How I Spent My Night's Vacation

Ellie took care of Abbie tonight. This meant I was on a semi-vacation, as I only had to care for two children. I celebrated by taking my charges to the nearby big-box store for some Vital Supplies.

This was the first time I’d ever left the house with just the twins. Usually I take the whole family or just Abbie to procure Vital Supplies. I don’t go out with just the twins under the theory that it’s easier to watch and entertain one toddler than two infants. In actuality, it may have been easier for me to take the twins than Abbie. The twins slept the whole time, or were at least content to sit quietly in their stroller. Abbie requires constant supervision to keep her in the cart, and out of the recognizable boxes of foodstuffs I throw in the cart like Goldfish, Fruit Rounds, and frozen peas. The big drawback to taking the twins is trying to lug around their carriers about the store; Abbie or one infant carrier fits nicely in the child seats of most carts, but the other infant carrier has to fit in the cart’s basket, leaving scant room for groceries, and no space for a box of diapers, especially in the warehouse-special-economy-big-enough-to-have-a-gravitational-pull size that we buy. I only needed a couple items on this excursion, so I solved the cart conundrum by using the stroller and its basket to carry my purchases; the boys rode in familiar comfort while I comparison-shopped for shampoo.

We left the house about an hour before their schedule naptime. I hoped to keep them awake until close to their naptime, and then let them drift off to sleep at the appropriate time, keeping our universe in sync for the rest of the day. Instead they lost consciousness shortly after landing in the car. I figured this breech of schedule would be okay if I could just keep them asleep until close to their regular wake time. Instead they woke up right about the time they should have been falling asleep. They were pleasant instead of hungry and cranky like they usually are when they wake, so I hoped the rest of the night would be as quiet.

We returned home 30 minutes before their scheduled mealtime, and the boys were still happier than an 11-seed in the Final Four. I put them in their crib hoping they might fall asleep and return to a semblance of their schedule, while I sat down to my mealtime. They never fell asleep, but they were happy to look around their crib while I steamed my broccoli.

When their mealtime arrived, they were still calm. I fed them and hoped the rest of the night would go so smoothly. They took their bottles, and instead immediately degenerated into tired, cranky, fussy babies. I spent the rest of the night picking up a fussing baby, soothing him, calming him, and then setting him down so I could pick up his brother who threw a fit while on the floor. They drifted off to sleep around 8:30pm, which would have been great, but I wanted them to eat another bottle before bedtime so they didn’t wake up hungry in a couple hours around the time I finally drift to sleep while dreaming of an economy size box of diapers so big that the price per diaper approaches zero.

I propped the boys up, stuck bottles in their mouths, and let them eat. When I say “eat,” I of course mean they kept their mouths open while sleeping, occasionally swallowing whatever milk happens to dribble into their mouths. With a lot of needling, they finished their bottles. Unfortunately I needled Tory a bit too hard while encouraging him to take that last quarter-ounce, and he suffered a complete meltdown. I held Tory on my shoulder with one hand to calm him, and Ian’s bottle in my other hand to finish feeding him. With great luck, Tory calmed down just as Ian finished his bottle and before he could start fussing. I quickly swaddled both and set them down with their pacifiers to drift off to sleep, finally back on schedule.

My night was still easier than caring for all three children simultaneously.

How I Do It

One of the most common questions I hear, besides “what’s that smell?” is “how do you do it?” A lot of people believe that I must be some sort of minor, Atom Man-esque superhero to be able to care for twin baby sons and a 2-year-old daughter mostly by myself. Anyone who’s ever been a parent knows how hard a baby is to care for, and how hard a toddler can be. They then multiply the baby by two and add in the toddler, and wind up asking how I do it, or in mathematical terms, 2B+T=HTFDYDI.

I need to find a smart-aleck answer to this comment, something like “alcohol, and lots of it,” but something that won’t land me in trouble with protective services in case someone takes me seriously. The truth is actually boring; the boys are pretty easy babies. I won’t deny that Abbie is challenging; I’ve known this ever since I discovered that the only way to calm her down in the hospital right after birth was to leave her in the warming table. She has her easy qualities (it took her a year, but she’s learned to entertain herself well, she’s a great eater, and her sleeping habits could be a lot worse), but I spent most of her waking time of the first year carrying her to keep her calm, and I still spend much of my days hearing her scream.

The boys are almost the exact opposite in demeanor, and good thing too because I don’t think any of us could survive me trying to carry both of them all day every day. I wake them, feed them, and place them in their gym. If I have the time, I’ll sit and play with them; if I need to do something else like fold laundry or read to the firstborn, no problem, they’ll usually just busy themselves until I return, and their immobility ensures that they’ll remain in place no matter how long I ignore them. Abbie never would have tolerated that level of attention when she was their age; she would have screamed as soon as I broke contact with her, and I have the like-new bouncy seat to prove it.

At least the bouncy seat was like new, now it gets used most days along with a cheap second seat I bought at a garage sale. If I need to do something in the kitchen like wash dishes, cook dinner, or eat the last cupcake out of Abbie’s sight, I’ll set up the chairs in the kitchen, strap the boys in where I can see them, and go to work. I don’t even activate the bouncing function either; they just chill out in the chairs and wait for their next bottle.

They don’t cry much, at least not without good reason like waking up hungry or getting an eye gouged by their sister. Abbie cried a lot more than they do when she was their age, maybe more than the two of them combined. I’m pretty sure that even today she cries more than they do, maybe more than the two of them combined.

Their sleep habits could be better, but they could be a lot worse. They’re on the same sleep schedule. They fall asleep with minimal fussing; Abbie never fell asleep without screaming for five minutes or more, sometimes a lot more. They go more than ten hours overnight, waking up once to take a bottle before going right back to sleep. They take three naps every day, and although I’m lucky to get an hour out of them for their first and third nap, the second nap is usually two to two-and-a-half hours long.

That’s how I do it; I have two marvelously well-behaved children, and a third child who makes the first two look well-behaved. Things could be easier now, but if I can bide my time until all three are in school, my parenting job should be easy for the rest of my life. Right?

Mobile Moan

The weather was nice today, 60-degree nice. It was the kind of weather that makes the baseball season seem not so far away. Indeed, we’re only about a half-week away from the Cubs’ first loss of the season.

I took advantage of the weather by toting all three kids into the park this afternoon. I was content to spend the day basking in the glow of our living room lamp, but Ellie spurred me into action by saying she wanted to meet us in the park on her way home from work so she could show off the twins to some people.

This was my first attempt at taking everyone to the park by myself. I deemed the stroller as the best way to transport the twins, so I pulled it out of my car, strapped Tory in, realized that 60-degrees isn’t that warm, and ran back in the house to grab Ian and a couple of blankets. I moved quickly through the house because I didn’t want any authorities to notice the stroller parked outside our house, and wonder why I left a four-month-old baby outside, unattended, and without a blanket in 60-degree weather.

In my haste to yank a blanket out of the closet, I accidentally pulled the mobile that was stored in the closet out as well. The mobile must stay out of Abbie’s reach and sight, or else she’ll follow me about the house shoving one of its four prongs into my knees and screaming for me to hold it for her. Abbie pounced on the fallen mobile like it was a freshly opened box of Fruit Rounds that just hit the floor. I knocked it out of her hand, grabbed her now empty hand, grabbed the blankets, grabbed Ian, and made it back outside before Tory developed the finger dexterity to unbuckle his stroller straps.

Our park excursion lacked excitement for three-fourths of our group. While Abbie ran about the grass giggling like, well, like a little girl, I stood by the boys making sure they didn’t contract hypothermia or, worse yet, fall asleep before their scheduled nap time. Ellie was late from work, and once I realized she wouldn’t arrive in time to show off the boys to anyone, I gave Abbie a few shoves in the swing, and took everyone back home.

I like to do things by birth-order, so Abbie was first back in the house, then Ian, and finally Tory. Before I could set Tory down in his gym, Abbie had the mobile in hand and was jabbing and screaming at me. She continued screaming through the front door as I loaded the stroller back in my car.

The first thing I did upon reentering the house was grab the mobile from her, and throw it back in the closet. This also made Abbie scream, but instead of the “play with me” scream, it was more of the “I hate you, you’ve ruined my life, I’m going to have to go Goth to ease my pain” scream. I ignored her as all the experts say to do when a child throws a tantrum. Several minutes of uninterrupted screaming later, I sent her to her room until she calmed down. Once she regained her composure, I opened her room and let her rejoin the family. She repaid my kindness by screaming again.

At this point, I went for the big gun: Singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” complete with hand motions. This kept her calm as long as I kept singing, but she resumed screaming as soon as that star stopped twinkling. So I sang again, while I played with her brothers, while I changed everyone’s diapers, and while I set her brothers down for naps. I think it took about 20 minutes, but she eventually forgot about the mobile again. Hopefully she’ll forget about the Goth thing too.

To Screech, Perchance to Scream

Abbie still isn’t talking, and that’s okay. I’ve learned to accept the fact that she’s going to take her time saying her first words, and may end up learning vocabulary from her brothers. Everything will be okay as long as she’s speaking by the time she enters kindergarten, because no child of mine is going to begin her school career with a failing grade in vocabulary.

Abbie can sign, but her main form of communication is whining. I survive the days by examining the context when she whines, and figuring out what she wants from there. If she throws a book at my feet and screeches, she probably wants read to. If she whines while passing our bedroom, she probably wants to watch the mobile on the fish swing. If she bellyaches in the kitchen, she probably wants Goldfish. If she moans while running around the house carrying a burp cloth, I go for the Goldfish again. If she screams while doing anything non-descript, let’s just say I probably rely on the Goldfish too heavily.

Whining while playing with a toy usually means she wants it to do something, but can’t figure out how to make it work. For example, she may want the mobile to spin, but doesn’t know how to make it work so she’ll stand next to it and scream until I turn it on; or maybe she wants to play with her shape sorter, but can’t figure out how to pull the triangle piece back out through the little square hole so she’ll sit and scream until I pull the triangle piece back out for her. Also I usually need to pull her hand out to make her stop screaming.

