365 Days of Twins: Sentences and subterfuge

My vanity shot for the month. Playing hockey with the Aerosim peeps over lunch.

Not pictured: the puck, which I'm about to stick right in the net.

Photo credit to Andy Moon - photographer extraordinaire

Lily had another milestone today: her first complete sentence. She has already paired up a bunch of words to convey some complex thoughts, such as:

"All done milk" - This means she's all done with her milk
"Bye bye pooch" - Said when wishing the dog adieu
and "Help poopy" - Means we should flee the area

...but these are hardly grammatically correct sentences. Okay, that's a lie; "Bye bye pooch" is technically a complete sentence (I think), but she presents it in a very neanderthalic way, so as to give the impression of it being a fragment.

Tonight we were playing underneath our Minnesota Wild blanket, which is well known to feature a few holes. Lily was peeping out of just such a hole when she said, "I see Abby." Is that a miracle or what!? Who's got two thumbs and is a genius? Lily. I know that didn't make sense, but it's true - she does have two thumbs.

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You never know sometimes what is going to get kids to be happy, or what desperate, panic-led flailings will haul your kid from the precipice that is "the cranky mood". Towards the end of dinner tonight, we told them it was bath time. Jen took Abby's socks off, and she was okay with it. I took Lily's socks off, and it was instant pandemonium. Thinking quickly, we both started waving the socks above our heads frantically and danced around.

This actually worked. It's amazing, the power of redirection on these kids. It's a fundamental skill to parenting. It is utterly necessary when trying to wrest something from the girls clutches (tube of ointment, cell phone, live grenade). And it never needs to be anything more sophisticated than us yelling, "Hey, hey Abby, LOOK OVER THERE! WOW! IS THAT A FRAMED PICTURE ON THE WALL???" during which we snatch away the contraband item. Normally, it works and they don't notice. Sometimes they do notice, and we pay the price. But it's better than not trying.

A side benefit of this is the feeling of sleazy pride when it works, like you're a little happy that you were just able to fool your kid. I notice this the most when I managed to get Lily's pacifier. She always notices its absence, but if I'm deft enough and nimble enough to abscond the thing into a hidden location, I get to watch her search for it for a few panicky moments. Then she always gets distracted, and learns to live without it.

Tricking kids...necessary AND fun.

Day three hundred and four.