Last year, Muffin and Squeaker were mostly oblivious to the changes that occurred in the house as Passover approached. This year, however, they were completely aware that things were different from the moment I stopped letting them snack in their room or in the living room. This was my attempt to limit the amount of chametz, or food items that are forbidden on Passover, that I would have to clean out of random crevices. It is not random that I have, in the weeks leading up to Passover, referred to Muffin and Squeaker more than once as "chametz with feet." Cheerios, Kix, and other random …

Like many kids their age, Muffin and Squeaker frequently resist being put to bed when it’s time to go to sleep. They’ve built up a whole library of delaying tactics they use to get one more precious moment outside of their cribs, tactics that usually appeal to our sensibilities. After all, who could object to reading one “last” book to their kids, even if you’re already up to their third “last” book? But a few weeks ago, Squeaker initiated a new tactic to put off going to sleep, one that she used after she had been placed into her crib already. She started to tell us that there were snakes in…

This past Sunday was like a beautiful spring day, with temperatures in the low- to mid-50s, a rarity for early March. Michael and I decided relatively early in the day that it would be a shame for Muffin and Squeaker to spend the day inside. We had a couple of options: we could take them to the New England Aquarium again or to the Boston Museum of Science, but neither girl seemed particularly interested in either outing. We considered setting up a play date with some of their Brookline-based friends, but we didn't get organized quickly enough to be sure not to disrupt another family's …

Years ago, a friend of ours invited us over to watch a movie at his Brookline apartment. While we were there, he also invited us to watch his daughter, then two years old, watch an episode of the TV show "Teletubbies." (Yes, there was a lot of watching of watching that night.) I was fascinated by her intensity in watching. I had never seen an episode of "Teletubbies" before, and I found it excessively repetitive and slightly insipid. One segment of the program had the Teletubbies characters watch a short video and then insist on seeing it again. As I didn’t have a lot of experience taking …

As Muffin and Squeaker have gotten older, Michael and I have reveled in the advances that they've made in language and dexterity. In general, the changes the girls have undergone have made our lives easier. For example, it is simpler to help resolve a tantrum when Squeaker can tell us what is causing her to be upset. But every now and then, these advances make our lives more complicated. Last Thursday, Michael and I put the girls into their cribs around their usual 7:00 time, and they complained (as they often do) that we limited the number of books we read to them to about ten. Squeaker in …

Last week, we took Muffin and Squeaker to their pediatrician’s office for their two-and-a-half-year checkup. As usual, the appointment included a discussion of what the kids have been up to and what we’ve been doing with them. We have many reasons to be proud of how our girls are developing; they’re much taller than average, they speak a lot of complex sentences, and they love learning their letters and numbers. There were some things, however, that we were less proud to disclose. We talked about some of the things we’re doing with the kids that are generally advised against. It got me …

It's winter! And winter, of course, means snow! Or maybe not. As we mentioned last year, Muffin and Squeaker's first exposure to snow was not a major success. They were only 17 months old at the time, with little understanding of how the weather changes, and so they were not at all pleased with being brought outside to experience the cold snows of winter firsthand. This year, at the beginning of the threat of wintry weather – in late October — I went through the winter clothing that we already had and determined that the kids still needed two coats, one pair of snow pants, and two pairs of …

Ever since Muffin and Squeaker were born, our lives have changed in many ways. That may seem like a rather obvious statement, but it didn’t really hit me how much different our lives would become until I found myself living through the changes. It’s one thing to know intellectually that children require constant attention; it’s quite another to see the clock tick eight in the evening and to realize that you haven’t managed to accomplish anything else with your Sunday except keeping the children occupied. This was brought back to me much more intensely during the last week of 2011, when our …

Hanukkah started earlier this week, and the girls have definitely gotten into the spirit of the holiday. They attended a Hanukkah party on Sunday at the Young Israel of Brookline, where they both enjoyed the festivities and the special foods, such as potato pancakes called latkes, connected with Hanukkah. Muffin especially enjoyed the Moon Bounce, as it combined two of her favorite things: the moon (which fascinates her) and bouncing. But this was not particularly surprising to me—Muffin and Squeaker do not consider the eight days of Hanukkah to be sufficient to contain their expression of …

One of the reasons Nomi and I love living in Brookline is the stores. Over the many years we've lived in this town, we've become personal friends with some of the owners of the businesses we patronize.  Although we celebrate Chanukah, and not Christmas, our holiday too includes a tradition of giving gifts to children. It occurred to me that this holiday season would be a good time to remind our readers of the great opportunities to find gifts for toddlers right in our own backyard. Let's start with toys. Two of our favorite Brookline stores for purchasing toys are Magic Beans and Henry Bear's…

