Category Archives: Activities

Whirlwind Schedule

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If you’re anything like me, things start to whirl out of control at this time of year. Here in the US, the school year is winding down, and the end-of-school events are ramping up. Between recitals and dress rehearsals (dance and piano), awards ceremonies, talent shows, birthday parties, selecting summer camp programs, and the school cultural celebration, I’m feeling a little frayed at the edges.

The fact that J and M’s birthday is next month just adds insult to injury. I confess that, while we’ve decided on a time, location, and theme for their party, I have made no headway toward making invitations or finalizing the guest list.

I am, as my daughter M once put it, “overwheeled.” She says “overwhelmed” now, but “overwheeled” is up there with “lellow” for “yellow” and “yosen” for “used” in my favourite J-and-Misms. (She just looked over my shoulder and informed me that I spelled “favourite” wrong and should “spell it American.” I figure letting my daughters watch and participate in my writing process can’t be a bad thing for anyone.)

I’m not too proud to ask for help when I need it. A huge part of the reason that I hurried back to Central Texas after my divorce was to return to the amazingly supportive community that I am part of. The stuff on my plate right now, however, can’t be outsourced. I need to be the one making sure I get ballet costume photos taken for Grammy and Grampy. Only I can make modifications to my work schedule to get to all these events on time. It’s up to me to make the display on Bangladesh for the event celebrating diversity at our school.

For the next month or so, I need to go into get-it-done mode. There will be less sleep for me. I’ll be working through all my lunch breaks. I’m going to have to figure out each day’s schedule at the beginning of the week. No flying by the seat of my pants for me. This will be a month of checklists and spreadsheets and schedules.

It’s going to be a great month and will leave us with a ton of great memories, but I am looking forward to June.

How do you handle the crazy times?

For those of you with infants right now, how does it feel to hear how completely I’ve managed to forget the feats of juggling I was capable of when my littles were truly little?

Sadia, her twin daughters J and M, and the family cats overextend themselves in the Austin, TX area. Sadia is a recently divorced single mom and works full time in higher education information technology.

"I Had No Idea She Had a Sister"

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J is standing in front of wall of art, showing off her paint and collage chameleon.Our local performing arts center recently hosted an exhibition of elementary art from around the school district. One of my twin 6-year-old’s works was selected for display.

I confess that I’d completely forgotten about the open house. When I picked the girls up from after-school care Wednesday, I planned to take them shopping for shoes. They reminded me of our priorities, in a hurry. We made it to the exhibit by the skin of our teeth, a minute before the teachers began to dismantle the displays. While the artwork has been up for several weeks, the open house/teacher meet-and-greet was 2 hours only.

M had been the one to remind me of her sister’s exhibition. “We can’t go shoe shopping,” she told me, “because sisters are much more importanter than selves. We have to see J’s chameleon.”

J spotted her piece within seconds of our arrival. While we were oohing and aahing, her art teacher arrived. Once the handshakes and hugs were over with, the art teacher said to J, “I didn’t know you had a sister!”

“They’re actually in the same grade,” I told her. “Twins.” I immediately felt an urge to slap my forehead. Why did I need to volunteer that? What difference does it make? This was J’s moment to shine.

On cue, M’s art teacher arrived, saw M, hugged her and introduced herself to me. “I just love having M in my class,” she gushed. “She’s such a hard worker, and so articulate!”

J’s teacher looked M’s, and said, “Did you know she had a sister? I had no idea J had a sister!”

“No, I didn’t know. M’s a wonderful student!”

This moment was why I chose to have my girls in separate classrooms. They’re independent enough that I didn’t think it would hurt to be apart, and I wanted them to learn that they excel and are valuable as individuals as well being on display to the world as a pair.

M was a little perturbed on the drive home. “I don’t think I’m a very good artist,” she said. “I wasn’t picked.”

I quickly corrected her. “No, sweetie, that’s not it at all. I think the teachers had to limit themselves to one piece per grade, and yours just wasn’t the one your teacher picked for first grade. You’re an excellent artist.”

M perked right up. “J got picked. I just love her chameleon.”

J was miffed. “You’re just being jealous.”

I started to say, “No,” but M interrupted me. “I’m not jealous! I’m proud of my special Sissy.”

And I’m proud of my special girls.

Sadia’s 6-year-old daughters attend a dual language first grade program in a public school near Austin, TX. She feels very fortunate to be in a school district that can still afford to include music, art and physical education, as well as the Spanish and English immersion experiences. Sadia is a single mom and works in higher education information technology.

Activity

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When my daughters participated in a soccer—I prefer to call it football—program that came to their daycare centre, I was the proud mother of children who played soccer. Now that we have entered the Age of Activities, I am a bona fide soccer mom, shuttling M and J to soccer practice and games. Well, I would shuttle them to games if I could find the elusive soccer field, which I did not do this past Saturday. That was a rather epic soccer mom failure on my part. The coach assures me it will be okay as I long as I get them to their second match.

My overachieving 6-year-olds are also taking piano lessons after school, which thankfully requires no driving on my part. The group lessons are held at their school. They continue to take dance lessons, ballet and tap this year, in contrast to last year’s ballet and jazz dance. The dance school is within walking distance of my house, so driving the girls is optional, although accompanying them is not.

When J came home with a note from school about Girl Scouts last week and begged to join, my immediate reaction was to yell, “Are you kidding me?” but I suppressed that response.

J has her moments, certainly, but she has been nothing but helpful when it comes to getting to her activities. She packs her bag when appropriate, gets dressed without a fuss, and even lets me put her hair into a ponytail for soccer and dance. I know she would much rather wear a headband, but she understands the need to pull her hair out of her face. The only time she’s made us late for something, it was because she had an unanticipated bathroom crisis.

M, on the other hand, has been angry a lot recently, for reasons I’ll get into another day. She hasn’t been quite as cooperative as I would like her to be. On Saturday morning, for instance, she flailed her arms and legs and screamed that she hated me because, in my efforts to help her into her soccer uniform, I had allowed her shorts to touch her belly button for the briefest instant. I confess that after that, being unable to find the soccer game sent me calling my mother-in-law in tears, sitting in my car with the girls in an empty parking lot next to where I thought the game was to be.

My mother-in-law told me that like me, she loved M, but was well aware that her temper can get the better of her. She warned me not to let the consequences of M’s decisions negatively impact J. Her advice firmed up an idea I’d been playing with.

Tonight, at the Girl Scout roundup hosted at our school, I signed J up for Girl Scouts. I didn’t sign M up. I told M that, if she could get ready for dance, soccer and piano without a fuss through the end of the month, we would revisit her participation in Girl Scouts. For now, I thought she had as many activities as she could handle. She needed to handle them well before we could consider adding any more.

M was a little disappointed, but handled this consequence of her actions with grace. She repeated back to me the terms under which she could join the Girl Scouts. Clearly, Mommy and Grammy’s point had made an impression. We’ll see whether that impression lasts.

For years, I have been careful to treat my girls equally, trying to evenly divide my time, my attention, treats, punishments and all the little things that go into a child’s life. The fact is, though, that they’re different people, with different personalities and different incentives. While I don’t intend to let go of the ideal of equality any time soon, I also need to take a more nuanced approach to parenting than one-size-fits-both.

How do you handle it when your children have differing discipline needs?

Sadia is habitually late to soccer practice and other activities in Central Texas, where her 6-year-old identical twin daughters run her ragged. She escapes the soccer mom treadmill to her job as a business analyst.

Family visit

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My wonderful mother came for a (too short of a) two week visit with my favorite (and only) sister’s almost 7yr nephew. Oh the fun we had! The kids don’t have many cousins to play with on a regular basis so to have one living in the house for a whole 2 weeks was beyond amazing for them.

