Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged cherry tree but no big black horse, memorial day weekend fun, toddlers love yummy cherries on May 31, 2010 | 3 Comments »
This Memorial Day weekend we hit the local children’s beach, where we splashed around
and enjoyed the scenery
Before heading home to our backyard where we have a cherry tree, but no big black horse, (last time I checked). There, we ate cherries.
(Mumu came up with that crazy outfit on her own, btw, and had no qualms about tearing that hair elastic out of my hair to use as a bracelet)
And spun around
And laughed in the sun
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged paternal postnatal depression, postpartum depression in men on May 26, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I am reeling from a tragic story I only just became aware of. I’m ashamed to say, it never occurred to me that male postpartum depression existed. It does, and can lead to unimaginable suffering. One night, in January of this year, an NYU Computer Science Professor and his wife were heatedly arguing in their Greenwich Village apartment over the care of their premature twins. The babies had been ill.
We’ve all been there. I remember those days: the stress and exhaustion, the guilt; emotions all over the place. Sometimes saying things I didn’t mean. Feeling as though things were out of my control. And with preemies, there is an added element. If you’ve seen your children in isolettes, with tubes running in and out of them, a panic takes root in your chest–and it never really dies.
During a lull in the argument, after his wife had left the room, Sam Roweis jumped out of his 16th floor window, to his death.
His family and friends were left stunned and heartbroken. They remember him as extremely smart, witty, upbeat. He had no history of depression. The Huffington Post article covering his death links to a gothamist article offering this explanation:
“One psychotherapist discussed the possibility of men experiencing postpartum depression, saying ‘studies suggest men may be just as likely as women to be depressed when they become parents. The condition is typically called paternal postnatal depression.’ This can cause lack of sleep and hormonal changes — including ‘a drop in testosterone levels that makes them more likely to stick around and look after a baby, but also more likely to feel angry or depressed.’”
I don’t usually blog about weighty issues, or tragic stories, but this story kept me up all night, and I felt the need to write about it. Paternal postnatal depression needs to get much more publicity. I’m not dooce, I only have a little blog, but I want to do my part– so I’m doing this.
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged does where we grow up dramatically effect our personalities?, does where we live make us who we are?, will moving my children thousands of miles away change who they are? on May 24, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Buying wine on this island poses in interesting dilemma. Even when you know what you’re getting, you don’t know what your getting. Take a temperature sensitive substance, send it thousands of miles over rough seas, then plunk it down in the middle of a jungle, and you’ll find it has changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. Reds often taste like moonshine, whites like stale macaroons. Lucky for me, I’ve never had enough money to be too particular. I still love wine though, even on this island, where it arrives shocked as hell and tasting of shoe polish. And the wine racks here are more fun; they’re a game of roulette. I’ve bought sublime wines (I swear, some wines thrive on the journey and get fantastically good for the price) on special, died of happiness, returned the the grocery store the next day for more, and found that while the first 2 bottles on the shelf were faboosh, the next 3 were fabust.
It’s the same with people. Living in this isolated a place changes people. Some get better, some get worse, you just never know. And I always wonder-if I bumped into people I know on this island back in civilization, would they be totally different? When my girls someday move to a (comparatively) urban metropolis from a remote jungle (aka the only home they’ve ever known) will it fundamentally change who they are?
It made me curious- would you say your personality has been formed or heavily influenced by where you grew up, or where you live now? Or has location not really made a big difference in your life? I know there are peeps from all over who (if I’m lucky) read this blog, so I would love to hear your thoughts and/or personal experiences on this.
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged are the schools up to par?, public school/private school debate, school districts on May 16, 2010 | 7 Comments »
I’ve just returned from a child’s birthday party, and I can’t get a conversation I overheard out of my head. The party was super fun, btw, and included an awesome train the kids got to ride all around the park. But anyway, back to the conversation. It was between a woman I know who’s a teacher at a public school about an hour and a half away (in a much posher town, I might add) and a Mom I didn’t know, who was holding a baby. I probably shouldn’t have been listening, but anyway, the Mom I didn’t know was telling the teacher about a friend of hers who sent her child to school in the district the teacher taught in. It was a harrowing tale, the gist of it being that the friend’s child was so traumatized by the experience she still hasn’t got over it two years later. My first thought was- wow, truth or not, that’s really rude to say to someone who teaches in that district. My second thought was- whoa, are the schools really that bad?
