Our family recently made a two day January car trip through flat prairies land as far as the eye can see, and we have more travel coming up this spring. While we prefer to drive over fly with three kids (and their stuff, and their carseats), and our kids are older, it doesn’t get any easier. We have tried everything to entertain the kids: new books and toys; games and candy; lots of stops at McDonald’s. In the end, we fall back on handheld game devices and DVD players–all three kids playing on watching with headphones means peace for the driver. Extremely bad parenting according to the experts in the books, magazines and websites. But I’m want to absolve you of all the guilt and tell you to do what you need to do to get to your destination safely–with your sanity intact!

As my kids get older, it becomes almost as much about the journey as the destination. At the end of the trip, while we all emerge from the crumb encrusted car tired and frazzled and sick of each other’s company, I can’t help but notice that there has been some bonding between siblings–some good has come from the hours on the road. An “we’ve been through this together” camaraderie. A “remember when we saw the giant airplane wings on the back of the truck…” reminiscence that continue to be discussed for hours as we drive. My husband and I join in with our memories of long car trips as kids: when there were no DVD players or ipods or carseats(!), when you could ride backwards in a station wagon or sleep on the floor of a sedan, where stopping for a bite to eat was not convenient as it is today and was always an adventure.

I think these trips form the foundation of our children’s lives and become part of our family history together. I end up being grateful for the excuse to to travel, grateful for the hours on the road, grateful for the whining, and the bad food, and the “he’s looking at me” and the “are we there yet” statements. I’m grateful once we are all out of the car!

How does your family handle car trips?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer to a spunky eight-year-old girl and two adventurous four-year-old boys.

1). Eat right;
2). Exercise;
3). Keep the house cleaner;
4). Cook nutritious meals.

Same resolutions every year that fall by the wayside in February. Try again:

1). Cure picky-eater-ness;
2). End sibling bickering;
3). Enforce good table manners.

Now I’m just dreaming.

I have so much to learn in 2012. Starting with striving to make our mornings smoother. I have schedules posted all over the house, bans on T.V. during the week, and when I am really on my game–both breakfast and lunch made before the kids get up. Yet every morning it feels like a race to the finish with a lot of cajoling to get everyone out the door. It makes for a stressful start of the day and I wish I could figure out what key ingredient I am missing to fix the situation.

Next, I need to learn how to take my kids (all with different skill levels) biking safely: an 8-year-old with a brand new mountain bike, a 4-year-old daredevil on a balance bike and a hesitant 4-year-old on a trike who longs to catch up with the other two but is not confident enough to try. If you can imagine me running around the neighborhood after this crew, dodging speeding cars, then you can understand my need for a new plan.

Finally, I need to figure out new and interesting ways to teach my boys their letters and numbers. They attend a fabulous play-based preschool and are learning social skills everyday and kindergarten requirements somewhat by osmosis. However, September is fast approaching and while we have a great (but competitive) elementary school, I feel the need to catch them up a bit so they go into kindergarten as prepared as any other kid.

What this really comes down to is learning how to accept and thrive in the challenge of:

1). how to be a great parent to an 8-year-old girl and two four-year-old (almost five!) boys;
2). learning how to balance the talents, needs, and desires, of everyone in the family so that my husband and I can reach our full parenting potential.

My goals all relate back to one thing “I” need to accomplish for success in my family. So I have chosen a word of the year to help me keep it all in the front of my mind: LEARN. I need to learn new skills in both parenting and time management in order to be a great parent this year and fulfill my goals. Do you have new year’s goals for yourself or your family?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and parent to three great kids (two happen to be twins).

Many of our resources are accessed by families from the United States including our fact sheets, many of which are free to download.

I’d like to ask you to take a minute to vote and show your support for families of multiples everywhere. All you need to do is click here or watch either (or both) of the following video and click on the link at the end.  If you have a Facebook account, you can vote using it.  You can vote once a day for an idea, so I encourage you to vote daily.

Thank you on behalf of families with multiples, and those who don’t yet know they will be families with multiples.

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MBC Supporting Families

As my boys approach five, I am torn between buying them the same gifts as I have done in years past, or buying slightly different ones that can be played with together. It starts as twinfants by well meaning family and friends who buy two crinkly toys, two bouncers, two walkers, and moves on thru the toddler years where two ride on toys become a necessity to prevent their fighting and Mom’s headaches. I had hoped that this year I could follow their interests (helicopters and police cars for one and batman and spiderman for the other) and buy them individual gifts instead of treating them as a unit, but as much as I hope this would work, I must admit defeat. While only one boy is interested in the batman Imagintext products, they will both be receiving them because they are just too super cool to just have one in the house. Jealousy would abound.

I do pat myself on the back for purchasing complimentary Playmobil pieces: an ambulance, a police car, and a plane for big sister. I know that many hours of imaginative play await. And since I’m not quite done with my shopping, I am open to any and all ideas for imaginative, creative gifts for almost five-year-old boys.

