Juergensen Family Blog

It’s official (at least to me) that I am in a parenting rut. Last Monday our playdate was semi-awful, but it did highlight that I’ve become numb to crying. Zoe wasn’t sharing, Sabrina was cranky, and then Kate fell off a low chest in the play area. A few minutes passed after picking her up to comfort her, and I asked why everyone was cranky. My friend had to suggest that maybe she was hurt. Yikes – why didn’t I think of that. It’s just that the cry sounded like every other cry that seemingly goes on all day. (Keep in mind, school was out for holiday break at the time of the playdate.) As if I needed more evidence, at the end of the playdate my friend’s 9-month old girl was crying when she was put into the car seat, as my friend was gathering her belongings. It took me a few minutes before I realized I could actually do something about it, by entertaining her with the jack-in-the-box she had been playing with. In the past if I heard a crying baby I sprang into action, but now it was if I didn’t even hear it.

I used to have the philosophy that if my girls were happy, then I’m happy. But then I realized – heh, sometimes I want to be happy even if they’re not happy. Call it survival instinct, to be rather dramatic, or maybe just the desire to decouple our linked emotions. I think that’s when the ability to shut out the crying started, and it does have some benefits, though numbness is an unfortunate side effect. Now, what to do about it?

At last I’m writing about something other than the kids. 2009 was mostly a rough year for the business, which is not surprising given that forecasting services are not in high demand when new stores aren’t being opened. Then everything started to turn in 4th quarter, starting with a prospect that had been in contract mode for over a year and ending with a really major QSR client. On December 31, a picturesque snow fell in the morning and the FedEx truck pulled up with its crisp red and purple logo. It brought the signed contract for the major new client. The moment was wonderful – it was the feeling of a new beginning for the business. It reminded me of one of my favorite movies – Bowfinger, when the FedEx truck arrives at the end of the movie and Steve Martin’s character knows he has made it. Incidentally, the other favorite part of that movie is “Keep it Together”, which could have been my mantra for earlier part of the year.

This was our first Christmas that felt like what we always though Christmas with kids would be like. In previous years, they didn’t really get the concept – the twins because they were only 1, and Zoe because, well, she’s Zoe. This year, though, boy did they get it. John woke up with the twins and spent a little time hanging out in the living room while Deb and Zoe slept on. A little while longer, Zoe comes down; she sees the pile of presents under the tree, her eyes get as wide as saucers and she yells “let’s open presents!!!” So John tells her that we can’t open presents without Mommy, and Zoe almost takes the stairs two at a time in her eagerness to get Mom downstairs.

Then the wrapping paper carnage begins. ALL of them start flying into gifts. The idea of “let’s take turns” turns out to be completely unenforceable. Fights break out when one girl wants to open another girls presents. Candy cane stickiness is everywhere, and we both nearly break a leg tripping over some freshly opened diabolically underfoot toy. And all day Zoe is running around telling everyone “Happy Merry Christmas!!!”

Like I say, what I always thought Christmas with kids would be like.

A quote by Zoe in August, that I couldn’t have said better myself. It has been an interesting few months, and I’ve decided to give up my former “things are getting harder, or things are getting easier” paradigm and just accept that every day can be a roller coaster in itself with no apparent trend line. Where to start?

SCHOOL
Though I’m long overdue in writing, I will try to fill in the 6-month gap since the last major posting, so that all my memories are not lost. We’ll start with school, since it is a major change and the title of the post. August was a very long month, made longer by the departure of our au pair Corinna, the late Labor Day, and the lack of summer camp or vacation as a distraction. (We vacationed in June.) Kate and Sabrina were eager to go to school – in fact Kate has wanted to be a big girl going to school for a long time. They each have a separate day (I’m unofficially known a the mom who separated the twins), and a combined day. The first week, they grabbed their back packs and eagerly walked to school. The other kids were not so happy to be there, and when everyone else is crying it makes you reconsider your situation. Surprisingly Sabrina is the easiest to hand over, though she had been clingy up to that point. This past napless Monday I actually put all three in “after-care” from 3:30 – 5:00, half expecting the school to suggest it wasn’t a good idea for the future, but I came back and they were all running around the room playing together. Sabrina even said “I’m happy”.

Zoe’s transition has been a little longer, but is now complete. Unfortunately most of her class from last year went on to pre-school, while she went to an afternoon class instead. She will do pre-school next year, but we decided to not have her do it twice. (Why do we have to decide in January what is best for our child in September?) So she started with few friends (Josie, Honey) but now has many that she talks about regularly. At first I was taking mental notes so we could invite them to her birthday party, but then I realized there were so many it wasn’t feasible. I am so happy that she has friends, and that she has the ability to make friends on her own.

