Blogging about kids is hard

There are so many poignant, important blogs I could write right now about the struggles and triumphs of my children as they blossom into full-fledged big kids. I have words of comfort for other parents, I have tales of trials and tribulations, I have questions about how to handle these phases now that my kids are old enough to fully and loudly voice their opinions about my parenting.

But I can't.

Every time I try to write about something we're going through, I have to stop. It's gotten too private. Things that would have easily gotten a pass for me to write about when the girls were babies or toddlers, I'm no longer comfortable discussing. Not because we have anything to be ashamed of, but because my girls are more than just extensions of myself. And I feel like they have the right to their quirks, oddities and behaviors. That they have the right to work out their personalities in some semblance of privacy.

And since any reflection of my parenting will inevitably involve them, I've really stopped writing. I don't know if it's the right decision, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. And given the topics on which I've written before I came to this conclusion, it may already be too late.

At any rate, my children can read well now. Anything I type down can be easily digested by their eyes and minds. And blogging necessitates a removal of self from the situation which is fine to require of myself, but unfair to ask my six year olds to attempt. There is no 'greater good' here other than the healthy development of my kids and their psyches and safe spaces.

So, to all the essays, blogs, articles and ideas I have floating around, I apologize for letting you grow stale. I'm sorry I'm letting you dry up in the recesses of my mind rather than typing you down. I'm sorry that it turns out you're not so important after all.

My kids have always been my number one priority for as much and as often as I fail with them. What started out as a way to better myself as a parent to them has become, as they age, a forum that feels exploitative and crude.

I'm not saying all mommy bloggers must stop writing, far from it. I'm simply saying I'm not a good enough writer right now to transcend the privacy issues I'm seeing with every single blog idea I have today.

Maybe someday I'll do better.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one -- Guest Post

I was a weird kid.

A shy kid. A sensitive kid.

A dreamer.

I knew instinctively, from early childhood on, that I was somehow different from nearly everyone around me. I was perplexed by people, and they, in turn, seemed somewhat perplexed by me.

I was fascinated by them, though. I watched them constantly, everywhere I went. I watched them walking around, making small talk with each other as they passed. I watched their gestures, their easy, spontaneous laughter. I studied their faces, picking apart their features, observing the way they smiled and the way their eyes danced while they talked to each other, sharing some small momentary connection with one another. They were beautiful creatures.

But I wasn’t one of them.

Why?

I didn’t know. But I was somehow certain of it.

I made a conscious decision to become one of them. Surely I could do that if I really tried. I was smart enough, and I knew it. I could figure this out with sheer willpower and brain power.

One of the first things I realized by my observations is that people didn’t like smart, though. At least not in girls. My brother was smart and he was practically worshipped. I was three years younger, painfully shy and awkward, and I wanted what he had: an easy air of confidence and the respect and admiration of everyone around him. He deserved it; he was awesome! I wanted it too, and was determined to get it.

Good grades came effortlessly to me. I loved standardized testing days, and looked forward to them all year. School was fairly boring – even with gifted/talented classes – but it gave me plenty of time to observe my peers and try my damnedest to emulate their behaviors. Somehow, though, I always fell short. I still replay my childhood social errors in my head, over and over, and berate myself for being “so stupid.” I had a hard time reconciling the fact that I could be simultaneously intelligent and stupid. And it seemed that people disapproved of me if I displayed either trait. I yearned to be average, yet I liked being smart, because it made me feel competent in a world that was confusing and overwhelming. However, the smarter I appeared, the less people liked me. Well, the teachers liked me….the children, not so much. I made a few good friends over the years who accepted me, guided me, and even came to appreciate my weirdness. The rest of the kids, by and large, treated me with a mixture of mild curiosity and contempt. They called me things like “bookworm,” “geek,” and “schoolie.” They teased me for being horrifically inept at all things phys ed-related, for being “gullible,” and for the way I used to bite my nails and the skin on my fingertips until they were raw and bloody.

I kept trying though. Oh, lord, did I try to fit in. I’d choose a girl I admired – a cool, confident girl – and try to become her. I’d emulate everything from her clothing to her mannerisms and speech. I made an effort to tone down my use of big words while speaking to peers. It was almost physically painful to do so. In class, I knew just about every answer to the teacher’s questions, but I made a “rule” for myself: I could only raise my hand for every 6th question. I spent my school days sitting at my desk, daydreaming, humming tunes to myself, watching kids and counting questions, sitting on my hand to avoid it automatically shooting into the air with each of the teacher’s queries.

