Twins' first day of school

My twins' first full day of preschool is tomorrow. Today, they go in with me to meet their classmates and suss out the classroom toys. This is their third and final year of preschool (double tuition, youch!) and next year I will be putting them on the bus to go to the local public school with their big sister. It was very obvious to me that they are my youngest and after having an older kid do three years of preschool, the initial meeting with the teacher and other moms to go over the kids class routine and address any parental concerns felt old-hat to me.

I had no choice but to keep them in the same class this year, as there is only one class for kids their age. But next year, for kindergarten, I am going to separate them, which I think is my school district's policy anyway. They are so different and independent that this decision is a no-brainer for me. Yet I know that many many parents of twins find this decision--to separate or not--to be a huge source of stress. Several folks even end up getting educators, childhood development experts, pediatricians, and psychologists involved. Is this something that you are struggling with? Let us know any great resources you've discovered so we can share them with our audience.  

Back to school chaos

Cathy and I finally got to relax on our August summer vacations. We even met with our families for a night on the beach out on the East End of Long Island. It was an ideal party: lots of friendly, low-key families, kids running around on the sand making instant friends, yummy food, perfect weather, finished up with a small bonfire and smores. It doesn't get better than that. This was the first vacation since we started Twin Set three summers ago that I didn't take my laptop. I had my blackberry with me, of course, but I used that mostly to set up a tennis date when we got back home. It felt good to relax. Before we took off for the week, my husband and I did our best to tee up for low-stress upon our return...back-to-school is only a week and a half after we got home. I was in good shape at work before I left and I worked hard this week to stay that way. I finally plotted all of the kids activities and my work schedule on my master family planner (which is a momagenda, by the way). And new sneakers, clothes, and ballet shoes have been purchased for the three kids (on sale or with coupons whenever possible). But still, the new routine is rocking my world. I even tried getting the kids to bed earlier when we were on vacation. Despite all of my preparation and thoughtfulness, it is still a zany time of year for parents. How do you moms manage it all?

Twin Set Moms take on Philly

Hi twin fans. We are headed to Philly on good old Amtrak tonight and will be appearing on CN 8(around 7:30 am) and The Channel 10 Morning Show (between 10 and 11 am).

On deck, an interview with Radio Disney! Now that's something my kids will think is supercool. 

Crazy or Creative? How does this twin tip measure up?

Okay, our new friend Maggi, who is a couple of months preggo with twins wrote in that she met a mom with older twins, who shared a unique twin-feeding strategy. It follows: she spoon-fed them in diapers while they sat in seats in the bathtub. This obviously made post-meal clean up MUCH easier. But this mom's friends thought the twins would grow up being confused about where you are supposed to eat your meals. 

To me, this falls under the category of "You do what you gotta do," and could be quite genius if you are a mom of twins struggling with the ginormous mess that doubles make while they are in the finger feeding and spoon feeding phase. The clean up is an absolute grind, and could diminish some of the pleasure of seeing your cuties experiment with new flavors and textures. We are not endorsing this unusual method, but just celebrating the power of twin moms to creatively problem solve, not matter how wacky other people may think we are. Go moms, go!

Twin Set Moms on television and radio

What a whirlwind! Cathy and I were fortunate enough to have travelled up to Boston last Thursday (because that's where the National Organization of Mothers of Twin Clubs held its annual convention this year) and do what's called a satellite media tour to promote our book. It was incredible. Well, Thursday night wasn't so glam, actually. Our hotel was a little stinky and noisy, so neither of us slept particularly well before our big day. I also think nerves played a major part. Now, we practiced a lot before we went on air, and we were even trained by several media professionals on how to make our top points effectively, which is a craft and a skill. So we woke up at 5 am and left for the recording studio about 5:40. We had makeup and hair done--yes, that was fun. And we got miked up around 7:30 and started doing our rigorous schedule of 23 back to back television and radio interviews. Some were live and some were taped. We hit markets all across this great country. We got a little slap happy by the last interview. But can you blame us? This was like having an outer body experience. Here are the stations we were fortunate enough to have reached:

