At the hotel

We went to the same place as last year, in Playa del Carmen on the Mexican Riviera.  In so many ways, it was much nicer and more relaxing than last year.  Despite a few tumbles, we could trust the twins to run around on the jungle paths without falling too often.  We didn’t have to hold their hands constantly near the water features for fear they would jump in.  We even dared a few excursions this year.  We went to Xcaret, a nearby ecological preserve, where we floated down an underground river, looked at birds and turtles and sharks, and climbed up a small pyramid.

Floating the underground river

Claire and Ronin did really well in the river until about halfway through when a guy dressed up like a Mayan came over the wall and stood behind us for a photo op, shaking his leg-rattles menacingly.  Claire turned around, shrieked, and wouldn’t stop crying about the “scary guy” the rest of the way.  I tried consoling her, I tried distraction, I tried singing some of her favorite songs, and she remained trembling and inconsolable.  Once we left the river she was fine, and on our way out we stopped to look at the pictures (we bought the one above that was taken without a scary guy) and Claire just pointed out matter-of-factly the scary guy in some of the other pictures on display.

Ronin at Xcaret

On top of the pyramid

It was a long day,  but there was so much to do and see, we didn’t want to leave until we’d gone to all the parts we wanted to visit.  We ended up having naptime in a hammock.

Naptime at Xcaret

Claire recited her first poem while we were at the eco-park.  Upon not finding an iguana where she’d last seen it, she announced “Iguana all gone-a.”

The twins loved all the animals.  Ronin declared on the first day that the peacock was his favorite animal.  Claire liked the large catlike rodent of which we can never remember the name.  I have quite a few videos of them chasing the peacocks around.  They liked to ask the peacocks where they were going, and to tell them to come back.

In another change from last year, Justin was able to go scuba-diving twice.  I felt comfortable enough with the twins that I felt like we could be alone in this environment for a few hours, and it worked out well.  I took them for long walks on the jungle paths, and down to the playground for some climbing and bouncing and banging.  They loved the playground, and could play by themselves or with other children who wandered in and out.  Here is a video of Ronin reading a playground sign in Italian and thinking it says Ronin.

At the playground

We went down to the beach and played in the sand and had a snack.  I had to chase after one or the other occasionally, but all in all it was totally pleasant.

Sitting on the wall at the beach

We soon settled into a routine of eating, naps, walks, playtime, and swimming.  We had two inflatables for the children, and Claire in particular loved her crab boat.  She was not overly fond of water, but with the promise of her crab, she was happy to go bob about in the ocean waves.  Once she discovered how much fun the waves were, it was hard to keep her out.

On the beach

Justin and Ronin in the ocean

Claire really seemed to blossom on this trip.  Aside from the scary guy, she was much more personable with strangers than she ever has been.  She let people take her hand, ruffle her hair, and talk to her.  Both children learned to say “Hola” and “gracias” and “adios” and “topes” (speedbumps).  We noticed both of them did a lot of imaginative play.  Ronin liked to swoop about as an airplane, with his arms outstretched.  Claire started spinning the wheels at the end of the rollaway bed and said she was spinning turntables.  This was the first time we really noticed that they were accurate with plurals.  They said “There they are” vs “There it is.”  Ronin liked to stop and listen for jungle noises and said “Hear that sound!” whenever a bird called or a monkey howled.  Claire had a nightmare one night and was able to tell me that it was about the funny dog from the movie Toy Story.  Claire also frequently expressed emotion.  She’d run down the path, shouting “I’m happy!  Having fun!”

On the negative side, Claire has developed a new level of whine, and when something goes wrong for her, it is her first and sometimes only resort.  If she wakes up in the middle of the night, she cries out “Mah binky, wah wah.”  She would say it if she dropped her crab boat:  “Mah crabby, wah wah.”  It happened so much that Ronin started copying her without the actual whine included.  He looks at her and states “Mah binky, wah wah.”  Ronin was not as whiny, but he was really bad about opening the hotel door and bolting outside without us.  He could actually squeeze through the slightly open door even with the chain lock on, but at least it slowed him down a little bit.   After a total of probably 2-3 time-outs ever for them, Ronin had at least six time-outs for running outside that very first night we were there.  Thank goodness he got better after that, but he still needed a verbal reminder occasionally.  I think part of it was that the lure of all the excitement outside was no match for our disapproval at him running away.

Claire watching turtles

After a few days of ocean swimming in the afternoon, we went to the kiddie pool, and although it had no waves, it was a perfect depth for Claire and Ronin to get more comfortable in the water.  Claire liked the waves at the beach, but she LOVED the tiny pool.  She scooted around on her hands, kicking her feet, saying “I’m swimming!  I’m swimming!”

Justin and the twins in the tiny pool

Our last full day in Mexico, we went on another excursion, this time to the Mayan ruins of Tulum.  I was expecting a pleasant morning roaming around the site and taking pictures of the children against a beautiful, scenic background.  Wrong!  Claire was screaming and kicking so much on the taxi ride out there, Justin encouraged me to give her an emergency pacifier so the driver wouldn’t run off the road.  They’ve only had binkies for naps and bedtime for almost the past year, but this seemed like a special circumstance.  It quieted her down, but she refused to part with it once we got to Tulum.  I tried to take it back a couple of times, figuring the train ride to the ruins would provide enough excitement.  Not at all.  In fact, the train pulled up and we got off and she howled “Mah train, wah wah!”  She cried to the ticket booth, she cried on the walk through the gate.  I finally just took the binky away, figuring in another 10 minutes she’d forget about it with all the interesting things to see.  Like at the river, I tried distraction, I tried consoling, I tried singing, and again nothing worked.

Tulum

An hour later, Justin and I were both frustrated with Claire’s inability to forget about her binky (wah wah) or her train or anything else she became fixated on.  As far as taking pictures was concerned, I have about 5 pictures of Claire with mouth open and tears.  We were embarrassed about the tour groups we passed, trying to learn about the history of this magnificent complex while a small child howled in the background.  One guy stopped us and told us he had twins at home and he missed them.   We mumbled something quickly and moved on, and I secretly thought that maybe he wouldn’t miss them so much after seeing our cheeful little group.  Eventually, Justin told me to just give her the binky, and while I was trying to get it out Ronin took a tumble down the steps of the pyramid and banged his forehead and started crying.

Wah wah

All of us were so upset by then, we moved to a secluded area with a stone bench under some trees and tried to pull ourselves together.   We were promptly bitten by a swarm of mosquitos and fled, but not before getting massive bites.  It turns out that Claire welts up just as much as Justin does, while luckily Ronin and I don’t tend to react so much.

Ronin at Tulum

We were fortunate that most of our trip went so well, and it was only that last day that was really stressful.   The flights, although long and uncomfortable, were not as bad as they could have been.  We had a portable DVD player and that helped, and it also helped that both children think seatbelts are important.   We got in early yesterday morning, and I’m on my 8th load of laundry and wishing I was back at the beach, but it is good to be home.

Claire has finally switched from calling Ronin “No-no” to calling him “Nonin”   about half the time.  It is hard not to say it also.  I always wondered what the other moms in the playground thought when I would call Ronin No-no.   Maybe they thought he was really misbehaved and that nickname stuck because I was always having to tell him “No.”

Claire and Ronin in a slide

I went to a playground last week that was not fenced, because the bushes at my favorite fenced playground have little blue berries all over them right now and I can’t convince Ronin that they’re not blueberries.  He keeps picking them and luckily hasn’t eaten any, but it was getting difficult to monitor him constantly with Claire climbing up ladders on the other side of the playground.  The twins had a wonderful time at this other playground, and I was able to successfully keep them from wandering off by reminding them to stay on the sand, but after we’d been there for a while Claire sprinted out of the playground toward the road and wouldn’t listen to me.  I ran after her and caught her, and saw Ronin running the other direction.  I had to grab Claire and run after him as well.  We left shortly after, but I have started asking other twin moms for advice about this, since it is really difficult to deal with two babies running in opposite directions.

Claire in the sky with polka-dots

Both children are doing really well with their ABCs.  Ronin loves to sing the song and they both recognize almost all of the upper-case letters and most of the lower-case.  Claire is noticing letters everywhere too.  She spelled out S-T-O-P to me from a stop sign the other day, so I told her what it meant.  They like to give me directions when I’m driving–Ronin says “Go that way” and points whenever I am stopped at an intersection.  Maybe one of these days I’ll do some baby navigation and see where we end up.  They both count to ten and beyond (although Ronin likes to say “Eleventeen” instead of 17), but they get more enthusiastic about saying all of the numbers than in actually being accurate about what they’re counting.  Claire is doing better about accurately counting up to four objects.  Ronin just likes to continue counting, and he’ll count the same things more than once so he can keep saying numbers.

Ronin, King of the Mountain

We are going on vacation this week, so it will probably be about two weeks before you see another blog entry from me, but hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Baby Boy

It’s still really early at 12 weeks and 3 days, but I had my nuchal translucency ultrasound yesterday, which is a screening test for genetic problems, and two different professionals independently looked at the ultrasound screen and told me it looks like a boy.  It was a wonderful appointment.  I saw ten fingers and ten toes, and the baby was active and moving around, touching his head and putting his hands on his knees.  All of sudden everything seems so much more real.

Baby boy in profile

My risk was very low for the screened conditions, so that was good news too.  Interestingly, at the very beginning they asked me a few questions that made me wonder if something was wrong.  It turns out there was another sac in there but no baby, so I had started out by having twins but one of them disappeared.  It’s actually very common, and known as Vanishing Twin Syndrome.

The twins are excited about their baby brother.  Ronin has been knocking at my belly, telling me to open it up so the baby can come out.  They both wave at my midsection to say hi to the baby.

We are happy to listen to any name suggestions!

Last week the Bay Bridge was unexpectedly closed for emergency repairs and I had to take public transit for a few days.  The one day I drove the long way around, it took me nearly 3 hours to get home.   So I took a bus, then BART, then another bus to get to my job less than 20 miles away, and that was just under 2 hours each way.  With my newfound BART experience, we took the twins for a ride around the East Bay on Sunday.

Justin, Ronin, and Claire on the train

Claire in particular was super-excited about the trains.  We had to wait on one platform for 10 minutes, and when a train stopped and we didn’t get on it because it was going the other way, she started howling and didn’t calm down until another train pulled up.  Because of Claire’s hysterics, and because the twins needed to be controlled the whole time we were on the platform to keep them from jumping onto the rails, we did not follow our plan of going to San Francisco and riding on the carousel, because that would have meant another long wait at a platform.  Instead, we just rode around for 90 minutes, by which time Claire and Ronin got restless and were more than ready to go home.

The restlessness and the crying made me nervous about our long flight next week.  I panicked and just ordered a portable DVD player to help keep them sitting still during our trip.

It’s not like they were sitting around all weekend, either.  We went for several long walks.  It was downright balmy in the Bay Area, with a high of 81 degrees the first day of November.   Claire ran a trail at Huckleberry with Justin close behind, and I stayed with Ronin who likes to stop and dig in the dirt and examine every detail of the path.

Ronin on the trail at Huckleberry

Claire has been demonstrating a lot of imagination lately.  This is different from when we ask them what they did during the day and they describe things they did with Grandma and then mix it up with things they thought about or wish they did, like “We read books, had a snack, saw a tiger, went swimming, went on an airplane, airplane, AIRPLANE!”   Claire has been actually pretending.  Last night she took a bin off the toyshelf and stood in it and said she was in a boat.  A round piece of cardboard from our Roomba box was a pizza.  She scribbled on some paper and pointed at one area that had a big oval and a little circle, and told me it was a turtle.

Thinking about turtles

I’m excited about this new level of playing.  I’ve been reading about sibling fighting and play, and learned that shared fantasy play is a really important component to how well siblings will get along, whether or not there is squabbling.  I’m looking forward to seeing Ronin develop his ability to pretend, and seeing them both inventing games and scenarios to share.

It’s been a crazy week with the Bay Bridge being closed for emergency repairs and either four hours of public transit or a nearly 3-hour drive home for me after work.    I’m hoping it gets fixed by Monday.

On Friday we went to a Halloween party at a friend’s house.    There was excellent food for adults and children, lots of toys, children ranging in age from newly born to 5 years old, and a huge tropical fishtank.  Claire and Ronin pointed out the clownfish immediately.   Ronin wandered around, trying to touch everything and had to be constantly monitored to make sure he didn’t take anything apart.  He ate everything I gave to him and helped himself to more.  Claire enjoyed hanging out where all the other children were running around.  She found a kid-sized chair and a big ball and threw it to anyone who asked for it.  She would only eat half the banana I brought and nothing else.  She’s getting pickier and pickier at meals.  We got home later than their usual bedtime, but they were so tired from all the new stuff they’d seen that they fell asleep almost immediately.

Ronin's pumpkin

On Halloween, we took the twins trick-or-treating at an outdoor mall on Alameda.   I was astonished at how many little dogs were dressed up.   The area was filled to capacity with children and adults in costume.  We got bags and had Claire and Ronin go into the participating stores for treats.  They didn’t really know what candy was, but they loved holding the bags and putting loot inside.  At one stop, Ronin dug in his bag for a lollipop and gave it to the woman who was handing him some candy.   It was so sweet that he was sharing like that!  Both children got two Smarties on the way home, and it was dismaying to see how quickly they learned to say “More candy, please!”  They said this just a few moments after Justin taught them to say “Home, Jeeves” to me.

Ronin and Claire in their costumes

Yesterday Justin was telling me he had a dream that he slept in while I got up and was doing stuff with the babies.  I said “That was no dream!” and almost fell over laughing.  He insisted that it was a dream, because it was set in Europe.  I was still laughing.

Finally, here is a video of Claire running and hopping around the living room with her stringing beads.

Between the babies napping only intermittently, and taking up to two hours to go to sleep at night, I haven’t had much time to catch up on the blog recently.   I completely forgot to mention that we went to the pumpkin patch again last weekend, and this time we were able to take my mom along as well.  Claire hadn’t stopped talking about the pony rides, so we wanted to give her another treat.  She was delighted, of course.   Our friend Chris took us out to dinner on Saturday night and gave us some pumpkin-decorating supplies, so we had to get some pumpkins.

Pulling our little pumpkins

Ronin in the maze

On the roping bull

Ronin at the pony ride

Baby pumpkins

I bought some scissors a while back (“safe for children over 5″) and started letting the twins practice cutting paper under supervision.  Neither one has gotten the one-handed scissors feat down yet, and Claire gets frustrated with it and can’t cut much.  Ronin can prop up a piece of paper and cut away at it, making little slashes and cut-outs of triangles.  This past week we did a project with scissors, colored pencils, and glue.  Ronin cut out all the triangles and the little pieces of yarn.  Both Claire and Ronin did the background colored pencil drawing.  Claire chose all the spots for me to apply the glue, and then she pressed the pieces down.   I think it turned out very nice.

I do not remember having this many aches and pains so early on with my previous pregnancies.  I’m hobbling around, so I’m totally amazed that we managed to go for a fairly long walk today.  After I get warmed up, it’s much easier.  We went to the Regional Park of Lake Chabot today.

Running down the path

Ronin in the cat tails

"Hi, Mommy!"

Claire going for a ride

Justin multi-tasking

Ronin

Claire looked adorable today in her new hat that she loves and won’t take off except for meals and bedtime, but she was moving so quickly I couldn’t get many pictures of her.    She turned out to be a blur in most of them.   I did get a video of her walking backward and Ronin giving her a sippy cup.  The twins were so fun to have along on this walk.  We attracted a crowd of “Aw-”ing spectators when they started skipping along holding hands and then stopped for an impromptu hug.   We heard people whispering “How adorable!” as they walked on.

Yesterday we drove out to Treasure Island to see the Blue Angels.   It was a cool and cloudy day, but Justin still managed to get some good pictures.  The twins were startled by the noise, but they watched the Blue Angels each time they swooped near us, and they also enjoyed throwing rocks in the Bay and identifying passing ships and boats.

Blue Angels

Ronin has been kissing my belly and waving “Hi” to the new baby.  Last night, he started licking me and I asked him what he was doing.  He said “Cleaning tummy, Mommy.”  Apparently he’s been looking at pictures of cats licking their kittens clean lately.

Claire and Ronin at Treasure Island with the SF skyline behind them

They have both been using a lot of prepositions.  They can describe where objects are or where they are going, with on top and under and inside and outside being their favorites.  They have also been trying to learn verbs like crazy.   Claire is now into this, too, although Ronin started it.  He touches the wall and asks “Ronin doing?” and then he’ll pat the table and ask “Ronin doing?” and then touch something else or pull something or squeeze something or walk funny and ask what it is he’s doing.  It is great how studious he is, but it can be a time-consuming process.  It’s also made me realize how many little hand gestures or types of movements we don’t have exact words to describe.

Ronin in the car

Claire in the car

Yesterday it was a nice crisp Fall day, and we drove out to Livermore to a farm with a pumpkin patch.  It was only a little crowded, so the twins were able to run through the rows of pumpkins without us losing track of them.

Ronin trying to lift a pumpkin

Claire strolling through the pumpkin field

I tried to have them sit down amongst the pumpkins for a picture, but they were too excited about being there and wouldn’t hold still.

Ronin grinning ear to ear

After we checked out the pumpkins, the twins had their first pony ride.  They did so well.  They both held on to the pommel and stayed balanced  without assistance the entire time.  Claire stroked Dancer’s mane and patted her very gently.  Ronin’s pony was called Candy.  Last night while I was attempting to get the babies to sleep, Claire kept sitting up and shouting “Pony ride!”  The first thing she said when she woke up this morning was “Pony ride!”  I think she really enjoyed it.

Claire on Dancer

There was a big cornfield maze at the farm, but I heard that it was long and complicated and people wander for hours in it.  Instead, the twins ran through a strawbale maze.   Ronin struck off by himself, and very methodically reached dead ends, turned around matter-of-factly, and chose different paths.  Claire wanted her daddy with her after the first missed turn.

Strawbale maze

There was a big pit filled with corn kernels.  Ronin loved it.  He ran through it, walked through it, sat down and tossed the corn in the air.  Claire liked seeing Justin’s hand come out of the corn to surprise her, but wasn’t as thrilled with the corn as Ronin was.

Claire and Justin in the corn

After we finished all the activities, we walked through the building with a Halloween exhibit and looked at the various squash and pumpkins on display.  They weren’t at all scared of the skeletons and talking skulls, and were actually more interested in the big bin of gourds.

Gourds

And finally, because they’ve been eating a lot lately and seem to be having a growth spurt, I thought I’d share their weights for today.  Ronin weighs 25 pounds and Claire weighs 28 pounds, 6 ounces.  I’m sure it helps that I’ve been baking and getting them more involved in the food prep.  Most of the time, my cooking involves a lot of fast chopping or slicing and then stove or oven time, which is not really amenable to baby assistance.  Now that I’m making cookies and brownies and coffeecake, they can help me measure ingredients, pour them in the bowl, and stir.