These are obvious situations, but yesterday she threw a mystery scream at me while playing with a toy that I still haven’t deciphered. It happened while playing with her IncrediBlock. The IncrediBlock is part of the Peek-a-Block line of toys, which are little plastic blocks filled with starfish, monkeys, bulldozers, or other interesting objects that children never notice but parents seem willing to pay $1 per block to buy. The IncrediBlock is an 18-inch cube that works with the Peek-a-Blocks to create an immersive learning experience, by which I mean it lights up and makes noise. Each side of the block has a different activity for kids to play with: The top has a spinning wheel and lights, one side has a door revealing a storage compartment, another side has drop-down storage, and the bottom has an on-off switch, which is Abbie’s favorite activity.

The IncrediBlock was one of the first toys Abbie discovered how to use by herself. Push a button, and it makes noise. Drop a block down the chute, and it makes noise. Push the switch in the chute, and it makes noise without having to bother with dropping a block down the chute. She’s been able to activate every feature on the block for close to a year now, but yesterday she started screaming while playing with it. I looked at the block, saw that the power was still on, it was still upright, and no triangle pieces were blocking the chute, so I ignored her and figured she just had some issues to work out with it. She kept screaming though. Then she grabbed my shirt and pulled me to the block. I double-checked and found all lights lighting, spinners spinning, and songs singing. I tried ignoring her again, but she kept screaming. Finally I figured out exactly what she wanted: Goldfish. While the screeching was on hiatus, I hid the IncrediBlock under a blanket and hoped she’d avoid playing with it until she could use words to tell me what she wants, or at least forget what was frustrating her.

Animal Love

Abbie loves all of our pets: The cats, the fish, the dust bunnies, and everything else living in our house. Unfortunately our pets generally don’t share the love.

Our cats hate Abbie; when they see her approach, they bat, hiss, and even bite if we fail to grab the spray bottle in time and squirt someone.* We don’t have the friendliest cats in the world, but I think this behavior is a relic of Abbie’s earliest days of interacting with the cats when she’d pull their fur at the first chance she’d get. I wish the cats would give her another chance now and adopt a more passive defense (also known as the Arizona Cardinals defense) when she approaches. Abbie has learned to be gentle with the cats and honestly tries petting them a few times before pulling their fur.

The fish don’t seem to notice Abbie because, well, they’re fish. They don’t seem to notice the fact that they’re swimming in a tank with an alarmingly high fish urine-to-water ratio either. They do seem to appreciate when Abbie puts food into their tank, instead of putting it into her mouth.

Our chinchilla Stumpy comes the closest to liking her, possibly because his cage protects his fur from pulling while the slats hold tasty toddler fingers in place for chewing should anyone insert her fingers in the cage. He’ll usually bound up to the gate when we open it for her, of course he knows that when the gate opens he usually gets a treat. Animals will generally do anything when food is involved, though perhaps he’d be a little less excited to see the door open if we pulled him out and let Abbie chase him around the living room once in a while.

Our dog Chloe generally tolerates her. When Abbie was in her pull first, pet later phase, she’d run away as soon as little miss crawled near her. Abbie thought this was a great game, which probably made her want to catch the dog even more. Now that she can move almost as fast as the dog making running away pointless, Chloe usually tolerates her presence by sitting still for a few seconds and at least waiting for the fur pulling to begin before running away.

This afternoon though, Chloe tolerated her presence for possibly her longest time ever. It happened while I was eating baby carrots and sharing them with Chloe. Our dog loves eating baby carrots, though possibly only because I’m eating them too. Abbie sometimes likes baby carrots too, possibly for the same reason. I share with the dog by biting the end off a carrot and tossing it toward her. She usually snatches it from midair in her mouth, though occasionally she misses and has to pick it off the ground, and sometimes she’ll decide she doesn’t want it and it’ll bounce harmlessly off her head.

Abbie originally approached us after noticing I was eating, but quickly noticed Chloe was distracted. She took the opportunity to stand next to her petting for almost a full minute, and never pulled her fur. Abbie even snuck in a few kisses, getting the dog back for all those times she spit up as a baby. Chloe never took her eyes off the carrots. Eventually she missed a carrot and ran to chase it, breaking the lovefest. I ran out of carrots soon after, and she returned to whatever dog-related activity that usually involves barking that she does all day. It was still a nice reminder that our pets can occasionally be nice to Abbie. And that animals will do anything for food.

* Here “someone” can refer to a cat or Abbie; squirting either one works to stop bad behavior.

Abbie, Destroyer of (Literary) Worlds

Abbie started life like all babies, as a blob that’s incapable of interacting with any inanimate object. While she was a blob, I handled her books exclusively, and kept them in good condition, ensuring they’d last long enough to fetch a good price at my future garage sale. For the first nine months of her life, the most damage any book suffered was when I dumped a glass of water on one. Around nine months though, I let her start turning the pages, and ever since she’s been discovering creative directions to move the pages. She started ruining books at a pace of a book a month at that point, but lately she’s been destroying a book a week, and it’s usually good books she destroys. I could understand her wanting to ruin the books she hates, but not “Seek and Slide in the Sea.”

Her first destruction technique was bending the book the wrong way. Say you’ve got a book, and you want to hold it open without having it take up twice the space. You might open it up and fold it in half, so the page you’re reading (say page 174) is facing you while the page on the other side of the binding (which would be … um … opening a book … finding page 174 … page 175!) would be facing outward and toward all the people you’re practically running into while trying to read and walk through the airport. This fold in half technique works well when you’re reading a paperback thriller (“A is for Alibi”) but not when you’re trying to read a tightly bound children’s board book (“A is for Alibi! B is for Battery!”). When Abbie folds her board books in half, I can hear the binding creak as the integrity gives way, especially when she pushes really hard because the pages won’t lay flat. Eventually the binding gives out and the book literally falls apart at the seams. I could tape it back together, but if book glue barely challenges her, she can shred tape in less time than it takes Duke to lose a tournament game.

She destroyed two great books for babies with the fold in half technique: “My Little Opposites Book” and “My Little Counting Book” by Bob Staake. These were Abbie’s first two favorite books because they had two unique features: One word per page and bright colored yet simple illustrations. Children’s book authors insist on creating books with flowing sentences and whimsical drawings, which might be great for entertaining an older toddler. Or maybe they hate that style. All I know is I couldn’t reach the predicates in these books before nine-month-old Abbie was slamming them shut in boredom and frustration because she couldn’t find anything interesting to look at amidst all the whimsy. Baby Abbie loved to read these two books repeatedly, so much so that she recently bent both in half a few too many times. I had hoped to read them to the twins when they get old enough, but I’ll have to settle for “My Little 123 Book” which is firmly on the shelf beyond Abbie’s bending clutches.

Recently she added the remove the flap from lift-the-flap books maneuver to her repertoire. Apparently she got tired of having to repeatedly lift the slide flap to discover who is purring behind the slide. She doesn’t just accidentally lift these flaps a bit too far and wind up pulling it off either; she tears those suckers off with a vengeance. The other day she methodically pulled all 26 flaps off the alphabet section of a book. I went into her room to figure out why she was being so quiet, and discovered a pile of letters at her feet. Fortunately that book was “Arthur’s New Baby Book, How to Be a Great Big Brother or Sister,” so that one wasn’t going to be passed down to her brothers. Abbie did like that one though.

Princess of the Rings

Abbie’s latest toy of choice is our wedding rings. That may sound like a dangerous and expensive toy to let her play with, but it’s better than her current second favorite toy: The oven, especially when it’s really hot.

Ellie handed Abbie her engagement ring the other day under close supervision to see what would happen. What happened was Abbie liked it. Her ring makes a safer toy than most rings; instead of holding the diamond in place with prongs that can be bent or broken, her ring uses a pressure mount that nestles the diamond within the ring’s body, holding it place with hundreds of pounds of pressure, or slightly more pressure than even the most determined toddler that’s armed with a plastic hammer can muster. Plus when I bought it, I made sure the stone was so small that it would slip through a digestive track while causing minimal damage in case any of our future children ever swallowed it.

Abbie slipped it on her thumb, and admired it like it was the world’s most beautiful piece of jewelry, way cooler than a Super Bowl ring. She then slid it off her thumb, and played with it with her fingers, rolling it, flipping it, placing it on various digits, and sneaking it into her mouth. Ellie took it away as soon as it entered her mouth, but her fascination with rings had begun.

Whenever I put my hands in close proximity to Abbie’s eyes, like while pushing her in a shopping cart or changing her diaper, she takes the opportunity to grab my ring. She’ll grab my hand and carefully examine each finger looking for my ring. If she grabbed my right hand, I need to slip her my left hand before she screams in frustration, especially if we’re in the shopping cart scenario. When she finds the ring, she tries prying it off. This can be painful since my ring is a tight fit and needs some gentle work to remove, but Abbie favors digging her too long fingernails into my knuckle region and pulling. If we’re in public where I could lose my ring, I’ll try to distract her with the nearest shiny object to avoid removing it. If we’re at home where I know exactly how to flush it out from under the couch should it fall, I’ll let her play with it under supervision close enough to make a Bush daughter feel excessively spied upon.

My wedding band is as simple as they come; it’s a smooth gold band decorated only with the dings of five-plus years of wear. I’m not a big jewelry guy; a metal watchband is too flamboyant for my tastes, and my leather one is pushing it. Hence my band is as safe as a ring can get with no little pieces to break off and lodge in delicate innards. I do need to watch closely though to make sure she doesn’t scuff it any more than it already is; it’s made of gold, which is a precious and beautiful metal, but is also softer than a toddler’s teeth.

Ellie gave her a couple of inexpensive metal rings to play with, fancy enough to draw her interest, but cheap enough that we won’t care if she damages them. I only let her play with them when I can watch her closely though. As soon as they go near the mouth, I take them away. I’ll replace them with something like crayons, which might be more valuable than the cheap ring I just took away, but at least their box declares “non-toxic.”

Dreams

I dreamt that Tory had started rolling over last night. I’m one of those people who usually remember their dreams when they wake up. This gives me the opportunity to psychoanalyze my subconscious every morning and try to figure out why I was driving a tractor through the Alaskan tundra with a sombrero-toting clown in the backseat. Ellie on the other hand almost never remembers her dreams, which means she wakes most mornings unencumbered by random disturbing images projected by her cortex. Poor thing.

