Category Archives: Toddlers

Time out for Mommy

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I decided my theme for 2012 is going to be New Year, New Me. Original, I know. Doesn’t everyone try to reinvent themselves at the first of the year and peter out about two weeks later? Not me. Not this time. Toward the end of last year I was feeling burned out. The day to day detritus of chores and child-wrangling was wearing me down. I was feeling bad about myself, my parenting, my health and my weight. I didn’t want to take my boys anywhere because they were testing their boundaries and making outings really difficult.  Our house was a mess, and I didn’t have the energy or desire to remedy it. I know I indulged in way too many cookies and sweets around the holidays, and my too-tight jeans told that tale loud.

Last summer, I quit my job to stay home with my twin boys full time. They turned two in November and are curious, energetic, enthusiastic, smart little boys. Which is to say they can be exhausting. (In the most wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience with 2-year-old twins kind of way.) So I made an Epic To Do List, which included the regular things I wanted to accomplish with the kids, around the house, etc. But also included lots of “Take care of Mommy” items as well.

Now we are a month into the new year, and my plans for New Year, New Me are still going strong. I am making a conscious effort to do more things for myself, even if that means the dishes sit in the sink or the laundry remains unfolded. The thing is, though, I am doing my own things and find that I am still getting the chores done too. I have renewed energy and enthusiasm for my family and our home when I take a break from them. I am eating better and exercising regularly. Since the end of December, I have lost 11 lbs, and completely quit eating sugar, bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, fried food, fast food. I joined the MYFA contest Liz at Goddess in Progress set up. (I am sure I am a long shot since I just started exercising in the past three weeks, but I am motivated to get up and do it so I can report my weekly stats and be proud. This week I logged 195 minutes of exercise, impressive only in that I have not exercised regularly in years.)

For Christmas, my husband bought me a new sewing machine and starting in January, I signed up for a sewing class at a local fabric store, six weeks, start-to-finish quilting. I am happy to say that I just finished the binding on one of the two toddler-bed quilts I am making simultaneously for my boys in the class. I really enjoying sewing, can’t wait to start my next project, and I use nap time to unwind and clear my mind in front of the sewing machine. Plus, super cute quilts!

My boys are newly potty trained (as in we are in week three and I still wear shoes around the house just in case). But I did take them out to a playdate recently. When they were not listening to my directions and insisted on playing in the public restroom, we packed up and left. But at least we went. We don’t go far or for long, and if we go out to eat as a family we can expect at least 5 or 6 trips to the potty.

This is all to say I am giving myself some time outs now, taking much-needed breaks that help me refresh and be the best me. Is it perfect? Far from it. I have found that staying at home has just as many challenges in balance as working, they are just different. I was struggling to find time for me and not taking breaks. I was always on duty, and wasn’t taking care of myself. I still struggle to fit my needs into our day. I had been getting up before the kids to work out and shower. They started waking up earlier. So I got up earlier, and so did they. And now we’re at an insane still-dark wakeup time that is two full hours before the time they have woken up for more than a year. I have tried to do a workout video while they eat their breakfast, but they protest and beg to watch something else. I know I don’t spend enough quality time with my wonderful, amazing, supportive husband. I would love to do things one-on-one with each kid. At least I have a to-do list for the life I want us to have, and I am checking off things gradually.

 

Jen Wood is a stay-at-home-Mom to adorable, wonderful, amazing, newly potty trained 2-year-old twin boys who exhaust her indescribably. While she is attempting to achieve the perfect balance of home and family and her own sanity, she enjoys spending time together as a family, photography and new-found love of quilt-making You can follow along with their adventures at http://goteamwood.com.

