Since I have done this parenting thing before, I was pretty sure I’m smarter than a one year old.  I know all about child proofing and how to use distraction effectively.  Besides, they’re girls, so how hard could this toddler age be?

The picture that describes my life with one year old twins!

I can’t tell you how many things I have been wrong about this time around.  I thought Ky and Cadee would be late walkers, or at least wait until they were a year old.  Wrong.  They were both master walkers by their first birthday.  I thought Cadee and Ky would be less curious than their brother.  Wrong.  These girls have gotten into things that never crossed their brothers mind!  I thought they would be fearful of falling from high places.  Wrong.  I once found Cadee INSIDE of my top kitchen cabinet eating cookies.  Who would have thought to put a cabinet lock on the ones ABOVE the counter top?

Things I never dealt with before I am now having to deal with now.  My childproofing has gone to an all new level.  There is a lock on the fridge, after my 13 month old Ky got into the leftovers and painted my floor with chicken stir fry.  There is a lock on the oven, because Ky is obsessed with pulling herself up on any horizontal bar, and once she figured out she could open the oven, it became her new obsession.  There is a lock on the dryer, because Ky and Cadee both think it’s the best seat in the house.  We have no dining room chairs in our house, they stay in the garage and only get brought in for dinner.  After the top cabinet incident, having a place to sit just isn’t worth the risk.

I remember laying down, looking at the ultrasound screen, seeing my beautiful twin girls for the first time.  I was scared out of my mind, but I comforted myself with the thought “They are girls, they will be easier to handle.”  Boy, was I wrong.  At 17 months old my twin girls are giving me a run for my money.  And so far, there is nothing easy about this climbing toddler stage, even if they ARE girls.

Dollimama is the mother of three, a four year old son and 17 month old twin daughters.  She spends her days chasing children and doing laundry, while trying to keep her children out of the dryer.  She writes about the chaos of her Life Not Finished whenever she gets the chance.

What about your toddlers?  Have they entered the climbing stage? 

Have you found a difference between raising boys and girls?  Do you think raising girls is easier than raising boys?

M and J are five years old. In all those years, neither of them has ever asked for time away from her sister. From time to time, they have chosen to pursue different activities with one parent or the other, but my husband and I have had to work hard to pry them away from one another. We didn’t give them the option of being in the same kindergarten class (a discussion for another day), and they made it abundantly clear that being split up was not their preference.

M is a talker, and always has been. She narrates the world around her, and has ever since she mastered the sign for “more” and the word “uh-oh”. I’m as extroverted as anyone I know, but even I tire of the constant avalanche of words and ideas. J doesn’t. J listens, and listens, and listens, and if she absolutely must make herself heard, she does. Don’t get me wrong. J is a huge talker too. She’s just better able to pick and choose between her thoughts to identify what she wants to share.

This afternoon, M told we that she was feeling strange. She couldn’t describe exactly how, but I suspected that she was coming down with the ugly cough that’s been plaguing J and my husband. Since he reported that a nap had helped him significantly earlier, I suggested that we have a mommy-daughter read-and-snuggle session. J picked up Enid Blyton’s Melody and the Enchanted Harp and M grabbed Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go. I grabbed the P.D. James novel I’d been snacking on, since I knew that any other of my current reads would have me reaching for a notebook and pen.

We curled up under our covers and settled down to reading. M elected to read out loud. She has a tendency to skip over unfamiliar multi-syllable words, so I haven’t done much with her to encourage silent reading. On practically every page, she had an editorial comment, on witty rhymes, silly words, or interesting ideas. She wished we could have towed our old neighbourhood to our current location so she wouldn’t have to miss our neighbouts. Were Hakken-Craks real? Having years of practice as mother of the terribly talkative twins under my belt, I am adept at carrying on a conversation with one or both of them while reading (or cooking or cleaning).

Halfway through the Dr. Seuss, J had had enough. “May you please read in your head?” she asked her sister. When M ignored her, she repeated her request, adding, “It’s annoying.” M read silently for a couple of pages before picking up her chatter again. J elected to let her be.

Perhaps I should have scolded J for calling her sister annoying. All I could think, though, was that this was a milestone. For the first time, one sister had expressed annoyance with the other. It wasn’t enough for J to want alone time, but I feel like we’re on the path there. It’s bittersweet. I’ve loved this extraordinary acceptance our daughters have of one other, knowing full well that the closer they are, the harder it’s going to be for them as they develop their distinctive interests and lives.