As I was saying, I dreamt that Tory had started rolling over. I was sitting on the floor in my standard baby entertaining position with Ian in one arm and Tory in the other. In reality I rarely hold both babies at once since each child squirms enough to require two hands to safely contain. This being a dream though, I did whatever my brain told me to do, like I’m Katie Holmes to my brain’s Tom Cruise. While holding both babies, I looked down to see a second Tory, I was still holding Tory #1, rolling away from me faster than a log rolling downhill.

While feeding the boys their breakfast, I stopped to analyze my night’s Masterpiece Theater. I’m petty sure that it reflects my concern with their developmental progress. I’m not worried about anything yet as they’re both flailing, smiling, and spitting up just like they should for their age. Otherwise they’re still stuck on the same immobile blob phase they’ve been on since birth. They can support their heads much better than they could four months ago, but they’re showing little else in independent movement, and I’m starting to wonder when they will. Rolling over should be their first venture into independent movement, and I’m guessing it will happen sometime in the next couple of months.

Rolling over will necessitate a big change in the way I take care of them. No longer will I be able to balance them on the couch while I fetch a bottle, change a diaper, or pull lord-knows-what out of Abbie’s mouth. If I set someone down and turn my back on him, he could be in a completely different position several inches away by the time I turn back around. This is probably why I dreamt of having two Torys, because when they start rolling over they’ll become twice as difficult to keep track of. I’ll set Tory in his baby gym while holding Ian and looking lovingly into his eyes, look back down to see an empty gym, and find Tory rolled halfway down the steps if I’m not careful.

What I’m not sure of is why I dreamt Tory would be the first to roll. It could have been a random choice by my brain. It could be because he’s stronger and squirms more, and therefore seems more likely to roll sooner. It could be because he’s a fatter, rounder shape that better lends itself to rolling. Or maybe my brain is just randomly interpreting meaningless signals sent by my cortex, and all dreams are just inconsequential drivel. I’m going to guess number one.

Rake, Rake, Rake Senora

The boys seem to be handling their vaccinations much better today. They’re still sleepier than usual, but now that they’re being pumped full of acetaminophen on a regular schedule, they’re back to their normal, happy, lay-on-the-floor-while-I-pull-pacifiers-that-she-somehow-found-again-out-of-Abbie’s-mouth selves. We’ve had no mysterious inconsolable meltdowns today. The key word is “mysterious,” as we know exactly why Ian suffered a meltdown tonight.

Feeding the twins at night is a quiet family affair. We turn the TV off, the lights go down low, and Ellie and I take a baby in our laps while Abbie plays softly nearby. After about two minutes of quiet time, Abbie pulls out one of her many noisy toys, such as the dancing monkey that looked like a much better idea in the store than in our home, and punctuates the remainder of feeding time with hyperactive toddler music.

Tonight she decided to interact with us. Sometimes her interactions involve throwing a book dangerously close to a baby’s head to make us read. Trying to read with the lights dimmed causes problems for Ellie as she tries to figure out if that’s a horse or a sweater that Abbie is pointing to. Fortunately I’ve memorized every book in the house during my endless hours at home, and know even in the dark that Abbie is actually pointing to a bus.

Tonight though, her interactions involved pestering her brothers. This behavior has improved greatly since the twins’ earliest days when Abbie constantly tried to steal their bottles and stick her finger in their mouths. She apparently learned that such disobedience leads to scolding and no longer does that. Instead her vice when she wants our attention is raking her fingers across their heads; she’ll place her fingers on a head in a claw-like fashion, and drag them across the delicate skin fingernails first. She rarely draws blood, but boy does it tick off the babies.

She performed her patented rake move tonight on Ian, except in the dark she missed his forehead and raked him across his left eye area. Fortunately his eyes were shut in his pre-bedtime feeding bliss preventing any actual damage, but we lost his concentration for the rest of the night. We scarcely had it anyway since I think he was hurting a little from the vaccinations, plus we were forcing formula down him, which he barely tolerates even in a good mood.

As Ian screamed we told Abbie to go to her room, which she complied with by screaming the whole way and slamming her door behind her. The “go to your room” command is by far the coolest trick we’ve taught her. We tried bringing Ian back to the formula, and then to milk when he refused to suck. When he wouldn’t even take the milk, we knew he was gone for the night. I tried giving him his dose of acetaminophen before putting him down, but he was too busy screaming to slow down and drink. The entire dose disappeared in his mouth, though I’m not sure how much he swallowed and how much he inhaled. I set Tory down while Ellie calmed Ian from his acetaminophen inhalation. Once they went down, I opened the door to Abbie’s room and found her happily reading on the floor. I can only hope that she’s learning that scratching her brothers leads to scolding.

"Well, you know, we're always buying Maggie vaccinations for diseases she doesn't even have."

The twins had their 4-month checkup today. Their 2-month checkup was a scramble for me to stuff the kids full of breakfast, pack them for travel in the cold, and actually get them all out the door simultaneously by myself. This time Ellie was home to at least help me get everyone over to the doctor, though she had to leave for work soon after their appointment began. The twins also helped us get out the door by waking up early, preventing me from sleeping in and ensuring that we’d have plenty of time.

Otherwise this one was a lot like their 2-month checkup; they took their vitals,* asked if I had any concerns, and gave them three shots. Their shots even vaccinated them for the same five diseases, except these shots were booster shots, the second in a series of three that are meant to give children immunity to the harshest of diseases. It’s important for children to receive these shots as early as possible in life, before they remember the horrible searing pain they cause and wind up hating their parents for life.

Abbie was miserable for about a week after her first set of shots, screaming all the time and constantly refusing to sleep. Normally she screamed most of the time and generally refused to sleep, so at least I was used to this behavior. When the twins got their first set of shots, I was concerned that they’d turn into inconsolable, insomniatic monsters. This would be big trouble because there’s two of them, and two inconsolable babies would mean I’d have three children screaming simultaneously since Abbie seems to think that screaming is a good way to get what she wants these days. Plus I’m not used to dealing with challenging babies anymore because the twins as a unit are even less demanding than Abbie was by herself. Or maybe I’m just better at ignoring their demands. Either way I’m not used to it.

The twins’ 2-month vaccinations went well; they were crankier than normal for about 24-hours before reverting to their normal contented selves. I was looking forward to a similar reaction to their 4-month vaccinations. Things started well as the only discernable consequence in the first few hours was they were sleepier than normal; if narcolepsy is the only side-effect of the vaccines, I’m going to start hoping they find more debilitating childhood diseases to protect my babies against. Then around 3pm, five hours after being vaccinated, Ian started screaming. This wasn’t his usual “I’d sure appreciate some attention whenever you get the time” cry, this was the angry baby cry, the kind Tory usually makes when I do something cruel like set him down to burp his brother. By the time I prepared his feeding, he was inconsolable, almost too intent on screaming to eat. Abbie joined us for their feeding and started screaming for Goldfish crackers, creating a stereophonic experience beautiful enough to make me want to cry. No, that wasn’t beauty I was feeling, it was the terror of being overwhelmed. Regardless, I wanted to cry.

I fetched Abbie some crackers after their feeding. Ian, being too young for Goldfish, continued screaming. After several futile minutes of consolation, I set him down figuring that he was determined to scream no matter what I did. He was asleep a couple minutes later. It’s good to know these vaccinations still cause narcolepsy, I just hope it lasts all night, or at the very least they let me sleep in tomorrow.

* Ian is 22.5-inches long, and 11-pounds 3-ounces big. Tory is 22.75-inches long, and 12-pounds 11-ounces huge.

Fetch

Some children had siblings around the house while they were growing up. Other children had large cadres of friends. I had a dog. It would have been nice to practice my child-interaction skills more when I was younger; that way I might have a better clue as to what Abbie wants when she walks up to me and shrieks. I still had a lot of fun with my dog, though: Feeding him, walking him, and walking all over the neighborhood trying to find him after he escaped from the backyard again.

My dog’s favorite game was fetch. He had a toy rubber foot that he’d drop in my lap, and then look at me expectantly. I’d dutifully throw it into another room while shouting, “go get it,” and he’d tear after it, knocking things over if need be in his quest to retrieve it. He’d always bring it back, drop it in front of me again, and bark to get my attention. We’d repeat this game for hours if I let it go that long. The only way to break the cycle was to leave the room and hope that he doesn’t think to track me down, foot in mouth.

This game of fetch has surprising applications to my current life interacting with children. Abbie’s newest favorite toy is the mobile from the twins’ Pack ‘N Play. I discovered that she loved mobiles shortly after I set up a pair in the twins’ crib, and found Abbie attracted to them with a tenacity even Goldfish crackers couldn’t break. I had to quickly tear those mobiles down to keep her from constantly climbing in the crib to play with them. She still constantly climbs in their crib, but more for the challenge than to play with the still-standing mobile bases. I also needed to keep her from playing with the mobiles because they’re fragile toys not meant for toddlers to grab, a fact that she confirmed for me when she broke one of the bases in half the other day.

The mobile on the Pack ‘N Play is different. It’s meant to handle the rigors of travel, a.k.a. “Pack,” so it’s made of a durable material capable of surviving a fall from the luggage rack to the speeding interstate below. This strength gives it a chance to survive a toddler.

Abbie loves batting at and pulling on this mobile. Unfortunately it easily pops off the Pack ‘N Play, and a mobile stranded on the ground isn’t much good. So she’ll drop it in my lap and look at me expectantly until I hold it in the air for her. This usually happens while I’m holding, feeding, changing, or otherwise using both of my hands for a baby-related chore. Sparing a hand for the shortest possible time, I’ll grab the mobile and throw it into another room while shouting “go get it,” and she’ll tear after it, knocking things over if need be in her quest to retrieve it. She’ll always bring it back, drop it in front of me again, and shriek to get my attention. We’ll repeat this game for hours if I let it go that long. The only way to break the cycle is to leave the room and hope that she doesn’t think to track me down, mobile in hand.

She’s smarter than a dog though, and usually does think to track me down while shrieking the entire time. At this point I’ll distract her with some sort of snack, and hide the blasted thing so she doesn’t think to play with it again. I learned that trick from my dog too.

