Dream Magic

Tonight we had our very good, most beloved friends, Katie and Aaron, and their two-year-old twins, Elijah and Aryeh, over for dinner. A friendship that started before Katie and I even met Lena or Aaron (who also already knew each other from high school) has only grown stronger through the years of fun couple-against-couple pinochle games, our small, quiet weddings, and the miracle of us each ending up with a set of twin boys. We still stare in disbelief at each other over the chaos of our dinner table full of FIVE hungry sons and exclaim over the unlikeliness of it all. Surely if someone had whispered a hint of this future to us during one of our many shared dinners in college, we would have declared it impossible.



Katie and Aaron actually didn't know that they were having twins until Aryeh--the second baby, not a placenta--was born, and when Katie called to tell me the news minutes later, I was 100% sure that she was joking. Just weeks before, while organizing all of the two-of-everything, hand-me-down baby clothes we had lent her, she had said to me, "I keep having to remind myself that I'm not having twin boys!" And really, what are the chances that it would have worked out this way? But I truly am just so grateful that Katie and Aaron are on this crazy journey with us. How lucky for us all. How amazing and crazy and perfect.


We try to get our broods together at least once a week or so, assuming that none of the children are potentially contagious with the dreaded stomach bug (which Katie and I are both Totally Paranoid about), and despite all the age differences, the kids have all fallen in love with each other just as we hoped that they would. Tonight, however, Lukas and Jasper were in "rare form." "Rare form" is a code phrase that Lena and I use to mean something along the lines of "absolutely insane and in danger of being thrown out the window." Luke and Jaz had been playing outside with the neighbor kids pretty much all day, and we'd mostly forgotten to feed them. Rule #1 for keeping our kids from collapsing into "rare form" is:

Keep them well fed

We also kept them up really late last night, since we stayed in Boston until 8:30 p.m. hoping that they would fall asleep on the way home. Instead they stayed awake for the entire 2-hour-drive (actually Jaz fell asleep almost exactly 1 mile from our house), which meant that they only got 9 hours of sleep last night, a blatant violation of Rule #2:

Keep them well rested

So it really shouldn't have been any surprise to find the boys in an extreme state of "rare form" just in time for all nine of us to sit down to (a slightly late, but totally delicious) dinner. Jaz was having an especially hard time and couldn't stop screaming and crying (he didn't want to say good-bye to the neighbors, he was mad at me for not letting him eat rice cakes with his friends instead of coming in for dinner, he didn't like what we were having for dinner, and he just couldn't stop crying). As he finally gave into his overwhelming hunger and started eating, the rise in blood sugar corresponded to an immediate improvement in personality. We began to catch glimpses of the boy we know. He stopped crying. Eli smiled and exclaimed, "Jaz is happy now!" which, of course, prompted Jaz to growl in his direction and start crying again. Lukas was in a slightly more controlled but equally unpleasant funk, and it was clear that the only thing to do was to put them both to bed.

Katie and Aaron are, in some ways, at an advantage in our relationship in that, having had their twin sons 2-and-a-half years after we had ours, they are on the receiving end of hand-me-down clothes, toilet training tips and our (untrained) medical advice. Most everything that they go through with their twins, we've already been through with ours. On the other hand, they've been given the--perhaps unfortunate--gift of getting a glimpse into their future by witnessing what we go through with our kids. They've been robbed of the first-time parents' naive assumption that it only gets easier as the kids get older. Thanks to us, they've been prematurely informed of the truth. As the kids get older, things just get more complicated, confusing, and challenging. And I always feel bad when our innocent friends (and their impressionable children) have to be privy to such horrors as the scene that went down at dinner tonight (though really, it's hard to imagine the sweetness of 2-year-old Eli and Aryeh ever turning into the moodiness of 5-year-old Jasper and Lukas . . . maybe Katie and Aaron will luck out after all).

Getting the boys upstairs and in pajamas with their teeth brushed all happened to the soundtrack of much screaming and crying. I had clicked over into all-business, super-fed-up-mama mode and so there was no joyful tooth brushing game or joking about putting pajama pants on the arms instead of the legs. It only took me about 3 minutes to get both tear-streaked kids ready and in bed. And, then . . . then, it was time for me to perform Dream Magic.

