Sam and Claire Emison

A family that pees together stays together

2006-03-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

Sam and his Potty Elmo say HI! Unlike Claire, Sam is a good eater. He will eat what his mom cooks for him just to show her how much he loves her.

Today Sam and Daddy peed at exactly the same time. We both thought that was pretty cool.

Yesterday Claire wouldn't eat mommy's corned beef hash. After a contest of wills between the two of them, I sat with Claire in the front room reading her a book. At one point, I paused and said that she should consider having a bite of the meal mommy made for her. It would make mommy really happy and she could have fruit with yogurt afterwards. She looked at me earnestly and said, "I said no."

2006-03-12T14:32:00.000-05:00

I want to wear Daddy's Coat.

A Sunday Walk with Strollers

2006-03-12T14:20:00.000-05:00

Chris, Katherine and Baby Ben ate breakfast at our house this morning. Ben is getting big. He is standing and walking. Sam and Claire played nicely with him, no fighting... no crying.

After breakfast, Sam, Claire, Mom and Dad went on a walk with their dolls and their doll strollers. We walked for two hours down Cambridge street all the way to the Casal Bakery past Prospect St. and back. They took their strollers up and down stairs. We crossed the street with the strollers at crosswalks. Sam especially loved to push his stroller. He walked the entire way.

We played at the playground behind the King Open School and watched a train cross the street.

All in all, it was a nice day out.

Another Long Saturday at Work

2006-03-11T19:57:00.000-05:00

Daddy worked on Saturday again. Sam and Mom and Claire walked to Kendall Square and took the T to Harvard. Then they played at the playground in Cambridge Common. When it was time to come home they took the 69 bus back from Holyoke Center.

Daddy came home a little after six. He took Sam and Claire out on a walk. We went to the Video store where daddy paid his late fee for the movie he rented last week. We stopped to see the Firetruck parked for take-out at Dilara. Sam saw the woman get out of the fire truck and say hi to him. We watched the firetruck idle. It was loud.

Then we went to Dilara. The man behind the counter talked to Sam and Claire. He asked them how old they were. He showed Sam and then Claire how to use the cash register. Claire said the alphabet to him. Sam and Claire were a little shy.

On the way home we stopped by the store where the monsters live. Sam liked the trash truck in the window. Claire openned and closed the gate in the front of the store.

Finally we came home, played some more and went to bed. Bed, bed, bed, bed, bed.

Claire's new swimsuit

2006-03-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

Here is Claire modelling her new swimsuit from auntie Erin. She is very interested in being able to put it on herself.

A Song Claire Sang

2006-03-03T21:42:00.000-05:00

Mom put Claire on the phone a few weeks ago, Claire said, "Moo, Moo... I love you. I know you're a cow, but anything will do..." Where would she have learned that?

Growing Up

2006-03-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

Claire and Sam are growing up. Here are some recent pictures of them. Claire cuddles with Daddy in the morning. Sam hams it up for the camera.

2005-04-04T21:28:00.000-05:00

Fun in the kitchen.

2005-04-04T21:24:00.000-05:00

Sam is a climbing machine.

Steppin' out

2005-04-04T21:02:00.000-05:00

Sam is an excellent crawler. We commonly chase one another around the second floor of our house. I take off into the bedroom and stop on the rug in front of our bed. I hear him behind me, his hands and knees hitting the floor--thump, thump, thump, thump. He sticks his head around the door and offers a big smile. Then he squeals and we crawl at top speed toward one another. I tickle him and he laughs and laughs. Then he speeds toward the bathroom. I go the other way and we meet back in the nursery. Once again we have a tickle-fest.

Sam is a problem solver. He likes to look out through the of our bedroom window onto the world. He can't quite see outside when standing up, so he will turn over our laundry hamper and push it to the window and climb up on top of it. He then stands at the window, pounding on the glass, squealing. Today he moved our kitchen chair to the counter, moved his little blue chair to the big kitchen chair, and climbed up one to get on top of the other.