Breakfast at Abbie's

I woke up this morning and looked at the clock. It was 7:30am, and the monitor was quiet. So I shut my eyes, and next thing I knew the clock read 7:45. It was still quiet, so I shut my eyes again and the clock flipped to 8am. I figured I should probably get up at this point. My goal is to have the twins wake up at 7:30, but until they start sleeping through the night I figure I need to steal all the sleep I can. Plus delaying their first feeding by 30 minutes makes it that much easier to coax them through till their next scheduled feeding at 11am. I don’t mind bending their schedule a little, but a half-hour is my self-imposed limit, so I decided to start our day. My legs disagreed with my brain’s decision though, so I was still under the comforter a couple minutes later. They finally agreed to move when I heard Abbie banging in her room.

I rose, flung open Abbie’s door to find a smiling toddler determined to climb into the twins’ crib. After pulling her off the railing, I went to the kitchen to make the twins’ breakfast. Abbie followed, and started begging for cereal, or possibly Goldfish. I gave her a handful of Fruit Rounds* to tide her over until after I finished feeding her brothers.

I pulled the twins out of their Pack ‘N Play, and assumed the standard feeding position with both boys splayed across my lap, heads nestled between my feet and a Boppy. Abbie followed into the living room, which could have been a prelude to a problem a couple months ago when Abbie would grab the bottles every time she saw them. Now I’m better at distracting Abbie, or maybe she’s learned not to grab the bottles. Considering that she still hasn’t learned to not climb on the twins’ crib, it’s probably the former. Either way, she’s usually pretty well behaved while I feed the twins in front of her. She’ll entertain herself by chasing a pet, or maybe she’ll grab a book or a toy.

This morning she decided to grab the sippy cup she used before going to bed about 11 hours prior. Usually I’m pretty good about picking up after her at night, but last night I must have forgotten to throw the cup in the sink, possibly because I needed to get to sleep quickly. I also forgot to make her finish her milk last night as she still had about an ounce left.

With no more Fruit Rounds to eat, Abbie moved on to the next breakfast course: Milk. Never mind the milk had been out all night. I’m sure it was still edible, though maybe a little skunky. I couldn’t stand to watch her drink it in front of me though, and I ordered her to give it to me. Abbie, perhaps realizing that I wouldn’t give it back, continued drinking. After I gave her a few more orders and she gave me a few more dirty looks, I stopped feeding the twins and reached over to tear the cup from her hands. Suddenly I had three screaming children who were all upset that their milk suddenly disappeared. Abbie furiously tapped her head, her sign for “hurt,” just in case I didn’t get the message. I popped the bottles back in the twins and listened to Abbie scream for a minute before she distracted herself with a nearby pet.

When the twins were fed, I fetched Abbie’s breakfast. She got banana, a few more Fruit Rounds, and fresh milk. She gave me no clues as to whether she prefers it cold, or warmed in the living room for several hours.

* Less than 50% sugar by volume!

A Three-and-a-Half Hour Tour

I believe that children hit new milestones soon after their parents complain about how long it’s taking them to reach them. About a year ago, I remember noticing that Abbie really should be crawling by now, and the next thing I knew the cats had to climb onto higher surfaces for safety. The milestone has to be age-appropriate though; it doesn’t work to wonder when your 2-year-old will nail the counterpoint in that Bach organ fugue she’s been working on for half her life. Wondering when she’ll start talking apparently doesn’t work either.

About a week ago I complained, whined really, that the twins didn’t want to move to a three-and-a-half hour eat-wake time-naptime schedule. They kept falling asleep too early, waking from naps too early, and generally showing no regard for the schedule I meticulously created for them to minimize their impact on my internet time. I had been gradually stretching their schedule, but after jumping into the target schedule one morning last week, and subsequently spending the rest of the day watching them sleep through wake time and scream through naptime, I reverted to the long gradual plan, swearing I would never make such a drastic change to their schedule again.

Then on Friday morning, something magical happened; they stayed awake until their targeted naptime with little intervention from me. Keeping them awake is usually involves lots of poking, tickling, sudden loud noises, and warming of my cold extremities on freshly exposed thighs. On Friday I still rubbed them occasionally when they looked a little comatose, spoke to them while taking care of Abbie to keep their attention, and let Abbie scream in frustration right next to them to keep them alert, but the process didn’t involve nearly as much poking as usual. When naptime rolled around, I set them down, they fell asleep, and I had to wake them for their next feeding.

I kept the schedule for the rest of the day, and things worked so well, I tried it again Saturday. I had to stimulate them to keep them awake that morning more than I did the day before, then I had to coax them into taking their nap more than the previous morning, but we still survived. Today I tried the target schedule again with even more prodding, but the first nap went great. Now I’m officially keeping them on the three-and-a-half hour schedule for good, even if I have to constantly poke, clap, and keep my hands in the freezer for extra stimulation during the entire wake time. Going back to their old schedule now would just confuse them, much more than trying to figure out how the Missouri Valley Conference placed more teams in the Sweet Sixteen than the Big Ten and Big Twelve combined.

Their new schedule has many advantages for me. Since I usually change diapers before naptime, that’s one less diaper changing everyday. As they settle into the schedule, they should become more predictable with naptimes, making it easier to plan my day. They’ll take one less feeding, which means I spend less time preparing bottles and feeding them, which gives me more time to focus on other needs for all three children. Figuring out what Abbie needs to prompt her to talk would be need number one. She really should be talking by now.

You Might Be a Parent If...

I know I’ve had a bad day when…

…I try to justify waiting until morning to start an already filled dishwasher.

…I can measure the twins’ total naptime for the day in minutes.

…I can measure Abbie’s total tantrum time for the day in hours.

…Instead of going through Abbie’s bedtime routine, I just lie in her toddler bed and think about what a great place it would be for a nap.

…The twins wake me up while I’m feeding them for a change.

…Our supply of Goldfish crackers took a major hit in the past 24 hours.

… Just one child screaming at a time qualifies as restful.

…I realize I’ve been repeating, “red, orange, purple, pink” for five minutes as Abbie points to the colors in her book.

…The twins start falling asleep long before their scheduled naptime, threatening to throw off their schedule for the rest of the day and into the overnight, and I … just … don’t … care.

…Abbie pees through two consecutive diapers, and I never even forget to change her.

…I notice someone has a poopy diaper, and I determine just how poopy before deciding I should probably change it.

…I wait until I really have to pee before going to the bathroom, because there’s no way I’m getting up more times than absolutely necessary.

…This is my post for the day.

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

Our family went out to eat last night. Fortunately I no longer spend all day cooped up in the house, frightened to inflict the world on our delicate babies and vice versa. We’re even developing a routine: Ellie hauls the twins in their carriers, stakes out the biggest open table, and plops them on top to reserve it. Meanwhile, I toddle with Abbie into the restaurant, find our table, and stand next to it watching all three children while Ellie walks up to the counter to pick out her meal. When she returns, Abbie and I walk up to the cashier, order Ellie’s meal, my meal, and a kid’s meal with white milk and a toddler toy. I drop off a high chair, pick up plasticware, napkins, and drinks, and return to the counter to pick up our food that should be ready. With the food at the table, I lock Abbie into the high chair, and by the time we’re ready to eat our purchased food, Ellie should have both Podees* set up and in the twins’ mouths. At this point we’re ready to eat, no matter what kind of sob story the restaurant workers give us about wanting to go home because they closed 45 minutes ago.

As we began eating, a woman walked up to the booth behind us, led by her (approximately) 8-year-old granddaughter, a girl who I believe had Down Syndrome. At first the woman was horrified to see that her granddaughter decided to sit so close to other people that she could potentially bother. When she saw our menagerie though, she felt much better about the choice, saying something about how we’ll never even notice her daughter with our three kids. I’m pretty sure that’s an insult to someone’s offspring, but I’m not sure whose; I’m guessing all four children. She also muttered something about us having our hands full, which seems to be what everyone says to us when they want to say something, but don’t know what.

We continued eating, shoving food into Abbie’s mouth, returning rejected Podee nipples into the twins’ mouths, and occasionally even putting food into our mouths. At one point another couple walked up to our table, wanting to know if they could ask us a question. They were curious about how the Podee worked. Then they noticed that we had two babies on the table. Then they noticed we were also trying to feed Abbie. I think they were originally hoping we had a good reason for being so callous as to feed our baby without holding or even touching him. I assured them that we had a good reason and we weren’t just being lazy. They wished us luck and remarked on how we have our hands full.

We finished eating, cleaned up our trash, and packed all of our belongings. We left much like we entered with Ellie carrying the twins and me toddling with Abbie. As I walked out the door, I realized that I didn’t hear much from the girl next to us during the meal. For all her grandmother’s fuss, the girl was a well-behaved 8-year-old. Or maybe the grandmother was right and I just didn’t notice with our three children.

* In case you’re unfamiliar, a Podee is an ingenious hands-free feeding device. It’s essentially a long straw with one end that goes into a bottle, and a nipple attached to the other end. It’s a pain to set up, take apart, and clean, but a lifesaver when you’re trying to feed yourself and three children simultaneously.

End Table of Death

Here’s another proud entry for the baby book: March 15th, 2006 – Abbie suffered her first permanently disfiguring scar. She’s fine now, but was pretty ticked off at the time.

We were feeding the twins last night before putting them down. This is turning into a difficult time for Abbie because she has to amuse herself while we take care of the twins, feeding them, changing them, burping them, and marveling at how much they just spit up. It doesn’t help that we sit in a dim and quiet room, or that she’s tired and cranky at the end of the day, or that we’re tired and cranky by the end of the day for that matter. She does an admirable job of creating entertainment though. Sometimes she finds a toy to play with, creating a soft “click click click” sound to accompany the twins’ “suck suck suck.” Sometimes she sits down with a book and reads with just enough light to see emanating from the fish tank with an occasional assist from a televised sporting event. Sometimes she gives up and we sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to her for 20 minutes straight, providing accompanying hand motions as the twins allow.

Last night she was feeling independent and practiced her twirling during feeding. She practices her twirling a lot. Often times when we’re in separate rooms, I’ll check on her when her lack of noise makes me nervous that she’s eating something disgusting again, and she’ll be in the middle of the room spinning in place. I’m not sure what she’s trying to accomplish, but whether she enjoys the freedom of a newfound movement or her soul is a bottomless well of despair that only vertigo can numb, I tell her she’s silly, which usually makes her stop and smile. Then she falls down.

