The Learning Tower is one of those pieces of kid gear that makes parents in the know say, “Oooooh.” It’s a pretty clever idea: an adjustable platform that can act as a sort of combination step stool, activity center, and jungle gym. The standard suggested usage scenario is that it enables kids to reach the counter or sink in your kitchen so they can “help” you cook or at least play with kitchen tools. (The website is full of pictures of adorable moppets in ridiculous chef’s toques.) It’s made of wood, rather than plastic, which is nice. Because we are cheap (er, frugal) we scored one secondhand off of Craigslist and we’ve been very happy with it.

For the first few months that we owned it, we kept our Learning Tower in the kitchen, pushed up against the island where I did most of the cooking and prep. The idea was to get the kids up closer to our level so that we could interact with them while still getting things accomplished. Unfortunately, given the age of the twins, our interactions with them largely consisted of repeatedly urging them to EAT their Cheerios instead of throwing them on the floor. No, seriously, if you throw your food on the floor you’re going to have to–that’s it. Get down.

Then we got the whiteboard/chalkboard attachment, which essentially turns the Learning Tower into sort of a Learning Easel. This seemed awfully promising. It even had a big magnet that could hold up a large piece of paper for coloring. The problem, of course, was that our kids didn’t quite get the concept of only coloring with crayons ON THE PAPER and not all over the tower itself. We had much better luck switching to chalk, but it didn’t take us long to realize that two toddlers sitting constantly underfoot playing with (throwing, eating, and occasionally drawing with) chalk didn’t make for a calm, productive, and clean kitchen. The Learning Tower was banished to the family room, and downgraded to full-time chalkboard status. We pushed it up against the wall next to the couch, and figured they could still practice climbing up and down if the wanted.

And the kids loved it! Still do! The chalkboard is magnetic, and they love sticking alphabet magnets onto it. They love coloring with chalk (they like erasing even more) and Julian will sometimes grab me by the hand, pull me over the chalkboard, and insist that “Daddy draw b’loon.” I’m getting very good at drawing balloons, as it doesn’t really tax my limited artistic abilities. (Although, having seen a drawing of one once, they’re now insisting that I draw hedgehogs. Hedgehogs!)

So, that was that. They draw on the chalkboard, got better and better at climbing onto and off of the tower itself, and enjoyed being up a little higher. Sure, we had to sternly remind them not to violently SHAKE the tower, since that didn’t seem safe, but it seemed like generally good, clean, quiet fun.

Until they realized there was another way off of the tower:

Honestly, this is now their favorite game in the world.

I expect that in 6-12 months, when the twins are a bit older, we’ll be able to get more use out of the Learning Tower in its intended use. They’ll be, hopefully, more interested in being involved in what’s going on in the kitchen and have slightly longer attention spans. Of course, by then they’ll probably be big enough that we’ll need two of the dang things. Sigh.

I found something adorable on the internet the other day.

A mom (who lives in Finland) creates these somewhat elaborate scenes and photographs her napping baby in them. As she says, “While my baby is taking her nap, I try to imagine her dream and capture it.”

I find it almost too hipster/whimsical, although of course I wish I’d thought of it. Then again, I would never have dared to pick up my napping child, put them on the ground, take a picture, and put them back to bed, since the chance that the baby might wake up was too terrifying. When ours were sleeping, we tiptoed around the house and forbade anyone from even mentioning the fact that the twins were asleep, because that would jinx it.

But the adorable thing I want to write about isn’t this woman’s hobby; it’s what the government of Finland does to (indirectly) make this woman’s hobby possible.

Here in the United States, we don’t make it particularly easy for working people to have and raise children. We’re one of only five countries—along with Australia, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland—that doesn’t mandate paid maternity leave from work. (Most countries offer at least ten weeks of paid leave, although it varies greatly. Many European countries even offer paid paternity leave. Oh, and it looks like Australia will start offering 18 weeks of paid maternity leave in 2011.)

What we do have is the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) which requires that employers with more than 50 employees offer 12 weeks of unpaid leave. New parents who work for smaller business, and parents who can’t afford to go without pay for three months are out of luck. (Rhode Island state law actually goes further and requires 13 unpaid weeks, and permits new mothers to collect temporary disability insurance, or TDI.)

My little family was extremely lucky. My wife works for an organization that allowed her to bank up enough sick days and vacation that when added to the state’s TDI benefit added up to some substantial (for this country, anyway) paid time off. I was in graduate school, with all of the scheduling flexibility that entails. Even so, becoming parents was exhausting and expensive; if one of us had needed to return to work much earlier than we did, I’m not sure how we would have made it work. Families who do make it work have my utmost respect and admiration.

This is probably neither the time nor the blog for an extended piece on the economic and social impacts of parental leave policy. Instead, let’s focus on something else totally awesome that Finland does: in addition to financial support during their maternity leave, new mothers receive a maternity package of things a new parent needs.

Check it out! All new mothers get a package containing about 20 outfits, a mattress and bedding, cloth diapers, books, condoms, a rather stylish bib, and my favorite item, a “box (can be used as crib).” I just love the idea that every new parent in Finland gets this stuff, and I’m fascinated at the process that must go in to deciding what makes it into the package each year. It must be so reassuring to know that at least some of your basic “stuff” needs are going to be taken care of.

This post, then, will serve as a little bit of history for later in life, when they won’t shut up.

Here’s all of the words the twins can say that we could think of, with the proper pronunciation in toddler dialect in parentheses. (If only one of them has a word, I tried to mark that as well.)

People

• Mama (occasionally “mommy”)
• Daddy
• Eloise (”Ellie” or “Alwee” or “Owie”)
• Julian (”Gi-gee” or “Doo-dee”)
• Grandpa (”Ba-pa”)
• Wapsy (”Wa-pee”)
• Grammy (”Ba-bee”)
• Several friends from school, including Avery (”A-wee”), Hannah (”Na-na”), and Apollo (”Uh-pah”)

Colors

• red (”ya”)
• yellow
• green (”dee”)
• blue
• purple (”puh-puh”)
• pink (”pee”)
• brown [J] (”bwow”)
• black (”bla”)
• white (”wha”)

Body parts

• nose (”no”)
• eye
• ear (”ee”)
• elbow (”ow-boh”)
• toe (”doh”)
• knee
• neck (”neh”)
• back (”ba”)
• leg [J] (”leh”)

Food

• peas (”peeeeeeez”)
• broccoli (”buh-la-buh-lee”)
• apple/applesauce (”a-puh”)
• Mum-Mum
• snack (”na”)
• cheese (”deeee”)
• water (”wa-wa”)
• bar (cereal bar) (”ba”)
• noodles (”noo-noo”)
• cracker (”kuh kuh”)
• pasta [J] (”tas-pah”)
• blueberries (”boo-bwee”)

Miscellaneous nouns

• balloon (”buh-loo” or “boo”)
• baboon (”ba-boo”)
• blocks (”blaaaaaaaaaah”)
• book (”buh”)
• bottle (”ba-ba”)
• bubble (”buh-buh”)
• bowl (”bo”)
• spoon (”suh-boo”)
• tree (”dwee”)
• flower (”fuh-vuh”)
• park (”pah”)
• outside (”ow-ee” [E] or “uh-tzuh” [J])
• window (E) (”wi-woh”)
• bus [E] (”buh”)
• truck [J] (”dwah”)
• moon (”moo”)
• star (J) (”daw”)
• baby
• ball (”baaaa”)
• barn (”ba”)
• iPod (”a-puh”)
• poop (”a-pu”)
• shoe [E] (”doo”)
• giraffe [J] (”doo-wah”)
• beep beep (”bee bee”)
• keys (”dee”)

Animals

• kitty/meow (”diddy”/”mow”)
• bird/tweet tweet (”buh”/”dzee dzee” or “tuh-wee”)
• woof woof (”wuh wuh”)
• quack quack (”kuh kuh”)
• the sound a monkey makes (”oo-oo”)
• neigh
• moo
• baa

Miscellaneous verbs and prepositions

• eat (”ee”)
• walk (”waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”)
• up
• down (”dow”)
• trade [J] (”doo-way”)
• rock (”wa”)
• ride [E] (”waaiiii”)
• sleeping [E] (”pee-pee”)

Miscellaneous miscellany

• yes (”yeah”)
• no (”no no”)
• hi
• bye
• please (”buh-lee” [J], “pee” [E])
• more (”muh”)
• all done (”ah dah”)
• uh-oh!
• oh no!
• me
• whee!
• choo choo (”doo doo”)

It’s worth noting that these are just the words they can say. They understand much, much more, so stay on your toes.

As impressive and fabulous as Eloise is by almost any measure, she has never been an overachiever in the hair department. Yet her mullet was growing completely out of control, even by mullet standards, and we decided that a little trim would, at the very least, not hurt. Her Aunt Rachel and I took her to Kidz Adventure Cuts in Seekonk for the procedure.

At first I almost dared to be pleasantly surprised by how well she was handling it…

…but quickly began to get a sense that my optimism would prove unfounded.

There’s the Eloise I know and love!

(Hmm, looking at this picture I’m thinking we should have double-teamed her with a dentist on the other side.)

In the end they only charged me for the equivalent of a bangs trim, since they only cleaned up the back. (When I brought her in, the “stylist” incredulously burst out, “What are you going to cut, Mom???” I explained that I wanted it tidied up to all one length in the back, she exclaimed with an emotion I would describe as just shy of horror: “But if you do that she’ll look like a BOY!”

Needless to say we went ahead with it, and while the result will not exactly win her a job as the Pantene poster girl, it does look a bit less unruly.

By the way, Julian got his first haircut back in December (and his second on the same day as Eloise’s first). Let’s just say that his handling of the trauma didn’t do anything to make Eloise look bad.

Well, that’s not going to happen, so I’m just going to launch in again with a minor post and hope that I can manage to do that sort of thing with moderate regularity. I hope that those who are interested in such occasional updates will still check in every so often!

Just over a year ago Matt and I took the twins to the playground for the first time. It was a day that stands out in my memory as a particularly enjoyable one during the rough early months. It is also astounding to us that it was just a year ago — it feels like an eternity has passed. And who can blame us for feeling that way, when you look at how far Julian and Eloise have come in that time.

Then:

Now:

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