Tag Archives: siblings

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. 

on wholeness

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In my last post, I wrote about how my oldest daughter is angry and acting out, jealous over the attention her twin brothers get from us, each other, their extended family, and from the public at large.

When the boys were little, we tried to make sure our daughter got special attention from us. She stayed up later, and she and I had tea parties together in the evenings. We went on little outings most weekends, to run errands or swing by the park.

Our boys were almost two before either of them got one-on-one time with a parent, out of the house and away from potential interruption by the other children. And those times were few and far between – mostly involving ER and urgent care visits. We poured most of our extra time into our daughter, who seemed to need us more. After all, our boys have each other.

That, right there, is the myth. Even when it benefits my singleton by securing her more individual attention from her parents and grandparents, we’re perpetuating a myth that hurts her: that she is incomplete, and would be – what? – more confident, less lonely, less needy, more whole – if only she had a twin. To treat her as though she needs more and her brothers need less, is to reinforce the lie she believes – that she is missing something that would complete her.

Our boys are 6 now, and even though they miss each other when they’re apart, they want one-on-one time with us. And they deserve it, as much as their sisters do. They might deserve it more, because they’ve certainly received less individual attention over their lifetimes than either of their singleton sisters has.

I struggle with meeting each of their needs for my undivided attention, like any busy parent does. Clearly the strategy we employed for the first 5 or so years of the boys’ lives – giving their older sister more time because she seemed to need it more – did not work. And as the boys have gotten older we’ve run into more situations where their being twins is not a boon, but a burden for them. Our new strategy is to treat them equally. Our twins are no more special than our singletons, nor any less deserving of our time and attention.

Because our kids are so close in age – and because our oldest needs to be in bed by 7:30 to keep her temper in check – they have the same bedtime. Our individual time comes on weekends. We rotate; each child gets one “date” with Mom and one with Dad before the next round begins. We started this over the summer and are still working through round 2.

I have no idea whether the “equality” approach to parenting is the right one, but I’m hoping that by consciously treating each child the same way, rather than according to what I perceive to be his or her need, I’ll be able to soothe my daughter’s fears that she’s missing something important and drive home to my boys that they are complete as separate individuals, as well.

(One of you asked about my youngest and how she feels – she’s not yet 4 and seems well adjusted so far. Most of her strong feelings hinge on things like Cheetos and her princess nightgown and when she watches “Dora,” so it’s hard to tell how badly I’ve screwed her up at this point.)

Jen is a work-from-home mom of 6-year-old twin boys, and two girls ages 3 and 8. She also blogs at Diagnosis: Urine, where she examines the finer points of potty training failure.

The Narc

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I’ve got one in my pair, do you?

Rebecca

My daughter, Rebecca, has always been more of the goody-two-shoes than her brother.  Which is not to say that she isn’t clever and sneaky and a challenge in her own way, of course. But for the most part, she’s a rule-follower.  In fact, I would go so far as to say she loves rules.  In part, she loves following rules simply because she likes to be able to point out how well-behaved she is.  But just as much, she loves enforcing the rules on others.  In particular, her brother.

If the two of them are playing together in the other room, you will frequently hear her bossing him around, telling him exactly what to do and how to do it.  And boy, if he gets out of line…

“DAN! Stop jumping!”

“DAN! NO! NO JUMPING!”

“MOM! DAN’S JUMPING ON THE COUCH!”

Rebecca

On the one hand, I won’t lie, it’s kind of handy to have a tattle-tale in the bunch.  Oh sure, she sometimes gets caught red-handed at something nefarious, too.  But the truth is that her brother is more likely to attempt something dangerous, or do whatever it is I’ve told him not to do 100 times before. So I don’t really mind having her be an extra pair of eyes to make sure nothing valuable gets dropped into the floor vents.

On the other hand, the tattling is getting a little annoying.  Sometimes, when she whines “Mom, Daniel just ….,” I want to shout back, “work it out!”  And there are times when I doubt the complete truth of what she says.  Believe me, she will not hesitate to throw him under the bus at the slightest provocation. While he may have done whatever it is she has accused him of, it’s quite possible she had a hand in the wrongdoing as well. An interesting sibling dynamic at work, to be sure.

And yet, I’m not sure I want to squash the tattling. Yes, it can be annoying. But do I really want to have her STOP telling me when something is going wrong, even if right now it’s awfully minor? What about the day when it’s something big, and I absolutely DO want her to say something?

How do you handle tattling in your house?