I was slightly worried how the whole language barrier would go but turns out kids are pretty good communicators with couple words, gestures and primal noises. It took them about 10 minutes after we arrived from the airport to be playing ‘jungle’ in the basement (and the pace never slowed down after that). By the second night Daniel requested that we make a bed for him in the kids’ room.

Nathan was in awe of this older boy who knew how to climb trees and dive and speak Finnish flawlessly. It was fun to watch him soak in the ‘wisdom’ Daniel so openly shared. They planned jokes on the rest of us with such a speed and creativity that I had forgotten existed.

Prior to the visit I had worried about spending tons of money on admissions to several of our planned activities. I was thrilled to find out that through our library we could get discounted admissions to a whole lot of places. I met a mom from CA at the aquarium who told me that their library has a similar program. So if you’re planning excursions with a load of neighborhood kids or your own you should totally look into that. Our budget throwing $95 admission fee to our Zoo became pocket chance when we flashed our library pass and were charged only $12.

I had hoped that having a Finnish speaking child in the house would produce some language development in my kids but to my disappointment I don’t think they now speak one more word of Finnish than they did before the visit. Daniel however developed his understanding of English by quite a bit and would tell me sometimes when I started to translate something that ‘I already know what that means’. We have a month long trip planned to Finland in the fall. Who knows, maybe by the end of that trip my children will dazzle me with their ability to form a whole sentence in Finnish! Until then we have many memories to cherish and are looking forward to making new ones.

How do you find deals on fun things to do with the family? 

Hanna is trying to foster the sense of Finnish heritance in her kids (and her totally awesome American husband) in the outskirts of Boston. 

Figuring It Out In Real Life

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I had read a lot of books and felt that I was well grounded in the knowledge of parenting well before I was married or had children. I had strong ideas of what kind of a parent I would be. But what I lacked was the never ending- around the clock- always demanding- sometimes draining- mostly uplifting- experience of raising real children. Like my sister-in-law once pointed out in a not so sweet tone ‘once you get your own children you won’t be so perfect anymore’  OUCH! (I totally deserved it!)

Once I experienced motherhood I realized that my well thought plans and straight forward approach didn’t work quite as well in real life as they did in theory. Not that the theory was wrong but real life is so much more complicated and sometimes I am at a loss as to how to apply the book knowledge to a certain situation.

My most recent ‘complicated’ experience started a few weeks ago. Video games entered our home. I was so not prepared for that. One night when I was working my husband had introduced Mario Karts to our oldest. Couple weeks later, when they had opened every possible new track, a package arrived in our house that contained Sky Captain. Now it’s on to the Monster Trucks.

Clearly the boy enjoys playing them. And I’m not completely against them in the lives of children. There just seemed to be ‘too much’ of it. From the beginning my husband and I talked to him how playing games is a privilege and not something he should take for granted. And there have been days when he’s lost that privilege and have had to go without playing all day, sometimes two or three in a row.

Here’s where it became ‘complicated’. I was feeling guilty for letting him play that much (what ever that much is) and at the same time I was thrilled he had found something to do that didn’t require my attention. Better yet, Beth and Joshua loved watching him race so they left me be also. WELCOME FREE TIME! But the quilt was growing as was his addiction. I had to intervene, for both of us. I was tempted to throw the games away but realized that would not address the problem. Something else would take the place of videogames and we’d be in this situation again. (And I also imagined him to grow up to be holed up in a room playing videogames all day long, not being able to hold onto a job or a wife and blaming me for ruining his life by not letting him play when he was a kid .. kinda like the relationship I have with Finnish chocolate because my parents deprived me of that when I was growing up. Yeah, totally blaming my lack of self disciple on them!). So what I needed were guidelines. I had mentioned this to a mom friend and she told me about an other mom who has her children ‘earn’ their TV time. Sounded like a good idea. After struggling to decide how much one workbook page meant in video time I settled for 10 pages (about 45min) = 30 minutes playing, usually separated in two sessions (Nathan’s choice).