SLEEP
After 3 1/2 years of good sleep, Zoe’s routine broke down causing up to an hour of crying at night “I want ___ to lay down with me”, middle of the night wake-ups, and premature morning wake-ups when she really needed an other hour or two. You don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone. It started before vacation, cemented during vacation when we stayed in the room with them until they fell asleep, and then became intolerable when we came home. After about a month, I decided to do her put-down (previously it was all John) and it has been that way ever since. At first she did three puzzles, and I offered her a sippy cup, Linny, a cushion on the floor, and to check back on her.

Here are some other notes I had taken over the past months:
Zoe
- finally trying some foods, even if it is with bribery.
- acting the part of the big sister “It’s just water Kate”, It’s just
- understands cranky vs. happy. hard to find logic – baby wyatt doesn’t want to listen to crying
- back on her bed!
- loves polka dots
- loves puzzles

Kate
- sentences “me help mommy”. sometimes they don’t come out right – “Kate eat horse” probably meant she helped the horse eat by feeding him
- funny tip toe run
- superstrong and adventurous, does everything Zoe does on playground
- mature, very good at sharing, knows clean-up song, should be a star at school
- good memory – will talk about a big boo boo or a time-out (for biting) hours or days later

Sabrina
- after boycotting slides the entire summer, we went to boardwalk with tons of rides. She love them and that evening started going down slides. It was awesome!
- keeps us guessing on her true personality. Always thought she was easy, lacking the redhead tantrum mode, but she is definitely a no girl. Very particular about what color her cup, bowl, spoon is. Learned from the best (Zoe) about being demanding
- my favorite Sabrina development was when she started having fun playing with Kate and said “Kate, horsey, yeh” meaning she wanted Kate to ride the rocking horse with her, but lacked the language to say so in a regular sentence

We all went to Kids Kuts in Livingston Mall on Saturday for Kate and Sabrina’s first official hair cuts and a trim of Zoe’s bangs. Hard to believe they’re over two and hadn’t had a hair cut yet – there were many reasons, but it was probably procrastination. Growing weary of hair in their eyes, I had clipped their bangs myself and it was painfully obvious that it was not a professional job. So this time, we took them to specialists. The place has tv’s everywhere so the kids can watch whatever they want, they have fun motorcycle and dune buggy chairs for the kids to sit in (which our girls always decline), but most of all they have hair cutters who know how to cut hair when the owner of the hair does not want to have it cut. My favorite (and the only stylist I’ve gone to) is Lisa, from a few years ago when Zoe got her first hair cut and kept putting her arms up to block any attempt to get near her hair with scissors. Lisa persevered and somehow managed to deliver a decent hair cut despite the circumstances. But this trip was not about Zoe.

Kate, who we anticipated would jump right on the motorcycle, instead got nervous and had to be coaxed into a chair. She sat on Daddy’s lap while her hair was cut, looking skeptically into the mirror not sure what to make of it. When it was over, she eagerly chose her preferred lollipop and all was well. She then showed interest in sitting in one of the kids chairs, and had fun the rest of the time. She will probably be easy the next time around.

Sabrina cried or whined (hard to remember the intensity) while Kate had her hair cut, mostly because she wanted to be on Daddy’s lap. She is a real Daddy’s girl these days. Fortunately a Thomas video did the trick and instantly her crying lost steam. By the time she got to Daddy’s lap, she seemed resigned though not happy, and endured the cut. Sabrina is not a sweets girl, so she was somewhat indifferent to the lollipop except that it signified that her suffering was over.

Next we went to Mrs. Fields cookies and everyone got a big cookie. Admittedly it probably wasn’t needed after the lollipop, but I’m a fan of anything that makes infrequent difficult tasks a little easier. Looking back, I’m not sure how I took all three to LapCorp for Kate and Sabrina’s bloodwork solo, when it took two parents to get through a hair cut. Fortunately it’s all over and the cuts look good.

Today is Memorial Day, and Zoe and I have spent the day at home, but had a wonderful time. We were supposed to go to Pennsylvania with John’s family, but Zoe threw up in the car before we left Montclair, so we stayed at home while everyone else went. It was nice to get a little solo time with Zoe, and with a little imagination I could almost envision what life would be like without her younger sisters, who I have avoided talking about all day.

