Category Archives: Activities

Very Nearly a Soccer Mom

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I’ve already got the house in the suburbs, the dog, the swingset in the yard, and the minivan.  I figured it was time for some soccer in our lives.

Actually, it was my son. For a kid that doesn’t always seem to have a lot of body awareness, he has a real love for trying out different sports.  When we were up in Wisconsin over the summer, he got my aunt to try and teach him badminton.  Not to mention beach tennis, fishing, sailing, and swimming in the middle of the lake.

badminton

I told him he had to be able to swim with his face under water before he could try skiing.

skiing

But most recently, he has developed something of a fixation on soccer.  Neither my husband nor I are remotely athletic, and we both skipped that suburban childhood rite of passage that was the kids’ soccer team.  But wherever it came from, Daniel has decided that soccer is the thing to do.

Our local YMCA does an Introduction to Soccer class for three-to-five-year-olds.  I don’t hold any illusions that my son will learn much more than where the goal is, but it’s not too expensive, and I figure he’ll get a kick out of it.  The sheer mention of the class is enough to get him bouncing with excitement.

Here’s the thing.

My daughter? Not so interested in the soccer.  What she has latched on to is the idea of dance class.  She mentions it nearly every day.  “Mom, can I take a dancing class?”  I think it has as much to do with the outfit as the actual dancing. (She’s also Little Miss Arts-and-Crafts, and no, I don’t know exactly how I ended up with such gender stereotypes for children.)  But again, there’s a class at the Y, the price is reasonable, and I’m happy to let her explore her interests.

madame butterfly

Two kids. Different classes. They aren’t even at the same time, nor on the same day.  And this is where it begins, apparently, shuttling my kids to and from school and activities.  Mark it: age three years, three months.

This is the first time I have ever even considered signing my kids up for different classes.  For the last three years, it has been all three of us doing the same things.  I sign them up for music or gymnastics, and we ALL go.  I already started to be cut out of the equation when they started solo swimming classes in the summer, not to mention once they started preschool.  But at least they both go to swimming at the same time, they both attend the same school.

While their separate activities are on different days, they’re both weekend days. I’m hoping this can turn into not only a fun class, but an opportunity for weekend one-on-one time.  I’m a little concerned about feeling over-scheduled, but the class is only two months long, so it’s not forever.  But it seems worth the experiment, both in terms of the kids’ interests and in terms of our own time management.

So, what about you, moms (and dads)? Have you done separate activities with each child, or are you holding out? If you have, how old were your kids? What was that experience like?

We attend the Twins Days Festival, and I fail to adequately twin it up

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I’ve found that I mentally separate moms of twins into two categories. On one hand are the TWIN MOMS, who are really into having twins. They wear the t-shirts, have the bumper stickers, their kids always match, etc. On the other hand are the twin moms. Lower case. They are the ones who were always too strapped for time and/or money to order the t-shirts. Bumper stickers aren’t necessary, because any clever messages can be traced in the dirt on the back of the minivan. If their kids match, it’s because the last load out of the dryer was reds and everyone pulled clothes from the laundry basket.

The Twins Days Festival is really geared toward TWIN MOMS and their offspring. I’m more of a twin mom. Lower case.

We attended at our twins’ request. As we pulled into the parking lot, my boys were excited to see sets of twins in matching outfits. Attendees had decorated their cars as well. “What’s so special about being twins?” my 8-year-old singleton grumbled.

Oh, that’s a fun one to answer at Twins Days.

As we entered the high school where registrations were being taken, I was overcome by a wave of emotion at the throngs of identically dressed twosomes and threesomes. I was excited for my boys. In our quest to treat twins as individuals, I think we often go overboard and treat them as though being a twin is somehow a weakness that needs to be hammered out of them. We frown at sets of twins with rhyming or alliterative names. We tsk-tsk parents who dress their twins alike. We want them in separate classes, with separate friends. It felt good to be in a place where all the pressure to prove I’m fostering their individuality is removed, and their sameness is accepted for what it is.

