Organization and the satisfaction of reaching interim attainable goals were the most important qualities I brought with me from my job as a production editor for a middle-sized science and technical publisher, Marcel Dekker, Inc. When I was the full-time breadwinner I used to come home frequently and find breakfast dishes in the sink. I swore I would not let this happen to me. I did the dishes and turned on a few minutes of Regis Philbin as a reward/break from the early morning activity, or had some tea and a snack. The work makes you hungry. You do have to watch lunch at 11:00 though--it could lead to four meals a day.
Among the best memories I have of those early days is lying down, my legs hanging over the side of the bed, and holding Matt, then Tom, with my arms stretched up as high as possible. I would fly one, then the other, and if Brigid would catch us, I would do her too. I think I can still do the boys but our Brigid is too big.
To ease the separation anxiety of Brigid and of Margie, in July 1990 my wife started taking Brigid to go to work with her twice a week to go to the onsite preschool at her job. This gave me a break from the three and Brigid a break from her new siblings. Brigid had a difficult adjustment when we brought the boys home. She was only two years old and we had tried to prepare her for the big day, but we began way too soon. Instead of telling her the week or month before we brought the boys home, we told her five months early. We now think this added to her anxiety. This time in preschool away from her new brothers worked out great. She was in a room with children of people who worked there and with children who had cerebral palsy. We were disgusted with the people who thought that the staff's kids should be segregated. Her best pal became a little girl named Makia, a little girl in a wheelchair. This place gave you perspective.
I enjoyed being outdoors with the kids, after my years of office work.
The boys would sleep in the stroller as Brigid and I would go the park
every day it didn't rain. She has always been a chatterbox and a lot of
fun to be with. Strangers would always ask about the twins and often ignore
Brigid. I could feel her annoyance at being ignored. It is impossible
to this day to convince her that she too was once the center of all this
tremendous attention. I let Brigid be a lot more adventurous in the playground
than Margie did. Height and strength advantages allowed me to hold her
as she went down the fire pole next to the slide. Marge would be amazed
on the weekend when she would see Brigid at the top of the biggest slide.
If you are motivated enough to pick up and read material on parenting, you probably don't need to read this part. I want to tell the new parents how the rules of conduct in the playground and the mediation of disputes mirror our own society's rules of law and enforcement. The uninitiated won't believe how lazy some mothers can be when their kid is hitting your kid, not taking turns on the tire swing, or using filthy language. In my playground, the concerned parents mostly overlook the first or second transgression. After that, it's pretty clear that you have a mother that doesn't care even after you try to discuss it. The only solution comes right out of Elizabethan England--banishment. If you don't care enough to discipline your child, go find another playground. It works. I'm afraid I didn't take this job to save the world and I feel sad thinking about your antisocial kid. My kids come first and if your values on childrearing and civility come close to mine, let's be friends. If not, see you later, until we have to deal with your kid's disruptive influence in ten years in school.