I can't remember exactly when I started doing Dream Magic. It was long enough ago that both Jasper and Lukas took me at my word when I said that I could do magic to help them have good dreams. They still believe in it--in me--wholeheartedly, but now there are more questions.

"Why are you so magical, mom?"
"But how did you get to know how to do this magic?"
"Are you really sure that this is magic?"

No, not really sure, but I'm becoming more convinced with time. Dream magic consists of me placing my hand on the boys' heads (one at a time) while they lie in bed, just before they fall asleep. I pour every little bit of good energy that I can into them--mostly I just think about how much I love them--and imagine it filling their dreams with sweetness. So far it's worked out quite well. I don't recall that the boys have ever had bad dreams after a dose of dream magic at bedtime. These days, I have to do dream magic every night, thanks again to the loveliness of the movie Hook.

And on nights like tonight, it's a task that is especially daunting. I forced myself to push all of the frustration out of my mind and take a deep breath. I placed my hand on Lukas' head and tried to let the good energy flow. Slowly, but surely, the twisted muddle of my anger and impatience gave way to love, and I felt Luke's body relax under my hand. After a minute or two, I brushed his damp bangs to the side and kissed his forehead before moving on to Jaz.

"I don't think the Dream Magic is going to work tonight," Jasper whimpered, "I know I'm going to have bad dreams."

"Of course it will work, baby."

"But you're so mad at me. You don't love me. It's not going to work."

I was struck by his accusation, not just because of the heart-breaking enormity of such a statement, but because I hadn't realized until then that he knows what the dream magic is about. He's somehow figured out that the Magic is Love.

"Of course I love you. I always love you. Even when I'm angry and frustrated, I always, always love you. Nothing can ever change that. And the Dream Magic will definitely work."

I sifted my fingers through his hair and rested them on the top of his head. The love flowed easily then, and Jasper accepted it and his body became peacefully still. And I felt the same kind of warm peace spreading inside myself. And it was then that I realized that Dream Magic can do more than just keep bad dreams at bay. Way more.

Banana Baby

Somehow Zeben managed to eat FOUR bananas (or "nya-nyas" as he calls them) today. One for breakfast. One when he woke up crabby from his nap. One alongside his brothers after they got home from school. And then one that Lukas slipped him without my permission right before dinner. Zeben is now 50% breastmilk and 50% banana. I can only hope that all that nya-nya makes it through his system okay!

Super Heroes

As dictated by Lukas and Jasper

Once upon a time, Spiderman and Lightning Man were fighting. Lightning Man was spraying lightning at Spiderman, and Spiderman was spraying webs at Lightning Man. A witch came along and put a spell on both of the Super Heroes. Spiderman spinned his webs around the witch, and she was trapped! There was a dragon, and the dragon was nice to the Super Heroes, so the dragon turned the witch into a frog. A fairy came along, and the fairy was also nice to the Super Heroes. She turned the witch-frog into a caterpillar instead of a frog. The dragon fell asleep and the witch crawled out of the web. The witch still had some powers even though she was a caterpillar, and she turned herself back into a witch. Spiderman and Lightning Man were still fighting. The witch flew away because she didn’t want the fairy to turn her back into a caterpillar. The fairy told Spiderman and Lightning Man, “Stop fighting!” so they stopped. The fairy flew away, and the dragon and the Super Heroes all went home together and got a snack of granola bars. Then they decided to fly to the witch’s castle and give the witch poison granola bars. They made a stew for the witch and fed it to the witch. They said, “this is a delicious soup,” and then they left it with the witch. The witch found out it was poison, but she didn’t believe that it really was, so she ate it and then she decided to never eat it again. The witch flew up to space and made a new castle in outer space. The Super Heroes and the Dragon started living in the witch’s old castle. They flew up to space and took all of the witch’s spells and Spiderman spun a web inside the witch and got all her magic out. Then they were still in space so they turned the witch’s castle into a hopping frog, and then the witch turned into a frog too.

The End.


