Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Twin Moms at the Silicon Valley Moms Chevy Event

When I first became a mom, my world was my twin mom friends. We'd met through our local twins club, Gemini Crickets, and huddled together for warmth and safety, protecting our young, protecting each other. Moms of singletons ventured out and reclaimed their former lives faster than we did. We were slow to get going, encumbered by double the baby gear, double the weight and double the challenges. Slowly, our babies grew up, became preschoolers and now, kindergartners and we, well, we just aged. And we're outgrowing our twins club, the days of sleep training and potty training and Music Together far behind us.

I joined SV Moms just before they launched, back in April of 2006. Linsey and Linda soon followed me over, and then, this year, we were joined by Carla (who photo blogs), Ana Garza and on Deep South Moms, by Lisa G. Recently, we were even followed over by the BFF to twin moms, Mama Speak, who is 6 degrees from every twin mom I know and I love her! Suddenly, it seems as if we've all got our groove back. We'd passed through the twindom and survived the early years. But what next? Then came SV Moms, and there we found a new home. What could be better than going off to college with your closest friends? That's how it feels.

When my son finds himself in a new place, he uses a trick to facilitate making new friends. He brings a toy. Then, when the kids flock around him, attracted to the toy and ultimately, to him, he feels secure. It's his way of making friends. Believe it or not, I'm a bit of a shy person inside, always slightly insecure. I rarely like to be the first person to enter the room. No, you go first, I'll follow behind. I think I need to be an event photographer. At my friend's wedding, she assigned a bashful friend the task of taking candid Polaroid shots of wedding guests and it worked, the friend worked the room with her camera, meeting people along the way.

So that's what I need, an excuse to be there, a reason to approach people. I know, I can rely on what my mom says is my incredible wit and adorable personality, yada yada to do the same, but couldn't I just tote around a security blanket once in a while? So barring a fancy camera to bring me comfort, I do love that I have my twin mom friends as my social crutch. And having braved a few social events within the blogging community In Real Life, I am finally branching out and enjoying it. Really, I am. I'm lucky to be able to move amongst the two communities, now interwoven. I've even met more SV Moms bloggers who are moms of twins: Beth, Kirsten, Alix, Bonggamom and Sidney! Not to say that moms of singletons don't rock - they do! - but sharing the experience of parenting twins, especially during the early years, is a special bond.

Boys Will be Boys

I am the mother of boys. I'm trying to raise them as globally minded citizens of the world who appreciate the pine needles they're standing on. Smell the pine needle, feel it, remember this moment, this tree, this adventure. Look at a map. Look for the treasure, run barefoot in the sand. Here's another map, find yourself on the map, find Paris, find Portland. Look, feel, smell - use all your senses. Take it in. Notice things. Ask questions, seek answers. See that person - he has a history. Run into the world, feel the wind. Read.

My boys are marvelous creatures. Working within my limited means (read: money!), I'm trying to give them the tools they need to seek their places in this big world. Which is why we're always on the go, why I'm always giving them teaching moments, why we're always looking, smelling, and eating up the world. They climb, they play, they imagine and slowly, they understand just a little bit more.

I won't keep my kids in the dark, sheltered in the living room, eyes glued to the television.

Inside, I celebrate my boys and the beautiful human beings they've become and yet, I have an uneasy feeling that society does not celebrate boys in early childhood. While I have no doubt that my boys' talents and abilities will take them far later on in life, society does not seem to celebrate the accomplishments of boys when boys are young. In kindergarten, for instance, there is great emphasis on fine motor perfection. Can you write your name in deneliean, dear block letter boys? In my experience, girls seem to favor fine motor activities. I was one of those little girls. I'd spend hours, in fact, I preferred to spend hours in my room coloring and drawing and writing letters over going outside. My brother, on the other hand, was always and I mean always, outside playing. Who would have had the advantage in kindergarten? Why me, of course. I think it skews parents' perceptions of how well their children are doing in school. Parents of girls get to coast with pride over their daughter's accomplishments, while boys who are accomplished at so many different things, get overlooked, their kindergarten experiences soured by the emphasis on fine motor perfection.

A Halloween Birthday at Disneyland

My twin boys will never not know that their birthday is coming. The signs will be few at first, a falling leaf, a chilly morning. Then, a dot of orange here and there, and finally, a sea of orange pumpkins and they will know. Fall is in the air, our birthday.

My boys are fall birthday boys, born in my favorite season. So what did we do to celebrate their big fifth birthday this year? We headed to Disneyland!

Looking over the Halloween at Disneyland site, I was mesmerized by the promises of a Disneyland transformed for Halloween. Disneyland is a special place when it's not a holiday, but dressed up in spookatcular style? There's nothing else like it. What a visual treat!

