Wouldn't you want to teach these two?

"Without relying on physical attributes, what three descriptive words would you use to best describe how your child navigates his/her world? Please support each descriptive word with a short paragraph. "

- School Application Form

So, here's what I wrote. And why the heck not go for multiple distribution channels?

(Edits, comments welcome. )

ZACH:

The Listener
From a remarkably early age, Zach was hearing the world around him. From music, to words, to the cadences of speech and city, Zachary is constantly absorbing and replaying sounds he hears. And as we listen to him sing himself and his brother to sleep each night through the vent in the wall, we are witnessing his evolution from clever parrot to lyricist and composer. He “composed” his first song at 18 months – an ode to Broccoli, sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle. Now his nighttime ritual has become a collage of the songs and sounds of the day, his words the emerging pattern of his memories. “Old McDonald had an engine, e-i-e-i-o, and the engine had a magic feather, they can’t find it, where is thumbkin, e-i-e-i-o, broccoli-broccoli-broccoli song”

The Flirt
There is a certain girl that is magic for Zachary. She’s between the ages of 5 and 8. She’s small enough to be at the same playground, young enough to find entertainment in a slide, but big enough to know what she wants, when she wants it. Without fail, Zachary will find her – impossible to miss in her red sparkly flats – and within 5 minutes he will be holding her hand. Our theory is language: he can communicate with older children clearly. Not only does he understand directions, he can hold up his own end of any exchange. But he’s also young enough to be starry-eyed at the attention of every Disney Princess he meets.

Steady
“You could drop him on the moon, and he’d be OK, wouldn’t he.” So said another mother, as she watched Zach during his first day-care drop-off. He turned with a wave (“bye bye mama!”), made a bee-line for the Thomas trains, and never looked back. Zach is comfortable in his skin. He’ll sleep in any strange house in any dark room, no matter what creepy shadows dance on the walls. He’ll dive right in to any play date, jump onto any new jungle-gym, and accept every baby sitter we throw his way.

JAKE:

Problem-solver
Although Jacob (Jake) is only two and a half, he has already shown himself to be a prodigious problem-solver. Whether it’s figuring out how to reach an apple on the counter (move a stool to a chair to a high chair and voila, a make-shift staircase!), turn on a CD (play drum music!), or find the missing pieces of a puzzle (under rug!) Jake displays both ingenuity and tenacity. We are convinced he will have dismantled – if not actually fixed – a DVD player by the time he is three.


Empathic
When Jake is thirsty, he always asks for two glasses of milk –one for himself, and one for his brother, Zachary. When I strained a muscle, he asked, every day for weeks, “mama’s back feel better?” and gave me a kiss on the small of my back. He is often the first to give a hug and a kiss, and is able to share with the grace of a much older child. Of course he is two –he is just as liable to yank the toy from the hands of his twin brother versus grab an alternative or attempt a trade. But Jake is clearly attuned to the feelings and needs of those around him.

Busy
Jake is not one to let his hands sit idle. He is a busy guy. He’s not particularly interested in the television, but give him a set of legos and he can built the world’s tallest towers for an hour straight. He is constantly finding ways to be physically engaged in the world around him- turning the pages, connecting the dots, sorting my change and hearing each penny land with a satisfying ‘clink’ in his piggy bank. At least one part of his body is almost always in motion – his feet, hands, fingers – even in his sleep he’s moving his legs as though he’s still making his way through the world.

Blues Brothers

Without a Net

Things I didn't do this morning:

* Eat breakfast

* Read a newspaper, magazine, or back of any cereal boxes

* Wipe up the congealed combination of syrup, milk and banana currently coating our dining table

* Fold the increasingly-wrinkled laundry that's been in a basket for I don't even know how many days

* Put on eye-shadow (though I did manage dabs of lipstick and mascara)

What I did do this morning:

* Got both boys up, changes, fed, relatively clean, dressed, teeth brushed, with lunch boxes in hand, ready for hubby to walk them to school

* Read four books with the boys, including"Mr Rush" (of which the irony was lost on my children)

* Made it, showered, lipsticked, and high-heeled onto a subway by 9 a.m., with a banana in my bag

Actually, the above is a bit of a misrepresentation. The boys are the ones who woke ME up, shouting "RE-BEC-CA, OP-EN THE DOOR!" whilst jumping up and down in their cribs. And hubby won the jackpot, changing the poopy guy while I just had to wrestle with his brother to change the remnants of last night's milk.