Today I took Luke and Jaz to the pediatrician for their five-year "well visit." My children love to go to the doctor. And the dentist. They love to have their blood drawn and to have cavities filled. Why? Because they love that they get to pick a prize at the end. The prizes at the doctor's office and the dentist's office and the blood lab have nothing to do with me, so I feel no guilt about this built-in bribe. It's actually gotten to the point where if one of the boys has an appointment and the other doesn't, there will be tears about the injustice of it all. It is not fair when your brother is sick and gets to go to the doctor and pick out a sticker. Not fair at all. Last year Jasper went so far as to hide the thermometer so that Lukas would no longer be able to have his 105 degree fever, so that we wouldn't take him to the doctor, so that he wouldn't be able to pick out a sticker at the end. Who knew a small square of colorful, sticky paper could cause such jealousy and drama and turmoil? Actually, for the past several months the boys have somehow worked it so that whoever has the appointment will pick an extra prize for the "less lucky" twin back home. I'm not sure that this is really allowed or that it's the right lesson to be teaching, but it's pretty sweet and a whole lot easier than the alternative.

Today's appointments went well. The kids were chatty, chatty, chatty with the new pediatrician at University Health Services--where our insurance (through Lena's grad. school) dictates that we go, but where I have previously been loathe to take them. My arguments--it's 25 minutes away, it's not designed for kids, questionably skilled doctors, you can't get a sick visit appointment EVER--have faded away in the face of the fact that we have zero copay when we go there (as opposed to a 40% copay after a $200 deduction at our old pediatrician). And, it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There is a pediatrician on staff now, and since the nurses and technicians are used to treating college students, they were completely thrilled to see 3 little people. A welcome change from our old pediatric office where our kids would be 3 out of 150 kids seen in a day, and a genuine smile from the staff was a rare treat. So, I guess I'm okay with the switch, though I will miss our old pediatrician (the new one was rather blah and uneducated about the vaccine laws in MA and pronounced "vegan" like "veh-ganne" (we are not vegan, by the way)).

And the five year statistics are in! Lukas was 41 3/4 inches tall and weighed 42 pounds (this is about average for weight and 25th % for height). Jasper was 41 inches tall and weighed 40 pounds (slightly lower percentiles). According to the chart, this means that they are going to be between 5' 7" and 5' 9" when all the growing is done. Shorter than me!! Wow. What shrimpy little boys we have. Not that I mind. They also had their eyes and ears tested (so much fun according to the kids, "oh, I know how to do this! I love doing the hearing test!"). They each had two tubes of blood taken (lead test, blood count, chicken pox titer (they had the pox this past fall)), and they were very brave about the needles. They have yet to remove the sparkly band-aids and gauze squares because they want to show their friends at school tomorrow. They each got loaded down with prizes by the doting nurses and lab techs--fancy stickers and little plastic cameras and bottles of bubbles! And I didn't even mind because they really were brilliantly super throughout.

For the Love of Music

Zeben's winter solstice gift from Lena and me was a "gathering drum" made by the company Remo Kids. The drum is big enough for several kids to bang on at once, and sturdy enough so that there's no worry of it getting knocked over. All three boys love it. I have a good amount of fondness for it myself. Turning on the music and banging on the rawhide for a few minutes can quickly and seamlessly transform grumpiness into peacefulness. I don't know if it's just that my kids are particularly musical or if all kids are pretty musical (I think it's the latter), but music really affects them in wonderful ways.

Zeb has discovered the joy of putting his wooden peg people on top of the drum while Luke and Jaz are drumming. The peg people bounce and flip, and Zeb squeals with delight while furiously working at keeping them from jumping off the drum all together.

Music is pretty much required to get each of the kids to sleep. Luke and Jaz prefer us to sing to them at bedtime ( "The Circle Game," is a favorite) while Zeben has grown accustomed to falling asleep to the song, "Little Potato" playing on our iPod stereo (on repeat). At the moment, all three boys share a favorite daytime "dance" song, "MmmBop." Zeben actually requests "Bop!" whenever we try to play any other song on the stereo during the day, and then spins gleefully in circles when we put it on. I often will play it in the morning while I'm making Luke and Jasper's lunches for school to help get the kids out of their morning slump puddle of neediness. It is amazing the difference it makes. And despite the fact that we have no idea what the words are or what the song is even about, Lena and I kind of get into it too. Here is a clip from a couple months ago of Jaz and Zeb dancing to it:



Writing this post has made me a little nervous about our upcoming trip to Taos, New Mexico for my little sister's wedding. What will we do without our usual musical outlets? Yikes!