After we were dropped off, we spent four hours at home in the living room resting and then playing on the couch. It is surprising that this was so much fun because I usually consider being stuck at home to be a form of imprisonment, due to the seemingly neverending mess, laundry to be done, work waiting upstairs and lack of change in scenery. (Working at home is a contributing factor, because you never really leave.) Freed from the need to be productive, with taking care of Zoe as my only job for the day, it was relaxing and fun to be with her without taking care of the needs of the other girls.

After some morning rest, we hung out on the couch as she generously shared her Honey-Nut Cheerios with me. The crunching sound prompted a long discussion of Caramel, the guinea pig at school and what she likes to eat. Next she decided to dress me in blankets, uses part of the doctor’s kit to strap a blue band around my wrist. I brought out a new big-girl kitchen puzzle, which she had fun taking apart but not putting back together. After about four hours of nothing-in-particular, we went for a stroll on a mission to get some Goldfish and we succeeded! (The day was productive afterall.) We went for a walk around the flower garden nearby and picked a few dandelions on the way home. Then instead of wanting a snack, she said “I want a nap” which never happens! It was a perfect end to a perfect afternoon.

Since I never really finished my comments on Zoe on the last post, this seems like a good time. Her enthusiasm for every day things is really wonderful. She still loves saying hello to the diggers every day (fortunately there is a construction site a few blocks away), and the expression “stop to smell the roses” in my mind has been replaced by “stop to see the diggers”. We always walk home from school that way, and sometimes walk that way to school too.

I love listening to her talk in her room at night, and am always amused by the connections she makes. She often uses adjectives, and then says “just like….” with a connection that is usually correct, but not one our conditioned adult minds would make. A mild example today is the leap from crunching cheerios to Caramel (the guinea pig) crunching carrots. While I would probably think of other food I’d like, she thinks of animals eating food. Today I also learned that school is good, which is a relief, and she seemed happy at the thought of going back to school. I started calling summer camp (which she apparently doesn’t want to do) summer school in the hope that some of that enthusiasm would rub off.

Zoe was potty trained a few months after her third birthday and I was amazed at how elated I was. I think I didn’t really believe it was ever going to happen, and that she would be going off to high school and then college still in diapers. I started a post called Potty Power – the video of choice for all the girls, but never finished it because it seemed a bit much. Zoe takes such pride in her “huge” poopies that for months she wanted us to take pictures of them. (Sometimes when she sees huge items, she says “just like my__” – you get the idea.) We obliged because it seemed like a good way to reinforce the accomplishment. Fortunately there hasn’t been much regression though naps are still an issue, and make me wonder how we will ever give up the night-time diaper.

Zoe was a very easy happy girl today. I hope that someday she will be this way with her sisters around, but today I started to really see things from her perspective. It can’t be easy to be the only child and suddenly have twin sisters. Yes, most of us have siblings but most of us don’t have twin siblings. While there are advantages to everyone being the same gender, at this age it may make it harder because she is no longer the only girl. Fortunately our new school schedule in the fall may help, because built into every week is 3 hours on Wednesday morning when her sisters are in school and she is home. I also realized today that it’s not about where we go or what we do, it really is about the quality time.

Kate and Sabrina are 18 months old today. In general we’ve stopped noting the monthly birthdays, but this was a big one because it was the cutoff for Sabrina to walk (or seek medical explanations). More importantly, a friend with twins said things would start to feel normal when the kids could toddle out to the car. She was right!

Everything feels like it is getting a little easier, and the likely causes are better sleep, improved language ability, more mobility, self-entertainment, and of course having an au pair! Sadly, Corinna (our au pair) will be leaving at the end of July, so look for a “Things are getting harder” post sometime in August.

Let’s start with the sleep. As recently as February (15 mos) Kate and Sabrina were still taking bottles, and I was carting the bottles upstairs in the event of an early wake-up (before 6am). However when they got sick and starting throwing up milk, it seemed like a good time to move off of the bottle because trying to coax more milk in them was not a good strategy if it was going to prompt a throw-up. In early March friends brought pizza over for dinner, and since they had none of it, I decided to give them a cereal snack close to bedtime. They slept past 7 until almost 8:00, and we’ve been giving them cereal snacks ever since – especially high fiber cereals because they absorb liquid and make you feel full. Kate and Sabrina are sleeping more quietly now, and I feel better rested all around. Plus it is nice to remove the assortment of bottles from our tiny kitchen – sippy cups are next!