Sam is a climber He climbs up and down the stairs. He climbs up and down from the couch. He stands up and pounds on the oven door. He pulls himself up to standing and looks at us in the bed. He holds onto furniture and steps across the room reaching from one piece of furniture to the next. He climbs out the front door and down the steps onto the sidewalk. He crawls from our front door to our car parked on the street and stands up holding onto the driver side door handle, wondering why it won't open. He loves jungle gyms in the park and taking multiple trips up the stairs and down the slide. On Sunday we were walking with the stroller in the South End and Sam started to whine and squeal inexplicably. Lynn knew what he was after; he had seen a little park about a block away with a slide at it. Sure enough, he kept his attention on the slide and as we walked closer, he started to rock back and forth and tried to squirm out of the stroller until we finally released him and let him use the slide.

Sam is a Walker For a couple of weeks, Lynn has seen Sam take a step. But she didn't think that it really counted. Last week at the playground, she was helped Sam off of the slide by setting him on his feet. He normally would get down from his feet, crawl to the stairs, climb them and go down the slide again. But that day, instead, he took three steps and then got down, crawled, climbed and slid like nothing special had happened. Today Liz saw Sam walk again at the Museum of Science. He doesn't make a big deal about it (like Claire would). He's still the same Sam.

2005-04-03T20:17:00.000-05:00

Would you like the doll, daddee?

Tank yew

2005-04-03T19:18:00.000-05:00

I have been playing a game with Claire since she was a (very) little girl.

She plays intently with small toys--the lid to a bottle, a hat, Lynn's blood sugar meter--for what seems like an hour at a time. As she plays, I will come up to her, open my hand and say, "Claire may I please have that lid?" At first I had to form my hands into a sort of a cup that she could put the lid into. She places the lid into the hole I have formed, I take it from her and say, "Thank you, Claire!" In response, she immediately reaches to take it back. I give it back to her and we do it again. We play this game a lot.

Over time the game has evolved. I no longer form my hands into a cup, but instead just leave one hand open. Instead of my having to take it from her, she will urgently thrust it into my hand. Instead of grabbing it back, she waits for me to offer it. This is all part of my strategy to make Claire behave in public like a trained seal (Ork-Ork).

Last week the game took a new twist. I was playing it with her and when she took the toy back, she sweetly said "tank yew" and smiled at me as if she hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. We have, of course, been playing this game quite frequently lately. She says thank you, or something roughly equivalent to that, if you play the game with her for about a minute. Sometimes she gets excited and yells "Daaa!" as she hands off the toy, and "Daaa! Dat!" as she takes it back.

Christy, Claire's early intervention therapist independently noticed the same thing from her. This was at the session where Lynn was going to ask whether our kids neither walking nor talking at nearly 15 months was a sign that they would have to take the little bus to school.

Claire uses other words.

She has said "dada" for a while and has recently started saying "daddee" she says it in all sorts of situations, including ones that are contextually appropriate. So that one counts.
For months and months, when she is in a situation she does not like she will say, "Neigh, Neigh, Neigh." Lynn says this doesn't count because it isn't a word. I point out that it is perfectly good Middle English, used in a situationally appropriate manner. Lynn says that we don't speak Middle English around her, so it does not count. We are at an impasse.
When something drops and I say Uh Oh!, she will respond in kind.
When she finds an item (a book, a shoe, a funnel) that she wants you to read to her, take from her, or notice the importance of, she will hold it up and say Oooo as in "MinnesOOooota." Lynn believes that this is the influence of her Great Grandma Bobbie Betlock.
Sometimes she just babbles and seems to say the strangest things--about Sarbanes Oxley, or her shoes.

And Sam.... well, Sam knows how to squeal. And he has a nice smile.

2005-04-03T19:05:00.000-05:00

Look who's talking

2005-03-31T22:14:00.000-05:00

Liz and Sam

2005-03-31T22:13:00.000-05:00

The Slide

Liz and Sam and Claire

2005-03-31T20:30:00.000-05:00

Liz cares for our babies for a couple days every week. We met her when she came to Boston from Italy where she had been lives. Josie (Ork-Ork), her mother, had been taking care of the babies for us went to Florida to care for her father for a few months, she handed the baton to Liz.

When she started caring for Sam and Claire, they were cranky babies, winter-bound in our tiny house. I think they conspired to give her a hard time. I have never experienced anything quite like facing two infants in meltdown without anyone else around. Often there is nothing one can do but focus on, walk with, and calm one of the babies, leaving the other to fend for itself. I am pretty sure that Liz has faced this dilemma more than once with Sam and Claire. Often I came home on Thursday afternoon and heard her euphemistically describe the problems Claire and Sam had that day.

As we moved through the winter, though, the babies grew bigger and happier. Instead of hearing about the problems the babies had, I heard more and more stories about the places they went and the games they played. When she comes into the house, Sam and Claire light up with smiles and shrieks. The babies told me that when Liz is caring for them, the time just flies by. She helped them make that transition from cranky infants into little self-sufficient toddlers. They appreciate that.

Sam and Claire are already planning their trip to Italy to visit Liz when she goes back home. Sam is secretly planning to hide in Liz's suitcase.

2005-03-27T21:13:00.001-05:00

Sam plays with the ducklings

2005-03-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

Sam eats a banana

2005-03-27T21:12:00.001-05:00

Taking Claire's temperature

2005-03-27T21:12:00.000-05:00

Testing the ear thermometer on myself

Make Way for Ducklings

2005-03-27T20:42:00.000-05:00

Today we walked to Kendall Square, over the Longfellow bridge, and down Charles street to the Public Garden. It was a wonderful day. Blue skies, a slight brisk breeze. The babies ate bananas next to the stay off the grass signs. Sam especially liked watching the train crossing the bridge.

The ducklings from the children's book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey are bronze statues in Boston's Public Garden. Whenever we walk by them, there are children petting and riding the statues. Sam and Claire visited them for the first time today. The ducklings were dressed up for Easter in fancy hats. Sam fed real ducks, geese and pidgeons.

Claire had a cold, so she mainly stayed in the stroller.

Oh yeah, Mom made biscuits.

2005-03-27T20:34:00.000-05:00

Dad and Sam at the Public Gardens

Updates and Corrections

2005-03-26T10:39:00.000-05:00

Claire did not blind Lynn. Claire's antics with her mother's glasses have not harmed their relationship. Mom keeps both Sam and Claire away from her glasses now.
Lynn did not go to a progressive discipline meeting at the mother of twins club. It was a positive discipline class. As many of you pointed out, progressive discipline is what we would use on the babies if we were planning to fire them.
We recieved two other business ideas related to the babies day off . One is to hire a babysitter to care for one of the babies and go out with the other one pretending that we don't have twins. The other is to bury the babies up to their necks while we are tending the fields. Kay suggests that we send them (Federal Express?) to Minnesota.
Claire now uses the Radio Flyer wagon like a pro. When we first received it, we reported that it was mainly Sam's toy.
We no longer have a problem with Claire biting Sam as was described in Miss Behavior
Sam now crawls both up and down the stairs like a pro.
We think Claire looks a little bit like Uma Thurman.

What's Mine is Mine

2005-03-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

Sam's rules of Property

If I like it, it's mine.
If it might be mine, its mine.
If it's in my hand, its mine.
If I can take it from you, it's mine.
If I had it before, it's mine.
If I'm making something, all the parts are mine.
If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
If it looks like mine, it's mine.
If I think its mine, it's mine.

Exerpted without permission from Me, Myself and I: How Children Build Their Sense of Self--18 to 36 Months by Kyle D Pruett

Because they wanted To

2005-03-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

There is this short story by Mary Gaitskill about a babysitter in Vancouver. She just moved to the city, she doesn't really know anybody there... she is sort of drifting. I read the story a long time ago, so most of the stuff I describe about it will be wrong. She meets a woman who has two kids in a laundromat. The woman asks if would be willing to babysit while her husband and she go to dinner. The babysitter doesn't have very much money left, she can certainly use the opportunity.

The woman has an apartment in a tall building in the city. The place is a little messy, cluttered with toys. They woman and her husband are rushed to get out of the house. She quickly shows the babysitter where the all of the stuff is and lets them know that they'll be back at 9:30.

The children and the babysitter play the for a while. One game they like they like to play is to jump up and down on the bed wildly repeating the following joke: "why did the Chicken cross the Road? Because he wanted to!"

So 9:30 comes and goes and 10:00 and 10:30 and the parents haven't returned. So at 11:00 the babysitter leaves the children alone in the apartment. That's the end of the short story.

I thought about that short story today as I sat in a meeting with our General Manager about one of our accounts (if your reading this its not yours) and the clock slipped past the time I was supposed to leave to meet the babysitter and pick up the kids.

Fortunately I don't live in Canada where babysitters are irresponsible, so the kids were waiting with Liz when I arrived an hour late. Fortunately Lynn doesn't really read this blog. Otherwise I'd be in big trouble.

2005-03-23T22:02:00.000-05:00

Drool

Sam and Claire go to the Liquor Store

2005-03-23T21:12:00.000-05:00

Liz cared for the babies today while Lynn went to work making the world safe for tracing your family history. Sam and Claire spent a lot of time outside with Liz.

I came home at 5:30 so Liz could hand off the children to me. Liz reported on their day. Claire declined to have her afternoon nap. What a surprise. Sam was fussy after he woke up from his. What a surprise. There was stuff about Claire I am not allowed to write in the blog. Liz cooked the babies a frittata.

After Liz left, Sam and Claire and I crawled around the first floor of our house. Claire and I held hands and walked back and forth from the front door to the kitchen and back. Sam and I chased one another back and forth in the kitchen.

Finally, I pulled the baby backpack out of the basement, put socks and a coats on Sam and Claire, and put Sam in the backpack. Sam didn't like it. He whined and complained and whined. I held Claire in my arms, put Sam on my back, and we went into the street. Sam and Claire and I calmed down once we got outside. There is way too much going on outside to be fussy.

We walked past the Chinese restaurant. We walked past the Monster toy and game store. We walked past Mayflower poultry. Sam looked. Claire looked. Claire waved. Then we went to 660 Liquors (at 660 Cambridge St.). The woman behind the counter said, "Look it's the Twins. They're getting so big. God bless 'em." Sam tried to grab a bottle of wine as we walked to the the coolers in the back.

We picked out a big bottle of Chimay ale made by Trappist monks who support the culture of life. As we paid for the beer, an old woman in the store talked to the babies in Portuguese. We walked back home. Claire listened to Cat in the Hat while Sam chewed on the cork.

Mom came home. We played some more, changed the babies into their pajamas, turned down the lights and put them to bed. Goodnight moon. Goodnight noises everywhere.

2005-03-21T18:26:00.000-05:00

Reading is fundamental

Sam's and Claire's favorite books

2005-03-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

The Cat in The Hat

A very topical book for this long New England Winter. It is a Freudian allegory of the struggle between the id, the ego and the super ego. It is a favorite of Claire Emison's.

The Sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.

Sadly, the Cat in the Hat never comes to save our family.

One Hungry Monster, A Counting Book in Rhyme

This is a book about a boy who struggles with the appetites of as many as TEN hungry monsters begging and pleading to be fed. Could it be that these monsters represent what others expect him to want? Are they a symbol of rampant consumerism? The boy placates the monsters and still finds a way to fulfill his true desires.

Then from behind the toaster,
my secret hiding spot,
I take an apple muffin
the monsters never got!

Kleine Molli ganz groß

A sort of a feel good Bildungsroman from Tante Erin. Molli, a little bear, does everything herself for a day. She eats breakfast, paints, plays with balloons...
Spielen macht Hunger.
Es gibt Mollis Lieblingsessen.
Ein Löffel, eine Gabel -
aber ohne get es am besten.

That's not my puppy...its coat is too hairy

Every page has a part of the puppy to feel. Paws are too bumpy, tail is too fluffy, ears are too shaggy... you get the idea.

That's my puppy!
His nose is so squashy.

2005-03-12T20:38:00.000-05:00

Every day brings a new discovery

2005-03-12T20:36:00.000-05:00

So Many Books... So Little Time

Business Ideas

2005-03-12T20:00:00.000-05:00

It snowed again in Boston today. It has been a really tough winter and the babies, Lynn and I are starting to get on one another's nerves. Yesterday I caught Claire looking on the internet for a family in Florida that might take her. I think Sam is capable of crawling south for the winter.

I have a few ideas for removing the stress of our enforced togetherness. I would like input and ideas from you as well.

Babies' day off. I get the sense that Claire and Sam need a break from our constant togetherness as much as Lynn and I do. An obvious solution would be to give them a vacation from their parents. All we need to do is fill twelve baby bottles with milk, open three cans of green beans and toast ten pieces of bread and put it all up into their room. Put the CD player on auto repeat of the muppet movie soundtrack. Pull the toys out and let them have at it for the day. "OK Kids, here's the deal: you don't bother us, we won't bother you." I've just started to discuss this possibility with Lynn. She is skeptical now, but I think she'll come around.
The Baby Kennel. A friend of mine runs a doggy day care in Salt Lake City. The idea is that you drop off your dogs when you need to travel or even if you need to be out for half of the day. They run the dogs together; the doggy day care allows them to form into a sort of a pack. They have a grand time. I figure that this concept could be run in reverse. Instead of traditional day care, where you leave your kids on a regular schedule because of commitments to work, there could be a sort of baby drop off day care center where you could leave your children for an indeterminate period of time. They, too, could let the children bond together in a natural way like dogs in a pack or the Lord of the Flies.
The Baby Walking Service. This is sort of a variation on the previous idea. Around here you see day care centers with these stroller-wagons that hold twelve children. When the weather is good, the day care staff carts the kids down the walking path. Instead of all the overhead of day care--insurance, trained staff, rent--one could have a sort of a baby walking service. The wagon-stroller could go on a predetermined route. It would have a distinctive sound--like an ice cream truck--when parents heard it, they could get a twenty dollar bill out, bundle their child in a snow suite and put him in the wagon. It would come back around in an hour or two. I know that there is some way RFID could be used as part of this business model.

2005-03-09T19:50:00.001-05:00

Sad sad Sam

2005-03-09T19:50:00.000-05:00

Claire took the medicine bottle

2005-03-08T21:40:00.000-05:00

Sam

2005-03-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

Claire and I have a special relationship. Not only are we a father-daughter pair, we are also friends. We read together, hand legos back and forth, walk around the house looking out the windows at the never-ending Winter. Sometimes we just hang out doing nothing. Claire is my girl.

And yet it is Sam who breaks my heart. He is a highly mobile boy. In the evenings he often does laps crawling through our bedrooms. He doesn't keep eye contact like Claire does when he is interacting with you. When he's happy, he gets this aw-shucks grin on his face and goes back to his current job. When Claire is happy, she gets an enormous toothy grin, like a hyena baring its teeth and squeals with excitement. When she is upset, her body goes rigid and she screams louder than any other being her size.

When Sam is upset, it is like his soul has been irreparably wounded. He sticks out his lower lip. His eyes get really big. He begins to cry and then he wails like a hurt bear cub. Even when you have properly soothed him, he retains a residual melancholy as if your taking a quarter, or a pen or a pair of scissors away from him has shattered his illusion that the world is a habitable place.

I stayed home with Sam and Claire today. They didn't have a very good morning nap. After lunch they went to play group. When we made it home from play group it was three o'clock and they were ready for a good afternoon nap. After about thirty minutes, Sam starts to wail. He is, as is almost always true in these cases, sitting up in his crib watching the door crying his eyes out. Claire is dead asleep. I take Sam out of the room to keep from waking Claire. He's only been down for thirty minutes and he didn't have a long morning nap, so he will have to go back to sleep.

When I am carrying him around he is fine (accept for the residual melancholy). When I lay down with him in our bed, he starts crying again. I snuggle him into my shoulder, rub his back and sing to him and he slowly calms down. Every fifth breath is still a gasp to hold back his tears. If I stop singing or talking or I stop petting him, he starts up again. After about fifteen minutes he finally falls off to sleep, a warm bundle at my side.

2005-03-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

Sam pulls the top to his bottle off the kitchen counter

Accidents are bound to happen

2005-03-07T21:51:00.000-05:00

We have been giving the babies dextromethorphan for their coughs. We didn't get a dropper to use with bottle, so we have been using the dropper that came with the tylenol. Sam doesn't like cough medicine. Claire, taking after her dad, likes it just fine.

This morning at about 9:30, Lynn called me at work to say that Sam had pulled the baby tylenol off the bathroom counter and poured the bottle onto his shirt and into his mouth. I told her she should call the pediatrician and ask him what to do. The pediatrician's office said she should call 911 instead of them. 911 patched her through to poison control who determined that the dose wasn't large enough for it to be a serious issue. Meanwhile it occurred to me that she might need the car, so I call her back. She doesn't answer (because she is on the phone to poison control). I call her cell phone. She doesn't answer that. I call again and again. Finally she picks up and lets me know that everything is all right.

Later that day, I get home from work. We feed the babies hash-browns with cheese, green beans, and canned peaches. They eat about half of it and throw the rest on the floor. After dinner the babies are playing with us on the kitchen floor. Sam tries to crawl up my body as I eat an egg sandwich. Claire is grabbing at Lynn's glasses on the other side of the room.

All of a sudden Lynn lets out a blood curdling scream, grabs her right eye and curls up in a fetal position. Claire has pulled off Lynn's glasses and managed to stick the ear piece into her eye. I grab Claire and take her into the front room. She starts screaming. Sam starts to scream. Lynn says she is scared to take her hand away from her eye. I take Claire and Sam upstairs. I step on Lynn's glasses. Claire gets REALLY upset. Lynn manages to sit up and pull her hand away from her eye. She has a mark on her lower eyelid and her right eye is bloodshot. Her eye hurts. Otherwise she seems OK.

Both of us go upstairs and walk around with the babies. It takes about an hour to calm Claire down. They go to sleep at their regular bedtime: 7:00.

A nice relaxing day with the children.

2005-03-06T20:23:00.000-05:00

The Chair

Another Outing for Sam and Claire

2005-03-06T10:53:00.000-05:00

Instead of going to the Science Museum, or taking a walk to the coffee shop for our outing on Saturday, we went to the Container Store next to the Chesnut Hill Mall. We went there because Lynn wanted to get a container for the Sam's and Claire's bath toys--something that could attach to the side of the tub with suction cups. One could also say that we went to the Container store because Sam's and Claire's Mom is a crazy woman who, like a dog with a bone, cannot let an idea go once she has sunk her teeth into it.

Needless to say, there were no such suction cup baby bath toy boxes at the Container Store. We wandered around the place gawking at this slice of Dallas, Texas imported to Newton, Massachusetts. There was one section of the store where they were (no joke) showing videos about the store to a family of prospective franchisees. "The Container Store invented the packaging segment in the retail industry."

Although we bought two cute plastic little kid chairs there, the whole exercise was so demoralizing that we skipped our "fun outing"--walking through the Chestnut Hill Mall with the babies. It is just as well since we they wouldn't have let us part in the Mall lot since we didn't own a Lexus or a Mercedes.

Next we went for a leisurely shopping experience at the Market Basket grocery store in Union Square. That took an additional hour and a half. It would require another whole blog entry to properly describe it. We arrived home exhausted, defeated. The kitchen floor was littered with our groceries in their canvas bags. Sam and Claire crawled through them picking out their favorite items to chew or bang on.

To salvage the day, we sat the babies in their respective new chairs. They liked sitting in them at first; but they seemed nervous. Sam was trying to find a way to scoot out of the chair and get back to his tasks. He is pretty good at getting himself out of difficult situations--he can climb off of the couch and the bed--so we let him try to figure it out. His eventual solution was to plop forward on his forehead, giving himself a nice little bruise. As I scooped Sam up to hold him as he screamed and Lynn tried to console him, Claire followed Sam's example and dumped herself onto the kitchen floor.

2005-03-02T20:04:00.000-05:00

Claire learns new skills

Changes

2005-03-02T19:36:00.000-05:00

Sam grew one foot overnight. I didn't notice until I was about halfway to the T that he had made it out the door with me and was following twenty feet back. He was quite a trooper to crawl through the snow for all of that way. Claire has started to add things to the grocery list. She does a remarkably convincing job of copying Lynn's handwriting. We noticed this last week when we made it home and discovered that over half of our grocery bill was accounted for by banana yo-baby and oreos. One of the babies - we're not sure which - is making long distance calls to Thailand. We have also started to recieve mail order packages that neither Lynn nor I remember requesting. I told Claire that we were on to her. Her response was to grab my nose, grin and say EEEEeeeee! I haven't talked to Sam about it.

2005-02-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

Radio Flyer

2005-02-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

Captain Sam

Sam and his Wagon

2005-02-28T21:34:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-27T22:02:00.000-05:00

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Miss Behavior

2005-02-27T21:10:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-25T20:58:00.000-05:00

It's for you...

The Telephones

2005-02-25T20:35:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-24T19:47:00.000-05:00

Sam

Mr. Fuss
Sam the Hamster
Rabid Squirrel
Bear Cub

Claire

Pirate
Drunken Sailor
Miss Girl
Missy

2005-02-22T20:02:00.000-05:00

They like it in the crib

2005-02-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

Sam and Claire share a moment

After Napping, the babies play

2005-02-22T19:49:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Claire letting us know she has had better days

The Balad of Penny Evans

2005-02-21T21:41:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-20T18:33:00.001-05:00

Climbing in the fridge

2005-02-20T18:33:00.000-05:00

Cleaning the fridge

Growing up is a dangerous thing to do

2005-02-20T18:14:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-19T19:54:00.001-05:00

Sam and his Dragon

2005-02-19T19:54:00.000-05:00

Claire sleeping sitting up with the Unicorn in her mouth

The Dragon and the Unicorn

2005-02-19T09:20:00.000-05:00

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!"

2005-02-17T20:25:00.000-05:00

Sam and Claire at two weeks.

The Baby Gate at the Bottom of the Stairs

2005-02-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

Claire (and Sam) in the co-sleeper.

Sam and Claire a Year Ago Today

2005-02-16T20:20:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-15T21:21:00.000-05:00

Its morning in America

Short takes from a Tuesday

2005-02-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

-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

2005-02-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

Sam is a very cute boy.

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

2005-02-14T21:57:00.000-05:00

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!

2005-02-13T19:13:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-12T09:09:00.000-05:00

Shannon's Painting in The Babies' Room

2005-02-11T20:55:00.000-05:00

Sam eats his first brownie

Happy to be headed into the weekend

2005-02-11T20:40:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-11T20:39:00.000-05:00

Just another day

2005-02-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

The Babies a year ago today.

One Year Ago Today Sam and Claire Came Home

2005-02-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

This photo relates to story number one

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

2005-02-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-07T10:20:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-05T16:13:00.000-05:00

(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...!

2005-02-04T20:08:00.000-05:00

Sam and his Dragon

A Typical Morning with Sam and Claire

2005-02-04T19:45:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-03T21:23:00.000-05:00

Sibling rivalry

We Babies scoff at Danger!

2005-02-03T17:57:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-02-03T17:47:00.000-05:00

That's right, I'm Claire

2005-02-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

Claire smiles for her fans.

Claire, the lead singer in Pretty Pretty

2005-02-02T21:13:00.000-05:00

Claire Emison is the lead singer in the girl power rock band Pretty Pretty. She tries to make time for her family, but the demands of fame are great. Sam Emison is the president of the Pretty Pretty fan club. Although he means well, frankly he isn't very good at it. Claire is breaking into acting with guest star spots in a few afterschool specials. She also had a guest staring roll in an episode of "Sam, Sam, Bicycle Man," the Showtime series. Claire has her own line of instructional DVDs including "Tummy Time the Pretty Pretty Way" and "Sitting Pretty with Pretty Pretty."

2005-02-01T19:53:00.000-05:00

Sam's funky West Van Shoes.

Sam and Claire go to playgroup

2005-02-01T19:31:00.000-05:00

Sam and Claire went to play group today. Sam did very well at standing up--maybe because of his funky West Vancouver shoes. Claire played nicely with books today. She sorted them by size, put books into one another and generally kept herself busy. Both babies are pulling items off of our kitchen table. Sam stole his Mom's glasses today. She couldn't find them when she got out of the shower. It turns out that Sam took them off the top of the tiolet and threw them into the tub. She had to crawl around on the bathroom floor feeling for them before checking there.

2005-01-31T21:38:00.000-05:00

Sam likes the Stairs

2005-01-31T21:37:00.001-05:00

Sam Looking Up at Mom

2005-01-31T21:37:00.000-05:00

Sam Checking out the Stairs

Sam Climbs the Stairs

2005-01-31T21:20:00.000-05:00

Sam climbed the stairs today. He has been playing on the first few steps for a couple of weeks. Today we played with him on the stairs and he went up one stair and then the next and the next. It was scary for him, but at some point it was easier to go up than down. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of him. We were too busy trying to keep him from splitting his head open. We do have some pictures of him playing on the stairs from earlier.