Mad About Multiples!

Kindergarten (Un)Readiness

When I was 5 years old, my mother enrolled me in kindergarten at our neighborhood school. I'm sure she didn't poll her friends to see if they'd be enrolling their age eligible kids in kindergarten because for the most part, she already knew. Most of her friends were also enrolling their children in kindergarten at their neighborhood public school. If we were age eligible, we went. It's just how it was done back then, at least in our middle class California neighborhood. Sure, a few went the private school route and a few more enlightened parents held their autumn birthday children (especially boys) back a year; but in doing so, they didn't conduct a massive search to find the "perfect" kinder prep program in the frenzied manner we do today. In fact, the children I know who sat out that first year, did most of the sitting out at home, playing with their siblings. Had I been born an October baby, I'm quite certain my parents would have enrolled me in kindergarten nonetheless and off to kindergarten I might have marched, a shy 4-year-old who might not have been quite ready.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins

One of Mad About Multiples (and Gemini Crickets members') favorite authors, Marc Weissbluth, M.D., of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child fame, has a new book coming out in June just for us, parents of multiples! It is called, appropriately, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins. We're sure it will fly off the shelves. While his first book had some content specifically on twins and many of us have used his scheduling methods and learned much about a baby's sleep cycles and needs, a WHOLE BOOK just devoted to twins is fantastic. You can pre-order it from Amazon and others now.

About the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins:

"From trusted and distinguished pediatrician Dr. Marc Weissbluth, a new guide to sleep for multiples: how to help them get to sleep, sleep regularly, and sleep well

With two or more babies to contend with—and half the parental energy to draw on—it’s difficult to establish sleep schedules for multiples. But it’s essential if the whole family is going to thrive. Dr. Marc Weissbluth, the beloved author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, the bestselling sleep guide for parents of singletons, can help.

Introducing new parents to his unique “sleep training” techniques—a process for instituting a daily routine and teaching infants to soothe themselves—Weissbluth provides the first step-by-step guide to implementing them with more than one baby. The only guide to establishing good sleep as well as repairing sleep problems in multiples, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins:

•Explains how fraternal and identical twins may sleep train differently—and what to do about it

•Describes ways to get your babies to synchronize their internal clocks and fall asleep at the same time—naturally

•Reveals the common mistakes parents of twins make to get their children to sleep

Helping the whole family get some much-needed rest, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins is a lifesaver of a guide for sleep-deprived new parents."

2009 Gemini Crickets Auction & Raffle is starting!

We at Gemini Crickets are starting to plan our 2009 Annual Auction and Raffle. More details to come very soon. For now, check out our main Auction page here. And get an inside look from past years' Auctions here.

Also, we are soliciting donations for this event - If you are interested in donating an item and marketing to our 300+ member families and beyond with the Gemini Crickets website and Mad About Multiples blog, please contact us.

Help twins suffering from rare disease

This is from a very brave mom who has twins suffering from a rare disease: Addi and Cassi.

She is asking to spread the word and watch the video for World Rare Disease Day 2009.

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Dear Family and Friends:

Last night Chris posted her latest video on YouTube to help support World Rare Disease Day 2009  --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bQrQclRIrk&feature=channel_page.

Millions of people around the world are impacted by rare diseases or know a family or friend with a rare disease.

This week, we lost one the smartest and funniest people we know, hi-tech marketing legend Mike Homer, to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).   CJD is a rapidly degenerative and fatal brain disorder that leads to dementia (a variant is commonly known as mad cow disease).

We still can't believe Mike is gone and we will continue to Fight for Mike and others who suffer from rare brain diseases We hope to raise the bar and educate the world on rare diseases in general.

As many of you know, our 5-year old twins Addi and Cassi are fighting for their lives and we are trying to save them from dementia.  We cannot express to you how important it is to raise awareness for rare diseases like CJD and NP-C.

We're asking everyone to "help before you have to" and spread the word about rare disease  --  it can strike anyone and at anytime.

Please forward our message to your network and ask them to help spread our awareness video   --  we all look at YouTube videos everyday for entertainment and some get millions of hits on subjects that have little importance in life.

We need this one to hit 1 Million.  Please help before you have to!

Thank you in advance!

The Hempel's

Got Octuplets? What we can learn from the fate of twin pandas.