Daily Buzz (national TV)

Daybreak USA (national radio)

WHNS/FOX (Greenville, SC, TV)

WJXT/ABC (Jacksonville, FL, TV)

WOCM-FM (Rude Awakening, radio, Salisbury, MA)

KHGI/ABC (Lincoln, NE, TV)

KYMA/NBC (Yuma, AZ, TV)

KHYL-FM (Sacramento, CA, radio)

Ion Network (national TV)

WSNY-FM (Columbus, OH, radio)

WZZM/ABC (Grand Rapids, MI, TV)

WDIS-AM (Boston, MA, radio)

KCMN-AM (Colorado Springs, Tron in the Mornings, Radio)

KOB/NBC (Albuquerque, NM, TV)

WTSP/CBS (Tampa, FL, TV)

WKYC/NBC (Cleveland, OH, Good Company, TV)

KCTU/IND (Wichita, KS, Your Hour, TV)

KWIX-AM (Columbia, SC, Radio)

Good Parenting Radio (National)

KTVK/IND (Phoenix, AZ, Arizona Family, TV)

KFOR-AM (Lincoln, NE, Radio)

KQCA/IND (Sacramento, CA, TV)

KTHV/CBS (Little Rock, AK, TV)

WMAN-AM (Columbus, OH, Morning Show, Radio)

Then, just yesterday, we appeared on WCBS NY local morning television news and chatted with the lovely Cindy Hsu about our book. That was much easier than the satellite media tour because at least we could see the person we were being interviewed by. During the media blitz of 23, we stared into a camera, not knowing who was interviewing us, but just hearing their questions through an earpiece. It was nuts! Our next journey looks like it's going to take us down to Philly. Stay tuned for more exciting details...

Mom with two sets of twins

Hey y'all. Some kind words from one of our biggest blog fans. Please be inspired by this sweet momma of two sets of twins UNDER 5. She is a cool chick, and she takes the time to regularly give us feedback, which we hope inspires you. That's our goal, here, on this blog, to inspire a community of moms of twins to interact from all parts of the country. Let's get this party started:

"Good evening, ladies! I hope all is going well for you both. I just wanted to say congrats on the book release! I haven't had a chance to even pick my copy up yet: my life is a zoo. My second set of twins just had their first birthday on Friday...I can't believe it's been a year already! I can't believe I have two sets of twins under five years old. I know you're both busy, but I just wanted to thank you for writing this book and the blog. I love being able to see what other moms of multiples are doing. And I'm still going to need lots of advice from moms with older twins! Thanks for all you do. Niki"

Will the twin challenges never cease?

Life has been pretty busy of late and I am really feeling the heat (literally and figuratively, it's so hot on the east coast right now!). I am desperately trying to juggle my family, job, the book release, new home, etc. But the greatest source of angst for me has to do with my 3 year-old twins.

Many months ago I registered both of them for a week at a nature camp that starts Monday. The camp requires its students to be fully potty trained. Back in May, when I went cold turkey with them, one of my guys got it and has been great ever since (although he did poop in his pants several times in a week when we moved to our new house, so clearly there was some internal stress going on there). But my other guy just didn't get it and neither of us has been too motivated to try again. Well now the camp start date is here and he won't be able to go. I am so upset by this twin dilemma -- do I hold the trained guy back because it might feel strange for him to be apart from his twin? Do I let him go? What will that do to the one left behind?

I spend so much time trying to make decisions for two older sons that are the right decisions for their individual personalities, it's so rarely in relation to each other. But with the twins, it's hard not to think of them in relation to each other, yet hard to know where the greater sensitivities might lie. Truth is, they deserve to be treated as individuals but their bond is so special, it needs to be treated with respect, too. I am just torn up thinking about separating them, but I am leaning toward sending my trained guy. He worked hard to lose that diaper and I know that he will love camp.

