Talk This Way

Riley and Leah have started talking and now have a good 10 to 15 words in their arsenal, but I find that most of their words aren't necessarily the most practical in terms of communicating their wishes. Yes, it's very cool that they can now say "car" and "tree" and "flower" and "light" and stuff, but when Riley points to a tree and exuberantly says "Teeee!", pretty much all you can say back is "Yes, Riley, that is a tree." It's a pretty short conversation. And not exactly a very mentally stimulating one.

Leah currently likes to walk up to people, smile broadly, and say "Hi." It's very cute and charming, so even total strangers at the park will usually smile back and say "Hi". Then Leah, thinking this "Hi" thing is just about the coolest thing in the world, will smile back at the stranger and say "Hi". And of course, the stranger, not wanting to be rude to a baby, says "Hi" back. And then it ends up being this infinite Leah-says-hi-stranger-says-hi loop, which ends only when the stranger loses interest and walks away, leaving poor Leah with no recipient for her heartfelt greetings and good tidings.

For most things they want to communicate, Leah and Riley don't yet know the words, but they've been figuring out ways around that little problem. Let's say Riley is hungry and wants a snack:

1. First, she'll try to get her parents' attention by clearing her throat and pointing to her mouth.
2. If Option 1 fails, she'll start saying "Ahhhh" while repeatedly pointing to her mouth using a jabbing motion.
3. If mommy and daddy still aren't getting the hint, she'll increase the volume on the "Ahhhh" and will stick her finger inside her mouth like a hook in a fish's mouth.
4. If the message is somehow still not getting across, she'll sigh, get up, walk to the kitchen, and stare forlornly at the refrigerator until somebody gives her some frickin' food.
   

Riley's methods are quite effective.

Leah has an interesting noise that she makes when she really wants something that's either out of her reach or in Riley's possession. It's hard to convey what the noise is in writing, but okay, if I had to write it out, I would spell it like this:

"bidlde-bidlde-bidlde-BIDLDE-BIDLDE-BIDLDE"

Kathy disagrees with my spelling on that, but hey, it's the best I can come up with.

It's basically the sound you would make if you were talking and you suddenly lost control of your tongue and it suddenly just started bouncing around randomly in your mouth. When Leah does it, it starts out low and then gradually crescendos with increasing desperation, until it finally morphs into a full-blown cry.

Unfortunately for Miss Leah, her expression of desperation and longing sounds pretty darn hilarious. It's actually hard to keep from busting out laughing when she does it, which is probably not the reaction she's looking for. And often we'll spend a little too much time laughing and suddenly we have a crying Leah on our hands. But, hey, I suppose the whole thing's more entertaining than talking to Riley about trees again. Sorry, Riley.

End of an Era

The twins are now 15 months old, and they're now in this interesting stage where it's no longer inherently obvious to all outside observers that they're, in fact, twins. In the first few months of their lives, when we had two newborns in the stroller, we might as well have had a neon sign on our stroller reading "See Twins Here!" or "Look at these crrr-azy twins!" or "Twins: Don't forget to ask if they're identical or if twins run in our family!" Every time we took them out in the stroller for a walk, we would get stopped every couple blocks by somebody wanting to look at the twins and then tell us something like how we must be exhausted. Because when somebody's exhausted, everyone knows that it always helps if you inform them that they must be exhausted.

Over the ensuing months, the Twin Reactions calmed down a bit but stayed in effect, with all the parents pointing out our daughters to their child and saying "look honey, twins!" Or the women stopping us to tell us that their aunt or their next-door neighbor or their mailman was a twin or has twins or wishes they had a twin, and boy oh boy, our hands must be full! You get used to it, though. You actually start taking it for granted, to the point where if you go out and nobody notices your twins, you get a little offended. Hey! Isn't anybody going to compliment me on my twins? You there! Ask me an intrusive twin question, stat!

But now that they're over a year old, we don't really get stopped on the street at all anymore, and we don't get the same looks of awe and admiration that we used to. The more common reaction now is a few moments of confusion, as in - "hmmm, those two girls look kinda like sisters but jeez, they look really close in age, so I guess they can't be sisters, but wait, they both seem to belong to that guy there, so, huh, maybe the big-cheeked girl is a tiny 2-year old and the pigtailed-girl is a gi-normous 9-month old? Or maybe it's some sort of weird Brady Bunch-y thing?"

And then, if they're daring, people will hesitantly ask us, with a puzzled look on their face, "uh, how far are they apart?" And they will react with relief when we tell them that THEY'RE 15 months old, and yes, THEY'RE twins. Ah yes, they think, that would explain it.

When twin parents get together or post messages on twin parent e-mail lists, they like to complain to each other about constantly being stopped on the street or about being asked intrusive and/or stupid twin questions (like "Are they Siamese?", or, after they're told that one twin's a boy and one's a girl, "Are they identical?"). But the truth is, I never minded the questions all that much, and now I find myself sort of missing the looks of awe and/or wonder and/or horror that we used to get just for having twins. Now, we just look like regular ol' parents! Oh dear, how very boring and mundane!

Guess it's about time to mount that neon "See Twins Here" sign on the stroller.