The sameness is not just accepted, but celebrated. It seems a lot of effort is put into looking identical at the Twins’ Days Festival. These twins all matched completely – haircuts, clothing, shoes, glasses, hairstyles, purses, jewelry, etc.

I’d made a terrible mistake. Two terrible mistakes, actually. First, my boys were not dressed exactly alike. (This is because I am a twin mom [lower case] and just felt proud that I had the same shirt in two different colors clean at the same time.) Second, my boys have very different haircuts, due to a series of unfortunate attempts at saving money on haircuts. (Lesson learned.)

My hope that the boys would be recognized as twins was washed away by a river of candied apple slobber.

There weren’t many sets of twins or trips whose parents had made my mistake(s). Or if there were, they blended in with all the other non-twins. I was asked if my older three were triplets. I was asked if Miss A and P were twins, when G was standing right there next to them. The boys were not obviously twinnish enough, and I felt like I’d short-changed them.

This event highlighted how very lower case I am.

For most of the evening my kids’ social anxiety kept them very calm and well behaved. I received compliments. But as the kids got more comfortable with their surroundings, things escalated until they were having a four-way chasing/wrestling/punching fight that resulted in multiple minor injuries. As the violence progressed, I thought, “If there’s any public place where this probably won’t be unusual, this is it.” Based on conversations with the moms of multiples I know in real life, face-punching is sort of twinspeak shorthand for “hi, how’s it going?” But the whole evening, I only saw one other set of twins punching each other in the face. I have no explanation for this.

So, Twins’ Days made me feel inadequate. It made my daughter feel jealous. But it made my boys feel fantastic. Don’t mock me, but I’ve shed tears over how much they liked being there, and how they clearly identified so closely with all of these other people who sprang to the earth paired with another. It was such a powerful experience that it made me want to convert to TWIN MOM. Whether we subject the whole family to the festival in the future, we’ll definitely take the boys back each year, for as long as they want to go.

My kids, before G shunned his older sister for having failed to split after fertilization.

Aside: I had the pleasure of meeting up with Kim Schmidt, a HDYDI reader and mother to an 8-year-old singleton and 3-year-old twins, all daughters. She’s writing about the Twinsburg festival for American Way magazine, and I hope she’ll let us link it here when the piece is published. She blogged a bit about the festival here.

Next year, HDYDI meet-up in Twinsburg, Ohio!

Jen is a work-from-home mom of 5-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.

A Pivotal Twenty Sixth Month

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So I’ve been writing this series of posts (on my blog) about how we’ve been blurring the lines of our formerly iron-clad (at the demand of the twin’s, not us!) routine. Things like pushing back bedtime, and going to the zoo when they’d typically be going down for a nap, and taking a day trip to the beach, and staying out “way past” bedtime, and traveling during the time that the kids are usually long in bed.

All this in the last six weeks!

It’s like all of a sudden we can finally do things we haven’t been able to do and we actually have fun while doing it and we’re not always scared we won’t ever get to sleep ever never again, and we’re actually able to relax (a little bit) while the kids entertain themselves instead of living our public lives in a sweaty, running in opposite direction mess.

And it only took TWENTY SEVEN MONTHS!

Any breakthroughs, milestones, realizations for you this summer? Anything you long for? (I long for a margarita.)

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Rachel’s family is breaking new ground over at Motherhood.Squared .

Summer Snacking, Here We Come!

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Well, we’ve had our requisite four days of spring here in South Texas and now the temperatures are in the 90s so out comes the water table in the back yard, the sunscreen, the mosquito spray (yep, we use DEET and our pediatrician said it was best because have you met the mosquitos in Houston??), and warm-weather snacks.

I recently bought some pop molds that I’ll use to make fresh fruit and yogurt popsicles, we do fruit smoothies year round, and I busted out a batch of homemade oatmeal raisin pecan cookies last week (and the two mom’s in the household are guilty of finishing them off), but the easiest shmeziest snack of all has been a combo of yogurt and fresh berries that I’ve been serving up with homemade granola.

Well, the granola was actually meant to be granola BARS, but I’ve yet to perfect the recipe, and they’re more crumbly than intended. But crumbly delicious works!

