Archive for the 'Siblings' Category

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.

All together now

Published
by
twinutero
on February 5, 2007
in Learning & play, Siblings and Sleep
. 0 Comments

Today is a good day for writing about sibling cooperation. Having just negotiated one of the most chaotic, whirling-tantrum, brother-bites-brother mornings on record, I can now, as the kids nap, reflect on how they sometimes do, and often don’t play nicely together.

Our parenting books claim that children do not play collaboratively until age two. Younger kids may play alongside each other, but do not engage one another. They also say that children under three cannot recognize or respond to feelings in others. Perhaps these are standard opinions in child psychology, but we’ve all heard stories of twins who display an innate understanding and inseparable bond, who play in their own little world of two, and who create an early and exclusive language.

Based on the limited sample of my three kids, I’d say both views are true.

From birth, Alex and Jon slept together, first in the same bassinet and later in the same crib. This seemed to comfort them, which is understandable given how they had spent the previous nine months. Thomas, who was was fifteen months old when the twins were born, showed immediate curiosity and affection. He would routinely peer over the side of the bassinet and occasionally try to climb into it. He seemed always aware of his new brothers, but rarely jealous. When he returned from home-care in the evening, he would kiss them both before racing to his toys.

I wish I could say this peaceful brotherly love is all we have known. But no. Thomas has since entered the “terrible twos” and has learned to express himself both verbally and (in classic two-year-old fashion) non-verbally. He still shows beautiful love and caring for his brothers: He has comforted their crying; retrieved fallen bottles and soothers; read to them from books he has memorized; become amazingly adept at feeding them; and on occasion even shared his most precious cars. He is two, however, so he has also hit his little brothers, bitten them, pushed them, told them to stay home, refused to share toys, and most frequently, ordered me to put his brothers down so my arms would be free for him. I suppose none of this is unusual.

Interaction between Alex and Jon was less predictable, at least for me. They are dizygotic twins – no more alike genetically than any two siblings. In fact, Alex and Jon are polar opposites. (More on individuality in a future post.) They do, nonetheless, have a close and quite fascinating relationship.

At about four months old, the twins began to show more than a simple awareness of one another. They began to show an awareness of one another’s soother. Side-by-side in the stroller, Alex would quite earnestly pull the soother from Jon’s mouth and put it in his own. Jon would retaliate. This kind of interaction quickly progressed from soothers, to bottles, to toys. Like all young toddlers, they want what the other has, and they will steal, bite, hit and cry to get it.

But I have also seen interaction between Alex and Jon that I think is less typical for one-year-olds. They clearly play together. One will initiate a chase, the other will laugh infectiously, and they’re both off, up and down the hallway, back and forth from kitchen to living room, keeping tabs on each other and laughing all the way. The same kind of laughter erupts when together they discover something new: a pile of diaper wraps; a big box of Lego; a tunnel of chairs beneath the table.

Now fourteen months old, the twins are starting to utter their first words. Jon appears to have been born an engineer and is fascinated by all things electrical. His first word was “light” which he says with eureka-like enthusiasm while pointing to the nearest or newest light source. Not to be outdone, Alex began the same sort of light-identification about a week after Jon. They have learned several words from each other in this way.

Even when their words are not comprehensible, the twins appear to communicate with each other. This is most obvious when they are sitting at the dinner table. The conversation goes something like this:

Jon: “Abith.”
Alex: “Booda.”
Jon: “Oog.”
Alex: “Abeet abeeda.”

And so on. Who knows if they are talking, but they are clearly taking turns. And when they aren’t fighting over them, I have also seen them take turns with their toys. Just last weekend, I watched Alex hand a Tupperware lid to Jon, who put it to his face as if to kiss it. Jon then handed a different lid to Alex who also gave it a kiss. Back and forth went the lids and kisses.

The downside of this mutual awareness is mutual awakenings. We moved the twins to different beds when they were about two months old. A short while later, we moved them to different rooms in an attempt to stop them from waking each other. Once comforted by being in the same bassinet, they now sleep better alone and in silence. Perhaps separating them was a mistake. I am digressing. One day, when I am feeling strong and optimistic, I will write about our many and varied nighttime adventures….

(And no, I did not write this entire post during a single nap!)