Category: Life

When you have young kids, getting them to do the things you need them to do can be difficult. This isn’t earth-shattering information. All parents know this. Every stage of their lives you have to constantly adapt your methods of motivation in order to just keep things moving along enough to get through your day.

Of course, motivating twins is a special challenge since you have the whole “sissy first” issue. Neither kid wants to be the first one to do something (or stop doing something as the case may be). Who wants to be the first one to get their hair washed in the bath? No thanks. First one to go potty in the morning? Forget it. First one to get their shoes on? Pass. It’s always “Sissy First!” Eventually, they do nothing for long enough that you give up and try to put their shoes on for them… “NO! I’ll DO IT!” they shout. *sigh*… but you’re not doing it, that’s the problem.

There are methods that you try which fail miserably. One of these I call “The Winner”. I do not suggest this tactic. It consists of proclaiming the first one to do something as the winner. “The first one to get their shoes on wins!” Sounds foolproof right? Everyone likes winning. Unfortunately, 3-year-olds don’t have a nuanced approach to not winning. Yes, you have accomplished your goal in getting at least one kid moving, but the child who does not win is now throwing a fit because they “didn’t get to win too.” In attempts mitigate this, you concoct some other winning condition, but God help you if the ‘losing’ child does not win that one. You might as well go back to bed.

Thus, I recently instituted the “Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Moe” method. Everyone who was once a kid knows what this is all about. It’s so simple. Takes only a few seconds. The girls really enjoy it. I get to choose the kid I want to go first and they’re none the wiser. Hell, I was probably 14 years old before I realized that it was not, in fact, random.

Respect the Moe

Using Eenie, Meanie solves one problem… selecting who goes first. However, the remaining problem is getting them to actually agree to the outcome. If they get chosen, the first reply is often “No! Do it again!” I’ve began calling this “Respect the Moe”. Which I really really enjoy saying, even if they don’t totally get it. I think that needs to be on a T-shirt. Needs to be a trending hashtag on Twitter: #RespectTheMoe. Delivered with enough emphasis and you can defuse arguments… sometimes.

This method is so effective that often if we try to do something they don’t want they will shout “DO EENIE MINEY MOE!”.  That’s how I know I’ve accomplished something.

Chalk this up to another of the literally thousands of things I never even thought to think about before I had kids.

Some toddlers don’t like to go to bed… Wait, who am I kidding… *most* toddlers don’t like to go to bed. Ours included.

Dealing with twins, you learn very early to be on a schedule. If you get off schedule you’re going to have a bad time. One might even say, we’re schedule Nazis. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. In fact, the girls are so used to this, that if we miss bedtime by even 30 minutes, they devolve into wailing banshees that no amount of coddling, cajoling, or threatening can stop. Every parent out there knows the joy of over-tired kids.

That being said, bedtimes in our house is a constant battle. They will be perfectly fine leading up to the ultimate event. They’ll eat their dinner (sometimes), get into jammies, read books, drink milk, sing songs, all the stuff we usually do. However, when it comes time to actually put them into their beds and close the door, all bets are off.

They often become (Alex especially) what I call “bedtime hypochondriacs.” They will complain about phantom maladies that up until this very instant they didn’t even think about. What follows is a checklist of every thing I’ve heard from them in the past few months at bedtime. Most of these would be preceded by an “ummm….” and a pause while they try to come up with the best one.

Toddler Bedtime Excuse Checklist

Section 1. “My ________ hurts.”

[ ] Tummy (the big one we hear almost every night)
[ ] Bum
[ ] Eye
[ ] Cheek
[ ] Ear
[ ] Hair
[ ] Neck
[ ] Throat
[ ] Arm
[ ] Hand
[ ] Finger
[ ] Fingernail
[ ] Leg
[ ] Knee
[ ] Foot
[ ] Toe
[ ] Toenail

You could also replace “hurts” with “itches” and double that list. We get that too.

Dealing with these “symptoms” is a delicate issue. They will usually just tell you about it, and perhaps demand a band-aid. But sometimes if they get too worked up about them, they will scream and cry even more. So, you have to play them right. I’ve found that telling them, “I’m sorry your _____ hurts. How about we try sleeping, and if it still hurts in the morning I will fix it, ok?” works best. This can be difficult to do calmly when you’ve gone into their room 5 times in the past 20 minutes. They will often reply, “But it really really hurts.” Child, I wish you could understand the parable about crying wolf…

Section 2. “The conditional requirements”

This section is all about their particular needs in their beds.

[ ] “My cover/blankie fell off” – they have to have their blankets juuuust right on their head or they’ll cry. This is the most popular one.
[ ] “Turn my pillow over” (An Alex one)
[ ] “Where’s my doggy/bear/baby?” – the toys in their bed
[ ] “Dropped/can’t find my bink” – Yes, they still have pacifiers. Pick your battles. This one will get ugly one day. We’re not up to it yet.
[ ] “It’s too dark/I’m afraid of the dark” – since when?
[ ] “There’s a dog toy on the floor” – why this will keep them from sleeping I have no idea.
[ ] “I’m thirsty”
[ ] “I’m hungry”
[ ] “I have to go potty” – even though we went potty not 8 minutes ago before we went to bed
[ ] “Dad, sissy woke me up” – Usually by crying about one of the other things on this list.
[ ] “I have a hair in my mouth” – This is a new one. Alex’s discovery. Very difficult to disprove, and she sells it well (reaching into her mouth to find said phantom hair). Usually “it’s deep in my throat” is added.

Most of these are fairly easy to remedy (not counting the hair). However, if you give into the hungry/thirsty ones, you’re in trouble. They will keep going to that well until you shut it down. Those require setup to defuse. Before putting them down, you gotta tell them “This is your last chance for milk. You’d better drink it now. No more”. Generally however, if you go in and get one of these, you can usually fix it quickly and get out.

Section 3. General Random Questions/Statements
This is the type of questions they will ask for no apparent reason, other than to postpone bedtime as much as possible and they’ve already used one or more of the above excuses.
[ ] “When are we going to Pittsburgh?” – We’re going for a family wedding in October. Unfortunately we told them about it.
[ ] “When is ________”? (holiday). Enter any holiday. Recently I’ve gotten Easter, Halloween, Christmas, St. Patricks Day, Valentines Day, Super Bowl.
[ ] “When are we going to grandmas?” – Even if we just came back from Grandmas.
[ ] Any other question or statement about recent events

These are by far the easiest to handle. Quick answers followed by a “now go to sleep” usually works.

The really bad nights are when they are just wired. They will NOT listen to a word you say. They laugh and talk and shout and cry and generally drive you absolutely bananas. There is very little you can do to either get them to sleep and/or keep your sanity.

Other bedtime techniques.

A few months ago, Jess realized that the girls love, and I mean LOVE, mini marshmallows. They would probably invade Poland if we promised them enough marshmallows. So, she had an epiphany. Give the girls 5 marshmallows in a cup by their bed. If we have to come in, we take one out and that’s one less they get to eat in the morning. It works sometimes. A good concrete thing then can wrap their minds around. “If I have to come in again, I’m taking a marshmallow” usually quiets them down. Unfortunately, not always, and you’ll find yourself threatening to take ALL of the marshmallows away. I’m not proud, but it happens.

Much in that same vein, we remind them of things they want to do, and if they don’t go to sleep they won’t get to do it. How well this works, I don’t know. The followthrough on that those isn’t as good as it should be.

Anyway, this is our nightly battle. Sometimes we win. Mostly, they win. Occasionally, they win big, and we spend an hour and a half repeatedly going into their room and slowly losing our minds.

The worst part is by the time we get them in bed, it’s 8ish. We’re usually exhausted and in bed by 9:30ish. So, we have at most an hour and a half a day to do anything other than wrangle kids or work. That is precious time that when they cut into you really feel it.

I should say, that for the most part, they sleep through the night. *knock on wood* The nights where we gotta get out of bed to tend to them are few and far between.

All things being equal I will take this 1000% more than those first 8 months of getting up in the middle of the night to feed them. Plus, I do have to say, sometimes they can be super sweet, like when they say, “I forgot to give you a hug” or “Dad, I love you.” It doesn’t totally make up for the other nights, but it helps.

Now, if we could just work on the occasional 5:20am “I want to wake up now” episodes…

Life with toddlers learning to talk is just one of those things. Sometimes it’s terrific and sometimes it’s not. More so of both when there are two of them spewing words at you non-stop.

For example, months ago they adopted the word “milp” which meant “milk”. Simple enough. Jess and I even found ourselves asking them if they wanted “milp”. Fun to say.

Well, somehow, a few weeks ago they completely changed it up on us. They no longer say “milp”. Now the word they use for milk sounds way more like “nap”.  Those were a difficult couple days while we tried to figure out what in the hell they were saying. I still don’t know how they both were able to change the word at the same time. I picture them laying in their cribs at night conspiring to confuse he hell out of mom and dad.