How old were your kids the first time they got on each other’s nerves? Did you/do you think it’s healthy?

In Chinese there are no words for sister or brother; only for older brother “ge ge”, younger brother “di di”, older sister “jie jie”, and younger sister “mei mei.”

I don’t want to impose birth-order stereotypes on L and R; they are born 7 minutes apart. When L joined us at home, 3 weeks after R, Maher and I both unintentionally spoke to Rahul referring to Leila as his little sister. It was more in the sense of endearment and physical size than of age. But we quickly realized that it was untrue, and imagined implications of such labeling. We stopped.

When we returned to Chengdu from Hong Kong 5 months after the birth, our ayi (nanny) would tell R, “Look, Leila mei mei is sleeping. Why don’t you sleep as well?” I was upset. Drop the comparison, that issue is for another post. I firmly asked the people close to us – ayi’s (nannies), Chinese friends – not to use ge ge and mei mei; but to refer to Rahul and Leila as Rahul and Leila. Initially, they considered my request strange. I was interfering with cultural norms and habits. I insisted. They complied, at first with an uncomfortable smile, and probably a thought of how the lao wai (foreigners) always do things strangely. Now, they don’t hesitate. I’ve heard our ayi herself telling people in the street – “How can one be older? They are twins.” And if pushed she says, “I don’t know who was born first,” and then she looks at me to save her from the situation!

From what I remember of my Social Psychology 101 class, and various family talks, the oldest child is more responsible, self-motivated, and more dutiful, the middle child struggles for attention, and the youngest child is light-hearted, sometimes babied. It’s not as “straightforward” as that in reality, and certainly not in our household. I hope R doesn’t turn around one day and say a silly thing like, “That’s the way it goes because I am your older brother,” or someone guilt trips him with, “but she’s your little sister.”

When we go downstairs to play with the other kids in the complex, mums often tell their children, “You are her older brother. Let her play with your toy.” In China today, it’s rare that a child has a brother or a sister; so mum is usually referring to her child’s playmate. L and R may not know any of their friend’s names, but they know who is older and who is younger than them.

About half a year ago, R surprised me when he pointed at himself and said, “Afu, ge ge”. (R calls himself Afu. It’s his Sichuanese name.)  In another incident, a mum of a two year old girl asked me if L is a jie jie or a mei mei. Before I could say anything, L pointed at herself and replied proudly, “Leila, mei mei.”

L and R were obviously beginning to understand what people say. I realized that unless they use the words describing their relationships, they won’t be able to refer to their friends or themselves in an understandable, and respectable manner.

I am impressed that they know the words, and maybe the meaning. I don’t think they understand what the words imply in relation to each other, but they know that’s who they are.

A few weeks ago, a pair of 22 year old identical Chinese twin girls automatically introduced themselves to me as older sister and younger sister. When I dug deeper, probed them on whether they actually feel like one is older and if they live by that, “not really,” older sister replied, “At home we call each other by name. It is just for others that we use mei mei and jie jie.”

Other than it being a naming issue, it is a cultural one. We live in China, L and R were born in HK, and speak Chinese, so it only makes sense that they follow the social and cultural norms when engaging in society here. Now, when people in the street ask me the question, I answer straight up, R ge ge and L mei mei. Still some days, when I am in a feisty mood, I refuse to answer.

At home, with ayi’s and friends, we stick to L and R.

How do you answer the question, “Which twin is older?” If you have older twins or multiples, what are their thoughts on this?

Natasha, mum of Leila and Rahul was an Ashtanga Yoga teacher until her little yogis became the teachers. You can find more of her thoughts and stories at Our Little Yogis.

My son, Buba, is more reserved. He often hangs back in a new situation, watching to see what everyone else is doing before he decides whether to join in or not. He is more hesitant to try new things, and when faced with a group of kids, often prefers to play alone.

But here’s the thing- If Tiny tries something new first, Buba will almost always follow her lead. Even if she has tried to do something really hard and wasn’t successful, he will try too. I both love this, and despise it. I love that Tiny’s confidence can somehow be transferred to Buba and give him the courage to try things that he otherwise would not. But I so wish that he had some of that confidence on his own.

Given all of this, I wasn’t at all surprised a few weeks back when Tiny had no trouble at all going to a 3.5 hour day of gymnastics camp all by herself when her brother was home sick with a stomach bug. She didn’t know a single other kid in her group, and yet, she walked into that gym as if she owned the place.