Homemade Granola

Here’s what we use:

  • Greek (Fage) Yogurt, 1/2c- higher in protein and tastes like ice cream, I am not even kidding!
  • Assorted Fresh Fruit – I’ve taken to a local farmers market and generally speaking, if the skins are to be eaten – like berries – I try to buy organic. If the skins will go to our neighbor’s compost, then regular (cheaper!) fruit we use (bananas, oranges, cantaloupe).
  • Homemade Granola, 2 Tbsp– I have not yet created the perfect on-the-go-doesn’t-crumble-at-the-grab-toddler-and-car-friendly granola (I’ve only made it once!), but I did some significant modifications to Ina Garten’s “Homemade Granola Bars” recipe which I am using as a base.

    • MMMMMMM, dee-lish! And just the kind of snack that the parents can enjoy alongside the kiddos, too!

    Okay, now your turn to dish on a favorite spring/summer snack!

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    Rachel is a work-out-of-the-home mom who is most recently managing the uncertainties in her life by taking control in the kitchen. She also writes about her family at Motherhood.Squared

    What Our Toddler Twins Are Teaching Me

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    We often walk the fifty or so yards from our home to a small neighborhood park. It is a trip we’ve taken hundreds of times and hundreds ever since the kids could barely walk. Oh, maybe we’d take a push cart or wagon when they were new walkers and the distance to the end of our driveway was enough to wear them out. But nine times out of ten, we walk.

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    Matou and the twins, 13 1/2 months.

    We follow the kids’ lead where we might put our fingers in that crack in the concrete where the earth has settled, feel the softness of the bark a dying tree, behead an earthworm, touch the wheels of a parked fire truck, feel the bumpiness of rocks or the stickiness of a pine cone, chasing the black birds in the grassy lot across from the church, bark back at the dog in the neighbor’s window, peek around for lizards that have scampered into the ground cover. Sometimes, it might take forty minutes just to get to the park.

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    18 months.

    Sometimes? Sometimes, we don’t get there at all.

    So you can imagine that after five straight days of raining, we were all ready to get out of the house, even if there was standing water everywhere, an event that caused my partner and mother to want to keep the kids’ feet planted firmly on sidewalk.

    But it was me, the Classic Type A Personality, the ENFJ, that announced to my mom and partner, “let them splash!, so what? We have a perfectly functioning washing machine just inside the house.”

    (Granted, I had Type A motivations: sensory experiences and neural pathways and the hopes that it would help get them tired before dinner and bed. But, more importantly,) they loved the mystery of it all – the sound of a splash, how the water sleeps and then thrashes when stepped upon, the coolness of the water between the fingers, the heaviness of wet clothes, the changing color from clear to brown, the grittiness of mud.

    And as one moment in a collection of moments, we remembered: we remembered being kids, we remembered uninhibited play, the encouragement to try something new, and the security of knowing that our parents would make us warm and dry again.

    So today, I am thankful for the unintended consequence of my twins – that I’ve become more patient, more forgiving, that they’ve reminded me to be a kid, allowing me the freedom to be struck by awe and wonder at the simplest things around me.

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    Rachel is the birth mom of a two-working-mom household to 21 month old boy/girl twins that can now open the gate at the bottom of the stairs. This is a problem. She blogs over at Motherhood.Squared

    Playing & Learning

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    I am a SAHM to my twins and LOVE that I am able to be!  I really enjoy it, but of course, there are those moments when I want to run for the hills. :)  My 16 monthers have recently learned how FUN it is to ‘push each other’s buttons.’  Okay- now I’m taking that too literally here, but- funny story:  Riley has had a belly button hernia since she was a few weeks old.  It’s much better now, but her belly button still sticks out… more than an outie would.  Reese has recently noticed this.  EVERY time I change Riley’s diaper, Reese runs over yelling “BALL!” and bends down and tries to pick up Riley’s belly button!  It is the funniest thing in the world, but not to Riley- she thinks Reese is tickling her, so she laughs and screams at the same time.  They are a mess!  ANYWAY, they love to GO.  Love getting out and about and also playing at home– not still too often.  I’ve noticed lately that they need a distraction from ‘pushing each other’s buttons…’ maybe it has something to do with the CrAzY cold weather we’ve had here in Texas.  (I’m ready for Spring!)

    As a former elementary school teacher, this isn’t surprising, but I came across this GREAT website I wanted to pass along!  The curriculum/lessons start very young and go through preschool.  It’s very simple for my girls age (16 months), but it’s a guide with a great book to read, a game to play (pretend), arts and crafts (for older), etc.  It’s SO FUN!  The teacher in me is BEAMING.  Hope you and your kids think it’s fun too!

    Amy is a SAHM to 16 month old twin girls, Reese and Riley.  Read more about our adventures here.

    Baby, It's Cold Outside

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    This entry is a bit of a crosspost from my own blog.

    Happy holidays everyone and best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe 2010!

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    Last winter, Tiny and Buba were still under a year old (9-11 months) and not yet walking. Being the germaphobe that I am, combined with the hassle of bundling my infants in the proper winter weather attire and then getting them into the car, out of the car, into the stroller, into our destination, and then all of that in reverse, most days I simply just chose to stay home. Now I know to some that may sound like a cardinal sin. After all, how many times have we heard that the key to staying sane as a stay-at-home mom is to get out of the house? But really, at that point staying at home didn’t bother me. We’d rotate around the house in between naps- playing with toys in the nursery, then jumping in the exersaucer and jumperoo in the kitchen, then out to the living room to play with other toys. The kids were happy (for the most part), so I was too.

    Then the spring came. My kids turned one, they were walking fairly well, and I suddenly had a burning desire to get out and go places. Playdates, playground, library, shopping plaza- it didn’t really matter where. I just wanted to get out. So we did. And soon it became part of our routine to go somewhere between the end of morning nap and lunchtime. The kids got used to it, and I did too.

    But a two weeks ago we had a day where I just couldn’t do it. We were experiencing a wet, wintery mix that just made our daily field trip suddenly not at all worth it. Now Buba didn’t really seem to care that we weren’t going out, but Tiny knows our routines by heart and it didn’t take her long to figure out what was going on, and subsequently, to begin melting down. The standard toys for everyday play just weren’t cutting it, so I had to get creative. Luckily, I had some things stashed away that totally saved the day…

    1: Sunglasses from last summer

    glasses1

    glasses3

    glasses2

    Tiny’s glasses no longer had lenses (in fact, I’m pretty sure the lenses popped out the very first time she wore the glasses last June), but she didn’t seem to care. Even as I gave them both their sunglasses, I expected that they would rip them off immediately and then cry for me to put them on again. While that did happen a time or two, I was quite impressed that, for the most part, they enjoyed playing while wearing the glasses for a good 20 minutes. Somehow the glasses made those everyday toys more fun again.

    2: Connect Four

    game

    This is not something I every would have thought of on my own. But Buba’s occupational therapist has one of these games and uses it to help him improve his fine motor skills. So T brought this one home from his classroom. Tiny loves hearing the plink when the game pieces fall to the bottom, so this was another 20 minutes or so of indoor fun.

    3: The Tunnel

    tunnel

    We picked this tunnel up at a yard sale over the summer. It’s suppose to connect to a playhut, but the kids have more fun just crawling through the tunnel by itself. It’s only 4 or 5 feet long, so completely doable in our living room. This was also tons of fun for 10 to 15 minutes.

    And last, but not least…

    4: Snowblowers

    snowblowers

    We may be the only homeowners on our street who do not own a snowblower. The noise combined with the spraying snow, made it completely fascinating to watch the neighbors snowblow their driveways. And this allowed me just enough time to make lunch.

    I certainly hope we don’t have too many inside-all-day days this winter, but it’s nice to know that we can survive (and even have fun!) without getting out of the house.

    So what do you do to keep the kiddos happy when you have to stay inside all day?

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    reanbean is a stay at home mom to 21 month old boy/girl twins. You can now read more about reanbean, Tiny, and Buba at reanbean.com.