Last week I was with Alex and Meri while Jess was out. Alex walked up to me and said a word that sounded like “cut”. It was obvious she was asking for something, it wasn’t just a statement. She had nothing in her hands, we weren’t eating or anything. No context clues whatsoever. Just out of the blue. Being 2, she didn’t just say “cut”… it was more like “cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, CUT, CUT, CUT…”

I literally had no idea what she was saying. So I start fishing, “cut?” I ask.

“Yeah”, she replied.

Shit… that doesn’t help me any.

“Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut…”

“Something to eat? A toy? Can you help Daddy out?”

“Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut…”

Amazingly, hearing the word 75 times hasn’t helped me understand what she wanted. In desperation I turned to Meri to see if she could possibly act like a UN language translator.

“Hey Meri, do you know what sissy wants? Do you know what she’s saying?”

Meri replied, “cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut…”

Wonderful.

Luckily for me, 2 year olds are easily distracted and we moved on to something else. To this day, I still have no idea what she was saying. Jess has heard it as well, and similarly doesn’t have a clue.

Some other word adventures…

The word “more” has been said roughly 7 million times in our house since they first learned it a year ago. However, now it sounds like “moy” instead.

The word “uh-oh” is also used contsantly. Unfortunately they do not understand the difference between an actual accident and something they are doing on purpose. Meri will be standing there unzipping her pajamas all the while saying “uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh…”. Sweetie, that is not an uh-oh, you’re just being naughty.

Alex’s big thing lately is “hot”. Everything is hot. If it’s not stone cold, it must then be hot. We have to constantly reassure her that her that nothing is hot.

They are addicted to the movie Monsters Inc. Specifically, the very first scene of the movie where the monster screams and then falls down in the simulator. They let us know they want to watch this by repeating the words “guy fall” over and over and over again.

“peas” = please
“doot do” = thank you
“kak-kah” = cracker
“coo” or “coo coo” = cookie

They’ll pick up their toy purses they got for Christmas from grandma, sling them over their shoulder and say, “bye-bye… seelater”.

Must to Jess’s chagrin, Alex will occasionally just call her “mom”. She gave me a “dad” the other day.

Alex has had a rash on her rear, and she’ll say “bum hurt”. Sad and funny at the same time.

They love to talk about toots and poo poo. They must be my kids after all.

Still, the most uttered word by sheer volume is “uhh”. This is the catch-all word that is repeated ad nauseum. Any time they don’t fell like using their words and/or don’t know what words they want, they just say “uh uh uh uh uh uh…” it is quite aggravating. That is one bit of this journey I won’t miss when we pass by.

There is certainly never a dull moment in the Habertwin household.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Last week, it was my time to shine.

With Jess going back to work after Christmas and my office being closed for the holiday (as well as our daycare being closed), it fell upon me to man up and maintain the Habertwins for 4 straight days all by my lonesome. To say it was an adventure would be an understatement.

These girls are high energy and completely mobile. They just don’t stay in one place for more than 37 seconds at a time and are usually heading in opposite directions. Actually, that is probably a good thing since Alex has a penchant for horse collar tackles of Meri and mashing their heads together. Anyway, the best we can do in our house to keep them corralled is to close all the doors to bedrooms and bathrooms. However, the main living area of our house is one big open room of kitchen, living & dining rooms. It is impossible to keep them in a small contained area. One day, as I was feeding Alex a bottle, Meri was occupying herself by dunking a book in the dog’s water bowl. Needless to say, I spent a good deal of time chasing them down. If I had a dollar bill for every time I said either of their names, “come here” or “no” we could retire early and hire a live in nanny.

Here is a visual representation of what went on in our house. This first picture is all of their old toys and new Christmas stuff semi-neatly piled up out of the way:

After 2 hours:

And after 4 hours:

You might notice that the density of toys seems lower in the last picture… that is because many of the toys have since migrated out of the living room area and are now in the kitchen, dining room and elsewhere.

One thing I learned fast was to break the day down into more digestible chunks.

First chunk was getting them out of bed, diapers changed, bottles fed, breakfast fed, another diaper change (poopies this time), play time, then down for their first nap, sometime between 9:30am and 10am. Yeah, they’re weird. For some reason, they can sleep 12 hours, wake up for 2 and be tired again.

During that nap, I can finally relax, maybe take a pee, and polish off the coffee without having to keep little hands out of the mug. The thing is with these girls, you can’t set anything down where they might reach it. Because they WILL reach it and dump/poor/spill/wreck anything they can. However, one benefit of being the only one home watching them is that I get to drink the entire pot of coffee myself. The caffeine jolt helps quite a bit. About an hour after they go down, you start watching the clock, just knowing they are going to start hollering soon. The first day I got them up when they only napped for 45 minutes. That was dumb. By Friday when they squaked at an hour in, I let them spend 10 minutes crying when they fell back asleep for another hour. It’s all a learning process.

