Archive for the 'Coping' Category

A Super Day at the Office

Published
by
twinutero
on October 3, 2008
in Coping
. 2 Comments

It’s Monday, 10am. My colleagues and I are in consultation.

I begin the meeting: “Team, we have a busy week ahead. Major milestones to tackle and a report to finish. I’ve scheduled an extra team meeting for Wednesday morning.”

Immediate revolt: “Not Wednesday. Wednesday makes me sick!”

“C’mon guys. We’ve had meetings on Wednesdays before and you liked it.”

“No! No! No! No!”

My three trusted colleagues are running away. Alex bolts for the stairwell. Thomas flails onto his desk, face down on the keyboard. I find Jon just down the hallway standing bashfully in a puddle of pee.

We clean up and I set some short-term tasks for the team while I make myself a coffee. Suddenly, Jon is at my side.

“I want to stir. I want to stir!” He yanks the spoon from my hand and vigorously stirs coffee onto the latest draft of our report.

I clean up - again - and check on the other team members.

Thomas has forgotten his short-term task. He’s standing precariously in his office chair, fist and chin in the air. “It’s Superman!” he says, beaming. Then the chair swivels and Superman goes down. It’s twenty minutes before he’s seated at his desk again.

During those twenty minutes, I hear war being waged in the adjoining cubicle. Alex and Jon are arguing over who gets to re-write the budget. I leave Thomas (sorry, “Superman”) and step next door.

“It’s mine!”

“It’s MINE!”

Each has a lethal grip on the budget. Alex is baring his teeth, ready to clamp down on Jon’s arm, but clearly doesn’t want to lose hold of the disputed document.

“Alex! Jon! You haven’t worked on the budget in months. Let go! We must learn to share these assignments.”

Alex lets go and sends Jon flying backwards. He hits his head on the power bar under his desk. Taking advantage of his wounded colleague, Alex heads in for the bite.

I really, really, have to get this report finished so I persuade Alex back to his cubicle and settle Jon in his. I leave them to watch a video tutorial on our new stats software, hoping it will be both educational and sufficiently compelling.

In less than a minute, Alex is at my desk.

“I’m hungry. I want a snack.”

“Alex….”

“Please, may I have a snack? Please?”

Thomas and Jon are just behind him. They want snacks too.

I suggest we continue to work over lunch, and we’re soon back in the meeting room with sandwiches, cookies and juice boxes.

But no one is hungry anymore. Thomas sends a geyser of juice up through the straw of his juice box. Jon pulverizes his cookie into his report. Alex has fallen asleep in his seat.

I clean up - again - and gently wake Alex. He’s alert but won’t let me put him back in his chair. In fact, he has curled into a ball on my lap. Jon, seeing an opportunity, climbs onto the back of my chair and wraps his hands around my neck, cutting off most oxygen flow to my brain. Thomas is picking Jon’s cookie crumbs from the floor directly under my feet.

“Can’t…” I gasp, “write report with you on my neck….”

Eventually, everyone is back in their chairs. Juice is dripping from the ceiling but we must get to work on our report. I pick up a red pen and start to highlight areas that need revising.

“Not red! I don’t like red. I want blue!”

“No I want blue! Blue! Blue! Blue!”

“I like green!”

They’re shoving pens in my direction, hoping I’ll choose the color closest to my face. Jon is now crawling slowly across the table. With singular focus, he aims his green pen up my nose.

I’m going to lose it.

Ten minutes later, I’m alone at my desk feeling like an utter failure. I want to quit this job. I should be fired from this job. I have time to wallow in self-doubt because it’s quiet. Uh, it’s quiet….

I find Thomas making a hundred full-color copies of his Superman t-shirt (which he’s still wearing) and passing the copies directly to Jon – who is feeding them into the shredder. Alex is tossing the resulting shreds into the air like confetti at a wedding. I haven’t the energy to intervene and retreat to my desk.

My colleagues join me several minutes later of their own accord.

“We’re sorry…. We’re ready to work on the report now.”

A reprimand rises in my throat but I can’t actually mouth the words. I’m too distracted. Although terribly unprofessional, I can’t stop thinking how damn cute they all are. Then, like brilliant fireworks exploding, they tear away from my desk – at full speed and in three different directions (none of which is their desk).

How could I quit this job? I love this job more than life itself. It is life itself. We’ve made absolutely no progress on the report, but the team is happy. That’s good enough for me.

Simplicity - with twins

Published
by
twinutero
on May 1, 2008
in Coping
. 1 Comment

Parenting is complicated business and there are lots of useful tips to maintain simplicity (like this one from Zen Habits).

Parenting multiples, however, extends beyond complexity into utter chaos. We have three purveyors of entropy roaming the house, two toddlers and a preschooler. It’s extreme parenting at times, and the ultimate challenge to leading a simple life.

So here are ten things I’ve learned in the past two years. Some of these are easy and we did them long ago. Others are long-term projects to which (in case you think we’re impossibly together) we still aspire.