Last night she apparently twirled too fast, because she fell down while still spinning. Unfortunately she fell into an end table. This furniture was a hand-me-down from Ellie’s grandmother, and was given to us in our pre-child phase on the condition that we dispose of it should we ever have children. It has edges that come to a point and can pierce tender skin instead of just causing blunt trauma like most furniture. Apparently the only way it could be more dangerous is if its natural oak finish were replaced by some sort of lollipop flavoring since it’s marred more than its share of children. We stowed the matching coffee table long ago, and thought the end tables were tucked safely between softer furniture with a protective buffer of floor detritus surrounding the front. Abbie though circumvented the floor detritus before falling on the end table, striking her cheekbone.

It gave her a deep cut under the eye about as long as a nickel’s diameter. It didn’t bleed much, but it did bleed steadily enough to make us consider an ER visit, which might have happened if we didn’t have the twins to care for. Ellie patched her up with bandages leftover from her post-partum days, stuffed her with acetaminophen, and sent her to bed when we were confident that the only thing wrong with her was fatigue. She took her to the pediatrician the next morning, and he patched her up a little better, no stitches though, and gave her an antibiotic just in case. Despite looking uncomfortable, the gash hasn’t seemed to bother her since she recovered from the initial pain. Hopefully it won’t scar, but if it does we’ll always remember the exact day it happened. We’ll also always remember when we finally threw out that end table.

False Alarm

I woke up in the middle of the night feeling oddly refreshed, hearing nothing over the monitor but the fish tank filtering away. I turned to look at my alarm clock, and through a tilted display and sleepy eyes, saw the display read 5am. I turned to face the ceiling, reveling in my fortune as someone began rustling in the living room.

5am is an hour later than they usually wake at night. Not only that, but I tried a new schedule last night, giving them the day’s last feeding at 8:30pm. Before I would set them down for a nap/bedtime at 8:30pm, take care of Abbie for the night, and then feed the twins one last time before putting everyone to bed. A few weeks ago, I had to consistently interrupt daddy-daughter reading time every few minutes to reinsert pacifiers. Then they started falling asleep long enough for me to put Abbie to bed before I had to feed them. Then they started falling asleep long enough for me to blog before I had to feed them. Finally I had to wake them up to feed them one last time. Last night I experimented with feeding them and putting them down for the night earlier than ever. I figured the worst that could happen is they’d wake at 2am, but instead they rewarded me by sleeping in.

I added the hours while listening to someone stir. They had just slept eight hours without food. That’s officially sleeping through the night territory. It was deeply gratifying to know I’d done something right after my failed experiments to find a schedule that works for all of us. I’ve spent this month weaning them from four naps to three naps a day by slowly eliminating the day’s first nap. My original goal was to spread them out from a three-hour schedule to a four-hour schedule, but I’ve already given up on that dream. Instead I’m aiming for a three-and-a-half hour schedule, but the boys aren’t cooperating. I can usually keep them awake now for 60 to 90 minutes without much effort, but after that they require progressively more intervention to keep awake. I go from tickling, to rubbing, to clapping, to poking, to dripping ice water on their foreheads, to hanging my head in shame when they defeat me. I then put them down thinking they must be ready for a long two-hour nap, but instead they wake up screaming and hungry 20 to 45 minutes later. While I’m trying to stretch them out, they’re trying to cheat down to a two-hour schedule, or perhaps they’d be happiest in a bouncy chair with a bottomless Podee strapped in their mouth so they can suck, drift to sleep, and repeat every 15 minutes. Regardless, they’re currently in no mood to drop that fourth nap, no matter how gradually I eliminate it.

While basking in a successful schedule change, I heard the grumbling grow more and more insistent. I finally rolled out of bed to address it, and that’s when I noticed the time began with a “2,” not a “5.” I wasn’t oddly refreshed, I was ridiculously tired, and they were awake at 2am, just like I feared. I stumbled into the bathroom, and fortunately they’d fallen back asleep by the time I emerged. They stayed asleep until 4am, just like normal. It was still a successful schedule change, but not as successful as I’d hoped. Now if only I could do something about their daytime napping.

S p o o n P o s i t i o n

Some developmental milestones for 2-year-olds come more naturally than others. For example, the “resist sharing my toys with other children” milestone should come without any parental intervention.* The “love to use the word ‘no’” milestone should come easily to any child with even the most basic communication skills, at least that’s what I assume being the parent of a child who still refuses to talk. Abbie never says “no;” she can shake her head from side-to-side, but she doesn’t seem to do so to say “no.” She does however have a lovely gesture where she’ll stick her index finger in her mouth when I tell her to do something she doesn’t want to do. That sign could mean “no,” or possibly “@#$% you.”

Then there are the milestones we have to work with Abbie to achieve. We’ve been working hard on the “begin using utensils to feed myself” milestone at meals recently. Ever since we started feeding her solids, I’ve preferred to operate the utensils myself, even after she acquired the ability to move an implement into her mouth. Meals move faster when I wield the spoon, partly because I shovel food into her mouth faster than she can, and partly because I have to clean a lot more food that she accidentally and not-so- accidentally when she uses the spoon. The one exception is I will spear fruit or some other fairly solid object on a fork, and hold it vertically for her to grab. I’ve been doing this for several months, ever since I realized that doing so would allow me to keep my eyes on the newspaper while feeding her breakfast. She refused to grab a utensil from any non-vertical position, so I continued doing this assuming that she’d get enough utensil practice.

A couple weeks ago Ellie informed me that her utensil progress had stagnated for months, and it was time to step up to spoons. We began working with her lunch yogurt, loading the spoon and leaving it in the container for her to grab. The biggest problem she had here was keeping the food facing up. She wanted to grab the spoon and vertically rotate it into her mouth so that her tongue met the food instead of the spoon’s bottom. At least her tongue would have met the food if any remained on the spoon after the journey instead of on her pants. Ellie corrected her of this problem quickly, teaching her to properly swivel the spoon into her mouth before reaching the fruit on the bottom.

That’s where we’re working now. If I’m in a hurry I’ll brandish the spoon, otherwise I let her feed herself as long as we’re eating something vaguely sticky like macaroni & cheese, or meatloaf. Things like spaghetti are a little advanced for her as they tend to slide off the spoon and onto her pants, which forces me to try to clean set-in stains. Sometimes during laundry I stick my index finger in my mouth to let the stains know what I think of them.

By the way, when offering Abbie the spoon, I hold it in the center of her body and perfectly perpendicular so I don’t favor either side. She grabs the spoon with her left hand about 90% of the time. I’m sorry left-handedness is genetic, sweetie.

* The “likes sharing my toys with others” milestone doesn’t show up on my chart, but I’m sure Ellie is hoping that it comes sometime before age 30 so that I’ll quit throwing a fit every time she uses my computer.

You can find me in the crib...

Abbie fell out of the crib tonight. She’s fine, just like every other time she falls. The first time that happened, I went into full protection mode, terrified that she may have hurt herself and relieved that she was okay. We moved her sleeping quarters from the crib to the toddler bed before her next nap to ensure it never happened again. Little did we realize that she would continue climbing into the crib, possibly for the express purpose of falling out.

She at least tries to climb into her crib several times a day. Sometimes she gets stuck on the side. Sometimes she vaults over the railing and onto the mattress. I tried lowering the mattress to make it harder for her to climb over the railing, but it just gives her more of a challenge; like cutting a car’s brakes won’t stop someone from driving, it just makes the experience more exhilarating.

I don’t know what I can do to stop her from climbing into the crib. My current strategy is to tell her she’s naughty and pull her off the railing when I catch her in the act. This approach can prevent her from trying to climb into the crib for as long as three seconds if I set her down on the opposite end of the room. Otherwise I have to lock her out of her room to keep her from climbing the railing. My next step is to try razor wire over the top of the railing, but I’m sure it would only be a matter of time before she figured out to drape her lambie blanket over the wire for protection while climbing in.

If I see her already in the crib, I usually ignore her for a few minutes. I figure sooner or later she’ll figure out there’s nothing interesting in there, and if she climbs in she’ll be stuck for a while unless she figures out how to climb back out. This is the position I found her in tonight. A more patient parent might have pulled her out for the 475,021,754,021st time today, but I had to go to the bathroom; I figured I’d pull her out after I finished. Maybe she’d finally realize the crib isn’t worth climbing into.

I heard a thud followed by crying while I was in the bathroom. A more responsible parent might have rushed into her room to check for broken limbs and head trauma. I continued my business, making sure to wash my hands before checking on her because I wouldn’t want to spread any germs to her.

She stopped crying before I could towel my hands dry. When I went into her room to check on her, she was playing with one of her stuffed animals on the opposite side of the room. Maybe she’d finally gotten the message, at least temporarily, about why climbing into the crib is a bad idea. Maybe she was collecting stuffed animals to form a landing pad at the base of the crib for next time. Either way, I wondered when my concern for her well being after a five-foot fall onto the floor disintegrated into “I’ll check her after I wash my hands.” I’d guess it was around time number 1,823,181 of climbing into her crib.

"I'm in tantrum position. T-minus five, four, three..."

Abbie gets frustrated a lot now. This is one of the developmental milestones I see listed for a 2-year-old, but this one is a lot less enjoyable than some of her other milestones, like cooing, crawling, or forming firmer stools.

It’s bad that I often don’t know what she wants, or even what set her off. At breakfast the other day, she was happily eating Tasteeos when I gave her her milk. She grabbed her cup, threw it without even trying to drink from it, and suffered a category-4 meltdown. I kept trying to give return her milk, and she kept trying to give it to the dog, screaming the whole time. Eventually I released her from her highchair, and she promptly crumbled into a blubbering mess on the floor, defeated by, um, the frigidity of her sippy cup?

