Jane Roper's Blog, page 27

With many thanks to my husband, Alastair (cameraman) and my daughters, Elsa and Clio, whose entirely unprompted performance was absolutely brilliant.

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?”... Read the Rest »

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?"... Read the Rest »

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... Read the Rest »

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 youradvice... Read the Rest »

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... Read the Rest »

Like many of my mom friends and acquaintances, virtual and otherwise, I am in the throes of addiction to the Hunger Gamestrilogy. I don't usually read YA — I didn't read the Twilight series, and I only read the first Harry Potter book. (Which I loved, but didn't feel "hooked" enough to keep going.) But... Read the Rest »

When I found out I was pregnant with twins, one of my first thoughts was, "Great. Now everyone's going to wonder if I had fertility treatments." And they do: People ask all kinds of probing questions — from the sometimes innocent, "Do twins run in your family?" to the blatant, "Was it natural?" And it... Read the Rest »

The other day I was at the bathroom sink, putting on my makeup — foundation, specifically — when Elsa, who was sitting on the toilet (lid closed!) watching, as she likes to do, asked "Can I put on some of that?" "No," I told her. "You know that makeup isn't for kids." "Why not?" "Because,"... Read the Rest »

Last week, Elsa and Clio came home from preschool with pictures they'd made of thumbprint snowmen, with sparkly bits of snow pasted around them, and magic marker additions of snowman features, hats, and background accents. The pictures looked quite different from each other. Clio's was a tranquil, minimal scenario, while Elsa's was a busy explosion... Read the Rest »