Runnin' Man

F.Y.I: The treadmill is unplugged, and he is running back and forth on a still belt.

Ethan is a runner. He takes off outside so fast that his legs almost can't keep up with him. There he goes around the storage house, around the tree! He's so wild and free. I want to remember him just like this forever: two feet tall, bouncing curls, smiling and squinting in the sun. The world is so new and big. Every occasion is a special occasion. Having no place to go doesn't stop him from going!

 He goes and goes all day. I swear that kid is going to wear out a ring in the carpet around the couch. He even runs in place. All this running is usually accompanied by a chant that shakes in his voice with every running step. "Mommy" becomes a four syllable word: "Mo-o-my-y, mo-o-my-y, mo-o-my-y!"

The chanting then becomes unintelligible like some primal, innate song. It's an official twin-tribal ceremony. He bounces in place with his chest out for a few measures of "May-ya-mee-a-mee-ya-may-a-mee-ya!" He looks at me under heavy, serious brows, and then he's back in motion, high-steppin' it in his usual path around the living room.

"Mee-yo-my-ya-mee-yo-my-ya!"

For Words and Back Words

It's fascinating to watch two different people of two different genders learn a language at the same time. Everyone told me that Emma would talk first. "Girls always talk first," they say. Actually, I think they say that girls do pretty much everything first. And Emma actually has met most of her milestones first: smiling, laughing, rolling over, crawling, walking, first word, waving, clapping--everything. But Ethan is always close behind, usually by about a week.

After Momma, Dada and bye-bye, Ethan was hit by a tidal wave of words. All of a sudden, he had to know the name of everything. His vocabulary has quadrupled in just a few months. He has even technically started sentences. He knows that words fit together to make sentences, but he also knows that he really only needs a few key words to be understood. So the rest is just "eeeehhh." Eeehhh is sort of like et al. or "and the rest."  Example: "Eh-doing? Eh-happened? Eh-going? Eh-sad?" One of his favorite movies is "Eeeeehhhh--Who" (Horton Hears a Who). He is becoming a very accurate imitator. I have discovered that abbreviating curse words with their initial letters is not a good enough substitute. They may be a little less offensive than the actual words, but when I first heard Ethan say, "G.D." I knew it was time to get serious about my offensive language.

Emma is learning so many new words too, almost as many as Ethan. Her words are not as easily understood, however. At first, I thought maybe she couldn't hear the words accurately, but I am almost certain that's not the case. She just has a little trouble making the leap from internal to external sound. I know she knows what she wants to say. But "pig" comes out as "gip," and "fish" comes out as "shif." Lots of her words seem to come out backwards at first, or the last syllable of the word comes out before the first.
I don't believe she has dyslexia, but I see the connection between what's happening and that disorder in which a person tends to swap the placement of letters, words or numbers in their mind. It creates a hurdle for reading. If Emma's one weakness is English, then she is in luck. Another random piece of information that came from who-knows-where is that the eyes interpret information backwards. If I'm correct, there is actually a mirror-like construction in the eye and/or the brain. I'm getting out of my territory here, but this could explain why letters are so commonly seen written backwards by early learners. Could this same theory apply to speaking? It seems like there is a common thread, but I don't think there is a mirror-like construction in the ear. Maybe it's just the last sound that she hears. The last sound that she hears must be the first thing she remembers. It is very interesting, but also a little troubling. I'm trying to reserve my worries about it because she does eventually get it right, and she is obviously very smart.

On another language note, there is one very short but elusive sentence that the babies have been hearing a thousand times a day since the day they were born. Rodney and I are dying to hear them say it, but neither one of them will even attempt it. Somehow they must know that it is the most sacred sentence of all. Maybe they are waiting until they have perfected each syllable. Maybe they are saving the best for last. Or maybe they just want to keep us on the edge of our seats, waiting, wanting, working to earn those three little words....



Frequent words and phrases:

Ethan
Uh-oh
Oh no!
edoin?
egoin?
cra-cra (cracker)
ya-ya (raisin)
sa-sa (Sesame Street)
Oh gosh
Sorry
happened? How?
Bite, bite
Eat
real good


Emma
Comere
Bite, bite
Y'ok, y'aright? (Are you ok? Are you alright?)
Show! (Jack's Big Music Show)
Keekue (thank you)
Gumornin
Hi.
Okay
Ticka-Ticka-ticka (tickle)
Sheep
Yee-Haw!

Twin*kles in our Eyes

We have a holly tree in the back yard. It's...different. It's a bit unsightly because it's been so poorly maintained for so long. But it is unique. It's not a bush or shrub; it's a big, tall tree with a big, fat trunk. Rodney has been threatening to chop it down for a while now. I keep trying to convince him not to. I just cannot let him kill a living thing and destroy a habitat because it's not as pretty as the next tree or because "it's right in the middle of the yard." It's been here a lot longer than we have.  Plus, the previous owners told us about the flock of birds that comes in at the same exact time every year and devours the berries like piranha in a matter of seconds. And we have seen it, just as they said. The whole tree shakes and flutters, and you can see the birds passing off berries to one another like a systematic, organized raid. What would they do if the tree was gone next year? So we trimmed it up and it looks so much better. Project rescue: success!

Hunting for our home was so much fun. We were obsessed. We almost bought a different house way outside of town. It was a really cute, new house in a new edition. The people who lived there had awesome tastes. I loved their furniture and decorations. And they looked so happy in all their family photos around the house. They had a boy and a girl. That would be so great, I thought. They had the cutest little twin suite and bathroom for the kids and a mother-in-law floor plan. I could just see us there in those rooms, in those photos. It was hard to look beyond that and see the house for what it was, not get so emotional about things. One bad thing was that there was no fence and we had three dogs. A fence would be expensive. The house was very small...but we were used to small. It was romantic. And we didn't want to over-buy. So we made an offer and eventually it worked out. We paid our earnest money. It was a go.

Then one day, when the deal was all but done, it rained really hard all day. Rodney was curious, so he drove himself out to that house just to see how the water affected the yard. Big problem. There was standing water all over the yard, right up to the door. No wonder they had all those cute galoshes in their garage. No wonder the grass was brown and there wasn't much landscaping. We backed out of the deal at the last possible moment and lost our earnest money. We considered it worth every penny to avoid that headache. Whew! My husband is so smart.

But I found our house. It was just a few days later. I was driving around a neighborhood one evening, not following the listings, just wandering around looking for "for sale" signs. It was still raining. 

I saw one in a cul-de-sac. It looked so warm and cozy and safe. No puddles. I stopped the car and just sat and smiled at it for a minute or two. There was a Japanese Maple tree, beautiful azaleas. Someone was in the kitchen. Maybe he was pouring a cup of coffee.

When we went inside to look at it with our realtor, we discovered that the owners were old friends of both of our grandparents. That can't hurt, right? The man was hard-nosed in every aspect of the negotiation, but when it was said and done, we were happy and I think they were, too. We were home owners!

I couldn't help but think of the other house's family photos. When will we have family photos like those on our walls? I told myself to be patient and that things would happen in their own perfect time.

"Plankour"

I'm sure all kids love climbing and jumping on the furniture and rolling all over the place. I just think my kids take it to a rather odd level. Emma started it first when she was about 10 months old. She leaned her shoulders on the couch and propped her foot on the coffee table. Then, as she was watching tv, she casually brought the other foot on the coffee table too, and her body was then suspended between the couch and table. That must have been comfortable enough because she stayed that way for quite a few minutes. Pretty soon, Ethan caught wind of this new position and there were two little bodies stretched out across the gap between the couch and table. It wasn't long before this was the new standard tv watching/snacking position. Every time you turn around, there they are, draped across by their shoulders and legs.

But it's more.

It seems like both of the babies remain in a constant state of motion even when at rest. It's a slow, rolling, winding movement that becomes more pronounced the sleepier they get. They love when you lay down in the floor because that means they can incorporate your body into the activity. Sometimes they almost seem to be in a trance while they do their "floor routines." It is sort of like a sport. Haven't you heard of "parkour?" If you watch The Office, you might remember them throwing their bodies all over the office, jumping off of desks and calling out, "Parkour!" That was the first time I'd heard of it, but it turns out that it has been around for a very long time. Parkour is a strange "sport" in which a person tries to creatively move around obstacles. Look it up. It's very weird.

Maybe that's what they're doing.  But it seems a little too lazy for parkour. It must be a cross-breed of similar sports. There could be a little "planking" mixed in. You know...planking? Another bizarre activity in which a person lays flat with their arms straight down at their sides, face down, in some strange setting or location.

Yes, I think we've got it now.

It's plankour.

Bees and Elephants

Bees and elephants may seem like a random pair for a nursery theme. Rodney and I couldn't agree on anything. But choosing that theme was a resolution to a challenge greater than one would anticipate over simple decorations. It was either too girly or too boyish. A lot of cute things were taken by other mothers I knew and other themes just seemed cliche. They just weren't right.

