is immediately a scuffle over who gets the blue bouncy ball, and when I reach the shelf I find no troops behind me. I retreat back to the living room to see them bouncing, kicking, throwing, and rolling all the balls we’ve collected. I try to avert disaster by tacking in a new direction. I bring their attention to a toy box in the corner and ask them to “make a basket” into the toy box with the various balls. Sam pays no attention and continues playing with glee, Ren runs to the toy box and in an attempt to clear it out for his b-ball action, dumps the entire train set inside all over the floor. Ack! We are essentially back to square one. In my head I hear the classic: “wah-wah-wah-waaaaaaaaaaahhhhh”.

As I write this the boys are in bed and I can see from this vantage point: a sippy cup, a beach ball, at least 6 matchbox cars, a popper push toy, that whole train set, a Croc shoe, 2 bean bag chairs, a muffin tin (a muffin tin?!) that I will shortly be taking on in my own game show:  So You Think You Can Dance?  Try this routine: hunch, shuffle, shuffle, grab, toss, shuffle, shuffle, reach, hunch, scurry, dip, and bend. 

My goal is to teach the boys the responsibility of cleaning someday, but for now just having them on the “cleaning is fun” bandwagon seems like an accomplishment.

Subway Trains AND Buses? Hooray!

It was 101 degrees here this week so we all headed on an underground adventure to the New York Transit Museum. The museum is housed in an old unused subway station here in Brooklyn. That meant lots of stairs to navigate but boy was the payoff worth it!

Subway Trains from every decade in the last century? Check! The boys loved running through the cars going all the way back to 1905. They shouted “Blu and yelluh!” as they ran through this 1940s car.

Awesome life-sized bus replica? Check! These guys are die hard bus fan so they were over the moon about jumping aboard, and experiencing the “Wheels on the Bus” live show.

The Driver on the Bus says ‘Move on Back’…

‘Move on back, move on back!’…

Then it was time to munch a snack and check out the road signs…

First museum trip a success? Check!

We headed home to read our favorite book “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” Over and over again :-)

Got Milk? Please!

I usually play it cool when in comes to eating with my kids- What? You refuse this delectable green bean/carrot/spinach? No prob, I’ll chop it up and put it in your next quesadilla where you’ll never notice it!

However, in the last 3 months or so their willingness to have anything to do with milk has fallen flatter than a pancake. We countered  by doing smoothies for breakfast where the delicious Trader Joe’s frozen berries cleverly masked the milky nutrition. I made a ‘bigger than broadway debut’ of yummy yogurt for dessert each night. Our doc actually recommended watering down calcium fortified OJ for their sippies (and here I thought juice was supposed to be evil!).  But darn it if these kids won’t have it anymore. The smoothies are still a hit, but only when Dada blends them (he’s known for being heavy on the berry- churning out magenta delights, while Mama’s version is a pastel pink that looks like milk in an Easter dress). 

I know that as long as they get the right amount of calcium it doesn’t matter where it comes from, but I feel like they refuse every source! 

Chocolate Pudding? No Way Jose

Maybe it’s the chocolate, how about Vanilla Pudding? Eh Eh- nope.

Okay, mozzarella sticks! What kid doesn’t like these?! Mine apparently.

You scream, I scream, we all scream for Ice Cream! Except they don’t-Ren went for it once, but Sam has turned it down every time!

Maybe it’s the milk itself, a lactose thing? Onto Vanilla Soy Milk! Ren sips cautiously, but Sam plunks down his glass after one gulp and will not try more.

I made dinner tonight a table viewing of how to construct the perfect glass of chocolate milk. I turned on the charm of every food network personality I’ve ever watched, as I held their complete attention with my every move. Their excitement built as I poured the Hershey’s syrup from an impressive 2 feet over the glass with Guy Ferrari finesse. I stirred it all up with a straw (they LOVE straws) and presented this masterpiece to be tasted. Ren happily dove in, but Sam knew better. High enthusiasm from me probably meant the dreaded dairy was involved. He sipped politely once, then shook his head no each time I attempted to nudge the glass in his direction.

I have discovered only one trick, which is actually an obvious fact of nature. If they are hungry, they will eat dairy. So lunch now begins with yogurt instead of ending a meal as dessert. If they come chirping into the kitchen while I am preparing dinner, I hand out cheese sticks, and they’ve actually accepted! We will get this calcium into our diet if it’s the last thing I do! And so I now use those veggies in the quesadilla as a cover- for the cheese!

Anatomy of a Photo Shoot

Happy Mother’s Day! We love our dear grandmas and aunties so much that I decided to add the perfect photo of the boys to the greetings we sent to our fam. What they won’t see (until now) is just what a photo shoot entails with Mama behind the camera and two tricky toddlers in front of it! Below are the outtakes from our Mother’s Day Photoshoot…

Okay guys have a seat in front of our make shift back drop. Good Sam, no wait Ren sit the other way…

Ren? Where did he go?…

Okay, chairs. This is better, everyone sit in a chair! Oh no the back drop is drooping…

Try looking at Mama more…Ren!…

Back in the chair, buddy, yes this is SO funny, okay here we go…

Smile…Ren!…

Back in the chair… Sam don’t you start!…

Smile anyone? Does anyone have a smile? Hmm…

Yes, better! Almost there… 

Bingo! Ding Ding Ding we have a winner…

Happy Mother’s Day!

Two Cat in their Hats

Look out Sun! Look out British ladies attending royal weddings! Look out Indiana Jones! We are now armed with our new summer sun hats…

Sun at the park? No problem.

Safari you say? We have just the right head gear.

Make it through a rainforest and emerge with dry noggins? We have it covered!

Mama’s adventure has been keeping them on our heads, but so far she is just as stubborn as we are (or so Dada tells us :-)!

With the UVs nowhere near our faces, we were free to conjure up a little magic at the park. We call this trick: Put stuff in the top of a traffic cone and watch it disappear! 

Did we mention these hats are more astonishing than a magician’s? Now if only Mama would let us trade them in for the traffic cone hat.

Dandelion Dandies

We have set up shop at the park and have started spending much of our days there. It is our way of pretending we have a 585 acre back yard. As we make our way there each day I like to point out tulips, while the boys prefer hailing each flag we pass. We find a grassy nook and the boys take off with their toy strollers. They push them like battering rams up and and down hills, through small craters full of last fall’s leaves, and tack through the pines trees’ underbrush. In other words- they have figured out how to go ‘off-roading’ in a city park. I pick dandelions and make chains while Ren picks them to toss down a deep sewer grate he discovered. My mom visited this weekend and taught them how to place their hands down in the grass to practice somersaults, so I lift their legs up and over which tickles Ren to no end, while Sam likes lay on his back in the grass and and scout for helicopters and airplanes. There are only a few downers for the boys on these sunny days: Mama putting sunblock all over them, Mama attempting to have them wear her dandelion chains, and the hat issue. 
I have convinced the boys through sheer determination that they really will have to sit in the stroller under their sun shade if they refuse to wear their hats.  

We have a hodgepodge of hats left over from last summer while we wait for our new ones to arrive in the mail. Ren’s baseball cap barely covers half his noggin,

and Sam’s swimming bonnet has been termed an “old lady hat” by his own grandma!

Until they grow some hair up on top, this will be the way we roll. Now at least, when Ren’s too small hat inevitably falls off every three minutes he yells ‘oh no!’ and rushes over to have me place it precariously back on. Now if only I could get them to feel the same way about wearing those adorable daisy chains…