twinutero

Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering was released on May 1. Edited by Suzanne Kamata, it contains essays by mothers around the world (including my essay “Carrying On”).

Read an interview with Suzanne here.

Find out more about the book here.

Twin Sense: A Sanity-Saving Guide to Raising Twins from Pregnancy Through the First Year. By Dagmara Scalise. 2009. Amacom. New York.

I highly recommend this book for expectant or new parents of twins. Twin Sense is 200 pages of thoughtful advice from a mother of twins and an older sibling. I can relate.

The book is divided into 4 sections.

1. Preparing for Twins. Includes financial considerations, buying what you really need, answering probing/insulting questions from strangers, and preparing siblings and fathers.

2. Managing the Basics. Feeding, bathing, diapering, sleeping.

3. Leaving the House. Yes! One quarter of the book dedicated to getting out of the house! Flying included.

4. Life After Babyhood. A bit about discipline, child-proofing and a summary of “best tips” for life with twins.

This book is straight-to-the-point. There are lots of  amusing anecdotes, but don’t expect a scintillating read or cute full-color photos of twins. And what frazzled parent of two or more infants wants that? The sections are short, easy to find, indexed and summarized so you can scan for the information you need in just a few seconds.

I also appreciate that the author is specific. She recommends brands that parents of twins have tried and liked – but I didn’t feel the book was trying to sell me anything. As with Twin Set, Twin Sense is US focused and quite mainstream (no discussion of cloth diapers, for instance).

Still, I would have learned a lot from Twin Sense had I read it 3 years ago. In fact, I learned a lot reading now. Who would have thought of bathing twinfants in a laundry basket?

Thanks to Nettie Hartsock and Amacom for the review copy.

There are hundreds of parenting books out there, including dozens on twins and multiples (see, for example, my review of Twin Set, and soon-to-be-published review of Twin Sense).

You could spend all your savings and half your life reading them. Most of my parenting friends shelved the books once the kids reached toddlerhood and turned instead to intuition and common sense.

I don’t rely much on books either, but they do have a place.

Here are five I’d recommend:

1. Momma Zen. By far the most useful, restorative book on mothering I have read. The author is a Zen priest – and she finds mothering a challenge at times. A welcome shift in perspective on those not-so-great parenting days.

2. The Explosive Child. We bought this during a particularly rough patch when Thomas was, well, explosive. He doesn’t fit the category as defined in this book. No child fits any category. But the book is still useful for its advice on talking to your children: not coercing or nagging but flexibility and cooperation. An ideal worth striving for, even if we often fall short.

3. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. Along the same lines as The Explosive Child: teaching children to recognize, explore and cope with emotions. Such as when Alex, who is two, jams his trike into the stairs, can’t work out how to reverse and screams: “I’m frustrating!”

4. Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. The classic, written by Richard Ferber. As in Ferberize. As in let-your-baby-scream-herself-to-sleep. The book has a bad reputation; even the title has an authoritarian tone. But of the books I’ve read on sleep (and we’ve had lots of “sleep problems”) this was the most useful for understanding kids and sleep, and, contrary to its reputation, devising our own method for encouraging more snoozing and less screaming.

5. The Art of Possibility. I have to thank my husband for reading this as a parenting book. It’s not written as one, but the advice, especially “Giving an A” can instantly transform destructive patterns into creative ones.

And here’s a book I haven’t read but would like to:

1. The Stay-At-Home-Survival-Guide. Read an interview with the author in Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine.

I read this book with a twinge of nostalgia – and nausea.

My twins have now outgrown all-night breast-bottle feedings, infant bouts of inexplicable crying and multiple poops a day. The toddler years are not exactly peaceful, but that sickening sleep deprivation and round-the-clock care of the first year is over. Reading Twin Set brought back both the difficulties of those first few months as well as the sheer amazement of giving birth to, and caring for two tiny twins.

Twin Set is a practical guide to pregnancy, birth and the first years of parenting twins. The book doesn’t aim to be a comprehensive guide to parenting in general. If you want details on prenatal care, breastfeeding or toilet training, you’ll have to supplement with other books. But Twin Set does a good job of highlighting differences between parenting twins and parenting singletons. And as mothers of twins know, almost everything is different: pregnancy, birth, post-natal care (both for you and the babies), feeding, bathing, getting out of the house, discipline, starting school – and everything in between.

The best part of this book is that the advice is not simply the authors’ opinion but was gathered through a survey. According to the introduction, the authors surveyed 300 mothers of twins “from around the country” (presumably the US). The scientist in me wanted to know much more about this survey: how it was conducted; what questions were asked; how the mothers were chosen etc. Still, there is wisdom among 300 mothers, and that shows in the book.

Twin Set would be most useful for parents about to give birth to twins. No one is reading just after the birth, and within a year or so you will have figured it all out anyway. But for the parents-to-be there are many useful insights: just how difficult bathing two slippery, crying infants can be; the importance of recording all feeding and pooping in the first few months because you’ll forget who did what and when; that grocery shopping will never be as quick and easy, partly because most shopping carts have only one kid’s seat.

