Monthly Archives: September 2010

Zygosity: Do you know? Do you care?

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I spent part of the weekend attending workshops about twins and twinning. (I intended to post something immediately when I got home, but life got in the way and I’m a few days late). I found it quite fascinating to hear about what scientists know and don’t know about how twins are created. It was equally interesting to discover what twins have taught us about the joint influence of genetics and environment. One of the recurring themes of the workshops focused on different types multiples.

Here’s a quick review:

  • Monozygotic (MZ) multiples (can be twins or higher-order multiples) were created when one fertilized egg split to form two or more embryos.
  • Dizygotic (DZ) or trizygotic (TZ) multiples were created when two or more eggs were fertilized.
  • Triplets and higher-order multiples can be any combinations of monozygotic and di/trizygotic.

Monozygotic multiples are commonly known as “identical” and di/tri/quadzygotic are known as “fraternal.” These terms can be somewhat misleading as they suggest that monozygotic multiples are the same in every way. The truth is that the moment the egg separates, the two eggs cease to be identical and they are then influenced by different internal and external conditions. As a mother of monozygotic twins, I can tell you my daughters look very similar, but they are unique individuals and should be treated as such.

Anyway, back to the workshops, I learned a lot of interesting trivia about multiples. Did you know:

  • that monozygotic twins have more variation in birth weight than dizygotic twins, but by age 10 monozygotic twins are closer in weight and height than dizygotic twins?
  • there are more sets of female monozygotic twins than male sets, and more sets of female conjoined twins than male sets?
  • for most cancers, the risk of getting cancer isn’t any higher even if your twin has it
  • even though monozygotic multiples aren’t supposed to run in families, there are some cases where it seems to recur in families or to occur more often than expected in families with dizygotic multiples
  • language delays and learning disabilities seem to be more common among multiples
  • dizygotic twins may run in families and may be passed down by both men and women
  • there are mirror image twins where some traits are opposites (one is left-handed and one is right-handed, one has hair that parts on the left and one on the right, etc)

Since dizygotic twins run in both my family and my husband’s, we assumed that the twins we were having would be dizygotic. When they were born, the doctor said he thought they might be monozygotic and sent the placenta for testing to confirm his theory. If he hadn’t taken that step, we may have continued to assume they were dizyogtic even though they look very similar. I’m not sure if having that information makes a difference to us, at this point. Many families go for years without knowing the zygosity of their multiples, and apparently 75% of them are right about their assumptions.

Do you know for sure the zygosity of your multiples? How did you find out? Why is it important for you to know?

A Tale of Two Classrooms

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Last week, my pair of three-year-olds started preschool.

Second day of school

Did you hear that heavenly chorus bursting forth from your computer? That’s coming from my house.  Five mornings a week, we hit the car drop-off line, and in they go to their bright, beautiful Montessori classrooms.  And yes, that’s plural.  My three-year-olds are in separate classrooms.

The curriculum is designed as a longitudinal program, so the children stay in the same classroom, with the same teacher, for three years.  In large part because of that structure, the expectation is that siblings will be in separate classrooms, twins or otherwise.  I was initially a little taken aback, as I had always assumed my kids would stay together in preschool and separate later on.  But when I stopped to think about it, and thought about my own kids and how they relate to one another, I really believe that it’s the best thing for them.  (And if I hadn’t, I could have found another school, or possibly argued my case.)

My kids are reasonably close, as siblings go, but nowhere near as much as some sets of twins. I don’t say that as a good or bad thing, just as a point of fact. They play well together (until they start fighting, of course), but they don’t mind having time away from one another.  They love it when my husband and I split them up for part of the day on the weekends.  They were thrilled to move into their own bedrooms.

For my children, I think the separate classrooms work well.  My son gets a break from being bossed around by his sister, and won’t be distracted because he’s too busy poking her.  My daughter gets to come out of her brother’s more-outgoing shadow, and not spend so much time concerned with what he’s doing (and whether he’s doing it “right”).  They get to be known as individuals, instead of always being seen as a unit.  Yes, boy/girl twins have it easier in that regard than same-sex (and, especially, identical) twins.  But I still think that, when they’re together, even the most well-meaning person can tend to see them as a pair and sometimes treat them as such.  Heck, I know I do it, and I’m their mother!

