Parenting Children

My twins just turned six years old! My family had been asking me what to get them for their birthdays and I told them to get my kids board games. Perfect for winter indoor fun or for travel, board games are more fun than ever.

Log Jam
1-4 plyers
4 and up

Each child takes turns pushing plastic logs out of the dame, trying to collect two of each color. IF the pile is moved too much, the beaver’s teeth chatter and that person has to put his log back onto the pile. Very cute game.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go
2-4 players
8 and up

This game is based on the great Dr. Seuss book. Each person tries to get four cards to creat a life path and they have to make choices, like would you rather. IF someone guesses your answer you earn a card and that person gets a ticket, that can help them.
Very cute game to get to know freinds or family members.

Cranium: Family Edition
4 or more players
8 and up

This is my favorite game, hands down. Players are in two teams and you have to work yoru way aroud the baord completeing your various activities, like drawing with your eyes cloed or spelling backwards. This is a great game for adults AND children.

What are your favorite board games to play as a family or your children’s favorite games?

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Having boy/girl twins is not only such a treat, but fascinating to say the least. We get to see our children age at the same pace, but not develop at the same pace. They each have their weaknesses and strengths physically as well as cognitively. They each have their own challenges to parent as well. My son was a harder baby to parent, but now that they are five my daughter has been harder. But just who is harder to raise boys or girls?

There are differences, boys’ hearing is not as good as girls’ right from birth, and their verbal centers in their brains develop more quickly than boys. If you know any toddler or preschool boys than you know they’re also less verbal and more impulsive. They seem to be much more active, getting into things, jumping, crawling putting their physical safe in danger from the minute they are mobile. Boys are more lableled with disorders like ADD, ADHD, sensory integration disorder etc. I worry about his self esteem, because he seems to depend on his sister in social situations. He is much more shy and laid back.

My daughter was an easier baby, but now? She is challenging. Although she is only five she is worried about how she looks, cries if her hair is “too puffy” and will break down if her brother does something before she does. She is also a natural mother, she loves and tends to her baby brother like I never expected. She worries about his safety, plays with him and protects him.
I do think in my case L was harder for the first few years but R will be harder as a teenager.

Girls tend to grow up less confident and more insecure than boys, researchers say and I think that instilling confidence in my daughter will be something that will be hard. She is a very confident five year old but she is also a “people pleaser” and that can backfire. I worry about her and her body image because like all girls it is hard to remain confident in your body especially during puberty.

So I am torn, I think both sexes have their own challenges at every stage. Who do you think is harder to parent, boys or girls?

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I do a ton of review fo rbaby gear and kid “stuff” but I don’t very often get to review great mom products. Being a mom of twins, anything that is for moms of twins or especially for twins holds a place near to my heart. Multiple Moms Rock has exactly what a mom, dad or granparent of multiples want!

I love mom owned businesses with great products and this store fits the bill! Shirts that proclaim “multiple moms rock” or “raising twins + 1 is an extreme sport” is perfect for me or all the other moms of mulitples I know. Only another parent of multiples can know how hard but rewarding raising more than one child at a time is. Share your bond with these unique shirts!
You don’t have to be a mom of more than one child to need a break. Don’t think this shop is only for mulitple parents, check out their “Why can’t I have a time out?” shirt. Now, every mom I know needs this shirt, because it is so true.

These shirts run true to size and are made with super soft cotton and are so comfortable. Multiple Moms Rock also has something for everyone, moms, dads and grandparents of singletons, twins, and triplets - and you can special order sayings for Quads or higher!

Multiple Moms Rock has offered Parenting Our Childrenreaders 10% off all merchandise on the website! Use the coupon code: MOMSROCK off your next purchase.

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Now that I am caring for just one baby, I look back on my first kids, twins, and think “how did I do that?” Maybe I am wiser now, and I understand what taking care of babies entails or maybe it was because I was five years younger than I am now. I do know this: taking care of twins was challenging and I am glad I had them while I was young. I am glad I am not the oldest woman to ever have twins.

A 70-year-old from Muzaffarnagar, India, became the world’s oldest woman to give birth after she delivered twins this past Friday! The woman, who has two adult daughters and five grandchildren, wanted a male heir so badly that she underwent in-vitro fertility treatment. Her husband, Charan Singh Panwar, 77, mortgaged his land, sold his buffalos, spent his life savings and took out a credit card loan to finance the treatment.
The twins were born one-month premature and weighing only two pounds but they are healthy and expected to survive.