I had the typical “pedantic speech” of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, a true “little professor.” At age one, I could speak in full sentences, yet I did not walk until 17 months. My mother said she thought I could have walked earlier, but I just too stubborn and scared to try (yep, that sounds about right). Even as a baby, I was not comfortable with change or trying new things. I ate basically NOTHING, which was a major source of contention in our family throughout my childhood. I knew that my “picky” eating habits (which I now know is actually an eating disorder called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) were causing my parents to tear their hair out. I was also keenly aware that my entire extended family was raising their collective eyebrows and wondering why my parents weren’t force-feeding me ham or the assortment of terrifying, mayonnaise-laden salads at holiday parties. I wanted to please my family so much, but it wasn’t enough to make me overcome my significant sensory issues and try new foods. Still, to this day, my diet is quite limited. I basically survive on assorted cheeses. My eating habits have only improved marginally since I was that little girl feeling disapproval every time I couldn’t eat what was served for dinner.

My childhood wasn’t all bad. In fact, in many ways, it was great. I may have been different, but I was definitely loved. My parents were unknowingly doing all the right things: consistency, schedules, and routines were big in my family. My social life may have been tumultuous, but I had stability and support at home. Dinner was at 5:00 pm sharp every single day. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and kept a nice, tidy home. She and I were close. I think she was unsure how to handle my intense sensitivity and frequent emotional outbursts, but she understood me in a way that no one else could. I think she is somewhat of a “dreamer” herself.

Things completely fell apart when my parents got divorced, right at the time I was approaching adolescence, when the social stakes get higher. I needed support more than ever before, and there was none to be found. I’m not sure I would have made it through middle school without the help of a very supportive guidance counselor. I felt….simply lost. I didn’t know exactly who I was yet, but I knew without a doubt that I was a failure. A defective person. I had tried SO HARD to be like everyone else, and I had failed. Effort and intellect weren’t enough.

It all came to a head at age 14, when I made the decision I had been seriously considering for four years. I decided to kill myself.

I rummaged through our medicine cabinet and found several bottles of prescription pills. One said in bold capital letters: “DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL.” “Perfect,” I thought, as I raided the liquor cabinet, took out my mom’s signature bottle of store-brand Light Vodka, and mixed it with orange soda pop. I brought all my supplies up to my room, and shook the pills out into three neat piles on the white dresser that used to reside in my pepto-pink little girl bedroom, but was now in a run-down house owned by my mom’s second husband.

Before I started popping the pills in groups of threes and washing them down with swigs of my vodka drink, I set my alarm clock for 6:30 AM. I thought that if this suicide attempt didn’t work, I’d better be prepared to get up and go to school in the morning, just like any other weekday. As silly as that action sounds….it saved my life. The next morning, my brother heard my alarm blaring incessantly and found me in bed, unconscious. The doctors later told my mom that if I hadn’t been found when I was, I wouldn’t have made it. Thank goodness for my compulsion for routines!

I’ve come a long, long way since that incident. That was my darkest moment, and although there were many other dark times in my life after that, they paled in comparison to that singular act of complete desperation and despair at age 14. Still, I didn’t quite find myself until I was 32…

You see, I’d had a daughter, and she was like me. She was different too.

She was a weird kid.

A sensitive kid.

A dreamer.

Her eyes shone bright like sunbeams. She was different, yes, but in a magnificent, magical way. And I saw myself in her.

I found myself through her.

We dream together now.

...

"Amber Appleton Torres" is a stay at home mother of three, the eldest two of whom are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. After their diagnoses, she realized she is on the spectrum as well, and got her own Asperger's diagnosis. She blogs about her family's journey at https://onebigaspiefamily.wordpress.com/

Growing Up, the Good and Bad

My little girls are in preschool. Both in the 'wow, they're growing up' way, and in the 'they are actually, right now, not in my house' way. Both ways are fantastic.

But, let's talk about growing up. I have a hard time with change and passage of time, and growing up captures both of these fears in its inevitable way. I had more than two years with my kids at home. With nothing but my kids at home. After having worked for the first 18 months of their lives, I was happy to spend this time with them, to get to know them, to guide them, all that sappy stuff.