The Peacemaker

Before we conceived Zeben, when I was still trying to convince my wife that trying to conceive him would be a good idea, one of her main arguments against having another baby was how much work our current children required. Luke and Jaz would be having a hard day, fighting a lot, driving us all crazy, and she would say, "and you really want to add another one to this?" And one of my main arguments for adding another one to the mix was my theory that having a third baby would "actually make life easier. A third baby would diffuse the tension between Lukas and Jasper." While I can totally see where Lena was coming from--having toddler twins was incredibly challenging-- and while there certainly are times when having three kids does feel more overwhelming than having just two, for the most part I really think that my prediction was exactly right.

Zeben, at nearly 16 months of age, has filled his role of peacemaker quite well. This morning it was my turn to get up with the kids while Lena slept in for a couple of hours. Zeben was still sleeping when the clock switched to 7:00 (actually it was 8:00 because of the time change last night, but we'll wait a while to change the clock next to the bed), so I left his warm, snuggly body in the nest with Lena, and went downstairs with the big kids. They were having a bit of a bickery morning. None of us was all too pleased to be huddled around the table eating soggy granola, and Luke and Jaz were using their "na, na, na-na, na" tones with each other. Then, after about 45 minutes, I heard Zeb waking up on the monitor. We all ran upstairs to claim him, and everything changed after he joined our crew. Luke and Jaz became all sweet and lovely, each eager to get a smile from the baby. I nursed him and got a good dose of calming oxytocin, and none of us could help but stroke his soft, morning skin cheeks.

Now, as I write this, the three of them are playing happily together in the playroom. After agreeing not to put the Playmobil fairies in his mouth, Zeben has been granted permission to hold them and make them fly around the room. He is in heaven. And Luke and Jaz are beaming, watching Zeb enjoy the fairies seems to be even more fun than enjoying the fairies themselves.

Of course, there are other ways in which our third child is a huge help around the house. For instance, he loves to help sweep the floors (or the camera, as the case may be).



And he is excellent at putting toys back in bins and on shelves. But by far his greatest talent is the magical way in which he brings out the best in his big brothers.

A weapon by any other name

On Friday morning Lena and I took Luke and Jaz to be "observed" at a local, independent elementary school. It's part of the application process. We were told to bring the kids to the kindergarten classroom at 8:45 and leave them there for an hour so that the teachers could see what they're really like. I guess Lena and I were both a little nervous about the whole idea, so neither of us broached the subject with the kids until Friday morning. Like half an hour before we had to leave. Needless to say, we were met by some resistance from the shorter members of our family. There were tears. Lukas refused to go. Lena suggested that we cancel.

I'm not exactly a believer in bribery, but I admit that it is one motivational tool that I have used from time to time. I guess I think of it more like rewarding than bribing, but I'm not entirely sure that there's a huge difference between the two. In general, we try to keep our attempts at discipline both relevant and logical. I don't think that rewards or bribes can really be thought of as either. But there are times when a little bribe can go a long way. And while I am never proud of myself for resorting to this type of parenting, there are times when I am unable to control the urge, and a little bribe just slips out.

"How about after you visit the school, we'll stop by the toy store on the way home and you can pick out a prize?"

Lukas stopped crying.

"Like, you mean, a toy prize?"

From that point onward, it was easy to get the kids ready to go, and we even managed to leave the house on time. On the drive to the the school, there was much sweetness from Jaz to Lukas about how he (Jaz) would take care of Lukas and would help him feel brave.

"It's lucky that you have me for a brother, Lukas. Because I can just stay right with you and you won't feel scared at all. I will keep you safe."

And through the rear view mirror, I witnessed an exchange of such love-filled glances between the boys that I only just barely held my tears back. When we got to the school, however, Luke and Jaz immediately switched roles. Jasper super-glued himself to my leg, and Lukas became a bit bouncy and uncharacteristically outgoing. We brought them into the classroom, and Lukas happily got started with one of the activities put out on a small table, while Jasper was silent and clingy at my side.

"You can go now," chirped Luke. But Jaz squeezed my hand and whispered, "not yet."

We stayed for a few more minutes until the teacher suggested it was time for us to leave. Lukas was smiling while Jaz looked a bit pale, but neither of them protested our departure. When it was all over, they greeted us happily and said that they wished they didn't have to go yet. It had been someone's birthday in the class, and they'd gotten to partake in the birthday snack (banana muffins). Of course, as soon as we'd left the building, the tastiness of the banana muffins ("it was just like banana bread, but shaped like a muffin!") was forgotten and the only thing either of them wanted to talk about was the toy store, and exactly how far it was from the school to the toy store, and how many minutes it would take to get there.

