Mad About Multiples!

When?

If you think about it, much of our lives is spent asking “When?” And when it comes to our kids, those questions can get pretty detailed. When would the IVF finally work and I’d become pregnant? When would we find out how many babies I was carrying? When would I start feeling them kick? When would we find out their genders? And the biggest question, when would they COME??

My twin boys were born two months early nearly seven years ago, but now it was a different kind of “When?” When would they hold their heads up, roll over, crawl, walk? When would they start feeding themselves, dressing themselves, talking? Since they had developmental delays as babies, these questions never had a “normal” answer for me. I’ve tried to guide my boys and help them to find their way, and at times, I’ve even pushed them forward, taking them to physical, occupational, and speech therapies to help with gross and fine motor skills, as well as speech. (In fact, I sometimes wish for another baby, a singleton, partly so that I could follow “normal” timelines.)

So I suppose it should come as no surprise that I’m still asking “When?” nearly seven years later. But now, the questions are more along the lines of, when will they be able to shower by themselves? When will they be able to make their own breakfast (or lunch or snack)? And lately, it seems that my concerns have turned toward more of a safety-type of question: When can I let them go into the men’s bathroom by themselves? When can they go into the common shower room at the local swimming pool by themselves?

Tea for One: Splitting up the Twins

At some point over the last few years, I started using the word "they" too often when I talked about my twin boys. Sure, it's an effective pronoun - I do have two children, after all. It makes sense that "they" were born in November 2007 and "they" are my only children; in fact, "they" both weighed 4 lbs 15 oz at birth, if you can believe that (and as a parent of multiples, I'm sure you can). And even though my husband and I are not oblivious to the intricacies of their very different personalities, the manic and exhausting nature of caring for twins led us to start lumping them together, if you will, for ease of communication. But, as human nature dictates (at least in our household), the negative seems to make more of an impression than the positive.

"How were they at preschool today?" my husband would often ask. "They were exhausting!" I groaned initially, recalling that one of my sons had a particularly frustrating day attempting to bring the outdoor toys indoors, yet somehow forgetting that my other son had so much fun with orange paint that he looked like a construction cone after class. "Well, did they nap well at least?" he kept pushing. "They fell asleep in the car and then Andy wouldn't transfer!" The obvious counterpoint to my Debbie Downer answer is that Luke, on the other hand, did transfer, and napped for three solid hours. And yet, I felt as if "they" had a bad day of sleep.

BACK TO SCHOOL? BACK TO THE MUSEUMS!!!

I think I was one of the last moms to join our playgroup - so my kids are just a couple months younger than most of the other kids.  I thought we would all be on similar school schedules, but turns out those few months made a big difference, as we have January birthdays.  This Fall we looked on wistfully as most of our playmates started Kindergarten, while we still had one more year of preschool.  We sighed, and then started planning some Fall outings.

I don't like summer crowds (maybe because we have lost our kids so many times??)  But, in general, I stay away from any place where I may have to smell be with lots of other people - museums, zoos, amusement parks.  (We are the family that visited Disneyland in January during a rainstorm!)  I haven't made the pilgrimage to the SF Academy of Sciences, and I have even avoided the new Seahorse exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

But with almost everyone back in school, I decided to venture out into the world again.  I really wanted to camp with the boys at New Brighton Beach, but getting reservations there is like trying to get into French Laundry.  But lo and behold, we were suddenly able to get a premium site on the bluffs overlooking the ocean on a late August Sunday night.  I booked the site, and we enjoyed a huge campsite on the bluffs with no neighbors on either side of us for the bargain price of $35.   "Wow!" my husband and I thought.  "This is really great."

Mirror Image Identical Twins (swimming video)

Tom and Nick are athletic 6.5-year-old boys who are mirror image identical twins. Their mom, a Gemini Crickets POM club member, tells Mad About Multiples that she discovered she was having twins - identical twins! - at her 12 week ultrasound. (The first ultrasound had shown only one heartbeat.) As her twins were monozygotic, she had follow up ultrasounds every four weeks to check for twin-to-twin-transfusion syndrome (TTTS). Her twins were very similar in size until around the last month when one appeared to be a bit larger than the other. When the twins were born at 36.9 weeks gestation, they shared a combined weight of 14 pounds and a slight case of TTTS.

Some fun facts about these mirror image twins:

Tom is a lefty; Nick is a righty.

Tom lost his front left tooth first; Nick lost his front right tooth first.

Tom's hair whorls to the right while Nick's hair whorls to the...you guessed it, left.

Tom favorite activities include sports and super hero play. Nick is into puzzles, Legos and tangrams.

Their mom had to laugh when she watched this video of her twins swimming in mirror image synchronicity.

We heart these mirror image twins! Go, boys, go!