But, being inundated with them, day in and day out, I had a hard time appreciating them, their phase in life. I was annoyed, touched out, sometimes even snappish. They are a lot. A lot of everything. And I knew better, I really did. But I can't help my nature, and that nature is not very patient. So my impatience definitely hampered some of my time with them. Instead of always growing with them, playing with them, and excusing their age-appropriate behavior, I wished the days by. Enough is enough is too much of this.

But it's time I'll never get back. And I'm thankful for the times when I was able to take a step back and really look at my babies...for who they were at two and three and four. Now that they're gone for three hours a day, we can never go back to the full-time, all-the-time, never-apart years again. This is it. They're in school now for the rest of their lives with me. So, really, those two years weren't so long, were they?

And, of course, my friend is torturing me with sappy songs about kids growing up and not giving a damn about their parents anymore, while the parents remember so poignantly the first years of life.

The love a baby/toddler/preschooler has for her mother is beyond any other love I've ever experienced. It truly is unconditional. My kids love me hard. They love me so hard.

Will that go away with time?

I fear that. I want them to love me like this, like I love them, for all of their lives, with no breaks for angsty teenage years, no breaks as they struggle to figure out who they are apart from me.

So, while I relish that my kids are growing up and this is how it should be, I am also incredibly sad that these years, this love, will also change and grow. I want my cake while eating it. As always.

I love you, girls.


 

Live the Present and the Future

Someone said something to me online the other day that was meant as support, but it stuck in my craw. I'd written a piece about being a stay at home mom, and how finally, after a few years of it, I've finally accepted what the role is and what it means to me. And I feel good about it. And I feel successful. You know, the same old drill you get here every gd day. Anyway, she left a long comment, and in it was this:

"I found that I needed and wanted the middle-ground of doing a little of both. My younger sister was happy being a SAH mom, but I realized that she was always more of a "living in the now" person than "living toward a goal" person. THAT probably makes the biggest difference of all."

...

Okay.

So, I really like this person, and I don't want to be a jerk, but I am a living toward a goal person. That's the point. That's why, at first, I had a hard time with this staying home thing. Because I felt like I no longer had any aim, and that the aim I once had would disappear on me, and I'd have to start all over.

For shame, me.

I had to learn that first and foremost, getting these kids to grow up healthy and happy is a goal, a worthy and important one. And it's not as selfless as it sounds. My kids' happiness has everything to do with me, and they'll outlast me (God willing), so, really, they're the most futuristic goal I could achieve.

Secondly, SAHMs still have other goals. One of the reasons I have been able to accept myself as I am is that I changed my course, I made revisions, I made new goals, and I'm working toward them. I assume all SAHMs do this to some extent, and whether their goals are to write novels, host an online shop, do photography, or just keep the damn house clean--they're still goals.

Third and related, how does working at a job, in and of itself, make one goal-oriented? Most of the people I know that are forced to do the nine-to-five, whether they're cashiers or executives, are just trading time for money. Yes, there are some that are ambitiously pushing for more (usually for more money in less time), and I thought I would be one of those, but when I look back on my "career" I see that I was fooling myself. The hours I was spending at work were exactly that. Hours spent at work.

In fact, I have more and better goals now than I did when I was working. And better still, I have a plan to get there. Why? Because I have the time to think of a plan. I have the energy (some days) to organize the steps and to do the detail work. Because when I'm not working for someone else's dollar, I am free to work on myself and on my kids.

Now, she's not all wrong. One of the greatest things being a SAHM has taught me is how to live in the now. When I'm at the library, reading books to my kids, I can't be bothered with worrying over who's following me on twitter or what I have to do to increase my author following. I have to be there for them, in the moment. And if I'm not, it ruins the time for them and for me without furthering anything.

So, as a SAHM, I get the benefit of the now and of the future, too.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm damn lucky, and I'm damn thankful. This is a really good life, and while I know it will change, I'm happy to be able to live in the now and still be a goal-oriented person. Being a SAHM has allowed me to do that. Being a stay at home mom has allowed me to grow up.

It's not for everyone. It's not the best thing for everyone. It's not the best for every child or every parent. And to those working, I salute you. I, personally, having done both, think it's harder to be a WOHM. It's different, almost incomparable, but for me, it was harder.

I feel truly blessed that I have been afforded the opportunity to go on this journey, and that I have found what's right for me at this particular time. Goals and time and online comments notwithstanding.


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Things Your Kids Should Be Able to Do by Four

Oftentimes, I live in a hellish world of lunacy where children just less than four make the rules. And this seems totally reasonable. Why? Well, they're the only people I see all day, so suddenly playing markers in nothing but underwear and throwing cereal on the floor when we're pissed seem like reasonable things to do.

Okay, those are exaggerations, but the point is, don't be fooled. They're wrong. Your kids are wrong. They simply don't know what they're talking about, and they don't know what's good for them. It's true.

Here's a short list of things your neurotypical child should be able to do by the time she's ready to turn four.

1) Use the bathroom by herself.

This is the main driving point behind this post. One day last week, I was at my rope's end. I had been sitting in the bathroom, with my perfectly capable children, reading them stories or making up stories to tell them while they were on the potty. It started when one of them had a bit of constipation and I was attempting to distract her while she tried to go. But what started out as one ten-minute story became dozens of stories "until I'm done, until I've gone poopoo." Two and a half hours, that day, Dulce made me sit with her. I had lost my mind.

Then I realized I could get up. There was nothing stopping me from getting up. So I did.

And I went right to facebook to ask if I was being immeasurably cruel by no longer sitting with my kids in the bathroom. The resounding comment cascade? "What are you, nuts?"

Apparently no one in the history of the world does this for their children. Except me. Because my kids told me that sitting in the bathroom was appropriate and that everyone did it. And I believed them.

Don't believe them.

2) Dress herself.

That night I had a major break down / break through. I also stopped dressing them. Because they are freaking almost four years old and they know how to dress themselves. They just don't. And they tell me that I'm supposed to do it. And I believed them.

My girls are more than three feet tall. Have you ever seen a child almost as long as a meter stick stretch out on the floor so you can put her overnight diaper pullup on? Like she's an infant?

It looks ridiculous.

So, I said, no more. You put that on yourself, and your nightie, too. And you take your own clothes off. And do it standing up. For all the commotion in this house, you'd have thought I declared World War Three.

But they finally did it. And they've been doing it since. Because, let's face it, they've probably known how to do it for a whole year, and they were just laughing behind my back as I continued to slave over and baby them.

3) Clean up.

I'm not even going to go into detail about this one, but your child knows how to put toys away. He just does. He knows where they go because he has to go get them to throw around the house, right? And he's seen you put them back hundreds of times. He knows what "pick up your toys" means. Don't do it anymore.

4) Eat.

We tackled this one a long time ago, and my kids are now adept at using silverware. But they'll still be jerks about it when they remember. I can't count how many times I've watched one of my kids aimlessly "try" to stab a piece of chicken, only to victoriously call out that she "can't, it's too hard." Or they'll push the fork so softly, holding it barely erect so that it will clatter to the floor before poking up that squash.

So many times, they've looked at me like, "see? I can't do this." And I've been like, "Well, use your right hand, then." And done.

They know how. It's that simple.


And the interesting thing about this is that they are happier doing things for themselves. They just don't know it. They assume they're happier having you do things for them because it shows you care, or it gives them attention from you, or whatever, but it's probably almost as annoying to them as it is to you. Almost. They just get so used to the routine that they can't imagine life any other way. And neither can you.

It doesn't have to be this way. Stop the insanity. Your kids, and DEFINITELY my kids, can do almost anything by themselves. I just have to stop letting them convince me otherwise.

___
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Looking Back - December Review I

It's always good to take stock of ourselves at some point during year. Most people choose December, and so do I. Not much has changed this year for me...as in, nothing at all, really. I'm trying to further some projects, working freelance and caring for the kids. Boring!

But as my friends hasten to let me know, what I see as tedious, they see as stability. And that's a great gift, one that many do not have. It couldn't be more important in life than when you have young children, either. So I'll take it. I'm grateful for my routine life right now. I'll spice it up again later, I'm sure. Or not. I don't even know. I gave up on making plans long ago.

Anyway, this past January, February and March...what happened?

I had to defend myself against a disgruntled library patron, my two year olds stopped calling me mama, and I couldn't make a bowl of hot cereal to save my life.

I've since improved my skills.

In February, I did my first and only DITL (Day in the Life). I think I'll do it again this February. I also potty trained my kids. Or they potty learned. Or however we say it these days. Which was a battle and victory enough to last the whole year.

In March, Bear had an emergency! My mother helped that time, but I've since learned to sew (at least enough to fix a bear). I also, started recognizing for the first time the very different ways my children learn.

The biggest difference, of course, is merely time. While I'm still me...the girls have gone from this:

To this:

This has been part of the 2011 review extravaganza, put on by several excellent bloggers! I suggest you check it out and link up yourself!

Are Parents Ruining Their Children?

Are parents ruining their children?

This expansive article by Psychology Today, first released in 2004, says yes.

It says that from infancy on, helicopter parents cushion their children's failures while pushing them ever harder for success, and if that success doesn't come naturally, well, the parents help the children along. Anything for a successful child. It concludes that the obsession with perfection from a young age prevents children from growing up. It sites increased depression and anxiety diagnoses and a slowed rate of adults actually being adults (which they define as completing school, holding down a job and starting a family) to back this theory up.

And it's not that I don't agree, necessarily. I think the five-page article brings up many valid points and that parents need to re-look at their dealings with their kids.

But I think those studying this need to take our society into consideration. Remember, if your studies start in 1988 and end in 2004, or continue to the present, you are using the same subjects as both the children and the parents. That's important. For if this child-adults you speak of actually are the parents, then it's no wonder why they coddle their kids the way they do. They don't know any different. You cannot in one breath complain at the immaturity of adults today, then turn around and say those adults should know better while rearing their own kids. Of course they don't.

This is a long-term problem that has been getting worse very very gradually, not just in the last 20, 30 or even 50 years.

As we become more technologically advanced, we are coming up with solutions to problems prevalent in the 1980s. In twenty years from now, the technology will be focused on eradicating the new problems brought into existence by our current solutions to our old problems. This is a pattern that's gone on from the beginning of human existence. It can hardly be blamed solely on "hothouse" parenting.

This is an incredibly long piece, so I'm just going to highlight the select areas I had issues with.

In the very beginning, the study uses an example of a highly competent girl whose parents wrote in to her school, explaining that she had "difficulty with Gestalt thinking." The authors put forward that there was nothing wrong with this girl, that her parents had prematurely set her up for an advantage while taking her SATs.

Now, that could very likely be the case. Or, alternately, the girl could have actually had problems with Gestalt thinking. A close friend of mine in school was very smart, worked very hard on her grades and pulled in good ones. She was social, academically inclined and good at sports. She got a 500 on her SATs. She took the tests three or four times, each with the same dismal results. She'd probably have a lot to say about the smarmy conclusion of this article. Some kids, believe it or not, actually do have the problems they present with, regardless of their competence in other areas. Had my friend been given the unlimited time for the test that trouble with Gestalt thinking allows, she'd have done just fine. Her issue was that she could not skip questions, an imperative piece to doing well on the test. I don't know why she couldn't, but I believe her when she says she couldn't. She's now an elementary school teacher with a master's degree and two children. Wimpy? I think not.

This broadens to the next point of the article which is increases diagnoses of depression and anxiety in college students, supposedly brought on by parental involvement. The article purports that students are pushed to be perfect while at the same time their parents are doing their work for them, blocking them from the natural cycle of failure and disappointment, the result being that students feel they cannot do anything by themselves, and the prospect of having to (in college) folds them into a box of insecurity, anxiety and depression.

Could be. This could definitely be part of it. But we cannot ignore the advanced techniques we now have for diagnosis these conditions and regulating the brain chemicals to help those truly in need. Fifty years ago, these conditions may not have seemed as prevalent, but that doesn't mean they weren't. It simply the ways for treating it (or ignoring it) were different. Those who were not suffering to the point of incapacitation were considered slow, or odd, or slightly off. They had trouble making it in society and often stayed with their parents forever, never even attempting this growing up that the article is so fond of referencing. Those who suffered from advanced symptoms were locked away and shoved under society's rug.

Are people these days using depression and anxiety as a crutch in what should be very normal lives? They could be, I can't talk to that. But I do know that you cannot use such a statistic as evidence of poor parenting practices. It's not logical without taking societal history into account.

