Category — Attempts at Parenting

Kids running barefoot outside in the rain…

wearing only diapers…

and feeding them forkfuls of dinner as they go tearing by…

That’s not redneck, is it?

I hesitate to write this post because it implicates me as a terrible mom, but it’s important enough that I have to share.

We bathe the girls in one tub of water. When Chris isn’t home to help, I’ll take one child out of the tub and plop her on the counter to put on her lotion and brush her teeth while the other child plays in the tub. Then I put the dry baby on the ground and extract baby #2 from the tub, letting the water drain while I do lotion and teeth for her.

Tonight, I had Elise on the counter while Althea was in the tub. The bathroom is fairly small, so the tub is no more than two feet from the sink. Elise was being stubborn about brushing teeth, so I was really absorbed in the task.

I don’t know what happened, but Althea was suddenly coughing up water, struggling to gasp for breath while sputtering and choking  in the water.

She was submerged under the water. I don’t know how much time had elapsed. Maybe it was only for a second. Maybe it was three seconds. There were only three inches of water in the tub. Maybe she couldn’t really have drowned. Maybe she could have. But she was clearly choking on water that she’d inhaled while I was two feet away from her.

I WAS TWO FEET AWAY FROM HER. In the same room. Alive and conscious and sober and able to pay close attention to her, but I wasn’t.

I snatched her up and held her body close while her lungs struggled to expel water and inhale oxygen. I let my mind go there — her life, my life, flashing before me in an instant, overwhelmed with fear and gratitude that the unthinkable hadn’t happened. God and Christ and every other deity existed in that moment because my child was alive.

I don’t know if I’m overreacting, but what happened was fucking terrifying enough for me to have learned a horrible lesson:

The instant bath time is over, DRAIN THE TUB.

Do NOT assume that being in the same room means you’re paying attention.

I thought I was ultra cautious with the girls around water. I’ve never even left them unattended for four seconds to run into their room for a washcloth. I’m just too paranoid.

So what the fuck happened tonight???

People, you CANNOT be too careful around water when children are involved. In my mind, my 20-month-old girls are big and strong and smart enough to extract themselves from a couple of inches of water. Apparently not. Don’t fall into that same trap!

Along with my conviction to cook at home most of the time (which, by the way, has been mostly successful so far), I have declared war on baby speak.

The girls grunt, whine and cry when they want something. They’ll run to the fridge and cry while trying desperately to pry it open. They’ll let out a little “Nnn! Nnnn!” when they want us to do or get something. Then we spend the next eight minutes trying to guess what they want.

Maybe I’m asking too much, but I would think at almost 20 months old, my kids could respond to very simple sentences with familiar words by saying or nodding “yes” or “no.”

Here’s how it goes:

The girls run to the fridge and pull at the door while screaming/crying. I walk over and say:

“Quieres leche?” (“Do you want milk?”)

Blank stare.

“Quieres leche?”

Stare.

“Quieres LECHE?”

Stare.

“LECHE? LECHE? Queires? LECHE?”

Stare.

“QUIERES???? LECHE????? LECHE????”

Stare.

Sigh. Why is this not working?

Take out the sippy cups.

“QUIERES???? LECHE?????” while emphatically nodding and saying “Sí? Sí? Quieres leche???”

Stare.

“QUIERES???? LECHE????? SI??? SI????”

Stare.

Take out the carton of milk.

“QUIERES???? LECHE?????”

Stare.

“SI?? SI??? QUIERES???? LECHE????? SI???”

Stare.

Finally yesterday, I held onto their little skulls and nodded their heads up and down while saying “Sí! Sí!”

I then repeated “Quieres leche?”

To which they each grabbed hold of their chins and pushed their little heads up and down.

That’ll show you and your idiotic yes/no questions.

I also noticed that they can point to all their body parts when you ask them “Where is your hair?” Etc. And they will point to a baby doll’s hair and say the word for it. But when you point to somebody’s hair and ask, “What is this?” they don’t respond.

I don’t know anything about language development. Am I expecting too much in either case (responding to simple yes/no questions or using an existing vocabulary word to respond to a “What is this?” question). I try not to think about this stuff too much — why the hell am I wanting them to talk, anyway? — but I really  have no clue what I’m doing over here.

I have a serious, non-ironic-about-gender-stereotypes-etc., question:

How do you run your household?

You give me a single project and tell me to own and love it, I can do it. But give me a department to run and it’s going under.