Transition was much easier than I thought it would be. Nathan seems to be proud that he can ‘earn’ his game time. After breakfast he asks for his book and does the required pages. So far he has been satisfied with 30 min /day. My quilt has disappeared. A win win in my book!

(I should add that when my husband is home and he wants to play with Nathan that time does not need to be earned. That is counted as ‘quality time’ between Dad and a son. Because clearly, it is.)

How are you handling tv and video games in your home?

Hanna is a mom of ‘one and twins’ who’s trying to strike a balance between theory and real life. And to not ruin her kids while figuring it all out.

 

Holiday Greetings

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I love the holidays.  Holiday music, baking opportunities, community events, Christmas lights–all of it makes me smile. I don’t enjoy shopping during the holidays at all, though. The crowds give me headaches, so I’m usually done procuring gifts well before Thanksgiving.

One of my favourite activities at the end of the year is sending out holiday cards. Since becoming a mother, I haven’t been nearly as good at keeping in touch with friends around the world, and our holiday greetings are an annual opportunity to remind the people we care about that we love them. For nearly six years, I maintained a public blog, but there are plenty of folks for whom the blogosphere is a huge mystery. The act of addressing and stamping envelopes, filling them with our family’s good wishes, is very satisfying. I know that Christmas cards end up being a chore for many people, and I’m very glad that I find the whole experience to be fun!

I usually order photo cards with a photo from the year. When my husband is home for the holidays, I send out a family photo, but more often the picture is of our twin daughters alone. After all, my husband and I look pretty much the same year after year. Getting nice family photos is a challenge all its own, and after the first year, I elected to leave it to the professionals. A couple of years ago, we invested in an amazing photo shoot with the talented Brandi Nellis, but most years, we just hit up the Sears or JC Penney photo studio.

Although our nuclear family celebrates Christmas’s religious significance, we have many relatives who are Muslim, several friends who are Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist, and many more friends and relatives who are altogether secular. I try to pick a winter-themed photo card rather than a Christmas one, and add a handwritten note to recipients who we know will be celebrating Christmas or Eid, if it happens to fall in the winter.

Along with the photo card, I include a family letter, describing the highlights of our year. The majority of the letter usually ends up being about the children’s interests, milestones and accomplishments. This year, I invited our daughters to make their own contributions to the annual letter, and they each drew a picture and wrote a few sentences about the holiday season this year. It was pretty amazing to see them as excited about reaching out through the mail as I am every year.

How do you handle holiday greetings, and do you include your children in your efforts?

 

Sadia, her husband and their 5-year-old girls, M and J, send their holiday greetings from El Paso, TX, where they have just experienced their first Texas desert snow. Sadia’s husband told her about desert snow during his first tour of duty in Iraq, but it has to be seen to believed.

from hospital ankle bracelets to sports jersey numbers

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I’ve written a little before about my efforts to help the boys’ teachers and friends tell them apart. I’m happy to report that their teacher, by mid-October, had found some tiny freckle on one boy’s face that he can use to tell them apart. Their friends still have no idea and arbitrarily call them by one name or the other.

But now, let’s talk about sports!

like the scarlet letter, but white

My boys played tee ball last spring, and their coaches learned which boy wore which pair of shoes so they could call them by name. Yes, their coaches were that awesome, because both sets of shoes are mostly grey and black, and just have tiny bits that are green or red.

They played flag football this summer, and that was trickier. For one thing, black cleats were pretty standard. For another, it’s not like tee ball where the kids are mostly coached one by one, or assigned a spot. The boys had big numbers on the backs of their jerseys, but from the front it was anyone’s guess.

To help the coaches (and everyone), I took to putting an X in surgical tape on one boy’s shirt. I felt so weird about this — first because I was afraid he wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t mind. But I still felt like I was branding him in some odd way. I also felt like maybe I was making a bigger deal out of this than it needed to be.