I know that the rules say when a toddler throws a tantrum, the worst thing you can do is give her attention because that will just encourage the outbursts. I ignored her for a couple minutes while finishing my breakfast, but the screaming continued without sign of slowing. I then realized that whoever wrote the rules didn’t have twins trying to sleep 20-feet away and separated by only a couple sheets of drywall, several coats of paint, and possibly a little asbestos for a noise barrier. I sang to her a little, calmed her down, and restored the sippy cup to her hands, which she now greedily consumed before toddling into the living room to destroy more of her books.

It doesn’t always help to know what’s frustrating her either. One of her favorite toys involves dropping balls into an enclosed vertical maze of tilted ledges, kind of like Lombard Street except no one will hassle you for trying to take a picture of it. As the balls drop, they clunk and ring bells on their way down before popping out of a hole in the bottom. It’s a pretty slick toy that at least keeps me entertained for a few minutes, but it only works if it stays upright. Abbie hasn’t quite grasped this concept, as she likes to tip the toy on its side, and then doesn’t understand why the balls won’t come out of the hole. She’ll reach in to pull the balls out, falls short, and then howls in frustration. If I’m available I can easily return the toy to its upright position, but she tends to play with it just beyond arm’s reach while I’m feeding the twins. If I’m lucky, I can distract her with another toy. If I’m not lucky, at least it only takes me about 20 minutes to feed the twins.

The worst part of her frustration spells is her coping mechanism. While older people can count to ten before acting or repeat a soothing word to avoid calm themselves down, Abbie tends to bang her head on the ground, and hard enough to sound like someone knocking on the floor. This interesting technique at least takes her mind off whatever was frustrating her before, but it’s replaced with a splitting headache. She’ll then get frustrated that her head hurts, which she’ll cope with by banging her head on the ground again. It’s a vicious cycle that I can only solve with a little singing, or possibly a toy. I just have to make sure the toy is upright before she starts playing with it.

A Different World

We took Abbie to a 1-year-old’s birthday party today. Her family lives in a different part of town than we do. We live in an old neighborhood in central Des Moines where most trees are bigger than houses, and we share a nearby park with our many neighbors. They live in the exurbs, where some trees are bigger than toddlers, and the playgrounds largely haven’t been built yet, but that’s okay because several homes have nicer equipment in their backyards than our park does.

We hopped on the interstate and drove until the concrete shoulder sprouted grass. Then we exited the interstate and drove a little further, about 30 minutes total. We were late arriving since the party’s start conflicted heavily with naptime, so the house was mostly full when we arrived. The guests largely looked at us with wonder, and not just because we had twins with us.* We are a family of five, which is about two members larger than most of the other families in attendance. The birthday girl’s grandparents both spawned larger families, and one of the families had three or four girls; the other half-dozen or so families with children in attendance had one child, probably under one year of age. This makes sense since most of the neighborhood homes weren’t much older than a year.

Not only were most families smaller and younger than ours, but also I was pretty sure I was the only stay-at-home parent of school-age children at the party besides birthday girl’s mother and the mother of the girls. I don’t want to ever criticize the choice of a parent to stay at home or work because it’s a deeply personal choice with advantages and drawbacks to each; being a stay-at-home parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and lord knows there are days I’d like to work outside the home just to get away.** That said, I could see a difference in the level of involvement between myself and most of the other parents. I spent most of my time entertaining Abbie, reading to her, singing to her, and taking away that knife she found. Some of the other parents just didn’t seem as aware of their child; they mingled while their child flailed uninterestedly in their laps. Granted, these were all children younger than Abbie who didn’t need much more than a shiny object in the distance to entertain them, and I may have just been jealous that these parents could sit and talk while I had to literally jump over another child at one point to prevent Abbie from spilling a can of soda pop that I didn’t realize she could reach, but it still broke my heart to see a girl trying to get someone to read to her. I would have read to her, but I was too busy diverting Abbie from other children’s bottles and sippy cups left haphazardly lying around by the other parents. I think one of the fathers was pretty ticked off at us after Abbie tried snatching his sippy cup on several occasions, but that’s what he gets for just putting it back down on the floor after I redirect Abbie. He got me back by not letting me into the parenting clique he’d formed at the party. I got him back by letting Abbie take a sip before I grabbed her.

Otherwise we had fun. I had cake, I had soda pop, I had cookies, and sometimes I even shared with Abbie. We sang happy birthday, and Abbie added her applause after the candle went out. Then we drove home. I just wish we didn’t have to drive so far.

* There was another set of twins at the party anyway.
** I call these days “weekdays.”

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I don’t watch a lot of television during the day. I’m a big believer in the corrupting power of television to ruin our children’s attention spans while brainwashing them into wanting products that will further destroy their minds and their health. I watch Dora the Explorer with Abbie once a day, let her watch a Baby Einstein DVD a couple times a week, and maybe check the news during the day, but otherwise the television stays dark pretty much the entire day.

Unless some sort of sporting event is being televised, then I’m watching it while assuming Abbie is doing okay unless I hear sort of distress cry. I don’t watch just anything though; just college football, pro football, college basketball, and baseball games involving (1) the Chicago Cubs and (2) another team that will probably win. A few other events occasionally pique my interest; I watched the recent Winter Olympics on several occasions just long enough to remember that I already heard who won whatever event I was watching.

Thanks to football season overlapping with basketball season overlapping with baseball season overlapping with football season, I can spend most weeknights and all day on weekends playing with the kids in the living room while I watch a game. Weekdays I usually spend focused on the kids since almost no one schedules games during the day. Occasionally I get to see Cubs games during the day, and a handful of college football bowl games kickoff during the day, but otherwise I have to take the kids out to the park if I want to see the pampered and spoiled physically exerting themselves and getting far too worked up over trivial matters.

We’re in the middle of college basketball’s tournament season right now though, and for the past week I’ve enjoyed college basketball all day. I can turn on the television at 11am central and watch the day’s first quarterfinal games from out east, and feed the twins at night by the glow of the last semifinal games from out west. These aren’t just any college basketball games either; these are the last gasps many teams get before their seasons end, or worse yet, end in the NIT. Everybody but the most complacent is playing their hearts out to work their way into the NCAA tournament. I’ve watched Gonzaga play like the worst potential 1-seed in history. I’ve watched Syracuse hit a dramatic three-pointer to play their way into the tournament on one day, and then watched them do the same thing the next day to play their way into a decent seed. I’ve watched Michigan bumble their way out of the tournament. All this is enhanced by my team losing in the opening round of their conference tournament a week ago, effectively ending any personal stake I may have in the way things play out.

Next week is even better when the NCAA tournament starts. For two entire weekdays, I can watch games from morning until night, and everyone cares about these games; from the 1-seeds who are looking to build momentum, to the 16-seeds who are just happy to be there, to the gamblers who really need that 11-seed to pull through or they’ll only be able to afford ramen noodles until June. The best part is if the game I’m watching gets out of hand, there are usually three other games to watch instead, at least during the first round. As the tournament progresses, I can only track three games simultaneously, then two, and then I have to watch the only game that’s being played. After that, I have nothing to do during the day but watch the kids and wait for the Cubs to start losing again.

Climber No Climbing

Gentle whimpering from the twins’ monitor pulled me from sleep this morning. Ellie had already left for work, so I like to wait until it degenerates into crying before I roll out of bed; they could still fall back asleep, and if I can finagle a few more minutes of sleep in the morning I will. As the sleep faded and my senses returned, I realized that the complaining I heard wasn’t coming through the monitor, it was coming from Abbie’s room. I rolled my eyes before rolling out of bed, and staggered my way into her room to see where she had trapped herself. This time she was stuck on the twins’ crib, arms dangling over the top railing without a foothold to climb into the crib, but too high to fall off the ground. I have no idea how long she’d been up there. Maybe she just climbed up there and I awoke at her first complaint. Maybe she’d been moaning for the past 20 minutes. Maybe she climbed up there the night before and slept there all night, waking to futilely cry every hour or so. However long she’d been up there, I plucked her off the railing, set her on the ground, and she immediately ran back to bed and laid down. Then she realized the sun was up and she could bound into the living room to play.

Climbing is becoming a major problem with Abbie. She might fall and hurt herself, but more importantly I’m running out of places to hide things. Today she discovered how to climb into the twins’ Pack ‘N Play. That Pack ‘N Play was one of my last bastions of secrecy. I usually feed the twins right next to their Pack ‘N Play, and it’s a great place to throw things that I don’t want Abbie to have without having to go to the trouble of moving my lower body. The bassinet area is ideal for holding Abbie’s Duplo bucket when I get sick of her dumping out the blocks and leaving most of them on the floor. The changing area stores the remotes well; they stay out of Abbie’s clutches and I can still access them when my basketball game goes to commercial. The side pockets keep beverages beyond her reach, whether it’s milk for the twins, water for me, or something with a little extra kick for Ellie after a rough day at the hospital.

Now I’ve lost that hiding space. I caught her climbing into the Pack ‘N Play while feeding the twins. I told her to stop, that she’s being naughty; she took that information, ran a cost-benefit analysis, and resumed climbing into the crib. I decided to finish feeding the twins and scold her later. Within seconds the bassinet was covered in Duplos. A minute later my television remote was in her mouth as she continued her scientific experiment to determine exactly how wet a remote can be and still work.

I’m running out of high places to leave things. I used to be able to keep the dog’s daily food ration on top of her kennel, but Abbie discovered how to access it by climbing on the couch. I used to be able to hide my CD’s behind her toy box, but now she can climb over her toy box to scatter jewel cases throughout the living room. I used to be able to keep the cats safe on top of the couches, but now there’s nowhere on the main floor where they can fall asleep, confident that their fur won’t be pulled.

Even her bedroom is running out of hiding places. She climbed on her changing table tonight. The changing table is where I hide all of my dangerous creams, lotions, and other diaper changing implements. If I have to spend money to replace any of them because she swallowed them when she should have been sleeping, I’m going to be upset.

Dear Abbie

I don’t enjoy a lot of luxuries anymore. Four hours of uninterrupted sleep is a good night, I usually have company in the bathroom, and leaving the house with the kids requires a level of planning usually associated with the invasion of mid-sized countries. Sitting at the table while I eat breakfast and read the newspaper, sometimes as long as several seconds without interruption, is one of my luxuries. I read everything: Section A, Section B, even Section E. I skip Section D though because that’s just worthless.

