Raising a House Full of Boys (including twins) with Tyler Anderson – Podcast 258

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Episode 258 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes

Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Tyler Anderson, father of three boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:

• Dealing with a 20-month-old when the twins were born
• Twins were born 6 weeks early and spent 6 weeks in the NICU
• Paying off hospital bills for twins’ birth and NICU
• Their system for telling the twins apart
• Moving with 3 young children across the country
• Sleeping arrangements for all the children
• Sleep training the twins by 6 months
• When each twin hits milestones at different times
• Physical therapy for one twin to get him walking
• When the twins in elementary school have different academic levels
• Managing outside school activities and schedules

Connect with Tyler on Twitter

Podcast Transcript

This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes.

Joe 0:00
Moving across the country with infant twins, making sure one twin gets the necessary physical therapy to start walking and juggling crazy after school activities of three boys. All that and more today on the podcast.

Intro 0:16
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson.

Joe 0:30
Hey everybody. Welcome to the 258th episode of the dads guide to twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at DadsGuideToTwins.com, where you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today, we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of twins. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my twin T Shirt Company, where you can find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for us parents of twins, and the twins themselves. Check out all the designs over at TwinTShirtCompany.com. Now let’s jump right into the interview with father of twins, Tyler Anderson.

Tyler 1:06
Our twins are eight now. And we have a 10 year old so we my wife and I are both teachers. And we were actually living in Boston, when we found out and my wife was 20 weeks along before before we found out we were having twins.

Joe 1:25
That’s a long ways to go before you find out.

Tyler 1:27
Yeah, it was it was a long way as we had, we did kind of all the early testing and stuff with our oldest who at the time. So he was born in January, and the twins were born in November. So he was about, he’s about 20 to 22 months old when we had our twins. So he wasn’t he was an old himself. So we did all the early testing with our oldest and with what we thought was gonna be our second child we like are busy, we miss some of the deadline. And we just thought, well, you know, whatever happens, we find. So we went in at about 20 weeks to do some stuff. And I think just get some some pictures and things. And we’d had the conversation that we’ve missed a lot of the testing. I said, Well, you know, something’s wrong. We’ll, it’ll be alright. And so we got in there and the nurse was doing the scope and stuff. And she she just kind of looked at us. And she paused and she said is the is the doctor talk to you. And we both kind of had that shock look. And so she stepped out for a few minutes came back in and she said she’s like, everything’s fine. She said both heartbeats are looking good. I think we had said some things that kind of insinuated that we didn’t know there were two. And there was no news that there were two. So when she had said, both our heartbeats look good, I was holding our oldest the time and my face just got completely pale, started getting kind of sweaty. And we’re sitting down and we were the first thing I said is because we lived in Boston and our families, were back in Kansas City now our families here in the Midwest. And we’re just saying that we’re, we’re moving back home. And we did, we made it about a year in Boston. And just kind of the two of us. We had family fly out as much as they could. And we got through that first year. And then we’re back to Kansas City. Just be around closer to family. But those first six months to a year were were pretty, pretty rough. I think. My wife wasn’t a miracle worker. She is I don’t know if we would have made it made it through

Joe 3:29
was your wife at home with the kids during that first year?

Tyler 3:32
She was so she when our oldest said when our oldest is born, she stopped teaching and she was she was home and she was actually doing kind of different childcare work with kiddos in the neighborhood. And our plan was she was actually going to be helping a family out and a family of four, oddly enough, who had some kids around our oldest age, so she was going to watch all of them because the mom was in med school dad was working quite a bit. And they were they were neighbors so it was going to work out and and we thought well this will be this will be good. She’ll have you know, our two and then their older kids were were kind of middle schoolers at the time so able to kind of help her out so it’s gonna be kind of a good deal a little bit extra money for us and her watching the kids but when we realize we’re having twins that kind of shot that idea in the foot. So she Yeah, she stayed home till the boys went to school when they started kindergarten, and then she’s back teaching full time now. So I taught elementary at the time and would go to work and come back and I don’t know how she made it through the day with. So yeah, at the time our hold. Like I said our oldest was about 20 months and the boys are newborns so we were almost kind of felt like we had triplets there for a while. Having 3 under two.

Joe 4:50
at 20 months, it’s just too young to even really know what’s going on or the life’s about to get turned upside down there. For sure. Now do you have twin boys twin girls are one of each?

Tyler 5:00
Yeah, so our oldest is a boy and our twins are boys. They look exactly alike. And for a long time, we thought they were fraternal because they were in their own sack. And it wasn’t till kind of later talking the doctor that one of the doctors had said there is a, there’s a chance that they could have split early enough and have their own sack. Yeah, they’re, they can kind of play the game of changing clothes. And unless we’re really listening close and paying attention they can. They kind of trick us so when the boys were little, so my oldest name is Everett and the twins are Tucker and Sully. We would dress Sully and stripes for s s were Sully stripes for Sully just so the teachers and people working in helping could keep track of which one was which. And we gave Tucker a little tag on his foot when he came home. Because even even as newborns, they looked exactly alike. So they still look except for a couple freckles. It’s unless you’re close to them. It can be kind of tricky to tell which one’s which

Joe 5:56
great, very clever way to help tell them apart, especially helping other people tell them apart. Were there any complications with pregnancy or delivery?