But the following week, when Tiny was sick, Buba did not want to go to the first day of dance camp (something he had really been looking forward to) without his sister. His exact words were, “I can’t go, because if I do then Tiny will be so sad and she will be saying ‘Where’s my Buba?’” It took a lot of convincing, but I finally got him out the door and willing to give it a try. Fortunately the class was small (just two other sets of twin girls!), but he still was very tentative about the whole thing. He cried when I tried to leave (it was a drop off program), but agreed to participate if I sat in the corner of the room. So I did.

I could tell that, at first, he wasn’t really comfortable or enjoying the class at all. I think it didn’t help that everyone had a twin sister but him. But by the end of the session, he had really warmed up to one of the teacher’s helpers, and he allowed me to go to the waiting room for the last 10 minutes. This seemed HUGE and I was sure to tell him how very proud I was that he had finished dance class all by himself.

When Buba went back for day two, again without his sister, he was nervous about going by himself, but didn’t cry when I said I was going to run an errand or two. When I came back at the end of the class, the teacher said he had done really well, and Buba beamed from ear to ear as he eavesdropped on our conversation.

For the rest of the day, he told anyone who would listen about how he went to dance camp “ALL. BY. MY. SELF!” And when Tiny was finally well enough to go with him for the third and final day, it was clear to him that she was joining his dance class.

Now that everyone is healthy again, things are pretty much back to the way they used to be with Tiny always taking the lead and Buba following willingly. But I’m so glad that we had that experience- that he had that experience. Because now we know that he does have some of that confidence in there, and that Buba can experience new things successfully without his sister. The sky’s the limit now.

Do your multiples always do activities together? And does their confidence seem to feed off each other (in good or bad ways)?

You see, I am a little overwhelmed. Lots of traveling + moving into a new house + a new clingy phase = absolute mayhem around here most days and nights. My girls refuse to sit in their new high chairs or sit down in the bath. They demand me and my lap constantly. They have suddenly begun waking every four hours screaming for bottles that just a month ago were almost completely eliminated from our routine. And as of two weeks ago, the only way I can get them to go sleep is to lie down with one on either side of me and let them flop around for an hour while they slowly settle themselves. I won’t even discuss naps, which occur only while wasting endless gallons of gas in the car.

How did I get here?

After losing a key piece of one crib during our recent move, I took it as a sign (brilliant!) and made a rash decision to abandon the cribs entirely (my girls are 19 months old) and transition to floor beds. Yes, yes, I know: all the HDYDI ladies have strongly recommended against beginning this transition too early. But I liked the Montessori-inspired floor bed idea, and I figured that having the beds to play on during the day would be a treat.

I also figured that giving them a bottle of milk at 6am when they woke would yield two additional hours of sleep for them and me in the morning. Though it worked for two days, my excellent idea has since backfired royally, with the 6am bottle slowly creeping back toward 2am, and a new round of screams/demands for “Babas” occurring at 6:30am. Of course, full wakefulness follows, and I’m now getting far less sleep than I got five months ago. As for their complete refusal to sit in the bath or high chairs and their propensity to hurt/attempt to murder each other every 15 minutes, I am blaming my 18-months-is-the-new-terrible-twos theory.

I know we need to institute some order and calm in our family. I know because I have cried three nights in a row and have poured myself increasingly larger glasses of wine each night after their long protracted bedtime. I know because my husband and I are sniping at each other like we did in those first sleep-deprived weeks/months of their infancy.

I know I need to wean them from their bottles and get them to stop demanding milk meals during the night. I know I need to re-Ferberize them (we did it with great success at 14 months). I know I need to figure out what in the hell I’m doing about their sleeping situation, and commit to these floor beds or find/buy the missing crib part and revert back to cribs.

I pride myself on being a laid-back mom, but somehow in the last few months my relaxed attitude has not served me well. I need to pick my battles and fix something, because many things in this situation are broken.

I think I’m going to start by working on reducing the amount of milk they drink during the night. Baby steps! And I’ll continue to enjoy liberal pours of red wine in the evening and that really great chocolate and tell myself that this, too shall pass. One day I’ll be in charge again!

So how do you all right the ship when it’s gone off course? How do you control the chaos and prevent it from controlling you?

But even when I was getting up many, many times a night to attend to my newborns’ cries, I never thought that they were double trouble. They were just babies, after all. And when Buba and Tiny started crawling and walking and getting into anything and everything they could, they still weren’t double trouble in my mind. Just curious little babies reminding me of the areas that I still needed to babyproof. At age two, the tantrums began, but my kids were kind enough to take turns tantruming, so I only ever dealt with one temper tantrum at a time. Frustrating and annoying? Yes. But still not quite double trouble.