Chunk 2 is getting them up from the nap, doing more bottles, more diapers, then some lunch. Feeding them is probably one of the most stressful parts of this whole deal. They keep you on your toes. You just never know what they’re going to want. Sometimes, they HAVE to feed themselves, and will do the tight-seal-mouth-turn-the-head method of spoon refusal. Other times, you’ll get out some pieces of cheese or banana or whatever on their tray and they won’t touch it. One time, Alex would pick up a piece of food from her tray, look me square in the face and drop it right on the floor with disdain. *sigh* Or, food they loved yesterday and couldn’t get enough of, today they will spit out the second it touches their tongue. I don’t even want to think about what this bodes for the future. One thing they always seem to like is Cheerios. Which is a good thing, unless the dog is at doggy day care to stay out of dad’s hair for the day. Tuesday, there were roughly 4,739 cheerios spread across the floor.

The afternoons are not as structured as the mornings. It is a lot of play time. The thing with 1 year olds, is that at least as far as I know, they aren’t really into organized activities. Which makes killing time so difficult. On Wednesday, the Grandparents took the girls for 3 hours which was like a mini vacation. I came home and napped. Thursday and Friday the weather was so nice (in the 40’s) that we were able to take LONG walks around the neighborhood. Friday afternoon in particular, we went almost 4 miles in an hour and a half. They slept a little in the Bob stroller. I put on my headphones and could zone out for a while. That was nice.

Hopefully, they’ll take an afternoon nap somewhere in there. Afternoon naps are iffy though. Most often, they’re pretty short. Then it’s just killing time until mommy comes home to help out. I can remember one day looking at the clock on the wall and thinking, “Ok… just 5 hours and 10 minutes until Jess gets home”. Then looking at the clock again at what felt like 40 minutes later… 5 hours and 5 minutes until she gets home. Ooof.

One day, Alex pooped 4 times. Throw in 2 for Meri, it made for a stinky day.

I admit, shortcuts were taken as well. They stayed in pajamas all day. Life was just easier that way. Besides, we weren’t in public anyway. In fact, Dad stayed in pajama pants and a t-shirt as well. Funny how everything else goes right out the window. I didn’t get dressed. I didn’t shower. I only put actual clothes on when I took them for a walk. Only one of the 4 days did I even remember to eat lunch. I didn’t accomplish a single other thing than tending to the Habertwinadoes. I’m guessing that it probably takes a month or 2 before you reach a point where one could watch kids and still accomplish other things like cleaning up or doing laundry. I’m certainly not there yet.

All of that being said, it was probably a good thing for me to have done this. If anything, I figure if I can do that I can do just about anything. Plus they did get some quality Dad time. Not that they don’t get a good amount of that on a regular basis, but with mom nowhere to be found, they couldn’t be dependent on her. I think by Friday, the girls were getting used to Dad’s program as well. Having one less set of hands makes putting them down for a nap different. Instead of them each getting one on one rocking and bottle time, they got to share Dad’s lap. I held a bottle and a baby in each arm and rocked them. Tuesday, they didn’t like this much and cried for 20 minutes after I put them in their cribs. By Friday, they went right down for their nap with nary a peep. No muss, no fuss.

And, all of the work aside, they can be a lot of fun when they’re in good moods. And even when they’re choosing to not eat, sometimes they can be pretty funny. I also was able to spend some time teaching them where their noses and ears are. It is pretty cute to see them point to their noses when I ask where they are. However, Meri will often stick her finger IN her nose… which I suppose is still correct. Unfortunately, they don’t like to perform in front of others. So, it’s a pretty tough skill to show off.

I’m pretty interested to see what 2012 has in store. I can almost see these girls getting bigger every day. Each day they get better balance. They learn something new. They are sleeping in now, if you can believe it. During the break, they slept til 7, 7:30 and once til almost 8am. That is a far cry from the 5:45am days. In fact, this morning when heading back to work we had to set an alarm, get ourselves up and ready at 6:40, before waking them up. I never thought I’d see the day. It was the first alarm I have set in 13 months. Crazy.

I’m really trying my best to soak in the things I enjoy before they’re gone. Probably my all time favorite is the few times a day when they’ll nestle their heads on my shoulder when holding them. If they only knew that was the perfect way to keep dad from ever putting them down…