Brothers

Spaghetti

I know that we’re supposed to pick our battles with our children. That when we do, we’re supposed to win every time. That some things are best not turned into battles in the first place. And I try to remember that, but some things just drive me batshit crazy.

With Secondo, one of them is eating with utensils. Or not eating with utensils. It drives me crazy that he often flat-out refuses to. That he will grab a handfuls of oatmeal and gleefully squish gobs of it between his fingers with obvious enjoyment and then wipe his hands on his shirt. That I’ve occasionally caught his overly-motherly Salvadoran nanny feeding him in order to prevent messes from happening, even though I’ve asked her not to. That my friend with the toddler who eats soup without spilling a drop makes comments about children needing to learn table manners and then glances pointedly at my kids. I tell myself not to get so frustrated about the whole thing, which is getting harder the older they get, because there are some things they should just be able to do by now, dammit, and it all ties in to my expectations for Secondo and my constant worry about what behavior is just your average three-year-old behavior and what isn’t. Because some of it isn’t. The autism, it always lurks, and it can mess with my mind.

I sit with Secondo and snatch his bowl of food away as he lunges at it with his hands. Con la cuchara, I remind him. Con la cuchara, he repeats, and takes a spoonful. Then he lunges with his hands again, and he’s really, really fast.

Tonight I take a different tack, something I’ve tried before, so it’s not exactly new. I will be positive, I will not let my frustration show. The boys are eating spaghetti, and Secondo takes a bite with the fork. ¡Excelente! I yell, and he looks at me and giggles. I’ve never been quite this enthusiastic, and I've obviously hit upon the right word. ¡Excelente! he repeats. Then takes another bite. ¡Excelente! I squeal, and this time I clap my hands and praise him profusely. Now Primo is laughing and wants in on it, too, so when he takes a bite: ¡Excelente!

And we are all having so much fun and laughing so hard that I don’t notice when Secondo grabs a handful of spaghetti, like a flash. I grab the bowl. It goes flying. There is spaghetti everywhere. I put my head in my hands and take a deep breath. Several seconds go by.

No tan excelente, Primo observes, finally, breaking the silence. His tone is sober.

Not so excellent, indeed. But at least now I am laughing as I clean up the spaghetti.

Turkey Soup

I got home from work today and after reading a few stories with the boys, headed straight for the kitchen. I don't usually cook when I get home, because it's virtually impossible. The boys are demanding and pull me every which way if I try to get anything done in the kitchen, so we either have something in the Crock Pot or something ready to go in the oven, or P cooks while I take care of baths and bedtime.

Today, though, I was bound and determined to make my mother's turkey soup. The carcass from our Thanksgiving turkey had been waiting in the refrigerator for a week and I didn't want it to wait any longer, and we had no Plan B for dinner. It doesn't require that much prep work, so I snuck into the kitchen while the boys were distracted with their toys and got to work.

A few minutes later I was dicing a potato, completely lost in thought, when I realized something. The music on the CD player had stopped. It was completely quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you deeply uneasy when you have three-year-old twin boys. I dropped the chef's knife and ran into the living room.

Secondo was on the couch, Primo in the armchair. Both were peacefully reading a book. Secondo looked up when I appeared in the doorway. "Mi semana," he offered softly, by way of explanation. "My Week!" Primo chimed in.

I went back into the kitchen. They went back to their books. I could not believe what had just happened.

And the soup was absolutely delicious.

Three, Three, Three

My boys are officially three years old. I think I'm supposed to write my boys a sweet letter on my blog or something in honor of their third birthday, but I'm feeling nowhere near that inspired.

I got to hang out in Secondo's classroom for his birthday celebration during snack time last week. I took cupcakes. They were made from a mix, which I found in my pantry, and the frosting came from a tub, also from my pantry. Secondo missed the bus that morning, which meant that I had to drive him, which meant I was frosting the cupcakes as I was running out the door. Then I dropped the container several times in the parking lot, so those were some sorry-looking cupcakes. I wasn't too bent out of shape, because of course, the kids didn't care. Secondo bent his head over and tasted his cupcake with the tip of his tongue, then decided he was done, just as he'd rejected a cupcake at a friend's birthday party the week before. The boy has finer tastes; one of his more frequent requests is "pan con Nutella, por favor."

