Sometimes it is too easy to forget why we’re trying to get our children to do certain things, to get so wrapped up in the goal that we forget we want them to do it because we care and love for them so much. I’m just going through another of those moments right now. The enjoyment of the process has turned something that seemed like it would be a chore, something I wasn’t sure we could do, to something I have begun to look forward to every night.

My 4.5 (okay, four and three-quarter) year old little girl has decided she doesn’t want to wear diapers at night anymore. Over the past couple of months we have begun the push to get our twins out of diapers while they sleep. We decreased the amount of water in their sippy cups they kept on their night tables. Then we stopped the water at night altogether. We’ve even tried to encourage them to get up when they need to go to the bathroom and come to our room and we’ll help them to the bathroom. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well. Changing two sets of sheets at 3:30 in the morning was not a fun way to start the day – for any of us. Fortunately, Jordyn refused to give up. Much like her Daddy I am proud to say, once my little girl makes up her mind, she makes a commitment to achieving her goal. She has decided she only wants to wear underpants at night and she is doing whatever it takes to make that happen.

And so am I. (more…)

4:00am

That’s what the clock read. Is it raining? I should go look out the window to see if it is raining because if it’s not I can turn off the alarm and sleep a little later.

But I can’t get up to go check…tooooooooooo sleeeeeeeppppppppyyyyyy…

…

“ELIJAH!” I heard myself scream. All of a sudden I am out of my bed so quickly that I forgot to get my glasses, running towards the stairs. I don’t know what I heard, but somehow I knew he was in trouble and he responded with a sound. I can tell from his voice he is on the stairs. Is the monitor working?

He started crying loudly. (more…)

On Sunday we went to the mall with my Okapis. While Elijah, my 3-year old son, got a haircut with Mommy and Abuelita, I got Jordyn, his twin sister, all to myself. And it was lovely. One of the biggest frustrations I have during the week is not only do I not get enough time with my Okapis, I don’t get good time with my Okapis. I get the worst time of the day with them, the time when they are their most tired and that is the most structured. They need to eat. They need to take their vitamins. They need to change into PJs. They need to get nebbied. They need to brush their teeth. They need to go to bed. They need to do it within 1.5 hours of me coming home. I just don’t understand why it doesn’t become a lovefest every single night.

I also almost never get time alone with either of them. We keep meaning to change that, but keep running into challenges. Of course, the time I had with Jordyn was lovely; we even got a chance to look at some clothes for her. She is ridiculously smart, very observant and does wonderful things with her tone of voice – not only does she pick up new vocabulary very well, she is astute enough to mimic the tone, as well, appropriately. I don’t get to see that side of her enough at home, but at the mall with all of that stimulation and the fact that she has been there more than I have because she goes with my wife – especially when it is cold or wet – it really comes out. I was having a great time when Elijah, my wife and her mother met up with us.

Then it was as if I had disappeared.

Before I knew it I was standing alone, and the transition from special time with Jordyn to being invisible was jarring. I was so taken aback by the shift from being The Daddy to all of a sudden being what felt like nothing. I get special time with my Okapis – we call it Los Tres Amigos time, but I don’t get one-on-one time and was amazed at how special, how enjoyable it was and then, as I was just getting warmed up, it was gone.

I did recover and even got some nice one-on-one time with Elijah when we went to buy little basketballs to play with in our backyard. Then we quickly grabbed some lunch and afterwards, I was left behind at the table while everyone else started walking to the car. It was that same sensation of no longer being visible. I was carrying the loot we had purchased (my wife calls me “my pack mule”) and trying to catch up, when all of a sudden Elijah dropped back and wanted to hold hands with me. So my wife took the cup I was holding and I held hands with him. Then Jordyn fell back so she could hold hands with me and I gave the bags to my mother-in-law. I went from wonderful individual time to a jarring sense of invisibility back to being The Daddy again, holding hands with my beautiful Okapis and loving every minute of it.

“This is the life,” I said to them.

“This is the best part of my life,” Jordyn said.

“It’s the best part of my life, too, Sweetie Girl.”

And another weekend sadly came to an end in the Okapi household.

The other night our whole family went to have Chinese food together. As we were getting ready to go outside into the frigid cold, I started zipping up Elijah’s jacket, but was having a little bit of trouble. It was the second or third time I had done it that day and now I was pretty certain. I turned to my wife and said, “I think we need to get him another jacket. He is getting too big for this one.”

“No!” he almost screamed.

“What, Elijah?”

“No, but I’m not getting big. I don’t want to be bigger!”

And therein lies the crux of many of our problems. (more…)

I have written quite a bit about how hard leaving my three-year old twins every morning is for me. To sum up: I hate it. I hate leaving them every morning and feel there is something fundamentally flawed with a society that makes it so difficult for parents to stay home with young children.

Yesterday that difficult experience took a surreal turn. Yesterday, I didn’t leave my children to go to work. Instead, I brought them with me! My wife and I and our children took the train and the subway together to get to where I work. I kept reminding them this is how Daddy goes to work every day and they seemed like they were trying to absorb it all.

I took the opportunity to bring them to work because my wife had a meeting elsewhere in the city. When we got to my stop, we all got off and said goodbye to Mommy. They handled it very smoothly and we started walking out of the subway into the building I work, while she got back on the subway to head to her meeting. (more…)

My wife and I were taking a few minutes to catch up with our days when she said, “Did I tell you what Jordyn did today during nebby?”

“I don’t think so.” Nebby is what we call the nebulizer. We have to nebulize our two-year old twins every night to try and prevent asthma from developing and to decrease the congestion in their pulmonary system.

“She was holding her Elmo in a blanket and patting him on the back saying, ‘It’s okay, Elmo. It’s okay. It’s almost over and then you’ll feel better. You feel better, right?’”

Tears were welling up in both of our eyes and we couldn’t say anything at all. I had no trouble picturing my little girl doing that, hearing her voice in my head, seeing Elmo snuggled up in her arms.

“That little girl has been through so much.” My voice sounded hoarse, cracky and my wife looked like she hadn’t heard me. (more…)

You know how some parents look forward to going back to work to get a break from their children and spouses? I’m not one of them. I hate going to work in the morning. Absolutely hate it. I hate leaving my family - especially on Monday after I have spent so much time with them during the weekend. To make matters worse, my twin 19-month old children hate it, too. Sometimes they will cry and scream when I lean down to say goodbye. Other times they cling to me when I give them a hug and refuse to let go - as if I really want to leave in the first place.

My children have developed different ways of dealing with my leaving in the morning. Jordyn, my little girl, has somehow learned on her own to keep her connection to me throughout the day. She will point to pictures of me and yell out, “Da-Dee!” Or, and this just broke my heart, she will pick up my sneakers, take them to my wife and say, “Da-Dee shoes.” When she started to do this, my leaving in the morning wasn’t as hard on either of us.

But for my little boy, my leaving was much harder on him. When he gets excited, he sometimes actually has to back away from what got him so excited while his whole body shakes with emotion. He is already quite attuned to his emotions; he just doesn’t have the tools yet to deal with all of them. To deal with my leaving, he either would cry or scream or remain distant. When I came home at night he would barely acknowledge me, while his sister would scream out “Daddy” and lift up her arms for me to pick her up. I felt hurt and angry - mostly at myself - thinking about how much I was hurting Elijah every morning. (more…)