Prologue to a Twins Blog

Friday, October 9, 2009

Onwards and Upwards


Always looking onwards and upwards.

There's one thing that stands out among the rest that my husband does better than me - progress. He is really good at making sure that we move forward as a family. He is always leading the family along the developmental continuum and pushing us to acheive new things.

What the heck am I talking about? To put it in plain English. Michael is always encouraging me to encourage the twins to grow up. If it wasn't for him, I swear that my 4 year old twins would probably still be in diapers. He was the one who announced one day last year "Don't you think it's time to start potty training?"

I don't know why I'm not good at progress and looking forward towards the next step in our twins' development, but I'm not. I guess I tend to get stuck in a rut, doing the same things over and over again the same way. I like to call it my "mothering mode," but sometimes it does turn into my "over-mothering mode."

It was my husband who suggested that maybe it's time for the twins to be separated into different cribs after a few nights of them rolling over each other. It was also him who suggested that maybe 2 years old is old enough to switch them to a sippy cup instead of a bottle.

And, yes, him again who said "Let's get beds for the twins so that they can come out of their cribs." If left up to me, my twins would probably still sleep in a crib. The next thing he is working on with me is getting them to use children's toothpaste instead of baby toothpaste.

I figure that I have so much to think about on a daily basis, it's sometimes hard to think about what I should be working on next in the grand scheme of things. The day to day grind gets the best of me for sure. I'm glad that Michael reminds me that progress with the twins (progress in general) is a good thing and points out those areas where we should be moving forward on.

You know though if I'm honest with myself, I think that there is a little part of mothering nostaglia that plays into it as well and causes me to delay. Could my twins really be growing up so fast? Am I ready for that? I know they sure are.

Do you find yourself doing similiar things? Like still brushing the teeth of your teenager (okay, maybe that's a little drastic, but you know what I mean). I'd love to hear from you (and know I'm not the only one).

6 comments:

  1. I could relate to this post very well! And it's funny that you mention the brushing teeth as an example because I just took Cole and Bella to the dentist last month and she asked them to show her how they brush their teeth and they both stared blankly at her and said, "Our mommy brushes our teeth". Then she looked at me and said, "It's time to let them grow up....they can do this". It kinda made me sad.

    So now they're brushing their own teeth (with my supervision because God forbid the miss a spot, kwim?) but it's just another sign that they're growing up!

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  2. I am kind of on the opposite end, unfortunately.. When my kids were younger I had a friend that was constantly asking me "so.. are they off bottles yet? are they (insert milestone here) yet?" etc etc. It made me really paranoid about what they should be doing and ever since then I'm always trying to make sure that they aren't "behind"- which is so silly, I know. Luckily I ditched that friend, so it's starting to wear off a little:)

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  3. Hi there!

    I just tagged you on my blog

    http://3kidsin2yrs.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-tag.html

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  4. Hi, nice to meet you. I suppose I was more eager to move on each stage as I had a toddler as well as the twins and needed their assistance in certain things! I did get them ready for school a bit longer than necessary I think but when I realised how capable they were, a week I was sick, it changed everything.
    That particular week, they all got ready for school by themselves, helped daddy prepare breakfast and asked if they could bring me up a cup of tea; they'd been watching for some time; we're huge tea drinkers! :O)
    Well, that was a wonderful revelation but also a little bit sad. My eldest daughter, now 10, was sent home ill from school yesterday and I started to help her take her school shirt off to get her pyjamas on. I don't normally do this of course but she was ill. She looked at me, sighed and with a smile beyond her years said "mama, I can take my own shirt off!". Oops.
    x

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  5. My daughter is already 5 years old and I'm still in denial. To me she'll always be my baby. They grow so fast.

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  6. HI! Oh yes I am so guilty of holding on to their childhood as long as I can.Speaking of my grown kids here!I think moving forward and progressing is natural and good but it also means they are getting closer to being completely independent and I always wished to slow that down.With my twins I am just letting everything go sloow because now I know how fast it all goes and I am already sad at how much they've grown!They are still on the bottle and I don't know when they're coming off and I really don't mind which is very unlike me!Cribs?till their 5!LOL

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