Lest you think our holiday plans are all toy related, I leave you with an image of a recent crafting session. As my kids get older, crafting gets more “doable”–projects are completed successfully and with less mess. Here we are making salt dough decorations. The recipe is simple and very similar to homemade playdough:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water

Stir to combine. Roll out on a floured surface, cut shapes, be sure to poke a hole for stringing. Bake at 250 degrees for two hours. Enjoy!

How do you manage gifts for your multiples?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and mom to a spunky 7-year-old girl and police and ambulance and batman loving four-year-old twins.

In the book, “One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are,” author Ann Voskamp encourages readers to look beyond the day to day grind of lives and to keep a counting of our blessings. These three children have given my husband and I so much to be thankful for–my heart is full. A recent counting of my families’ blessings include:
The ability to walk my older daughter and her friends to and from school. Pickups that become huge playdates with friends and their siblings

Legos and polly pockets and imagination games that all three can play

Loving the old dog

Boys and dog in the stroller

Halloween and Holidays. Busy-ness and slowing down. Time flies

The ability to stay at home these beginning years and trying every day to remember to enjoy each minute

Wanting, needing, demanding time with Daddy, especially when it involves hitting golf balls or hammering nails

Kids Meetings (where they scurry away to have discussions and usually involve filched treats like potato chips or candy). I try to be mad because I think I *should* but it is just so cute!

“Mommy, I need to be outside, or I’m just going to die!” My nature-centric kids

That twins and an older sibling play together, love each other, need their time together without Mom or Dad interfering

From our family to yours, wishing you a heartful Thanksgiving Season.

Leslie H. is freelance writer and mom to a spunky seven-year-old and rambunctious four-year-old twin boys.

I have a lot to be thankful for today. My husband is home, and with troops being withdrawn from Iraq, I’m pretty sure he won’t be going back there, although Afghanistan is in his future. My sister is here in the US with her spitfire son, 20 months old. He is my daughters’ only first cousin, and this is their first meeting. No Christmas present could ever beat this gift of time with my loved ones, seeing my girls as amazed (and, I’ll admin, annoyed) by a younger kid following them around as I was by my sister.

My daughter J made the observation that she felt sad for her cousin, because he’d have no brothers or sisters to play with when he returned home. My husband reminded her that most kids are born solo, and many of them don’t have a big brother or sister waiting for them. “We’re lucky!” said J. “We’re lucky to be twins and Oskar and Abel are lucky too!” (Abel and Oskar are Tracey‘s identical four-year-old sons.)

They are lucky to be twins.

I, too, am lucky that our girls are twins. I tend towards perfectionism, and often take responsibility for things that have nothing to do with me. I suspect that if I had had a singleton, I would have considered every success, every milestone, and every personality trait a reflection of my parenting. My mum certainly felt that way about me, and later about my sister.

Instead, I was given the gift of identical twins who are altogether unique, despite sharing DNA, schooling, their home environment, and most experiences. From the start, my daughters showed me that they were people in their own right, and not reflections of my parenting decisions alone.

My twins gave me the gift of perspective, and for that I am most thankful. From the very start, I tried to become the right parent for each of them, rather than trying to turn them into my ideal children. I have seen many of my parent peers agonize over where they’ve gone “wrong,” trying to understand why one child has a speech delay or another is biting her friends. I have also seen parents congratulate themselves for their children’s brilliance in math or unusual athleticism. I am thankful that my girls are who they are. M’s chatterbox nature is hers, and is not because of anything my husband or I did particularly right or wrong. J’s generosity is also her own.

I am thankful to my twins for helping me see them as people in their own right, instead of as reflections of my husband and me.

Living in the D.C. metropolitan area, with family along the I-95 corridor, the thought of slugging through Thanksgiving traffic to a sit down meal is exhausting–especially with kids who can’t just sit and eat. I am aware of the whole purpose of the holiday–passing on tradition, visiting family, teaching manners and values. However, our whole meal will be filled with cajoling the kids to sit down, try your food, no you can’t get up yet. Two hours of cooking will be over in 20 minutes and I usually end up with a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking Thanksgiving is the holiday full of food they don’t like; where they have to sit still and eat without fuss. That’s no fun.

A hike with Big Sister leading the way, as always

So this year we’ve given ourselves permission to take the holiday “off”. We plan to be tourists in our own city–swapping museums and monuments for Macy’s parades and football games. I will cook the usual Thanksgiving foods the day before and have a casual meal of leftovers after the kids go to bed, exhausted after seeing the sites. This plan sounds relaxing and more along the lines of our family’s values–having fun, active, learning experiences together. Yes, we are still reading Thanksgiving books, doing turkey crafts, making the requisite Native American feather headband, and hopefully my kids will learn that Thanksgiving is a fun day for our family no matter how we celebrate it.

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving with multiples?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and mom to a spunky seven-year-old girl and adventurous four-year-old twin boys.

I know many bloggers are writing about what they are thankful for this month, so I’m offering you the first part of my list of 30 Blessing I’ve Received From My Twins

1. Two lovely daughters
2. Lots of kisses and cuddles for me
3. Watching how my 2.5 year old daughters care about and look out for each other
4. A constant reminder to be aware of what makes each person unique
5. The opportunity to reflect on my parenting decisions and how they reflect my values
6. Becoming part of a community of parents of multiples online and in person
7. Plenty of requests for reading stories
8. Seeing how easily children adapt to multiples.  They are way less concerned about how they were conceived, or which ones is older than their parents.
9. Lessons in patience and perspective
10. Only having to narrow our name choices down to the top two
11. Lots of helpers in the kitchen
12. A constant reminder to look at people when I talk to them
13. A son who enjoys “the sister” and “the other sister” even though he can’t tell them apart.  He wants to have 2 more baby sisters (but I think we’ve got our hands full).
14. Opportunities to be an advocate for my children and to demonstrate through my actions that their uniqueness as individuals and as multiples is important
15. Lots of great stories to share

• There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
• Follow your gut.
• It never hurts to get a second opinion.
• Some lessons are more likely to stick if they come from someone other than a child’s parent.
• Things are often more complicated than they appear.
• There is such a thing as knowing too much about something.

The first time we visited a speech therapist was at the recommendation of the family pediatrician. When M was nearly 3 years old, I became concerned about how slowly she ate. I once timed her spending 17 minutes chewing a single piece of meat, and finally had her spit it out. The pediatrician suggested that she had dysphagia, or trouble swallowing. I had imagined that a couple of degrees in linguistics gave me a basic understanding of what speech therapists do, but I was wrong. Speech therapists deal with all sorts of oral motor issues, including problems with chewing or swallowing.

It turned out that M had never quite figured out how to use her tongue to effectively move food around in her mouth as she chewed. Because of that, foods that required chewing would cause her to choke. After six sessions of feeding therapy with an amazing speech therapist and a lot of reinforcement at home and daycare, she could eat successfully. Meals became enjoyable again. It’s been over 2 years, and we haven’t seen any backsliding. In fact, M enjoys food so much now that she plans to open a restaurant when she grows up. Bonus: military medical insurance covered 100% of speech therapy session costs.

It was during feeding therapy that the therapist raised a concern that M might have articulation delays. It had never occurred to me that there was anything off in her speech, since the child talked incessantly and no one who knew her—I, her teachers, or our neighbours—had any trouble understanding her. I thought her pronunciation of yellow as “lellow” was darling, rather than worrisome. The linguist in me had always ignored the nagging doubts, knowing full well that there was variation in the timing of pronunciation mastery, but there should be no cause for alarm as long as the order of acquisition were being followed.

When my husband returned from Iraq and need me or J to translate for him so that he could understand M, it was clearly time to revisit the speech therapist. My MA in theoretical linguistics hadn’t taught me as much about the practicalities of language development as I’d thought. The practice we’d been to for feeding therapy no longer took our insurance, so we had to find a new therapist. We had both girls, now 3 months shy of turning 4, evaluated at the new practice. They ended up being evaluated by different therapists, and we learned how incredibly subjective these evaluations can be.

J was determined to be 2 standard deviations above the norm for her age when it came to grammar, vocabulary and comprehension, but 2 standard deviations below the norm for articulation, the production of mature speech sounds. She sounded more like a child just turned 3 than one soon to be 4. M, on the other hand, was evaluated only for articulation, and declared to be just dandy. These results didn’t ring true for us. M was, to our ears, far less clear in her speech than J. My husband insisted that M be reevaluated, this time by the therapist who had seen J. When the office staff let us know that they were concerned that insurance might not pay for a second evaluation, we offered to pay out of pocket. Insurance did end up covering it, though. The second set of results was more in line with our expectations. Although J’s need for speech therapy was a judgment call, M definitely needed it. Where the first evaluation had her placed her in the 43rd percentile, the reevaluation placed her in the 2nd percentile for articulation.

Since their delays were along the same continuum, the therapist offered to work both twins together in weekly sessions. The sessions were great fun for the girls. The therapist pulled out board games, and let them each take a turn after they completed a pronunciation exercise. She focused on making them aware of how the sounds coming out of their mouths were different than hers. Soon enough, they could say ‘sh’ and ‘v’ easily. It was extraordinary to see how those two sounds alone helped with others’ comprehension of their endless chatter.

After 3 months, both the girls graduated from speech therapy. All J had left to master were ‘l’ and ‘r’, and the speech therapist didn’t think those needed to be rushed. M had a lisp to work on too, but we were comfortable with the exercises she needed to do at home to help with that. We should keep an eye on the girls, she told us, and consider revisiting a speech therapist if they didn’t appear to be making any headway after a while.

My husband and I think that we’ve given it long enough, and both girls’ ‘r’s are still very baby-like. At this point, speech evaluations are often conducted through the school district, so we need to ask both their classroom teachers what they think of their speech before we go hunting for yet another speech therapist.

If you’re curious about what precisely goes on in a speech therapist’s office, feel free to peruse the detailed tales of feeding therapy and speech therapy sessions on my personal blog.

Sadia and her 5-year-old girls, M and J, do their talking, lisps and all, in El Paso, TX, much to the exhaustion of her soldier husband. They try not to talk while eating, but it’s tough when there’s so much to say. They are happy to report that chewing challenges are no longer to blame for the length of conversations around the dinner table.