So, why was this morning noteworthy? Because, for the first time, we are child-care free. No more nanny. No more au pair. No one living in our apartment that doesn't have the same last name.

See, the boys started day-care, and they are loving it. So much, they actually refuse to leave with alarming regularity. And it just didn't make sense to have an au pair living with us, if she only has to work an hour or so a day. And now I get to have a home office. And we save money. And other people do it, every day. They get up, get their kids up, get their kids to school, get themselves to work, leave work, pick up their kids, and get ready to do the same thing the very next day.

I'm sure it will get harder. We'll forget things, like packing lunch the night before. The exceptions will hit - hubby and I will both have early meetings on a day when one boy wakes up with a fever of 103.

But there's no denying hubby and I got off to a great start. Perhaps the most important evidence to support that claim: we made it through without a single argument.

To top everything off, I found a seat on the subway - a gift of 30 extra mins. to be used however I see fit. To be used, for example, to facilitate writing a blog entry, even on my first day without a net.

Tick-Tock You Don't Stop

So, four months. OK. Fine. Lots of things to blame for radio silence. But, really, just myself. So, fine. Anyway.

Been hearing a sound lately - a shocking sound. It's the incessant ticking of my internal, must-have-more-babies, time-is-running-out-and-you're-still-fertile clock. Why is that shocking, exactly? After all, I'm 35. Smack dab in the middle of nature making a run on my ovaries. Why shouldn't I be feeling that urge to keep procreating?

Why? Because I'm done. We're done. DONE.

See, we always wanted two kids. We live in New York city, land of ridiculously expensive apartments and even more ridiculous school tuition. And I never want to drive a mini van. And I believe in putting back what you take out - I'm not trying to repopulate any tribes. And my life is holding steady to a perfect, precarious balance. And I got lucky with a two-for-one-deal - I don't HAVE to be pregnant again. (And let's not forget how particularly awful my pregnancy was).

So I am DONE.

It doesn't even need to be said that I love my children. There is nothing in my life that even compares to being a mother - or that ever will. I don't even subscribe to that 'I don't want anything to distract me from the kids I have today' because not a single part of me doubts that I - that we - have more than enough to go around. It's just, I am DONE. And I'm GOOD. And I know, I said that already.

Maybe I'm repeating myself because, apparantly, someon needs to aprise my hormones of that fact. Or my ovaries. Or milk ducts. Or whichever weapon Nature deploys when I'm in the presence of one of those cute, squishy, sweet-smelling, wanna-squeeze-'em-even-if-they're-hollering, bundles of someone else's joy.

What the ...?!?!? There is absolutely no sane, reasonable explanation for me to be thinking "I can do this, it wasn't so hard, we could totally do this again" or, even more tellingly, "awwww..."

Didn't I do that already? Didn't I already meet my Darwinian obligations? Isn't there someone else who should be hit with this onslaught? Some youngish, financially stable couple that just can't decide if they're ready? It's really quite upsetting, to be honest. I really thought it would go away. And the realization it hasn't is worse than acne in your thirties.

Because I'm done. Truly, really, truly, done.

I think.

Mother's Day, 2009
Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

With apologies to Henri

Wonder twin powers...

... activate!

Kidneys

Here's what the boys ate for dinner last Sunday:

* Grilled kidney

* Dandelion green salad

* Veal loin

* Zucchini

To be fair, they definitely ingested more meat than green things. They are clearly carnivores. Still, I think it is pretty safe to say that they are - at the ripe old age of almost-two - less picky eaters than I am. (Just to be clear - hubby was the cook.)

I suppose the idea of small children eating what many might consider unorthodox (if not unappetizing) meals isn't too crazy an idea - after all, how many of us want to scarf down tiny jars of pureed chicken and carrots? (Not to mention breast milk.) But that is all before they have the power of choice. These days the twins have decided mastery of the word 'no.' And - perhaps even more pertinent - they ask for things they want: "cracker? cookie? cake? snack!"

And yet, they eat almost everything we set down in front of them. With the exception of a higher daily dosage of raisins and rice cakes, they pretty much each what we do. Even broccoli.