Today as Nicole and I were waiting for over an hour at the allergist's office, I had a lot of time to read to her from her "Highlights" magazine.  There was a fascinating article on giant pandas and I sure learned a thing or two.  For one, a baby panda is so small that the mother panda has no "bump" and thus zookeepers have no idea that the panda is pregnant.  At birth, the baby panda weighs significantly less than its mother.  In July 2005, a 235 lb panda gave birth to a baby that weighed 4 ounces, which is typical.  Pandas subsist on bamboo, which is not nutritious enough to produce bigger babies, or even very many babies.  But they still have twins about 50% of the time.

The panda article got me thinking about the higher-order multiple births in the news.  There is a family who just had quintuplets in our neighborhood and then of course, we have the recent birth of octuplets to a woman who already has six kids.   We're talking high-maintenance here!  Likewise, baby pandas are extremely high-maintenance.  The mother has to sit up for six weeks to hold the panda cub and keep it warm and safe.  The harried panda mom does not get to eat or drink for two weeks.  They nurse the babies up to 12 times a day.  Also, daddy panda doesn't help at all.  For these reasons, a panda mom is almost always incapable of caring for more than one cub and the second cub will die from neglect.  In an effort to save the species, they've implemented programs where the twin cubs are separated, cared for by zookeepers and fed formula.

Now, we know human moms can care for more than one child at a time.  I should know.  I had twins when my daughter was only 19 months.  However, it is hard!  It's still hard.  I'm constantly being pulled in three directions and doing mental triage has become second nature.  This means that the child who is being the most outrageously annoying is usually the one who gets the attention.

This leads us to this crazy mom of fourteen!  I am not going to mince words here.  The woman is a lunatic!  What woman willingly brings this many babies into the world without resources or even a father?  What kind of life will these babies have?  All the appearances on Oprah and a house built on "Extreme Makeover" aren't going to make up for what these babies will lack, namely a quality bond with their parents.  The details of how this selfish woman got pregnant are still fuzzy, but the possible scenarios bring up many ethical issues.  If she did IVF, what kind of doctor would willingly implant eight embryos?  Human females are not physically made to give birth to a litter.  It is extremely dangerous for both the health of the babies and the mother.  Even though these babies made it to 31 weeks, that is still fairly premature and many of them will likely experience a host of life-long problems.  Who is going to drive all these kids to their many appointments with physical, occupational or speech therapists?  How will they coordinate for extracurricular activities?  What kind of car will be able to accommodate this many children?  Oh, the list of how wrong this is goes on and on.

The answer to these questions is that someone besides the mom will be doing and providing all these things.  They will survive on hand-outs and volunteering from individuals, corporations, the government and the most insidious of all, the media.  Maybe they'll do a "Jon & Kate Plus Eight."  We think all this careless breeding is cute, but what a life!  How sad to be forced to live in the glare of media attention.  But will they have a choice?  In my mind, this is a glorified orphanage ... with cameras.

So what can we learn from our panda friends?   Pandas do not willingly have twins and they know their limitations.  In the future, nature will adapt when it has figured out that panda mommies should stick with singletons.  Now, human beings can handle twins or even triplets and most will not willingly neglect their offspring, but the red flags are a-wavin' when some nut-job decides to have a litter of eight (especially when she is already a single mom of six).  The reality is that one person cannot raise this many children, especially if they were born at the same time.  My friend just told me the saddest story of a family with five kids under the age of six.  The youngest child recently drowned in the bathtub.  When I asked her how this happened, she alluded to the chaos in the house with five young children.   I'm not advocating big-brother-ish control here, but can't something be done to stop the madness?  Or will society go on condoning this outrageous behavior all for the sake of good entertainment?  For the sake of these poor children, I truly hope that someone comes to their senses.

Cross posted on Mad About Multiples by Lisa George.

Original post from The Curious Georges.

Controversy over the octuplets

Jessica Gottlieb, among others, is calling for Oprah and Diane Sawyer to please refrain from giving the new mom of octuplets (plus 6 more kids!) any media attention. It is an interesting debate. For most of us moms of multiples, while we have multiples, this type of "litter" is not at all reflective of our families. Yes, we need support and help with our children - from our families and our community - like all mothers and families do. But the idea of this many children with one parent really is shocking, especially as we learn more details. Ethically, we have questions. It is hard to turn off attention to this type of out of the ordinary story (we know how people can't resist looking at a train wreck), but at the same time, giving attention to it perhaps makes this even more attractive to people craving the spotlight. Oprah - we love you, but we'll join in the ban over here at Mad About Multiples if this turns out to be a media deal.