The article says parents are no longer teaching their children the essential skills they need to survive. Instead, it says "showing kids how to work the system for their own benefit."

I would say for the sake of argument that learning how to work the system in which you live to your benefit is a valuable life skill.

It attacks cell phones, saying the devices extend the umbilical cord indefinitely. That students and young adults no longer reason for themselves, but simply call mom and dad to get out of trouble.

I would argue that the point of cell phones is to help young people out of trouble. Real trouble. I would say the safety benefits of cell phones outweighs the potential for stunted growth into adulthood. I have a cell phone. An., yeah, I called my mom up until my early twenties if I was scared or sick. Childish? It probably was. But it didn't harm me. And I felt loved and safe. And I'm now 29 with my own family, and I no longer call my mommy when I have the stomach flu or when my car gets towed. Not that this disproves their theory, which I agree with in essence, but I do think cell phones are an advantage, not a disadvantage. Remember, 50 years ago, people stayed a lot closer to home and had their entire extended family network to lean on, in person.

The article boldly states that parental hovering is the cause of failure in young adults. It says the "no man's land" of 20-30 is continuing to extend because children don't know how to be adults themselves, and so they revert to being the children they were never allowed to be in youth.

"Using the classic benchmarks of adulthood, 65 percent of males had reached adulthood by the age of 30 in 1960. By contrast, in 2000, only 31 percent had. Among women, 77 percent met the benchmarks of adulthood by age 30 in 1960. By 2000, the number had fallen to 46 percent."

Remember, the benchmarks are finishing school, getting a job and having a family. Excuse me, but why would we use the classic benchmarks of adulthood here? We're not in 1960. We cannot compare to that without comparing all other factors as well. What about the increasing number of students getting their master's degrees and doing post-doctoral work? What about the economic downturn that is stopping millions of previously employable, competent people from getting jobs? What about women becoming more confident in pursuing careers, so that perhaps their family lives come later? My sister is well on her way to a Ph.D in biomedical engineering. According to this article, I'm the adult, and she's the kid. I'm the success and she's the coddled young adult unable to forge her way.

I don't think so. If you look at my specific family, you'll see it's my siblings that are successful. You cannot define success and adulthood by job and family anymore. It's not fair and it leads to false conclusions.

I think this article is great, don't get me wrong. It certainly gave me a lot to think about as I continue to rear my children. Many of the points are spot on, or at least make enough sense for me to be able to glean the information I need from them for use in my own life.

I do want my kids to be independent. I do want them to play. I do want my life to be easier. I think this article has a lot of tips to help parents who may be faltering on their way. But I also think that they've omitted important study in order to drive home their objectives. And I don't think that's necessary. The world is scary enough, as those writing the article well know.  We need to take things at their face value in the way they currently fit into our society without conflating them without making faulty comparisons and placing extensive blame. Of course parents are at fault for some of their children's problems. Are they responsible for the weakening of the fabric of society? I think that's stretching it.

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Today You Are Three - How Did We Get Here?

Today the babies are actually three (Actually, it's 9:14 a.m. right now, which happens to be the exact time Dulce was born. Now it's 9:15 a.m., exactly the time Natalina was born. This was totally an accident!!)

Here's some photo evidence of their amazing journey.





Dulce











Natalina





The first time I held them.






Dulce says wut?

Natalina says don't even worry about it.

What? Get out of town!

Never fear! We're on dish duty!

No, seriously, mom. We got this.

Oh, we're moving? We conveniently fit in one box.

My sister was the party.

Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for birthday 2.

You mean we knock and people give us candy?

Hating airports, like everyone else.

And suddenly we're three. How does that even happen?

Happy Birthday, Babies.  I love you.

___

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They'll Tell You

The babies will be three next month. For the past six months, maybe a year, I've received many comments and questions about why I still refer to them as babies. And everyone is right. First the term is fitting and correct. Then it's cute in the "aww, she still thinks of her toddlers as babies" way. Then it simply becomes outplayed.

My kids can walk, they can talk, they can think logically. They eat regular food with forks and spoons. They pull down their pants and use the toilet. They make up games and play independently. Long gone are the days of baby-gates and Gerber food. They're big girls now. They even treat the dog with respect. When is mommy going to catch up?