I finally saw a bumble bee nursery package on Amazon and I thought it was perfect. But Rodney thought it was too girly. He wanted a jungle theme and I thought that seemed too boyish. I didn't want Emma to get totally cheated out of anything remotely feminine because she is a twin. I also felt that way for Ethan. Shouldn't he be able to have trucks and dinosaurs and what-not?  I think the compromise was difficult for both Rodney and me. It seemed to be going deeper than just pink and blue. It seemed tied to our own emotions and our own childhoods. We just couldn't agree on anything. I kept pushing the bumble bee plan and he kept feeling like it was a runaway train to Sissy Land for his son. Finally he said, "How about we just do a jungle theme and you can add your bumble bees?"  No, that wasn't a compromise to me. I thought the bumble bees were so cute and I didn't feel like they would be noticed among the busy jungle and huge animal wall decals.

"How about a split theme, elephants and bumble bees?" I hoped that the elephants would be enough manning up for him. They would be a nice contrast to the tiny bees. It seemed to add more masculinity with the big strong elephants, but not so much "predator" connotation as to compromise femininity. Bees are also that way. They are sweet little buzzing flower pollinators but also feared by people and big elephants. I thought it worked.

So we finally settled it. I painted a picture of an elephant with bees flying around him and hung it first. We got the bumble bee bedding and the curtains. My aunt Jody painted the cutest picture ever, although I still love mine. It's a close-up of Horton the elephant from Horton Hears a Who, closely examining a flower with a bee on it instead of "the speck." I will forever treasure that painting. And the whole room looks really cute. However, I sort of never really completed the project. There are blank holes where I need more wall decor. I would have done a few things differently with the arrangement of some things, but it really is still cute and it rarely bothers me that it's seemingly incomplete or that there's a slight disconnect between a few of the different styles of elephants and bees.

I realize that these things do not occur to Emma or Ethan. They seem perfectly fine with anything that we are fine with. They haven't complained or looked around with displeased looks on their faces. I realize now that it was not Emma who would have felt cheated out of pink. It was me. I don't want to make unimportant things seem important to them. I'm still not able to apply a lot of what I see in these moments of clarity, but I feel grateful to have brief glimpses of what life is really about for The Garlands and I will try to be more open to them and to see our life in more ways than just mine.

Emma's Tough

I guess you have to be tough when you're the smaller twin. Even in the womb, Emma had to stand her ground, grit her...gums and claim her rightful place. We even saw it during one of our ultrasounds. Emma's little arms were pushing Ethan off of her side of the womb. They were in separate sacks, but they could still push, kick and get on each other's nerves 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 7 1/2 months.  No wonder they came early.

Emma has a long fuse when it comes to her brother. She lets him steal her toys, snatch her sippy cup and push her out of his way. I have to stand up for her and say, "Ethan, share with Emma."
"Shur," he says as he pulls the snack tray closer.
It makes me sad to think that Emma just accepts the submissive role.


But she toughs it out.

Every now and then she gets fed up and gives Ethan a piece of her mind. She yells out loudly and waves her arms, repeating something over and over that I cannot understand. But it is obvious that she knows exactly what she is saying--and she means it.

If she gets hurt, she silently overcomes the pain. One time, I saw her bump her head hard on the coffee table. Her face showed that she was hurt. She tensed so hard that her face shook, and then she just lifted her head and moved right on with life. It was over before I could comfort her. It takes a very hard blow to cause her to cry. Emma's tough.

When Ethan gets hurt, he comes and tells me. He wants me to acknowledge his pain. He points to it and says, "hu't," or "ekay?"  And I reassure him that he's okay and that I'm sorry it hurts-- kiss, kiss.

A few weeks ago, right after I left the house, Rodney told me that Emma tripped and fell, hitting her cheek on a low window sill. That did it. She cried and cried. She received her very first black eye that she wore for a week.

It was actually more of a black cheek, but it still looked very tough. ;)

Because of Me...

When I put the kids to bed, they usually talk and roll around for a while or kick at the crib toys. They play around in the crib before they settle down and go to sleep. We can hear whoopin' and hollerin' and little feet scampering on the mattress.

And every once in a while they get their hands on the video monitor.

It's a small camera pod that is plugged into the wall behind their crib, and I have it sitting on the back of the crib railing. I always meant to have it mounted up higher so I could see more area and so it would be out of their reach. They usually leave it alone, but every so often it catches their attention. They take it down and include it in their bedtime games. When they have settled down, I go in and quietly reposition or reconnect it.

This time, they had dropped it behind the crib. Great. I thought I would just use the sound feature for tonight instead of poking around, getting the camera out and setting it back up. I didn't want to disturb them. And I didn't want to mess with it.

I never heard a peep on my monitor for the first hour, but I checked on them one last time before heading to bed.

I couldn't sleep very well. I kept thinking about them in there, and how the camera might be unplugged. What if I don't hear them? 

Something kept waking me in the night, a worry, a whisper: "Wake up. Something's wrong." My eyes popped wide open again and again. So I kept going in and turning on that hall light. I looked in over the crib from the doorway. The light is bright enough to let me see them and dim enough not to wake them. They're fine. Sleeping like babies.

I think I woke three or four times with that strange "something isn't right" feeling. I would go look, be satisfied, and go back to bed. No, it's ok. I saw them. They're fine.

Ethan cried out suddenly. And then it was quiet. They're fine. I just checked....

When the morning came, I went in and stood over the crib.

What I saw struck my heart with terror.

The monitor cord was still plugged into the wall, pulled tightly...and was wrapped around and around and around Emma's body.

I touched her. She's warm. Thank God!

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," I said as I flipped her body over and over and over, unraveling the cord that was tightly wound around her torso. She's going to be black and blue, I thought (but she wasn't). She sleepily turned and turned. Ethan watched me curiously. When I finally had her untangled, she stood immediately, smiled so big and said, "Hi."

My heart was racing and I scooped her up. "Hi, baby." I squeezed her and swayed with her in my arms for several minutes. I got Ethan out and then took Emma into the bedroom to explain to her father that our daughter was almost killed in her sleep last night.

Because of me.

Thoughts tortured me all day long:

Why didn't I turn on the lights?

I should have gone in there and made SURE.

I knew something was wrong.

And I dismissed it.

Why couldn't I see?

Emma almost died.

Because of me.

Little Fakers!

I had a professor who once said that children don't learn how to tell a lie until they're like 3 or 4 years old. She said that they simply do not understand enough about language to be intentionally deceitful before then.

I beg to differ.

First, let me remind you that Emma and Ethan love each other so much. They learned to show affection very early. It's probably the sweetest thing you'll ever see. They fully embrace each other and give so many sweet heart kisses. But, here's the thing: the kissee doesn't always want to be kissed. The kisser has to chase the other down and that rejection can be so frustrating for them.  Ethan finally catches Emma and then he knocks her down just to give her his lovins. I'm not exactly sure how to handle this one.

Then the biting started. They lean in, just like a kiss, and then--OUCH!
"Emma! No biting! That hurts! Be nice," I say.
"Mmmmaaa!" She kisses him as an apology and then she looks at me to see if I am pleased.
"Ohhhh, that's nice. Thank you," I say. She smiles. They learn quickly.

Now and then, I look over and catch one of them with a wide open mouth, teeth exposed and ready to clamp: "Ethan!"
He quickly changes his mind and gives her a kiss: "Mmmmmaaa! Oooohhhh," he says as he waits for my approval.
"Ohhh, yes, that's much better," I say. I figure I need to reinforce this behavior even though it is not exactly genuine. Ok, let's face it. This is downright deceitful. Right before he hits her in the head with a toy, he pulls it back when he hears my voice and, "See, Mom? I was just kidding. Mmmmmaa!"
"Oooohh, that's so nice, baby."

It has become second nature to such a degree that a kiss could just as likely stand for a bite. When conflict arises over positioning or possession of a toy, someone may receive a subtly aggressive "kiss," one that seems to really mean, "Move over, and back off!" How could a kiss mean back off? It makes sense if you are a twin. It's twin code communication.

If Emma wants a bite of my ice cream, she may also coincidentally remember that she loves me so much. She gives me a very sweet kiss and then peers over into my bowl. If you ask me, this is very advanced manipulation, much more complicated than telling a simple white lie.

And they say preemies have developmental delays.

Duck, Duck, Goose

 Since the kids are so into imitating animal sounds, we thought they'd love to visit the ducks at the park. Rodney thought we should bring some bread so the kids could get the full park effect. I was a little worried that food and aggressive ducks could be a bad combination, but I kept quiet.

When we got there, Ethan made it pretty clear that I was not to touch him, that he would be wandering free--thank you very much. He and Emma made a bee-line as fast as they could straight for the pond. I almost had a heart attack. Swimming lessons are now high-priority. They must've thought they could just walk on water and simply go get those ducks.  The park was packed and the ducks weren't hungry at all. I guess they'd probably been eating bread crumbs all day. Probably just as well. Emma and Ethan make the funniest duck sounds from the back of their throats: "kah-kah," which is pretty much their same sound for pigs.

So park geese aren't very friendly. Surprise, surprise. I don't know much about goose temperament, but for these geese, I think it's probably from all the years of torture from the children of Muskogee. A couple of little boys were harassing one goose and her egg. She was very angry, rightly so. The boys were so proud of themselves for finding the egg and chasing the goose. I'm sure the egg will never hatch now that it's been violated by little Lewis and Clark here. It made me sad inside to see that. Poor momma goose. Emma and Ethan of course were oblivious to her loss and kept happily trying to march right up to her. I guess they expected her to act just like our dog, Daisy, when approached. Her wings were pulled back in full display and she looked like she would charge. We kept diverting them and holding them back. Emma and Ethan were absolutely livid.

This park day was not turning out like we had imagined. We would've taken them to the playground, but there were so many other kids there, so we just wandered around in the picnic area and, after they got over the whole pond restriction thing, it seemed to be fine with them. Emma was very interested in the strange tree roots we have at Honor Heights, the ones that come straight up from the ground like weird emerging mutants. They remind me of those cave formations I've seen on The Discovery Channel. Ethan loved the tiny flowers and clovers that grow in the grass: "Fla-fla."
"Yep, flowers! Good job, baby." So smart.

Rodney played peek-a-boo with them around the big tree trunks and they loved it. They screamed with big smiles on their faces and ran around in circles. Emma's signature move ever since she could walk is leaning slightly forward with her arms out behind her like a diving bird. It's pretty cute. She smiles with her chin out, eyes closed. Sweet little Em-Lynny-Lou.

After we thought they had run most of their energy out, we carried them on our shoulders back to the car. They were asleep before we were out of the park.

Feeding Disorder

I'm really proud of the way the babies eat, and the Baby Bullet really gave me direction in the food department. I feel like it's a road all its own.  In fact, it's a road so its own that...I think I'm lost.

I have followed the Baby Bullet Nutrition Guide very closely. Introduce a new food every 4 days to screen for allergies. Gradually increase the texture of purees. Fingerfoods. Ok, got it. Now I just make the recipes.

Since I'm not home to feed Ethan and Emma during the day, the person who is (mostly my mother) should not have to worry with preparing meals. I do that. I prepare the food, put some fresh in the fridge and freeze the rest. I use small Tupperware containers to store portions of things that won't fit in my ice cube trays, like turkey pot pie, shepherd's pie, veggie lasagna, scones, etc. Other things like mac and cheese, spaghetti, soup, diced veggies, rice, beans, whatever--go into the ice trays. I then put the food cubes in labeled freezer bags. This helps Mom and me unfreeze only the amount that we need. And it allows us to mix and match different things. I still make some vegetable purees so I can add them to certain foods they love, like spaghetti or mac-and-cheese. It's a good thing.

The babies eat at a certain time every day pretty much: 7:30 or 8:00am breakfast, lunch after their nap, 12:30 or 1:00. Snack at 3:00 or 4:00. Dinner at 6:00.

So what's the problem?

Rodney and I don't eat at 6:00, for one. He doesn't get home till later. So that means we will be eating after the babies eat (a second meal plan), which also means that we will be shoveling food in our faces while trying our best to tune out the relentless mantra: "Bi'e, bi'e, bi'e, bi'e, bi'e, bi'e..."
If you give them a "bi'e," you'll be lucky to get a bite of your own. They hover. They cry. They're like those seagulls on Finding Nemo. Sometimes I just want to scream, to be honest. CAN I EAT IN PEACE?   We usually eat at the coffee table. So they're also crawling all over me. I realize this behavior is my fault. So I try not to get too frustrated with them.

I am also noticing that most people I know are just letting their toddlers take care of their own business at feeding time. They eat their own granola bar--right out of the package. They don't need it broken into manageable pieces. They can spoon-feed themselves. They can eat a hamburger maybe even. WOW! Hahaha! Our babies still get gagged or choked when they are left to their own devices. So I have to cut their meal into bite sized pieces. I present bowls or plates for most everything I serve them, and plastic ware. They may dip the spoon in the cheesy rice and put it in their mouths, but then they set it down and use their hands. It's a mess.  I have to spoon feed their soup. They're 18 months old (adjusted age from original due date) so I know they're ok. They'll catch on. So will their mother. Surely.

I'm thinking the only way I will be able to get them on our eating schedule, a family meal plan, is to either start eating Baby Bullet recipes...or stop making them.

I can't stop making Baby Bullet recipes! I need an 800 number, a support group, something.

I have a feeding disorder.