Age three, however, has been a whole different ballgame. When Buba and Tiny are playing together, there is a lot of calculated toy snatching going on- often resulting in pushing and hitting from both sides and lots and lots of screaming and crying. We were once at a point where Tiny or Buba would do something naughty, but would stop the behavior when told to do so (A “That’s one” from 1-2-3 Magic was pretty much all it took). Now, not only does the offender often not stop, but the other one usually joins in using the excuse, “But s/he’s doing it!” as they both laugh their heads off (making my blood boil). And when I hear Buba call out, “Hey, Tiny! Want to go be naughty?” I know that nothing good is about to happen.

This time last year, my kids were tough as nails. But now, every little fall, every little scraped brings on major tears and dramatic crying. And to make matters worse, the kid who didn’t get a scrape, pretends to fall and get one so s/he can cry and get kisses for his/her pretend owie too. And then there’s the whining. Oh, the whining! It’s just non-stop!

From talking with other moms, I know that this is just what age three seems to be all about. Hubby and I are firm and consistent with our disciple approach (meaning some days there are lots, and lots of time outs and double time outs), and that seems to be just about all we can do until this not-so-fun stage passes. And don’t get me wrong, we do have some good days moments that remind me what sweet, funny, and caring children we have. But there are now plenty of moments where I look at my kids and think, “Uh-oh. I’ve got double trouble.”

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reanbean

http://www.reanbean.com/

I think my twins were at least six or seven months old before they really seemed to notice that the other baby was there, before they really started to interact.

As older infants, one might grab something out of the other one’s hand, but most of the time they simply went on playing as though it didn’t even happen.

As toddlers, any grabbing or shoving was largely out of a self-centered desire for an object.  It wasn’t so much about the other kid, it was about the thing or the place.

Now, as clever preschoolers, it is all about pushing the other child’s buttons. My son wants that pink cup, but really only because he knows it’ll piss off his sister.  My daughter refuses to let her brother look at the book over her shoulder, simply on principle.  One will antagonize the other, but back off just in time so that the tormented one gets in trouble, not the tormenter. I think 50% of the things they say to me right now are complaining about the other one.

Part of this is the age; my kids seem to go through a nasty behavioral phase in the lead-up to their birthday (today! four!).  Part of it is the season. Summer is famous for less structure, stretched bedtimes, and all of the other things that leave boundaries open for testing.  I’m hoping to see an improvement now that the birthday has arrived, and am looking forward to school being back in session so they can have some space from one another.  And, truthfully, I am lucky. Despite the uptick in fighting, my twins play with each other all day long, and most of the arguments are quickly forgotten.

All the same, is it September yet? These guys need a break from each other.

Twins or otherwise, I think every mom wishes her children would be good friends in addition to just siblings. Some hope age works in their favor, others put some faith in gender, and certainly the twin moms hope that there’s that mystical “twin bond” that everyone goes on about.

My brother and I were not close. In fact, we actively loathed each other as children, and are now at least friendly as adults. But we have never been close, despite (or maybe because of) the scant 17 months that separates us in age. I very much hope that my kids do not have as difficult a relationship as my brother and I had, especially as kids.

One of the things that stuck out for me in the Nurtureshock chapter about siblings had to do with close relationships. If I’m remembering correctly, those who reported being closest with their siblings were not necessarily the ones who fought the least. Rather, they were the ones who had plenty of positive interactions and memories to counterbalance the (all-but-inevitable) fighting.

I can’t really think of any such memories with my brother from our childhood. My memory could certainly be failing me, clouded by the perception that we always hated each other, but maybe that’s part of the point?

Still, I watch my kids and how they play. Most of the time, making my heart swell, they seem to really enjoy playing with one another. They make up games, scenarios, races. They destroy the room with pillow forts and throwing stuffed animals around. They jump all over the place. It doesn’t surprise me, nor does it particularly alarm me, how quickly they can go from giggles to screams. Par for the course, I’d say. But what does amaze me is how quickly they can go from screams back to giggles. They don’t seem to hold grudges for very long, if at all. If one kid goes to time out for hitting/jumping on/grabbing from the other, they barely wait until the timer beeps to get back into their shared game.

I know they’ll get older, get their own friends. They’ll probably be more separated by activities and gender and interests. But I really, really hope that they can continue to seek out each other’s company and be each other’s most trusted friend. What mom doesn’t want that?

