Wow.  Where has the time gone?  Christmas in 4 days!  The truth is that there have been many topics swirling around in my head to blog about, but typing with a baby on your lap is not fair to either of us. Like everyone else, there is never enough time in a day.  A wise mother of twin boys once told me… “shoot for 80% each day and you’ll feel like 100% when you have twins”.  This is so true.  Another one, my paternal grandmother, also a mom of twins, said, “When you have twins, something changes- you have no time to mess around; you are all business”.  Even more true.  Life is never static enough to blog!

I am currently (and always it seems) thinking about my kids’ development and learning.  I wonder what is “normal”… if that exists.  I think about how I can incorporate early math skills like matching, sorting, shapes and sequencing when Lucy and I are playing blocks or with buttons.  I wonder how I can work in the occasional Spanish word while we are playing.  How much time reading each day is adequate?  Why does letting her watch TV eat at my insides, even when its only Sesame Street which she loves so dearly and gives us cuddle time on the couch?  “Can we pick up all the “green” toys first?”, I tell her.  I try to encourage her already innate curiosity about animals and nature (this is my favorite since it reminds me of myself so young too!).   I think being a teacher is doing me in as I look to maximize every teachable moment and keep my kid engaged constantly, even if she is engaging herself.  Any good teacher knows boredom leads to well.. you know.  Don’t get me wrong, she also spends a lot of time playing solo and like anyone who knows Lucy well, she is a complete busy body from the minute she wakes up.

I’d like to think I don’t obsess about integrating learning into all moments or even think about it.  It kind of comes naturally and is giving me a whole new insight into early learning that I never considered.  I get kids at school when they are well through the system at 14.  They know the deal.  They are bored with the deal and they see no point anymore in lots of cases.  Its a frayed at the edges, full of hormones and disengaged with academia kind of age.  Its a real challenge (with often a lot of resistance) to bring them back to that “wow” learning for the sake of curiosity point they had when they were little.  My strengths are definitely science and math, but I wish I knew more about language and language development and acquisition.  Its crazy how they seem to learn all by themselves with little (seemingly) help from parents, but then again, do we even know when we are helping them?  We are all born to learn, we just have to have the most constructive circumstances.

All of this bubbles up another worry- school.  Again, being a teacher is biting me in the you know what.  My career and much too much of my free time is occupied with mulling over this whole thing known as mass public education.  The good, the bad and the completely ugly, unfair, inequitable and downright abusive.  There will certainly be some interesting lessons for myself and my kids to learn when they enter the public system and it won’t be about algebra, writing or music.

OK, so this is getting much too deep for now… but its been a while and I love to indulge in these “adult” conversations, even if I am talking to myself.  So, a quick update on the daily grind around here:

Lucy.  Hobbies include Milo, our cat, jumping on the couch, taking care of her dolls and anything Sesame Street.  She is also learning to hop with 2 feet, sing (thanks to the microphone from Aunt Marge and Uncle Dan for xmas) and throw just about anything (hopefully not in her sisters’ direction).  She knows a lot of words.  The Dr. stopped counting at our last appointment after a few minutes.  She loves to play with her friends Jonas, Joseph, Jon, Logan, Nathan, Peyton and Milo (of the non-human variety).  She likes to climb stairs and anything else for that matter.

Lucy still LOVES milk. She is also very, very fond of cookies too.  LOVE wouldn’t be a strong enough word.  She is still not so much a meat eater unless it falls into the “chicken nugget” food group.  She loves her veggies though just like her parents!  She is almost proficient with a fork and spoon and is learning to drink from a cup.  If I never saw a sippy cup again in my life it’d be too soon!  She also calls to the cat from the dinner table.

She also helps with the laundry, feeds the cats, walks Gammie and Papa’s doggie Tasha and generally bosses the cat around (which Milo loves).  Did I mention that she LOVES Milo?  She loves to read, dance, paint and color.  No matter what the weather she could spend all day outside and often moves her step stool to the window to stand there for some time to look outside and watch the squirrels in our tree.