1. Decide what’s non-negotiable. Parenting several small children means rationing your time and attention. You can’t be everywhere and you can’t fight every battle. Decide and teach what will not be tolerated – ever – and what is expected – always. For us, violence and whining are never tolerated; please, thank-you and eating at the table are always expected. We teach other things of course, but are willing to let them go if a more urgent need arises.

2. Create no-go zones. Reserve a spot in the house that is off limits to the kids, a spot where you can safely keep papers on the desk or store half-made projects without little hands stirring the pot. Equally important, reserve a place in the day or week that is also child-free. Space to read, run and restore – even half an hour – is crucial to everyone’s wellbeing.

3. Create safe zones. Childproofing makes life smoother and safer. In addition to the standard gates and bolts, create a small area that is completely bomb-proof for times when you absolutely must take a shower, dash to the basement or make an urgent phone call. We used the cribs when the twins were babies (playpens would also do). Later, we gated one bedroom and bolted the furniture to the wall. I could have a quick shower, kids within earshot, and know they were safe.

4. Buy alike. Not always possible but worth considering when buying toys or other treats. Kids inevitably want what’s in the hands of another child. Buying three of a kind curtails fighting and simplifies shopping.

5. Teach social skills. Buy alike, yes, but also emphasize sharing and cooperative play. Constant bickering will wear you down. It’s hard to avoid completely, but the sooner kids have the words to ask their turn, the patience to wait, and the ingenuity to find an alternative, the greater the space for peace to seep through your day.

6. Eat in one place. Most mess is created at mealtime. Keep it under control by eating in one place – the table. It’s like camping in bear territory: containing food simplifies clean-up and averts disaster. We’ve also learned that benches, rather than individual chairs, work well for several small children. They’re easy to climb into, hard to fall out of, can’t be tipped over, and catch most chunks and drips before they hit the floor.

7. Lower expectations of family outings. Don’t plan a busy morning of errands with a car full of toddlers. It’s just not worth it. Consolidate shopping into one trip. Likewise with “fun” outings to the park, aquarium or beach. The risk of a meltdown is directly proportional to the number of children and the proximity to nap time. Go, have fun, come home.

8. Walk. This is the easiest and most relaxing activity with infant twins. Get a good, all-season stroller and make walking a daily ritual. The babies will likely sleep and you get a little quiet and fresh air. Things get a little (okay, infinitely) more complex when the kids abandon the stroller for tricycles, but it’s still possible – and occasionally it’s worth it.

9. Get a good shoulder bag. Obvious or ridiculous, depending on your disposition, but getting out of the house is far easier when you have everything in one bag – and you know where that bag is hanging. I have a courier-style bag/purse. It can be carried hands-free (you need both hands with twins), is impervious to juice spills, and can’t be opened by curious toddlers.

10. Stay healthy. Unless you’re blessed with lots of extra help, there’s little time off when parenting multiples. It’s tiring on a good day, exhausting if the kids are sick, and downright hellish if you’re sick. This has been the toughest lesson for me: Take care of yourself.

Childproofing with multiples

Published
by
twinutero
on April 21, 2008
in Coping and Siblings
. 0 Comments

Easy….

Lock it. Hide it. Gate it. Plug it. Bar it. Just get rid of it.

There’s a school of parental thought that says childproofing is anxiety-driven and largely unnecessary. A recent article on Babble, for instance, argues that babyproofing is “overparenting”. Many of the comments agree.

I do too – in theory. I agree that children should be taught, through trial-and-error and through parenting, what is safe and what is not. I also agree with the larger movement to allow kids more freedom to roam, tinker and explore.

However, a laisser faire approach to childproofing with multiples simply doesn’t work. At best it’s chaos; at worst it’s dangerous.

Just last week, Thomas sent me on a scouting mission in the backyard. He had deposited a poo in some undisclosed location. I returned from this mission within minutes, object in hand. The house was strangely silent – and the fridge door was wide open. I then heard small noises in the living room. Alex and Jon were planted on the couch, sharing a liter bottle of blueberry juice and chatting like they were hanging at the local pub. Not a tragedy perhaps, but a real pain to clean up.

We’ve had many, more serious events.

In a flash, Alex climbed to standing on the kitchen counter, rummaged on top of the microwave, found the “panic button” for our security service and pressed it – holding the button down the required two seconds to send armed response racing to our house.

Ah yes, and Thomas carefully demonstrating to his younger brothers how to place one’s neck in the chord for the blinds and lean on a 45 degree angle. “I’m choking!” he says, to complete the lesson.

I could go on.

So we’ve put put a clasp on the refrigerator door, we wind up the blind chords every morning, and we’ve stored the panic buttons so high as to be completely useless.

We could teach the kids not to do these things. We do teach the kids not to do these things, one by one, and time after hundredth time. But the twins are two years old, and Thomas is three. They will do everything they’ve been told not to do, and they will work with astounding cooperation and synergy to achieve their desired mischief.

The days are too short – life is too short – to spend my time mopping up a liter of juice, placating the security company, or whisking the kids into emergency. So until we have as many watchful adults as roving children, we will continue to lock it, hide it, gate it….

