Gathering Seashells

We took the boys to the beach for the first time this summer, just a day after Hurricane Arthur made landfall in North Carolina. They'd been swimming in lakes and pools before, so it's not like they'd never seen lots of water in one place. But the ocean is just so very immense, and so very loud. Nick spent the first few minutes with his fingers in his ears, and was highly suspicious of the waves in general throughout the trip. So on the first day, we went for a walk and looked for shells.

Here we are, pre-shell-hunt. It was very windy!

He really wanted to find a snail shell. We found a bunch of other shells. Small shells, mostly. Every one was fascinating to him.

There were many piles of shells like this one. We spent quite a while poring over them, looking at the different textures and colors. 

We came away with a nice pile of shells. To our eyes, they were magnificent treasures. 

And we did find that snail shell.

DIY PVC Play Palace

We had an alarming number of snow days this year, our first winter on the East Coast as a family. From what we hear, the weather we've been enduring is unusual. But we still had to get through it one way or another. I am passionate about getting my kids outside, but only so long as I am also comfortable. And I'm not yet comfortable for more than around 30 minutes in the cold and snowy.

This combination of circumstances led to a huge number of hours spent holed up at home over the winter.

Fortunately, Pinterest came to the rescue. I found too many fort ideas, but then stumbled on this one. I thought, hey, I can do that! Except instead of a square, I wanted a rectangle that could fit over a toddler bed so two guys could play in it, and so the bed would still be available in case Dash ever wanted to sleep in it (short answer: no, he'll never want to sleep in it. It's a train/trash truck/rocket, not a bed).

Armstrong and Aldrin on their way to the moon.

So I modified the plan and measured three times and then I went out and bought materials. In a downpour. At a Home Depot where most of the power was out.

And then we tried to follow the directions. And it turns out that (as I look back at Pinterest and peruse more designs that somehow didn't come up in my earlier searches) all good plans require some extra pipe. Or these things, but I couldn't find any at Lowe's or Home Depot around here. So we built a roofless fort and put it over Dash's bed, with curtains along the sides to make it feel enclosed.

The guys played "Buster Keaton" for a couple days on it (somehow, I failed to take pictures). Then they demanded that we take it down.

Last Saturday, we stayed in all morning for no real reason. So we re-worked the design with pipe cutters and extra fittings.

This is what our corners now look like: a three-way, 90-degree joint connecting to a 90-degree joint turned on an angle to connect with the roof. Above, a three-way, angled joint forms the corner of the rectangle.

The complete skeleton.

Roof joint.

The beam that runs across the roof has to be a few inches longer than the beams on the long sides to accommodate for the extra pipe on the ends. We had a lot of pieces of pipe hanging around, so we just trimmed one to fit and used a spare connector to attach to the longer pipe.

With roof.

After we'd constructed it, we moved the palace where it belongs, on top of Dash's bed. Now the fellas retreat there regularly with flashlights and toys to play all sorts of games. Total success (except when they wake up at 3AM to play there).

Permanent home.

It's Working.

I am not perfectly good at all the stuff I am constantly advocating for—mindful, positive parenting, being patient with my toddlers' dawdling, not getting upset when they do something I think is wrong, like hit each other. But I practice and practice and practice (thankfully we have a lot of chances to practice around here!).

This is something I say over and over: "You're disappointed/frustrated/upset. It's ok to let your feelings out. When you're done, we can talk about it. I'm right here. I will listen to you."

We've been struggling with naps for about 8 months now. Nick needs a nap; Dash sometimes doesn't—he tells me he's "having a hard time sleeping" and refuses to lie down, much less sleep. One of the pieces of advice we've gotten is that when the nap doesn't happen (or even if the kid in question doesn't hold the "quiet time" quietly), whatever outing we were planning on after nap can't happen. This is partly because the non-napper inevitably falls asleep in the car, thus creating havoc at bedtime and making for a very cranky kid when I wake him up after a 5-minute snooze. So we mostly stay at home or just go places where we can walk on days when naps don't happen.

What gets us through no-nap time? Smoothie and markers for D, coffee for me.

The other day, we were planning to go to the library after nap. I told Dash that if he didn't nap, we wouldn't be able to go because he'd fall asleep in the car and would be too cranky. He didn't nap. When Nick woke up from his nap, Dash asked if we were going to the library. Of course, I said, "no, you didn't nap." And he was furious. But I held the line, listened to his feelings, gave him space. He likes to stomp off into another room and cry in there; after months of trying to get him to let me hold him, I've learned to just go check in on him periodically. So I let him do his thing for a while. And then I checked in with him. He wasn't ready to talk. I checked in again. He said, "I'm crying right now." I checked in again. This time, our conversation went like this:

Me: How are you feeling now, Dashie?
Dash: I'm all done crying now. We didn't go to the library because I didn't nap.
Me: You feel better now?
Dash: Yes.
Me: We'll go to the library tomorrow.
Dash: Ye-eah! I want to play with trucks now!

It is so hard to listen to our kids cry when they don't get what they want. It is so worth it.

And yes, we went to the library the next day.

What We've Been Up To

I'm still here. Still in one piece. We've made it across the country. Sold our lovely home. Have had some long, long nights and lots of long days too. But it's getting better. And soon we'll be moving into what we hope will be our new home for a long, long time. More on that later.

The boys have started nursery at the same Waldorf school where I'm currently teaching. Their teacher mentioned at our parent-teacher conference that instead of doing sensory stuff for sensory's sake (while I'm doing something else, for example), we should be inviting the kids to participate more often in the life of the home. So I've been trying to break some habits I've held for a while—coping mechanisms, really. Giving the guys something to do while I cook, or cooking only when they're asleep or out of the house is just easier. But it doesn't teach them where food comes from, or how to make their own lunches.

Cutting grapes for that day's school lunch.

I still like giving the guys "non-productive" sensory activities during free play time at home because I know that all play is work for them. But I'm starting to build in some practical play in the hope of letting our life flow more evenly with the life they live at school.

So this is how we Waldorfed today:

I couldn't get a photo of them mixing the batter with their hands, but here is the mess we made. I measured the flour and baking powder and salt into two bowls, which they combined with buttermilk and lard in a big bowl. 

Then we took the dough and kneaded it and broke it into smaller pieces.

The final product: I helped make them a bit more uniform in size, but the fellas did most of this work themselves. While the biscuits baked, I cleaned the kitchen and the boys helped their dad do laundry. 

Snack: hard-boiled eggs, some leftover broth, and biscuits!

Then we went outside to rake pine straw in the yard. We raked and put the straw into compost bins for about an hour before the guys moved on to another activity (bubbles for a few minutes, then riding their balance bikes). All that time, I was active, too, enjoying the crisp fall air, the gentle exercise, the feeling of accomplishment. As much as I love going to a park and hanging out with a friend, the truth is that park outings are pretty sedentary for adults with older toddlers. I can sit back or walk slowly with them. This way of being with my kids makes me participate more fully in life, too. No checking out with my iPhone. Just feeling the air, being in the sun, doing good work.

It's a big yard.

Taking a break.

After a bit of a break, we came back to the raking and finished what we'd started. The yard is lovely now. It is much, much harder to work with toddlers helping. Their internal pace is different. Their breaks involved wrestling and getting out other toys and digging in the dirt.

I don't think that I would have let them into the kitchen before now—maybe one kid, but not twins. But now they can hold a knife, can follow complex directions, can mostly listen when I ask them not to dump the flour on the floor. They're learning what all the phases of a project in the home are: starting out, cleaning up, enjoying the fruits of their labors. After we finished our work and play in the yard, we came in and they made themselves sandwiches (ok, I helped, but they held the butter knives with me and spread all the nut butter and jelly). On days like today, I see how confident they are when they do things (mostly) themselves, and how pleased they are to take full part in all the chores we're doing. This is good practice for me, too: I can watch how they engage with the tasks we're undertaking—one left a lot more flour on the floor than the other; one needed to change focus more often. I get to work on my patience and let go of perfectionism. 

It's a pretty good life.

Play 'Gether

This post is for the parents of multiples whose kids are still under two. This is for the mom who sent this link to the twins club. Excerpt:

Things will never get back to “normal”—as you defined normal when you were single—when you were childless. Never.

This is true. We're deluding ourselves if we think that we can add any other human being to our family lives and still be the same person, the same normal that we were before. Never mind adding two at once! The thing to do, then, is to focus not on how you've lost your true self, but to see what's still the same, what's left at the core. And to nurture that. So maybe you don't go to yoga five days a week anymore. Maybe you have to redefine what "doing yoga" means—a deep breath is yoga.

But I digress. Let us back on track:

It changes. You get better. You grow. Learn. And that little squealer—that awesome toddler—that slightly evil three-year-old—he grows. Learns. Changes. It gets better. When you learn and change and grow and all that—it all gets better.

It does get better: now when the boys are fighting over a toy, I often hear one of them declare "play 'gether!" And they do.

This is what change, what better looks like: I spent an hour bored on the couch while my boys played a trashcan game. Pictured above: clearing out the bins in order to dump more trash.

More better: An outing to the park during which I spent 40 minutes "punching tickets" with my phone while the boys went for a "train ride."

This is a train. I believe they're dismounting...

D is collecting more tickets to punch. N seems to be meditating.

Not everything is photo-worthy, but also nice are the small daily kindnesses I see these two bestow on each other. Almost every skirmish over a toy ends with a "Here, Dashie!" or "Nicky's turn!"—unprompted by me. The ones that don't end that way end with words like "Dashie sad. Dashie cry." (often followed by "Here, Dashie!").

Most better: I was too tired to carry anyone from car to house, so I suggested that they find another way. Dash tried to get Nick to pick him up; Nick had a different idea.

Good idea, Nick!

How can we make holding hands even more fun?

Well, we could climb stairs while holding hands.

Almost two-and-a-half is tiring and frustrating in many, many ways. But it's still much easier than  juggling two newborns.

Talking to Kids

I'm thinking a lot today about how we speak to people, and even more, how we speak to kids. Now, I'm certainly no saint in this regard—my whole life, I've been told (mostly by my parents) that my tone of voice gives away my true feelings. But I'm working hard especially with my kids to be aware of what I say, why, and how I say it. The book Simplicity Parenting offers a lovely set of guidelines to consider before speaking:

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

Not everything I say in my children's presence meets all three of these criteria (and certainly not when I'm eye-rolling to a friend about the woman I saw telling her 2.5 year-old to "use your core!" when lifting a heavy toy). But I do try to keep them in mind when I'm speaking to my kids. Why? In my experience, our kids understand everything we say, and internalize the messages we send with our tone and our body language, even if they don't actually know what all the words mean. 

Here's the gist of what it means to communicate with your kids (from Janet Lansbury's lovely post explaining the basics of RIE):

Be clear. Be honest. That's what our kids really need.

There's a world of difference between being frustrated and taking out your frustration on your kids. And learning to be kind and clear is hard, especially when you're trying to help your two toddlers brush their teeth and go to bed. Sometimes, you catch yourself turning into the Monster Mommy (you know, growly and cranky), and you have to stop and go in another room and take a breath. Or five breaths. And then you sit down with that toddler and listen, really listen to what he has to say (even if all he has to say is screaming).

Every day is another chance to practice.

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.

How to entertain two toddlers.

Step 1: Acquire beans. Put them in one or two large, clear plastic tubs. Provide measuring cups and smaller containers. Put the whole collection on a blanket or sheet.

Step 2: Place toddlers in front of beans.

Step 3: Relax! Take some pictures. Check your email. Make dinner. 

Five to twenty minutes of independent toddler play, guaranteed. Bliss. Love this idea? Check out Creative With Kids for more!