 

Fighting the Urge to Compare

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I am not one of the twin moms who shuns the idea that my kids are a unit. They were born together and I regularly refer to them as “the boys“ on my blog and quite often in real life. I figure if I had two boys of different ages I would likely shorthand it to “the boys” anyway. I have dressed them either alike or similar since they were born because it’s cute and it’s easy. I think the fact they were born together is incredibly cool and should be celebrated. Yes, they need to be individuals, but since they are fraternal twins there hasn’t really been an issue with individuality. They are so different in temperament and personality and have been since before they were born. They also look different. One has always had more hair. One struggled with weight gain. One had horrible reflux. When I was pregnant, there was the active one and when they were born the bald one, the pukey one, the small one. As they have grown they have taken turns being the clingy one, the needy one, the cuddly one.

The fact of our situation is that there are two children of the same age and developmental station living in our home. If one is doing something the other isn’t, it’s difficult to not compare. Sure, one had to walk first, right? But when it was the same one crawling first, then walking first, then climbing and running first, it made the other seem to be falling behind. When one was saying words and the other was only grunting, we doubled our efforts to help the one we viewed as struggling. (All the while both were well within the expected range for those skills.)

Now they just reached their second birthday and had their 2-year checkup. In the past 6 months we have seen our littlest guy who struggled to gain weight (who was born 1 ounce heavier but by one-month was a full pound smaller) get not just a little bigger, but much bigger than his brother. Suddenly people are asking how far apart they are in age, since there is now a 3 inch and 4 lb. difference in size. I admit was scared to go to the appointment because while I knew one had really grown over the summer (He went through 3 shoes sizes since May!) and the other hadn’t.  was terrified we’d learn he hadn’t grown at all, or worse yet, he would have lost weight. I was afraid the doctor would question why he isn’t growing, why he hadn’t gained weight. I was questioning my own parenting, were we doing enough to make sure he’s eating the right foods? Should we be doing more? Was he really not growing, or was his brother just growing faster so it seemed that he was staying the same size? If we had only one kid that age would we have even noticed his slow-down in growth? Would we notice that he is wearing the same shoes he’s had since Spring is his brother hadn’t gone though so many pairs by now?

I dreaded that appointment for a month.  The good news is that he did gain weight, and height, though admittedly not much. He’s always been on the low end of the percentile chart, but he’s on the chart and his line is moving in the right direction. He’s healthy and happy. He’s just small. The doctor wasn’t concerned about his size or weight. She has a much better perspective of seeing them as two different kids, just two more patients that happen to share a birthday. I was relived to know he did gain some weight. And he did grow a little. I was even more relived that the doctor was fine with his checkup and deemed him healthy.

It’s hard not to notice he’s smaller than his brother. It’s hard to not compare. I have a friend whose twins are 2 months younger, who once told me she always worries about her kids whenever we get all four of ours together because her kids aren’t doing the same things mine are doing. I tried to reassure her that she shouldn’t compare our kids since 2 months at this age is a big difference. In another year they’ll have gained all those milestones and all be about the same skill-wise. Of course, this doesn’t mean I don’t do the same thing with my own kids. Why is that one doing such and such and the other isn’t? Am I doing enough to make sure one doesn’t fall behind? Maybe the hallmark of a good parent is to worry about these things, after all, I want the very best for my kids equally. How do other parents fight the urge to compare?

Jen Wood is a former computer geek turned stay-at-home-mom to amazing, vastly different and newly minted 2-year-old twin boys. You can follow the daily adventures of our family as we navigate the crazy road of twin toddlerhood, home preschooling and attempt to raise happy, well-adjusted citizens at goteamwood.com.

Our Speech Therapy Journey(s)

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M has successfully completed two programs with a speech therapist, and we’re considering having her evaluated again. Twin sister J joined her for the second of those programs, and also benefitted greatly. Watching both my daughters work their way through speech therapy has taught me a few new things, and convinced me all the more of others.

  • There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
  • Follow your gut.
  • It never hurts to get a second opinion.
  • Some lessons are more likely to stick if they come from someone other than a child’s parent.
  • Things are often more complicated than they appear.
  • There is such a thing as knowing too much about something.

