Mabfan's Musings

It’s been two weeks since our last The Brookline Parent column, “The Mommy Blogging Question,” was published, and we’re sad to have to tell our friends and fans that it’ll probably be the last column for a while. Brookline Patch has decided to go in a new direction, one that doesn’t include our bi-weekly parenting column.

We’d like to thank Neal Simpson, Grahame Turner, and Nate Homan, the three Brookline Patch editors with whom we worked, for their stewardship of our work. We’d particularly like to thank Neal, for suggesting the column in the first place all the way back in 2010 and giving us a chance to try our hand at it. Although we’re both writers and editors, writing a parenting column wasn’t something either of us had tried before. We’d like to think that it was a success, and from everything our readers have told us, it was.

We’d also like to remind our readers that our 60 columns, covering two years in the lives of Muffin and Squeaker, are still published on the Brookline Patch site for the world to enjoy. From time to time, if something reminds us of a column we wrote, we’ll be sure to link to it.

We are hoping that this won’t be the final parenting column that we write. At the moment, we’ve been exploring other options for our column, looking for a paying media outlet interested in our ruminations as the parents of twins. (And we’ve been thinking of writing a book.) That said, if you know of any newspaper or website interesting in running a column by us on raising twins, feel free to point them in our direction.

In this week's The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch, gnomi looks back at how things have changed for our kids since the beginning of 2012. Muffin and Squeaker have grown and matured in a variety of ways, and some of those ways might not be what you'd expect.

Go read My, How We've Grown to see, well, how they've grown.

In this week's The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch, I discuss Brookline Town Meeting's recent votes to ban polystyrene cups and plastic grocery bags.

What is the connection between these votes and Muffin and Squeaker? Read "Roots in the Future" to find out.

And if you're a fan of either Spider Robinson's Callahan's Bar stories or J. Michael Straczynski of "Babylon 5" fame, there's a little bonus for you.

Our latest The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch was supposed to run on last Friday as usual, but due to a production error, it ran on Saturday instead and has just been re-featured this morning. So for those of you who missed it...

gnomi writes a column that definitely lives up to the name The Brookline Parent, as she talks about the fun we had entertaining the kids in Brookline last Sunday (November 18). Come to think of it, we took the kids around Brookline a lot this past Thanksgiving weekend as well...

Go read A Grand Day Out to learn how we entertained Muffin and Squeaker locally.

In this week's The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch, gnomi discusses a recent incident in which Muffin appeared to feel bullied at school. This wasn't something we were quite expecting to have to deal with at such a young age, but we thought it might be helpful to others if we talked about what happened and how we dealt with it. Also, Muffin herself asked us to write this week's column about it.

Go read Shutting Down the Bully Pulpit to see what Nomi said.

This past Sunday, gnomi and I were trying to think about what to do with Muffin and Squeaker, when our friend Leah Cypess reminded us about Brookline Day, a celebration the town was holding at Larz Anderson Park.

What could be more appropriate for a column called The Brookline Parent than a discussion of Brookline Day?

So in today's The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch, gnomi tells the world about A Brookline Day Adventure. It includes two quests: the Quest for the Golden Egg, and the Quest for the Great Balloon.

Plus pictures of our friends from the Clay Center Observatory.

Enjoy.

Nomi and I hope that everyone has been enjoying our The Brookline Parent column that we've been writing for Brookline Patch. Believe it or not, this morning Brookline Patch has published our fiftieth installment of the column.

In honor of the anniversary, we decided to take a look back and see just what it is we've been talking about for the past two years. We also delve into the reasons a column about one family raising their kids in one Massachusetts town is actually relevant in today's world.

Go read Fifty First Drafts to learn about obsessions, and to see a picture of Muffin and Squeaker holding up the number 50.

Enjoy.

As folks know, gnomi and I are very interested in science. Nomi's background is in Linguistics, and mine is in Physics. I've done scientific research, and there was a time in my life when I thought I would become a research physicist. Instead, I spent many years as a teacher of science, and currently I edit science curriculum materials for middle school and high school students.

In today's The Brookline Parent column for Brookline Patch, Nomi discusses some of what we've been doing to get our kids interested in science.

The fact is that children, being explorers of a world that is still new to them, are natural scientists. Nomi has written before about how Muffin and Squeaker are constantly asking "how" and "why"; they want to know how the world works and why it works that way.

A recent incident prompted Nomi to help Muffin and Squeaker set up what is in all likelihood their very first science experiment. Although we're not necessarily following all the steps of scientific inquiry as closely as we might, if you go read Stop! In the Name of Science! you'll see that Muffin has already developed a hypothesis or two to test. As Nomi points out, we're hoping to keep the girls interested in science pretty much for the rest of their lives.

Again, that link is Stop! In the Name of Science! There's even a picture of their first experiment.

Enjoy.

This week, in our The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch, gnomi discusses what we did all week with the kids.

Once again, we're glad Brookline has lots of parks...

Read Summer Scheduling Blues, and see a picture of the girls hiding in their stroller on the T.

Did you know that Muffin and Squeaker were born with hair?

It's true. They were born with hair and for almost three years now, they've had the same hair they had from the moment they were born.

Until this past Tuesday.

This week, in our The Brookline Parent column at Brookline Patch, gnomi talks about our decision, finally, to cut the kids' hair.

Or rather, their own decision to have their hair cut.

If you click on the link below, you'll find more pictures of Muffin and Squeaker than ever before. After all, we had to show their hair from the start, from just before their haircuts, and from just after.


Read Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, and enjoy.