[Cross-posted at Twin Pregnancy and Beyond]

Terrible two by twos

Published
by
twinutero
on February 21, 2008
in Coping and Siblings
. 2 Comments

I finally get the “terrible twos”.

I thought I understood when Thomas was two. He’d have tantrums – prolonged tantrums that seemed to rise from nowhere then disappear into an adorable grin. He’d test his boundaries, or at least I assumed he was testing boundaries, having read the phrase in countless parenting books. I didn’t really know how a two-year-old explored and challenged boundaries but I remember endless repetitions of “no”, “stop”, “not a toy” and “hot” until I was close to a tantrum. I felt ragged and the house was a Thomas-induced disaster, but the “terrible twos” remained abstract, a clichéd rite of passage for mothers to commiserate over at playgroup.

But now I get it because now I have a measure, a yardstick of terror. In fact, I have two of the them.

We’re still settling into our house in Cape Town. As yet, we have little furniture, few of the kids’ toys, no friends, and none of the regular activities that structured the days in Ottawa. We have lots of space, though, literally and figuratively. And in that space I can see more clearly how the kids have grown, how they’re changing, how they’re alike and how they’re different.

Thomas is now three-and-a-half, and his world revolves around Thomas the Tank Engine. He drives his trains into the garden dirt, through the grass and along the stairs. He comes to me when he needs a snack or just wants to share Thomas’ latest adventure. Otherwise, he keeps quite busy on his own.

He still gets upset, but his outbursts are usually predictable, explicable and consolable. I can see him trying to control his temper; his face gets red and his arms get stiff with tight little fists at the end. I know he really wants to hit something but most of the time, he doesn’t. Most of the time he lets out a roar – Grrrr! - to dissipate his anger. And when he’s sad or hungry or tired, he says so.

Contrast: his two-year-old twin brothers. Screaming, falling down, hands-in-the-butter-dish, toothbrush-down-the-toilet paragons of the terrible twos. Not terrible on purpose, of course, and no more terrible than your average two-year-old. But still….

Their attention spans are about as long as it takes me to go to the toilet. Their interests correspond directly to the immediate interests of their siblings. A toy dump truck sits untouched for weeks, then suddenly has its wheels ripped from the axles by feuding brothers.

They definitely test boundaries, and I’m not just quoting from parenting books now. No means yes, or rather no means, “Let’s do this again and again, and make sure she’s watching.” Leaping from the couch, twirling dials on the oven, slurping purposely spilled juice off the floor, attempted self-changes of poopy diapers. Having twins means all of this can happen within half an hour – much of it simultaneously.

Alex and Jon are at the “I do it” stage, which is wonderful from a developmental perspective. You know, though, that the satisfaction of being allowed to “do it” is usually squelched by the frustration of falling over, spilling or dropping whatever it was they were trying to do.

At least now I recognize this as a stage. I also recognize how charming and fleeting the “twos” can be: Pure delight at helping to unload the washing machine; uninhibited dancing to “Animal Crackers”; a refreshing view opened by every “What’s that?”; and a new wave of love with every soggy kiss.

Living the life chaotic

Published
by
twinutero
on December 14, 2007
in Coping and Getting Around
. 0 Comments

I got out for a hair cut yesterday. Getting out, even to the hair salon, always freshens my perspective.

There was one other client in the salon. She was stationed beside me, listening intently to advice on how to wear a ponytail without causing hair breakage. She was also stressed – right out of her ponytailed head – about an upcoming two-week vacation. What should she pack? Will the weather cooperate? Did she choose the best destination? Will she gain weight?

I hadn’t been to this salon before, so my stylist asked the obligatory personal questions. Yes, I have children. A three-year-old and two-year-old twins. All boys. Yes, very active. Sleep? No, not much. Not much at all.

Our home? Well, that’s a bit tricky. Technically, we live in Ottawa but we have sold our house there, and all of our belongs are en route to South Africa. Or so we hope. Last we heard, the moving company was searching madly for a shipping container, as if it were something they’d never needed before. So we are here in Nova Scotia (except for my husband, who is in Malaysia) camped out at my parents house.

Moving across the globe with two toddlers and a preschooler? Yes, a little hectic. Wouldn’t have been so bad if Jon hadn’t come down with the flu and kept us up for forty eight hours, or if Thomas hadn’t leaped from a chair and sprained his foot, or if the first winter storm hadn’t wedged the moving truck into the snow bank down the street. Or, of course, if the moving company had a shipping container. Other than that, it’s going pretty well.

Africa? Never been there. Nope, no friends or family….

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

The woman next to me was silent. I have no idea what she was thinking but in her silence I realised that almost everyone lives a stressful, chaotic life. We just have different reference points, different baselines. Five years ago, I could not have imagined living as I do now. In fact, had I walked into my home, I would have retreated immediately and not very politely before a migraine set in. Non-stop chaos is now a way of life, and our transcontinental move just adds another layer. Our ability to adapt is truly astounding.