Radio Flyer 

Captain Sam 

Sam and his Wagon

Shannon bought the babies a radio flier wagon walker thingy. Sam has made it his own. He is able to use it as a walker. He starts on one side of the kitchen and walks diagonally to the other end of the room. When he gets there, Lynn picks him up, picks the wagon up, turns them around and he does it again. He brings along his dragon. He does it again. And again. And again. He can't really steer the wagon, so when no one will play the wagon game, he climbs inside and holds onto the handle like a captain in a ship.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Miss Behavior

Poor Miss Claire has had a problem with her brother for a long time now. Sam is a friendly Saint Bernard of a boy. If Claire is playing with a toy, Sam will want to play along and will crawl over and take the toy away. Sam might be excited to even have a sister, so he (in a good natured way) will grab Claire's nose or pound on the top of her head. If Claire is in the way of Sam's destination, he will run over her like a little boy tank.

Claire does not have the gross motor skills Sam does, so she often saw Sam's interaction with her as a threat. Her defense mechanism has been to scream and cry whenever Sam comes within a foot of her. As she grew more confident and coordinated, she developed other defenses. If Sam tries to take a toy from her, she will grab onto it with both hands preventing Sam from wresting it from her control. On other occasions she will let Sam take the toy and then, when his attention wanders, take it back. We have also seen her tense up and hiss at Sam like an angry cat. Over the past three months, these behaviors resulted in a sort of equilibrium. As long as Claire isn't overly tired, she is able to live peacefully with her oafish brother.

...Until Friday. Sam and Claire were playing with their weird musical dancing bugs with their mom when Claire grabed Sam's hand, brought it to her mouth and bit down. Neither mom nor Sam were expecting this. Sam crumpled into a mass of tears and hysteria. It took thirty minutes for him to calm down. She didn't draw blood, but she did leave marks. It might be that we are watching more carefully, but she seems a bit more assertive around her brother the past couple of days. She takes toys from him. She pushes him away when he approaches. She hasn't bitten him again... yet. She has bitten the top off the nipple of her bottle. And she did grab her brother's hand again with a glint in her eye.

Lynn is going to the Mother of Twins meeting on progressive discipline on Monday night. We will keep you informed.

It's for you... 

The Telephones

Sam and Claire visited our friends Larry's and Heather's house for their daughter Sophia's second birthday party. They spent the entire afternoon sitting in the play room quietly figuring out and playing with the toys there. Both Lynn and I checked on them repeatedly. Could they still be OK? Didn't they need some help?

One toy that particularly caught Sam's imagination was an old Fisher Price telephone. You probably remember it: wheels, a string, little eyes, a bell that rings when you turn the dial. Lynn tried to buy an updated version of the phone at Target, but it didn't meet her standards. The cord to the handpiece was kept too short, presumably to reduce the choking risk.

So, instead she bought them a lot of five older Fisher Price phones on Ebay. They include a push button phone which lights up and beeps when you press the key pad. There is a little phone a quarter the size of the others. One is old enough that it is made of wood. The babies love their phones. If you sit with Claire and her phone she will hand the handset to you so can take a call. After you talk on the phone for a while and offer it back to her for her to talk, she immediately hands it back insisting that you talk some more. If allowed, she will do this for hours on end.

Nicknames

Sam

• Mr. Fuss
• Sam the Hamster
• Rabid Squirrel
• Bear Cub

Claire

• Pirate
• Drunken Sailor
• Miss Girl
• Missy

They like it in the crib 

Sam and Claire share a moment 

After Napping, the babies play

Sam usually wakes up first from his nap. If Claire is fast asleep, mom takes Sam out and plays with him while Claire gets her beauty rest. Sometimes Sam wakes up and he is upset. He cries and whines and moans for as long as an hour after nap. Mom doesn't like it when that happens. But often when we go in to get the babies, they are both awake. Then Sam gets to go over to Claire's crib and romp around with her. Sam is particularly fond of Claire's Unicorn. He likes to dive into it and rub his face on it. The crib is right next to the window to the street. When Lynn raises the blinds the morning sun shines through the condensation from the humidifier. Both babies stand at the window and rub their hands on the moisture. Its great fun.

Claire letting us know she has had better days 

The Balad of Penny Evans

Here is the first verse of the song Claire goes to sleep to:
Oh my name is Penny Evans and I just turned twenty-one
I'm a young widdow in the war that's being fought in Vietnam
I have two infant daughters, thank god I have no sons.
They say the war is ending, but I think it just began.
Apologies to Michelle Shocked and whoever owns the copyright to the song.

Climbing in the fridge 

Cleaning the fridge 

Growing up is a dangerous thing to do

Living with twin babies in a tiny house in East Cambridge means that the whole family does everything together. Today we cleaned the fridge together. The babies love the fridge. Whenever Mom or Dad open it, they are both there standing at the bottom shelf looking into the bright cold and grabbing for condiments. Today they were able to stand for half an hour in its dazzling light. When I pulled out the bottom vegetable drawers, instead of standing in front of the fridge, Claire crawled inside. She stood in there for a good five minutes before tiring of the experience. At one point Sam tried to close the door on her. Fortunately Mom caught the door before he succeeded.

Sam and his Dragon 

Claire sleeping sitting up with the Unicorn in her mouth

The Dragon and the Unicorn

Many of our friends had children in the year or two before we did, so we received lots of stuff when Sam and Claire were born. Many of the clothes were too big for the babies and the toys were not age appropriate.

We thought at the time that it was weird that people would give us stuff for a one year old when what we had were newborns. Of course, later we realized that our newborns were going to grow and we weren't going to have the time or the money to buy a whole new set of clothes and toys every four months.

The Dragon and the Unicorn were among the gifts we didn't understand at first, but we grew to treasure. We got them from Lynn's cousin Jean. They were towels with hoods for two or three year olds to use to dry off after a bath or a swim. They were enormous next to these babies--what were we going to do with them? They went into the closet with all the other stuff we were never going to use.

Somehow we decided to use them as blankets. Sam and Claire loved them. They were below the age at which children are supposed to benefit from transitional objects, and yet they seemed to take them on as friends. Invariably, they cuddled with their creatures' heads. Both of them took to chewing on the ears of their Dragon and Unicorn. Where they would normally thrash about and cry not knowing what to do when we put them to sleep, with the Unicorn and the Dragon they wrestled, found an appropriate body part (like the ear or the horn) and sucked and chewed away into dreamland.

The Dragon and Unicorn accompanied Sam and Claire on their frequent trips to Maine and on their visits to Montreal, Texas and Minnesota. They are important enough to the babies that we have sought out and purchased body doubles for each of them. Unfortunately, Claire recognizes the difference between the stand-in Unicorn and the original. One time when the Unicorn was in the dryer, I gave Claire the stand-in. She cried bitterly for the twenty minutes that it took for the real Unicorn, still damp, to be ushered to her side.

The Unicorn and the Dragon are disgusting. Sam and Claire spend an inordinate amount of time with the ears of the beasts in their mouths. Their ears are discolored and spongy. There is no good time to wash them since the soak, pre-wash, wash and dry take hours. They are cleaned once a week. Even when the Unicorn springs from the dryer, its ears are a dull brown rather than the sparkling white they were originally.

We believe that Claire is a changeling. She comes originally from the planet Xenon. Every night she rides her Unicorn back there and communes with a whole planet of bald, squeeling, grinning babies. In the morning she comes back and spends the day on earth. Without the Unicorn she would lose touch with her people.

Once, a number of months ago, I put the Dragon on my head and played with Sam as if I was the Dragon. I had tried this before with Claire and it was a big mistake. She had a total meltdown. She did not want her father and her Unicorn to be confused in this way. Sam is a little more easy going. He was VERY EXCITED to have the opportunity to play with the a real live Dragon. He screamed, bounced, grabbed the Dragon's head. Occasionally he would look back at his mom with disbelief--"Look, Mom, see what's happening!"

Sam and Claire at two weeks. 

The Baby Gate at the Bottom of the Stairs

I apologize if this is prosaic, but I am sick with my second cold in as many weeks. We have to keep the baby gate on the bottom of the stairs closed now. If I so much as turn my head, Claire will climb up seven steps. With me standing behind her she climbed up all of the stairs twice today. Sam climbed up once. Claire is more regularly standing up by herself without a wall or chair to pull up on. The babies are no longer taking their early morning nap. They sleep an extra hour instead. I think this means that the rest of their naps are less stable. My guess is that their afternoon nap will grow longer and more predictable. We'll see. Sam slept for almost three hours this afternoon. Claire slept for two and change. Coming soon.... the story of the unicorn and the dragon.

Claire (and Sam) in the co-sleeper.

Sam and Claire a Year Ago Today

It was a very cold winter. We had our house de-leaded, but the contractors had not finished their work. So the babies were holed up with us in our bedroom separated from the rest of the house by multiple layers of plastic sheeting. There was a painter finishing the re-painting of our interior doors and painting the babies' room. Our room was like a fort, or a cave, or a den. The breast pump in the corner. Ten bottles of milk on ice packs on my dresser. The changing table at the foot of our bed. The co-sleeper between the bed and the window. The heat was cranked up. The babies were on a four hour schedule in the NICU. They did this to allow them time to sleep between feeding, temperature reading, changing, weighing and the like. They stayed on that schedule when they came home. They seemed to do OK. We were trying to get them to breastfeed and take breastmilk from a bottle. To encourage them to do well with breastfeeding, we used slow flow nipples. The cycle of trying a baby on the breast, moving the baby to a bottle, and then trying the other baby took as much as an hour and forty-five minutes. This was hard on us and hard on the babies. After the babies were home for a week, we took them for their third weight check. Our pediatrician told us that the babies had not gained any weight. I was terrified that they might have to go back to the NICU for "failure to thrive." At this point we made three changes. First, we moved to seven feedings a day instead of six. Second, we switched away from slow flow nipples. Third, we weighed the babies multiple times a day and kept the data. I suspected (and still suspect) that the doctor's pronouncement that the babies had not gained weight between the second and third weight check was due to measurement error. Here are the data I collected. It includes weight measurements for Sam and Claire. Each has a regression line and a line for an ounce of weight gain a day. We started using fast flow nipples on February 17th. As you can see it worked. We didn't have to send them back to the NICU. They grew.

It's Morning in America

Its morning in America 

Short takes from a Tuesday

-Claire climbed up seven stairs without help today. -Sam played on the stairs and slide at playgroup. -Claire fed plastic food to a doll while making eating noises for it. -Sam decided he DOES NOT LIKE fire engine sirens today. -Claire decided she DOES NOT LIKE the swings at the playground today. -Sam played the drum at play group. -Claire was a red elf at bedtime. -Sam and Claire listened to Little Brother and Little Sister by the Brothers Grimm

Sam is a very cute boy.  

But the Cat in the Hat never came....

That's right, they got up early. Sam was first at 5:10 am, an hour earlier than Claire. They had a bottle; they had breakfast. Dad went to work. Dad came home to get the laptop he forgot. Dad went back to work. There was a morning nap. There were good times. The family thought about going out, but the weather was tooooo cold. They waited for the cat in the hat to show up with some good tricks and some fun that is funny. But the cat never came. Lunch. Bottle. Played with Duplos. There was a new book from Ohio. "That's not my puppy his coat is toooooo furry." Sam beat up on the Bear some more. They had a cage match in the crib. Either Sam won, or the Bear was really good at rope-a-dope. There was an afternoon nap. Sam tried to climb the stairs, but he got scared on the fourth step. Claire was a little clingy in the afternoon. There was dinner. Dad came home. That was nice. The family went to Market Basket. It was fun at the grocery store, but the family was too poor to afford a jar of peanut butter. That was sad. Fortunately, the babies were too young to notice. At home there was another bottle. Sam wore a little red elf suit to bed. Claire wore yet another of Sam's blue hand-me-downs. It is her fate. Dad read the babies a Brothers Grimm story. The babies went off to sleep.

Are you a Sam or a Claire? Take the test and find out!

Here is my first shot at a series of questions to determine whether you are more like Sam or Claire. Next to each question is direction on how the answer should be scored. Keep track of your score.

1.  Would you describe yourself as serious or light-hearted?	Serious = 1, Light-hearted = -1
2. Do you like to view things from a perch?	Yes = -1, No = 1
3. When you have extra time, do you like to: a. go out and explore or, b. stay in and get things just right?	a. = 1, b= -1
4. When you meet new people, do you assume they are just like you, or do you like to watch them a while and assess them after you have more information?	Assume they are just like you = 1, Watch and assess = -1
5. Do you jealously guard your personal space?	Yes = -1, No = 1
6. As your mode of transportation, would you prefer to ride a dragon or a unicorn?	Dragon = 1, Unicorn = -1
7. Do you fear or have an aversion to: a. Vacuum cleaners, b. snow shovels, c. bathroom hand dryer blowers, d. clothes dryers?	1 point for every feared category
8. Do you think you are more like Pooh or Tigger?	Pooh = 1, Tigger = -1
9. Do you think you are more like the Cowardly Lion or the Tin Man?	The cowardly lion = 1, the Tin Man = -1.
10. Do you toss and turn in your sleep?	Yes = -1, No = 1
11. Are you ticklish?	Yes = 1, No = -1
12. Would people describe your smile as an “Ahh Shucks, good ole boy smile” or as a “toothy grin”?	Ahh Shucks smile = 1, toothy grin = -1
13. Are you more like Clark Kent or Spider Man?	Clark Kent = 1, Spider Man = -1

If your total is negative, you are more like Claire than Sam. If it is Positive you are more of a Sam person. Please make suggestions for improving the test.

Sam and the Bear

Sam and the Bear Click here to see a movie of Sam with his Bear

Shannon's Painting in The Babies' Room 

Sam eats his first brownie 

Happy to be headed into the weekend

Today the babies played with tupperware and pots and pans and plastic food. They especially like the funnel. Mom says dooo..doooo.do....doooooo through it and hands it to Claire. She chews on it and hands it back cooing to have mom do it again. They had their first brownies today, with a little bit of whip cream on top. The babies are ready to start the weekend. They saw Mary and Casey last night. Tomorrow they go to a post birth Baby shower for little Benjamin Reisz-Hanson. Who knows what trouble they'll get into.

Just another day 

The Babies a year ago today.  

One Year Ago Today Sam and Claire Came Home

Sam and Claire were born on January 10th, 2004. They came home on February 10th, 2004, one year ago today. Both babies were around 6 pounds when they came home. The picture above is of the babies sleeping on our bed. Their co-sleeper is on the left, complete with velociraptors. On the bed is The Namesake, a novel about another baby from Cambridge. On the right are glucose tablets. On the left in the foreground is the notebook where we kept the times of their feedings to make sure that they continued to gain weight so that the NICU wouldn't take them back.

This photo relates to story number one

Dad was too sick to help Sam and Claire with their Blog

Sorry for the delay, but I was sick with a cold that Claire gave to me. I think it is the real reason that she offers me green beans at dinner. There are three stories I can tell about the babies. The first is a story about Claire that I have been forbidden to tell by Claire's mom. Mom is protective of Claire's privacy, so although it is a really good story it will not make it to the internet or interfere with Claire's career as a pop singer. The second story concerns Sam. Mom put Sam and Claire to bed for their afternoon nap. They really weren't interested in going to sleep so they stood in their cribs and made yelping noises back and forth at one another. Lynn ignored the babies and waited for them to decide to go to sleep on their own. When she heard... a huge crash from the babies room and silence. Silence is never a good sign from babies so she went upstairs to investigate. Claire was standing in her crib looking over at Sam's crib with enormous eyes. Sam was standing in the far corner of his crib with an amazed expression. He had reached from his crib to a standing mirror two feet from away and managed to push it over. Lynn said, "Sam what did you do?" At this point Sam felt it appropriate to burst into tears. Now the mirror is safely in the basement. The third story is about what happened when I missed the babies bedtime tonight. About twenty minutes before bedtime we take them upstairs and change them into their pajamas, turn down the lights and let them relax and unwind a little before putting them to bed. When Lynn turned down the lights Claire crawled to the top of the stairs and sat looking down waiting for her dad to arrive. This happened last week on the day when I missed the babies bedtimes too.

Sam and Claire at Early Intervention

I am taking today as a vacation day to allow Lynn to catch up on her work and to save a little bit on child care. Lynn left at 8:00. I fed Sam and Claire homemade banana bread, a pear, canned green beans, and a banana Yo Baby. They both did a good job. Claire loves the green beans. Sam loves to eat everything. I made a little Tanzanian coffee, changed the babies out of their pajamas and settled them down just in time for the early intervention visit. Sam is doing great, he is "cruising" (crawling quickly from place to place, pulling himself up to standing at the couch or the tub). He is imitating, you point at the tummy of the stuffed dog. He points at it. You point at the dog's nose, he points at it. Claire didn't have as good a day. She has a bit of a cold so she was cranky and clingy. Nonetheless, she demonstrated her crawling, playing with blocks and the like. In how she sits and crawls she exhibits too much extension and not enough flexsion. She arches her back rather than shrugging her shoulders. When crawling she tends to keep her knees locked (especially on the left side) so that she crawls on her hands and feet rather than on her knees. Christy will be back on Monday of next week. I'll provide an update then.

Weekend with Sam and Claire

The weather is warmer, so we got Sam and Claire out of the house for the first time in what seems like forever. They went to Alex's second birthday party. There they were able to hang out with a bunch of other babies and play with some new toys. Claire is especially quite and reserved when around strangers. She crawls and smiles and screeches and babbles when at home. Sometimes in her stroller she waves and smiles at strangers. But in other people's spaces she puts on her "Claire Stare" and intently watches everything from her silent perch on her mother's lap. Sam is oblivious to property rights, personal space or boundaries between home and the world. I think he would crawl around happily in the middle of Cambridge street. Sam split his lip open on a stool in his room on Saturday evening. Claire while excitedly trying to crawl toward me forgot that she needed to move her hands forward and pivoted up onto her forehead. They had pancakes for breakfast yesterday and a broccoli, onion and cheese omelet this morning. Today we are going to use credit from a gift from my Mom to buy stuff for them at Hold Everything on Newbury street.

Songs to sing to Sam and Claire

(to be sung while holding Sam's hands when he is standing up) Sam is the best one, he's better than all the other ones Sam is the best one, he's better than all the other ones. Sam is the best one, he's better than all the other ones. He's our boy. He's our boy. Yeah Sam! Go Sam! (to be sung to Claire when she is in a good mood) Claire Emison. Claire Emison is the one. She like's a lot of fun. Claire Emison is the one. (a cheer often heard before Pretty Pretty concerts) Pretty Pretty Wooooo....! Pretty Pretty Wooooo...!

Sam and his Dragon 

A Typical Morning with Sam and Claire

At about 4:45, Sam wakes up and starts to howl. We stay in bed listening to him, hoping that he will just give up and go back to sleep. At 4:59 it we who give up. Lynn gets up, grabs Sam and takes him to our bed. He whines and sobs until he is presented with his bottle. He grabs it and greedily sucks its empty cuddling in the warmth of our comforter. About midway through his bottle we hear squeels from Claire. She is sitting up in her bed with a big smile on her face. She joins us in bed and eagerly grabs her bottle. When Sam finishes he squirms onto his stomach and then onto all fours. He crawls to the headboard and moves the frame of the picture above our bed. Sometimes he pats Claire's bottle or her face or her eyes. We try to discourage this. Claire tires of her bottle midway through and joins Sam at the picture frame. I pretend that I can get a few more minutes of sleep while two one year olds bounce and squeel just inches from my head. I mumble something about how its time for them to go back to bed. Lynn says they are not ready quite yet. Sam screams his agreement as he starts to pull the picture back from the wall. I think about taking a shower before they go back to bed, since it would wake them afterwards, but I don't. We change them and finally we put them back to bed. They offer only symbolic protest and sleep for another hour, sometimes an hour and a half. We sleep as well. As they wake I shower and dress. The babies and Lynn go downstairs to eat breakfast and I go off to work.

Sibling rivalry 

We Babies scoff at Danger!

I was reading my book in the front room on our trundle bed. The babies were crawling across the different levels of the bed across me and onto the floor. At some point they disappeared into the entry way and starting playing with something pretty loud. After a few minutes I went over to check on them: Sam was holding an empty plastic box which used to be filled with 2" deck screws. The screws were strewn across the floor. Claire was holding one screw in her hand and one in her mouth. Later my neighbor Maya called me to tell me that I had left the lights on my car. I went outside and turned them off. When I got back to the front door, I couldn't open it because both babies were standing with their hands against the door looking up through the glass at me and smiling. After about five minutes and a considerable amount of caterwalling, I was able to get it open enough to squeeze through. Claire has been experimenting with getting up on all fours on the trundle bed and then standing up for a few seconds before sitting or falling down. On one occasion she fell in such a way that her head hit against the wall. More caterwalling. Sam climbed out of the tub and fell on the floor. More caterwalling. Sam, in playing with Claire, shoved her head against the kitchen cabinet. More caterwalling. Clearly, these babies are not well supervised. That's what they get for hanging out with Dad.

That's right, I'm Claire 

Claire smiles for her fans.