The first time we visited a speech therapist was at the recommendation of the family pediatrician. When M was nearly 3 years old, I became concerned about how slowly she ate. I once timed her spending 17 minutes chewing a single piece of meat, and finally had her spit it out. The pediatrician suggested that she had dysphagia, or trouble swallowing. I had imagined that a couple of degrees in linguistics gave me a basic understanding of what speech therapists do, but I was wrong. Speech therapists deal with all sorts of oral motor issues, including problems with chewing or swallowing.

It turned out that M had never quite figured out how to use her tongue to effectively move food around in her mouth as she chewed. Because of that, foods that required chewing would cause her to choke. After six sessions of feeding therapy with an amazing speech therapist and a lot of reinforcement at home and daycare, she could eat successfully. Meals became enjoyable again. It’s been over 2 years, and we haven’t seen any backsliding. In fact, M enjoys food so much now that she plans to open a restaurant when she grows up. Bonus: military medical insurance covered 100% of speech therapy session costs.

It was during feeding therapy that the therapist raised a concern that M might have articulation delays. It had never occurred to me that there was anything off in her speech, since the child talked incessantly and no one who knew her—I, her teachers, or our neighbours—had any trouble understanding her. I thought her pronunciation of yellow as “lellow” was darling, rather than worrisome. The linguist in me had always ignored the nagging doubts, knowing full well that there was variation in the timing of pronunciation mastery, but there should be no cause for alarm as long as the order of acquisition were being followed.

When my husband returned from Iraq and need me or J to translate for him so that he could understand M, it was clearly time to revisit the speech therapist. My MA in theoretical linguistics hadn’t taught me as much about the practicalities of language development as I’d thought. The practice we’d been to for feeding therapy no longer took our insurance, so we had to find a new therapist. We had both girls, now 3 months shy of turning 4, evaluated at the new practice. They ended up being evaluated by different therapists, and we learned how incredibly subjective these evaluations can be.

J was determined to be 2 standard deviations above the norm for her age when it came to grammar, vocabulary and comprehension, but 2 standard deviations below the norm for articulation, the production of mature speech sounds. She sounded more like a child just turned 3 than one soon to be 4. M, on the other hand, was evaluated only for articulation, and declared to be just dandy. These results didn’t ring true for us. M was, to our ears, far less clear in her speech than J. My husband insisted that M be reevaluated, this time by the therapist who had seen J. When the office staff let us know that they were concerned that insurance might not pay for a second evaluation, we offered to pay out of pocket. Insurance did end up covering it, though. The second set of results was more in line with our expectations. Although J’s need for speech therapy was a judgment call, M definitely needed it. Where the first evaluation had her placed her in the 43rd percentile, the reevaluation placed her in the 2nd percentile for articulation.

Since their delays were along the same continuum, the therapist offered to work both twins together in weekly sessions. The sessions were great fun for the girls. The therapist pulled out board games, and let them each take a turn after they completed a pronunciation exercise. She focused on making them aware of how the sounds coming out of their mouths were different than hers. Soon enough, they could say ‘sh’ and ‘v’ easily. It was extraordinary to see how those two sounds alone helped with others’ comprehension of their endless chatter.

After 3 months, both the girls graduated from speech therapy. All J had left to master were ‘l’ and ‘r’, and the speech therapist didn’t think those needed to be rushed. M had a lisp to work on too, but we were comfortable with the exercises she needed to do at home to help with that. We should keep an eye on the girls, she told us, and consider revisiting a speech therapist if they didn’t appear to be making any headway after a while.

My husband and I think that we’ve given it long enough, and both girls’ ‘r’s are still very baby-like. At this point, speech evaluations are often conducted through the school district, so we need to ask both their classroom teachers what they think of their speech before we go hunting for yet another speech therapist.

If you’re curious about what precisely goes on in a speech therapist’s office, feel free to peruse the detailed tales of feeding therapy and speech therapy sessions on my personal blog.

Sadia and her 5-year-old girls, M and J, do their talking, lisps and all, in El Paso, TX, much to the exhaustion of her soldier husband. They try not to talk while eating, but it’s tough when there’s so much to say. They are happy to report that chewing challenges are no longer to blame for the length of conversations around the dinner table.

