Sync or swim!

I'm going to sound really old now but it's quite startling how our kids are completely au fait with technology.

Eldest daughter just turned 10 and we got her a very cheap monthly sim which she has in the Nokia handset that used to belong to my Mum. Before her birthday I set up the phone for her by clearing the handset and putting on a nice opening greeting for her. Concerned that she may have been hoping for some sort of smartphone, we were thrilled to see that she was over the moon to have got her own form of communication. Within minutes she had navigated through the handset, changed her ringtone, played the one available game of snake and nodded profusely when I explained she only has 60 texts a month and 60 minutes of talk time.

So far so good with the phone except she does tend to call Grandpa for a chat most days during break time and if I am 5 seconds late in arriving to collect her from a party, school or ballet she has called me!

Boy in the middle is probably going to turn out to be a computer whizz. He is happiest when he has an electronic gadget to play on or fiddle with. His favourite item is the DS but if that gets confiscated (fairly often) he can navigate the IPad, PC, Wii and recently I have found him reading a book with DH's iPod plugged into his ears so he can listen to Gangnam style!

Even A and E get to join in and it is clearly a sign of the times when during their imaginative play I hear them say, "I just need to send this email then I'll do it" or "I can't download that game as the memory is full" or the best is "We can do it later but first we have to Skype Grandma".

I can now leave them with my iPad (in it's protective case) and they can navigate Channel 5 and watch Peppa Pig together for hours! When my Dad comes round he brings his iPad with him and when I asked him to look after A and E for a few minutes last week while I went to collect the older two, I came home to find the girls sitting on one sofa face-timing my Dad across the room!

A and E are also keen to take my smart phone if they get the opportunity. Just last week E was playing a toddler memory game on my phone one morning. Suddenly I saw she wasn't playing the game but was in my text section. I grabbed the phone and discovered that she had managed to send a text to one of my Mum's friends inviting her to download "what's app" so they could keep in touch. It's important to add at this point that I am using the old sim card that used to belong to my Mum and I haven't deleted all of her contacts yet.

Not wanting to cause unnecessary harm and potential heart failure to my Mum's friend who may have got the fright of her life wondering how my Mum was managing to communicate from "the other side", I quickly sent a follow up message with an apology!

I guess I have realised that it won't be long before our kids use of technology overtakes ours and they will be showing us how to sync or swim!

Two become three!

I suppose it's only normal to take stock and observe one's surroundings on a birthday or anniversary and so I really couldn't let the 3rd Birthday pass without a blog posting.

They may be 3 years old now but even this evening DH declared "can you believe we have two of them"? I think it will be something we will wonder for the rest of our lives but we are also extremely thankful and proud to be part of the very special club of "twin parents".

So the burning question I get asked on an almost daily basis is "Isn't it easier now they are 3?"
Easier? I always wonder what people mean when they say this.

It's true that certain things have become easier. They are toilet trained and the nappy changing days are almost long forgotten. They are in nursery every day so I don't have to be creative for the entire 13 hours of the day that they are awake. They sit on normal chairs and eat normal food and play normal toddler role play games and dressing up. They chat continuously and are often very entertaining company.

(Now here's the but that you could sense was coming)

However, I still have to consider where to park the car in order to get them both out safely, I still have to consider whether I have the mental energy to take two 3 year olds shopping, and the tidying up of toys in the house has reached entirely new levels. They still wear a nappy/diaper at night, still drink milk from a sippy cup at night, still suck a pacifier/dummy whenever I am not looking, and love nothing more than working as a team to do something fun.

In the past few weeks they have drawn on the walls, kitchen table, bedside tables, pyjamas, jeans and our brand new bright orange beanbag, often in impossible to remove permanent pen. They have come up with some sort of wierd twin dance arrangement which they suddenly felt the need to perform at a friends house the other day. They play mummy and baby at any given opportunity and they always know who's turn it is to play which role. They may have some special twin words that they use but it's hard to tell if it's a mixture of Hebrew and English given their current daily environment in an all Hebrew speaking nursery and all English speaking home.

The main thing that I will say has got a lot easier though is the wonderful way in which they play together. For them it seems that life is one long permanent play date and unlike with eldest daughter and boy in the middle where I always had to play the part of the patient, shopkeeper, waiter, baby, mummy etc, I can now leave them to get on with their role play as a perfectly matched pair!

So as I wonder what the coming year holds in store for my beautiful girls I know there are some milestones we have to get through. They have to lose the dummies, they have to get dry at night and most importantly they have to carry on being best friends.

For me, I am in the enviable position of having two cute inquisitive 3 year olds to love and nurture and teach about the joys of life that surround us.

Happy Birthday A and E!