Sun, Blue Sky and a Spring Picnic

A gorgeous day at Wildwood Park in Saratoga in May enticed a rather large number of Gemini Crickets families to come out and enjoy the beautiful spring weather. The playground kept most children busy running off energy and for those that took a breather, party coordinator, Susan, set up a table with several arts and crafts projects. But truly, a most wonderful sight at any large gathering like this is the twinfants sprawled and/or crawling on the tree-shaded grass.

 

Barbie versus Transformers

My twin boys are pretty typical 4 1/2 year-olds - active, social and loving, and for a long time they were into animals, trucks, trains and cars.  We read and watched a lot of Curious George, Miss Spider, and Thomas.  We got lots of educational DK books on trains, cars, animals and trucks. 

This last year however, my boys' interests have begun to radically change and diverge.  One of them, let's call him.....Gun Boy, loves all things battle-related - Star Wars, Transformers, Pokemon, his 2 index fingers.  He knows all the names of the good guy Transformers and the bad guy Transformers, and he knows that Sheildon is a Rock-type Pokemon. (Don't get me started.)  He sleeps with his Buzz Lightyear blaster and he would sell his soul for a light saber.

My other one, loves loves loves.......Barbie (and Ariel, Belle, Aurora and Jasmine).   He has Barbie stickers,  Princess and Barbie books and DVDs, a Disney Princess sleeping bag, and his prize-possession -  a Sleeping Beauty doll.  He swooned when he met Belle at Disneyland.

Here is a typical exchange these days:

Me: What should we read/watch/play?

Gun Boy: Transformers!

Pink Boy: Barbie!

Me: How 'bout _________? (some other non-Battle or Barbie/Princess related item)

Them: (screams of agony)

I'm sure many of you already know the drill - I'm just late to the game.  It's hard to find anything that we can all enjoy.  I used to make them pick something that they both liked - but there is no middle ground anymore. So now we usually take turns, and it is a special privilege indeed, to be the one who gets to pick first!  Pink Boy will usually watch Star Wars or Speed Racer, but Gun Boy's own special version of Hell is to having to sit through "Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus".  (Frankly, I feel the same way, but I am trying to model Barbie tolerance.)

I'll Never Do That

"I'll never do that when I have kids". How many times did I tell myself that before I became a mom? How many times have I, since I’ve become a mom, done those things I said I wouldn’t do? In my case, my pre-mommy thoughts centered around FOOD; I swore I would not be a short order cook, I would not take my kids to fast food, and  I would not give my kids candy. Ha! I have now done all three!

I watched my sister and friends as short order cooks for their kids, making anything their child demanded, just to get them to eat. I vowed not to do that. I thought if I insisted hard enough, I could make dinner and my kids would eat whatever I made. It makes me laugh now as I prepare several variations of dinner for my picky eater Ben! What I didn't understand at the time was when babies & kids don't eat, they don't sleep. Sleep as we all know is precious, especially to a tired mommy at the end of the day, so I chose to try to have well fed kids that will sleep.

I loved fast food as a youngster and could eat it all the time. But I avoid it now and try to keep healthy. I am so into healthy eating that I once told my nephew when he was six that California did not have McDonald’s! He discovered one eventually. I was not going to take my kids to fast food, but then I discovered how “fast” and “easy” it is. I think my nanny actually took them the first time, and I was mortified! I guess I had never discussed that McDonalds was off limits. Naturally, my picky eater Ben loved it. Now we visit McDonalds twice a month on the way home from swim class. My kids actually eat better in the car and if I drive slow enough they have finished off the chicken nuggets and the fries, and are onto their favorites, the apple dippers by the time we arrive home. It’s really fantastic!

My life, examined

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living.  However, I am a big proponent of denial (and that ain't no river in Egypt.)  Once again, at the prompting of Akemi, I am having to write about a subject that I’d rather just push under the couch along with all the dust, Lego’s, hair bands and other detritus that our family of five loses in that abyss.  The subject is:  what do you do as a mom that you swore that you would never do? In the words of a fellow we probably all know too well,  “Oh maaaan!”  (Thank you Swiper). 

Where do I begin?  It’s somewhat hard to remember, but I do seem to recall that I had a lot of high and mighty views on parenting.  One being that parents should be able to control their children at all times.  Anyone who has ever seen me with my monkeys at the grocery store can attest that I do not have control over my children at all times (or hardly ever).  Oh, there's Logan, grabbing a handful of peaches from the fruit bin and dropping them on the ground to see if they will bounce.  Oh, there’s Dane flipping the switch on the jelly bean dispenser and shrieking with delight as they scatter all over the store.  (And, by the way, why do they have that at a child’s eye level?)  And then there’s Nicole who is screaming bloody murder because I won’t let her buy a pair of Dora flip-flops.  

How Do You Tell Them Apart?

He has the more Asian eyes.

There. I'd said it. I hadn't meant to say it. I'd never said it before. But there it was, out in the open: He has the more Asian eyes.

