Scene 1: Separate Birthdays Please

Every year since 2006, I have spent at least two months planning your birthday.   I had an excuse in 2006 because Jan 2007 would be your first birthday.   EVERYone – even folks without children – know how huge the first birthday is.   So I didn’t receive much comment on the fact that I arranged a private caterer to organize your first birthday party menu.   Besides, Daddy and I – not to mention Nana and Nanny – had waited a long time for you to arrive so family flew in from as far west as California and as far south as Florida to watch you attempt to blow out your first birthday candles.    It was a memorable occasion indeed!

I could get used to this chocolate thing!

Hey! Who put vegetable samosa in my chocolate cake?!

When you turned two, you were beginning to solidify your unique opinions and preferences on everything from food to clothes to people.   Madison, who had been undiscerning at the dinner table and who would hum and sing as she ate just months ago, decided that everything green except brocoli needed a half dozen reasons to be eaten.   Victoria, who consistently fell asleep while nursing as a baby and was still in the 30th percentile at 2, began eating everything not tied down and hasn’t slowed down since.    Your parallel play opened the doors to many new friendships for me and Daddy.   And the world of preschool and potty training catapulted you to a new dimension of development.   This was the year of progress.

How come you got to wear your cool shoes?

Three was a glorious year.   It was the year of independence.   Your language exploded.   Friendships started to truly form.    You were picking out your own clothes and getting dressed while I found breakfast.   You were staying in your own room through the night without too much fuss (and I have to admit, I missed the cuddles)  Story time became a complete evening of make-believe and questions and dress-up was the most important area of the playroom.   I would sit at my desk and get very little done as I watched and listened to you spin intricate tales of adventure and magic.   Yours was an envied world of carefree bliss.

The girls decide to practice their 3rd birthday

By the time you were four, I didn’t have to guess what you were thinking in the back of the car or try and decipher your latest artwork because you were eager to share every single thought that came into your head no matter how incongruous.    This was the year of candor and confidence.  Most of the time, I was the victim of your innocent observations and have gone on many a failed diet or taken several trips to the salon or mall in response to your comments.   Nonetheless, the general public is not safe from the curiosity of a preschooler

From my journal:

Madison:  “Mommy has another baby in her tummy”   (No, I was not pregnant)

Madison: “Does blue match green” (I go back upstairs and change)

Victoria: “Your hair is crazy” (Just silent tears and a hat)

Victoria: “Is the lady going to fit in there”  (on watching a largish woman enter the airplane restroom)

Yes, as I mentioned last year  Five Years of Unconditional Love…doubled  you were definitely little imps in the making.

"See you and me have a better time than most can dream of" ~ Dave Matthews Band

And then you turned five, and the chubby cheeks thinned out and the limbs sprouted in every direction.   Instead of pushing you around in the shopping cart, I was sitting across from you in the nail salon.   When I listened, I heard you singing pop songs, trying to whistle for the first time, speaking to me in Spanish, pretend dialing your girlfriends on your Barbie phone and starting to sound out words in books.    This was the year of preschool graduation, the year of metamorphosis.

What shall emerge from this cocoon?

Alas, you are six.   It’s too early to tell now so I will have to wait and listen.   Already it seems to be the year of separation.   Everything five and younger sounded small…preschool…lap-sitters.   Six just sounds like missing teeth, absent training wheels and car seat graduation to boosters.   It might as well be 8 😦     Two years ago, you knew what you wanted, and you asked for it.    Now, I seem to have to remind you to ask not demand.   Is this what they warned me of with girls?  Surely not yet!   After much debate and compromise though, you did talk me into your very first “separate birthday parties”.     Although you didn’t get the American Girl party and private spa day that you requested, I think you will remember a fun-filled day of ballerinas and tea parties in Wonderland.

I will always remember the preparations and anxiety attacks of having to step back into the kitchen for the first time in months and needing to prepare the princess cake and castle I somehow agreed to produce from a YouTube video 🙂    Many thanks once again to the gals and Alyssa for getting the preparations in place for a homemade extravaganza and to your favorite basketball players for helping the day go smoothly.   Do you guys know how much you’re loved?!

Now that we know we can successfully host two simultaneous parties, I might have to perfect my buttercream frosting 🙂

Happy Birthday Madison         Happy Birthday Victoria   (see, no “girls” 🙂

“How much do I love you?” ……”This much!”   🙂  xoxo

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Girls’ First Sleepover

The girls had their first ever “big girl” sleepover.    They’ve been bugging me for months and actually wanted a pajama birthday party, but I grew up in a household where leepovers were far from the norm.   In fact, I never spent the night at anyone’s house outside of our family.   So the thought of five-year-olds actually spending a night with a buddy was unheard of for me.   However, packing PJs, toothbrushes and clothes for a night at a friend’s is the norm in our community – albeit for the school-aged child – so I thought I’d let them give it a go.   A good friend of ours brought her four-year-old over last night, and the girls have been drawing, cooking, putting on recitals and fashion shows, laughing and giggling all morning.   I have to admit, last night I was a bit nervous about what might happen if Samantha got homesick or woke up scared in the middle of the night since they live 45 minutes away.   Although, I was more anxious about the prospect of Samantha waking up at her usual 530 or 6 am full of energy and ready to start the day.   I am the furthest from a morning person than anyone can imagine.   God knew this and blessed me with good sleepers who don’t stir before 730.   Would someone’s child be roaming around alone while we all snored soundly on our pillows?!  I slept with one eye open.   Luckily, we all enjoyed an uneventful night, and there wasn’t a peep on the monitor until 8:08 this morning!   Oooh Jen, she’s been playing you guys 🙂