Another layer of this involves their personalities. The untrained guy is generally shy and mellow. I suspect that if the underwear were on the other booty, he would not want to go to camp without his twin. So that gets me wondering how the decisions we make as parents fulfill the personality traits we observe in our children. Do we nurture them toward certain characteristics that we suspect we observe in their nature? Will sending my outgoing and confident son to this new adventure further solidify for his twin that his role is destined to be the guy left behind? Could I be more neurotic????

For all the excitement of our life right now, this is all I can think about. How do we do right by our twins? I suspect the challenge will be with us for years to come.

Pregnant Mom of Twins LOVES Twin Set Book!

Check out this great letter of praise from a sweet pregnant mom of twins on reading our newly launched book. This is so awesome you just can't make this stuff up:

I am 8 weeks pregnant with IVF twins and my parents bought your book on Saturday in a small bookstore in Bethany Beach, MD where they were on vacation. They each read it in a day and then brought it to me where I live in Connecticut. I read it in a day, too. What a fantastic book. My husband and I have been shocked by the dearth of information about twins, products, etc, and were so excited to read a book that tells it like it is. We are still cautious, knowing that we are early in the pregnancy, but we are starting to feel both excited and petrified about having twins. These will be our first children, so we are optimistic that we won't know any better and will just take things as they come. But we now feel so much better prepared to start figuring out even the simple things--what to buy, how to find help, etc--thanks to your book. You helped us to start thinking about things that hadn't even crossed our mind.

Anyway, I just wanted to write to thank you for this book and congratulate you in its release. While thoughts about our twin pregnancy are still settling in, we are planning to take much of what you have learned to heart and certainly appreciate the advice, contacts, resources, etc that you provide. And the anecdotes remind us of how much fun this is going to be. Congratulations and good luck. I have no doubt that this book will be a huge success. --Maggi

OMG! Twin Set is available today

We can't believe today is FINALLY here. We have worked our tushies off for the last three years to see this day. And this is how we are going to spend it: apart. Cathy is working at her other job and I will be attending a two-day conference for mine. And when we finally do see each other this week, it won't be until Thursday, when we board a train heading for Boston to do a satellite media tour, in conjunction with the Moms of Multiples Convention. I have really exciting news for all of you, however, we have a free double stroller to give away, no strings attached. I will hopefully blog about it tonight, if I am not wiped out by my work conference. But I will drop a big hint now: it's a Chicco Trevi Twin Stroller and it is so cute. The good peeps at Chicco totally sought us out and offered this up to us, and we couldn't refuse the opp to help a mom of twins who needs a stroller. All you guys have to do is write in to us as to why YOU or a mom of twins you know and love is desperate for one of these bad boys. I am hoping I'll even figure out how to post the cute picture of the stroller tonight. I am really trying to embrace blog technology. Baby steps, right?

Twin Mania

Two more days and you can get your hands on a copy of Twin Set! We can't believe it is so close to our pub date...what a long haul it's been. Can't say it enough, but writing this book was truly a labor of love. The moms of twins we kept meeting along our journey kept us going, even when the going got rough. We met deadlines under the most ridiculous circumstances--with sick kids at home, with black circles under our eyes from sleep deprivation, and with all our other responsibilities (grocery shopping, class momming, laundry management, cooking, packing and unpacking school backpacks, shuttling kids to and from school, activities, and playdates...to name a few). Moms of multiples are tough broads. I think back to my first couple of weeks with my twins when I was nursing, and pumping, and making bottles, and changing diapers, and dealing with my then almost three year old. I thought I would crack, many many many times. And while I did melt down occasionally, more often than not I'd be able to see ALL of the little things I managed to get done every day added up to a TON of work, and that I was quite successful, actually. That was great training for writing Twin Set. Hope you enjoy our lovechild.