I QUIT!!!

Aggghhhhhh! That’s it, I quit! I resign as a twin Mommy. It’s over. They have only themselves to blame. They have brought this on their naughty little twinnie selves.

It’s 10am, and I am ready to throw in the towel. The girls are napping, I am venting. Big time. The morning started out okay. Lulu and Mumu ate their oatmeal with gusto. And my oatmeal, and Jungledad’s oatmeal, but that’s par for the course. The madness began the moment Jungledad pulled out of the driveway. They were saving it up for me yo.

After dual meltdowns over Daddy’s departure, Mumu tackled me on the couch, where I stupidly sat drinking tea. The tea soaked my clean shirt and hurt like a bastard because it was hot tea. Whatever. Over it, didn’t even change. The girls ran off to the kitchen. I naively thought their silence might mean they were playing with their toys in there, and I started mopping the spilled tea off the couch and rug. Then I heard it. It sounded like a waterfall. In my kitchen.

I arrive on the scene to find Mumu screaming and frantically shaking an enormous box of wheat macaroni, while Lulu gleefully ice skates over the mess, pausing only to stuff the uncooked mac in her mouth. Aggghhh, mother$%#er! What evs, leap into action, on all fours picking up macaroni while Lulu continues to spread it to every corner of the kitchen. Pry it off her feet, out of her mouth, put the 10,000 pieces in a bowl. Am just dropping final pieces in when I see out of the corner of my eye, Mumu tugging a cord. Drop the bowl of mac and dive across the kitchen to catch Jungledad’s ipod as it hurtles toward the floor. Why on earth would he leave it on the counter !? Mumu bursts into tears at being thwarted, while Lulu joyfully overturns the bowl of macaroni I just spent a lifetime gathering. On top of it all, the kitchen is filled with the unmistakable scent of turd.

I grab Mumu and bring her to the living room to be changed. Wrestle her down amidst her wailing and get diaper off. Diaper is clean. Wrong baby. Put her down, grab Lulu, wrestle her down. Her spider limbs are everywhere. She manages to get not one, but TWO hands into her runny, smelly, disgusting poo. Then wipes them on the couch before I get to her with a wipe. Am about to clean couch and baby when I notice something shiny out of the corner of my eye. Mumu has scaled bookshelf. She brandishes a shiny dime in her hot little hand. In slow motion I see it headed for her mouth.

Get there in time, seize dime, pry baby off bookshelf. Run back over to other baby, who is drawing with poop on the couch. Mumble several unladylike words, scrub hands of poopy baby. Put both babies down for nap. Collapse on bed and vent via blog post. Hear babies fussing in cribs, but care not. Resign post as Twin Mommy, effective immediately.

Picking Out Their Own Clothes

I guess I’m completely clueless, but I thought my girls would be at least 4 before they started criticizing my fashion sense. Boy was I wrong!

They’re only 1 for Pete’s sake, and have never seen a fashion magazine, a movie, or any TV other than the news and the occasion episode of Fraggle Rock, yet Mumu has decided to start dressing herself. She feels my wardrobe selections for her are not up to par. This does not bode well for the future…

It all started the day after Father’s Day. On Father’s Day, if you’ll remember, we were busy sucking the marrow out of life via a scenic drive through the jungle, and chowing down on ho hos in anticipation of the apocalypse. In other words, just a typical day. The girls loved those ho hos of course, as they hadn’t previously ever had junk food, and were in raptures over their sublime yumminess. Lulu managed to spread the chocolaty goodness all over her bright pink dress, no surprises there. What is surprising is that the next day, Mumu picked her sister’s chocolate stained dress out of the dirty laundry basket and became obsessed with it. I kept hiding it at the bottom of the basket, and she kept fishing it out and waving it around,flinging her arms up and down and grunting determinedly in my general direction. This went on for quite a while before I realized she was trying to tell me she wanted to wear the chocolate smeared dress. She was so insistent I finally said what the hell and pulled it over her head. She was ecstatic. She looked…completely nuts.