Though I know the day may come, I still can’t imagine my girls going for a sleepover.  I really enjoy having a big family so much that I think I will continue to be the Carol Brady of the community and host the playdates and pajama parties.    Here’s my Top 5 things to do with little girls at a sleepover:

5.  Let them decorate the dining table and make menus for their very own restaurant.  They will love coming up with the name of their eatery.   What little girl doesn’t enjoy playing waitress!  Expect an exotic menu.

4.  Draw a warm bath with bubbles and lavender if no one has allergies or sensitive skin.   Bring in a wand and bubble liquid, or if you have one in your master bath, let them hop in the jetted bathtub for extra fun.

3.  Give everyone a beauty treatment before bed.  Be creative, but think soothing so the kids are not up all night.   We did massages and beauty salon.   Nothing is more relaxing than a massage after a warm bath and someone brushing your hair.

2.   Have everyone help make shaped pancakes for breakfast.   Buy a ketchup squeeze bottle to pour your pancake mix from for fun precise shapes, letters, etc!

1.   The hardest thing for all of us to do, just step back get some extra paperwork done and let them play alone!

 

Waffles at Parkway Diner

Pretty Pretty Princess

Ready for the ball

 

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Twins On The Go Blog by Ayo Hart is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Is Christmas always hard work?

Nothing like a little blizzard to keep me home for a day and caught up on life!  I spent the weekend going through all of my mail from the past month when life came to a stand still on Dec 6th with the beginning of our basketball schedule.   Next on the list is email and a probably full voicemail box.

This was our first Christmas at home since the girls were born.   I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, but it is a very big holiday for Nigel’s family so we have always flown over to England to share their traditions with them.  This year, we stayed in NY and had a Christmas at home.  I have to start by saying, I had NO idea how much preparation went into Christmas!  WOW!  I’ve been a bit spoiled by landing in England to a tree already decorated, dinner already planned and gifts already wrapped.   This is serious stuff!   The weekend started by Nigel being VERY disappointed that no one would be here to share Christmas dinner with us.   He had pulled out his Nigella and other Christmas cookbooks, ordered a 14lb turkey and was all set to create a massive Christmas dinner.   However, everyone who had always been in NY while we were away was entrenched in their own long-standing Christmas traditions.   He was quite distraught at missing his English roast for Christmas 😦   I arranged for my mom to fly up for the weekend and we visited with her brother, my Nana and our cousins on Christmas Day.   Happy Husband….yeah 🙂

Placing the angel

Christmas 2010

The girls will be old enough to know better when they read this so I can say how difficult it has been for me to keep up with the whole Santa bit.   Last year, we didn’t find out until the day before we left for England that Victoria had asked Santa for “a Transformer” yes, as in the “boys’ toy” Transformer.  The child opened a gazillion packages last year then sat with a sad face saying “all I really asked Santa for was a Transformer”  WOW who knew, for $20, one gift would have just made her day.   Makes all the excess seem like…well, just that.   So, this year, when Santa came to the girls’ school, I was eager to find out what was on the list.  Christmas Eve, I was given the task of finding “a princess tutu” for Victoria and “a baby doll” for Madison because “Sofia wants a baby sister” (and the 19 dolls she has are not enough).   Thank goodness for my dear friend and stand-in elf Cathy who was brave enough to pop into a toy store on Christmas Eve to find the perfect gifts from Santa 🙂

They brought loads of smiles along with…..Pillow Pets!!

"That's exactly the one I wanted!"

On the way to VERY sweet dreams!

When all is said and done though, I have to admit, Christmas is a lot of fun!   The children are at a magical age when everything seems possible and they are full of so much hope and believe in dreams.   Girls, when you read this, I hope you are still waking up every morning with these beautiful smiles on your faces and all this unguarded hope in your hearts.

Madison's first gingerbread house

Victoria's first gingerbread house

Twins On The Go Blog by Ayo Hart is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Preschool Art & Nature – Leaf Print

Summer Leaf Prints

It’s been a couple of days I know, but I’ll post more frequently now that I’m back.  I returned home from Massachusetts to find my two girls collecting all the leaves that had blown onto the lawn in the rainstorm this weekend.   Victoria happily marched over with a handful of lush green oak leaves and announced she was going to make a pretty picture.   She then proceeded to lay newspapers all over the kitchen table and pour paints into her cups by the easel.   The next thing I knew, she and Madison had begun creating fantastic leaf prints all by themselves!!  Ms Grainne showed us how to do it they proudly chimed together 🙂   For all my young mommy friends out there –  I LOVE Pound Ridge Montessori!

"Look what we did!"