Neat Pictures of Twins

National Geographic has an article about identical twins in their latest issue. Check out some really beautiful pictures from it.

Finally, a break

Apparently, many universities offer TWINS scholarships!

What Did You Do with All My Free Time?

I haven't had much time to catch up on Raising Hope. You'll see no spoilers here -- we haven't managed to watch an episode all season. We've recorded them, though, and now that Grey's Anatomy and other favorite shows are on hiatus, at least we'll have some TV to watch as winter sets in.

A friend of mine recently quoted Dr. Phil, "Having two children is 120 hours a week of work -- that's 40 hours per kid, plus 40 hours of working or maintaining the home." (She paraphrased.) The joke is that with twins, it's at least 3 times the work of one child (Baby A, Baby B, and logistics between them). I'm figuring it's about 120 hours of childcare alone, plus twice the laundry, cooking, and supplying two kids who wear the same size and eat the same amount.

On Wednesday of last week, Jon flew to Amsterdam, then Korea via Germany. He flew on nice planes, above Coach class all the way. So for the next week my primary responsibility was taking care of Jack and Salem at home, with Nanny Erin's help.

Now, being alone with twins for stretches up to 36 hours is in fact cause for panic, but only in retrospect. I didn't really know what I was getting into, seeing that the last time he took this trip he left for 5 days not 8, and at that time the twinfants stayed put. But this did give me the opportunity to contemplate life as a single parent of twins.

The first thing I noticed is that Jon does a boatload of housework. It took me two days to remember to bring in the mail, or take out the trash. And when both twins need attention, he can competently care for one or both for long stretches. Saturday morning, I desperately needed to restock the fridge, and managed to dash out while Erin kept the boys; I'm extremely glad I didn't have to drag both of them to any stores. Because of his height, he is better able to step over the gate holding a child than I am, so I usually penned one and opened the gate, which unfortunately just gave them more insight into how to open it. (They're working on it. I see them standing there, considering the latch, discussing options in Babel.)

What did I manage to do besides baby care? Not much.

• I lowered the boys' high chairs
• I posted to Facebook a couple of times
• I went to the store while Nanny Erin was here
  
• I published a couple of blogs for BOGO Baby
• I took some videos of the boys playing piano
• I played with them a lot
  
• I ordered necessities on the Internet

This might not sound like much over a week if you have one child, it might sound like a bit more if you have two of varying ages. But if you have twins this is a ton.

What are your options as a single parent of twins? Well, first you need help. Second you need distractions, lots of them, including some for the kids. It's best not to let the laundry pile up, nor the bottles, though being a single parent making all the decisions pushed me to encourage the boys toward sippy cups to stretch the bottles. I did notice that the laundry moved along more quickly, being 25% fewer clothes to wash. Even so, I suspect single parents of twins often sleep in their clothes.

I know I did. I call them single-mommy jammies, and I justified it by showering almost daily. Years ago, a friend told me "There will be many days you do not get a shower." I swore that wouldn't be me. But that was before we had twins, so it seems appropriate while taking care of both alone to let some things slide an extra 12 hours.

Jon's been home two days now, and the experience of taking care of twoddlers is being replaced by "Can you please get Jack/Salem off the table? How are we going to get the to stop climbing up on the table?" And he brought home lots of laundry, and has run a few loads. Thank goodness.

BOGO Baby

I wanted to alert readers of this blog that we've started up a somewhat less whimsical blog called "BOGO Baby" at savings.twinpanic.com. It's going to be (mostly Christina) posting about saving money with twins (although we hope it will be more generally applicable).

What Do You Do with All Your Free Time?

This post begins a new emphasis for twinpanic.com. Looking at my hit statistics, I see that readership is close to non-existent for my collection of fun facts about twins. (Unless I mention the twins from "Raising Hope" -- oh look, see what I did there?) So from now on, I'm going to make this blog more about personal stories of life with twins. That way, even if I don't expand this blog's reach, I will connect more directly with its readers.

One of the running jokes Christina and I have is to ask parents with one child, "What do you do with all your free time?" They always laugh, because compared to being kid-free, having one child seems like a lot of work.

On Monday of last week, Salem was admitted to Children's Hospital with a diagnosis of Kawasaki disease. Christina stayed with him in the hospital, so for the next two days my primary responsibility was taking care of Jack at home. (Except for the visits to the hospital.)