- The other big development is language, which has been a nice bonus for Kate and Sabrina. It is difficult to determine what their first word is, because they aren’t perfectly enunciated but we’ll go through a few. Kate now knows Mommy and Daddy (both are very well enunciated), up, more (possible first word), tea, and done. Sabrina knows up (pronounced upitda), more (ma), all done, but rarely says Mommy or Daddy though she seemed to say them a few months ago. I believe her first word was “no” (prounded “na”), which is funny since she never listens when we say no. They understand far more than they can say, and we communicate with them in a more adult-like fashion than with Zoe.

- Entertainment has greatly improved as well. They love a range of videos, which I try to limit to an hour an evening, and get very excited when big cows come on the screen, taking their cue from Zoe. They have also started doing puzzles, which is a lot of fun and probably good for their development too. Books are still a favorite, and playing chase with Zoe has become a favorite activity for Kate. Zoe seems entertained by the world, and loves going by diggers, and counting cars, and finding school buses and police cars. If this keeps up, driving 8 hours to NC for vacation will be easy for her!

- On the discipline front, we have started time-outs for Kate and Sabrina. We initially called them “baby time outs”, but now that they’re older, they’re the real deal. Fortunately they don’t last nearly as long as Zoe’s, because Kate and Sabrina immediately are upset and cry when they are put in.

Moving on to individual developments, we’ll start with Sabrina since she has the biggest news:

- Sabrina is finally walking! Her transition was actually on her 18 month birthday. It’s as if she knew that it was the cutoff for normalcy, and that she’d have some doctor’s appointments to go to if she didn’t start. It was really fun to see how excited she is about it, and it has made her a happy girl again! (after a few months of fussy and clingy) Now she insists on walking everywhere, including at the zoo, going to the car, down the sidewalk, etc. As for other not-so-exciting developments, we’ve realized she is going to be our problem child because she just doesn’t care when you say no. In fact she finds it funny, bats her long eyelashes and smiles at you until you almost cave in (Daddy does). This happens a lot when eating when you tell her no dropping.

- Kate still loves performing and loves figuring things out. Her newest trick is blinking her eyes when asked “what does the girl do?” She loves playing with Zoe and doing everything she does. She has started responding “yea” when asked a question, and seems to know she is answering in the affirmative. She doesn’t say no, preferring instead to nod her head and say uh-uh (19 month development). On the down side, Kate has quite a temper and will routinely clobber anyone who is annoying her, usually over toy squabbles. Recently I tried a new method of letting Kate & Zoe work it out on their own, so Kate looked to see if I was watching and then hit Zoe double-handed. Kate is our only good eater – she will almost always try something at least once before reaching a verdict and actually eats chicken, in addition to bacon and ham.

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Things seem to be getting a little easier], though admittedly it is hard to determine the cause of “easier”, since we now have more help (45 hours vs. 24) and Zoe is in school part of the day:

- Sabrina has finally decided that she would like to walk, and did a lot of it yesterday evening. She took 9 steps and giggled with pride as if she realized – hey, I can do this. Since she is not a performer by nature, this was quite a breakthrough. Several weeks ago she was cruising along the couch with this look of pride that said she knows she can walk, and I stopped worrying as much. Since she is almost 16 months, it is quite a relief! She is also going through a Mommy clingy phase which I thought we were going to skip altogether. I guess it’s nice to know that at a brief moment in time, I have been the number one person in each of my girls’ lives.

- Kate’s entire personality changed when she started walking. She loves walking and is starting to walk on sidewalks and in the shopping mall. It is fun watching how gleeful she is. She also loves pointing at everything and saying Da. (In Russia I’m sure they would love this.) Kate loves performing and has so many tricks – what does the sheep say? “Baa”, Where’s Mommy? she points, touch your nose, waving, etc. She smiles so widely it is starting to look like a grimace.

- Zoe has now decided that Mommy gets four kisses at night. I’m not sure why four is the magic number, but beggers can’t be choosers and I am thrilled that it is not zero or one. I think she must know that she’s a high maintenance girl, and it is to reward me for the work I do in the day. Our morning routine is now a bit easier – she puts on her clothes, jacket, mittens and hat and we generally make it to school on time, which is pretty good. It is fun talking with her, but as we look at school options next year, the time seems to be flying by a bit too quickly.

They all keep us on our toes, and love switching places, a little like Freaky Friday. Sabrina will start eating well though Kate is usually the good eater, and Kate will start refusing to eat. The sleeping switches back and forth too. Should be fun when they start doing this intentionally.

