Complaints

Hello, again. The twins are safe for a few minutes, eating pasta and making sweet noises of animal pleasure. Now I can complain about them. Every day, hundreds of times a day, they climb up on the kitchen counter and open the cabinets and threaten to (or do) smash glasses, shake vitamin bottles or even open them (Saul ate an MSM), turn on the coffeemaker...or else they open the cabinets on the other side and help themselves to cereal and crackers ("quack-ohs," both). I can confine them to the downstairs, but then they fight and bite. I can't win. They have baby anxiety disorder, clearly, and can't stay happy doing much for long, other than plugging things into outlets while I look the other way (what can I do? they know how to remove the covers), or dumping every single book off the living room shelves, or putting various items into the floor vents. They're very, very, very cute, but whiny and aggressive and soooooo easily bored, and so needy. Before I fed them pasta, they expressed their hunger this way (they got hungry earlier than they were supposed to, you see, more boredom, probably): Yasha bit Saul, so I grabbed S., so Yasha bit harder, so I moved Y. further away, so he hurled himself back and bit me, so I tried to hug both of them at the same time (I should know better), thereby causing them to scream louder and bite each other with even more ferocity. That's when I realized I had to make the pasta. And I can't play with them. If I try to read to them, they grab the book and fight and bite (contrast the video I saw on facebook of girl-twins, same age as ours, nicely Patting the Bunny with their dad). If I try to play Duplos with them, they grab each other's creations and throw and hit and bite. Now Saul is wailing (his strap is tighter), and Yasha is dancing on the table (stomp, stomp, stomp)--off I go. 

P.S. Above, Ezra's clever, if depressing, "solution" to the problem of babies climbing on kitchen counter. Just how long do you think it took them to figure out how to tip the chairs up (after a fun round of "riding" them like sleds)? Hmmmm...... ten minutes? And when I take the chairs away, just how long do you think it is before a toy truck pulls up, or a diaper box, or a rocking horse, with a newly-tall twin on it, ready for acrobatics? Not very...

A morning in the life

I come into twins' room, to the tune of crescendoing cries, and make the fateful choice of which twin to change/dress first. It's Yasha! (Saul wails and shrieks like dying animal.) I finally finish with Yasha (fighting his strong thin arms constantly reaching to scratch his eczema-ankles--poor twinnies, must get to bottom of this), plop him down onto floor, and take up the Saul-Ball, who now lies with full diaper on the changing table. Yasha attacks me viciously with the tube of hydrocortisone, which falls from his hands, but he continues to smack me on the legs. When that fails, he hugs my legs and bites. Meanwhile, Saul is kicking and twisting and flipping and endangering all the semi-clean clothes piled up on the changing table--not clean enough for dresser, not dirty enough for hamper. Finally Yasha gives up and starts dumping videos and huge jackets awaiting bigger Ezras and Naomis, and other odds and ends from his closet. Saul is dressed and on the floor. Hooray! Yasha has a change of heart, recovers from jealousy and brings Saul a peace offering--a navy blue, velour jacket that Saulie sleeps with and often carries around while proclaiming "Ahhhhhh--jacket!" As soon as I open the bedroom door, they race for any semi-open non-baby-friendly rooms, but I swoop them into their high chairs, giving them "quack-ohs" (generic term for any carbs used to tide them over, whether crackers or not) while I make their "ba-boos" and oats. 

Ok, I'm off to stir those oats! Hannah is sleeping in, still.... amazing.

Snippets of things (and snips of hair!)

Last week the twins and the Hannah went to Essence, my friend Cherie's salon, to get snipped. This was Hannah's first snippage (not including bangs) and I was convulsed with great fears. But she survived, cuteness intact. Her perfectly round face is now--if this were possible--even rounder; the curve of the hair meets the curve of her cheek too precisely, if anything. Isn't she funny? Here she sits with her Chanukah gift (textured cards from Aunt Violet) and a Lego car which she made all by herself.

After listening to a Kabbalist's shiur on my new iPod (thank you, thank you, dear husband) I have been a better mommy, which, I'm finally convinced, really just means loving your kids more, trying to actively show your love--and correcting with warmth and affection, too. They have responded, and it does help them be their better selves more often. The Shlomo Wolbe-Kelemen-etc. way wins out over the make-'em-mind school of childrearing, after all. And I guess the modern thinking on the subject (Positive Parenting, Unconditional Parenting, et al.) is the same. I'm happy, and there is much more happy energy and hugging in my house now; I see the difference in Ezra, especially. And Hannah's mini-mutinies are so easy to deal with now, as are Naomi's screechy meltdowns. Nome actually says, now, "Mah-meeeee! It's just that I miss you soooooooo much when I'm at school, and school is soooooooooo hard and soooooooooo long! Waaaaa-aaaaaaah! Boooo hooooo hooooo!" and she gets long, drawn-out hugs.... 

Hannah's usual first words, as soon as I come in to her room, are "Modeh Ani, Mommy!" and then more orders: "Negelvaser!" Even if I forget, she doesn't. And she won't eat without a bracha--not only that, but she reminds me when she's done: "Mommy, let's say Borei Nefashos!" which, to be frank, I usually forget. And she, without being asked, unloads the dishwasher daily, now. She tells me, "Mommy, I put away the sharps knifeses." She knows she is good, and she loves to be good. Hooray! Could I possibly be any luckier?

The twins, the twins. They have been naughty. Many things have gone missing recently, and we finally found their hiding place. There is a grate covering the empty space behind the furnace, and they have been pulling away one corner of it and slipping things in. Ezra got to unscrew the grate with Daddy's tools, and we found: 2 DVDs: Ratatouille!!! (missing for weeks, and a library dvd) and Winnie the Pooh, 2 checkers from Connect 4 (yay!), Sefer HaKriah Hashalem (phew!), 1 tube hydrocortisone, 1 pair broken sunglasses, 4 of Hannah's cards, and very many and great dust bunnies. Things I found in the toilet yesterday: 1 almost-full package of Q-tips (oh well), and 2 porcelain chopstick-rests (huh?). 

Today, today, today was also the day Yasha climbed out of his crib and landed painfully and cried (I did not witness it, but came running at the sound of the thud). I hate to admit it, but I'm glad he didn't land smoothly. I hope it will deter him from trying again right away.

And yesterday, yesterday was the day they first brushed their teeth--we've been delinquent. Dad is the son of a dentist, and his own kids have never been to one... and the oldest is seven! Ahhhh! My fault!

(post naomi brushing yasha)