    Moms of Multiples Groups

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    Confession: I’ve never had my 15 month old girls involved in any “organized groups.”  No weekly play groups, no Kindermusik, no multiple clubs.  Don’t get me wrong- they’re well socialized- we get together with friends all the time, have play dates, run errands, they attend “bible class” on Sundays, play at the park, at the mall, they accompany me when I’m volunteering… etc…   But I think my problem is, I have this silly fear of “organized groups” since I’ve had my twins!  It feels overwhelming.  For example, a specific play group in my town meets at a Play Place that does not allow strollers inside… well, dang it.  My girls aren’t walking yet, I can only carry 40 lbs for so long, and they certainly can’t crawl from the parking lot inside!  Overly dramatic, I know.. (Can you imagine though?!  ha ha!)  Just thinking about these situations makes me feel… all out of control or something.

    But I’ve taken the leap, ladies, and I’m VERY excited (and wishing I did it sooner): I’ve joined my local Parents of Multiples group!  It’s amazing to have communities of other MoMs like here at HDYDI.  I also have a couple friends of friends that have twins that don’t even live in my town that I email back and forth.  But to be honest, I don’t really have any friends with multiples that live by me that I get together with.  I’m looking forward to building friendships with other moms that are in the same boat as me.  And… make me feel like I’m not crazy like I sometimes feel!   ha!  :)  I’m so glad I finally did it and really can’t believe I didn’t sooner.

    Are you a part of your local Moms of Multiples Group?  What have you enjoyed about it?  I think support of other MoMs is so important.  If you haven’t joined, you should!  If I can, you can! :)

    Amy is a former elementary school teacher, now stay at home mom to 15 month old g/g twins, Reese and Riley.  She resides in the great state of Texas (yee haw!), has recently become obsessed with Starbucks Carmel Brulee Lattes (you should try one!), tries to find humor in life with twins, and is overwhelmed with how she has been blessed.  Read more at Beyond Normalcy: Life With Twins.

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    Happy Holidays from our family @ Beyond Normalcy to YOURS!

    The ability to self-soothe begins to emerge around 61 months.

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    At five years old, my twins may be the oldest reflected here at HDYDI. They make up for that by having the maturity and social skills of two week olds.

    I’m kidding! Mostly. During their first year, they attended two home daycares until we convinced my sister-in-law to watch them. She continued until I quit my job to stay home, and since then the boys have tolerated several teenaged babysitters and one Wednesday night church program, but that is the extent of their exposure to people outside our family. Playdates have been met with violence – not against the other children, thank goodness. When confronted with *outsiders*, one of my boys hides behind me and punches me repeatedly in the posterior. This is his way of indicating, “Mother, I am anxious and would like to withdraw from the situation now, if it pleases you.” It’s a lot like baby sign language.

    The boys, before they realized I don't actually attend preschool with them.

    The boys, before they realized I don't actually attend preschool with them.

    Anyway, the boys started preschool last Wednesday. The first day, parents were to stay and the boys were cautiously optimistic when they saw all the toys and play areas. When parents were ushered to the next room for a meeting, I hoped the toys would keep the boys comfortable. I hoped so, fervently, for the first 5 minutes of the meeting, until a teacher brought one of my red-faced, teary-eyed boys to the door and beckoned to me.

    I spent the rest of the day as the only parent forced to escort her children through circle time — one boy burying his face in my neck with his legs wrapped around my waist; the other angrily punching me in the behind. I didn’t know what to do, so I just smiled extra-bright and sang, “Wheels on the Bus” and played Red Light Green Light like the boys and I were conjoined triplets.

    My husband works second shift, so he handles preschool drop off. Thank God, because I don’t think I could take it. Days two and three of preschool went as you can imagine, with sobbing and screaming and clawing desperately to get back into the car. Apparently they calm down within a few minutes of Jason leaving, and they tolerate the rest of the day reasonably well.

    P told me, “One time I started to cry, but I told myself, ‘I gotta pull it together!’ and then I was okay.” Now if only their mother could also master this skill, we’d be in business.