To be honest, the babies themselves have reinforced my incorrect labelling. Because I refer to them as babies, that is what they assume they are. They have no siblings younger or older to compare themselves to. They'll often come up to be and state, "I a baby, mama. I a baby."

Still, I do want them to know that they are getting bigger and growing up and that this mean they'll soon be able to do things they cannot yet do. The babies have latched onto this concept as there's not much sexier to a three year old than being able to do things he or she can't do.

Now, I'll sometimes get "I'm getting bigger, mommy. I'm almost a giant. I'm almost a mommy." (Because what could be bigger than a mommy?)

Even more endearing is this: "I'm growdin' mama, I'm growdin'."

I try to refer to them as kids or girls now, instead of babies. I've noticed I can do it easily unless I'm referring to them as a unit. "The babies" has become more of a title than anything.

Still, when I fail, the babies have yet to correct me. I'm sure that time will come soon. When they go to preschool, I doubt they'll want to be called babies. The workers will surely tell them they are big girls, and the other children will likely refer to themselves as kids.

So, I'm getting comfortable with the age of "the babies" coming to an end. Since it's not over yet, though, I used the term liberally in this entry. Old habits die hard. And, of course, they are my babies, no matter how big.

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Not One Baby, but Two Babies

Today I had the pleasure of blogging over at Fine and Fair. Her blog consists of letters written beautifully to her daughter, Delilah. I thought I'd follow suit and wrote a letter to the babies, based on this picture:

Already in their short lives, my twins exhibit a togetherness that I hope will hold them strong as they go out into the world.

While your over there, don't forget to check out some of Joella's letters to Delilah. They're amazing.

Ten Years Later

Last Friday, a large percentage of the other hundred people that graduated with me in 2000 dressed up in their fancy finery, glad-handed their old pals, tried desperately to one-up each other, and drank themselves into oblivion.

At least, that's what I say happened at our 10-year reunion.  I wasn't at there.  In fact, I hear they chose to play laser tag, instead.  Maybe my graduating class is even cooler than I remember it being.

I have mixed feelings on missing the reunion.  On the one hand, it would have been great to see the children (because we were children) that I grew up with.  Having a small graduating class means I knew every one of them.  I still remember all of their names.  Still, with the advent of facebook the ones that share anything in common with me already keep in touch.  In 2010, there is no shocking reveal, no adult makeover, no amazing success that hasn't already been talked to death on a social networking site.  So, really, I didn't need to go.  They already know I'm a married mom of twins who used to be a television journalist.  The introductory conversation that has traditionally been the backbone of high school reunions has been rendered moot by technology.  No wonder they played laser tag.  More running around and hiding behind things means less talking about things you already know.

A 10-year reunion, though, regardless of social media interruption, must be a magical event.  Five years is too close.  In this day and age, it is rare that anyone has gone through any major changes in the five years after graduating high school.  At ten years out, I feel like I am completely changed.  I looked at my two-year-old children watching television and think, this is it.  This is real life now.  I have children.  I have a family.  I must be an adult.  I have children.  Still, I could wake up tomorrow to the sound of a buzzer at 6 a.m. on the top bunk, fretting about the algebra homework I didn't understand and looking forward to the soccer game under the lights - so deeply ingrained are my high school years.

Growing up is something no parent can explain to a child.  As that child grows and experiences his own life changing in the strange lengths that are the days and the strange shortnesses that are the years, he will most likely remain in a confused state as to who he is and who he is becoming.  Just as he gets a grasp of what life should be for him at that very moment, the moment changes.  The flux of life is at odds with the permanence of snapshot memories.

And, of course, I am conflicted about who I am now versus who I should be.  Is that something I really wanted to 'share with the class,' so to speak?  While I am happy to be in a position to be a stay at home mom, and I love staying with my kids, watching and helping them grow, it's simply not where I thought I would be right now.  At the five-year reunion, I was up and coming.  I was going to be somebody.

What I need to remember is that I am somebody.  I am somebody very important to those little twins sitting in my living room right now.  Life doesn't always pan out as you expected it would when you were 17.  That doesn't make it worse.  If we could let go of our old definitions and of our old lives, we may even find that it's even better than we could have imagined.

Happy 10-year reunion, Somers High School Class of 2000.


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