The problem here is that running an house is like managing a department of some sort. Maybe not anything super important, like IT or accounting. But something like …. human resources? Because we’re humans and we’re like resources?

I have no idea. But this department is definitely not meeting quotas and whatnot.

The main topic of this post is cooking. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? We blow a depressing amount of money on take-out food. The girls almost always eat at home, but by the time they’re in bed and the day is done, I’m beat. I go through fits and spurts, but for the past few months we’ve been eating out probably four to five times a week.

(And don’t tell me to eat with my kids. Who the hell over the age of eight eats dinner at 5 p.m.???)

Anyhow. That’s a lot of money. And money is something we definitely don’t have to burn. Especially since we’re planning to finally take our honeymoon in two years, and by golly, that’s one project I WILL manage to achieve.

Vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

Oh, and the whole short-selling-the-house and three-kids-on-one-income things. Those are a real financial drain, too.

I’m trying to say that I’ve rededicated myself to cooking at home again, and I didn’t set my sights low, either. I decided to plan out a month’s worth of meals.

Note the key words there: Plan. In advance. A month.

Naturally, I don’t expect myself to actually succeed at this for a full 30 days, but I’m going to try, by god.

Vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

So, back to my question: How the hell do you do this? I’ve planned four days so far and I’m exhausted. How do you do that whole thing where you buy your groceries once a week and know exactly what to buy and the chicken lasts three days for three different meals and there are coupons and stuff?

I go to the store as often as four days a week to buy food as needed and there’s never anything to eat here except 18 bags of chip crumbs, some dented cans of crushed pineapple and three gallons of olive oil.

If I can make dinner with these ingredients, let me know. Otherwise, share your household management tips. Please. Even if you don’t have any. A mutual lack of housewifery skills will at least make me feel better.

Maybe my expectations were too high.

A few days in a waterside cottage sounded perfect. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, pool, small beach. Close to a historic downtown area and a few minutes from other quaint beach towns. My girls. My man.

It should have been paradise.

Day One

We left on Saturday before noon. The girls had their swim lesson in the morning, then we all splurged on lunch at Five Guys. (Only the best burgers ever, in case you didn’t know.) The girls fell asleep in the car almost as soon as we hit the road. Everything was poised to be awesome.

The drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived at the Lovely Vacation Cottage several hours later. Exhausted, we decided to take it easy and stroll down to the small strip of beach on the Intracoastal.

Aside from a trashcan lid and miscellaneous beer cans and condoms littering the sand, it was pleasant, as evidence by the single photo we took the entire trip:

Then came dinner, which occurred to us 20 minutes too late. While we drove around frantically searching for something kid-friendly and semi-not-touristy, the girls mounted an ever-rising cacophony of hunger-induced screams, shrieks and wails. They threw their sippy cups and kicked the seats. They cursed our parents and damned us to hell.

Panicked, we ended up going to a fucking SMOOTHIE place NOT known for its food. The girls scoffed at our attempts to feed them, chucking bits of quesadilla on the floor and screaming for MORE SMOOTHIE MOTHER FUCKERS WAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Day Two

After our typical breakfast routine, we got the girls ready to go to the beach. Before we left the Lovely Vacation Cottage, I asked Chris where my camera was.

Him: “I don’t know where it is.”

Me: “Well, you packed it.”

Him: “I don’t know where I packed it.”

Me: “….YOU took it out of the drawer. YOU asked me if I wanted you to bring it. I said yes. YOU then PUT IT somewhere, supposedly IN something that would be coming with us on vacation. WHERE was that somewhere?”

Him: “I don’t know. It’s your camera.”

Me: “BUT I DIDN’T PACK THE FUCKING CAMERA.”

Him: “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Me: ‘TELL ME WHERE THE GODDAMN CAMERA IS, THAT’S WHAT YOU CAN TELL ME.”

He found the camera and off we went, seething and huffing, to the goddamned beach where we had a goddamned good time.

And didn’t take a single goddamned picture.

On the way back to the Lovely Fucking Vacation Cottage, Chris drove past some idiot doing an illegal three-point turn in the middle of downtown. Apparently, this pissed the guy off and he followed us down the road, cursing and spitting and shaking his fists at us, back to the cottages. I spent the rest of the vacation swearing there was someone outside the window plotting to shoot our family.

That night was also Father’s Day, so for dinner we headed to one of the nearby, so-called charming downtowns. Most everything was closed (Sunday), but one sports bar that was open was offering a free entree for dads. Obvious choice, right?

