Trading...the early years

I spent this morning in a time warp. A really big one. In case there is any question about how early (really early) trading happened, thanks to my sons, I now know.

Picture this - two cavemen are wandering out in a field (too dark in their cave for you to really see this picture). One caveman, we'll call him William, is carrying a branch. The other caveman, we'll call him Michael, is carrying a stone. As an observer, it's obvious to you that William is only carrying the branch because someone probably put it in his hand. He's enjoying it, but he's not overly committed to it. Michael, on the other hand, loves his stone. He's tossing it back and forth between his hands. He tries taking a bite out of it to see if it tastes good. He throws it along the ground and then lumbers after it. However, you also notice that the stone seems a bit too heavy for Michael to hold it securely.

About halfway through the field, the two cavemen bump into one another. William sees Michael's stone and grunts. Since you, the reader, may not be fluent in caveman-ese, allow me to translate. "Oh wow, oh wow. A stone. I want to play with a stone." So William drops his branch on the ground and takes the stone away from Michael (who didn't have a good grip on it in the first place, therefore it's not really stealing). Michael looks at William and grunts "oh bummer, I was really enjoying that stone. However, I am a bit too lazy to fight you for it, so I'm just going to take your branch." So you see, a trade has been made.

Now lest you think I am really letting my sons play with stones and branches, do not worry - not in the house. This morning's trades were between a toy mirror and a stacking ring. And the back and forth went on for an hour. I am also happy to tell you that Michael initiated a few of the trades. He is getting sneaky - he notices when William's attention is waning and grip loosening and then he makes his move. What I will also tell you is that in our toy box, we have ten stacking rings. I don't know what made this one so special. Perhaps the bright yellowness of it.

And finally, in case anyone in the outside world ever reads this, or for any other mommies who want some good toddler insight, I didn't create this idea of the cavemen myself. I am currently reading Happiest Toddler on the Block and this is Dr. Karp's concept. (Although in my reading he hasn't applied it to toy trades quite yet. Maybe he'll pick that up in his next book and give me some recongition. Or a few $$s.) And it's totally true. Next time you're around a toddler, pretend he's a caveman...you'll find you've entered into the same timewarp.

not-so-perfect weekend

There apparently is a motherhood right of passage that I've just completed. The first hospital visit. This past week, 9 1/2 month old Michael contracted a rather unpleasant respiratory virus. After struggling on Thursday and Friday morning, we decided it was time to see the doctor. Our wonderful pediatrican did some tests and some treatments, but her intervention wasn't quite enough for our little guy, so off to the ER at Children's Hospital we went.

Before I get into lessons learned, let me assure you that Michael is now fine. He was the darling of the hospital. The doctors called him a 'happy wheezer', and he developed a reputation amongst the nurses and doctors as "the baby who always greets you with a smile when you enter his room".

Now a hospital pro, here is what I learned:

1. If you have to go to the ER on a Friday, arrive close to or before 5:00pm. We got there at 5:00 and were admitted immediately. (didn't hurt that our ped had called ahead and we had some oxygen issues) By about 6:00, the wait was +30 minutes and by 8:00, they were sending patients to other hospitals.

2. When you are leaving the house to go to the doctor for what you think could be a hospitalize-able illness, pack your big diaper bag, not your cute little one. And pack yourself a snack. And a bottle of water. And a sweater. And a pair of clean underwear wouldn't hurt. And a toy and a book for baby.

3. Hospital chairs are really uncomfortable. Ok, I have no advice here. Just stating fact.

4. This one kills me - the only food at the SD Children's Hospital is a McDonalds and a cafeteria (which according to my pediatrician is about the same as McDonalds). Ummm...childhood obesity is a raging problem in our society and the only food I can get is a quarter pounder. Oh yes, there are apple dippers - not even a half an apple, and a thing of carmel sauce made with high fructose corn syrup. Super healthy.