Tyler 6:04
No, we were we were very fortunate. They did arrive. So they were supposed to be born. Gosh, I can’t remember the exact due date in around Christmas. And they came early November, like first or second week. So they were they were good six weeks early. So they were in the NICU. And that was that was challenging. We had one point, the hospital they’re born in, was downtown Boston, just because my wife was so early. We went to our cache, I can’t remember which hospital they were born in. We ended up we ended up moving out to Cambridge. I want to say after maybe their first or second week, just so we could be a little bit closer because there’s about an hour, sometimes hour and a half of traffic drive into the city for us. And so they they didn’t move in them, I want to say two weeks and a little bit closer. So yeah, getting there. I mean, you you know, if you weren’t there every night, my wife wanted to be there as much as possible. But yeah, we tried to but again, you know, then we had to have care for our oldest. So we kind of took turns one of us going in the NICU during the day or at night as much as we could when they’re born and I was fortunate a little bit of time off work teaching. But no, no complications. Obviously the NICU NICU payments and insurance I would definitely give the tip anybody having twins to make sure their insurances? well planned out ahead of time, we didn’t knowing we weren’t having twins and insurance already kind of being locked in that that one kind of crunched us because we had been on a lower tier plan. And so the deductible per person was a was a big hit. The boys being in the NICU, how long were they in the NICU? About six to seven weeks. So it was a pretty, you know, luckily, our insurance covered, you know, all but the the directable but it was a pretty I’ve ever seen the bills before the insurances. There was a pretty big bills to be in the NICU.

Joe 7:59
You know, those prices add up really quick for hospital stay. Yeah. How did you pay for such a big hospital bill? The deductible?

Tyler 8:06
Good question. So that that kind of stunk. So we moved back to Kansas City, we kind of walked out of there. So when, you know, teaching salaries were pretty good. And in Boston, but not great. So sure, my wife not working and we were renting at the time. And so we we put a lot in credit cards, you know, gotten to that kind of trap, just kind of manage things along with some of the bills, were able to hospitals able to kind of forget some of them. But we walked out of there and I took it took several years out of retirement to pay it off, just so we weren’t kind of strapped with that for a while. wasn’t a good deal. But a couple years afterwards, we were able to make that back up. But I think you know, hindsight, would have been nice to kind of plan that out. Probably a little bit better. Again, not that we knew we were having now anyone knows they’re having twins. But I’d had an advisor that was better on that one. I’d say you know, get those things get those things taken care of. So you don’t get don’t get hit by by that because I assume a lot of twins are you know, it’s probably it’s very common for twins to be early by a few weeks. So NICU’s not out of a question for probably a lot of families.

Joe 9:15
So after about a year in Boston, he moved back to it was a principal reason to be in your family to move back to Kansas City?

Tyler 9:21
Yeah, so the point like I said, the boys were born in November. And I want to say, I want to say really, we moved back that summer. So it was a pretty quick decision. It was a it wasn’t too long for us to realize that we were not we’re not sustaining ourselves very well. I think just kind of mentally or emotionally. I remember my wife and I had a we had a date night. So my coworker said we come over and watch the kids. So it’s just funny thing about our COVID season I really awesome I could actually come over and watch the kids. So it’s in coworkers come over and that was great. We went out for a date night and I remember you know is it’s kind of off the whim and didn’t have anything fun plan and we ended up just kind of go went out to dinner and both basically almost fallen asleep at dinnertime just being so, so exhausted. So that first year we moved back over the summer in Yeah, the primary reason I think was was finances were a big one. Like, we got to get ourselves a little bit more above water there and, and just realizing we both needed to help me working full time and we get my wife, just home with the boys all day. You know, she needed some. She needs some extra help. I think so being closer, my parents lived here, my brother and her family’s not too far away. So that was a huge, that was a huge relief when we got back just to have some extra hands on deck to help.

Joe 10:40
How was it moving across the country with a bunch of little kids in tow?

Tyler 10:44
Great question, actually, for, you know, tell them the story. It sounds we did so much work that first year. So she, my mother in law and her sister flew out. And all three of them Leah and her mom and Maria each took a kiddo and they flew back. And then I had some high school and college friends come up. And we drove, you know, big old U haul. And our minivan at this time back across the country. So it was it was a great couple days for me of just hanging out with friends and driving across the country. I think for Leos maybe not quite as much fun, you know, being on a plane ride with three little kiddos. But it was good once we once we kind of all land on there. Like I said it was summertime. So I was off and she was off work. And we could just kind of be be home with the kiddos and not be thinking about all that stuff. So we we moved back and we lived with my family for about three or four months. So we found a place that we wanted to buy and we’re still in the same house. You know, five or six years now later.

Joe 11:50
What are the kind of sleeping arrangements that you have for your boys today? share rooms in different spots?