One of my morning highlights, in spite of her inherent spelling bias, is Dear Abby. I enjoy a certain gawk factor reading about people with really screwed up problems, but I also like reading her advice. I imagine future situations where I could employ it in my own life, like if I’m ever having problems communicating with my non-existent adult siblings, or if I’m ever a teenage girl and really want to get a boy to notice me.

This recent column caught my eye. It’s reader responses to an earlier question from a mother using baby talk with her 3-year-old son. The original question fell into the “gawk” category, as the mother hated it when her mother used baby talk with her, but now she can’t stop using it with her son, and she wanted to know if she was hurting him. Abbie’s, err, Abby’s response was if she hated it at that age, then her son probably hates it, so knock it off because it may be causing some sort of deep-seated psychological damage. I filed her advice away; baby talk is bad, I never did use it, but don’t start using it or one or more of my children might grow into the kind of person who writes to strangers in the newspaper for advice on life.

Her readers took that advice, and turned it into something with relevance to our situation. Many of them related baby talk to speech delays. Since I’m the proud parent of a 21-month-old daughter who still isn’t talking, I’m especially attuned to figuring out the reasons for her delay so I can get her talking. Plus I don’t want to screw up with my newborn twins.

After spending hours on research, I can say that some of the readers’ advice is good. Specifically, use proper grammar around kids; no matter how often Cookie Monster models it, saying “me love you” around them just enforces bad habits. Other bits of advice impressed me less. I’m glad that Jeanne’s daughter knew her ABC’s at 18-months, and now talks at a level almost twice her age, but luck has just as much, if not more, to do with a child’s development than anything caregivers can do. I believe that children will speak when they’re good and ready, and that belief is the only thing that keeps me talking to Abbie some days, so don’t burst it.

What really bugged me about the column is the consensus is baby talk is always bad. I suppose that depends on the definition of “baby talk.” Speaking in falsetto could be baby talk, but it’s also the best way to grab an infant’s attention; speak to a baby in a normal voice and he might never notice it. Using one and two word sentences could be baby talk, but it’s important to speak to a child at a level he’ll understand; speak in complex sentences, and he could forget the predicate before you finish the participle. Plus you need to model the next speech stage; if he’s pre-verbal, use one-word sentences. If he’s on one-word sentences, use two-word sentences. If he’s mastered two-word sentences, it may be time to introduce curse words.

I’m climbing off my soapbox now. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll find something that bothers me in “Marmaduke.”

Our Little Monkey

Transitioning Abbie to a toddler bed isn’t without its problems. She’s now free to climb in and out of her bed whenever she chooses, and she chooses to do so often instead of sleeping. She eventually goes to sleep in her bed, but not without banging around for several minutes first. I’ve had to start cleaning every book, toy, shiny object, and anything else that could provide entertainment off the floor every time she goes to sleep to limit her play options, but she still finds plenty of ways to amuse herself. She’s pulled every article of clothing out of her dresser. I’ll put it back, but she immediately pulls it back out. I’ve given up trying to keep her clean clothes neat and folded, and instead just remember which pile of laundry on the floor is clean, and which pile is dirty. Still, it’s worth the trouble if it means keeping her safe from falling out of the crib.

The other night, while waiting for Abbie to give up and fall asleep, we heard a loud thud from her room. Then we heard crying. Ellie rushed in to see if something fell out of bed, or maybe knocked something over on her. Instead she found her whimpering in the middle of the room with no apparent cause of trauma. Ellie cuddled her for a minute, calmed her back down, and set her back to sleep. After Ellie told me what she found, I waited a minute and walked into her room on a hunch. Sure enough, there she was climbing back into her old crib.

We left the crib in her room for the twins to use. We moved it to a different part of the room to minimize her confusion over changing bedding, but she still remembers it. We did have a couple mobiles hanging from the crib, but I took them down after discovering that in order to grab them she will knock anything out of her way with a zeal only previously associated with Froot Loops.* I knew that she’d tried climbing into it before, but I hoped that she’d leave it alone without the mobiles calling to her. She found the pull-down musical toy we left in the crib though and was determined to play with it. It’s not like we left anything else interesting within her reach.

I took the toy out of the crib, leaving it bare except for the mobile frames, the sheet, and a thick layer of perma-spit-up on top of the sheet. She went to sleep that night, but she still tries to, and succeeds in, climbing into her crib. More than once I’ve had to rescue her from the railing when she realized that she couldn’t climb any higher, and the drop back to the floor was too far. Maybe she wants to continue being in the crib that contained her for 18-months. Maybe she’s exploring her room. Maybe she’s testing her limits. Maybe she can bounce higher on the crib mattress than her bed mattress. Whatever the reason, I hope it’s just a phase that passes. She needs to stop risking bodily harm by climbing in and out of her crib, and start risking bodily harm by climbing up and down furniture like her dresser. You know, like a normal kid.

*That’s a shame too because mobiles entertain the twins well now. I’ve found that I can still use the mobiles as long as I only hang one above the twins, and give the other to Abbie.

A Long Time Ago, in a Lifetime Far, Far Away...

Ellie and I used to go to movies, probably at least two a month. Dinner and a movie made a nice date; a matinee followed by dinner made a nice cheap date. Back in college, I saw so many movies that I qualified to critique new movies for the school newspaper in reviews that were slightly less poorly written than posts on this blog. We stood in line for over an hour to watch a midnight showing of the theatrical re-release of “Star Wars.” We once went to the theater in midweek on a whim when we heard that the greatest theater in Des Moines* was closing forever, and we sat through “The Crew” just so we could say we attended a showing on its final night. By my senior year of college, my goal was to watch every Best Picture nominee before the Academy Awards, and I usually met it.

That was of course before Abbie. I still remember cramming in one final movie before her birth; that gave us the advantage of enjoying one final movie in peace, but it also means we have to go through life with the knowledge that the last movie we saw as non-parents was “Mean Girls.” With Abbie in the house, our movie going dropped alarmingly, down to maybe a half-dozen per year, which meant that if we planned things really well we could still see all the best picture nominees. This was easy enough to plan as long as they kept churning out “Lord of the Rings” movies, but sadly Tolkien only wrote a trilogy.

The first Best Picture winner I missed in a few years was “Chicago.” Fortunately I despise musicals, so it felt like I chose to miss it. This was the type of movie Ellie would have drug me to a couple years ago, but needing to watch Abbie gave me an easy out while she went without me. Our pattern of only one of us getting to see the year’s Best Picture continued last year when I went to “Million Dollar Baby” by myself while Ellie and Abbie were out of town. This was before the nominations were released, so I got lucky in picking a winner.

This year came the twins and a nominee list that was uncertain, and when I say “uncertain” I mean “bad.” The only nominee we saw was “Good Night, and Good Luck” long before the nominees were announced, at a time my then-pregnant wife threatened to go on bedrest a little early if we didn’t go to a movie. We still watched the Oscars last night though. I may not have seen many nominees, but I have seen enough internet parodies to feel like I’ve seen the nominees.

This year’s Best Picture was “Crash,” which isn’t to be confused with any of the other eleven movies in existence also named “Crash.” It’s available on DVD right now; I could watch it tomorrow. Sadly I don’t watch movies at home anymore either. I like watching movies in one sitting, and the only chance I get to do that is when the kids are asleep, and if the kids are asleep I should be asleep. I hope that someday my children will enjoy watching movies with us, and we’ll return to watching all of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars, but this time as a family. That day will come a little sooner if the Academy would nominate a Winnie the Pooh movie.

* River Hills in case you care. It was a huge downtown relic from the Cinemascope days.

Maybe She Needed Some Coffee...

Abbie had a bad morning today. Maybe she didn’t sleep well last night. Maybe her crankiness was related to her pooping three times before her afternoon nap. Maybe her breakfast of pancakes, Gatorade, a couple bites of donut, and a cookie she swiped turned her into a sugar junkie in desperate need of a fix by mid-morning. Whatever the cause, she was a handful to keep content all morning. It was the ideal morning to hole up in the house and spare the world from being subjected to our screaming child.

Naturally we needed to go out this morning. We needed to pick up a few Vital Supplies for our house, and an assortment of gifts. Within the span of about a week, one coworker will have his second child, one coworker will have his eighth child, and a friend’s child will have her first birthday. Obviously there’s something magical about that second week of June in Iowa. Since one child had already arrived, we needed to hit the store to start repaying some of the kindness, and material goods, we received when the twins were born, cranky child or not. Sure one of us could have stayed home with Abbie and possibly the twins, but Ellie wanted to pick up a few things and darned if I was going to miss a rare opportunity to leave the house.

We packed up everybody for the store right after feeding the twins, intent on returning before they’d need fed again. In the store we did the usual Abbie in the cart pushed by me, twins in the double-stroller pushed by Ellie routine. The twins are still young enough to sleep through any stroller trips, so they were easily handled as long as we replaced their pacifiers at first complaint. Abbie on the other hand started protesting almost immediately after entering the cart, and she never even liked pacifiers. I used songs to keep her quiet while we picked up newborn gifts.* Even while shopping for the one-year-old, she stayed tranquil as long as I kept moving and talking. Since she was still quiet, I pressed my luck by looking for Vital Supplies while Ellie looked for whatever she needed. That turned out to be a worse idea than the WBC as she (Abbie) started screaming as soon as I lost sight of Ellie. I hurriedly grabbed what I needed and circled around looking for Ellie. I didn’t have any luck finding her at first, but fortunately Abbie’s screams allowed Ellie to use her sonar to find us as long as we stood still.

Reunited, we proceeded to the checkout. There was a line, so Ellie took Abbie to walk about the store while I waited in line, controlling the cart in one hand and the stroller in the other, filling my hands in a way I couldn’t have imagined a couple years ago.

With gifts and Supplies bought, I waited by the doors for the women of our family’s return. I couldn’t find them for a couple minutes, but soon my sonar told me they were coming. Abbie tripped and landed face first on the floor, giving her ample reason to cry about the latest tragedy in her life. We calmed down Abbie, and quickly packed up everyone and everything before someone else started crying. Then we went home. Abbie was poopy anyway.

* We bought diapers. That’s a gift tip for non-firstborn children. Chances are the family already has most everything else they need. Stuffed animals just take up space anyway, no matter how cute they are.