The outfit she was already wearing before I pulled the dress over was fairly avent-garde to say the least. This is because Jungledad had dressed her. We’ve fallen into this supersweet routine in the mornings where I sleep in, or check email in bed at my leisure, and Jungledad gets the girls up, changes them, feeds them breakfast, and sometimes dresses them, before making me my breakfast and coffee. I told ya- supersweet. If this is not the normal routine in other households DON’T YOU DARE tell my husband. Anyway, I love it when he dresses the girls, because he often puts them in something completely insane. That day was no exception. It was a chilly, rainy morning, so he put them in long sleeve onesies with colorful patterns on them. Then he added brightly striped baby legs for added warmth. The combined effect of all those colors, patterns, and stripes was blinding and slightly seizure inducing, but Jungledad was so proud, and the babies so snuggly, I just had to smile. The new outfit created by the multicolored patterns, stripes, and then chocolate stained hot pink flowered dress was really something. Watch out Yves Saint Laurent, I am revolutionising women’s fashion, one toddler at a time.

Since that day, Mumu has not been shy about letting me know when she disapproves of wardrobe selections, and has started making suggestions of her own. Jungledad and I now offer her a choice between two garments in the morning, and this has so far worked out well. Of course, Jungledad likes to tease her by grabbing the outfit she didn’t choose and pretending to try and put it on her. She is always appalled by the switcheroo and immediately grabs the offensive garment out of his hands and flings it to the floor before thrusting the correct outfit into his hands. This kills him every time. Well, at least she’s a girl who knows what she wants! We offer Lulu a choice now as well, but she’s not nearly so adamant/aggressive in her selection process. How about you? Do you let your kiddos choose their own clothes?

Finally, Room to Breathe

These days we’re doing lots of things we thought we’d forgotten how to do. Like Breathe.

Last night we took out the telescope out, something we haven’t done in ages. We pointed it as Scorpius, then at the moon. I’ve looked at the moon through telescopes hundreds of times, but never like this. It was unbelievable. It brought back so many memories.

Since my husband and I are total dorks, we used to spend a lot of weekend nights on Harvard’s roof, using their ancient telescope. It’s about 12ft high, a real Galileo number from 1912. There’s not much astronomy that can be done on a telescope of it’s limited powers, that sits in the middle of the city, but you can look at the moon. And it’s beautiful. Sometimes we saw Saturn and its rings, sometimes we saw Mars. Sometimes the light pollution and pollution pollution and clouds all conspired and we could see nothing at all. When this happened, we would slew the telescope across the Boston skyline to spy on the office workers on the top floor of the Prudential. For the record, the Prudential peeps work very late on weekends, not like the employees of the John Hancock building’s top floors, who were never around. Slackers. Anyway, we had fun. It’s fun being up there. If I were still around Boston I’d bring all you Moms of multiples up there to party with me. We used to bring a lot of friends up there. Telescopes are fun.

Anyway, the moon was like I’ve never seen last night. I’ve never seen it that clearly, I mean, I could see everything. Every creator, every crack. It was astonishing. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it was that clear. That’s why we’re here after all. This is were the big telescopes are. This is where the air and atmosphere are so still and clear, and the skies so unpolluted that the stars don’t even blink.

So I stood in awe, and we talked about the moon. How it got that way. It’s mostly the fault of Jupiter and Saturn. In the early solar system, these planets got the wiggles. Jupiter moved in, Saturn moved out. There are very complicated reasons why, I won’t get into them. The point is they moved, and when they did, the asteroids from what would later become the asteroid belt came hurtling through space in wild, chaotic, unstable orbits and smashed into the moon. Hence the craters. This became known as the late, heavy bombardment. There was an early bombardment, but this was back when the solar system was just forming and everything was smashing into each other. Of course, the earth also got pounded equally hard, but we had plate tectonics and a crust constantly renewing itself (as evidenced by the lava spewing volcanoes on my island) so it was all smoothed out.

I promise I do have a point, though I realize I’m taking a really long time to get there. Now that the girls are 16 months, I feel like we’re emerging from our late, heavy bombardment. The first bombardment was everything happening at once. My husband being offered the job on this island, a job he’d interviewed for 6 MONTHS before the offer arrived, a job and a lifestyle we’d written off. He got the job, we got prego with twins, all in one month. Then the hits continued- adjusting to life in the middle of the Pacific, disastrous house buying attempts before it finally happened, pregnancy going haywire, medical emergencies culminating in me and in utero twinnies being med-evaced off this island to another with a fancy hospital and not leaving until 8 weeks later. That was the first bombardment. After withstanding that sucker, we thought we were ready for anything. We were wrong.

The second bombardment was much, much, worse. The being up all night, the crying, the exhaustion, the feeling that I was a miserable failure at motherhood and everything else in the world- much, much worse. But now, it’s a whole new universe. The girls run and laugh and play. They stuff their mouths full of meatballs and say funny words. They lay their little heads on my chest, and look up and smile at me. And they sleep. They sleep.