This was one of those situations where you get what you pay for.

The food? Awful. Service? Atrocious. Child behavior? Horrifying. The waitress left us waiting for so long that I had to, for the first time ever, extract a screaming child from a restaurant. And Chris, for probably the first time ever, told off the waitress.

And left her a $5 tip anyway.

He’s nice to a fault.

Day Three

Day Three was Pool Day.

Pool Day was Awful Day.

The pool at the cottages was NOT made for kids. The fact that it was small wasn’t a big deal. But the fact that its shallowest portion was four-feet deep WAS a big deal. And the fact that the concrete area around the pool was about eight inches wide and perfect for two toddlers to go streaking around, threatening to fall into the water and drown if we dared to blink, was definitely a big deal.

Oh, and the water was about 105 degrees. One hundred. And five. Degrees. Farenheit. It was 90 outside. We got OUT of the water to cool off.

After an hour and a half of sheer terror and panic, we took the girls back to the Son-of-a-Bitching Vacation Cottage and spent the rest of the morning letting them play in traffic. Seemed less dangerous than the pool.

When we went to the mall to waste some time that afternoon, I think Chris and I both knew our vacation had gone down the proverbial shitter.

That evening, after the girls went to bed, Chris looked at me and casually suggested, “Maybe we should leave a day early? You know, since the girls seem so exhausted and unhappy with the change in ….”

“GOOD GOD YES LET’S GO.”

Day Four

The morning of our early departure, we couldn’t get packed fast enough.

Of course, the girls had other plans.

They wanted to tear out of the cottage and play in piles of red ants. They wanted to throw the toys I JUST PACKED all over the floor. They wanted to trip and skin their knees and play with wasps.

Then there was the bar of soap.

After clearing out the bathroom, I let Chris know that I had packed all of our toiletries. Well, I guess I forgot to pack his beloved bar of soap because guess who comes stomping out of the bathroom with a bar of Lever 2000 held gingerly in his trembling hands?

That idiotic bar of soap launched a major standoff and several hours of clipped, terse, only-the-necessities conversation.

(Who travels with soap … and then takes it back home, anyway???)

Leaving before nap time also proved to be a mistake. I spent the first two-and-a-half hours of the drive wanting to jump out of the moving car with every scream and cry emanating from the backseat.

Instead, I climbed over the passenger seat to entertain my daughters.

Because I am a patient and loving mother, goddamn it.

I’m really glad this topic came up on this week’s ControverSunday (check out some more chatter on it here) because discipline has been on my mind lately.

The girls are 18 months old now and I definitely see those terrible two’s setting in already. You don’t have to say it. I already know: We’ve only just begun.

Here’s what happens:

1. Children are happy.
2. Mom and/or Dad take something away. Whether that be the Coolest Toy of the Moment, or a beloved shoe (the girls are obsessed with shoes), or simply their essential happiness and livelihood (you would think), we take something from the child(ren).
3. Earth is engulfed by flames from Hell. Angels fall from the sky. Christmas ceases to exist and the Easter Bunny explodes into a million shards of jagged glass. Famine. Pestilence. Disease.

I took a cup away from Althea yesterday. In response, she threw a toy at me. I put her, crying and heaving, in a chair in the dark hall corner for a time out. It was her first real time out.

Elise throws food from her high chair and it annoys me to no end. I used to do time outs with that. Elise would sit in the corner like, “Thank GOD. I’ve been trying to get away from you all day.” So after 87 completely ineffective rounds of this, I started taking away the food completely.

Not that it works.

Then, there are tantrums. It seems that, within a matter of days, their mild, 40-second tantrums have evolved (or devolved?) into ever-more dramatic, three-plus minute meltdowns.

For instance: Bedtime. Never used to be an issue. Now? Ha. Ha.

The other night, Althea lost. her. shit. We plopped her in her crib as usual and good mother of all things holy, she went bananas. Stomping, throwing herself on the mattress, kicking, smacking herself in the head, holding her breath, writhing and flopping about like a fish on deck. Chris and I just watched, wide-eyed and speechless.

I am not a fan of this part of parenting.

Since discipline is now becoming a real thing to deal with, I pretty much have zero idea what I’m doing. On the one hand, I would think that doing some reading might be helpful.

But on the other hand, I think I’ve learned my lesson from reading parenting books: DON’T.

