Okay, so technically there is a Mother’s Group on this island and technically I have studiously avoided it. There are several reasons for this, most of them petty, and one legit.
Initially I was very excited at the prospect of joining. There’s no twinnies in the group, of course, because mine are THE ONLY TWINS ON THE ISLAND. Not that it bothers me 
Actually, if I’m going full disclosure I do have to say that I have heard rumors about other twins on the island. Most people I meet who come over to coo at the girls tell me they know someone who knows someone who has twins. Initially I fell for this, but I now I believe I’ve been on the island long enough that I’m actually hearing rumors about myself.
Anyway, back to the mother’s group. I first learned of the group when I was flying with 5wk old Lulu to the fancy island to have her preemie eyes checked. Eyes were fine, and we met a nice lady on the plane with a baby about the same age but about 3 times the size. She was flying with her Mum and they all seemed nice and normal and told me about the Moms group. Apparently she was too nice and normal for this island, and she moved to Florida soon after, but before she left she put me on the group email list. I had every intention of joining the group when my girls were a bit older. At that point it was a never ending nursefest and they were itty bitty and the docs advised us to limit their contact with the outside world until their bodies, lungs, immune systems, etc had more of a chance to develop.
In the midst of their growing I read the weekly Mothers Group emails and decided this group was not my bag. I’m not a snob, or picky. It’s not like it was one little thing, it was a whole bunch of little weird things that individually (with one huge exception) I’m cool with, but combined formed a perfect storm of freakiness. Here are the reasons, in random order:
1) Yurts. There was a whole lot of meeting in yurts going on. I’m not saying I’m anti-yurt, though they do bring to mind dancing bears and reefer, and I was kind of over that by 22. Er, 25, no later. But the yurts alone weren’t a deal-breaker.
2) Off the Grid. The yurts were in the wily-wags, well off the grid. Not saying I’m anti off the grid. Hell, I tried it myself. Not a yurt, mind, but Jungledad and I lived in a solar house with catchment water in the middle of the jungle in a highly active lava zone for a month and a half. The solar power rarely worked and the place was over-run with lizards and our satellite was struck by lightning and the catchment tank exploded, sending a tidal wave of 10,000 gallons down the front lawn and us fleeing soon after, so not an experiment I would repeat, but again, not a deal-breaker in itself.
The problem is its murder to get to these places. It requires 4wd and an iron stomach to navigate those jungle craters/potholes. One turn and you can disappear into the jungle and be eaten by wild pigs, that is if you haven’t already been eaten by what I like to call the 3 dogs of the apocalypse : pit bulls, dobermans, and rottweilers, all of which feature prominently and without the hindrance of pesky leases or chains in rural areas around here.
3. Vaccinations Ding ding ding! This is a deal-breaker. Beware, I am laying down all kinds of smack here. I am anti non-vaccinating parents. I think parents that don’t vaccinate their kids are a menace to society. They are worse than the 3 dogs of the Apocalypse in my book because they kill a lot more babies. Literally tens of thousands of babies die in the world each year from catching completely preventable diseases from children and adults not vaccinated. In many places in the world, vaccinations are not readily available, so we are all damn lucky to live where they are easy to get. Anyway, so I know for a fact that there are Moms in this group that do not vaccinate, and I have babies, so I’m not cool with it. For more of my smack talking on vaccinations, see What Happens. I’ll stop the ranting now.
I have more reasons, but after the vaccinations thing they seem really petty so I won’t even list them. Anyway, all my avoidance has been for naught, because that group has now infiltrated the Moms Group I co-founded, Mommy Movie Night, were we meet up once a week or 2 weeks and have a beer and see a movie. This week, Mommy Movie Night was over-run.
I figured this was my chance. I could give those Moms a fair shake and they would be cool and hilarious and prove me wrong. One of said Moms sat next to me and I struck up a conversation, the usual stuff: boy or girl, how old, what part of the island do you live on, where did you move here from, etc. It was all going fine: young daughter, in town, Midwest. Then I made the fatal mistake of asking her what brought her to the island, thinking (hoping) she would say work. Stupid me. Instead she said,
“Are you familiar with Astro-Geography?”
Oh boy. As the wife of an Astrophysicist who is not amused when mistaken for an Astrologer, which he considers a pseudo-profession for charlatans and wackos, I knew what followed was going to be highly suspect.
Was. It. Ever.
I tuned a lot of what she said out because it was too damn crazy and I can never really follow when people start talking about “energies.” I think the gist was that she had consulted this….”professional,” if you will, to find out where on the planet she and her daughter should live. The answer apparently was the Midwest, and she and her child “felt okay” there, but unfortunately the energy of her partner didn’t jibe with the Midwest so they all went back to the Astrogeographer, who told them to move to this island.
Oh. Brother.
And I’ll just bet she doesn’t vaccinate… Can’t wait to find out who I’ll meet next Mommy Movie Night!
Time to Respond
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged babies, celebrating twins equally, coming to terms with what we can't control, comparing twins, insensitive comments about twins, loving twins equally, parenting twins, sibling rivalry, twins on January 11, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Junglemom is back and ready to respond to all those excellent comments, but first a little story.