Zoey & Stella.  They are now 5 months old and solid foods are just around the corner.  That’ll be interesting…especially when I’m here solo!  I still feed the babies 4-5 times a day and we give them each a late night bottle at 10pm or so, which enables them to sleep through the night until around 7am.  They are starting to fit into 6 month clothes and at 4 months they were 11lbs, 3 oz. (Zoey) and 11lbs, 2 oz. (Stella).  They are still smaller but doing all the normal milestone things for their age, which is good considering they were 1.5 months early.  Stella likes to coo softer and roll around on the floor often kicking Zoey in the head.  She loves to roll from her back to her side & belly.  Zoey likes to do the opposite: belly to back.  Stella loves to “attack” toys set in front of her by batting them right off the table while on your lap & Zoey loves to sit and stand up and flirt with anyone willing to return the favor.  Stella rarely misses one of our meals looking on from someone’s lap.  Zoey is now obsessed with her own voice and at times makes constant screeches, squeals, coos and squeaks!  She is definitely more talkative and always gets the party started from her crib in the morning throwing out the whole gammet of cute, “come get me” baby noises.  Lately, She & Stella wake up and “talk” back and forth in their room from their cribs!  Stella gives a more sly, introverted, slow and cute smile and Zoey seems to smile with a fire in her eye and gets her whole body going too.  They both love baths, but bathing Stella is like washing down a live fish!  She loves to kick and talk and I often end up mopping up the floor after her bath.  Zoey still loves her swing and both love a good knee bounce!

They are now taking a 1.5-2 hr. nap in the morning about 2 hrs. after they wake and then about 2-3 smaller naps in the afternoon.  The morning is nice, because it still overlaps with Lucy’s morning nap.  Sometimes I get a whole 2 hrs. with everyone sleeping!  Zoey still sleeps less than Stella, on average, and also gets really fussy when she is ready to go down.  By now, we’ve learned to put her down immediately and she has gotten great at putting herself to sleep on her own.  We had to do the cry-it-out thing with Zoey for naps during the day, but she is a pro at this point.

Stella can be convinced to do almost anything whenever (except when she has a dirty diaper) and Zoey has more of her mother’s iron will it seems!  Also, Stella looks a lot like Jason (and Lucy actually) when he was little and even has hair that stands up straight like his!  Zoey looks a lot like me when I was very little with bigger, rounder eyes than Stella.

My favorite part is that, despite their early differences (its way too easy to compare, and unfortunately not real fair to them), they seem to really like to be together.  They love taking naps together during the day and go down easier at night when they are both in the room together.  They like to roll around on the floor at the same time and often hold hands when they are right next to each other.  They smile at each other and look for one another nearby.  Earlier today, I took Zoey off the floor to wrap her up for nap time and Stella was inconsolable until she was also put down for her nap with Zoey.

And, they both LOVE Lucy.  When Lucy is nearby, they follow her like she is their favorite person in the world- everyone pales in comparison, even us parents.  I think Lucy finds them pretty funny too- she laughs at things they do, helps entertain and take care of them and finds them generally interesting.  The best part about having more than one child, for me, is seeing them take care of each other and learn from each other.  Its a special relationship nobody but siblings can offer.

Us.  We are still tired, but still maintaining a sense of humor!  It definitely helps that they sleep through the night.  Sleep deprivation can be dangerous for a million reasons.  It was always the hardest thing for me about having babies.  I just can’t function happily and well without sleep.  I am so glad these two went gentle on us with that.  Lucy didn’t sleep through until she was almost 10 months!  UGH!  Its also amazing to me that we are able to get more accomplished and have a cleaner house with all these babies!?  What the heck did we do with our time when we were married with no kids?  People say all the time they don’t know how we do it.  Its not hard.  Anyone would do what we do and people have done it for ages.  You do it because it doesn’t feel hard when its your kids.  Its not too much trouble to pack them all up and go out because you love doing things with them.  Life is too short to not do what you want and make excuses why you can’t.  I am totally convinced with a little preparation, get up and go and borderline crazy attitude anything can be done.  Or at least a good case of the cabin fever crazies…

If you know our kids, feel free to share your own stories about them and maybe yourself in the comments on this post or any other.  I am hoping to save this as a kind of journal for them too.  At the very least they might understand why their parents and extended family and friends are so phenomenal (with a small dose of crazy)!