I do have a couple of gripes with the book.

The information is very (although implicitly) US-centered. Some things, like a “Snap ‘N Go” or leaving your kids in the car while you run back to the house, may not make sense outside America.

I also got tired of the book’s cutesy language and general dumbing-down. Consultant pediatricians, for instance, are called “Mommy Doc” and “Daddy Doc”. Really, we can handle a real name and title! And I’ve yet to meet a mother who would spend precious alone-time getting a manicure or doing word-puzzles.

My biggest gripe was with the book’s slant on the environment. Buying bottled water by the case-load (or at all) is simply irresponsible. Trying filtering. And, sorry, teaching your kids to play with empty toilet rolls does not negate thousands of disposable diapers in the land fill. Yes, there is debate on cloth versus disposable diapers (see The Great Disposable Diaper Debate) but telling parents to just “stop worrying” rather than make a conscious and informed decision seems, again, irresponsible (as is failing to disclose Twin Sets partnership with Pampers!).

Gripes aside, this is a useful and realistic book for parents embarking on the head-spinning adventure of raising multiples.

(Thanks to Random House for the review copy.)

On a bitter, rainy day last March, I began dreaming of spring and became desperate to get out of the house. I had all three kids: Alex and Jon, then 16 months, and Thomas, two-and-a-half. Where could we go to burn off toddler energy and get a much-needed change of scenery? I decided to try one of the indoor “adventure playlands” on the outskirts of our city. I had never been, but had heard from other parents that it was safe, children loved it, and that I could probably just relax as the kids explored tunnels, climbed the jungle gyms, and slid into pits of balls.

Apparently, every parent in the city had the same idea that day. There must have been forty thousand kids in that playland, all running, yelling and jumping. I was overwhelmed. Thomas and the twins were overwhelmed. I scurried around like a complete obsessive, trying to track the three of them. Thomas still got lost – twice. I found him crying face-down on the carpet. Alex and Jon could negotiate the ramps, tunnels and slides, but really, really hated the ball pits where all ramps, tunnels and slides seemed to end. I couldn’t blame them. The pits were alive with kicking, flailing toddler limbs, and were very difficult to exit.

After an hour or so, I corralled the boys back into the stroller. They were exhausted and not unhappy to be leaving. I was a mess, and thrilled to be out of there.

This never-to-be-repeated experience coincided, ironically, with my discovery of Last Child in the Woods, a book by Richard Louv. The subtitle of the book is Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Louv describes how kids are becoming dissociated from everything wild and green. Play is moving indoors or into bordered areas and structured activities where it can be constantly monitored for safety. Some schools are even shortening recess in favour of more “productive” time inside. Louv objects to this trend and so do I. The book is at once compelling, alarming and obvious. It is part of a growing literature and movement toward environmental education, schoolyard greening, and more unstructured play for kids.

I do, however, have three words to add to this conversation:
Winter.
Toddlers.
Multiples.

I would love for my kids to enthusiastically explore the outdoors. While I wouldn’t set any toddler free in a forest or vacant urban lot, I agree with Louv that even very young children benefit from being outside, free to roam, touch, fall down and get up again. The problem with having three kids under three years old, is that they tend to roam in three different directions. It’s almost impossible for one adult to take three toddlers to an unenclosed area, safely.

Thomas is almost 32 months old now. He knows to stop at street corners, to stay on the sidewalk, and to turn around when I say so. But I wouldn’t bet his life on him following directions while I run after his younger brothers. I know a nanny who cares for toddler twins and refuses to leave the house at all. It seems extreme, but toddlers get restless in a stroller and are very hard to herd when they’re on the loose.

Even with two adults, it can be challenging to keep track of three young children. We recently took our kids to a nearby farm. They loved it, but the day was not without minor trauma. Jon fell head-first off the bunny observation stool; Thomas lathered himself in fresh cow dung; Alex massaged his gums on the animal enclosures. All of this happened while we were trying to prevent a similar or worse event.

I am hoping that outdoor adventure, summer and winter, will get easier as the kids get older. Last year, the twins were immobilized by their snow gear, and even Thomas was frustrated by cumbersome mittens. (It’s surprisingly hard to get toddlers’ thumbs into the right section of the mitt, and trying to play without an opposable thumb inevitably leads to tears.) I have not-too-distant plans to teach them to skate, ski and build snow caves. I hope to take Thomas camping this summer, and get all three kids into the backcountry before long.

For now, I am limited by the number of available hands, and our urban location. Limited, but not incapacitated. We’re lucky enough to have a fenced-in backyard where the kids can play almost independently. I am teaching them about the garden. Thomas has helped to plant seeds and transplant seedlings, and he knows where to find berries and bugs.* We have a bird feeder. Alex often asks to see the “boods”, and Thomas can recognise chickadees and cardinals. And, often to my own, short-term, detriment, I don’t discourage them from splashing in puddles, playing in the dirt or feeding the garden ants. It’s not wilderness, but for now, it’s wild enough for me.

*An inspiring book for gardening with kids is Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy.