TwinParenthood.com

Imagination games boost intelligence

Playing imagination games with your twins, triplets, or more, is one of many things you can do to help boost your children’s intelligence. And let’s face it, they LOVE it when their parents engage in this kind of play with them.

But playing with miniature plastic people or stuffed animals can get tedious for a parent at times. That is when it is up to you to introduce some imagination games that you find more interesting. These kinds of games can be played in the car to help pass the time, and are great dinner conversation.  

At our house, one of our favorite imagination games is “super powers”. It often comes up at dinnertime. We all take turns imagining life with our very own super power. Of course, we each get to choose what super power we’d have.

If you’re a little bit older (like me), you might remember the Gilligan’s Island episode, “Pass the Vegetables, Please”, where the Skipper and Gilligan are fishing and reel in a crate of radio active seeds. When the castaways ate the food produced from the seeds, they all gained super powers. Gilligan became very strong (spinach), Lovey went very fast (sugar beets), and Mary Ann gained super sight (carrots). My husband told the family a story based on this show. We were castaways and discovered radio active seeds.

When we started this game, I chose things you would typically think of in the super power category. My two favorites have been: “invisibility”, and “time travel”. It has been fun to imagine all the things you would do with those powers. Some of the kids’ favorites include: telekenesis, super strength, ability to fly, seeing through walls, super hearing, and running super fast. 

But over time I started to imagine what it would be like to  have a super power that would change my every day life. I began to want a super power I could have that would be a secret, but would transform my whole existence: the ability to touch an object and restore it to original condition — 100% new, 100% clean.

Can you imagine?After dinner, you simply pick up the dishes off the dinner table and put them back into the cupboard. Same with the pots and pans.  What a time-saver this super power would be! Think of all the time I would free up to be there for my family!

While I’m dreaming, here are some of the ways my life would be changed:

• The car — think of it. No french fries under the seat, no cracker crumbs, no finger prints on the windows. The tires would be new, as would be the engine.
• The laundry. Simply take the clothes out of the hamper, fold them, and put them away.
• The carpet. No more vacuuming, and your carpet looks brand new. The couch is now in a normal place in the room instead of off to the side to hide the big stain from your child’s latest mishap.
• The walls. No dirt, fingerprints, chipped paint. It looks like you just painted it!
• The bathroom. Need I say more?
• Toys and Books. Nothing broken, chipped, torn, faded, smelly, stained, or ripped.
• The house. A new roof, new paint job, new windows — anytime you want!

Since I’m human, I soon became disillusioned with my super power. I mean, it just wasn’t good enough. I needed to add the ability to “update” anything I touched. Clean and new and 100% restored to original condition just wouldn’t cut it. Who wants to look like they chose to buy at a lime green refrigerator? or clothes made in 1985? So, I added “updatabilty” to my super powers and once again my imagination soared.

But, as with all imagination games, it must come to an end. The bubble is always burst when I walk into my real kitchen to see the dirty dishes in the sink, the pile of old newspapers on the counter, and then discover a new stain on my living room carpet. And I realize that my choice is to live in a messy and sometimes dirty home — because I do want to be there for my family. Clean, and new is nice — but it’s nothing to playing imagination games with my kids.

But oh, to dream, if only for a moment.  What is your super power dream?

Copyright 2009 – twinParenthood.com / Kathryn Whiteley

Are you a victim of Twin Escalation Syndrome? 

Twin Escalation Syndrome (TES) is the tendency for twins, triples, or more to feed upon each others behaviors, and to escalate the behaviors in reaction to each other. TES.  If you are a parent of multiples, you’ve got it.  Every day.

If one multiple gets scolded for bad behavior, the other(s) must immediately perform the same action that resulted in the scolding – and often build on the behavior – bigger, bolder, “badder”.   If one screams, the others scream louder. 

In fact, Twin Escalation Syndrome often results in behavior that is so over the top, we’re not just talking “double trouble”.  You’ve got the bad behavior of one, added to the bad behavior of the other, and then intensified — exponentially. Sometimes it seems that every bad behavior of one is picked up and mimicked by the other(s). 

“Getting into Mischief” is a whole lot easier to do when you’re a twin.

"Honey... Have you seen my shaving cream?"

And let’s face it – the old, “If your brother jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?” quip just doesn’t cut it.  So what do you do?

1. Be calm.

When you can see a TES situation forming, try not to get swept up in the escalation.  Shouting only heightens the sense of chaos.  Take a deep breath and proceed with the following defense tactics.

2. Focus your attention.

Often TES occurs because of competition between siblings.  Deal with one child at a time, but tell the others that their turn is next. Take steps to minimize the competition between your multiples.  Try to get one on one time with each multiple on a daily basis, and at least one extended one on one event with each per week.

3. Distraction

Attempt to distract one or both before the situation gets out of hand. Suggest a new activity – and participate with your multiples in that activity – since their escalating behavior is probably an attempt to get your attention anyway.

4. Time out!

Yes, the old tried and true “time out “ method.  But with multiples, the key is to designate time out locations that are in separate rooms.  Time out locations also should not be in a place where you don’t want to associate bad feelings (for example, a crib/bed is probably not a good time out location).  Time outs generally should not exceed 1 minute per year/age beginning at age three.  Before age three, time outs might entail a few minutes sitting quietly with mommy reading a book instead of partaking in the escalating behavior you are trying to avoid.

I love hearing all the funny “Twin Escalation Syndrome” examples from other parents of multiples. Please share yours!

Copyright 2009 – twinParenthood.com / Kathryn Whiteley

I absolutley love, love, love, to hear funny stories about twins, triplets or more getting into mischief.  Do you have any funny stories to share, where their behavior seemed to feed upon one another?

Please take this quick survey to share your story (or, just leave a comment here if you’d prefer to do it that way).

Click Here to take TwinParenthood.com survey “Twin Mischief”

As always, thank you so  much for your help with my blog and book!

Nearly everyone has heard of “The Twin Bond” 

I find the concept of the twin bond very interesting, and we see it from a unique perspective in our household. Since we have two sets of twins, we often feel that we have our own little science experiment going on in our house. Here are some of the interesting aspects about our laboratory:

The twin bond is an amazing thing. I can say from our own experience that it will vary from one set of twins (triplets, or higher order multiples) to another. And in our family, of course, each individual child has a relationship with each individual. But, we also have the added factor of the bond between the sets of twins. It’s wonderful to see.

Our boys are bonded, but not nearly so much as our girls. Is that because they are fraternal? Yes, I think partly so. Is it because they are boys? Yes, I think partly so.  They tend to be more competitive than our girls (with each other, with family, with friends, etc.). They get into tussles every day. They’re starting to be aware that boys don’t show affection to other boys in our society.

But, there are also events in their lives that put their bond on display for all to see. For example, at school last year they took a field trip to the beach. The boys were assigned into two separate groups as they explored, looking for sea creatures.  Trevin discovered a geoduck (“gooey-duck”). He was so excited that he immediately started calling for his brother — who was nearly a mile down the beach. 

Our girls are tightly bonded. I grew up in a family with two older brothers. I admit that I never even thought about, or missed, having a sister — until now. I see the beautiful relationship that my girls have and realize that I would have liked having that. They play together all day and rarely fight.

Last week, Jessica was home from school with the flu. She had been throwing up and I was sitting with her, comforting her. She looked at me, tears welled up into her eyes, and she exclaimed, “I want Sammie!” Later, at the dinner table that night, we asked Samantha how it went at school without her sister. Sammie’s chin started to quiver, then big tears rolled down her face. “I missed Jessica!” she exclaimed.

We are truly blessed in our family. Our God is a generous and amazing God.

How about you? Are your twins tightly bonded? or less so? How do they show it?

Copyright 2009 – twinParenthood.com / Kathryn Whiteley

Two sets of twins 

What are the odds of that?  We get asked that question over and over.  Ann Barrows, author of “The Magic Half“ – a children’s book featuring two sets of twins, has  compiled some interesting twin statistics, including the odds of having two sets of twins — which she puts at 1 in 50,000.

After we had our twin boys, I was amazed at how many people asked me, “Are you done then?”  My answer was almost always “yes”, although in truth, I wasn’t so sure. My husband and I had talked occasionally about having another child, maybe a girl at some point in the future.  The thing was, we really didn’t think it was possible to have more kids.  We thought maybe we would adopt a little girl once our boys were a little bit older.

You see, we’d had so much trouble getting pregnant with our boys — we’d been told it was virtually impossible for us to get pregnant “on our own”. 

After we were married, we thought we’d wait a year and then try to get pregnant.  We were “older” when we married (32), but we thought there was still plenty of time to get pregnant. Wrong.

For years I had struggled with undiagnosed endometriosis. I had lower abdominal pain every day. I had been to many different kinds of doctors and specialists. Their conclusion? I had IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and my symptoms were just something I would have to live with.  It wasn’t until we tried to get pregnant did we start down a path that would reveal my “IBS” was really endometriosis. Looking back on it, it is unbelievable to me that all the doctors and specialists I had seen did not think of Endometriosis as a possibility. Now that I know the symptoms of endometriosis, it is so very clear to me that it was an exact fit to all my complaints. Why didn’t they see it?

Endometriosis is a painful, fertility stealing disease. For those of you that don’t know, it is where the tissue that normally lines the uterus is found in places outside the uterus. This tissue reacts to your monthly hormonal changes which leads to internal scarring. In my case, I had adhesions on my ovaries making them incapable of ovulation. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn this immediately.

Infertility — it’s a series of incremental losses.  We struggled with infertility for years.  We started out in ”the normal way” trying to get pregnant. But, after a year with no luck, we sought answers.  Fertility specialists often begin with a “let’s try this” approach. Each “let’s try this” step took months, stretching into years of unexplained infertility. Finally leading to the discovery that I had endometriosis.  I won’t dive into the details of that painful time. If you’ve experienced infertility — you know. But after many different types of treatments and procedures, we were very blessed with our twin boys.

So, when people asked if we were “done”, naturally we said “yes”.  But since we thought we couldn’t get pregnant, we didn’t take any precautions against it. And when our boys were only 18 months old, it was quite a shock to discover we were expecting. We thought there was no way we could get pregnant, and yet, we were!

As I was heading into the room with the ultrasound technician, I said, “I just hope it’s not twins.” She looked at me and said, “Why, do they run your family?” And I said, “No. But I already have a set of IVF twins.” Then, as she was taking her first look, she suddenly sucked in her breath and said, “Oh my God!” 

It is amazing how many thoughts can run through your mind in a split second. All the imagined dangers, the possibilities of what could go wrong. And my concluding thought was that she would not have exclaimed out loud if there was a real problem with the pregnancy. And therefore, it must be twins. “It’s twins, isn’t it?”, I said. She turned the monitor towards me and said, “yes, let me just check to make sure there isn’t another one!”

When I came home, I entered my husbands home office looking white as a ghost. He quickly said, “Oh, honey… what is it?” thinking that there was a problem with the pregnancy.  I handed him the ultrasound picture without a word.  He knew what he was seeing… because when you have twins, they do many more ultrasounds than they do for a singleton pregnancy.  He had seen dozens of pictures with two little embryos. He quickly scanned the image, looking at the text in the corner for the date.  He thought I was trying to pull a prank on him! But, no. We were indeed pregnant with a second set of twins.

As we told people about it, many people said, “At least you know what to expect!”  Our response was always, “Yes. Think about it. Now we know what to expect and we’re scared!” But God wouldn’t do that to us without also giving us the blessing of my wonderful mother. She has been there for us every step of the way. Saint Bev.

Now when people ask if we’re done, we can say with confidence, “Yes. We’re done.” Because we’ve taken precautions. When I had my C-Section with the girls, I also had them do a tubal ligation. No more surprises for us.

So… my little lesson is this: If you think you can’t get pregnant again because  you had so much fertility help… think again. Be sure to take precautions – unless, like us, you would be overjoyed at the idea of a second set of twins.

Copyright 2009 – twinParenthood.com / Kathryn Whiteley

Getting out and about with twins, triplets or more is a difficult undertaking. But, when you add all the attention it generates, it can be downright draining. Many parents of young twins or higher order multiples ask,

“When does all the attention begin to slacken? When does the Carnival End?”

For most everyone, regardless of your particular multiples, the attention begins to lessen a bit somewhere around age two, and gradually fades as the kids approach school age.  By that time, the attention has reduced quite a bit. This is pretty universally true whether you have identicals or fraternals, twins, triplets, or more.  The degree to which it reduces is directly related to several factors:

• How alike do your multiples look? Are they identical? Are they fraternal – but look very similar?
• How close in age do they look? Some twins look like one might be older.
• Are they the same height?
• Do they dress alike?
• Are they the same gender?
• How many children do you have in your entourage?
• Are you still using a double, triple or bigger stroller?

For some, the extra attention will be a life long thing.  This is true for those with higher order multiples, and for those who look very alike. But, even for those sets of multiples, the attention does slacken as they get older. Older kids just don’t have that universal appeal that babies have.

Many parents of twins struggle to get errands completed in the early years, but love that people recognize how special twins and multiples are.  May D, of Lenexa, KS says, “I don’t want to make people feel like they’re irritating me because it [is] nice that people think twins are special. But, it could turn a short run to the grocery store into an hour long trip if I stopped to talk to everyone who says ‘Twins! Oh they’re so cute!‘ ”

In an informal survey conducted on twitter and twinParenthood.com, parents cited the following questions as the most commonly received:

• Are they twins?
• Are they identical?
• Do twins run in your family?
• Are they all yours?
• Who was born first?
• Were you surprised?
• How do you do it?

And the most common comments received:

• You’ve really got your hands full.
• Wow. You’re really busy! 
• Twins! How cute!

Many parents are amazed at some of the questions or comments they receive.  Some of the more unusual or intrusive:

• Are they natural?
• Did you have a C-section?
• Do you plan to have any more?
• Did you have your tubes tied? / Did your husband have a vasectomy?
• Glad it was you and not me!

And while nearly all parents of twins are occasionally taken aback by the intrusive questions of strangers, most feel that the majority of people are friendly and just curious about multiples.  To keep things light and on a positive note, the majority of  parents like to respond with funny one-liners delivered in a friendly tone.

• Q: Do twins run in your family?
  • A: They do now!
• Q: Are they twins?
  • A: Yep. Buy One, Get One Free!
• Q: Really? Twins? But they look so different! 
  • A: Yes! Almost like they’re two different people!
• Q: Are they natural?
  • A: As opposed to…? or
  • A: 100%! or
  • A: Nope! They’re plastic, pretty realistic, huh?
• Q: Which was born first?
  • A: They’re Twins! or
  • A: We’re not sure, we think they were switched at birth!
• Q: How far apart are they?
  • A: About six inches
• Q: Were you surprised?
  • A: No, we put in an order for twins!
• Q: Did you use I.V.F.?
  • A: No, we had S.E.X.

Two years goes by so quickly, and soon you will be missing the attention your crew drew when you were out and about. No, really… it’ll happen. So, try to enjoy it and keep the attitude that those with singletons or none at all are just a little jealous of that specialness of multiples.

What about you? What are some of the funny questions, comments, or answers you’ve experienced? Leave us a comment to share your funniest (or most painful).

Copyright 2009 Kathryn Whiteley – http://twinParenthood.com

Getting out and about with multiples is especially difficult. Then, add to that all the attention that comes with having two or more and it can drive you nuts!

Please help me understand this problem better in preparation for an upcoming article I am planning to write. As always, your input is a huge help to me. Thank you for participating in my surveys!

Click Here to take survey on twin attention

“Stop. STOP. STOP!” Stopping bad, or I should say, unacceptable behaviors in toddler twins, triplets, or higher order multiples can be a challenge.

We’re not talking about the minor annoyances, here. We’re talking about those behaviors that must stop — biting, hitting, screaming, spitting, you name it.  These are the behaviors that cannot, must not, continue. These problems exist with singletons too, but with multiples it seems to be magnified.

I still remember the day my toddler son, Brenden, bit his brother on the arm. There was a distinct set of teeth marks on Trevin’s little arm. The howling cries brought me tearing into the living room, and I was so shocked to see that he had drawn blood. These are moments when you can either shake your child (please don’t), or have a plan ready to quickly, unemotionally, deal with it so (hopefully) it won’t ever happen again. Fortunately, I  had a plan.

A triplet mom friend had passed along a little “cure” to me — which I have to say is fabulous! It works like a charm.  When she first told me about this cure, she talked about how her kids had been going through a screaming stage. They would scream about anything, long, loud, blood curdling screams.  The solution? “Screaming Medicine”.  A drop of white vinegar onto the tongue of the offender with the sad exclamation, “Bummer! You are “insert behavior here” again. Now you’ll need some of the “insert behavior here” medicine to stop that. So sad.”

I’m telling you, it works! I quickly soothed my crying son, and grabbed the magic bottle. Turning to Brenden, I expressed my empathy (“Bummer, Brenden. You’ve hurt Trevin. You need some biting medicine to stop that so it won’t happen again. So sad.”) I quickly put a single drop on Brenden’s tongue. His eyes got very big and he started to cry. I felt like a big meanie… but only for a moment. I realized that this harmless little bitter drop was so much better than yelling, spanking, or more biting.

Over the years, we have used (and still occasionally do use) the following types of “STOP” medicine (all of which are actually vinegar, of course): biting, hitting, screaming, and spitting.  Not sure what is next, but the little bottle is waiting on the shelf, at the ready.

This solution shouldn’t be used for minor behaviors you wish to stop. Children need to learn techniques for controlling their own behavior and rely on your help to teach them how to do that. STOP medicine is for the behaviors that need to stop immediately because there is a safety concern.

Now, all I have to say is, “Bummer! You are “insert behavior here” again!” and they hang their heads, walking slowly to the bathroom sink.  They lean over the sink where I drop a single drop of the vinegar onto their tongue. The best part is the sound they make after it hits their tongue. “Pah! Pah! Pah!” as they grab for the paper cups so they can rinse out their mouth. 

The taste is bitter and very unpleasant. The consequences are logical.  Kids these days are used to receiving medicine for various problems. And best of all, a single drop of vinegar is not at all harmful.

Give it a try, and see how fast you are able to stop those unacceptable toddler behaviors. Oh, did I mention that my “toddlers” are now 8 and 6?  The good news is that these nasty behaviors only crop up once in a while — as long as they know the nasty consequences. As they’ve gotten older, we have added a “make up” chore as well. So, a drop of “STOP” and a make-up chore for the victim. And that is my little STOP toolkit.

What’s in your “STOP” toolkit? Please leave a comment and share with the rest of us worn-out, tired, and fed-up referees.

Copyright 2009 Kathryn Whiteley – http://twinParenthood.com

Having a baby often results in feelings of isolation and difficulty making connections. This can be especially true for moms of twins, triplets or more, as parents of multiples experience more difficulty getting out of the house than do parents of singletons.

Please help me understand this problem better in preparation for an upcoming article I am planning to write. As always, your input is a huge help to me. Thank you for participating in my surveys!

Click Here to take the twinParenthood.com survey