Because of the holiday break, Primo's celebration will be next week. His teachers suggested muffins instead of cupcakes, so those will not come from a mix. I make good muffins.

At home, we bought cupcakes from our awesome local place, one of the runners-up in the Washington Post's cupcake wars. Things were quiet because of the holiday, but we had two friends in town, so we figured that was enough for a party. We didn't have birthday candles, so we lit tea lights instead. It didn't matter, because they refused to blow them out, anyway. We sang "Happy Birthday" and "Cumpleaños Feliz." They got a couple of gifts, and like their last two birthdays, the evening couldn't have been more low-key. I figure soon enough--probably next year--they will know about all about birthdays, expect parties and gifts and more elaborate cakes. Which is why I enjoyed this one so much.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Thanksgiving three years ago, I was nearly 38 weeks pregnant with twins. My c-section was scheduled for the following Monday. We had been invited to spend Thanksgiving in the District with a group of friends who weren't traveling that year.

Somehow, all of them were either vegetarian or didn't care much for turkey, so it was decided that if P and I wanted turkey, we needed to bring it ourselves. Which is how we ended up wandering the streets of Georgetown after finally finding parking several blocks from our destination on a freezing-cold, windy night in November, with me in my flip flops because they were the only shoes that fit my swollen feet, carrying a turkey.

It was a wonderful evening. I parked my huge self on the couch and barely moved all night. I requested a half-glass of wine (because I could finally see the end in sight) and someone got a picture of me balancing it on my belly. P left after a while for Union Station to pick up a friend who was arriving from New York.

After that night, P proclaimed that he would never again take a turkey anywhere and that if he was going to make the turkey, people needed to come to us. So that's what we've done ever since. He makes amazing baked rockfish to make sure the vegetarians have something to eat other than tofu and side dishes. Some friends have been here every year, others come and go. My friend from New York has come every year and always makes tres leches for dessert. It's become a tradition and has replaced pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving. No matter what you have for dessert.

On Co-sleeping

When Primo and Secondo were newborns, we only had one crib. The boys slept in it together, and we thought that would last a while.

Then Secondo started scooting around on his back in his sleep. Just a little, at first. But when thee boys were eight weeks old I woke up one morning to Primo's cries, went to check on them, and realized the reason he was crying was because Secondo had scooched over was kicking him in the head. Obviously, that could not continue. Not so much because I felt bad that Secondo was beating up on his brother, but more because when you have newborn twins, anything that interrupts their (and your) sleep is a very, very bad thing.

P did some hunting around on Craigslist and came home with a beautiful Pali crib a few days later. I was so happy I could have kissed his feet. We separated the boys as soon as we could put the crib together. But it made me sad that we had to do it so early. What about that twin bond? What about being so close together in the womb? Weren't they supposed to feel comforted by each other's presence? Obviously not, because they didn't seem to care and they definitely slept much better. So did we.

When they turned two, though, Secondo decided he wanted to be with his brother in his crib. Even though he could be completely oblivious to Primo's presence all day, he whined and cried until we put him in there--and then Primo whined and cried, because though Secondo doesn't kick him in the head anymore, he loves to stomp on him and sit on him, and there really isn't enough room for two hefty toddlers in one crib.

When it was time to move them out of their cribs and into big boy beds, the choice was obvious: We moved them into my old queen-size futon. Partly because it was already in their room. Partly due to space considerations in our tiny condo. But mostly so they could be together. It's worked out beautifully--it's big enough so that they rarely fall out (and it's close to the ground when they do), and it's the perfect spot for reading bedtime stories. And even when they start out at opposite ends of the bed, they always end up moving towards each other. One's head will be nestled on the other's shoulder, or they'll hold hands. Tonight they are in the shape of a T, with both of Secondo's legs resting comfortably on Primo's belly.