So I was watching the playoffs this Sunday with Zoe, which happened to be the day the two “home” teams were playing (Giants for me, Steelers for Deb). I’ve been trying to make sure that Zoe becomes a fan of the right team, and coaching her to say “Go Giants, Go!”. And somehow she’s figured out (and I suspect some behind the scenes mommy coaching here) that she can totally get my goat by intead yelling “Go Steelers!!!”. And the more I try to get her to root for the Giants, the more enthusiastically she cheers for the Steelers (who of course aren’t even playing).

Later in the day, when the Steelers are playing I figure I’d at least give Deb a grin. So I lean over to Zoe and say in an obvious stage whisper, “Zoe, tell mommy ‘Go Steelers’”. And so she looks back at me, with a great big grin and yells at the top of her voice: “GO GIANTS!!!”

Deb just looks at me and says, “Boy are you going to have a hard time of it when she turns 16.”

My first thought is what a relief! We made it this far and things seem to be getting better, even if there are new challenges. Looking back, the 10-month update was probably a bit rosy, because I chose to write it on a good day vs. a bad day. Afterall, who wants to hear whining and problems? Things have changed considerably and the girls are so different, I’m not sure they will end up friends, though I keep hoping.

To celebrate their birthdays I took them each to the playground separately, so they could have quality time with Mommy and do the activities they want, without the constraints of the other sisters. This will be a new tradition and the only challenge is figuring out how often, and where the time comes from. An unexpected benefit of the financial meltdown is that business has slowed a bit, so I have a chance to do some of the things I want to with them.

Once again a few weeks have elapsed since I started writing this, because I keep waiting for a good day to write. Sabrina has been sniffly, and it didn’t seem fair to write while she was in a bad mood. Here is a brief summary of Kate and Sabrina at 1 year:

Kate is definitely the most aggressive of our three girls. She is athletic (based on Jumperoo), smart, ambitious, focused, but very demanding and not particularly nice to Sabrina. Kate is learning to walk and smiles widely any time she accomplishes a few steps. It is wonderful to see the joy she experiences from doing something new or better. She went through a few weeks where she wanted to be walked all the time, holding on to your fingers to take a tour of the house. Now she tries it on her own. Kate generally grunts until she gets what she wants (a book read, a walk, etc.) and insists on feeding herself at dinner-time. When you take an object away from her and hide it and try to distract her, she knows where it is and stays focused on it, which is quite different from what we are used to. She loves seeing how things work – opening and closing doors and drawers, putting simple puzzle pieces in their place, and stacking rings. While she has pushed Sabrina quite frequently in the past, I’ve noticed it seems to be when she is playing with something and Sabrina comes over to join her, so now I try to divert Sabrina’s attention. From Kate’s perspective, perhaps it is not fun having a sibling that wants everything you’re playing with. Now instead of pushing she tends to do a block instead, and she does this with Zoe and other kids as well.

Sabrina is the most mellow of the three girls, which we attribute to the lack of red hair. We sometimes wonder if she ended up in the wrong family, and suspect that there is a nice calm family out there who has a crazy redhead in it and has no idea why she is so different from the rest of their kids. Sabrina still makes happy cooing sounds at things that please and they are guaranteed to turn any bad day into a good one. Sabrina is a proficient crawler but seems to have very little interest in walking. She loves rolling around on the floor reveling in her cuteness. She also really loves Zoe’s Potty Power video and squeals in delight when she sees it coming on. Sabrina loves sucking on the tag of her pancake teddy – it is one of her favorite activities. She also loves her music class and dancing in general, whether it be bouncing on the floor or in your arms. While we think of Sabrina as the easiest, I suspect she may end up being the most difficult in the end. She has no respect for the word No or barriers of any type. She is never deterred from going through the barrier to the kitchen, or pulling out the gate so she can go into the bathroom. I’m not sure she has ever listened to NO, except a few times.

All in all, it is fun to see them developing distinct personalities and to be able to write about them separately. Despite my concerns that they may not end up friends, I do have some cause for hope. Recently I saw them sharing a sisterly glance in the back seat of the mini-van, almost like they were both in on an inside joke that the rest of us wouldn’t understand. Dinner time has become somewhat amusing as they pass food that they don’t want between their trays – they must of learned how to “share” from Zoe.

Next year I will put them in separate classes so they can develop their own friendships and get a break from each other. Perhaps absence will make the heart grow fonder.