They'd stood there staring at his eyes, at the eyes of his brother, at my eyes. The eyes of strangers darting from boy to boy, trying to tell them apart. Asian eyes - this one. Non-Asian eyes - that one? Is that what she meant?

Cute twin, homely twin? White verses Asian? Aha - she has a favorite! She's proud of his eyes, so much like her own. Asian eyes. No, no - she's embarrassed by his eyes, so much like her own. The Asian twin, more like his mother. The caucasian twin, more like his father.

Stop!

Let's rewind, shall we? He's the one with the goofy grin. His brother has the wider face darker hair bigger feet his shirt on backwards.

Now can you tell the difference? C'mon!

A rose by any other name...

When I was pregnant with my first set of twins, I bought every known how-to book on parenting twins out there.  And there are lots of them!  Some of the advice was somewhat off-putting.  I remember reading that this one mom of twins affixed a sign to her stroller saying, "Yes, they are twins. No, they're not identical."  In other words, "Bug off, nosy stranger!"  I just could never imagine being so annoyed by the sweet attention of strangers.  In fact, I absolutely love it when strangers come up to me and ask if my boys are twins.  Since my "older" daughter is only 19 months senior to the boys, we even get the "Are they triplets" question.  Of course, there aren't very many witty responses to "Boy, you have your hands full," but I just gamely nod assent and say perkily, "We sure do!"  In other words, we do have our hands full, but I so love having these three little monkeys, that I'm going to stay perky and willingly bask in the attention of strangers.  It's just plain fun.  One time we were ambling with our triple-wide stroller in the Rose Garden park and there was a group of Japanese tourists that were all a-twitter over our trio.  Many of them even took our photos, which made me feel like a rock star mommy!

Anyway, I'm digressing.  The main subject of this post was on the topic of what we call Dane and Logan.  Every book I read stressed the importance of not lumping your children into a two-word moniker, such as "the boys" or "the twins."  This is considered verboten among those dogmatic twin experts.  They are not one person, they say.  They have their own names.  Well, I have to admit that 9 times out of 10, we call Dane and Logan "the boys."  I talked in a prior post about how twins do experience life a bit differently than singletons.  The early life of a twin child is not a solitary existence.  They do virtually everything together.  Look at the last post!  They were gently touching hands while they slept.  This is one of the reasons that they are lumped together with the term, "the boys."  Also, we are just so busy that this helps us say what we want to say and fast.  Believe it or not, having to say "DaneandLogan" (4 syllables) is much longer and thus less efficient than "theboys" (two syllables).  Does that sound ridiculous?  Well, in the chaotic world of twins plus a singleton, cutting out two syllables can make a huge difference.  We're all about simplifying life here.

Twins at the Pumpkin Patch

Oh how I love Autumn and children. There's something special about Fall colors and kids running around a pumpkin patch. Each year, I try to put aside a day for my twin girls and a pumpkin patch, such as Lemos Farm. This year, I thought what fun it would be to go along on a Gemini Crickets field trip to Spina Farms and take photos of several sets of twins running around a pumpkin field. I'm sure I'm not the only mommy that thinks there isn't much cuter than little tots, barely taller than the pumpkins themselves, wandering around rows of the orange fruit awed by the mere sight of so many in one spot.

Being Called "The Twins"

How many times do you hear people call your twins "The Twins" or "The Boys" or "The Girls"? How many times do you call them that...yourself?

Having a twin sister myself and being the mother of boy-girl twins, I have a certain perspective on this. Basically, I am not a fan of these terms and consciously try to avoid them. (Although, I do use the term "The Girls" to refer to my girl twin and her younger sister, so perhaps it is slightly inevitable...it is so easy and cute, let's face it!) You see, growing up, my sister and I tried very hard to assert our individual identities. And people constantly calling us "The Twins" or "The Girls" and not being able to tell us apart (even our aunts and uncles often mixed us up) - well, it really pissed us off.

So last week, while

Boxes

I have found that having twins of the same gender elicits pre-conceptions among strangers. There are two types of reactions:  1)  Are they identical?  2)  Are their personalities really different? Would it be that life was so black and white. Number one, they are not identical and to my eye, they don’t even look that much alike. I’ve remedied this by only cutting one of the twin’s hair. Believe it or not, I think the hair is what was making people think that they were identical. Now I’m getting, “Wow, they don’t look much alike.” 

Yes, the twin experience is different than being a singleton but the way this affects their personalities is up for debate. They did share a womb and are almost always together so this does affect how they perceive and interact with the world (nurture).  But, biologically, they are the same as any two brothers (nature). When they are young, it is difficult to keep their identities separate and distinct and most of us probably fall into the trap of lumping them together with terms such as “the boys” or “the twins” or in my case, “the monsters” … I say this in the most loving manner possible (wink, wink).