And you know what? Being in separate classrooms does not seem to have phased them in the slightest. Certainly, we talked about it ahead of time, so it wasn’t a surprise when school started.  But every day, they have walked their own way with nary a backwards glance.  They sometimes find each other on the playground at the end of the morning, but not always.  They are happy to see each other at pick-up, and play together all afternoon and all weekend.  But I think they might actually like that three hours a day that is, in a sense, their own.

Oh, sure, it presents some logistical challenges for mama.  On orientation day, when parents were supposed to stay in the classrooms with their kids, I had to make sure my husband could take the morning off.  It makes me a little twitchy that I have gotten to know my son’s teacher better than my daughter’s (yes, seriously, it’s still only a few days into the year, I’ll get over it).  The two teachers do things slightly differently, which makes for a few extra things to remember, and minor conflicts when one child brings home drawings whenever they’re done, and the other is supposed to save them for Fridays.

But even just a week and a half into our first school year, I feel confident that having my kids in separate classrooms was the right call for us.

What about you? Are your kids together in school, or separate? If you haven’t hit school age yet, what do you think would work in your twins’ relationship?

my twins adjust to all-day kindergarten

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My boys started kindergarten this fall. It’s an all-day program in our district, so from the time they get on the bus in the morning until they’re returned to me in the afternoon, they’re gone 7 hours. This is a big step from last year’s preschool program of 2 hours a day, 3 days a week.

I asked to have them placed in the same classroom this year, and the school accommodated us. I’ll refer you to this post about their adjustment to preschool, so you have some frame of reference for their progress. Go ahead, click. We’ll wait for you.

Okay, everyone back?

We’ve made immense progress from last year’s desperate screaming and clawing as though they were being abducted. This year they happily hop onto the bus with their sister and neighborhood friends. Each boy cried the first day – G because he got separated from his class, and P because he was too scared to get his snack from his lunch bag because the classroom aide was yelling at people who got out their lunch bags at snack time. So he skipped snack. Poor baby. (The aide really is mean – I witnessed it firsthand and want to mention it to the teacher, but I think I’m skating on thin ice with her already because my boys don’t know any letters of the alphabet by their real names. They’re rocking a twin-language thing when it comes to the alphabet.)

But otherwise, no tears. The teacher let everyone choose where to sit the first few days, then she assigned seats and my boys are at different tables. They have no problem with this.

I’m so happy with how well they’ve adjusted. They’ve come so far in just a year, in terms of their ability to separate from us and from each other. This has given me greater confidence in the idea of letting them choose when to be separated, because I see the progress they’re making.

How’s the new school year treating the multiples in your lives?

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.

Timeouts = Trouble X Two

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Our girls are now 19 months old, and they are going through a biting phase. My response is to remove the biter from the situation for a minute. I sit the biter on the step, which is the same time out spot as we do for our almost-4-year-old son. It all sounds good in theory, but here’s what happened last time:

The Biter* bit her sister, The Victim, because The Victim got in her way. The Biter was clearly frustrated and unhappy with the situation.  The Victim, with teeth marks on her arm, was also unhappy. When I removed The Biter and sat her on the step, she settled right down.  She sat on the step quietly for a few moments, and then was ready to get back to her toys.  Meanwhile, The Victim cried because she had been bitten. Then, she cried because her sister got to have a timeout she didn’t.  In the end, I had to “give” her a time out too because she felt she had been further victimized by being denied a timeout.

(* I don’t believe in labeling my children this way, and I assure you they have both been biters and victims, but this was the easiest way to keep track of who’s who for the story.)

Any suggestions for next time?

Making a List and Checking It Twice

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It may be a bit early for holiday shopping (perhaps), but right now (at least in our neck of the woods) it’s twin sale time again! I’ve only shopped the sales in our area, and they’ve all been huge events where you can find fantastic deals on used clothing, toys, books, games/puzzles, baby gear, and more. I always shop the fall and spring sales before even stepping foot inside a traditional children’s clothing store.