I want to know what doctor in his right mind would treat a 70 year old woman with IVF? You may have your own opinions about parents who are older having babies, but 70 is a whole different ballpark. Imagine the things that could have gone wrong, not only with the woman but her unborn children also. How are you going to care for the children if you sold all of your buffalos and used your life savings?
Perhaps IVF would have been a better choice 20 years ago, when she was a spry 50!

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By far the hardest part of parenting so far has been potty training my twins. It would have gone a lot easier if I trained them one at a time instead of together. Potty training will go a lot easier if your child is ready and you can see if your child is ready with the readiness quiz I have below.

If you feel like your child is ready, begin incorporating potty training into your child’s daily life. Bring your child with you as you use the toilet, and explain what you are doing, narrating the process. Encourage her to do things on her own like put on her own clothes, pick out her coat etc. Go to the library and read potty books and take out potty movies. Watch them together and explain what he is seeing.
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Twin Ecuadorian girls who were separated at birth were recently reunited 15 years later. The mother of one of the twins girls saw a girl who more then resembled her daughter. She had to find out who this girl was.

The biological mother said she was not told she delivered twins and that the doctor who had raised one of the girls as his own, stole one of her babies.

The girls want to stay with the parents that raised them but would like to explore a relationship with the sister they never knew existed.

source

twins, family, families, parenting, children, separated at birth

Top five reason why my children are strange:

1) They love Christmas music.* All year round they listen to it on their little cd player they have and sing along at the top of their lungs.

2) My son will not wear collared shirts or shirts with stripes. Oh yeah, and he won’t wear plain gap t-shirts either because they “have a bear tag on them”. The result is that I have at least 20 shirts he will not wear, most of them are brand new.

3) Every night at dinner they say they do not like something on their plate that they have eaten and loved no less then 10 times. They always end up eating it. Now we just ignore their initial disgust.

4) They do not like chicken nuggets, french fries, any kind of potato in any form, eggs, hot dogs or cotton candy. I thought all kids like this stuff!
Not that I want them to like these things, I try to feed them healthy meals but they have been offered these things at parties, fairs and school and neither of them like any of it at all.
Instead they like sushi, feta cheese, peas, sharp cheddar, past with LOTS of parmesean cheese and almonds.

5) They love each other and us. When my husband is at work or if one of us takes another out, the twins ask for each other the whole time. Or one of us.
I am sure this will change in about 4 years or so. I am holding on while it lasts.

* I love Christmas music all year long too, I admit it.

kids, children, parents, parenting, twins

My children are new to the world of games. They have a V Smile learning game system that they can play once in a while and they have a few board games that we play together. They love to play especially my daughter who perfectly sets up the board and places the cards in neat piles.

Last night after dinner, we played a rousing game of Candy Land, one of my favorites. A couple of turns into it, my daughter got a card with a dot on it, which means (for you non C.L. playing people) you have to stay on that color until you pick another card with that same color on it. She denied that was what it was.
Keep in mind she has played this game about 50 times and knows the rules, she just didn’t want to stay on the blue square.

Then she tried to cheat again, at which point I told her, it was ok if she didn’t win, you can’t win every time and the game was still young. Look at me I am all the way at the end and I am not crying. I explained that nobody likes to play with a poor loser or winner.

On one hand she is only four, she wants to win, I get that. Her twin brother wants to win too, but he is not crying. Should I look the other way when she cheats? Should I make sure to catch her cheating and tell her to stop it? If everyone looks the other way when a child cheats to win or only plays games they know they will win, I think that is a great disservice to my child. In the real world nobody will do that for them.
Winning is great but just playing the game is also just as great.

Moms, please help me out!

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On Tuesday a mother gave birth to twins at Hackensack University Hospital. So? Even I did that, at that very hospital.
This birth will go into the record books though because the mom was 60 years old!

60 year old Frieda Birnbaum gave birth to twin boys via caesarean section is the oldest woman to give birth to twins in the United States.
She has three other children ranging in ages from six to thirty three years old.
She says she is wonderful and her boys are doing very well.

What do you think of being a mom again, to twins no less at 60 years old?

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