Girls are NOT easier

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I was pretty sure that parenting girls would be easier than parenting boys.  I had my son Isaiah first, four years ago.  He was all boy, right off the bat.   He climbed everything, tried anything, and showed no signs of fear.  He started walking at 10 months, was running by 11 months.  Months 12-28 were exhausting.  My friends with girls seemed to have it easier than me.  Their daughters did things like sit and walk and play with their toys quietly.  Isaiah thought that sitting and time-out were the same thing.  He thought being told to “walk” was a punishment.  He was always moving  and didn’t start to slow down and listen to me until about 6 months ago, around the time my twins started walking. 

Since I have done this parenting thing before, I was pretty sure I’m smarter than a one year old.  I know all about child proofing and how to use distraction effectively.  Besides, they’re girls, so how hard could this toddler age be?

Twins

The picture that describes my life with one year old twins!

I can’t tell you how many things I have been wrong about this time around.  I thought Ky and Cadee would be late walkers, or at least wait until they were a year old.  Wrong.  They were both master walkers by their first birthday.  I thought Cadee and Ky would be less curious than their brother.  Wrong.  These girls have gotten into things that never crossed their brothers mind!  I thought they would be fearful of falling from high places.  Wrong.  I once found Cadee INSIDE of my top kitchen cabinet eating cookies.  Who would have thought to put a cabinet lock on the ones ABOVE the counter top?

Things I never dealt with before I am now having to deal with now.  My childproofing has gone to an all new level.  There is a lock on the fridge, after my 13 month old Ky got into the leftovers and painted my floor with chicken stir fry.  There is a lock on the oven, because Ky is obsessed with pulling herself up on any horizontal bar, and once she figured out she could open the oven, it became her new obsession.  There is a lock on the dryer, because Ky and Cadee both think it’s the best seat in the house.  We have no dining room chairs in our house, they stay in the garage and only get brought in for dinner.  After the top cabinet incident, having a place to sit just isn’t worth the risk.

I remember laying down, looking at the ultrasound screen, seeing my beautiful twin girls for the first time.  I was scared out of my mind, but I comforted myself with the thought “They are girls, they will be easier to handle.”  Boy, was I wrong.  At 17 months old my twin girls are giving me a run for my money.  And so far, there is nothing easy about this climbing toddler stage, even if they ARE girls.

Dollimama is the mother of three, a four year old son and 17 month old twin daughters.  She spends her days chasing children and doing laundry, while trying to keep her children out of the dryer.  She writes about the chaos of her Life Not Finished whenever she gets the chance.

What about your toddlers?  Have they entered the climbing stage? 

Have you found a difference between raising boys and girls?  Do you think raising girls is easier than raising boys?

 

Kids in the Kitchen

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Every time that I start to stress about J and M’s eating habits, I remind myself of our parenting goal: Healthy, happy, whole adults.

Of course I want our children to have a healthy diet in the here and now, but it’s far more important to me that they be equipped to make good food choices even when I’m not around. I’ve taken three basic approaches that have worked for us:

  1. Educating our daughters on what makes up a balanced diet, and how different foods contribute to their healthy growth.
  2. Including them in food purchase and preparation decisions and activities.
  3. Demonstrating that listening to their bodies is valuable and taking a non-combative approach to food.

I keep meaning to copy a friend’s brilliant idea of displaying the USDA food guidelines—the old pyramid, or the new plate—on the refrigerator.

ChooseMyPlate.gov image of a healthy food breakdown.

Even though we don’t have the picture up, we have always talked about meals in terms of needing a protein, a fruit or veggie, and a starch. We’ve also talked about the need for dairy, but since the girls drink milk morning and night, I haven’t required that they include dairy in every meal. I try to keep my explanations of why food choices are important accurate, but simple. We need protein for strong muscles. Fruits and vegetables help our bodies fight germs, and help us with healthy skin, hair, eyes and nails. We need carbohydrates from energy. Milk products help our bones be strong. Our body needs some fat so that it can get all the goodness out of other foods, but too much can be unhealthy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with sweet or fatty foods, but they are just for flavour, rather than nutrition. I’ve rarely turned down the girls’ requests for sweets, because they ask for very reasonable portions: a cookie or a single piece of chocolate.

