On tugging toys and tanking up Tuck --

Both babies are making progress towards reaching out and grabbing a toy. As of last week they would just flail an arm towards the toy and whack it occasionally. Today Emi reached out and grabbed the trunk of a stuffed elephant and pulled it towards her before dropping it. Tuck meanwhile looks at the toy, reaches out to it -- and then jerks up his hand, whacking himself in the face. As my mother notes, "He has more arm to move," poor boy!

For the last few weeks we have been working on establishing an evening routine for the babies, to help them develop good sleep patterns. It goes something like this:

4:30-6: "Tank-Up Time"
We feed them as much as they will eat, offering them more "mama milk" every 20 minutes or so. The idea is is to make them drowsy and full enough to stay down for at least a few hours in the evening.

6-7: Bedtime routine
Quiet playtime, meds for Emi's reflux, bath, jammies, then a final bottle with a story ("Cat in the Hat") and a song. For now we rock them and pat them a bit until they are sleepy enough to go down. Our choice of song is still under contention. A mom of older twins told us recently that she sang the same song every night when the girls were babies. Even now they conk out within a few notes. Classical conditioning at its finest! It doesn't have to be a proper lullaby, just soothing. That mom used "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

I want to use "Everything's All Right" from Jesus Christ Superstar but James and our visiting friend B think it's inappropriate because of the section sung (angrily) by Jesus, after Judas accuses Mary Magdalene of wasting resources by pouring expensive ointment on Jesus's feet:

Surely you're not saying
We have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always
Pathetically struggling
Look at the good things you've got!
Think while you still have me
Move while you still see me
You'll be lost
You'll be so sorry
When I'm gone

I concede that this would be a very disturbing lullaby indeed, but I just skip that part when I sing it! I like the parts that go:

Sleep and I shall soothe you
Calm you and anoint you
Close your eyes
Close your eyes
And relax
Think of nothing tonight.

At the moment that sounds really nice to me.

Both babies were overtired and fussy this evening. We kept up our usual patter as we tried to calm them down and feed them. Then James started reading "Cat in the Hat" and they settled immediately and just watched him. Suddenly it came to me that I may have always misunderstood why young children are so attentive when people read to them. In the past I assumed that it was just the entertainment value, or the attention, that appealed.

But tonight (in my short-on-sleep haze) I could hear the difference between how adults normally talk and how James was reading. The reading was very clear, regularly paced, and highly structured. It must be a kind of Rosetta Stone for babies. Imagine if you were suddenly on Mars and had no frame of reference for understanding or learning to speak the Martian language. But one Martian sits down with you every evening and reads to you from a simple Martian book with pictures. You could then pick out particular sounds, put words together with images, and eventually, get a sense of the grammar.

What I'm thinking now is that the advantages that accrue to a child who is read to might have to do with more than just actually learning to read. The child might learn early on that there is a Rosetta Stone, that adult discourse makes some kind of sense, and that it is possible to pick out meaning in this world if you can just pay close enough attention...

Thanks to friends: Hadi P., who joined us for bagels and the walk in the park; Molly M., who rocked a crabby Tuck to sleep and held him for an hour; and B, who put dinner together, fed the dog, and was generally indispensable.