Have you not lived?

"'He has spent his life in idleness,' we say; 'I have done nothing today.' What, have you not lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations...To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great an glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
--Michel de Montaigne, "Of Experience"

I am writing this as I sit in a seminar full of Urban parents—it's a class called "Urban 101" in which we share a taste of what our students get in the classroom. We've read Montaigne's "Of Experience" and are convening on a warm April night to write and talk about the essay. I love this essay. I love reading it, and re-reading it.

Here's the prompt I gave the  parents (and myself): What's the story in your life that makes a passage from the text resonate with you? Write/ramble in Montaignian fashion.

I think of my yoga teacher, and her lessons on the tantric way of thinking about things. Montaigne is a tantric master, it seems. "When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been dwelling on extraneous incidents for some part of the time, I bring them bak to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitutde and to me." Montaigne's urgent message to focus on the moment is tremendously appealing in a world that has too many distractions, so much of the time. (And of course, he's hardly the first to come up with this idea!) How many times can you cycle through website after website? How many times can you check your email? Why not go for a walk in the orchard? Why not pause to savor your morning coffee? Why not just stop and listen to the crying child instead of trying to shut off his emotions? (And can we talk about reasonsmysoniscrying.tumblr.com and how that kid is not being listened to? Even if it's really cute and funny, it's sad, too.)

My commute is long. What can I enjoy about it? The sunrise in my rearview mirror, the constant shifting of the clouds, the way the light gleams on the water and the sky shines cerulean.

The nights are long again. What can I enjoy about lying in the boys' room listening to them snore, when they wake up if I try to leave? The trickle of water on their sound machine, the blue glow of the night light? They are so small. This time is so short.

I made a two-minute video of Dash narrating his block-play to himself. Who will watch that? I will, when he's twenty and gone. And I will cry, missing his younger self.

This ramp. Car go up ramp see puppet show. (Yes, that blue thing is a puppet show.)

This is the thing about toddlers. Everything they do is done to the fullest—talking, sleeping, laughing, turning in circles, thinking about trains. They don't know about Facebook. They don't know about bills, or career changes, or moving across the country. This is what they know: snails. Grass. Trees. Looking at the bay. The wind! The sun is bright. Mommy is great, or frustrating, or going to work in the blue car. Daddy is amazing. Life is a neverending adventure. Savor it.

My Two Are Two!

Today, my boys turn two. They walk, talk, run, wrestle, snuggle, giggle, make up games, dance, and play music. They love trains, anything with wheels, and anything round. They love each other.

Wonder. 

We hear things around the house: "One, two, nine, nine." "I dunnooo! Crocodile!" There is a running commentary on everything around them as we walk, drive, stroller around town: "two blue car!" "cement mixer! loud!". It is always at high volume, shouted in case we can't hear. Or maybe it's shouted from excitement. If the first year of having twins is about survival, the theme of the second year seems to have been wonder and delight. I am amazed every single day by their persistence, creativity, and curiosity.

These are "lawnmowers," also known as leaf blowers. The sunglasses are sometimes optional. The sound effects are not.

This year, I've had to keep relearning that my agenda means little, whether it's my plan to grade papers during a nap or my hope to get out of the house quickly after a nap. I've had to learn how to help resolve conflicts without over-interfering, and I'm learning techniques for connecting with both kids simultaneously to ward off a post-nap tantrum—and my agenda then begins to be achievable. I've had to learn how to say "I'm overwhelmed, and I'm taking a break" both to my kids and to myself. I've learned more about the beauty of repetition, the importance of routine, the freedom to be found in limits.

Yes, he knows where the edge is. No, he's never fallen off.

Every parent has to learn these things. With twins, that learning comes fast and furious. I have two amazing, adorable, enthusiastic teachers.

Here's to another year of learning!

Being, at the park.

You've found the perfect park for your outing with twins. You have your bag packed with diapers, snacks, shoes, drinks, and a well-charged smartphone for snapping pics of your adorable offspring. You will *only* use your phone for occasional photos and checking the time. (See this New Yorker piece for an eloquent argument against even snapping photos) The rest of the time it stays in your bag. 

You have spare clothes if you're going somewhere you're likely to need them. You have jackets if it's going to be cold. You have sand toys for sand parks, and extra balls just in case. And you know that the park is going to be an easy place to keep track of your kids.

Friends are good, too—I try to meet up with one or two other moms a few times a week, especially other moms of twins. Being at the park with other people who know you and know your kids means that you have an extra set of eyes and ears. And there are likely to be fewer conflicts (in my experience, at least) because the kids know each other. After months of seeing the same people, the boys look forward to seeing their friends—and I look forward to seeing mine!

Sharing a snack with good friends

Even with all that, you need to bring a few more things: for starters, trust and patience. 


Trust is about believing that your children have their own interests and their own agendas. Do they want to go up the stairs? Great! Do they want to spend 30 minutes pushing a truck around? Great! Maybe they're into pouring sand. Maybe they don't want to use the shovel the way that you think they should use the shovel—that's ok, too. Don't force them to do what you think they should do—free, unstructured play is children's work. Just because you think your kid wants to swing or slide doesn't mean s/he wants to. Lots of times, kids like to climb the stairs to the slide, but not slide down. That's ok, too. They're working on climbing and enjoying feeling up high. When they want to come down, they'll figure out how. Your job at the park is to reinforce the boundaries that do matter: no hitting, biting, pushing. Use words to describe what happens when conflicts seem to be mounting; offer other choices when conflicts escalate. Acknowledge the problem, then see if your kids can come up with a solution.

11 months old, enjoying some stair play. Notice that they are in charge of how high, how fast, and how they go up.

I love this paragraph from Lisa Sunbury about play:

So what is your role as a parent or teacher of young children? The idea is for the adult to create an environment that invites play and then allow the child to explore and experiment within that environment to his heart’s content, without showing him how it’s supposed to be done. This leaves your child in control, and preserves his natural, inborn desire and ability (intrinsic motivation- from within) to play. When your child plays, he is not only learning, he is learning how to learn!

So trust your kids to find interesting things to do and see and explore. Trust them to know the limits of what their bodies can do. And trust that they will push those limits, too. You'll be there to catch them; you won't be holding their shirt while they walk and constantly telling them to be careful.


Janet Lansbury says it best:

The key to fostering an “I can” mentality is simple… Accept, appreciate and allow whatever children are able to do in that moment, rather than expecting or encouraging them to do more.

Patience: You have to learn to be patient with yourself, to let yourself sit back and watch. It's hard to do when you have two toddlers running in opposite directions. I've found that I'm most able to sit back and watch if they're running on the ground. Up high is hard. You want to help. I try to just stand close then, not interfere too much. My boys know that I trust them to know their limits, and usually, they're right. It's almost always when I second-guess them or try to "help" that they seem to falter and get frustrated. So, I try to remind myself to wait, wait, wait before stepping in. I don't always wait long enough, and I really don't wait long enough when I'm nervous or distracted. But doing this stuff is a practice. It takes time. It's really, really hard not to explain why they fell, when they do fall. My personal resolution is to do a better job of asking questions like "Would you like to try that again?" It's so easy to want to protect and direct. What you have to to is help them persist and discover. 

Yes, even 18-month-olds can share...if you let them work it out and don't yell at them to share.

And that's the thing about babies and toddlers: they take lots of time to do things. A four-block walk can take an hour. You can't have an agenda; if you do, you'll be frustrated. If you have plans, you have to be ready to listen to some complaints as you attend to the business of getting there. Plan to hear some crying, some screaming, plan that you might have to be firm about getting in the car, changing diapers, whatever. This is part of living with children. We adults are thinking five steps ahead. They're thinking about now. Slow down, take a look from their perspective. Part of many of our park outings these days is the walk to the park from our car. This can take up to twenty minutes. And that's fine.

Sometimes we stop to check out holiday lights. 

Here's what you really need to know about being at the park: it's about being, at the park. Take the time to watch your kids explore and learn. Follow their lead. Your job is to get them outside. Let them show you the rest.