It turned out to be a good thing. Their coaches were great about remembering which boy got the X (the one who has an X in his name, which made it easier) and my boys benefited from being called by name. And I have to admit, I relied on that X to keep track of who was where from the sidelines. It saved me from a lot of, “YAY! GREAT JOB– (who was that?) – GREAT JOB, um, SON!”

When your look-alike multiples are in uniforms, what strategies do you use to help other people tell them apart?
Jen is a work-from-home mom of 7-year-old twin boys, and two girls ages 5 and 9. She also blogs at Minivan MacGyver, where she freaks out about every single thing that happens at school.

Capturing Little Moments

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Judging by the comments on my last post, I am not alone in my struggle for balance between giving my kids a good life and the limits of my own two hands. We really do, as a family, try to live life and do things together. Since starting preschool at home in August, we certainly have done a lot more outings and really seen great responses from my boys. Recently we learned about apples and went as a family to a local apple orchard where my toddlers picked apples then helped make pies. The weather was beautiful, the day was perfect, I literally took hundreds of photos. It was a day I wanted to remember.

We all know that not every day is picture perfect, blue skies, happy kids, family togetherness. At the beginning of this year I began a project to take a photo a day and post it to our website. While the so-called 365 Photo Project is not my idea, nor even a new idea, it was new to me. I took lots of photos of my kids before, but this year I have made it a part of our days. My “good camera” used to only come out for special occasions like the apple orchard, now I leave it in the living room so I am always ready. So far this year I have captured one boy’s first steps, a first haircut, family vacation moments, other goofy milestones, and more. But I have also captured spontaneous brotherly hugs, candid interactions with the dog, smiles, tears and many other moments that make our lives amazing. I highly suggest doing the photo-a-day thing if you want to capture the more mundane, daily things that are also worth remembering, and if you want to be better with your photography. Exercising that photography muscle every day will really strengthen your images.

I wrote at length about safeguarding these memories on my own website, so I won’t rehash it all here, the nutshell version is back up your stuff. Back it up in as many places as possible. Hard Drives, Memory Cards, Off-site storage. I worked in a technology job for more than a decade and I can tell you I have seen the worst side of technology. This is not an idea unique to moms of multiples, everyone should back up. But since we know how fast it all goes (That first year? Total Blur.) and how difficult it can be to get out and do things, it is worth saving. I love my photos. I love looking through old ones. I have some printed on canvas on my wall, even my iPhone case has a photo of my kids. But if my kids are to be able to enjoy them and share with their kids, I need to make backup as much of a habit as taking a photo every day.

Practice at home with your little yogis

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The yoga industry has become a multi-billion dollar industry, attracting hordes of us to join the trend. It’s wonderful that more people are benefiting from yoga, but it’s not so straightforward to know what you really need. Some studios are looking and acting like high-end spas. Yoga clothing and equipment is becoming specialized, even hyped. There are whole lines launched by big-name designers. You can buy yoga tank tops, bras, pants – long, short, wide, or tight. Then there is everything you can put on top of your practice wear, skirts, jackets and hoodies. There are scarves to keep you warm and looking good while you walk to and from the studio  and then to use as a blanket in Savasana the final relaxation. There are yoga gloves and shoes that grip. Not sure what the deal is with those, that you can practice without a mat on a ship maybe?   There are eco-friendly yoga mats,  funky bags, chakra-balancing jewelery… There are  hundreds of yoga magazines featuring hot, fit models in wild postures. They must eat healthy, organic, and take strangely named supplements.

And then there are as many studios as corner stores offering many styles. There is Vinyasa, Iyengar, Ashtanga, even Chocolate yoga, and Doga (Yoga for dogs). How do you choose? And all teachers say different things don’t they?. Taking a yoga class can be costly. A single class can range from $10-$25. Multiple class passes or monthly memberships are more affordable, but depending on the studio, still quite pricey. And how many times a month can you, MoM get to the studio anyway? What’s supposed to be an ancient method to simplify and unify our thoughts and outlook has become a daunting world to join. How can you start simply, without either running for your life or falling for all the crazy marketing?

