The One-Stop Internet Spot for Parents of Twins and Multiples

My birthday comes at the end of January, and, now that I am a little over 40, it’s also the time when I’ve decided to have my annual mammogram. I had my first one last year.

This January I was very, very anxious about my health. I have been having some gastric issues for a little over a year and some pressure on the left side of my pelvis. After being basically ignored by a couple of doctors, I changed my primary doctor and he ordered a pelvic ultrasound.

That test revealed some sort of large mass — never a word one likes to hear — and it was unclear what it was. Around the same time I reported dutifully for my annual screening mammogram.

They called me back, another call no one likes to get. They said I had to return for another mammogram and an ultrasound.

I was terrified and immediately hit the Internet, looking for information about how often a mammogram callback results in a breast cancer diagnosis. I was relieved — only a little, really — to find that many people get called back after a screening mammogram. The test is imperfect, I was happy to find.

Naturally, I did a self exam and decided that I was having normal breast changes. I made a mental note to schedule my next screening mammogram after my menstrual cycle so that my breasts aren’t so dense for the test.

But, it turns out, I’ll never have a run-of-the-mill screening mammogram again, ever.

Turns out, I have breast cancer.

Right now, I am writing this, bald, after two chemotherapy treatments.

I have really grappled with whether I wanted to blog about this. I have lots of mixed feelings about it. But I’ve decided to go ahead and share my experiences. Mainly, I hope that they will bring comfort to others on the journey.

Next installment, the mammogram follow-up appointment. But now, I have to go put my two adorable cuties to bed. No more time for cancer tonight. So, sorry cancer, you’ll have to wait. I’ve got stories to read, cuddling to do.

Photo from Amazon.com

Review by Sandra Horning

My five year old pulled The Cheese off the new book display at our library a few weeks ago and I’ve read it for bedtime every night since. Clearly, my five year old thinks it is great. The Cheese builds around the last line of the song “The Farmer in the Dell”: and the cheese stands alone.

Down on the farm no one knows why the cheese has to stand alone in the field all day, they just know that’s how the song goes. The rat thinks the cheese looks pretty tasty and decides to take action to join the cheese in the field. Along the way he encounters everyone else from the song: the cat, the dog, the child, the wife, and the farmer. After discussing why the cheese stands alone, each character gets persuaded to join the cheese in the field. Finally they all end up having a picnic with the cheese.

The humorous dialog of why the cheese stands alone brings laughter every time. The pleasing illustrations have lots of details for young children to see. The only drawback to reading this night after night is that my son likes me to end by singing “The Farmer in the Dell” and then the tune gets stuck in my head for the rest of the night! A small price to pay for a book that helps my son get to sleep.

Ages 3-8

As an early chapter book, Mokie and Bik is fun and different, with lovely detailed pen-and-ink illustrations to go with the text. Based on the cover illustration alone, my children and I were prepared to love this book. But, to be honest, my two boys didn’t like it. In fact, they found the twins’ language confusing and kept asking for clarification. Reading it aloud, I enjoyed some of the word play, but at times felt my tongue getting twisted up with phrases such as “swinging side to siding with Bik slip dippery riding splish swish sliding – splash! - overboard.”

However, that said, my children did listen to the whole story and I think it is worth a read aloud just for some of the word play. And perhaps a twin reading it or hearing it aloud will better appreciate the twins’ special language that so often confused my boys who never shared such a thing.

Ages 7-10

Photo from Amazon.com

Review by Sandra Horning

Both my 4 and 8 year old sons were taken with Patience Wright, America’s First Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy. What child doesn’t love a good spy story? And what a story it is!

Born to a Quaker family in 1725, Patience grew up in the American colonies and showed a talent for sculpting clay at a young age. In mid life she began to sculpt wax and her reputation for creating life-like sculptures grew. As a result her work was desired by many prominent Americans. Her success led her to open a studio in London. As a well-known artist, she had many political figures among her customers, including the king and queen.

When the American colonies started revolting against England, Patience was suddenly in an important position, as she was friendly with both English and colonial leaders. As Patience worked with some of her English customers, she led them to reveal secret information. Then Patience wrote this information down and hid it in the hollow busts of her sculptures that were going to America. Thus, she became a spy.

The realistic gauche-and-pastel illustrations of wax figures and early America bring the text to life. My younger son kept asking which illustration is the sculpture and which is Patience. This is a fun read for young historians, with additional information about Patience and the revolutionary war included at the end. But historian or not, if you haven’t heard of Patience Wright, this is a must read about an extraordinary woman. Questions about wax sculpting and spying are sure to go on for several days.

Ages 4-9

With no warning, I got some bad news a couple of weeks ago. It certainly wasn’t earth-shattering or tragic news, mostly just yukky news that affects your ego. And maybe your stomach. For awhile. That kind of bad news.

I was upset, naturally. I had planned to meet up with a friend in downtown Los Angeles that night for a quick dinner before going to an event for online journalists at the LA Times building. It still sounded like fun even though I was feeling punky, so I went.

Amazingly, I didn’t hit any traffic at all and was driving through Chinatown when I realized that I was pretty early. I’ve always wanted to stroll through Chinatown and have literally never done it in the years that my husband and I have lived in the Los Angeles area.

Magically, a parking spot appeared and I knew the moment was meant to be. I took a couple of photos with my snappy new mobile phone camera and then went shopping.

The first store I went into had an array of the usual stuff you find in American Chinatowns, but I was so thrilled to be there that I perused everything carefully. Suddenly, along one wall, I saw an assortment of carved stone stamps.

When I walked over and looked closer, I saw that they were Chinese characters for people’s names and for special words. I started looking for my name but gave up because there were so many and they were arranged in no particular order (that I could determine).

Then I saw it. The stamp that made me feel better and more hopeful, all at once.

Here it is:

PASSION

Or, at least that’s what the label on the stamp says (if anyone sees that I have actually bought a stamp that says I LOVE FUDGE or KITTENS ARE MY LIFE or whatever, do, please, let me know.).

I bought the gooey red ink to go with my stamp and happily went on my way to pick up the rest of my life, post-bad news.

Oh, my gosh, this is a really sweet article, and I just had to share it.

Alice, Doris and Gladys are British identical triplets who just celebrated their 80th birthday with a big barbecue.

The article is a chatty tribute to the women, with a few terrific photos of the triplets as they grow up.

My favorite quote from the article is about Doris’ reflection on the 80th birthday party:

Doris said: “As much as we wanted to join in, the bouncy castle was for the young ones.

Every parent of twins or multiples knows that when you’re out with your kids you get extra attention from (mostly) well-intentioned folks.

Sometimes people say nice things, sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes people even touch your kids. Most of the time, though, it’s no big deal.

But in our town we have a woman who we do try to avoid when we go out walking to the park or to the library.

She’s a twin within a twin.

She’s an elderly woman, pretty harmless-looking, and I can’t remember precisely what she looks like, which is why she has successfully snagged me more than once.

She’ll hulk after us in velcro sneakers when she sees us to ask if our daughters are twins. Then she’ll say that she has a relative with twins, a sister or something. I can’t remember, honestly.

And then, once she has our attention, she’ll lean in a little to say, “And, I’m a twin within a twin.”

There’s a beat before my palms begin to sweat, and I’ll think “Doh! She caught me again!”

“Oh,” I say, nodding and trying to think of a way to escape because now I remember what’s coming.

But it’s too late. She goes on to explain that she has an extra uterus and the doctors think that she originally had a twin sister, but that she absorbed her sister’s body while she was inside her own mother’s womb.

It’s actually very sad. I always come away from the conversation freaked out and thinking that she’s some sort of Klingon or something (from my Star Trek Next Generation days I remember that Klingons have some sort of double organ situation. You guessed it. I’m a geek.)

My husband said he successfully escaped the twin within a twin on his last walk around town with the girls, so I guess we’re starting to be able to pick her out among the local freak pedestrians.

This is the kind of thing that happens in my crazy little town, and the kind of thing one attracts by just walking around with twins.

Another day I just might tell you about the blonde knife lady. But not tonight. I’m creeped out enough as it is just thinking about the twin within a twin.

I wrote a little poem today about how, before I had kids, I used to turn up my nose at the thought of ever letting my future children ride the merry-go-round at the mall. I love carousels and favor vintage ones, like the carousel in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and the mall one just doesn’t fit the bill.

Of course that was before the twins arrived.

You can read my ode to the mall carousel at my Family.com blog Mommy! Mommy!.

Photo from Amazon.com

Review by Sandra Horning

This week at the library a book with the title Toolbox Twins caught my eye. A new twin book? Yes and no. It is a book about twins, but not the same birth date kind of twins. Instead, Toolbox Twins refers to a small boy, Vincent, and his dad, each with his own toolbox and each making repairs around the house.

As Vincent’s dad goes around the house fixing things, Vincent follows along with his toolbox. They hammer the “steps that squeak” and the “stools that creak.” They move outside and work on the gate and chairs. Then into the garage to work on the bike. Back inside they go to hang pictures. Vincent and his dad work inside and out, pulling out different tools for every job. Each new tool in the text appears in bold, helping with identification as the tool is shown. The pleasing illustrations complement the simple rhymes.

Young twins will enjoy learning another way to use the word “twins”. And if your child also happens to be a fix-it child like my four year old son, Toolbox Twins is sure to be a hit.

Ages 2-6.

When I started BeTwinned, I wanted it to be an online magazine with feature articles. Once I got it up and running and my post-journalism school life turned out a lot different than I had imagined (and I had absolutely no time to feed this creation with feature articles), I realized that it would be better just to make BeTwinned a blog.

So, I’ve been wanting to write more “bloggy” and to create a blogroll of all the blogs I read and to do other things on the site that would be generally, well, bloggy.

But I haven’t really gotten around to it. Tho, I plan to do it this summer when I have two months off from my job. Yes, I have two months off in the summer. You can hate me, I can take it.

Anyway, something so funny happened this morning, and it’s something so random and it’s such a short story, I thought, “How could I possibly create a whole, meaningful entry about this one little thing?”

I decided that I couldn’t do all those perfect things and that this would be the day that I would start blogging at BeTwinned. Really blogging, like all the other Mommy Bloggers I read. Having fun and writing short, pithy posts if I damn well feel like it. And writing stuff that I probably couldn’t get away with on my Disney parenting blog, Mommy! Mommy!.

Here goes.

My husband’s twin sister sent my daughters a box of Disney videos, like Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, etc.

I asked them this morning if they’d like to watch a new video from their stack (they’ve been watching Peter Pan over and over), and they said yes. I offered up Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and they said yes.

Djuna said, “Is Snow White and the Seven Whores scary?”

I looked breathlessly at my husband, who looked like he was about ready to piss himself, so I knew I had heard her right.

I said, “I’m sorry sweetie, I didn’t hear you. Could you please say that again?”

Call me horribly cruel, but I had to hear her say it again.

And she did. I had to step out of the room, I was laughing so hard.

We watched the movie together in small pieces (that is one bitchy, freaky queen/witch, in case you have forgotten) throughout the day, and “whores” changed from “dwores” to “warses” to its current incarnation: “warves.”

I guess it is a pretty hard word to say for a three-year-old.