It thrills me to no end that Elsa and Clio are finally independent enough (and usually willing) to dress themselves. It’s one less thing we have to personally oversee during the always-hectic rush to get out the door to school, activities, etc.

Sometimes I pick out the clothes for them. But more often than not these days, I let then do it themselves — which is what they prefer anyway. It does, however, lead to some er, interesting ensembles.

Yesterday, I was driving behind a truck with a bumper sticker that said, “Get a tattoo you f@#*ing pu##y.” (But with, you know, the real letters.)

Blech. Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t think people should be plastering their cars (or T-shirts, for that matter) with profanity. I don’t think they should be swearing their mouths off, loudly, left and right on buses and subways or on the street, as so many teenagers (not to mention younger adults) do ’round these parts. I think it’s disrespectful and generally ugly.

My daughters are obsessed with Jesus.

This is very strange given that we’re not Christian, and neither Alastair nor I bring Jesus up on a regular basis. We go to a Unitarian Universalist church, but in spite of the word “church,” it’s definitely NOT a Christian institution as such. There are Buddhists, Jews, atheists and “recovering Catholics” (their words, not mine) in the congregation, and most members would say that Jesus was a great teacher with a lot of excellent things to say about how people should act and treat each other. But the Son of God? Not so much. Sure, his name comes up from time to time in services, and occasionally in the stories the kids listen to in the Religious Education program. But Ralph Waldo Emerson, Martin Luther King and Thich Nhat Hanh’s names come up almost as often.

Among Elsa and Clio, however, Jesus is a much more frequent topic of conversation.

My girls are constantly asking me what words mean. Words that they used to just ignore or whose meaning they got well enough in context, they’re now stopping to inquire about. (Maybe it’s a five-year-old thing.) What does “assume” mean? How about “agitated”? Or “express”?

And then, about a week ago: “What does ‘gay’ mean?”

One of the many roles of the parent (and in our household it tends to be specifically the mother, that is, me) is healer. So when children have illnesses or boo-boos or non-specific ennui, it falls to us to make it all better.

By observing the most common afflictions in our family, I can offer up the following protocols for diagnosing and treating typical ailments in the three-to-five-year-old set. This does not constitute professional medical advice. Please consult your pediatrician for specific recommendations.

Am I the only one out there who sometimes fudges the truth a little bit when it comes to how much TV (or DVDs, etc.) my kids watch on an average day?

The girls had their annual checkup recently, and when the doctor went through her somewhat annoyingly passive-aggressive questionnaire (“What do you wear when you ride on your bike?” “What do you put on when you’re out in the sun?”) and got to “do you like to watch any TV or videos?” I cut in — because I knew what her next question was going to be, directed to us — and said, “No more than an hour a day.”

This isn’t exactly a lie. I mean, it’s not like when I used to tell my doctor, back in my twenties, that I had “about one drink a day,” when, in fact, I was having more like two, sometimes three.

But I think if you averaged out the actual amount of TV/videos our gals watch over the course of a typical week, it might hit closer to an hour and a half per day. Not that this is a horrible amount of TV to expose children to. It’s probably well below the national average. And we are extremely selective about the kinds of shows and videos we let the girls watch. (We almost never let them watch Real Housewives, for example.) But it’s still 50% more TV than we admit to.

See bottom of post for details on buying this poster

Empathy doesn’t tend to come naturally to preschoolers. I don’t know about your kids, but the only walking-in-other-people’s-shoes that my girls do on a regular basis is the literal kind. As in, they like to put on my Dansko clogs and shuffle around the house in them. (It’s only a matter of time before someone sprains an ankle.)

For some time now, we’ve been trying to get them to understand and maybe even follow the Golden Rule. (a.k.a. Do unto others….) And this year in our UU church’s religious education program, the Golden Rule happens to be the theme. So the kids are hearing about it in the context of all kinds of stories and situations. Which I like. Because, after all, part of the reason we joined a congregation is to have life lessons and values imparted by means other than just our big, blabbering mouths.

So, the gals are getting Golden Ruled up the wazoo. But there’s a slight problem. See, they—well, wait. This calls for an Adorable Anecdote. ™

I was recently trolling back through some old blog posts of mine to fix some technical-y-Search-Engine-y stuff, and came across a post I wrote last June in which I offered up some somewhat unexpected advice for new moms of twins. And it got me thinking: maybe it would be fun to get some of your advice for new parents of multiples—along with that of some fellow Babble writers—and compile it here.

Last night we went out for a raucous night of pizza and candlepin bowling with some friends. There was an extremely talented balloon animal artiste named Jungle Jim who was going table to table making balloon animals for the kids. This guy could make anything. Clio requested a ladybug, Elsa wanted a pink and purple unicorn with heart on his horn (?!), and our friends’ daughter Marlie wanted a butterfly. Done, done (?!) and done.

A little while later, a six- or seven-year-old boy from a nearby table came over to our table, brandishing his balloon creation. “I have a dragon!” he said. “What do you have?”

“I have a unicorn with a heart on its horn!” Elsa told him with her trademark enthusiasm. “And my sister has a ladybug and my friend Marlie has a butterfly!”

Laura's incredibly adorable twins

I am most excited to welcome Laura Rossi Totten to Baby Squared today for my intermittent “Ropering” feature, in which I subject other twin parent bloggers to invasive questions about their personal lives.

I met Laura via some social media channel or another when it came to our mutual attention that 1.) We both have twins and 2.) We are both originally from Fairfield, Connecticut (hometown of John Mayer, Justin Long and the guy from the Geico commercials!) In fact, Laura’s younger sister was a year ahead of me in high school, and she was a good friend of the niece of my mom’s college roommate. So Laura and I are, like, practically sisters. And, therefore, I had no choice but to Roper her.

Also, I was very curious to know more about what it’s like to have one twin with special needs.