My suggestion: develop a self-practice. Do it on your own floor or on 1 good quality yoga mat (they wear out quickly otherwise). Wear comfortable clothes that you find in your cupboard. Do it any time other than right after a meal. Take ten minutes or an hour, by yourself or with your little yogis alongside. More likely they’ll end up on top of you, under you, or both.

Whatever style of yoga you do, you can find something to do on your own, it’s the premise of a real yoga practice anyway.  In Ashtanga Yoga, which is the style I chose, self-practice is encouraged from the start. Owning your practice, your breath and movement, is the basis of the Mysore- style practice. In such a class people move at their own pace, through the sun-salutations, a set-sequence of poses, a closing section, and Savasana the final relaxation. Each person’s practice grows in length and depth over time. There is a teacher in the room who guides, assists, and adjusts the postures. Depending on the teacher, Ashtanga can be taught quite militantly, and the name Mysore for the South Indian city where it was developed has often been mistaken to represent “my sore!” So it is important to seek out a teacher who feels right.

But also a teacher who can guide you to do it on your own. It’s certainly not easy to do day in and day out without the combined energy of the teacher and other students. It’s  do-able though. One of my students, a mum of two, initially held back from self-practice because she wanted to leave her brain outside the class and just do as she was told (in her words!) It was her time off. I can understand that now. Others are afraid to forget the sequence, or afraid that they’ll hurt themselves from bad alignment, all issues that can be surpassed with some guidance, practice, and confidence.

Try to remember a few things you like from a class, and take them home mindfully. Following a teacher’s instructions while your thoughts are wandering from your neighbor’s strange clothes,  to why she can balance but you can’t, to whether you’ll cook broccoli or spinach when you get home isn’t really getting us any closer to yoga.

 

Other than finding time for it and the random thoughts, there are other obstacles for us mums practicing at home. Except when both children are asleep, I have to deal with their fights, my hair being pulled, or face scratched. I’ve was once ambushed in an inverted posture by my two and had to call for help. They often hug my standing leg just when I am in the hardest one leg balancing posture.

I also get the adjustments though. They sit on my back in forward-folds. I haven’t gone as deeply into postures since I was pregnant.

It’s good fun when they imitate me. The first time Leila copied some of my arm movements she was under four months old. I was shocked, and realized the value of practicing with them around. Today I asked R what he was doing on my mat. “Yoga,” he said while his hands, feet and head connected to the ground in his tenth down dog of the day. Having them around lets them know my practice is for me, but that they are welcome to join in, even if it is just lying on my mat underneath me. The postures come naturally to them. If I didn’t know better I’d be jealous of their flexibility. I’m hoping that my hyper-active yogis will also  imitate me in the final relaxation some day.  Here are more of our Mat Moments.

I can’t lie, there have been times I wish I could be in a studio and not have to deal with screaming, running toddlers dropping food on my mat, not to mention the number of times I have to stop part-way through because someone can’t handle it. When we travel and there are studios around, it is my break to go to a class.  We just spent ten days in a Canadian city where the studio down the road offered a first-timer two week unlimited trial for $25. Good deal for the five classes I managed.

A friend of mine on a tight budget did that for months. She took classes by shopping the deals at yoga studios in her city. She took the discounted one-month pass at one studio, and then a holiday special price at the next one, and the free class at another…

If you are seriously inclined to start some yoga on your own, even for a few minutes a day, I’d recommend the initial investment of studying with a teacher, someone who can guide you through a self-practice that would suit you. Eventually, you know what’s best, and the cost drops.

Workshops with senior teachers if they are available at your studio are great. They’re packed with tips that you can take home and work on for months.

Or buy a DVD that you can watch and re-watch. If it’s a good one, it won’t be surprising that you catch new tips every time.

David Swenson’s “Ashtanga Yoga -Practice Manual” is a comprehensive book available at his on-line shop for $30. It has 650 photos, including variations for all poses. It is worth it both for beginners and experienced practitioners. He is one of my favorite teachers, funny, and down-to-earth.