A lot of people say they are. A friend of ours, who has a son in public school, said sending kids to school on this island is like not sending them at all. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. My girls original pediatrician (whom I loved, and was heartbroken over when she moved back to civilization) pulled me aside when the girls were 8wks old and said, “You do NOT send them to school here. You do NOT.”
I’m sure there are some good teachers in the public schools here, but I don’t think they get much support. Kids on this island currently only go to school 4 days a week because the government is broke and can’t afford to keep the schools open 5 days. The days they do go, it’s not for long- kids here have the shortest school day I have ever heard of.
So, we are not planning to send them to public school here. But- 3 years down the line, wherever we are living, we are planning on sending them to public school. I don’t think we can afford not to. We’ll have to select a good community and hope for the best. Unless, there are no good schools left, in which case I will move heaven and earth to find them/get them into a good one. Somewhere… That conversation has me nervous about public schools in general. There are still good ones out there, right? The US still has a lot of good schools- doesn’t it?
I went to Catholic school until 7th grade, at which point my Catholic school closed and I had to go to public school. The public school I went to was a good one, but still, quite a wake-up call. There were fisticuffs quite frequently in front of school. A boy from my social studies class in 7th grade is now doing a life sentence for armed robbery and murder. That stuff doesn’t happen in Catholic school. I went to public High School too, and it was fine then, but is it still fine?
I’m interested in what others think about the public/private school debate. Are you planning to send your kids to public or private school? Are the schools in your community up to par?
Posted in The Joy of Twins on May 12, 2010 | 2 Comments »
The price of rum has fallen precipitously on this island. What does that mean? It means nightly pina coladas at casa de junglemom. Oh yes. Now it’s no secret that I’ve wanted off this island for sometime, and that I have spurned local traditions. Like the hideous tropical shirts. And the weird falsetto music. And the pina coladas. Well that was BEFORE rum went on special. It’s a whole new me now, yo. Pina coladas are crazy delicious. Why did no one tell me this before!? And if anyone deserves to drink them- it’s me!! I have banana trees in my backyard, and pineapples growing on my front lawn. I can see volcanoes smoking from my front porch. My bathroom window displays a long line of palm trees. My children (despite speaking in hilarious British accents) are wild, tropical, jungle natives. I live on the most remote island chain in the world. I have earned all the pina colada street cred one could possibly need, and I’m passing it on to you. Yes, YOU. Drink a pina colada. Please. Do it for me, tropicalize your weekend- it makes parenting twins so much easier. I am extending my island street cred and recipe to you, oh wise and wonderful mommies of the blogging world:
2 cups crushed ice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup coconut creme
blend.
Garnish with pineapple chunk. Swing in hammock. Forget you even have children.
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged calming kids down with age old techniques, diffusing toddler twin tantrums, toddler tantrums on May 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Diffusing tantrums: an acquired skill? An art form? Both.
I have read 1-2-3 Magic, or rather, the first few chapters, before the endless repetition made the reading seem like a punishment of its own. I will get around to reading the rest at some point, but the gist, the counting thing, works pretty well at present. Thing is- counting can get awfully monotonous with twin 2 year olds, and it’s sometimes difficult to pull off outside the house.
My girls tantrums are predictable, and due in large part to how our time is divided up during the day, and how darn different they are from each other. If Lulu could call the shots, we would spend all day in the park- waving at the helicopters flying constantly overhead (volcano tours), gathering specimens, and singing songs to the plants, sticks, and passion fruit. No need to go indoors at all. If Mumu could have way, park outings would be limited to 10 minutes or less, and the majority of our time would be spent indoors- reading books, coloring, or watching Elmo. So- Lulu tantrums when we’re indoors too much, Mumu tantrums when we’re outdoors too much- it’s a major balancing act. Now that the rainy season is over (furiously knocking on bamboo- does that count as wood?) we’re outdoors a heck of a lot, and Mumu is out of luck. There have been a lot of tantrums. I started out 1-2-3ing, threatening future time-outs, but it wasn’t working as well as I’d like, so I added a diffusion technique I learned from my husband- the deep breath. When Mumu starts to go off the rails, Jungledad speaks to her in a calm voice and tells her to take a deep breath. I’ve started doing it as well, and it’s remarkably effective. It never occurred to me before that deep breaths would work for 2 year olds- but they do, beautifully, and it benefits me as well.
