Three photos that tell you a little something about my children

I am often snapping photos of the kids with my iPhone. Most of them are pretty crappy, because it's the iPhone (and an old one at that -- with the sucky camera) and I'm not a great photographer.

But a photo isn't all about the technical execution of it, right? Beauty, lighting and composition are important, yes, but what's even more important is what the photo means to the viewer.

So when I was looking back through my collection of phone photos and came across these three photos, I felt really proud of my incessant snapping. Because somehow, I captured something really core about each of my children -- without even really trying.

 Clair:

 
At first glance, this looks like a photo of Clair sleeping sweetly in her crib. She is a pretty champion sleeper, but that's not what got me about this pic. Look carefully. Do you see the green and pink things decorating her blanket and sheets? Yes, well those are supposed to be decorating her wall! Remember that tree I spent 90 minutes applying to the wall behind her crib, when I was pregnant with her - and had a raging head cold, to boot? This is what has become of it. She peels the stickers off the walls and tosses them around her crib, or flings them on the floor. Why? Because she can.
My Clair is always, always getting into things. She is always doing something stereotypically toddlerish. She is a silly, mischievous little rascal, and I LOVE it that this photo of serenity is accented by evidence of the A+ she gets every day in Advanced Level Nuisance.
Also...I just love her so much. I crept into her room to take this photo and -- even though she had clearly just been destroying my decorating work -- my heart just overflowed watching her sleep.

Dean:

I have said before that Dean is a do-er and a helper. But the older he gets, the more and more those traits show through. He is SUCH a help to me and to everyone around him -- even when you don't actually *need* his help, he insists on giving it. He has been asking and asking to help wash the dishes (I know right? Who does that?), and I usually say no because ...ain't nobody got time for that.
But on this night, I said yes. And lo and behold -- this child actually paid attention when I showed him how to wet the sponge, turn off the water, soap up the sponge, wash all the surfaces of each dish, rinse the dish and then put it in the dish drain. After I showed him ONE time, he did it himself with such precision and conscientiousness, I was shocked. He did a great job! And he was so proud of himself. I love how helpful my little boy is, and how much he enjoys being a caretaker. Lester and I still could do much better finding activities that satisfy his need to be cutting, banging, fixing, fiddling, doing. And we are going to really make an effort to do that, because he really loves being up in the mix so much. But in the meantime, until we find some kind of toddler shop class or some such, we have a ton of chores he can do! :-)

Cary:

I love this photo -- which I took because Clair was being so silly, pretending to sleep in the kitchen (fake snoring and all). I snapped it because of Clair, but then I realized that it is really illustrious of Cary's wonderful bookworm personality. At night before bed, he reads. In the morning, when he is supposed to be getting himself dressed, he reads. In the middle of craziness (baby sisters sleeping on the kitchen floor?), he reads. He reads books, magazines, catalogs, pamphlets, the local pizza shop flyer. If it has words on it, he studies it, every page, brings it to bed and hoards it. When it was his turn to pick something to bring to school to share with his class this week, he chose his High Five magazine. And when he is into his "reading," it is SO hard to tear him away. I can't tell you how many timeouts we've had to threaten because he gets so engrossed in whatever he is reading and it's like he honestly just blocks out everything else. He reminds me a ton of the way my mother describes herself at this age. Lazy as a lima bean; not the most social child; always, always with her head in a book. How did I give birth to my mother, y'all?

I love these three little human beings. And it is SO much fun getting to know who they are.

Cary and B.O.B. are becoming friends

Some of you mentioned the B.O.B. books for Cary when I mentioned a while back that he was showing some very preliminary early reading signs.

I was doubtful that he was ready, so I didn't get them. But lately, Cary has been poking his bottom lip out, lamenting that "I don't know how to reeeeeeaaad," and "I can't reeeeead!" so I figured it couldn't hurt to at least try the books and see how he does.

We got the first set of books last week, and he is doing so great with them, I can't even tell you!

I don't know why the sound on this video is soooo incredibly low, but if you turn your computer speakers ALL the way up, as far as they'll go, you can hear him sounding out words phonetically, like a big boy! So proud of him! Most of all, he is really proud of himself!

Dean is also doing very well with the books, though he is not as adept just yet as his older, book-loving brother in this area. But what has surprised me about my builder/doer/helper boy Dean is that --  once he saw Cary "reading" --  he immediately took a serious interest in the books, and has been asking me every day to read them to him and help him sound out words. And unlike Cary, who is easily frustrated when he doesn't quickly master something, Dean is undeterred by mistakes and just wants to keep trying and trying and trying. I SO admire that trait in him. (Not sure who he gets that from, but don't look my way...)

It's nice to see them both excited about these books. Generally, Dean has his "thing" and Cary has his, and they both sorta don't care what the other one is into. But with this, both boys are equally psyched about at least trying to figure out what those darn words on those little pages are actually saying!

Looking forward to them learning even more about reading this school year! Maybe by this time next year, they'll be reading bedtime stories to us.

I Spy a library book! And it better not be torn!

This weekend, I took the boys to Storyville, one of our favorite and easy go-to places when we're looking for something to do to get out of the house. I'd wanted to take them to the park/playground, because the weather was beautiful (damn global warming!) but it had rained all night Friday so I was in no mood to brave the mud.

This Storyville visit ended a little differently than others have. The boys actually wanted me to read them the books they have strewn around the place, instead of just running around from station to station, unable to sit still. So we read a bunch of stories and discovered that the boys LOVE "I Spy" books (the board books; not the bigger, more complicated ones). They loved them so much that when it was time to leave, a major hissy fit started. They both wanted to take an I Spy book with them. I tried explaining that we couldn't take the books home, that they were for everyone to share, and for other children to use when they came to Storyville, but you all know how well explaining things logically to 2-year-olds works.

Anyway, turns out you CAN take the books home, because, DUH!, Storyville is a part of the Baltimore County library! All you need is a library card. Up until this weekend, I'd thought my boys were still a little young for borrowed books. Occasionally, a fight still breaks out over one of their books and pages get ripped and timeouts ensue and lectures happen about the sanctity of books. Everyone is appropriately remorseful, but the end result is still a torn book. When the books belong to us, I can deal. But I thought another year or two might do the boys well before we took on the responsibility of other people's books.

But they wanted I Spy books so bad! And I knew we'd never leave the library without it.

So we did the library-lesson a year or so early, and checked out six books, including one each that they got to pick out for themselves, and even one for Mommy ("Blood, Bones and Butter" -- which was my book club book LAST month. Ahem.) Dean picked out a Llama Llama board book that is actually more appropriate for Clair, and Cary picked out a Cars book that is waaaaay too advanced for him and also stupid, and I flat out hate reading it. Seriously, it is the dumbest book. I have no idea who that book was written for.  So I hope that the book-picking will someday get better. For now, though, I know that it really doesn't matter what they pick; just the fact that they are learning about the library and how it works -- and reading anything -- is all that matters.

 ******

In other news, we started the next session of music class, much to the boys' happiness. They literally jumped up and down and said "YAAAYYY!" when I told them Sunday morning that they were going back to music class. So color Lester and me both completely shocked when Cary acted a pure fool at the class, screaming and crying and refusing to participate. He was tired from a long night out at Lester's Aunt Tootie's house, and an early morning to boot, but his losing-of-his-ever-loving-mind went way beyond being tired. We don't know what his issue is lately, but Lordhavemercy. It stinks.

The only good thing about his weirdness lately is how sweet Dean is to him when Cary's having a moment. He really tries to care for him, and it is quite touching.  He is a very, very good brother. I hope it lasts a lifetime. The caring, not the craziness.

On talking, reading, singing and talking some more

Last night I had an appointment after work, so on my way there, I called home to talk to Lester and the boys, who were playing a little before getting ready for dinner.

Lester put me on speaker-phone so I could talk to the boys. Cary just wanted to push the buttons and giggle, but Dean had something to say:

Dean: Hi, Muh-muh.

Me: Hi, Deanie!!

Dean: Mo racka? (Lester had given them crackers to tide them over before dinner, and Dean wanted more. Lester had already said "no" a thousand times. So now he's asking me.)

Me: You want more crackers?

Dean: Pre-pees. (For some reason, he always says "pretty please," even though no one seems to recall teaching him that.)

Me: No, sweetie. Daddy said the crackers are all gone. It's almost time for dinner.

Dean: Dinner. Ah-mose.

Me. That's right. It's almost time for dinner. Do you want some good dinner? Daddy's gonna give you dinner soon.

Dean: Nooooooo! No dinner!

(Lester, in the background: "Cary, do you want some dinner?" Cary: "Noooooooooooo!! Nooooooo! Pway! [play]")

Me: Ummm, OK, babe. Talk to you later. (I felt meltdowns coming on any second and, to be frank, the radio was rockin' in the car, and I much preferred some sweet tunes to the cacophony of screaming toddlers.)

I recount this little scene to point out that I had a fairly intelligible phone conversation with my not-yet 21-month old baby, the one who is actually the least talkative of the two.

This just goes to show you Moms of infant twins or twin-Moms-to-be (you know who you are, DCAngel and Wiley) that all the books that tell you that twins will likely be speech delayed, and that boys will likely be speech delayed, and that preemies will likely be speech delayed -- all those books don't know diddly.

Now, I'm not saying don't read the books. I read them and I continue to read them. I just ordered the next in the series of Ames books to help me understand year 2 for the boys. The books ARE helpful. But they are not the end-all, be-all.

YOU know your kid(s) better than anyone. And you can defy the odds (barring any actual developmental issues that need outside intervention) just by doing what comes naturally to you: loving your babies, reading constantly to them, talking to them not at them, repeating things 800 million times, etc. etc.

It fueled me every time I read that twins were likely to get HALF the attention that a single baby would get. It drove me to say, That's what you think, baby books! My boys are going to get DOUBLE the attention. Ha! Take that!

And so I made it my mission. I made my sister read to them in the NICU when she came to see them. My Nana laughed at us that we read to them at one week old. "Will you look at this?!" she cackled. "Reading books to them already!" We never designated a "storytime." Anytime was a good time to read. We play music (kids' songs) everyday, regardless of how sick we get of hearing them. We sing to them ALL the time. They see TV in the mornings, when we're getting ready for work ("Noose!" they demand, if we don't have the Today Show turned on fast enough) and during football games (Lester insists). But other than that, no TV. We are with them, doing things and talking about what we're doing, explaining and expounding and then explaining some more. It's exhausting, if I'm being honest. But it's important.

(Two months old, already dreaming about books:)

And I'm not patting myself on the back here -- there are a million things I could and should do better as a parent. (Oh, yes, sooo many things!) I'm just saying that we were determined to make their early years language-rich, and so we try really hard not to let ourselves lapse in that area.

It goes to show you that determination can pay off!

Now...enter Curve Ball in a few weeks.

Will we have the energy to do it all over again?? Seriously, when I say that all that talking/reading/repeating/explaining/singing is exhausting, I mean it. How will we ever muster the energy to do this all again??

"Yes, CurveBall. That's a spoon. A spoon. Do you see the spoon? You have a blue spoon. We eat with a spoon. Mmmm. Eat! Do you want your spoon? Cary has a spoon. Dean has a spoon, too. Let's hold your spoon. Do you want to read the fun book we read yesterday about the dish running away with the spoon? Let's get the book and read it. Book. Mommy will go get the book. Mommy LOVES to read books. Do you like books?"

Lordhavemercy. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I pray I have the energy, the strength, the wherewithal to do for my ONE child what I did (and continue to do) for the two first-borns.

Which is why I ordered ... two books about that! :-)