This is the Yoga Journal’s online home-practice page.

Just a note: learning solely from a DVD or teaching yourself from a book is not comparable to having an experienced teacher visually check in with you.

Your self- practice could be an hour of asana, 15 minutes of sun-salutations, a session of breath work in a seated position, or a 5 minute Savasana lying on your back. Whatever it is, it’s yours and it’s worth it.

Do you do your activities at home around your little yogis? How do they react? Do they participate?

Related articles: Little yogis  by Wendy Altschuler (www.yogachicago.com)
My children and yoga  by Paul Dallaghan (www.yoga-thailand.com)
What is “Mysore Style”?  by Paul Dallaghan (www.yoga-thailand.com)

 

Natasha, mum of Leila and Rahul was an Ashtanga Yoga teacher until her little yogis became the teachers.

Seeing Double at Twins Days in Twinsburg, OH

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Our family just arrived home from our second trip to the Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, OH. Last summer we attended a wedding in Philadelphia with our 9-month-old twins. We packed the car for a road trip from Chicago but had to divide our drive into a few days. Looking for a half-way point we saw Twinsburg, OH on the map and thought, “Hey, we should stay there, it’s a town named Twinsburg.” A quick Google search revealed Twins Days Festival, a record-setting gathering of twins from around the world which just happened to be the weekend we were driving through Ohio. We had to go. How could we pass it up?

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We enjoyed our first Twins Days experience so much, we decided before we even left Ohio we would try to go back every year. It is an experience unlike anything I have seen. The sense of community and camaraderie among twins from all over really is amazing. Among the many activities, our favorite has been the Double Take Parade, which encourages any and all twins to join in the themed parade. This year’s theme was Circus, a truly fitting theme for a gathering of twins. My boys were dressed as Human Cannonballs, with their wagon outfitted as a cannon. There are also lots of research studies for twin participation, and mingling with twins young and old. The youngest set there was 8 weeks, the oldest was 96 years old! There are lots of contests, carnival rides, food, and fun. Friday night is a Wiener Roast for twins and their families, Saturday night there are fireworks and Sunday morning is a pancake breakfast. For older twins there is a golf tournament, a 5K and lots more.

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So much I have read and heard since we were expecting twins focuses on the challenges: the high-risk pregnancy, the bleary-eyed, soul-crushing sleep deprivation, the expense, every-rough-patch-times-two. Dress them alike. Don’t dress them alike. Separate them in school. Keep them together. Everything I read seems to threaten all the ways I am destined to mess my kids up. Plus, as much as strangers are fascinated with and willing to offer up comments about twins, they are almost always negative. “You’ve got your hands full!” or “Double Trouble!” or “Better you than me!”

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It is easy to lose sight of how wonderful it can be raising twins. We have twice the giggles, twice the hugs. My boys are growing up spending every day with a best friend. I get to watch my two tiny infants as they grow into little boys. My boys are 21 months old, racing from milestone to milestone, growing noticeably each day. I wonder every single day how they can possibly be cuter than they were yesterday and how did I get so lucky to be here for the ride. The truth is that while my boys are fraternal and are very different, they were born a pair. Twins Days is such a unique celebration of twinship, I want my boys to grow up appreciating how truly special it is to be a twin. In Twinsburg for that one weekend a year, they can be among people who know what it’s like to go through life with a doppelganger, with a relationship unlike any other. They can be part of the community and celebrate being twins.

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My boys are often subject to lots of attention when we are out and about, and sometimes I feel like they are a spectacle. (I imagine it is nothing compared to identical twins or even triplets or quads!) I want them to feel proud that there are two of them, and love that they came into this world as a set. Twins Days Weekend is always the first weekend in August in Twinsburg, OH. For more photos and information about our trip, you can check out our rundown of our weekend as well as photos form this year and last. You can read more about the adventures of our family at goteamwood.com

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