Now, Kawasaki disease itself is an excellent reason for panic and will undoubtedly be the topic for future posts. (Spoiler alert: Salem's recovering, and it looks like he'll be fine.) But it also gave me the opportunity to contemplate life with a singleton.

The first thing that I noticed is that, yes, it really is a lot easier. When Jack needed my attention, I could give it to him undivided, without having to keep one eye on Salem to make sure he didn't get into bigger trouble. When I undid the baby gate and picked up Jack, I didn't have to figure out how to close it again immediately while keeping a firm hold on a wiggling child. As a bonus, we have twice as much gear as we need. If one high chair was dirty, there was a chance the other one was still clean.

Want to take Jack out to the swing set in the back yard? Pick him up and go. No struggling with a double stroller or waiting until a second pair of hands was available. Tuesday morning, I desperately needed to re-stock the groceries (even before the hospitalization, taking care of what had been diagnosed as an ear infection in Salem was chewing up a lot of our spare time). So I put Jack in the car and drove to the store.

If you have one kid, that may not seem exceptional to you. If you have two kids of varied ages, you probably do this all the time. If you have twins, here are your options:

A good two-seater. (Photo by Christina)

• Push a double stroller and shove as many groceries as you can into the basket underneath. (Hope you remember to check out before you get arrested for shoplifting.)
• Take two adults to the grocery store.
• Alternate pushing a cart and a double stroller. (I haven't tried this technique; I get a headache just thinking about it.)
• Find a store with a "two-seater" shopping cart. But not just any "two-seater" -- Christina is now aware of the subtle differences in shopping cart models between ones that will hold two toddlers and ones that are only suitable for older children.
• I don't know, maybe you have twins you can put in a carrier without inhibiting your ability to shop. Ours are too squirmy to do so.
• Grocery delivery.

It was also easier to move about this store without shoppers gawking at the twins. Jack did receive some attention -- he is a cutie, after all -- but not nearly the level (or even half that) he would have gotten accompanied by his brother.

So other than grocery shopping, what did I do with my free time? Laundry. Lots of it. Along with moving, the change in seasons and other factors caused clothes to pile up in diverse locations of the house. I finally had time to sort through it and do most of it. I even got to wash the kimono I had picked up in Japan in December 2009.

When I bought the kimono, I thought of it as good "dad" clothing -- something only mildly embarrassing to your kid if you tromp around in it in the morning. I bought it in the handful of days between finding out that we were going to have a kid and finding out that we were going to have two, so it seemed appropriate to wear while taking care of Jack.

Salem's been home almost a week now, and the experience of taking care of one kid at a time is being replaced by, "Why are you taking your brother's food? It's exactly the same as the food in front of you." And the laundry is piling up again. Thank goodness.

Twin Criminals

Time presents the "Top 10 Weirdest Twin-Crime Stories."

Your Twins Are Not Interchangeable

Way to have confidence in your sons, dad.

"It didn't even dawn on me he [Nate] was going to make it," Smith told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

So let's say you've entered one of your twins in a raffle for the chance to take a really difficult hockey shot, and he'll win $50,000 if he actually makes it. Now let's say your son doesn't feel like taking the shot -- what do you do, say, "Now son, you'll never make it if you don't try?" If you're this guy, you say, "We'll have your identical twin impersonate you." Of course, he made the shot. This happened in Minnesota, which means that the dad and twins felt bad about it and 'fessed up the next day. The insurance company refused to pay, because the rules say you can't have somebody else take the shot for you. They generously offered to donate $20,000 to charity in the twins' names. I've seen some Internet commentary criticizing the insurance company, but not enough criticizing the dad.

•  Not cool to cheat. It's like having your 18-year-old play the slots. Sure, he probably won't win the jackpot, but what's the point, since he won't be able to collect if he does. The chance to win is the whole reason you play.
• From a parenting standpoint, not cool to treat your identical twins as interchangeable. It might be OK in other sibling situations, but identical twins have enough trouble establishing their own identity without being asked to impersonate each other.
• Not cool to teach your kids to cheat, or to impersonate each other for pranks. OK, if it was a funny prank, it would be cool, but this doesn't fall into that category.