We'd been to Disneyland once before, in the unadorned month of May back when my boys were just three. At the time, I'd fretted over the type of stroller I should bring. This time, I'd planned to go on my twins' birthday. I'd heard that 2009 was like a twins convention at Disneyland -- but we didn't end up going on their actual birthday; it just didn't work with our schedule. The nice folks as Disneyland did treat us to a one night stay at the Grand Californian hotel and that was a gift the entire family enjoyed.

The Grand Californian made me smile from the very instant we pulled up to the front doors on a warm October Saturday. Tourists, most dressed in sunny weather attire, were bounding in and out of cars. I looked at my boys and hoped they were making a memory out of this. I love my own summer vacation in Southern California memories but mine were full of motels and neon signs, not Craftsman artistry!

In the warmly decorated lobby, my boys made themselves comfortable in front of a television showing classic Disney cartoons. They were in stitches over the classic slapstick fare of Donald Duck and Goofy - they'd never seen anything like it! It was so nice to have my boys sit still during the 15 minutes it took us to register at the front desk. A few minutes later, with our luggage stowed until our room was ready, we settled in for lunch at the hotel's Storytellers Cafe, future home to almost all our meals (let's say it was convenient and family friendly - oh, and yummy!). 

After lunch, we headed to the adjacent California Adventure Park which we told our children was really a part of Disneyland (it is, in a way...). "Where are the Pirates of the Caribbean?" they kept asking us to which we'd replied, "We don't know...let's keep walking." I suppose we could have used our tickets for two days at Disneyland rather than splitting up the parks by days but I'd wanted to take advantage of the hotel's close proximity to California Adventure and there were a couple of rides I'd really wanted to check out (Toy Story Mania, Soarin Over California, Tower of Terror). For the record, I forgot to wear the 3D glasses on Toy Story Mania until the ride was nearly over and kept wondering why puffs of air kept shooting past me. My boys didn't love Toy Story Mania and they much prefer the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland instead. Soaring Over California was amazing and exhilarating and we loved breathing in the scent of the orange groves! At night, once the kiddos were tucked into bed (a bunkbed AND a trundle bed!) at our luxurious hotel, I made my way over to the other hotel...the Tower of Terror which I LOVED, with apologies to the strangers into whose ears I SCREAMED and SCREAMED.

My boys ended their day in bubble wrap bliss. Our kind friends at Disney Resorts had sent over a fun-filled gift basket plus balloons for their birthday. My kids were thrilled to have received such a special gift! They got mouse ears and markers and autographed photos of Buzz Lightyear and Peter Pan. But imagine a big hotel bed filled from corner to corner with bubble wrap! I don't know, in my mind, that runs a pretty close second to a fun-filled day at Disneyland.

The following day was the Big Day and by that I mean, my boys both realized their recent dream of attending the Star Wars Jedi Academy. My biggest worry had been how to deal with the sibling rivalry repercussions if only one of the boys had been chosen. I'd cautioned my boys, prompting them to be prepared to be disappointed if only one or none of them had been selected but I think because we planned our outing so well, the boys did both get chosen and it was exciting for them and exciting for their parents! I'm not a Star Wars fan and everything I know about the genre is by proxy and still, I was terribly excited to see my boys become full-fledged jedis on their fifth birthday. What a gift for my 5-year-old boys!

By midday, the crowds at Disneyland were enormous, but we'd been able to already see and do so much because we'd done everything between the hours of 7am and noon, before the heat of the day, and before the groundswell of crowds. Why was it so crowded during what I'd thought was the off-season? In talking with another twin mom friend of mine who'd also battled crowds there in October, we think it's because Disney has done such a effective job of marketing a Disneyland transformed into a whimsical pumpkin patch. Indeed, what a sight it is -- if you can look beyond the crowds.

So back to the hotel we went, fleeing the heat and the throngs of people. There are three pools at the Grand Californian, all of which were easily accessible via back elevators which pretty much deposited us ten feet from our hotel room. Sweet! I'm swimsuit averse, as I have been since I was a self-conscious adolescent so I monitored my boys from the sidelines while daddy took the plunge with our boys. They tested all three pools. The first was large and inviting - and in full sun. The second was round and fully shaded and so slightly chilly. The third had a mini slide for toddlers and a longer twisty water slide for stronger swimmers. My boys did both! How better to top off a morning at Disneyland than with an afternoon at the pool? My boys were having the time of their lives. The pool supplied towels and if needed, life jackets, so we really didn't have to bring those bulky items with us.

After the pool and after a gluttonous run on the buffet at Storytellers Cafe, we pushed the limits of  exhaustion for one final evening visit to Disneyland, hoping to catch the 9pm showing of Fantasmic. But the crowds were just too immense so we didn't have the patience to stand in line for any more rides. I pined for the empty streets of Disneyland at 7am... We ended up using our single strollers that evening and just strolling about the park. By the time 8:30pm rolled around, our little birthday boys were passed out.

And with that, my children exited Disneyland in the fashion of generations of children before them, collapsed in utter exhaustion!

Thank you Disneyland and Disneyland resorts. We can't wait to go back!

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.