Suddenly we have the time, the room, to breathe. To linger over dinner. To snuggle down and watch a movie. To go outside and look at the stars with our trusty telescope. And the moon. To look at that moon with a whole new respect, because it too took quite a beating, but emerged wiser, stronger than ever.

The Great Sunscreen Debate

Oh boy, sunscreen is a thorny issue with me. I used to think it was a no-brainer. Of course I should use sunscreen! Slather it on! All the time! As long as it’s SPF is high enough, any old sunscreen will do! That was the old me.

Then I read about what actually goes into sunscreen, and it gave me nightmares. I found The Environment Working Group’s database “Skin Deep” listing the contents of each individual commercial sunscreen and it gave me nightmares and daymares. A lot of sunscreens (the big names we all know) either break down in the sun and become ineffective, contain carcinogens, contain other nasties known to cause developmental issues, or contain all 3.  Ingredients such as oxybenzone terrify me. Here’s what we know about oxybenzone. It causes developmental/reproductive toxicity, allergies, immunotoxicity, bioaccumulation, enhanced skin absorption (of all this toxic shiz!), biochemical or cellular level changes, and more.. Have a look.

Yikes. Somehow I think slathering carcinogens of known absorbency on one’s skin to prevent cancer is somewhat counterproductive. Luckily, there are sunscreens not full of horrific ingredients. They are usually more expensive, harder to find, and far less spreadable. BUT- they work, and won’t mess with your brain, body, or fetus. My favorite is Blue Lizard Baby- it’s pretty much free of nasties, and more spreadable than most in the carcinogen-free family. I used to use Badger, its pretty much just olive oil and titanium dioxide, but it spreads like molasses, so I jumped ship.

The other issue is vitamin D. Loads of studies have come out in recent years extolling the virtues of vitamin D, and warning of the dangers of not getting enough. Many are calling the vitamin D deficiency in American children an epidemic. Lack of vitamin D makes bones weaker and bodies more prone to disease and infection. And all they need, and we need, is around 20 minutes of sun a day to get enough vitamin D. I know that’s not possible year round in many places, but it is here, so we do it. Jungletwins get their sun, and I get mine. I put sunscreen on all of us if were going to be in the sun for a long period, but I always make sure we get at least 20 minutes a day without sunscreen.

“Sensible sun exposure to arms and legs for short periods of time will not increase the risk of serious skin cancer such as melanoma,” according to this article on WedMD. I’ve read several articles on this issue, but this is the most reader friendly, all inclusive article I’ve found.

Of course, it’s a balancing act, and one must be careful. I make sure not to go out during the hottest time of day, and I use myself as a sun guinea pig for my kids. This works because I am much fairer than they are. I grew up with red hair and freckles- very fair indeed. They are not even close to me in pastyness- lucky them!

So far, it’s worked. They, and I, have not once burned. It’s crazy because growing up in New England I used to burn to crisp if I didn’t wear sunscreen, but then again I never thought twice about frolicking at the hottest time of the day. Now I live by “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” True to form, my Englishman does indeed go out in the midday sun, but he’s the least fair of all of us and has managed to get by unscathed.

There are so many individual factors to this issue, I know. Neither myself nor my husband has any family history of skin cancer, but we do vigilantly scan for any signs. I did once have a mole removed, but I kind of lied to get it accomplished. No, I totally lied, not kind of. I had a mole on my leg I thought was ugly. I told my doctor it changed color so he’d remove it. I was an insecure teenager at the time. Yea, I’m naughty. No remorse.

A few years ago I went to see a dermatologist about a mole on my arm. He said it was fairly small and not the least bit suspicious, but since I had to wait ages in the waiting room, he indulged me with a full body mole scan and small talk. The scan turned up nothing, the small talk supplied me with the best ever skin trivia. Are ya ready? Okay, mentally jot down your answers to these questions:

How many moles does the average 1 year old have?

1

How many moles does the average 30 year old have?

30

How many moles does the average 70 year old have?

Hmmmm?

Think its 70? NO! It’s only 4! Wild, huh? You can go ahead and use that one at your next cocktail party with my blessing.

So what are your sunscreen beliefs, realities, or philosophies?

It’s the End of the World as we Know it…

And I feel….tired.