Our whole family enjoys food: eating it, preparing and cooking it, even playing with it. If only mine wasn’t the Great Black Thumb, we might enjoy growing it. The kitchen is the heart of our home; I’m old-school like that. It should come as no surprise that our daughters have always been welcome in the kitchen.

My husband may have shortened my life by a year or two by placing our infants in their bouncy seats on the kitchen counter while he cooked. In retrospect, though, I’m glad we’ve always had them with us. Once they could sit, I’d pull the girls’ highchairs into the kitchen, and give them each a plastic bowl and spoon to bang while I made our meals. When I had cleanup time on my hands, they would help me stir. If I needed to get my hands dirty, J and M could splash their hands in the bubble-filled kitchen sink.

As they approached age 2.5, M and J could be trusted not to put everything in their mouths, so their kitchen repertoire broadened significantly. They could help me measure out ingredients, even plan meals. I’d let them choose between fish and chicken, for example, or rice and couscous. Another great option was chef’s salad. I’d chop up lunchmeat and cheese, boil some eggs, grill some croutons, and present a selection of vegetables. As long as they included some of each food group, they were good. It’s easy to do the same with sandwiches, too. We baked cookies and muffins, too, but that was more of a game.

Now, at 5, J and M often help me plan our weekly grocery list. M recently observed that lasagne is a balanced meal in itself. J refused dessert at lunch yesterday because she was full. She knew there would be another ice cream opportunity soon enough. The girls came home from daycare recently telling me that they had been given soda at school. (Let me tell you that we’re not going back to that center.) They were as horrified as I was, but confessed that the cola was “sweet and yummy.” I told them that soda was a sweet treat, and they could have some when I did, a couple of times a month. There was no argument.

When the girls are full, we let them leave the table. If they’re not hungry, they don’t have to eat. They know that they won’t get anything until the next snack or meal. My husband and I both fight the urge to nag at them to eat more or clear their plates. I think it’s a natural parental impulse. We just have to keep reminding ourself that we want our daughters to stay as healthy, happy and whole as they are now.

How do you include your children in the kitchen?

Ask the Readers: Handling Picky Eaters

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It’s been a while since we’ve Asked the Readers. Please, help us out in the comments!

What is your favourite trick for tempting a picky child at mealtime?

I was quietly ecstatic when my kids first took to solid food. Fish, spinach, fennel—they loved them all. I thought they were set for a lifetime of adventurous eating. I hadn’t read far enough into child development books, though.

At around age 2, kids tend to get pickier in their eating habits. It makes sense. The hunter-gatherer argument is a compelling one. 2-year-olds stop putting anything and everything in their mouths, including many foods, because that is the age they would start straying farther from their mothers in hunter-gatherer societies. This pickiness is a survival instinct that lasts until they are old enough to make mature choices regarding what is safe to eat.

Whether their pickiness is explainable or not, picky eaters present an enormous challenge to parents. When M was at her pickiest, she could go two days on nothing but milk if nothing struck her fancy. I worried that she would starve. She’s only recently begun enjoying food again.

Please share how you deal (or would deal) with picky eaters.

"Afu ge ge", "Leila mei mei"

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“Which twin is older?” The question is absurd. In China, I get it all the time. And it works me up.
“They are twins. They are the same age.” I reply, irritated.
“Yes, but they didn’t both come out at the same time, did they? One had to have been born first.”
They insist, “Is she the older sister or is he the older brother?”
“But they were born minutes apart. What’s the big deal?!”

In Chinese there are no words for sister or brother; only for older brother “ge ge”, younger brother “di di”, older sister “jie jie”, and younger sister “mei mei.”

I don’t want to impose birth-order stereotypes on L and R; they are born 7 minutes apart. When L joined us at home, 3 weeks after R, Maher and I both unintentionally spoke to Rahul referring to Leila as his little sister. It was more in the sense of endearment and physical size than of age. But we quickly realized that it was untrue, and imagined implications of such labeling. We stopped.