I know this will end eventually, too, and when they're old enough, we'll move them into bunk beds. But I'm enjoying this while it lasts. And if I'd known how much they would enjoy sleeping in the same bed as toddlers, I might not have felt so wistful when they were eight weeks old.

Open House, Part Two

The thing is, I used to be against preschool.

I just didn’t think it was necessary for my kids. The boys have a nanny, who I’ve known since I was in high school, and I’ve loved and trusted her from day one. The fact that she is from El Salvador and speaks no English was a huge bonus to me. It meant the boys would be exposed mostly to Spanish, and I wanted to keep that going for as long as possible. Plus, preschool for two children would be expensive, and who needs that? I watched several of my friends research schools last spring, tour them all, get on waiting lists and then agonize over the decision. Oh, hell, no, I thought.

But then Secondo qualified for the preschool class at our public school, and P and I started feeling a little bad for Primo. He would be lonely without Secondo, probably. We don’t have too many playdates, so he doesn’t see other kids all that often. And he’s such a cheerful, outgoing child that he would probably love being with other kids at preschool.

So I contacted a preschool. It’s a short walk from the house. That was seriously my only criterion. Primo and I went on a tour, and he walked into the classroom like he owned the place. My guide talked the school up. That’s okay, lady, I thought. As long as you aren’t torturing small children in the basement, really, I’m good. But I just nodded. Since this was just last month, there was a waiting list, so I put Primo on it and crossed my fingers.

I got the call fifteen minutes after Secondo’s open house was over. It was last minute, the director said. There was a parents’ meeting that night, and an open house the next day. I got the wrong information about the class would be in, so we went to the wrong open house. I was bummed—again--when I found out there were three Spanish-speaking parents there, too. Primo will be in the other class, the one for younger children, starting tomorrow. In the end, it doesn’t matter. He loved it. It will be good.

Today was Secondo’s first day. We were going to take the bus, Primo, Secondo, their nanny and I, so I could show her how to get there if she ever needs to pick him up. But the bus was late, so we had to pile into the car and rush over. P was waiting there. We all walked in, and Secondo headed for the toy school bus again. I kissed him goodbye and told him I was leaving. It didn’t seem to register. Then we closed the door behind us and I looked through the window for just a few seconds. When he looked up and seemed to realize I’d left, I quickly moved away so he wouldn't see me. Didn’t you cry? my friends asked me later. I would have. No, I said. I just wanted to get away from there to make life easier for him and his teacher.

P told me his was just fine, if clingy, when he picked him up. Ms. C told him Secondo named several foods and ate a rice cake. That was the summary of the day. I looked through his daily log as soon as I got home from work. Great first day! it read in neat script. Secondo used lots of words! Underneath was a little list: cracker, raisin, more.

That is a good first day.

I'd like my teeth brushed in English, please.

Brushing a toddler's teeth is a royal pain. When I hadn't found a good way to do it yet I searched for advice on the subject and found suggestions on blogs, my local parenting listservs and the like. There were all kinds of crazy suggestions, but the one that seemed to be common to all of them was: Hey! Pretend there's an animal in your toddler's mouth! Tell him you need to reach waaay back there with the toothbrush and "get" the tiger that's hiding in his mouth!

I guess that worked for some people, or they wouldn't have suggested it. But I didn't even try it because it just sounded silly, and our evening teeth-brushing sessions degenerated into wrestling matches. (I love, love, love having twins, but one petty reason I'm slightly jealous of mothers of singletons? They only have one set of teeth to brush at night. I've always been somewhat overwhelmed by TWO sets of toddler teeth.)

Primo, though, is obsessed with numbers, and one night, I happened upon a brilliant solution, which consisted of, Hey! Let's see how high Mama can count while brushing your teeth! It worked. That boy is so enamored of the number one hundred that I think he would endure practically anything to hear me count that high. And Secondo, who was watching the merriment in the next crib over and giggling all the while, wanted in on the action, so the method worked with him too, although his limit was always around fifty, not a hundred.

The other day, though, Secondo rebelled and clenched his teeth together right after I started brushing. So I moved on to Primo, and started with my usual enthusiastic Uno! Dos! Tres!