    Bringing Sexy Back

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    Ok, so I imagine that most people don’t walk into the gym already sweating. Then again, I am continually reminded that my life is not that of most people! But I was determined.

    So the triplets are walking, sometimes running now. There are battles over toys, sippy cups & affection from mommy. There are regular attempts at escaping their corral every day. There are minor injuries, whining and a sudden increase in the most foul-smelling of diapers. (??) There is teething and hair pulling and the flailing of food in every corner of the kitchen. And PS – we’re moving. So there are boxes everywhere (though it looks like I’ve barely made any progress at all). Oh, and our 7 year old now has to be at football practice…four nights a week. And guess who’s helping out with coaching those four nights a week? You’ve got it…my darling hubby! Add that to his one late work night a week & that’s FIVE nights a week I don’t have my tag-team partner enter the house until after 8pm.

    Need I say more? I was desperate for a break. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of the tension headaches & the fatigue. I was tired of not seeing the scale move, despite the rare chance I have these days to sit down to a meal. I was tired of STILL not being able to fit into my pre-multiple-pregnancy jeans. I was tired of feeling trapped in our house. So I was determined, single-minded, unwavering – I was going to the gym & all four kids were comin’ with me!

    Now I had to be quite strategic about this venture. The child care center at the gym is only open for certain hours of the day and those hours could not conflict with meal or nap time. (We don’t mess with naptime.) It would have to be immediately after breakfast – admittedly the easiest meal of the day – no problem.

    Time was ticking. All four kids are fed without any fuss. One by one, the triplets are deposited into the corral to play, whilst mommy cleans up the kitchen. (please take a moment to imagine just what that entails…) Ok, so our eldest is self sufficient & after repeating myself only three times, he eventually follows directions & gets his teeth brushed & himself dressed. I’m already dressed (it’s easy when you go to the gym in the same shorts & t-shirt you wore to bed the previous night – hypothetically speaking, of course). So it’s just a matter of changing & dressing the triplets, packing their diaper bag & loading everyone into the car. ‘I just might pull this off’, I’m thinking. I get everyone changed & dressed & as I run into the kitchen to grab sippy cups, I remember – SHOES! Oh, how I hate shoes. I swear, part of the reason I stay home with them sometimes is to avoid having to put shoes on those six fat, uncooperative little feet. But I can’t let them go the gym barefoot – so I run up to sort through the shoe crate in the nursery, praying for matching pairs & perfect fits. Two out of three go well & after going through two pairs on the ‘eldest triplet’, everyone’s shoed up!

    At this point we’re only 10 minutes behind schedule. I grab my iPod, my water bottle & the diaper bag, bark at my eldest to go to the bathroom, go myself & head into the family room to grab the first baby to strap into her carseat. Truly, those three were left alone in there for mere minutes, yet I returned to find that one had taken her shoes off, one had taken the elastic out of her hair & the other had decided he would choose that as the perfect time to, well – dirty his diaper…again! I was this close to throwing in the towel. But then I thought about how good it’d feel to be on that elliptical, iPod blasting in my ears, working off this triplet bod…I was resolute! I deserved this, damnit & I wasn’t giving up! I sighed heavily, prayed for patience & did what I had to do.

    20 minutes behind schedule & everyone’s in the car. The gym is just around the corner from us, and as I approached it, I wondered just how I would get everyone inside. I’d left the triple stroller at home, deciding that it probably wouldn’t fit through the gym doors anyway. So I manage to nab the parking spot closest to the door & quickly advise my eldest of the game plan: he would walk his brother in, firmly holding his hand and not leaving my side – I would carry the girls & the diaper bag.

    As I said, most people don’t walk into the gym sweating, but I sure as heck did that day! What a sight we must have been. Name tags were distributed, brief instructions were given & within minutes, I was warming up. I couldn’t believe it! Sure, I kept an eye on the doorway from the elliptical machine, expecting one of the child care providers to drag me away for one reason or another, but no. I got in nearly an hour before I went back to claim my kids. It was a success and I felt great!  And you can be sure I included that pre-gym prep time in total calories burned that day!