Category — Toddler-hood

Chris and I spent our first night away from the girls in almost two years (well, three if you count the pregnancy itself, right?). We went to Gainesville to watch the University of Florida’s homecoming game (wherein we proceeded to post an embarrassing loss to a crap team on our own home field on homecoming weekend, making for a third-straight loss this season and our first such losing streak in decades. But that’s another story.).

It looked something like this:

I ate Cracker Jack. I cheered and chomped and (carefully) hopped up and down for our single touchdown. I sang our school song. I felt young again, like I was on a fun date with my husband and some friends.

Last night, we slept in a bed without a monitor on the nightstand. When I stirred at 7 a.m., I rolled back over and slowly drifted back to dreamland.

Then, I slept until 9:30 a.m.

That made for a total of nine-and-a-half hours of sleep. All at once.

Do you have any idea what this amount of rest feels like? Let me tell you, it’s fucking INCREDIBLE.

Did you know that rest makes you more productive, energetic, patient and happy? I know, crazy! But it’s true.

My girls did great with their grandparents and made me so proud at how wonderful they are. I got a chance to miss them for a little bit and appreciate their warm, happy little toddler hugs and kisses when we finally got back this afternoon.

Okay, so they actually totally ignored us when we got back because Yo Gabba Gabba was on and, when faced with a choice between DJ Lance Rock and the crew versus their parents, the girls will always choose DJ Lance Rock because he is awesome.

I’ll admit it — I’m an instruction-manual reader. I love me some instruction manuals. I read instructions for shit that is completely obvious, just in case there are some special tips or interesting bits of new information to learn.

And it’s not just instruction manuals. I read the backs of shampoo bottles, the warning labels on bath mats and the ingredients lists on cans of soda. I even watched the DVD that came with my last washing machine.

What can I say? I like feeling informed and I love to read.

When it comes to parenting, then, it’s odd that my shelves aren’t piled high with parenting manuals.

Sure, I have a few books. One is a gigantic guide to the first five years, which I got free as part of my enrollment in a grocery store’s baby club. (Hey, good coupons, yo.) It’s in a magazine holder in my bathroom so I can flip through it on the can — after I’m done reading Allure, Newsweek, Fitness and Entertainment Weekly, of course. I also bought a book for the first year, which I stopped reading about 12 weeks into it. More recently, I picked up a used copy of “What to Expect During the Toddler Years” at the Friends of the Library used bookstore, which I have opened approximately twice. It’s now in an unlabeled box in the garage.

I think I got disillusioned with parenting-type manuals after reading two sleep training books early on. When the babies weren’t following the directions outlined in the books, I don’t know. It kind of turned me off. The experience made me realize that I’m dealing with human beings, not ceiling fans or curtain rods. So, rather than flip through books for general insight as I normally would, I have banned parenting books altogether.

The problem now is, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. Seriously, zero. None. Winging it 100%. This is making things more difficult because the girls are CRAZY.

OH. MY. GOD. How does anyone survive this??? Why do people continue to have children after experiencing the toddler years? Had I known things were going to be like this, I would seriously have considered having my uterus soldered to the Brooklyn Bridge or some other high-traffic thoroughfare.

Yeah, it’s the terrible twos, blah blah blah. Which is stupid to say because the behavior is completely normal for a two year old. It’s just holy-shit MADDENING for an adult.

Plus, there’s TWO of them.

And I’m PREGNANT.

This SUCKS.

I try so hard. Every day, I wake up and pull out my best Jack Donaghy: “Just do it. Is it in you? I’m lovin’ it. Chin up, positive attitude, let’s get ‘em you magnificent son of a bitch! LET’S DO THIS THING!”

Some days are good. Those are rare — whole days that are good. Sometimes we have a good morning. Sometimes a good evening. Okay, I lie. We never have a good evening. Sometimes it’s just an hour here or there that is good. The rest is just…hard.

I feel like everyone subscribes to some sort of parenting “camp.” Which one do I belong in? Attachment parenting? Play-based learning? Reason with them? Zero-tolerance policy? Open-door policy? Don’t ask don’t tell?

See? I don’t even know the terminology.

So, my incredibly smart and savvy reader(s). Whatcha got for me? Will I make it? Should I RTFM finally? What do you or did you do to get through this stage?

Wait. This is just a stage, right?!?

Sunday morning reading time with Daddy. This makes me happy.

You know what makes me sad, though? Thinking about losing this.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m getting excited for the new baby and am feeling much better about her and the pregnancy overall. But during those moments of utter contentment with my husband and two girls, I get intensely sad at the loss of our little family of four.

I like our family. We understand each other. It’s comfortable. It’s familiar. It’s fun. I like how we’re figuring out how to communicate with each other. I like the age the girls are at, I love their little voices, their silly words. I love the time we spend together.

I also like sleeping through the night, daily routines, children who know how to walk, three-hour naps and not being outnumbered.

Some of my friends with a toddler and an infant used to ask how the hell I survive having twins. I would tell them honestly that the thought of trying to handle a toddler and a newborn sounded MUCH more difficult than having twins.

The thought of trying to handle TWIN toddlers and a newborn, however, is a level of difficulty I can’t even conjure in my worst nightmares.

It’s almost laughable.

Today, I’m 28 weeks pregnant and so marks the official start of my third trimester. I’m starting to get worried about how we’ll handle having three kids. Specifically, how am I going to handle having three kids, since it’s mostly just me with them?