I cannot take my children into a toy store without a clear plan of what we are and are not going to choose. For the most part, the toys in our house are all handmade and wooden, open-ended toys that encourage joint play, and I feel a bit passionately about keeping it that way. But I have found that as the boys have gotten older, it's been harder to keep finding handmade, wooden toys that excite them. So, on this day of bad parenting decisions (eeks, I sure hope this blog doesn't become a collection of bad parenting decisions), I suggested that perhaps the boys would each like to pick a Playmobil toy from the "plastic toy store." Playmobil is neither handmade nor wooden, but because of the huge role it played in my own childhood (my younger sister and I spent hours upon hours in the center of our Playmobil village), it still evokes a good amount of passion within me. And so I threw all caution to the wind and took my giddy children inside the store to browse the Playmobil selection.

There were Playmobil pirates and knights and farmers with tractors. There were Playmobil submarines and beach scenes and zoo families. Luke and Jaz contemplated each of their options. It seemed that Luke was leaning towards choosing a knight set, and Jaz was holding tight to a pirate set, and I began to feel that bit of dread in the pit of my stomach. I was offering my children a bribe, I was giving in to plastic toys, and they were going to choose the sets full of the miniature guns and swords? How was this happening? Was it too late for me to back out of this whole plan? Sure, the boys would be upset, but I could just say that I'd made a mistake, right? I could pull them from the store in tears, and we could go home and they'd get over it eventually, right? Because while I could get over the fact that I was actually bribing my children, and I could even allow a little consumerism and infiltration of plastic crap into our house, I really couldn't handle the idea of tiny, plastic weapons. Just as I was contemplating how exactly I would make the mad dash with three screaming kids, Lukas spotted a new display of playmobil in a different section of the store.

"Look mom! FAIRY playmobil!"



Both Luke and Jaz ditched the weapon-loaded sets and quickly chose a fairy set. My stomach started to feel a bit better. What sweet little boys I had! They were choosing fairy Playmobil over pirates and knights! Maybe I wasn't doing such a terrible job after all. Jaz picked the mushroom boy set, and Luke picked a little fairy with a wheelbarrow full of flowers, and they both skipped happily through town with their new purchases.

We were meeting my mom for lunch at our favorite restaurant, and it was there that I let the boys open their boxes, and I helped them snap all the pieces together (talk about nostalgia!). The boys happily played fairy land throughout the meal, and still managed to eat a good lunch.

"It's so interesting to me that they chose the fairy sets over the pirates and the knights," I told my mom. "It really gives me a bit of hope that this is what they'd be drawn to over all those guns and swords, you know? We must be doing something right."

My mom agreed, and then left to use the restroom and I got to eavesdrop on Fairy Land for a bit. It was then that I took my foot and shoved it down my throat while simultaneously stepping down off of my high horse. Because it was then that I learned that the little fairy wasn't actually pushing a wheelbarrow of flowers. Oh no--it was a wheelbarrow full of guns!

Yes, apparently this innocent little flower is actually a deadly weapon in Fairy Land. Being Fairies, of course, the plastic little guys can magically come back to life after they've been killed by the shooting flower. But, still. I can only hope that the same magic will protect Luke and Jaz from any damage caused by my day of bad parenting decisions, and that my innocent little bribe won't prove itself lethal in the longterm.

Sewing Sunday

What started out as a pile of washed fabric on Sunday morning would be magically transformed into an incredibly useful tool by the end of the day.

The feeling of the fabric sliding beneath my fingers as it ran through the machine was so addictive. I never wanted to stop, but there were countless interruptions.

Right, the kids! And where were those lovely children? What were they doing during all this sewing? They were right there beside me. Eating appleasauce.

Waiting Patiently.

Singing along to the rhythmic whir of the sewing machine.

Helping me with the pesky task of turning tubes of fabric inside out.

Strapped to my back after waking up at 10:30 p.m. I wasn't going to bed until I was done.

And this morning . . . the finished product.

I kind of love it.

Zeb likes it pretty well too.

Yum.