My husband’s first childhood memories are of metal scrapers being placed in his chubby toddler hands so he could help scrape all the lead paint off the wall. He reckons this lasted at least a few years. That is before they moved to the next house and had to scrape all the lead paint off those walls. One of his next memories is of a city employee coming to his family’s house and telling them they had to stop growing/eating veggies in the back yard because the lead content of the soil was astronomical.
Sometimes Jungledad will sigh and bring up these stories when he forgets to pick up milk at the grocery store, or leaves the water running, or starts to get stumped while doing some redunkulously hard math simulation. He’ll pause and get a far away look in his eye and say, “If I hadn’t inhaled all that lead paint, who knows what might have been…”
Obviously, Jungledad came out fine. I bring this up as an example of how we can put our kids at risk without meaning to, can damage them without thinking about it. I’m speaking more in terms of emotional damage/ destruction (my mental destruction stories aren’t as funny as lead paint (what is!) so I didn’t include them.
Eventually, or rather hopefully, this will all tie into to my last post, where I think I did over-react to my brother’s comment. There were contributing factors. Aside from the divorce shiz and being stuck with crappy labels shiz I wrote about in the previous post, there was something else weighing heavily on my mind. Still weighing heavily on my mind. Its not even my family’s damage, its someone else’s. Neighbors. Family friends. They had two daughters, not twins, but fairly close in age. While the girls were quite young their parents decided, based on what criteria I have no idea, that the elder daughter was a shining star, a genius and a scholar, while their younger daughter was “not college material.” They banged on about the older daughter to anyone who’d listen, they spoke of the younger daughter only when asked. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of it now. They gave their younger daughter no encouragement whatsoever. They dismissed her from such an early age. And why? I can still hear her mother’s voice grating in my head, “____? Oh, she’s not college material.” Ironically, her mother never went to college, so I don’t know where she acquired her collegial eagle-eye.
I wish I could tell you that the younger daughter moved out and got a scholarship and soared to academic heights, leaving her sister in the dust. She didn’t. She barely graduated high school. Last I heard she was working at McDonalds. She probably works there still. Her sister went to grad school. She was no genius, just a regular person, who went on to a good but not elite school. I hadn’t really thought about that family at all until recently. What brought them back to me is the comment made by my brother, and also recent comments made by my Mom. Not so much what she said, but what she didn’t say. She’s been going on about Mumu a lot. She thinks Mumu is very clever, advanced, etc. She doesn’t use those adjectives when describing Lulu. There’s a reason for that. Mumu is a cuddler and a homebody. She loves to be held, to interact, its what she loves most. She’s cautious, often pensive and rather sensitive. Lulu is a force of nature. She also loves all of the above, but only in small doses. She eats 3 times as much as her sister but is substantially smaller. This is because she never stops moving, not for a minute. She goes goes goes. She is absolutely fearless. Mumu current favorite activity is sitting on a lap singing Baby Beluga. Lulu’s favorite is a new game we like to call “bush pilot.” Its not airplane, its much more hardcore. Jungledad zooms around the house with her throwing down all kinds of dope moves: dive bombs, loop de loops, inversions, at very fast speeds. It is mesmerizing (and terrifying) to watch. We tried a few seconds of it with Mumu and went ape, so we won’t be trying it again with her for a while.
Anyway, so Mum’s been holding Mumu much more, and is impressed with Mumu’s vocabulary, interacting, etc. She seems to think Lulu isn’t there yet, but she’s wrong. Lulu has as many words and devastatingly cute gestures and smiles, she just does them while moving at top speed. If my Mom (or anyone else) doesn’t realize this, its okay. I’m okay with it now. I’ve been getting good advice
Advice that made me realize it’s not my mother’s place to interpret the girls behavior with complete accuracy; to give equal credit and attention. Its my place. They’re my children.
Ultimately, my commentators are right. I should recognize the girls differences and praise them for their individuality. I should accept that other people will recognize their differences and comment on them, and while I may not like those comments, they are out of my control. Therefore, I should focus on my own behavior towards the girls, which I can control, and which will ultimately, I hope, matter most.
So thank you to the smart, funny, kind Mommies who read my blog, specifically:
kd- for speaking out first, with the wisdom of experience as to how parents can make siblings who are very different both feel good about themselves.
Goddess in Progress – who is always smart, sensitive and true. She has her shiz together. She’s the twin Mommy I aspire to be.
Kellie- I think she’s new to the blog, and I hope she sticks around. The “favorite Aunt” comment rings very true for me.
Luckygirl- I love her blog, she always shows loads of heart
LauraC- I have a lot to learn from this lady, she knows where its at.
And Nance. She also is the youngest of 5, and like me, had her twins pre-maturely and still vividly remembers the NICU. That kind of makes her my blog soul sister. I loved the “As the youngest of five I learned we carry a bag to catch all the shit that rolls down hill” line- too funny!
Read Full Post »