What do I do when Althea goes tearing down the street by herself while I’m trying to unload groceries from the van?

What happens when, three minutes into story time at the library, Elise decides she’s over it and she starts yanking on my hand, shouting “NO! NO! NO!”

I’m also afraid I’ll forget someone at home. Or in a shopping cart. Or that I’ll accidentally drop the baby out of her sling while chasing after one of the girls.

The logistics of everyday life is going to get complicated.

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.

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.

Once again, I’ve been slacking on monthly progress reports, so here you go. If you’re not into this sort of thing, then skip it.

The girls turned 18 months old last week. At their well-visit with the pediatrician, I made their next appointment for November. It almost blew right past me that this will be their two-year well check. TWO YEARS OLD. This makes me panic.

Anyhow. Moving on.

Eating

As I reported a little while back, I weaned the girls at 16.5 months (and promptly got pregnant on that same cycle). They just drink whole milk, some juice and water now.

Eating has gotten pretty casual with them. They graze most of the day, maybe sitting down for real meals a few times a week. This hasn’t posed a problem with eating out — they actually do really great when we eat out, only whining or fussing if they’re exhausted.

I think they recently came out of a growth spurt because there were a few weeks there where they were eating and drinking like insatiable hogs. In the past few days, it’s slowed down to a more manageable pace.

They will eat or try most anything we give them. We’re super lucky in this department.

Sleeping

Luckily, no complaints here either. They go to bed between 7 – 8 p.m. and sleep till 7 – 8 in the morning. I think they have dreams now, because someone will occasionally wake up in a state of terror.

Just one nap, generally 3 hours in the early afternoon.

Sizes

They’re both just over 22 pounds and 32 inches tall, so still in the 25% percentile for weight and 50% for height. They wear 18 month clothes, size 5 shoes and size 4 diapers.

Communication

This is one topic where I find myself comparing the girls to other kids and I HATE doing that.

I speak exclusively in Spanish to the girls, while Chris mixes English, some Spanish and some Greek to them. Then throw in more Greek, Spanish and even French with my in-laws and my mom, and we’re all over the place. I totally encourage it. Everything I’ve ever read encourages it. The pediatrician encourages it. I have ZERO issue with it.

But along with living in a multi-lingual family comes a delay of some vocabulary and I sometimes have to remind myself of that. Normally I don’t even think about it. It’s when I’m around other kids in single-language households — kids who understand all sorts of words and commands, who speak quite a bit — that I have to cover my ears.

Right now, I’d say the girls have about 20 words in Spanish and English that they can say, but they understand a lot. Good enough for me.

Challenges

This is a new topic for me in these monthly overviews because “real” challenges are just starting to emerge.

Behavior is a big one. Honestly, the girls have not been awful so far. Far from it, really. The things we’re dealing with right now is the occasional throwing of toys and food, some light hitting (to each other and to me and Chris, but no issues with other kids), and some tantrums (at bedtime and when we make them do something they don’t want to do — duh).

Mostly, we just take it in stride. Chris is pretty good about keeping his cool. I lose my patience sometimes, especially if there’s a lot of crying/whining involved. I just try to remind myself that this too shall pass, they’re very little still and don’t have the tools and vocabulary to deal with things. Pretty much 100% of what they do is completely, totally normal and is to be expected. Breathe. Cry. Repeat.

Personalities

Sigh, where do I start? They are just amazing little girls.

Elise is so sweet. She loves to love people and things. She loves her blankie, she loves Daddy, she loves sucking her thumb. She likes to rest and observe. When we walk into a new situation, she’ll often hang back and stand in one spot for a while, watching what everyone else is doing before making her move.

What’s most salient about her personality is how detail oriented she is. In a room full of activity, Elise will find the little piece of lint in the corner and will study it for ages. She’ll turn it over in her hands, talk to it, show it to you for your opinion. One time, she fell off a chair, flat on her face. She didn’t cry because she was instantly distracted by a little stick she found in the carpet. She LOVES to read, both to herself and being read to.

Meanwhile, Althea tends to be more outgoing and big-picture. She’ll wave “hi” to everybody around her. We walk into a new situation and she’ll charge right in, finding someone or something to play with. She sings and shrieks and bursts into laughter. She dances and claps. She puts on a show and makes silly faces. Her sense of humor is already evident, too, and she loves making people laugh. Her favorite person in the whole world is Daddy.

What’s interesting is that, just because Elise tends to be more subdued doesn’t mean that she’s more compliant. Of the two, Elise is more likely to not want to follow directions. If we’re at a park, for instance, and I start walking away to get everyone to the car, Althea will follow and Elise will stay back and do whatever she damn well pleases. She has a strong independent streak to her and likes to do things her way. Althea is more likely to imitate and do things when asked (well, as much as an 18 month old will follow directions), though she does tend to be more destructive.

I don’t want to categorize either of the girls as the “outgoing one” or the “quiet one,” because it’s simply not true. There are times when Althea breaks down and Elise is in charge. Althea often initiates kissing and hugging with her sister, even though Elise tends to be “softer.”

Just goes to show that, no matter how much we want to label twins, no matter how much we culturally romanticize the notion of twinship, twins — yes, even identical ones — are very much two different people.

Chris was having trouble with 18 across and 74 down. Elise stepped in to help.

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.