5. Make friends with all the staff. The more they like you, the more attention you get. While we were in the ER, our bed was right near the nurse's station where the attending physician was sitting. She and I had a little chit-chat, I empathized with her long shifts, blah blah blah, and before I knew it, I heard her begging with someone 'upstairs' to give us the last bed that would be available that night.

6. It probably is going to kill our insurance, but if you can get admitted, the rooms and beds are ever so slightly more comfortable. At least there was no longer a plastic chair. And (this is a big deal if you have a baby who is wiggly) they have cribs instead of beds.

7. Always keep your cell phone charged. Apparently it is no longer true that cell phones are prohibited. I was able to send updates to family and "please bring me..." lists to Larry with a few clicks of my thumbs. (my phone charger was the 1st thing on my 1st "please bring me" list)

8. Try to stay positive and confident. Trust your maternal instincts. If something doesn't seem right, question it and stick to your guns. But try to be specific and calm. And it helps to understand that sometimes the treatment looks worse than the illness. This is a tough one, but as a parent, you have to just suck it up. Ok...bad pun since the treatment we had to suffer through was the tubes down Michael's nose and throat sucking up all the snot in his lungs.

9. Once you are home from the hospital, you will be exhausted, both mentally and physically. Try to arrange for some quiet family-only time to recharge.

10. I don't know that I have a #10, but it just seems like there should be a #10. So one last thought - if you get admitted "upstairs" just hope that your kid and the other one sharing the room are in diapers. Then you get to use the in-room bathroom. If not, you have to hike out to the 'public' bathroom whenever you need to 'go'.

Ok, one more

11. It's tough for Dad too. They may handle the crisis different than we moms do, but it's still tough for them. Flipping out at them is probably not a good idea. And if you really need them to just hug you while you cry a little, you may need to ask them. They may be too busy trying to hide their feelings to realize that you're about to lose it.

So now it's time to kiss my boys and say a prayer or a chant or a spell or whatever of thanks that Michael made it through this ordeal and that William seems to have escaped the ick. And hug my husband. And maybe even still cry a little. At least until morning when I get to see "the baby who always greets you with a smile when you enter his room."

Thanksgiving reflections

I started 2008 with the following message to my family:

"I try to stay away from New Years Resolutions, but each year I pick one aspect of my life as my main focus for improvement. Call it a theme for the year. For instance, one year after we were married, I found that I was neglecting some friendships, so that year, my theme was friendship. As I look back in the few years I've done this, I find that my past focus "areas" are now just part of my daily life, with each year building upon the previous. So this year, I will be focusing on being happy with the life that is happening to me now. And my new year's wish to each of you is that you will find happiness in every minute!"

This theme was inspired by a quote by Earl Nightingale "Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don't wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it's at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored."

Now, as we roll into December and I start thinking about my theme for 2009, I want to take a little time to reflect on 2008's theme - have I stayed focused on being happy with the now?

I think human nature, or at least our society, makes this one a bit difficult. We are almost programmed to be seeking out the next challenge, the next goal. I know that I am extremely goal-oriented. If the trainer at the gym tells me to do 8 reps, I struggle with #7 and #8. But if she tells me to do 15, I power through #7 and #8, with the struggle hitting around #14. As I work through a project (which Larry knows may or may not ever get finished), my mind is often occupied with what the next project will be (which you may see is part of the '09 theme...).

But this year, I have really taken time to absorb each moment. Whether it was the moment Larry & I first held our precious boys after their birth (I thought this was the happiest moment of my life...how fortunate I am that the happiness keeps on coming with these two wonderful babies), or watching Nan - my 95 year old grandma - crawling around on the floor playing with William and Michael - this year, I have taken time to really think about each of these moments. I allow myself to enjoy them while they happen, allow them to imprint into my memories, and know that I will carry these events and moments with me forever.