So that’s my little tip for diffusing toddler tantrums. What’s yours?
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged getting a new phone number with a curse attached to it, spooky phone calls on May 8, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I bailed on potty training. Yep.
They are just not ready. We’ll reevaluate at 2.5 and see where we are, but for now, diapers it is. I can’t really think of anything else to say about that, so instead, I’m going to tell you about my phone curse. It’s downright spooky.
It started about a year ago, with a freaky message on my voicemail. It was from a man I don’t know, and he sounded distraught. Someone had died, and he was trying to get in touch with their next of kin, and all he had was my number. It was complicated. I called him back, and was thrilled to be sent to his voicemail, because I thought I could just leave a sympathetic message, relay the info that the person he sought no longer had this number, and that would be that. Not so.
He called back. He was really upset, and wanted to talk about his friend that had died, and wanted help in finding this lost relative who used to have my number. I listened, and said I was sorry, and I was sorry, but I couldn’t really help him. He thanked me, and hung up, and I figured that would be the end of spooky death phonecalls on my number.
Nope. A few weeks ago, the local news station called my house looking for the woman who used to have my number’s next of kin. She died! In a plane crash. The freakin’ wing fell off! What the hell is it with my phone number? I feel like I’m living in the freakin’ Bermuda triangle.
I mean, am I next???
Posted in The Joy of Twins on May 4, 2010 | 10 Comments »
It’s Cinco de Mayo, mis amigos, and you know what that means- I’m 21 today! Er…..give or take a few years……okay 10 years. But my 31st will be even BETTER than my 21st, because I’ll remember it! Still plan to hit those margaritas hard, though, as some things never change.
Got a birthday card today that I really liked- and I’m not easily moved by greeting card sentiments. Thought I’d share it with you:
We didn’t come here to fit in.
We came here to be who we are.
We didn’t come here to work.
We came here to live our dreams.
We didn’t come here for the stuff.
We came here to love each other.
We didn’t come here by accident.
We each came here with a purpose
that is uniquely our own.
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged failing miserably at potty training, potty training is a special form of hell, potty training sucks hard on May 3, 2010 | 12 Comments »
I’m wrung-out, strung-out, “busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin’ for a train, feelin’ near as faded as my jeans,” etc, etc. Potty training is KILLING ME. It sucks. Hard. I have no eloquence on the subject- it just plain sucks. I’m ready to throw the towel in right now, but I’m going to give it a few more days, because I’m already so damn invested.
We have read the potty-training in one day book. We followed the rules to the letter, we threw the big old potty party, complete with the doll that wets, the new potty, the potty books, the videos, the sugary treats, the big girl underwear, the wrapped gifts, the games, the singing. Our picture windows are festooned with pink streamers and balloons; so is the hallway, so is the bathroom.
And it’s not working. Maybe it’s because Mumu hates dolls (ironically, they are the one girly thing she doesn’t covet), she doesn’t like sugary things, and she’s not much into gifts. She likes the attention, the books, the streamers, the festive mood, but she’s not really playing ball. It’s day 3, and we’ve had one success. One. Too many accidents to count. I now think all the accidents may have been intentional, and the one success, an accident. Maybe she’s just too young, despite all the signs she’s been showing. The book we’ve been studying so diligently said not to even bother trying to potty-train a child under 2.5. We followed all the other advice, maybe we should have followed that bit. One reason we didn’t is that people on this island potty-train really, really early. Our Pediatrician remarked on this at the last checkup and said we shouldn’t feel any pressure to follow suit, that the starting age here is unusual. Why so early? It probably has something to do with the fact that the island chain I live in is the most remote land mass in the world. Yea, the freakin world. So diapers are really expensive. Not to mention, the native islanders for the most part live in very large families- grandparents, parents, kids, aunts, uncles, all together, and with that many people helping out, it’s probably easier to tackle potty-training. They probably don’t even need pink streamers and a freaky doll. But at my house, now that the weekend’s over, it’s just me, no Bobby McGee, and I am failing miserably. Both sets of grandparents have offered to train the girls for us, but as one set is 5,000 miles and the other, about 10,000 miles away, that won’t be happening any time soon. My MIL said the other day that it took about a year to train each of her boys. I just about passed out. I am so not doing this for a year. I think I should hang up the panties if there are no encouraging signs in the next few days. Maybe try again in a few months. What do you think?