Who's who? The big brother edition

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It has been interesting to watch our son get to know his little sisters.  From the beginning figuring out which baby goes with which name has been a challenge.  In the hospital (age 27 months), he would introduce them as S and OtherBaby.  S was a familiar name to him because a girl at the dayhome had the same name.

As the girls got a little older he learned what their names were but he still couldn’t tell them apart.  He would refer to them by the colour of their blanket or coat.  That led to embarrassing situations when he would announce in his defiant 2-year-old voice in a public place, “I don’t want to sit next to the brown baby.”

Later he began to hyphenate their names.  They became R-S and S-R.  To him it didn’t seem to matter now because they had the correct name somewhere in his label.

He seems to like their names or maybe he’s still trying to figure out who is who because he has named his stuffed animals and imaginary friends after his sisters.  The interesting thing is that has named them R, S and R.  For some reason he reuses R’s name all the time.

Our son is now 3.75 years old.  He still can’t seem to reliably tell his sisters apart.  Sometimes he’ll get it right but not more than the 50% that comes with guessing. He’ll ask, “what’s this baby’s name?” and then talk to her by name.  Then he’ll ask what the other baby’s name is.  I wonder if he thinks we reassign their names and that each girl might not actually go with the same name all the time.
How have your siblings of multiples done with identifying who’s who? Do you have any suggestions for helping him to tell them apart?  This won’t be an issue long because the girls will likely soon be talking, so I”m sure they’ll correct him.

A minor difference of opinion

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A month or two ago, I was just about ready to declare that I was all done having kids. After all, as my husband would gladly point out, we went about this thing in the most excellent, efficient way possible: first pregnancy, boy/girl twins.  Boom. Done.  We’ve got our two kids, we even lucked out with one of each gender.  What else do we need?

And then… a switch flipped in my brain. We were at the playground. A mom I don’t know, but had seen here and there while she grew more enormously pregnant all summer long, was there with her newborn daughter snuggled in the Ergo while her older son played.  And even though an itty-bitty newborn is far from my favorite age, I couldn’t help myself.  I want.  WANT.

My husband does not want.

This is not a huge surprise.  Back in our pre-child days, we had always had a difference of opinion on how many kids to have.  He was firmly in the two-and-done camp, while I was on the two-as-minimum side.

Truthfully, I’m not sure whether I’d feel quite as strong a desire for a third child if I hadn’t had twins first.  But that’s the weird catch-22 of starting out your parenting life as a mom of twins.  Always a mom of two, never a second-time mom.  And… I don’t know… but there’s this really strong pull to give it another try. Not because I feel as though I did poorly the first time, but rather the appeal of trying it again with even the slightest clue of what I was doing.

My husband, of course, feels no such desire.  The idea of throwing another baby in the mix only feels like taking a few giant steps backwards.

What I find most interesting is one of his main arguments against having more kids (aside from his life-long fear of all change).  He says that he already feels as though our kids are short-changed by being twins. He feels like he can’t give enough to either of them (enough of what is somewhat vague), so he thinks adding another child is only a disservice to the ones we already have, not to mention the third yet-to-be-determined.

Knowing my husband, I understand how he feels this way.  And, yet, I fundamentally disagree.  I do not believe that we do inherent damage to our children by creating siblings.  Which is not to say I think people should have more children than they can realistically take care of (financially, emotionally, or otherwise).  But I don’t think kids are automatically worse off for having another brother or sister.

And I definitely don’t think my kids are worse off for being twins.  In fact, there is a (sick, twisted) part of me that would almost like to have twins again, because I’d be a little bit sad for the fact that a singleton child of mine would not have that automatic playmate.  I do not believe my kids feel neglected or in any way under-served because there are two of them at the same age.  Yes, sure, I could never give the constant, full-time, one-on-one attention that might have been possible with only one baby.  But I’m not convinced that’s always the single-best way to raise a kid.

Anyways, here we are. Just this teeny little difference of opinion.  One of us wants more kids, one of us doesn’t. And yes, my kids are only a bit over 2. I’m only 31. The clock isn’t ticking all that loudly, and I’ve got time to wear my husband down (kidding, honey!).  Or, maybe I won’t.  Maybe we’ll stick with the perfect pair that we’ve got. And I will be happy, either way.

But I can’t help wondering. And wanting.

So, what about you? Do you think having twins has made you more or less likely to want a larger family?  Are you and your spouse/partner on the same page?  Do you think your twins are at some kind of disadvantage by always having a same-aged sibling?