Except he was having none of that, either. Instead, he grabbed the toothbrush from me and commanded: "English!" So I started over, in English, and we counted to one hundred, as usual. And though Secondo doesn't have the "English! Español!" thing down the way Primo does, he let me know by exclaiming, "One! Two! Three!" that he would like his teeth brushed in English too, please. I obliged, and I'll be damned if it didn't work.

I'm such a stickler for speaking Spanish. But for now, the boys apparently want their teeth brushed in English. So I'm going to go with that, if only for the sake of dental hygiene.

(Did I just write an entire post about brushing toddlers' teeth? I think I did. Anyone reading might want to just skip this one. Yeah.)

Mother's Day

P is out of town visiting his parents. He'd been looking forward to leaving me alone with the twins, since I travel for work occasionally and have left him to hold down the fort with the boys many times. I was looking forward to being alone with them for a weekend, though not so excited about the fact that I had to finish up some editing for a project due tomorrow. In fact, I underestimated how long it would take me to do, but the turnaround time on the project was pretty short, so there wasn't much leeway. I was up until one on Friday, and last night I finally threw in the towel at 4:00 and distracted the boys with stickers that they had received in a care package for an hour or so this morning so I could finish up my work. That worked incredibly well--I don't recommend it, but thankfully, it worked.

So I spent a good portion of Mother's Day feeling really tired, and yet it was the best day ever. I made myself a strong latte and some pumpkin waffles for all of us. By the time I got breakfast--or brunch-- on the table, it was 10:30 and the boys were so hungry that Secondo ate 3/4 of a Belgian waffle and Primo ate a whole one, and then I had to give him another quarter when he stole mine off my plate. Damn. Secondo and I played with his trains on the floor and he chatted up a storm and used all kinds of phrases I'd never heard him say before, in the right context. Primo played "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps" over and over again on the CD player just so he could giggle hysterically when Mama showed off her yodeling skills. I paid no attention to the mess in the kitchen, or the mess in the living room, for that matter. We never even got out of the house today, because I was too tired in the morning, and it poured in the afternoon.

I put them down for a nap at one and took a nap myself, even after the latte. When the boys nap, they nap HARD, hard enough that I have to wake them up if I want them to get to bed at a reasonable hour, but today we all slept until five. They woke up before I did. I napped hard myself, so hard that when I looked at the clock, I was so disoriented that I thought it might be morning. We had dinner, read from their favorite book of poems, and Secondo, as usual, insisted on sleeping in his brother's crib with him. Bedtime wasn't until nine, though I usually don't mess with their 8:00 bedtime, and I heard them read books in their crib until over an hour after that. And my 35-pound boys are now one sweet, snoring tangle of limbs in a crib that is really too small for the two of them to share.

I don't set much store by Mother's Day. Today didn't even really feel like Mother's Day--I didn't even think to call my own mother, because in Costa Rica, it's celebrated on August 15th, so that will always be the real Mother's Day to me. But I can't imagine a better one. And I think that ten, twenty years down the line, this is one that I would probably give anything to relive.

Cool! Cool! Cool!

So, I have a break between jobs this afternoon and finally read the article about the Jennifer Lopez/Marc Anthony twins in that issue of People I’ve been carting around in my purse for a couple of weeks. After everything I read about it in blogland, I had a feeling I wouldn’t enjoy it, and I was right. The fancy strollers! The questions about conception! The gushing about having twins! Everything so hunky-dory! But I read it, because I like to read about twins.

I don’t have much to add, but I do have to say, they lost me from the very beginning of the article with the following quote: “It’ll be 3 in the morning and we’ll be like, ‘Next feeding in 30 minutes! Okay, cool!’” After that, I was unable to take any of it seriously. I feel like I have to preface this with all kinds of disclaimers about how much I loved my babies, even though the beginning was pretty rough, but never, never once did I think, “Cool!” after settling one baby down and realizing the second one was sure to wake up within the half-hour. I thought many things, but never that. In fact, the things I thought were not very nice.

I do sometimes miss the days of tiny, snuggly babies. But I do not miss the sleep deprivation. And the cute, tiny babies been replaced with funny, affectionate toddlers, which is pretty cool.

They’re challenging, too, but at least I’m getting more sleep.

Jumping the crib

Last weekend during the boys' naptime, I heard a huge crash upstairs. Then silence. Then what sounded like a stampede. I made it up there just as Primo was starting to toddle downstairs, giggling the whole time, he was so pleased with himself.

People are always telling me it gets easier as they get older, and in many ways, I agree that it has. I like not having to carry them around all the time (though they sure are heavy when I do have to carry them), they can now climb into their booster seats at mealtimes, or go get the book they want me to read, and I can mostly trust them on the playground equipment at the park. But Primo can also climb out of his crib, apparently, they both move our dining room chairs all over the downstairs so they can climb and get things they want, and they're not afraid of walking downstairs by themselves now, which they're not quite ready to do. Watching them every single minute so that they don't hurt themselves only to watch them hurt themselves anyway while I'm standing right there takes a lot of energy, and it's plenty frustrating. As wonderful as they are at this age, I'm ready for that part to be over, or at least improve.

They're currently in our tiny bedroom, which is barely big enough for two cribs and a changing table. This weekend, they get to move to the bigger bedroom. Though Primo hasn't jumped out of his crib again, I guess toddler beds—or mattresses on the floor—will be part of the deal. I'm not ready. I wish I could ignore it, kind of like the way I'm ignoring the two potties that were purchased months ago and are now gathering dust in the bathroom. I'm definitely not ready for that.

Motherly love...

...is when you look at how little milk is left in the jug, sigh, and dutifully fill up your boys' sippy cups before you add copious amounts of it to your coffee.

That, and jumping in front of a train or something to save their lives. Right now, though, the coffee thing is feeling a whole lot more relevant.

Intervention!

When the twins are having sleep issues, it just really sucks. I can’t complain most of the time, since they do really well overall. People who have stayed with us sometimes seem really surprised that once the boys are down for the night at 8:00 or so, they’re down until the next morning, no matter how much of a ruckus we make down here. (Not that we usually make much of a ruckus.) They sleep really well and I like having my down time in the evenings—I don’t know what I would do without that.

We’ve recently been enabling Primo a bit, though. He was sick, and we were on vacation in a strange place. ‘Nuff said. He started waking up between 2:00-4:00 a.m., and we started bringing him into bed with us. Two weeks later, he’s still doing it almost every night, and I knew this would happen. The thing is, I also knew breaking him of the habit would take a little work, and who wants to deal with that at 2:00 a.m.? Taking him to bed in the guest room is just easier. (As an aside, here’s the one thing I didn’t know about parenting that became obvious to me once the boys were born: All of the things I thought I would or would not do kind of flew out the window and I made a lot of decisions based on whatever would let me get a little MORE SLEEP. If I’d known that, I could have saved a lot of the time I spent reading baby books while I was pregnant.)

In the end, I stayed up past 3:00 this morning. Two good things came of it. Although I could have done some work on my translations today, I really, really wanted to be done, and I did finish my work. Also, when Primo woke up at two, I was wide awake and able to deal with him. I staged a little intervention of sorts. Every time he cried, I went back in there and settled him down. I must have gone in ten or fifteen times. Sometimes I just patted his back and he would go back to sucking his fingers and would curl right back into his sleeping position. Sometimes he would throw his lovey out of the crib and I would just give it back to him without making a fuss. I would explain to him that everyone was sleeping and that he needed to sleep, too. Sometimes my tone was soothing, sometimes it was a lot firmer.

In the end, he stayed down. I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself, though we’ll see what happens tonight.

A Few Musings on Language

For someone who is hell-bent on teaching her children Spanish, never mind the fact that I’m a professional translator/interpreter, you would think I’d have done tons of research on the subject, but I haven’t, really. Other than a few articles I’ve read online and in the newspaper, and the information I learned at a wonderful conference on the subject where I was lucky enough to interpret, I really haven’t looked into it. In my case, I’m going mostly on my own experience and what worked for my parents, and what I’ve seen work or not work for others.

My parents used what is now known as the one-parent-one-language approach with my brother and me, though I’m not sure that term existed back in the seventies. We lived in the U.S. until I was eight, and the rule was: Spanish with my mom, English with my dad. Period. The other unbreakable rule was, nothing but Spanish was to be spoken at the dinner table. They were absolute hardasses when it came to both of those rules. If we spoke English at the table, they pretended not to understand and we had to repeat ourselves in Spanish, with their help if we needed it.

There are a lot of things I remember about learning both languages growing up, and the emotional pull of those memories is pretty strong. For one thing, I remember not liking the feeling of standing out. When we lived in the U.S., I really wanted to speak what my friends at school spoke. I didn’t want to be different. I spoke to my brother in English, and that was our special language. When we moved to Costa Rica, the tables were turned. Then we had to speak English at the dinner table. All of a sudden, Spanish was the language that made us fit in, and my brother and I started speaking Spanish with each other, which we still do today. Speaking English would feel unnatural at this point.

My parents owned a business and made an OK living, but they were the kind of people who didn’t need much and actually did without a few things so that we could afford others. Our house was not in the greatest shape and they weren’t so big on home improvement, even though that would have been money well spent, but boy, they made sure we traveled. When we lived in the U.S, we traveled to Costa Rica, and vice versa. The connection to our family, languages and cultures was incredibly important to them. So were books. As a child, I remember all the stories and poems my mother read us in Spanish. In Costa Rica, there was exactly one English-language bookstore in the country when we moved there, and those books were not cheap. Yet my parents took us there regularly and there were no limits on what we could buy. We took Spanish classes in California, and in Costa Rica my parents paid a bundle for our education at a chi-chi bilingual private school (I hated it, which is another story, but I realize I got a great education). When I hear so many second-generation children with surnames like López and García say, “Gee, I wish my parents had taught me Spanish,” I’m all too aware of the tremendous effort it takes to make it actually happen.

Right now, Primo and Secondo speak way more Spanish than English, which I love. I’m strictly enforcing the “Spanish with Mama” rule, and I also plan on being a hardass about it, though I sometimes feel like I’m being rude when we’re out in public. I’ve seen several parents relax that rule, then relax it some more, and it seems to me that then it’s all downhill from there. The boys’ babysitter doesn’t even speak English. Their language skills are coming along and they amaze me every day.

I find my own experience learning two languages as a child both encouraging and scary. For one thing, though I never really rebelled, I remember that feeling of not wanting to feel different. That’s kind of hard to counteract. Plus, Spanish was hard when I was very young. English was easy. That was what I wanted to speak. Also, we moved to a Spanish-speaking country when I was eight, which made all the difference. That will most likely never happen for my kids, so I feel like I’ll be fighting an uphill battle, especially once they start school. I listened to an awesome program on NPR the other day that referred to that as a “tidal wave” of English. The speakers also talked about making the second language fun. I’m as obsessed with books as my parents were. I just dropped a chunk of change on books in Spanish at the bookstore in Costa Rica. The boys’ great-aunt and great-uncle gave them $30, which I spent on more books in Spanish that I found on Amazon. I tend to buy books every time someone gives them cash. My in-laws believe in buying them bonds, I believe in books.

Reading what I’ve written, it strikes me that I may be taking all of this too seriously. It’s just so important to me, for many reasons. Obviously, for one thing, after all of my parents’ hard work, I got my MA in Conference Interpretation, an achievement which makes me incredibly proud. It wasn't easy. But I don’t just want my boys to learn Spanish because it’s useful. Much of my family doesn’t even speak English. And it’s a part of my heritage, and therefore theirs as well. My dad constantly told my brother and me that we had the best of both worlds. And though it might have sounded cheesy and made me roll my eyes as a teenager, he was absolutely right.

Homecoming

It’s such a mental transition for me, coming home after a trip to Costa Rica. I get so comfortable there, settle back into the language, the comfort food, the music, the places I knew growing up. I can slip into speaking Spanish the way I grew up speaking it, rough and slangy, instead of using the more polished, neutral version I’ve learned to use as an interpreter.

There is last-minute shopping so I can stock up on tons of coffee, rum and Salsa Lizano. Packing is always an ordeal. Then there are the tearful goodbyes, which make me sad because I never know when I’m going back. It just feels so far away, even though my trip to LA was longer than my trip to Costa Rica. Maybe everyone feels this way about where they grew up, maybe it’s not just me. Maybe I just feel like the cultural and emotional factors make it different. I don’t know. I can’t quite explain it, but it gets me at a gut level

I get to the airport, check in, and feel myself starting to break away. I’m on the plane watching the in-flight movie, and part of me is still not quite there. Then I invariably land in Miami. Maybe that’s one reason I hate that airport so much—to me, it’s that no-man’s-land, always halfway between one of my homes and the other.

And then we staggered home at 1:00 a.m., and the transition was complete, though a little bumpy. Primo has been waking up at 4:00 for the past week and has been inconsolable and then just wakeful. And yesterday I had such an awful allergic reaction to something that I dragged myself to Urgent Care, mostly because my eye was just about swollen shut and I had a translation due at five. Now I’m happily doped up on steroids.

Today is much better. Primo slept until 7:00. I feel much better. I have a large cup of coffee in front of me. I’m ready to rejoin the world, I think.

Things I Learned About Traveling Alone With Twins

• Waking toddlers up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a 6:00 flight makes them super cranky.
• When traveling alone with twins, going through security is the part that sucks the most. The rest of it isn’t exactly fun, but flight attendants will at least be charmed by your babes and will also feel sorry for you, so they’ll help you out. Going through security, you walk alone. TSA agents will not be charmed. You are so not their problem. They will be annoyed, pissed off, even, as you try to deal with car seats, your stroller and wrangle twins who run away in opposite directions the second you put them down. Other passengers won’t be charmed, either. Especially when the airport is packed to the gills, you’ve waited in that check-in line for an hour and everyone, including you, is running late.
• I have one foot firmly planted in the Combi camp and the other in the Maclaren camp when it comes to side-by-side strollers (I could, and maybe will, write about both of them later), but the Maclaren rocked on this trip. You can loop the straps of one convertible car seat over each handle and just push. It’s cumbersome, but it works really well. I don’t know how else I would have carried both of them with me. They’re huge.
• Even if you’re running a little late, stopping at the newsstand to pick up a bottle of water for filling up your sippy cups is an excellent idea. It’ll only take a couple of minutes. If you find a concession stand that sells little cartons of milk, that’s even better.
• Getting seats as close to the front of the plane as you possibly can while still having a row in front of you so you can stash your diaper bag really, really helps.
• It might be a good idea to skip the pre-boarding and get on the plane last, especially if you are close to the front. This means less time on the plane for the twins. Also, flight attendants will have dealt with everyone else by then and can help you out, because you’re the only one left, and you obviously need to board. If the flight attendants give you a hand getting your crap, and kids, on the plane, it really won’t take you long to set up, especially if you can install a car seat in your sleep.
• Take a smallish diaper bag, if you can. You will have enough crap to worry about. I carried way less than I usually do, and it was fine. I was even able to spare a couple of diapers for another mom at the gate. I guess I usually carry a lot.
  
• Flying when you have a bad head cold makes takeoff and landing excruciatingly painful. I know this has nothing to do with flying with twins, but ow. Owww.
• If you have purchased three tickets and have a three-seat row to yourself, you will still only be allowed to carry one car seat on board. Regulation: Only one car seat per row, in the window seat. I did not know this.
• The twin that does not get to sit in that window seat will not be happy about sitting in a regular seat. It will be too big for him, and so will the seat belt. He will hate it, actually, and will scream bloody murder and claw at you in desperation. So you will end up with a 35-pound toddler in your lap and an empty seat next to you.
  
• If you then board a larger plane that has a 2-4-2 configuration, however, you will be allowed to put both car seats in the middle of the 4-seat row. If your twins are tired and cranky, they will get comfortable and will sleep through the entire flight. So will you. Life will be so, so good.
  

Banished

Working from home is awesome, now that I've been doing it more often and have become more efficient and disciplined about it. I'm wearing sweats, I've got my snack and my cup of coffee, and I have the TV on because I felt the need for some background noise. I'm free to take work calls immediately, because I'm not out interpreting somewhere, and I have constant access to e-mail. I know that's not such a big deal to most people who work in an office, but again, usually I'm out interpreting and can't check my e-mail all day. You can miss out on jobs that way.

Obviously, it's also wonderful because I waste no time commuting and get to spend more time with the boys. It's nice having someone take care of them at home, because it means when I'm done, I can just run downstairs and my workday is over. Also, I can listen to what's going on and have a good idea of how long they napped and so on.

That's also the hardest part about working at home. Right now they're all giggles and happy shrieks, and boy, would I love to go join them. Even for just a quick break. But I can't do it. They can't even know I'm here, or the minute I try to come upstairs the laughter will turn to tears and heart wrenching wails of Maaamaaaa... So I come upstairs in the morning with my coffee and my breakfast. If I want anything from downstairs later, I wait until they're at the park, or taking a nap.

They're no dummies, though. I'm starting to suspect they know I'm here and know that I'm off-limits when I'm upstairs. The other day, as they were coming upstairs for their nap, Primo was chanting, "Mama, Mama" quite happily. When his nanny told him Mama was at work, he stopped just outside of the office door and said, "AQUI." Yeah. No dummy.
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So, not too bad for a rookie. I managed to blog 20 out of 30 days in November. Looking back, I suppose what strikes me is just how mundane my posts are. But it's a pretty accurate record of my life. Also, watching the posts build up is kind of addictive. I like my little blog. I think I'll keep it.

Awwwwww

Even before the boys were born, I had visions of them sharing a crib. Wouldn't that be sweet? I thought. Surely they would need each other and be comforted by each other's presence.

That lasted about eight weeks, or until Secondo started scooting around in his sleep and kicking Primo in the head. I can still picture the quizzical look on his face when I walked in the nursery one morning and wham, wham, wham, Secondo's feet in his little sleep sack were kicking him relentlessly.

Since Primo was our good sleeper, we just couldn't have that. P came home with a new (Craigslisted) crib when they were ten weeks old and I nearly fell and kissed his feet. It made such a huge difference--all four of us got more sleep, which was a good thing.

The other night I put the boys in the same crib while I read them their stories. Then I moved Secondo back to his own crib, and he started wailing. I tried to comfort him, and then the penny dropped and I put him back in his brother's crib. Not only did he stop wailing immediately, he started to do his trademark happy dance, which caused Primo to giggle hysterically and say, "Gagi, Gagi!"

I tried to separate them again (because I'm an idiot), and the results were exactly the same. In the end, I left them in Primo's crib. When I checked in on them a few minutes later, they both kind of raised their heads to look at me, groggy and content. After a few more minutes, they were both fast asleep. I separated them later that night, but I can hardly believe that they fell asleep together for the first time since they were ten weeks old. The feeling that came over me was just indescribable.

The highlight of my day

I was at the park today with the boys and my friend N. We were just watching the boys run around, when Primo started saying, "Gagi, Gagi, Gagi!" His name for Secondo. He just sounded like he was so happy and excited he could hardly stand it. He ran over to his brother and gave him the biggest hug.

Twins don't interact much in the beginning, and it's been fun watching them become increasingly aware of each other. Now they have a blast together, run and play together, cry unless the other is around. But that hug today, full of the purest joy, was beautiful.

I'd never heard that one before

Today, when I was standing in line at Starbucks with the boys in the double stroller:

Mother, to her little boy: Look, twins! There's two of them!

Little boy: Only two of them?

Keen: [Laughs hysterically.]
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I've never really minded getting comments about the twins. Are they natural? Are they identical? Who was born first? Ooooh, double trouble! And so on and so forth. I can make my answer as long and friendly or as short and curt as I want to depending on my mood. Mostly, people are just being nice, which I'll take any day over people who are bitter or mean, and I've had a couple of those encounters, too.