No change there then! So- a naughty dictator is threatening to fire a nuclear missile at my island. Well that’s not very nice, is it? What the hell did we do to them? Is our hula too provocative? Our pineapples too tart? Our jungle too green? Our babies too cute? Yes, I think it’s the fourth one. Definitely.

Yet even nuclear warheads cannot complete with the excitement generated by the girls recent exploits in crayola art. Here is their most recent collaboration, completed for Jungledad on Father’s Day. Mumu did about 90% due to the fact the Lulu can’t stand to sit for more than 2 seconds. Mumu entitled the piece, “THAT”

Mumu is currently having a love affair with the color purple, which is great, because it reminds me of the book.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” -Alice Walker, The Color Purple

I couldn’t agree more. When I used to crew on schooners in Frenchman’s Bay we would sometimes get corporate retreat type peeps on board for cruises. They’d spend the whole time on their blackberrys, looking down, arguing. I always wanted to yell HEY YOU’RE IN A NATIONAL PARK, LOSERS. One of the most beautiful places on earth. The world won’t end if you look up for a moment.

Well, in this spirit of ‘gathering ye rosebuds,’ ’sucking the marrow out of life,’ and whatnot, and what with the nuclear holocaust coming in just a few weeks time, we thought to ought to go for a long drive on Father’s Day. The drive is a great one. It’s called “scenic drive,” and let me tell ya, it’s scenic. It goes through towering jungle, complete with enormous swinging vines, and over cliffs above the ocean. Of course, before we started, I accurately predicted that all this splendor would soon become tiresome to my little twinnies, so I devised a crafty plan to put an end to their fussing. HoHos. Yea, that’s right. We bought them at a gas station. The girls had their first ever taste of junk food. You wouldn’t want my girls to meet their maker without having experienced the deliciousness that is HoHos in their short lives, would you? To deprive them at a time like this would be downright cruel.

So the drive was lovely, as was the triple bypass on a plate breakfast the girls and I made that morning in Daddy’s honor. He calls it an “English Breakfast,” but I think my description is more apt. All in all a great day for the greatest Daddy in the jungle, and the world.

 

 

Oh, and if I don’t blog for a while, just assume a warhead flattened junglehouse, and drink a passion fruit margarita in memory of me.

Sneaky, Sneaky Mommy

I get a perverse thrill from deceiving my children, at least when it comes to food. I’ve been a bit cautious in writing about their eating for fear that if I do they will stop eating altogether. But I can’t help myself.

I’m a maniac these days. I started out using the techniques of others : Annabel Karmel, the Seinfeld lady, and the “Sneaky Chef,” gal- all great cookbooks, all very useful. I’ve taken their tips about hiding veggies in kids foods and run with them. I am getting away with murder, and pleased as punch.

BUT

It occurs to me that one day my children will realize they’ve been had. One day they will realize that other peoples meatballs aren’t forest green from copious amounts of pureed broccoli. That other peoples pancakes aren’t florescent  orange from unbelievable amounts of sweet potato. That other peoples mac and cheese isn’t pink and green from mashed up salmon and peas. That meatloaf isn’t the color of carrots from…you guessed it, carrots. When that day comes, I best head for the hills

My Gandhi Moment

There was a smackdown at the park yesterday involving two parties. One of those parties was me. Thankfully, with the help of Gandhi, it didn’t come to blows.

It all started when my archenemy pulled into the park in front of my house. He drives a big white pick-up, and in this pick-up, and enormous pit bull. I won’t even get started on the 3 dogs of the apocalypse : pit bulls, rottweilers and dobermans, which plague these islands (often leash free!) because once I open that can of worms there’s just no stopping me. Anyway- so this guy has come to the park on multiple occasions, driven on to the park leaving huge muddy tracks, which is totally not allowed, let him pit bull run loose, also not allowed, and left the poop lying there for us all to step in. Rampant rule breaking and disregard for others. He knows this is wrong but does it anyway. He drives on to the park rather than parking in the lot, driving over the hill, thus hiding behind it, so that his dog running free and pooping can’t be seen from the road. But I see him. Oh yes, I see him.

I have been waging a quiet campaign to make him stop. Step one was to turn all my lights on when he showed up with the dog at night to let him know that I was well unaware of his unscrupulous activities. This worked- he stopped coming for a while. Then he showed up about a week ago in the early morning. I took his license plate number and waited on my porch for him to drive out again, so he would know that I was on to him and disapproving. He waved. I scowled.

Yesterday was the piece de resistance- Ghandi style. He pulled up, all ready to drive on to the park, when he noticed I was already in the park, playing with my little girls.