When we returned to Chengdu from Hong Kong 5 months after the birth, our ayi (nanny) would tell R, “Look, Leila mei mei is sleeping. Why don’t you sleep as well?” I was upset. Drop the comparison, that issue is for another post. I firmly asked the people close to us – ayi’s (nannies), Chinese friends – not to use ge ge and mei mei; but to refer to Rahul and Leila as Rahul and Leila. Initially, they considered my request strange. I was interfering with cultural norms and habits. I insisted. They complied, at first with an uncomfortable smile, and probably a thought of how the lao wai (foreigners) always do things strangely. Now, they don’t hesitate. I’ve heard our ayi herself telling people in the street – “How can one be older? They are twins.” And if pushed she says, “I don’t know who was born first,” and then she looks at me to save her from the situation!

From what I remember of my Social Psychology 101 class, and various family talks, the oldest child is more responsible, self-motivated, and more dutiful, the middle child struggles for attention, and the youngest child is light-hearted, sometimes babied. It’s not as “straightforward” as that in reality, and certainly not in our household. I hope R doesn’t turn around one day and say a silly thing like, “That’s the way it goes because I am your older brother,” or someone guilt trips him with, “but she’s your little sister.”

When we go downstairs to play with the other kids in the complex, mums often tell their children, “You are her older brother. Let her play with your toy.” In China today, it’s rare that a child has a brother or a sister; so mum is usually referring to her child’s playmate. L and R may not know any of their friend’s names, but they know who is older and who is younger than them.

About half a year ago, R surprised me when he pointed at himself and said, “Afu, ge ge”. (R calls himself Afu. It’s his Sichuanese name.)  In another incident, a mum of a two year old girl asked me if L is a jie jie or a mei mei. Before I could say anything, L pointed at herself and replied proudly, “Leila, mei mei.”

L and R were obviously beginning to understand what people say. I realized that unless they use the words describing their relationships, they won’t be able to refer to their friends or themselves in an understandable, and respectable manner.

I am impressed that they know the words, and maybe the meaning. I don’t think they understand what the words imply in relation to each other, but they know that’s who they are.

A few weeks ago, a pair of 22 year old identical Chinese twin girls automatically introduced themselves to me as older sister and younger sister. When I dug deeper, probed them on whether they actually feel like one is older and if they live by that, “not really,” older sister replied, “At home we call each other by name. It is just for others that we use mei mei and jie jie.”

Other than it being a naming issue, it is a cultural one. We live in China, L and R were born in HK, and speak Chinese, so it only makes sense that they follow the social and cultural norms when engaging in society here. Now, when people in the street ask me the question, I answer straight up, R ge ge and L mei mei. Still some days, when I am in a feisty mood, I refuse to answer.

At home, with ayi’s and friends, we stick to L and R.

How do you answer the question, “Which twin is older?” If you have older twins or multiples, what are their thoughts on this?

 

Natasha, mum of Leila and Rahul was an Ashtanga Yoga teacher until her little yogis became the teachers. You can find more of her thoughts and stories at Our Little Yogis.

 

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.

DIY Haircuts

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Our twin girls are now 2.5 years old.  They didn’t get their first hair cut until they were 22 month old.  Their first haircuts were done by my hairdresser. She did my hair when I started kindergarten, when I graduated high school and when I got married. She gave our older son his first hair cut at 14 months. There was no doubt in my mind that she’s the one I’d choose for their first hair cut too.  She was willing to come to my mom’s house and cut their hair while they sat in their booster seats at the table.

At that point, they barely had any hair. They just need the bottom trimmed to make all the hair the same length. About 6 months later, I started thinking they needed another trim. We weren’t travelling to where our hairdresser lived, so that wasn’t an option. Our girls are quite shy with strangers and new situations, so taking them to a new place with unfamiliar people didn’t appeal to me. I also thought about the cost, not just of this haircut, but of getting their few hairs trimmed every few months for years and years. It costs at least $10-15 at the cheap place where we take our son for haircuts. At the fancy, kids salon it is $15-20 per child, and I can only imagine how overstimulating it would be.  So, I decided, I could probably manage the basic hair trimming myself.

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R - Before

I turned to the Internet for help. I found a series of youtube videos.  I watched all 4 videos, and figured I could do it. The equipment needed was minimal: a good pair of hair cutting scissors (I paid $10 on sale for mine), a towel, a comb (I had to buy a package for $3 because mine had all disappeared), and a spray bottle for water (optional). I set them up in their booster seats, one girl at a time. I let the other girl hold the extra combs and the water bottle. It took less than 15 minutes to trim each one’s hair.

Was it perfect? No. What it fancy? No. Were the spots I wanted to fix after? Yes.  Did it look much better than the shaggy, stringy “style” they had before? YES!  By the time they start to care how their hair looks, I’ll have had lots of practice. I think there’s got to be away to make their hair cuts different enough it will help people tell them apart. With practice, I’ll figure that out too. Cutting our son’s hair concerns me more than our daughters’ hair. I don’t know how to use electric trimmers and the equipment that seems to come with boys’ hair. That might be something to try another day.

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R - After

Do you cut your children’s hair?  What advice do you have to share?

Avoid Throwing Money Away in the Diaper Pail

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As we drove home from the fateful appointment where we found out we were expecting not one baby but two, my husband sat quietly seemingly forever. He is usually thoughtful and easy going, but perhaps this time a tad overwhelmed. When he did speak he said, “We have to buy two of everything… like BIKES!” He had already fast-forwarded through the pregnancy, infancy, toddlerhood and arrived at bikes. In reality we haven’t had to buy two of everything. We have tried to minimize doubles and shop frugally. One of the big ways we have saved a ton of money is by using cloth diapers.

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Yes, we use cloth diapers. No, it’s not disgusting. When I was pregnant and checked out stacks of books from the library, one book suggested that twins could go through as many as 16,000 diapers before potty training. Sixteen Thousand! At nearly 25¢ each before coupons or sales, I could not imagine buying something so expensive with the primary intent of throwing it away. For two babies. While we did spend a chunk of money up front on cloth diapers and accessories, we calculated we broke even by the time our boys were six-months old. For well more than a year now, our diaper changes have been essentially free. (And what is more frugal than free?) Plus the additional bonuses: less garbage, no late-night runs for diapers, our kids never outgrow them half-way through a box, and no blow-outs. (For real. Never once had the up-the-back situation.) Yes, there is a little more effort. And a little extra laundry. But it’s small potatoes compared to the savings. When people ask how we could possibly use cloth diapers with twins, I generally respond, “How could we not?”

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On the left is our duo just before 4 months old, and on right at almost-18-months — wearing the same diapers they will wear until they are done with diapers.

We started with cloth when our boys were about 2 weeks old, once the freebie hospital diapers ran out. We have used them almost exclusively since then. (We have been on two different road trips that required stays in hotels, so we did use disposables. I estimate we have used about 200 disposables since our boys were born 22 months ago.) Ours are not like your grandma’s cloth diapers. There are no pins. No scrubbing on a washboard. No plastic pants. Cloth Diapering has come a long way and fits into our modern life. Our diapers go on with hook-and-loop closures, similar to disposables, and are one-size, adjusting from 8 to 35 lbs., which should take us through to potty training. We wash them ourselves in a high-efficiency washer and saw no noticeable increase in our utility bills. There are lots of different modern cloth diapers, and a ton of information available online. If I had it to do all over again, there are lots of baby “essentials” we could totally live without, but I would not hesitate for one second to use cloth diapers. Cloth Diapers work for our family, we love them, love the savings and we can’t imagine it any other way.

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If you want to know more than you ever thought possible: More than you ever wanted to know about cloth diapers is my little cloth diaper manifesto on the topic from my own website, goteamwood.com where you can also read all about our family adventures.