I’ve put some thought into it, and I believe my feelings are these:

• Misbehaving is a child’s job. The parent’s job, in return, is to love and direct the child through these explorations of boundaries.
• Tantrums and bad behavior can be attributed to a variety of things: exhaustion, hunger, need for attention, lack of ability to communicate. There’s also the very real concept that a child doesn’t know what or where the boundaries are; the only way to figure out the rules is to break them.
• Consistency is good. Just because the child doesn’t do what you say doesn’t mean they aren’t listening.
• I don’t agree with some parenting philosophies that allow a child to liberally direct decision making (e.g., unschooling). I think this approach entails, in part, the expectation that a child has the capacity to think like an adult.
• I do believe that we are raising adults, not children. But I don’t believe in inflexibility because childhood is made of beautiful, sparkly fairy dust.

All of this sounds great in a nice list of bullet points, but then there’s the part where a child is beet-faced and screaming and smacking themselves in the skull and then it’s like “Oh snap. People are looking at me. What do I do? Because I’m pretty much just staring and that’s probably not very parent-y.”

So yeah. Basically no direction. Lots of ideas and “feelings” and mushy stuff, but nothing to work with. Chris and I tend to approach things with humor and distraction (admittedly, easier for him than for me). I don’t know if a book would say that’s “good.”

Most likely, we’re causing irreversible psychological damage.

I’m not really looking for advice here. “Input” is more like it. Or a silly story. Yeah, tell me a silly story so I can just shut my eyes and go to my happy place until the girls are 26 so I don’t have to deal with this.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my job as a stay-at-home mom.

I purposely don’t put quotes around the word “job,” even though every feminist instinct in me wants to. Because hey, this gig doesn’t pay jack shit, and doesn’t a “real” “job” bring in a paycheck? Isn’t my worth as a contributing member of this family tied to my annual salary, my gainful employment — or lack thereof?

As the girls get older, my job gets harder. If I were still who I was five years ago, I’d look at my current job description of SAHM and laugh at myself. Stay at home? Mom? Uh, EASY. No obligatory bathing (myself), no dressing up for work, no bureaucratic red tape, no makeup, no high heels, no non-ergonomic chairs, no middle management, no client calls, no 12-hour days behind a desk.

Stay-at-home moms just play all day, zone out on soaps, burn food, sleep in and give up on any attempt at cleanliness or self-esteem.

In the words of the Rolling Stones, a permanent vacation.

But becoming a SAHM has been extremely difficult, emotionally and financially. I expected the finances to be tough. I was a little surprised at all the emotions that arose. But what I didn’t expect was the actual fact that staying at home and raising kids is freaking HARD.

Here’s my analogy:

I used to be the editor of a major tourism website. This meant I worked with designers and developers (and project managers and clients and salespeople and analysts and. . . ). If a web page wasn’t browser compliant, I would inform the developer and he/she would fix it. If I didn’t agree with the layout or design of a page, the designer and I would talk it out. If sales wasn’t happy with click-through or ad positions, we would meet to talk about ad placement and cross-promo opportunities.

In other words, if I told someone to do something, they either did it or talked it out with me to make something happen. If someone told me to do something, I either complied or argued for a rational compromise.

Not so with motherhood.

I spend a decent portion of my day talking to people who don’t speak my language. A simple “Are you hungry?” is met with “Baahelgih goaishhglc lsdlfkajsgiieeeeee!”

I tell someone to do something, and they take off running in the opposite direction, laughing and farting with glee.

I try to explain the simplest of tasks (“Do NOT put the fork IN YOUR EYE.”), point out the most logical of conditions (“When you throw your blankie on the floor, you no longer have your blankie in your hand; you want the blankie in your hand. You WANT the blankie in your….OH GODDAMMIT.”), elaborate on the most evident consequences of one’s actions (“If you don’t put on your diaper, you will shit all over the floor.”).

Nothing.

You’d think these kids were being raised in a barn.

So, to anyone out there who thinks a stay-at-home mother just gets to “stay at home” . . .

Yeah. Suck it.

(Awful post title, I know. It was either that or “To Wean or not to Wean,” and that would’ve just been lazy.)

Today I had a doctor’s appointment. Doctor D happens to be the girls’ pediatrician, so he was familiar with our situation.

He saw that I was on Zoloft for depression and asked how it was working.