However, shopping these sales can sometimes feel like I’m running with the brides-to-be in Filene’s Basement. There are often tons and tons of shoppers and sometimes babies and kids in strollers, making it even harder to move around. I won’t lie. I was completely unprepared and overwhelmed when I shopped my first twin sale almost three years ago. I’m not a big shopper to begin with, and almost had an anxiety attack trying to manage the huge stacks of clothing. I don’t think I even made it over to they toys and books. And it wasn’t much easier when I went back for my second sale in the spring.

But by my third sale (the following fall), I realized that I needed more of a game plan to successfully shop during twin sale season. And now, as I approach my sixth sale, I feel that I really have a system that works for me. Here is what my game plan involves:

Make a list: For some reason, the sales are just much easier for me to navigate if I have a list of what I need. It keeps me focused and motivated to find the things we really need. It also keeps me from bringing home things we don’t need.

Find a seller: I was lucky enough to find someone who has boy/girl twins who are roughly a size ahead of mine (even though they’re a month younger than mine!). She lets me shop her items before she tags them, and it’s a win-win for both of us. I don’t have to hunt through huge stacks to look for what I need, and she gets to spend less time tagging her items.

Work the sale and pre-shop: This will be my third sale as a seller. It’s quite a lot of work getting all of my items organized and tagged, and being a seller means I have to work set-up on Friday night AND all day Saturday until the entire venue has been cleared out. But it also means that I get to pre-shop both Friday night AND Saturday morning. The amount of items to look through is still overwhelming, but at least I’m doing it with a relatively few number of other shoppers.

So how about you? Do you shop your local mother of multiples sale? What tips do you have for finding just what you need when shopping large tag sales?

Dropping the nap, two ways

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Way back at the beginning of the summer, I wrote about my son’s very active desire to drop his nap.   He and I had a rough summer.  We went through a really defiant stage, and one of the ways it manifested itself was a knock-down, drag-out fight EVERY SINGLE DAY at naptime.  Even getting him to stay in his room, asleep or not, was a battle.  The kicker was how desperately he still needed the sleep.  The days he skipped it, he was a wreck.  Lack of sleep plus a super-defiant age?  Not a good combination.

At any rate, here we are in September.  The overall level of defiance has, thankfully, decreased. He doesn’t have a tantrum every day at 1pm when I suggest it’s time to go upstairs. Even still, though, he is only napping maybe 50% of the time, at best.  He’s simply too “busy.”  He has to investigate everything (despite there being very few things in his room), he has to take eight trips to the bathroom, etc.  And yes, he’s still exhausted by late afternoon.  Alas, I think this is just going to be the way it goes until, eventually, the nap is completely gone.

In the meantime, his sister has been quite the opposite – we’re halfway through lunch when she announces that she’s “bewy tired” and ready to go upstairs.  She practically tucks herself in and waits for me to come sing a song.  “How delightful!” I think to myself.  “She’s going to nap forever!”

Or will she?

Daniel’s chosen method for dropping the nap is so noticeable, he’s going about it with such brute force, that it simply commands my attention.  While I’m battling with Daniel to stay in his room, mentally pleading with him that this be the day he finally sleeps, Rebecca has been quietly finding another way.  What used to be a solid two-plus-hour nap is now consistently down to an hour and a half, at the most.  She’s still happy to go to bed, but has been sleeping for shorter and shorter periods.

I won’t lie, I like Rebecca’s method better.  It still gives me a guaranteed period of quiet time each day, and doesn’t require any convincing or cajoling.  But, of course, each method is very true to its owner.  When Daniel sees an obstacle, he wants to barrel straight through it.  Direct force.  No question what he’s trying to do.  Rebecca, on the other hand, will quietly find away around, find a chink in the armor to exploit, or try to simply convince it to step aside.  True to form.

What about you, readers? Have you noticed your pair approaching similar transitions or challenges in characteristically different ways?  Or do they seem to take a similar path to one another?