The $10,000 question… how will our soon-to-be Baby 3 fit into (and/or change) this mix? Will it be big kids versus pesky little sister? Will the girls band together and leave Daniel the odd man out? Will the little one and Daniel find a shared love that Becca has no interest in? Or will they all get along at different times and different stages? Only time will tell.

For your enjoyment: 20 seconds that makes any mom smile…

When the boys were little, we tried to make sure our daughter got special attention from us. She stayed up later, and she and I had tea parties together in the evenings. We went on little outings most weekends, to run errands or swing by the park.

Our boys were almost two before either of them got one-on-one time with a parent, out of the house and away from potential interruption by the other children. And those times were few and far between – mostly involving ER and urgent care visits. We poured most of our extra time into our daughter, who seemed to need us more. After all, our boys have each other.

That, right there, is the myth. Even when it benefits my singleton by securing her more individual attention from her parents and grandparents, we’re perpetuating a myth that hurts her: that she is incomplete, and would be – what? – more confident, less lonely, less needy, more whole – if only she had a twin. To treat her as though she needs more and her brothers need less, is to reinforce the lie she believes – that she is missing something that would complete her.

Our boys are 6 now, and even though they miss each other when they’re apart, they want one-on-one time with us. And they deserve it, as much as their sisters do. They might deserve it more, because they’ve certainly received less individual attention over their lifetimes than either of their singleton sisters has.

I struggle with meeting each of their needs for my undivided attention, like any busy parent does. Clearly the strategy we employed for the first 5 or so years of the boys’ lives – giving their older sister more time because she seemed to need it more – did not work. And as the boys have gotten older we’ve run into more situations where their being twins is not a boon, but a burden for them. Our new strategy is to treat them equally. Our twins are no more special than our singletons, nor any less deserving of our time and attention.

Because our kids are so close in age – and because our oldest needs to be in bed by 7:30 to keep her temper in check – they have the same bedtime. Our individual time comes on weekends. We rotate; each child gets one “date” with Mom and one with Dad before the next round begins. We started this over the summer and are still working through round 2.

I have no idea whether the “equality” approach to parenting is the right one, but I’m hoping that by consciously treating each child the same way, rather than according to what I perceive to be his or her need, I’ll be able to soothe my daughter’s fears that she’s missing something important and drive home to my boys that they are complete as separate individuals, as well.

(One of you asked about my youngest and how she feels – she’s not yet 4 and seems well adjusted so far. Most of her strong feelings hinge on things like Cheetos and her princess nightgown and when she watches “Dora,” so it’s hard to tell how badly I’ve screwed her up at this point.)

Jen is a work-from-home mom of 6-year-old twin boys, and two girls ages 3 and 8. She also blogs at Diagnosis: Urine, where she examines the finer points of potty training failure.

My daughter, Rebecca, has always been more of the goody-two-shoes than her brother.  Which is not to say that she isn’t clever and sneaky and a challenge in her own way, of course. But for the most part, she’s a rule-follower.  In fact, I would go so far as to say she loves rules.  In part, she loves following rules simply because she likes to be able to point out how well-behaved she is.  But just as much, she loves enforcing the rules on others.  In particular, her brother.

If the two of them are playing together in the other room, you will frequently hear her bossing him around, telling him exactly what to do and how to do it.  And boy, if he gets out of line…

“DAN! Stop jumping!”

“DAN! NO! NO JUMPING!”

“MOM! DAN’S JUMPING ON THE COUCH!”

On the one hand, I won’t lie, it’s kind of handy to have a tattle-tale in the bunch.  Oh sure, she sometimes gets caught red-handed at something nefarious, too.  But the truth is that her brother is more likely to attempt something dangerous, or do whatever it is I’ve told him not to do 100 times before. So I don’t really mind having her be an extra pair of eyes to make sure nothing valuable gets dropped into the floor vents.

On the other hand, the tattling is getting a little annoying.  Sometimes, when she whines “Mom, Daniel just ….,” I want to shout back, “work it out!”  And there are times when I doubt the complete truth of what she says.  Believe me, she will not hesitate to throw him under the bus at the slightest provocation. While he may have done whatever it is she has accused him of, it’s quite possible she had a hand in the wrongdoing as well. An interesting sibling dynamic at work, to be sure.

And yet, I’m not sure I want to squash the tattling. Yes, it can be annoying. But do I really want to have her STOP telling me when something is going wrong, even if right now it’s awfully minor? What about the day when it’s something big, and I absolutely DO want her to say something?

How do you handle tattling in your house?