So he waited. And waited. And waited. Running his engine. He sat in that parking lot with the engine running on that beast of a truck for at least 40 minutes, waiting for me to leave. He picked the wrong girl, yo. I grew up with 3 older brothers, I hold my damn ground. I do not suffer a-holes. We were using the park properly. As it was intended. We would not yield. We would have stayed there all damn day if that’s what it took.

The girls had a marvelous time with this extended park play, though admittedly, it was less fun for me. By the time he pulled up I was already about to head in because I was exhausted from chasing the girls and it was hot out. The girls- not a bit. They don’t feel things like heat and fatigue. They just feel fun. Several times I wanted to give up and go in, or try to reason with him, which would have been pointless. He knows what he’s doing is wrong- that’s why he’s trying to hide it. And I don’t want to come without 10 yards of his ferocious pit bull. I think my peaceful protest was a better way. Thanks Gandhi

Here Come the Waterworks

I’m trying desperately to file in my brain all the quirky, beautiful things the girls do at this stage in their lives- all the little glimpses of who they are and what they love. It’s hopeless, I know. I forget even as I start to remember. But I’m trying.

Lulu is a whirlwind, I know I’ve mentioned it before. I love to watch her in motion, watch her throw her heart open and enjoy life. They are great moments to watch. The best moments for me, however, the moments that make me cry and cry, are the moments when she’s still. The moments when she’s so overwhelmed by beauty or emotion that her little body calms in response. The other day we were playing in the park (no, she didn’t dig up any bones this time) and she was running like a wild thing as usual, until something made her stop. A cardinal. There are more cardinals here than you can shake a stick at, and they’re everywhere- my roof, the banana trees, the wild ginger. This one stood on top of a tree and started singing. Lulu turned her little head towards it. She walked over and sat down underneath the tree and listened to that bird sing for the longest time. In all her life I’ve never seen her so still. It was so beautiful I just cried and cried.

Mumu is a mischievous little monkey. She plays tricks on me. One day a while back I got the ridiculous notion that I could read a book while watching them. I know- nutty and naive. Anyway, predictably, the girls kept coming over and trying to swipe it so they could tear it to shreds. My bookcases are constantly under siege. You wouldn’t believe what they’ve done to the French Lieutenant’s Wife, and I haven’t even had a chance to read that book. And can’t, now! Anyway, I kept hiding the book under a blanket when they came near so it wouldn’t meet a similar fate, but while I was distracted by Lulu, Mumu managed to ferret it out without me noticing. I didn’t notice it was gone until she called out to me from the hallway. The had walked to the end of the hallway and climbed down 2 steps so her body was out of sight. Then she stuck her little arm around the corner and waved the book back and forth, guffawing with delight. Gotcha Mommy!

Oh yes, little girls, you’ve got me good. Sniff sniff. Why do happy memories make me sob!?

It’s my 3rd Wedding Anniversary- WOOT!

June 10th has arrived. And here we are 3 years ago today: footloose and baby- free. I thought that moment was as happy as I could ever be. Little did I know, I was only scratching the surface. My babies have made me happier (and more exhausted) than I ever thought possible.  We are so lucky to have them. And each other. 

Mini Vacay #3- Fun in the Sun!

Here we have photographic evidence of blissful mini vacay #3. Not that I’m counting. I’m totally counting. I live for mini vacays. They’re my new religion.

This trip was particularly notable because for the first time ever, WE exhausted THEM! He he, they were begging for mercy! We had them running in the sand, splashing, digging, all the live long day until they literary collapsed. Don’t worry, they drank loads of water; they were sunscreened to the max. They were just BUSY. We kept it that way. I think I lost about 5 pounds chasing them, my husband, probably 10. 

It was an awesome time. My only annoyance was the amount of people who commented on the state of Mumu’s follicles. For some reason, random people loved to ask the girls names, then completely disregard them and refer to each individually as “that one.” “Look, at that one! That one’s got no hair!!” I resent that. My little cookie DOES have hair, it’s just light in color and there’s not alot of it. She started out a lemon creme, but has recently morphed into a ginger nut. Delicious! Those peeps (those ones! ha, I can do it too) are just envious because they can’t have a nibble like I can. And do. Mmmmm.

Without further delay,  jungletwins in action :

 

 

 

 

Wanna see me smash this castle?

 

Success!

 

 

Lulu personified

 

 

 

 

 

Oh the fun we had!