So, here's the real question: how long is it going to last? How long until we slink into that deep oil vat of chicken fingers and french fries? How long until we're fighting the battle against monochromatic meals?

My fear is that it is inevitable. All toddlers hate almost all food. And all the anecdotal evidence I've amassed over the years certainly supports that view: meals rejected for their condiments (or lack thereof), menus discarded for 'noodles with butter,' vegetables pushed around plates to the point of wilt.

But maybe there's an alternative. Maybe the boys have inherited some crazy, no-such-thing-as-picky-eating gene from their father. Maybe they are preternaturally conditioned to think of food as the world's most refined extreme sport - anything has the chance to be good, so why wouldn't you try it?

Me? I have to be convinced. Like with those kidneys on Sunday. I gingerly took a bite - having sliced off a tiny sliver from the end, and coupled it on my fork with enough vinegar-soaked leaves to drown out any potentially noxious taste. And phew - it was fine. More than fine. I ate (almost) all of it. I might even try it again. Maybe. To be fair, I have a rough personal history with the kidney as an organ - so my squeamishness is at least understandable. (Although one could think I have even more incentive to chomp my way through them.)

Hubby's way is better - no question. It leaves one open to new experiences, and facilitates finding meals in foreign countries (I did see him demur when offered fried bugs in Thailand, although he's likely to deny it). Hopefully, they'll take after him.

Could we really be that lucky, and bypass the worst of the 'it's just a phase' phases? Or is it all about to come crashing down as the clock strikes midnight on their second birthday?

Regardless, for all the anecdotes I've witnessed as other parents try to wheedle their way through the food pyramid - I haven't witnessed malnourishment. Even if the ketchup bottle is about to take an extended bow, they'll live. We all will.

Except, of course, hubby. He'd have a conniption.

Increments

Another shameless plug:

A retrospective of my mother-in-law's work is getting published in May. The book is extraordinarily beautiful - it's being released by an independent publisher that specializes in hand-made books.

Her book is called Increments: Drawings 1970-1995.

You can learn more about the book here or on her own web site.

The publisher is The Crumpled Press - also worth checking out.

The Line

Jake is getting interested.

"Pee pee? Potty? Pee-pee in potty? In there?" It's a pretty exciting development. After all, what mother isn't entranced at the idea of a not-quite-two-year-old falling in love with the promise of a toilet?

But, see, well... Jake is interested in everything. He wants to watch others on the potty ("he's in here for the show!" the nanny called through the closed bathroom door the other day.) And, more than anything, he wants to help. He comes in to watch, standing sentry while I keep up my end of the conversation. "Yes Jakey, Mommy is going pee-pee in the potty!" He carefully pulls off a few sheets of paper from the roll - each movement infused with that intense, careful deliberation that is the hallmark of toddler explorations. And he hands me paper saying "Paper? Boom-boom?, which is toddler for "can I help you wipe your ass, mommy?"

Jake's new found toilet fixation has replaced his footwear fetish. I don't mean to say shoes have completely evaporated from the list of fun options (although Zach seems a little more excited to clomp around in Mommy's heels these days.) But gone are the days when Jake scrambles into my lap and tugs at my stockings and the zipper of my boots. (Yep. Fetish. I did not use the phrase lightly.)

Now he's all about the toilet. And, well, helping.

Which, honestly, feels a little, well... weird.

How do I teach my children to navigate cultural norms, but avoid forcing them into rigid, cultural constraints handed down from those Puritans of yore? When does encouragement and openness cross the line to inappropriate? And is that line even relevant for a not-quite-two-year-old with a burgeoning fascination for the porcelain God?

It's not like we don't continue to evolve on things like this as a culture. After all, we can show ankles these days without fear of recrimination (or the stocks). And blood and vomit permeate our entertainment. (Although human excrement doesn't seem to get as many Hollywood minutes.)

But still... we're not fully evolved yet. And I didn't let him help.

"No Jakey. Mommy does that herself. Thank you for trying to help, but people should touch their own private parts." Thank goodness he is only not-quite-two, and didn't immediately jump to the obvious hypocrisy After all, who, exactly changes his diapers? It's not like that's a solo act.

Of course, that's the good thing about twins. When they aren't developmentally in sync, you get a built-in, near-term do-over.

Maybe by the time Zach wants to see the show and lend a helping hand, I'll have figured out how - and where - to draw that line.

Maybe.