The truth is, it isn’t. It’s definitely taken the edge off. I don’t feel like driving myself into the Grand Canyon. Usually. But I don’t feel good. Hell, I don’t even necessarily feel stable. I still have many of my previous symptoms: self-loathing, depression, despair, guilt, difficulty sleeping, anxiety, rage.

Before getting pregnant, I was taking Lamictal, a drug used for bipolar disorders, which is what my psychiatrist had diagnosed. Lamictal worked wonders for me, much more than any antidepressant ever did.

Unfortunately, Lamictal is a no-no for pregnant and nursing moms (depending on what you read). Doctor D’s literature said it’s straight-up unsafe for nursing mothers.

To get to the point, Doctor D recommended weaning so that I could get on a drug that actually works for me.

And that’s my dilemma.

I’m not eager to wean. I’m not looking to nurse until the girls are four, but I’m in no rush to wean either. I feel like….well shit, I’ve made it 16 months. What’s another eight? Make it an even two years. Their immune system still benefits, right?

On the other hand, Doctor D has a point. I’ve given my kids nutritional and immunological benefits that the vast majority of kids don’t get. It’s time to take care of myself, because the disorder I’m dealing with is not something to mess with.

When it comes down to it, if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. And the fact is that I’m not whole. I’m not who I could be.

It’s not about a mother’s little helper. It’s not about chasing an image of the ideal. As I’ve chronicled previously, I just have something ‘broken’ in my brain and, like anyone else with a medical issue who benefits from medication, I am a much more functional human when I’m being treated with therapeutic drugs.

I just can’t seem to embrace the idea of purposely or forcefully weaning my children so that I can pop a couple of pills to feel happy. It’s just not an even trade-off in my mind.

But I don’t know if feeling that way is a legitimate concern, or martyrdom and self-castigation.

The other voice in my head says “Yo. Forget anything you’ve heard or read. You aren’t doing well. Your girls and husband need you. You’re not a failure if you don’t nurse for two years. Wait….. two years!?? Are we seriously having this conversation? Because if we are, then you really do need to go back on the meds.”

I don’t know if I’m venting or looking for advice or what. But if you have any insight, I’d love to hear it, even if it’s just an “Aw man, that sucks.”

Because aw man, this sucks.

I don’t feel like being witty, coherent or organized, but I have a bunch of would-be posts accumulating in my head so I just need to get something written.

Feel free to comment on any, all or none of the following topics:

Why won’t my children sleep?

The girls are just about 16 months old. For the past week, they have been waking up crying — no, wailing – several times during the night. The cries are so intense that we don’t wait more than 10 minutes to see if they’re going to settle down on their own. We rock, we sing, we check and change diapers, but still the waking continues.

At this point, I’ve given up on explanations. Teething apparently lasts for a decade or more. They are obviously going through tremendous developmental stages. I’m pretty sure that the growth spurt explanation is BS, because from birth to 16 years seems to be one giant growth spurt.

All I know is that I really, really enjoy kids who sleep through the night. I would like to have those children back.

OMG-GYM

I joined a gym to get away from the kids.

Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. But seriously, the crying/whining thing, and the fact that my body still resembles a mountain of melting Play-Doh even 16 months after giving birth, made me think:

• Many gyms have childcare centers.
• All gyms have exercise equipment.
• Therefore, most gyms will solve many of my problems.

This was an equation I could solve.

So far, so-so. Althea tends to start panicking after about 30 minutes, but, much to my surprise, Elise walks around like she owns the damned place.

I totally have baby fever, but I really don’t think we’re ready for another child

That’s pretty much it. We want another child, and now’s the time to take advantage of my ever-dwindling youth (and egg count). Chris isn’t getting any younger. There will never be a “right time.” There will never be enough money. So all the logical “we shouldn’t have another kid yet” excuses are semi-bunk.

But ugh. I loved being pregnant, but now that I haven’t been pregnant for a while, I really don’t want anything to do with it. The nausea, the worry, the cravings, the weight gain, the deprivation, the heartburn, the 40 fucking weeks….

Then the newborn stage. My GOD, the newborn stage.

Can’t I just give birth to a six month old who sleeps through the night?

Also, how the hell does one ever leave the house with three children and no help?

We went to Disney World — not entirely against my will

I grew up just a short distance from Disneyland in California. I know Disney. I marveled at “it’s a small world.” I grew a little and split from my chaperons to smoke behind Space Mountain. I went without chaperons and smoked wherever I wanted. I got kicked out for smoking. I got high and rode “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” I shoplifted near the old “Jurassic Park” ride and got caught. (That one sucked.)

Then I went to college and realized what an evil machine of manufactured imagination, monetized innocence and capitalist cultivation the Disney Empire is.

But then I became a Florida resident, had kids and decided that $99 for four Disney parks was a really good deal.

So, before I knew it, this happened:

In case you’re wondering, the girls are pointing at birds. Yes, $99 and the kids like the birds. Chris is just looking hot and perfect. I, on the other hand, am just trying to suck in it, tuck my chin and hope that my newly developed brow wrinkles don’t show up in the photo too much.

(I haven’t done a general health/habits post in ages, so bear with me if you’re not into this sort of thing.)

The girls turned 15 months old last week. I’m starting to feel like a legitimate parent with actual, like….kids. While sharing a park with some morose-looking teenagers a few weeks ago, I had one of those out-of-body experiences where it hit me: I was no longer that rebellious, chain-smoking, misunderstood teen; I was now “that lady with kids,” a total buzz kill, a bust.

Or whatever kids are saying these days.

Anyhow, moving along….

General stats

As of this morning’s well-check, the girls have finally broken the 20-pound mark.  Both are at about 20lbs 5oz, which puts them, as usual, in the 10th percentile (20th if you go by the WHO breastfed baby charts). Both are measuring almost 30.5 inches (50th percentile).

They’re fitting comfortably in 12-18 months clothes and are now in size 4 diapers.

Sleeping

The days of two, two-hour naps every day are behind us, sadly. During the past six weeks or so, their morning nap got later and the afternoon nap phased out. Problem is, now they get super cranky and tired in the early evenings. It’s a bit of a rough transition. Their general routine is:

7:30 a.m. – Wake, nurse
8:30 a.m. – Breakfast
10:30 a.m. – Nap
12:00 p.m. – Wake, sometimes nurse
12:30 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Out and about
4:30/5:00 p.m. – Evening meltdowns begin
6:30 p.m. – Bath, nurse, read books
7:00 p.m. – Bed

I’m thinking it’s time to move up bedtime. I just keep forgetting. Aside from the occasional bad dream or teething, they still sleep solidly through the night.

Eating

We’re down to nursing two or three times a day. They don’t drink much whole milk, though — maybe three or four ounces a day. They just don’t seem to like it much, which is fine with me because the organic stuff is expensive.

They eat pretty much anything in the way of solids — that is, when they’re not scooping up food and dropping it over the side of the high chair. I still haven’t given them any nuts, honey or soy. They’re pretty good at using a fork and spoon, though I don’t offer utensils all the time.

Personalities and behavior

I hate to continue to peg one twin as “the happy twin” or “the serious twin.” They both have their own sense of humor, likes and dislikes, funky moods.

Elise loves: sleeping, birds, swings, avocados, squash, sucking her left thumb (so much that it has a callous), bananas, being held, dance and music, Yo Gabba Gabba, reading

Althea loves: avocados, Yo Gabba Gabba, reading, sucking on her sleep sack (which both girls now use as blankies), bananas, swings, kitties, making people laugh, playing in the sand, pointing at different body parts

As I posted earlier, we’re going through a pretty exhausting clingy phase. And tantrums are becoming pretty commonplace, though they’re thankfully short and not terribly loud. Althea’s tantrums remind me of those weird fainting goats — she arches her body backward, then slowly and dramatically lays on the ground, carefully placing her head down so as not to hurt herself. Meanwhile, Elise opens her mouth into a perfect “O,” turns bright red and cries.

Milestones

The girls are excellent walkers; people actually comment on how mature their walking skills are. There’s none of the tip-toeing or awkward knee-bending of a toddler. They can go up and down stairs (well, when they notice the stairs), get off beds and couches by themselves and sit on rocking horses the right way (which was apparently a difficult concept to grasp).

They don’t have many words yet. Both girls say Daddy, but only Althea says Ama. They both say bebe (baby),  “bah” for ball and “peh” for pelo (hair). But they understand a lot. They can point to their hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, feet, hands, stomach and bellybuttons (all in Spanish, I might add!). They recognize that a baby can exist in various places and in various forms — as a picture on the yogurt container, or a cartoon on TV, or a real baby in person. They know when it’s mealtime and bathtime. They understand sientate (sit down), and they raise their feet to put on socks and shoes.

I know that they understand “no,” mainly because it’s their favorite word to use and their favorite command to defy.