Yesterday, people across the United States celebrated Thanksgiving. While there are some standard elements — a meal with family and/or friends is the most common — Thanksgiving is a holiday with minimal ritual that gives us an opportunity to express our thankfulness for the bounty of what we have, be it material goods, family, good friends, or whatever we are thankful for. Our Modern Orthodox Jewish family just completed a big fall holiday season at the end of October, so it is possible that we'd approach observing yet another holiday as a burden rather than a joyful event. However, since the…

Along with most of the rest of the country, Brookline went off of Daylight Saving Time and back onto Standard Time this past Sunday. I briefly toyed with the idea of keeping Muffin and Squeaker awake until 3 am to watch us turn the clocks back to 2 am, but then I remembered that I am sane. So we did the usual thing of setting the clocks back on Saturday night, and we awoke to the extra hour that people enjoy in the autumn. Nomi and I have opposing opinions on the usefulness of Daylight Saving Time. I don’t like the way it gets dark as early as 4 pm in the winter; if it were up to me, I’d keep…

When I last wrote about Muffin and Squeaker's language development, the girls were 19 months old and had vocabularies of about 60 words. Eight months later, boy, have things changed! Both girls have expanded their vocabularies significantly, and they have figured out how to string the words they have into sentences of varying complexity. As Michael mentioned in ”When Children Hear Noises at Night,” we implemented some strategies to help Muffin cope with her fear of the noise from the clanking heater in their room. About a week after the column was published, Muffin turned to me one evening …

One of Muffin and Squeaker’s favorite books is Superhero ABC by Bob McLeod, in which the artist presents 26 superheroes, one for each letter of the alphabet. Muffin and Squeaker are very fond of Laughing Lass and Goo Girl, who, if nothing else, are helping them learn the letters L and G. Another of the superheroes in the book is Night-Man, about whom McLeod writes, “Noises at night never make him nervous.” I thought of Night-Man last week and found myself hoping that he could swoop into our apartment to help out Muffin. Allow me to explain. For much of the spring and summer, construction took…

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is observed this week. As we do every week, Michael and I plan to bring Muffin and Squeaker to synagogue. We hope they enjoy the special rituals of the holiday, as we have tried from the very beginning to integrate the girls into our religious life. We want them to have the same connection to our faith and our ritual that Michael and I have. We first brought Muffin and Squeaker to our synagogue, Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe in Brighton, when they were six days old. We'd been home from the hospital for less than 48 hours, but both Michael and I felt that…

How do I watch out for Muffin and Squeaker in case of a disaster? The past four weeks have seen three events that have placed this question at the forefront of my mind. First of all, there was the east coast earthquake we felt on Tuesday, August 23. Then there was Hurricane Irene, which hit Brookline as a tropical storm on Sunday, August 28, just a few days later. Finally, this week we commemorated the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. So it’s probably no surprise that I’ve been thinking about how I would take care of the kids in the event of something like an earthquake or a tropical …

It's an idyllic scene. The family, having all eaten a calm dinner together, finishes eating within minutes of each other. Mommy and Daddy clean up while the children wait patiently to be released from their high chairs. Once they're out, hands and faces are cleaned, teeth are brushed, and trays are cleared. The girls head to their bedroom, are changed into overnight diapers and pajamas, and then they are ready for the stories and songs that constitute their bedtime ritual. Nice picture, yes? Alas, it's a complete fantasy.  In reality, it goes something like this: I strive to have dinner on …

Ever since Muffin and Squeaker were born, Nomi and I have mostly avoided taking them on long trips. I know of many people who have flown across the country or even the world with their infant children, but the logistics of even a quick jaunt to New York City to see my aunts seemed too daunting with twins in the mix. The furthest we’ve taken the kids from Brookline has been to Burlington, to visit Nomi’s parents. However, last weekend our sedentary streak came to an end. One of our nephews, Nomi’s sister’s son, was having his Bar Mitzvah in Silver Spring, Maryland. We’ve known this was going …

When Muffin and Squeaker were infants, things were difficult for Michael and me because we were new parents with no clue what we were doing. We had to adapt to the new challenge of having two babies totally dependent on us and the burden of doing so on minimal sleep. “It will get easier,” everyone told us. And to some extent they were correct. The day-to-day effort of handling the needs of the girls has gotten easier. But as Muffin and Squeaker mature, they discover more that they want to do, and it is up to us to determine what is safe and what is possible and, as necessary, stand our ground…

Muffin and Squeaker turned two years old this week. Their birthday observance included a party for them last week attended by lots of family and friends, many unexpected presents that they are already starting to enjoy, and special treats on their birthday itself. (Plus a doctor’s appointment.) All the celebration got me thinking about how much our family has been through over the past two years and how much I worry that we’ve already lost some of these cherished moments. Anyone who has read my fiction knows that one of the themes I continue to explore is memory. I’m obsessed with the way the…