Overreactions
Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged I can handle people insulting me but not my children, i can't stay level-headed when people make ignorant comments about preemies, I see red if anyone slights my kids on May 20, 2010 | 2 Comments »
My in-laws have a hilarious set of British travel books they inherited from their parents. They contain everything the gentlemen traveler needs to know when dealing with the harsh terrain and unruly natives of the world’s wilder places. Like Eastern Europe. They provide dialogue in a multitude of languages for every eventuality, or potential escalation. These dialogues tend to start with something like, “Waiter, this soup is cold,” and end with “I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR!”
I was thinking about these books today, while thinking about my own overreactions. On a whole, I think I’m fairly level-headed. I may want to lose my shiz on a regular basis, but I rarely follow through. I do, like many women, tend to take things way too personally, but I don’t generally fly off the handle when offended. Except when it comes to my children. If I feel my children are being slighted in any way, even the smallest way, I demand an audience with the British Ambassador. So to speak. From zero to 1,000 in one 3 seconds flat.
I’ve recently changed my opinion of a woman I know. Basically, because of one encounter, one comment, one perceived slight, I thought this woman was satan. For 2 years. The slight happened at the worst of times. We had just arrived home from the NICU. We were exhausted. I was up all night breast-feeding, my husband was up all night laying flooring (the girls arriving 7wks early killed the whole having the house we just bought ready by the time the girls came home thing). The girls were healthy, but so very tiny, only 3 and 4lbs, and needed constant, constant care. I honestly don’t think we slept for more than 2 hrs until they reached the age of 1. I don’t want to complain, because we’ve all been there, and I know that in spite of my extremely dramatic birth story, or rather, because of it, we were very, very lucky. But we were tired.
A neighbor came to the house and asked to see the babies; she had brought a friend with her. The friend had a lot to say. Despite not having any children herself, she was not shy about criticizing how I was holding my own baby, and made that judgemental clucking sound (you know the one) at me for having a c-section–one which I’m sure saved my daughters lives– rather than pushing them out. Those comments stung (like cold, smelly Eastern European soup to the face) but they were directed at me, my own perceived failings rather than my children, so I let them go. Then came the doozy. She looked my baby girls over, started going on about the risks of prematurity (LIKE I DON’T KNOW) then said, “Well, I wouldn’t despair yet, they may still turn out normal.”
I wanted to beat the living shiz out of her. She was basically calling my infant daughters freaks. I saw red. I said we had to go, and stormed back to the house, and raged about her, and that comment, all night long. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a blog then, because I would have ripped her a new one every day for a week. At least. I would have had her exiled from this island (if I could have), I would have bribed the British Ambassador to kidnap her and leave her in some awful desert somewhere.
And now I think–believe it or not– she’s not that bad. I’ve seen her at a few functions in the last year, and she’s been very nice and complementary to my girls. Over time, my opinion of her has vastly improved. We will never be bosom buddies, mind, but I now think she’s okay. I see the incident a bit differently now. I think she’d probably never before seen preemies that size, and it freaked her out, and she blurted out an ignorant comment without thinking. Very rude, but not unforgivable. And had I not been carrying the baggage of enormous guilt over my daughters premature birth (show me a Mom of preemies who doesn’t), had I not been extremely hormonal and exhausted, maybe I would have realized this sooner.
I’m hoping, in future, it will take me less than 2 years to gain perspective on comments made about my children, but just in case, I’m keeping the British Ambassador on speed dial.
Read Full Post »