Dropping Second-Breakfast

If I don’t like their schedule, just wait a day. Two days ago, on the night after I post the twins’ overnight schedule, talking about how they wake up every night at 2am and about 3am for pacifiers and milk respectively, they change their routine. They slept until just past 4am without making a peep. I thought it was a fluke, that I’d see some movie about gay cowboys win an Oscar before I’d see them sleep like that again, but it happened again last night. I’m curious to see if they do it again tonight.

This coincides with a lengthening of their time between feedings during the day. They’ve been on a three-hour routine since birth, not counting those couple days where I experimented with a two-and-a-half hour routine to see what would happen, and discovered that bad things would happen. My goal is a four-hour routine where I feed, keep them awake for two-and-a-half hours, and let them nap for 90 minutes. Their three-hour routine involved feeding, keeping them awake for 90 minutes, letting them nap for 60 minutes, and inserting their pacifiers repeatedly over the final 30 minutes while hoping they go back to sleep.

I lengthen the time between feedings gradually, adding a couple minutes to each feeding break each day. For example, they used to eat afternoon meals at 1:00 and 4:00; today they ate at 12:44 and 3:52, and tomorrow they’ll eat at 12:40 and 3:50, with a goal of 11am and 3pm feedings by the end of the month. I’ll keep moving those feedings earlier with a numerical retentiveness rarely seen outside of the IRS, until their little minds are so confused that they’re willing to eat and sleep whenever I tell them to without complaint. That’s when I know I’ve broken them and I’ve won.

I’m trying to eliminate the first post-breakfast feeding of the day, formerly at 10am. That one has always had the roughest nap, the one where they’re awake from 9-10am no matter when I set them down. I’m waking them up earlier and feeding them less at this feeding every day until it disappears like comprehensibility from the script for “Syriana.” So far it’s going well, or at least I get to feed them before they have a chance to complain about being forced to nap in the middle of the morning.

I decided it was time to drop a feeding when I saw a chart saying that around three months of age, babies should be taking three naps a day instead of the four they were taking, or at least the four I was setting them down for. I knew they weren’t napping well most of the day, and I hoped that by reducing their overall number of naps and naptime that they’d accept their offered naps more readily. This may be a case of trying to read too much into a meager intellect, like that Anna Nicole Smith Supreme Court case, but they seem to be responding. We’re only a few days into the transition, but they’re napping better already. Plus they’ve slept close to six hours overnight for the past two days, and if spreading out their daytime feedings also spreads out their nighttime feedings, I’m all for it. I just have to remember to set a timer if I’m cooking meatloaf overnight instead of relying on them to wake me.

Be Very Very Quiet

Abbie had a poopy diaper this morning. There’s nothing unusual about that, but today she decided to poop while the twins were napping. Usually she’s thoughtful enough to poop while the twins are awake so I don’t risk waking them by changing her in the same room while they sleep. I had no such luck today, so I had to enter their room very quietly.

I have two diaper changing stations; one is in the living room, and the other is in the kids’ room. This coincides with the twins’ sleeping stations; one is in the living room, and the other is in the kids’ room. It probably isn’t optimal to make the twins sleep in two different beds in two different locations everyday, but I want the twins to sleep in their theoretically long-term crib in the kids’ room, but I’m not quite brave enough to try having all three kids sleep simultaneously in the same room. Somebody, probably all three on a rotational basis, would keep the other two awake at all times. So I have the twins sleep in the kids’ room while Abbie is awake, and make them sleep in the living room over night and while she naps. These are the choices we have to make when cramming five people into a two-bedroom home.

Since Abbie was awake, the twins were asleep in the kids’ room next to the primary diaper changing station. The secondary station in the living room is just a pad on top of the Pack ‘N Play, which is inferior in several ways. I have to strain my back leaning over the pad while changing them. Abbie is probably over the pad’s weight limit. Our only wipe warmer is in the kids’ room, and her tush is used to warmed wipes. Changing a poopy diaper in the living room means I have to throw away a poopy diaper in the living room, and even though we have a diaper pail in the living room, those things contain odors like the second hour of the Oscar telecast holds viewers. Most importantly, all the size 4 diapers were in the kids’ room, and while a size 1 diaper might look cute on her, she would severely test its claim of “superior leak protection.”

I quietly entered their room. The twins were fast asleep, which was a welcome change from those “naps” where the only thing that keeps them quiet are the pacifiers that keep falling out of their mouths. I lifted her onto the changing table, and began stripping her. Sometimes she howls as soon as I lift her, but today she obliged by being quiet. I worked as quickly as I could while Abbie was content, pulling, opening, and wiping. I soon had to add deflecting to my duties, as in deflecting Abbie’s hands from personally inspecting whatever I was wiping up down there. After a few parries, her patience wore out and she screamed in frustration. She may not talk yet, but if screaming counted as communication she’d be conversing at a teenager-with-a-cell-phone level. All four baby eyeballs popped up like they were peak lights on a decibel meter. I tried to calm her back down, but she continued screaming.

I hurriedly finished wiping, threw the diaper away, grabbed a new diaper, and hauled Abbie’s naked tush out to the living room. After she had a fresh diaper, she returned to playing calmly on the floor, and I returned to the kids’ room to insert some pacifiers. I grabbed a couple of size 4 diapers while I was in there.

Sleep Status

The twins’ sleeping habits continue to evolve. They’re not exactly improving, but they’re evolving. We’re consistently down to one feeding overnight. I don’t know when the last time was that I had to feed them twice in a night. That may be because the sleep deprivation prevents me from remembering, but I’m pretty certain that it’s been more than a month since their last double feeding. They even go about six hours between feedings overnight sometimes, and six hours officially qualifies as “sleeping through the night” by some people. Granted these are probably deliriously sleep-deprived people, but their opinion counts too. So they’re officially down to one feeding a night, and will occasionally “sleep through the night” by some definition. That doesn’t mean they only wake up once a night, though.

I usually set them down for the night about 11pm, or 11:15pm if they pee on their outfits while I’m changing them. The first time they wake up is at 2am, and I mean “at,” not “about.” I could throw a meatloaf in the oven at 1am, fall asleep, and they will wake me up when it’s ready to eat an hour later. I don’t know what I’d do with a cooked meatloaf at 2am, but it would be there if I need it. Every morning when I hear them fussing and see the clock at 2, I’ll roll out of bed, stumble to their crib, and give them their pacifiers. They go right back to sleep, and I return to bed.

They usually wake up again about an hour later. Again I’ll stumble to their bed and give them their pacifiers, but I’ll go to the kitchen afterwards to prepare their feeding. After the milk warms for a couple of minutes, I’ll take it to their crib for their feeding. If they’re still fussing, I’ll feed them right away. If they went back to sleep, I’ll set the bottles next to their crib, and curl up on the couch until they wake up. Sometimes they start fussing before the cat has a chance to sneak onto my blanket. Sometimes they sleep for another 90 minutes, giving the cat more than enough time to cut circulation to my lower leg while I sleep.

After the 3am-4:30am feeding, they go right back to sleep, and so do I. Then, no matter what time I fed them, they start fussing at 6am, and this is one of those “pull your meatloaf out of the oven precisely at 6am” wake ups. This is consistent with their nap routine when they wake up an hour before I want them awake no matter when I set them down. I always just ignore them at their 6am fussing, and they fall back asleep within a few minutes. At least they stay asleep until about 7am, at which point they wake up angry. I’ll roll out of bed, wonder why I never get to sleep earlier, and prepare their breakfast. Afterwards I make breakfast for Abbie and I. Some sort of meatloaf-like food generally sounds good.

Upward Mobility

It’s weird having children at two completely different ends of the mobility spectrum. The twins have zero mobility. I can leave them on the floor while I change Abbie’s diaper, and then get distracted by a ringing phone, burning meal, and exceptionally interesting newspaper article before returning to find them in the exact spot I left them.

Abbie on the other hand has tremendous mobility throughout the house, and it’s improving; everyday I have to push my glass of water a little further back on the counter to keep it out of her reach. This means I have to be vigilant about what she can touch, and what she does with the things she can reach. I have to keep her safe, but more importantly I have to know where she puts things.

I’m bad about organizing things. I tend to leave important items, like medical bills, past-due medical bills, and past-due medical bills threatening physical injury, on the first available horizontal surface. The result is we have a cluttered home, but I have a good memory so at least I know where everything is. At least I did know where everything was before Abbie got into them. Right now I’m missing a few important items thanks to her.

I have no idea where the cats’ food dish is. I know Abbie did something with it, but I’m not sure what. It’s a metal dish that makes an awesome “clang” sound when it collides with our concrete basement floor. That sound is one of the world’s most attractive to her, surpassed only by the sound of the front door closing as mommy comes home, and possibly daddy uttering the word “bath.” She loves throwing it around the basement, as she did a couple days ago while I worked on the computer finding important websites. I tuned out the repetitive clanging for several minutes, and finally turned around to retrieve her seconds after one last “clang.” Suddenly the bowl was gone, and Abbie had an innocent look on her face that said, “What else can I throw?” I assume it slid under one of our many boxes strategically placed around the floor to minimize available walking space, but darned if I can find it. I kept thinking she’d pull it back out one of these days, but no luck yet. Maybe we’ll find it when we move.

Then we have sippy cups. I always give Abbie her sippy cup so she can finish her milk while I clean up after meals, and invariably forget to promptly retrieve the cup. Sometimes I find the cup on the floor within an hour* of pouring it, and encourage her to finish it before loading it in the dishwasher. Sometimes it rolls under the table after breakfast, where it stays until I notice we’re a sippy cup short before starting the dishwasher at night. Sometimes they vanish. Ellie found a disappearing/reappearing cup far under the kitchen table the other day filled with a hardened milk-like substance. I knew we were missing a cup because we have an extra lid, so at first I was overjoyed, but quickly saw the newly discovered cup already had a lid. The next day, Ellie found another cup under our bed, this one without a lid. I was overjoyed to complete our sippy cup collection, but then discovered the colors on the cup and lid didn’t match. So now our collection is complete as long as I don’t mind the mismatched cup and lid set. Maybe we’ll find the missing cup and lid when we move.

* Or two.