Walk This Way

So, the big new development of 2010 is that Leah and Riley are now full-on walking. Leah started walking on January 1, and Riley, not wanting to be left out, starting walking on January 2. And of course the day after each of them started walking, each of them came down with the mother of all stomach flus. The stomach flu rendered poor Leah and Riley too weak to do anything but lie limply in mommy's arms and once in a while barf all over her. So walking was put on a short-term hiatus, but it quickly came back with a vengeance once the girls got their strength back up. Now, they're both pretty much walking machines, although for some reason Leah walks with her arms up in front of her, like Frankenstein or a sleepwalking guy in a cartoon or one of those chubby kids who's too fat to lower his arms to his sides:



Meanwhile Riley's gotten so prolific with the walking that she's moved on to playing soccer:



Anyway, we basically jumped almost overnight from having a couple babies crawling around to suddenly having two toddlers walking about. It's quite a transition. Nowadays when I'm reading a book to Leah and Riley and they start to lose interest, instead of gazing longingly around the room for something more interesting like they used to, now they'll just get up and walk out of the room like unsatisfied patrons at the movies. And then I'm left sitting there like an idiot reading "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" aloud to myself. Those girls can be tough critics.

The real challenge is being at the playground when there's just one of me and two of them, and they seem to want to walk as far away from each other as humanly possible. I've done this a couple times in the past week, and I found that I'm constantly prioritizing - okay, should I keep Leah from stealing that kid's toy or should I keep Riley from eating that cracker she just found on the ground? Should I keep Leah from trying to climb that fence or should I keep Riley from stepping on that baby's head? Because unless I can turn into Plastic Man here, I can't do both things at the same time.

And even the act of just keeping an eye on both babies becomes a major strategic challenge. I try to stand somewhere that's (a) about the same distance from each daughter so I can intervene if something horrible's about to happen to either one of them, and (b) a spot where I have an unobstructed view of both girls at the same time so that I can actually know if something horrible's about to happen to either one of them. It's like some kind of weird ninth grade geometry homework problem, except it's a homework problem that you've got to do over and over again every three seconds because apparently these girls don't stay in the same place for more than three seconds.

And then I glance at all the other parents with their kids. They hover right next to their child! And sometimes there are even two parents hovering next to just one child! What a strange and novel concept, I think to myself as I try to play Triangle Prevent Defense about 15 feet from each child. And then suddenly I'm off and running toward Leah to keep her from stealing that kid's dump truck.

And meanwhile Riley contentedly munches on that cracker she just found on the ground. Because crackers are yummy and daddy had to prioritize.

Mixed Emotions

Kathy and I and the twins were down in LA and San Diego with our families during the holidays, and it was of course nice watching Leah and Riley bond with their two sets of grandparents and uncle, but the whole "unfamiliar territory" thing definitely threw the girls a little off of their game. Riley, for one, was way more clingy to me than usual. She basically just wanted to spend all day holding on to my finger and walking around the room in a circle. Before we left for LA, she had been showing signs of starting to walk on her own, but once we got there, she didn't want to walk anywhere without holding on to daddy's finger. It's definitely flattering at first to have your daughter not want to let go of you -- until about the 8th circle when it gets kinda old, or the 15th circle when it gets really old, or the 29th circle when you'd rather go change a diarrhea-filled diaper than walk in one more cotton-pickin' circle.

Still, at least Riley was a happy clinger. Leah, on the other hand, was a hysterical clinger, which we found out is a whole different ballgame. Leah's a mommy's girl, so Kathy was her object of clinginess. And thank God Almighty and the heavens above for that, because whenever Kathy left Leah's immediate vicinity for any reason - say to go to the bathroom or to grab a kleenex - Leah would instantly start crying the most pitiful, longing, desperate cry that you ever heard.

Kathy and I have over the months built up some emotional resistance to Leah's cries, but I've got to hand it to Leah because she really kicked it up another notch -- I tell ya this cry was heartwrenching. Even though we knew nothing was wrong and Leah just had a case of mommy-itis, the desperation level in the cry was high enough that Kathy would start running back to Leah. Then in mid-run, she would remember, oh wait, I REALLY do need to go to the bathroom here. And so mommy would zip into the bathroom and Leah would go into a full blown tantrum that not even the combined efforts of daddy, grandma, grandpa, "Moo Baa La La La", daddy's keys, and a cup of cheerios could quell.

As a dad, this caused a bunch of complex and conflicting emotions that included (a) concern about Leah's well-being, (b) embarrassment that Leah was acting this way in front of her grandparents, (c) disappointment that Leah's reached the stage where she's trying to manipulate her parents, (d) pride that Leah's now smart enough to try to manipulate her parents, and, I've got to say, (e) relief that I'm not Kathy and can therefore travel freely to and from the bathroom and/or kleenex box as I please.

And then there was the slightest twinge of (f) jealousy that I can't now and never will evoke that strong and visceral of a response from the girls. I find I get this weird jealousy whenever Leah or Riley goes to mommy for comfort instead of me. Hey girls, daddy's here too! Daddy's 50% of your DNA too! Hello? Bueller?

Kathy tells me that it's a rule of nature that when babies are sad or scared, they want their mommy, and I should just learn to accept that. But I say those babies are just discriminating on the basis of gender, and that's just plain wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

On the other hand, if it's a choice between having sexist babies and me not getting to go to the bathroom when I need to because both babies won't let me leave their side, I'm going to have to go with sexist babies.

Kathy, your babies are crying for you.

In the end, the babies got happier and less clingy, and the vacation turned out pretty well with lots of happy times. Observe: