In case anyone mistakes this for some kind of parenting guide let me tell you how I spent yesterday evening.
I was having a very pleasant time playing with the boys. I had made them a little crown out of clothes pegs and was having a mini disco, getting them to dance around the sun room to Goldfrapp [whatever slim chance I have of gaining forgiveness for the inevitable embarrassment that the boys will suffer on the back of this blog will be outweighed by the hatred for giving them a taste for cheesy 80's style synth pop!!].
It all turned for the worst when Fat Chops managed to drop an iron on his head. An iron that a responsible father would probably have identified as a risk rather than commenting on how the late evening sunlight was having a disco ball effect on the walls of the room. I picked him up and rubbed his head until he stopped crying. Then I put him down and was heading off to get his pyjama's when I saw the blood on my hand.
A lot of blood.
A LOT OF MY SON'S BLOOD!!!!!
I forced myself to take some deep breaths and internalise my panic and brought him to the sink so I could clean him up discovering that the cut was actually quite small but as with most scalp injuries, the bleeding was disproportionate to the severity of the wound.
I got them into their pyjama's, tidied around the house and hid all the blood stained clothing in the laundry basket. I was feeling fairly pleased with myself that despite the accident I could tell my wife about the incident while she was witnessing two smiling, happy boys. As per always, these things only happen when I am left on my own with the boys. I swear it merely an unfortunate sequence of coincidences rather than a pattern of wilful neglect. When Fat Chops saw his mother come home he dropped the plastic bricks he was holding and trotted towards the door. He then proceeded to ruin my presentation of happy children by stepping on one the bricks he had just dropped, slipping backwards and.... hitting his head off the floor.
Cue screaming child and explanation from uncomfortable father!!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Round 3; Bid for Freedom
The boys are a little over a year and a half now. I had heard horror stories of the terrible two's and like most parents broke into a cold sweat at the mere mention of them but figured that I had a grace period before my two started their quest for independence. Monkey Boy decided to establish his individuality by not sticking to the timetable and choosing "No" as the first word that he says with any clarity. In fact he can say it in a variety if different ways. In his arsenal he has the plain "no", he has the firmer "NO" and when the occasion requires it he can produce either a "NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" or a "NNNOOO NNOOOOO NNOOOOO NNOOOOO!!!" from his repertoire. His range extends from primal rage to despairing heartbreak.
We get to hear a recital from Monkey Boy almost every day when we get home. We live in a house with a communal green area out front in an area where there are lots of young children playing on any given evening. As soon as they set eyes on the other kids they want to join in the fun but they are too young and we are much happier to let them loose in the back garden where we there are no passing cars. As soon as it becomes clear that we aren’t going to let them go and play with the traffic the howls begin. I know that even though they don’t have many words, they understand what we are saying most of the time but regardless of our assurances that they can play in the back garden, there is no consoling them. So every day for the summer you will be able to see myself and my wife jog through the house with a pair of screaming babies. I’m always amused by the way that, although seemingly overcome with grief, they can stop the tears as soon as the back door opens and toddle along as if nothing had happened.
This quest for independence and freedom leads me to one of my favourite twin anecdotes to date. Our house was built relatively recently and meets all the accessibility regulations meaning that the door handles are low and the boys could reach them from a young age. The saving grace was that the front and back door handles were slightly higher so apart from the risk of fingers being caught in a door we could keep the boys contained. On a Tuesday night while Hannah was out I caught Fat Chops trying to reach the front door handle. He couldn't quite make it so I took a picture on my phone and sent it to Hannah saying we didn't have long left before they could get out [hindsight is funny!].
The following night, I was tidying up in the kitchen and Hannah was cutting the grass in the back garden while the boys pottered around the house. I heard a door slam and thought to myself "that doesn't sound like one of the internal doors" but didn't get overly concerned. [It’s very common for them to slam doors and as long as it’s not followed by the screams of a toddler with crushed fingers, I can live with it.] I stuck my head into the hall only to see FC in the same position as the previous evening, on his toes, stretching for the handle. Before I could look around for his brother he stretched a tiny bit further and opened the door. I walked down to him chuckling to myself that I had even less time than I had thought when I had texted that picture. I picked him up I looked up and saw his brother smiling at me - from the middle of the road! I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of children in the estate so most people know to drive carefully but that didn’t sink in until after I had a small panic attack.
As for Monkey Boy, he just kept grinning as if to say "Free at last!!!"
P.S. Thanks to Ronan for the tip!
P.P.S. Please leave some comments, preferably telling me how witty I am but constructive criticism would be great.
P.P.P.S. Don't forget that I'm trying to make my millions out of this so that I can give up the day job. Tell your friends!!
We get to hear a recital from Monkey Boy almost every day when we get home. We live in a house with a communal green area out front in an area where there are lots of young children playing on any given evening. As soon as they set eyes on the other kids they want to join in the fun but they are too young and we are much happier to let them loose in the back garden where we there are no passing cars. As soon as it becomes clear that we aren’t going to let them go and play with the traffic the howls begin. I know that even though they don’t have many words, they understand what we are saying most of the time but regardless of our assurances that they can play in the back garden, there is no consoling them. So every day for the summer you will be able to see myself and my wife jog through the house with a pair of screaming babies. I’m always amused by the way that, although seemingly overcome with grief, they can stop the tears as soon as the back door opens and toddle along as if nothing had happened.
This quest for independence and freedom leads me to one of my favourite twin anecdotes to date. Our house was built relatively recently and meets all the accessibility regulations meaning that the door handles are low and the boys could reach them from a young age. The saving grace was that the front and back door handles were slightly higher so apart from the risk of fingers being caught in a door we could keep the boys contained. On a Tuesday night while Hannah was out I caught Fat Chops trying to reach the front door handle. He couldn't quite make it so I took a picture on my phone and sent it to Hannah saying we didn't have long left before they could get out [hindsight is funny!].
The following night, I was tidying up in the kitchen and Hannah was cutting the grass in the back garden while the boys pottered around the house. I heard a door slam and thought to myself "that doesn't sound like one of the internal doors" but didn't get overly concerned. [It’s very common for them to slam doors and as long as it’s not followed by the screams of a toddler with crushed fingers, I can live with it.] I stuck my head into the hall only to see FC in the same position as the previous evening, on his toes, stretching for the handle. Before I could look around for his brother he stretched a tiny bit further and opened the door. I walked down to him chuckling to myself that I had even less time than I had thought when I had texted that picture. I picked him up I looked up and saw his brother smiling at me - from the middle of the road! I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of children in the estate so most people know to drive carefully but that didn’t sink in until after I had a small panic attack.
As for Monkey Boy, he just kept grinning as if to say "Free at last!!!"
P.S. Thanks to Ronan for the tip!
P.P.S. Please leave some comments, preferably telling me how witty I am but constructive criticism would be great.
P.P.P.S. Don't forget that I'm trying to make my millions out of this so that I can give up the day job. Tell your friends!!
Round 2
It's taken a whole lot longer than I thought to get around to writing my second post. There are a couple of reasons for this, the boys are consistently amusing but haven't done anything that falls into the "must share" category. I've been pretty busy in work and to be frank, looking after twin boys is time consuming and after a long day when I am faced with the option of writing a blog or relaxing on the couch with a glass of wine, the vino wins out more often than not.
One of the things that fascinates me about twins is that some people expect them to be best friends all the time, this is far from the case. Kids are generally territorial and if you put two kids in a room for an hour, sooner or later they will want to play with the same toy or attention from the same person so being limited in their range of expression and vocabulary, they will resort to screaming, hitting, hair pulling and my boys favourite, biting. Twins generally spend most of their waking hours together so the incidents of violence are more frequent than with a single child.
I don't enjoy or condone them fighting so please don't misunderstand what I say next. I find the fighting fascinating. Generally, the interaction between Fat Chops and Monkey Boy is interesting [at least for me as a parent] but when it gets to those intense levels it's a study in infant psychology in my eyes. Sometimes it is provoked by jealousy, sometimes it's a plea for attention but my favourite is when it is seemingly provoked by boredom and a need for entertainment.
Fat Chops is usually the instigator. I've watched him take toys off his brother just to initiate a reaction [it's not that I don't intervene, I just think they need to work some things out themselves!]. Monkey Boy will tolerate with so much but one of the funniest things I've seen is when FC has taken a toy off him for the twelfth time and we get the following scenario
MB thinks "that fecker has done it again"
Delay
MB "I've had enough of this"
Delay
MB "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"
All of this can be read on his face in the couple of seconds between the theft and Monkey Boy launching himself bodily at his brother with his teeth bared [before you call social services, I stopped him before any blood was spilled]
I must admit that you can't watch them every minute and Monkey Boy was seen sporting a lovely crescent shaped bruise on his right arm last weekend but normally we make sure that it is a good clean fight and they stick to the Queensbury rules. We also are very lucky that they have great godparents who took them for a sleepover last weekend which had the dual benefits of allowing them a little space from each other and allowing Mammy and Daddy to enjoy a rare lie in.
Round 3 should come around a little quicker, it's theraputic to type these things out!!
One of the things that fascinates me about twins is that some people expect them to be best friends all the time, this is far from the case. Kids are generally territorial and if you put two kids in a room for an hour, sooner or later they will want to play with the same toy or attention from the same person so being limited in their range of expression and vocabulary, they will resort to screaming, hitting, hair pulling and my boys favourite, biting. Twins generally spend most of their waking hours together so the incidents of violence are more frequent than with a single child.
I don't enjoy or condone them fighting so please don't misunderstand what I say next. I find the fighting fascinating. Generally, the interaction between Fat Chops and Monkey Boy is interesting [at least for me as a parent] but when it gets to those intense levels it's a study in infant psychology in my eyes. Sometimes it is provoked by jealousy, sometimes it's a plea for attention but my favourite is when it is seemingly provoked by boredom and a need for entertainment.
Fat Chops is usually the instigator. I've watched him take toys off his brother just to initiate a reaction [it's not that I don't intervene, I just think they need to work some things out themselves!]. Monkey Boy will tolerate with so much but one of the funniest things I've seen is when FC has taken a toy off him for the twelfth time and we get the following scenario
MB thinks "that fecker has done it again"
Delay
MB "I've had enough of this"
Delay
MB "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"
All of this can be read on his face in the couple of seconds between the theft and Monkey Boy launching himself bodily at his brother with his teeth bared [before you call social services, I stopped him before any blood was spilled]
I must admit that you can't watch them every minute and Monkey Boy was seen sporting a lovely crescent shaped bruise on his right arm last weekend but normally we make sure that it is a good clean fight and they stick to the Queensbury rules. We also are very lucky that they have great godparents who took them for a sleepover last weekend which had the dual benefits of allowing them a little space from each other and allowing Mammy and Daddy to enjoy a rare lie in.
Round 3 should come around a little quicker, it's theraputic to type these things out!!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Welcome
I've been threatening it for a while and I've finally gone and set up a blog. My theory is that my twin boys do something interesting almost every day and Facebook updates don't always do it justice. The other part of it is that I like the sound of my own voice and assume that there will be some people out there interested in what I write [hopefully not just friends and family].
Anyway, back to the introductions. As I mentioned, I am the proud father of two identical twin boys. I'm not sure what motivated me to nickname them Fat Chops and Monkey Boy [well, I do know why I used Fat Chops - he had jowls that rested on his chest!] but it stuck in my head and they are stuck with them now. I wonder if I can make some money out of blogging so that I can pay for the inevitable therapy that the poor boys will need down the road. They are 19 months old now and intent on exploring the world which hopefully will produce enough adventures to make this blog worthwhile. If not, then I will be forced to be creative and make something up.
This will do for a first post, I'm away for the weekend so will have to pick this up next week sometime.
Karlos
Anyway, back to the introductions. As I mentioned, I am the proud father of two identical twin boys. I'm not sure what motivated me to nickname them Fat Chops and Monkey Boy [well, I do know why I used Fat Chops - he had jowls that rested on his chest!] but it stuck in my head and they are stuck with them now. I wonder if I can make some money out of blogging so that I can pay for the inevitable therapy that the poor boys will need down the road. They are 19 months old now and intent on exploring the world which hopefully will produce enough adventures to make this blog worthwhile. If not, then I will be forced to be creative and make something up.
This will do for a first post, I'm away for the weekend so will have to pick this up next week sometime.
Karlos
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)