Since I have hopes that I will be a famous writer some day and that the world will read this blog to find out more about the "true Tina", it's important that I include some other happinesses that I will remember from this year, some that are not 100% focused on my dear children (for those that know me, I could write for days on the boys...and they are typically the full focus of my posts. So to my mother, sorry that this one isn't all about your grandsons...)

I have the honor of being chosen as the Junior League of San Diego president for the 2009-2010 year. That means that this year as the president-elect, I attend training conferences throughout the country. I love to solo-travel - arrive at the airport, get checked in and through security, grab my venti non-fat latte and a trashy novel and alternate between the pages of the book and watching the people around me. And I love traveling to new places and getting a little feel for a new part of the country. So a conference in San Antonio and one in Kansas City this year have fulfilled that travel bug. It was also a true joy to spend time in KC with my cousin Jill and her wonderful family. One of the highlights of the trip was helping the kids with their homework and then watching Hanna Montana on the little kitchen TV with the 3 kids. And I'd be leaving something major out if I didn't mention the great friends I'm making at these conferences - amazing women from throughout the country with the same passion for their communities as I have here in San Diego.

And this may sound a little weird, but perhaps emphasizes the importance of finding happiness in routine events. One of the other major happy moments of this year was when my employer told me that they didn't have a position open for me upon the completion of my maternity leave. I'm not sure my heart was in returning to work, leaving my kids with a child-care provider all week long. But the part of me that had invested 16 years of my life educating myself and then developing a career and reputation in the insurance industry was a little torn. The opportunity that this lay-off presented me has been valuable by giving me some time to develop a "me" outside of the formal workplace, but beyond "just" as a mom.

Oh yes, there are certainly days that happiness in the 'now' eludes me. Larry & I have had some rough times this year in both of our families, including a very scary situation with Larry's dad's health shortly after the boys were born, and losing my Uncle Jack this fall after a long fight with leukemia. These events have served to reinforce the statement made by Mr. Nightingale "Every minute should be enjoyed and savored."

So as 2008 wraps up, my hope for the future is that I will continue living in the happiness of each moment, being happy with the now, not just hoping that the happy will come in the future. I fear that my 2009 theme will not be as 'deep' as the theme for this year. I plan to focus on finishing projects BEFORE creating and tackling new ones. This might be my toughest one yet...more on my success or struggles in about 12 months...

Puppies and Children

This will be a quick one...but this was so surreal that I have to write it down before my memory wonders if this really happened.

Today, I took my car in for its first wash since the boys were born. While waiting an hour and a half for the detail they promised would take an hour, I had opportunity to interact with many of the local community.

The kindest of all was the elderly man with braces on both legs, walking with a cane who insisted on getting up and walking over to open the door for me at Starbucks (in and out of the store).

The strangest occurred shortly before my car was finished. We were back at the car wash waiting area, and I was giving both the boys bottles while they relaxed in the stroller. Another woman came out to wait for her car (Aside - it is 95 degrees out and she was wearing a sweatshirt, shorts and Uggs...and complaining about how hot she was). She saw us and engaged in the standard conversation I get almost daily:

She "wow, you really have your hands full"

me "Well, there are moments, but i wouldn't trade it for anything"
etc etc...until she hit me with the statement that will forever make me laugh on those days when my boys are really acting up. I must say first of all, that she said this with complete sincerity. No sarcasm whatsoever (and for those who know me, you are aware that I have a very refined sarcasm detector).

she "yeah, i know exactly what it's like to have twins. i just got two puppies."

Me "uhhhhh"!!!!!!

Is that Hand-made?

I have a very close friend who has a huge fear of becoming a parent - will she be capable of making the halloween costumes and the costumes for the school play? I, of course, understand that there are many types of parental fears and I certainly think it's fair to include this as one of them. However, I pose the following question - how much of a costume really needs to be hand-made to be considered "hand-made"?

I personally think there is a rather wide continuum. For instance - another friend has a very talented mother. Each year Granny sews an entire princess costume for her young granddaughter. I have no doubt that these are the most exquisite costumes you've ever seen on a 3 year old. And what a labor of love....possibly ending up completely covered in melted chocolate. So if my fearful friend were to buy (gasp!) a spiderman costume from the store and pair of red boots to send her hypothetical little one off as an adorable Spiderwoman, would this "count" or would she be shunned by all of the hard-sewing suburban housewives?

My little princes attended their Halloween debut this year dressed as M&Ms (William's "M" was upside down). I was frequently asked whether I made their costumes and I proudly shared that I did. And I truly believe I did - I downloaded a very tiny m&m graphic, enlarged it and smoothed out the pixels to create a template which I cut out and traced onto some white felt. once the felt was cut out, I sewed each M (or in William's case, "W") onto a green sleeveless onesie (shh...I bought that at a store). They wore the onesies over brown one-piece sweatsuits (again, purchased) which they wore for warmth - very important in San Diego...

Now I will probably win no awards as a seamstress, but one day I hope that my boys will be at least a little proud that their mom "made" their first Halloween costumes. And to my friend worrying about making her own costumes, I just say that I hope she one day has the opportunity to determine her own continuum.

Comparatively speaking

One of the longest running competitions in human nature is the "my kid did this before your kid" contest. We moms don't compete consciously. In fact, it may be our greatest intention not to brag or "compare" our children to others. However, it still happens. At lunch the other day I overheard one mom to another, both with infant strollers in tow. The first volley was simple - how old is your little one? Once established that they were within 2 months of each other, it started "Oh, I'm having such a rough time. My little Suzie just loves eating her vegetables. I feel like I am in the Gerber aisle five times a week." And then "Jimmy started crawling the other day and I am exhausted just keeping up with him." See, these moms are pretty subtle - they make it appear like they are complaining, but they are really establishing how advanced their little Jimmy and Suzie are compared to the "competition".

I've certainly caught myself doing the same thing "We've been so lucky that our boys have been sleeping through the night since they were 2 1/2 months old. But lately, they're waking up at 5:30am for a bottle before sleeping til 8:30. ugh." Ok, am I really really complaining that my kids are going to bed at 6pm and sleeping nearly 12 hours? No. I think I am probably bragging that, with the exception of a 15 minute pause, I get to sleep til 8:30!

Well, here is the problem with the comparison competition. I have twins. All the books tell you "don't compare your kids to other people's kids." Other than a few hours a week at the local cafe, I'm ok with this. Besides, I think my kids are perfect, so we would always come out on the winning side of the comparisons. But...between my two boys, who spend about 24/7 together, it is impossible to keep from comparing.

Most often, the comparisons are harmless differences. William is an observer, while Michael likes to be the center of attention. But now and again, having the two causes maternal worry and even a little internal (like inside my own head) competition.

William is way more mobile. At just past 6 months, he is already rolling across the floor (baby gates are now firmly in place), grabbing at the toys he wants (and scooting to the ones out o reach) and has exhibited some crawling moves. Michael is lazy.

Michael is way more vocal. He's been blowing rasberries and performing Flipper imitations for about 2 months now. He now wakes up to a chorus of "blah blah blah blah ba ba ba ba". William has just started the rasberries and the main time I get consonants is when he's really upset and cries "mamamamamamamama" (I refuse to believe that this is him screaming 'mama'. When they call my name for the first time, it will be with pure joy.) But mostly he just grunts as he's trying to reach for some toy or my hair.

Their pediatrician insists that they are both within "range" for their social and physical development. She agrees that Michael is a bit lazy, but doesn't think there's anything "wrong" with him. Just lazy. And she claims that it's likely that he'll shoot ahead one day just as easily as William may start reading Dr. Seuss out loud by his 3rd birthday. She also tells me to try hard not to compare them. Right.

I am pretty sure I'm going to be the mom that records the first steps of one kid, but by the time the 2nd one moves, it'll be old news. And the second "mama/dada" will just get lost in a flurry of words out of the mouth of the first talker. But I try. I try to remember when each hits a milestone. I try to encourage each of them to explore new skills and talents. And I try to be ok with one being a little faster or one being a little slower...after all, they are two different kids. I try hard not to compare, but rather to celebrate their differences and their accomplishments.

And when one is a bit slower than the other, I try to remember that they won't be babies forever, so I try hard to cherish their dependency upon me and enjoy them just being babies.

Bibs should all be green

first published 9/4/08

Or...Why baby mouths should come with a funnel attachment.

We started solids today. Although how they can call that green goup "solid" is rather beyond me. And I guess if you want to be technical, we started the boys on cereal a couple weeks ago. But I digress. Today, we tried GREEN BEANS! Here's how this story begins:

When the boys had their 4-month checkup, the Doctor gave us permission to get going with "solids", starting with cereal. At 5-6 months, we were supposed to start adding vegetables if the boys were interested. What...was I expecting them to start jumping up and down shouting "hey mom, give me some mashed up peas!"??

Cereal went pretty well. I mean, I doubt they would have been too bummed if I left it out of the menu, and they really still prefer their bottles in case of tantrum, but it didn't suck. So yesterday, a couple days before their 5-month 'birthday' and feeling a bit confident, I was at the store and decided to at least purchase some of the stage-1 vegetables.

My first observation is this - these little containers are tiny. The baby-food people should take a lesson from the wine people. A moment earlier, when I was in the wine department, they had a handy reusable 6-pack wine carrier...and if I filled it up, I got 10% off my purchase. Well, you can bet I filled that up! So that's what they should do with these little baby food jars - give me some sort of larger receptacle for gathering up the little tiny jars. In fact, make it some sort of receptacle that not only helps me keep the jars together in my shopping cart, but make it fit right into my pantry. As it stands, I can't quite figure out how one is to store these little things, so they're living on my kitchen counter...along with all the other detritus of twin life.

Before I loaded up my 10 little tiny packages of baby food (2 packages each of 5 veggies...and unlike the baby food of my past, these come in handy little 2-packs of plastic containers which will probably start multiplying in landfills and 10,000 years from now, someone will say "and they called this 'solid food'?"), I took one moment to contemplate whether it would be better (I don't know how to define 'better') if I were to make my own baby food. That moment passed quite quickly, and into the shopping cart they fell.

So today, we gave it a shot. Morning naps went quite well and I had the boys on opposite schedules today so that I could spend some quality time with each one individually. I was feeling quite daring, and my nanny had done all the baby laundry yesterday, so I was flush with bibs. Michael was first to get up, and he was pretty cheerful, so I wouldn't have to go straight to the bottle. I gave him one teaspoon full of green beans (the teaspoon from the silverware drawer, not the cooking gadgets...I don't know how accurate a "teaspoon" it really is), and he happily ate the entire bowlful. At the first bite, I did get a little look that said to me "ummm...really Mom? you think I'm going to like this?", but then after some lick smacking, I think he decided it was OK. At least good enough to stick his hand in his mouth to grab some to save for later.

William was next. While I was dishing up his portion, I sang a bit of the "my dog Lima loves to roam, one day Lima left his home. he came back so nice and clean. where oh where has Lima Been?" song which always makes him giggle. Then he practically devoured his bowl of beans. The pictures don't show that he's as happy as Michael, but he's smaller, so he takes his eating very very seriously. Once the beans were gone, he went straight to the bottle of formula and downed that in mere minutes. The boy wants to grow!

Well, after feeding the babies their green beans, their bibs were covered in green-ness...yuck! But a wise woman (my mother) suggested that I try soaking them in some Oxy-clean. (I have been fortunate, up to this point, that I have not needed the magical powers of Oxy. The only blow-out we've had resulted in a not quite fitting anymore outfit being thrown right into the trash at Children's Hospital). So in the time it's taken to write this entry, the bibs are back to their original colors. Green Bibs will not be necessary today.