Tyler 11:54
Oh, yeah, good question. So when they were when they’re first born, we lived in a three bedroom. So Everett was in one room, Leah and I were another and we at first we started by having one twin with us and another twin in different room thinking we could manage the, you know, if one wakes up, please the other one’s not hearing it. But even that was you know, even that got to be a bit too much. So we eventually put them both in the same room. And oddly enough, that worked. That worked out well. We had a great friend. He was a great friend who did a lot of foster care. And she was just excellent at sleep training. And she came out for a week. We had her struggles with getting him sleep train. I mean, he was nine or 10 months old before we finally figured that out. So our friend Molly came up and she stayed with us. And I try to think all the boys were at this point may be born in November. So it was it was probably February, so maybe four or five months. At this point Molly came up and she stayed with us for a week. And by the end of that week, the twins were sleep trained and they they were down at seven and they slept till seven with waking up occasionally. But before that point, those first four or five months, were constantly one waking up and the other waking up the two of us running in there occasionally aberrant waking up. It was a it was a mess of us just being absolutely exhausted. So when we moved here Turker house we’ve got a we’ve got a three bedroom and then our upstairs is a bedroom that has a monster, essentially a closet. But it’s about 1010 by 12. So what we did is we made one side of the master bedroom, kind of a playroom and Hebert’s room and then the little closet we put both of the twins in there so we had some of the IKEA cribs and just packed them right in there and it works at that point they were fairly well sleep trained you know occasionally they’d get up and wake the other one up but they but they made it and we did it so now our current situation is very much the same. We have a room downstairs that’s our spare room we’ve moved back into the master and then we have all three boys in a room together so we have a bunk bed and then we’ve got another kind of loft at IKEA bed and we just make a little L with them so the bunk beds are one way and the other beds kind of pushed up to the side and all them sleeping there and and it works and they’ve been doing that now since cash I guess since COVID began so for a long time the twins were in the same room and a bunk bed and it was in a different one and then I guess about two and a half three years ago we put them all in the same room and and it’s been good I don’t know how long maybe Middle School for getting big again real big for the room but we’ll see how long we can we can get a hold out before we need to get a bigger house.

Joe 14:45
That’s fun. Yeah, particularly since they’re all so close in age like, they’ll be roommates together

Tyler 14:51
Yeah, I think that’s been that’s been a really good as they all three of them always can have a playmate Tucker and Sully definitely connect a little bit more More than Everett does, but it’s easy for him to fit right in, I think because they are, you know, they’re fourth grade and second grade, but not too bad. It’s not like a kindergartner and a fifth grader. So they’ve always been pretty, pretty close, some similar friends and like to, like, hang out together, and they do some more things. So that’s been, that’s been good. I think having Everett that close has forced us to kind of hold back on doing some things with him. And then on the other end, it’s forced us to do some things early with the twins. So riding a bike, for instance, we were kind of late showing them how to ride a bike, but the twins on the other end, probably wrote a bike earlier than expected. And that’s, that’s been a good kind of meet in the middle for both of them. I think,

Joe 15:42
as far as milestones go with your twin boys, were they reaching milestones kind of the same time? Or would one reach a milestone like say, crawling or walking or talking before the other?

Tyler 15:52
Very, very similar, with the exception of of walking, so Tucker really took off and he’s he’s always been a bit more coordinated, even then, even then Everett or Sully So he took off walking quicker, and I can’t remember, I think it was right around a year actually, when he did that, and I’d have to look back at Instagram or something No, for sure. But Sally was still he’s still kind of crawling. And even as crawling was kind of more of an army crawl, it wasn’t a great, get the whole body going. So we may end up doing physical therapy with them. And it wasn’t too many sessions, we have a great video, where she kind of helps him stand up and she kind of holds his hips in a funny way, he was kind of putting weight on his hips, right. And so the physical therapist really just she great little video, she kind of holds his hips just right, and he takes one or two steps. And then he just takes off. Again, this video of him, he’s got both arms up in the air, and he’s just giggling happy as can be. And he walks, you know, maybe 10 feet forward, pivots, turns all around, walks back and does two or three of those kinda like a runway model. And from that point on, he was walking, so I don’t know, you know, she had just the right touch knew what she was doing. I think it was about three or four therapy sessions. So she gotta gotta crawl in the right way using his hips, and standing up pretty well. And then he just took off. As we’re getting more into academics, obviously a second grade. It’s interesting to see what aptitudes are different. They’re both pretty strong. Numerically, we played a lot of number games, but it’s finishing and see things like writing or reading or spatial awareness, those kind of things are kind of diverging and becoming personalities. And the personalities are very different. Tucker and Sally have similar interests. They like different things, but the way they approach and think through and emotions those are you can tell they’re definitely their own unique person.

Joe 17:44
Are they separate or together in their school?

Tyler 17:47
they are separated, which is funny, because I feel like the shoe we asked them to be together. And at first, we weren’t sure. They’d been together for a long time in preschool. And so when we started kindergarten, we were like, Well, should we separate them? Should we not? And we, we went ahead and separated them. I don’t know maybe we next year, we might put them back together. I think this year, we’re thinking we would have them together. But the school ended up separating them for whatever reason. So yeah, they were together for for so long until real, at least an early primary and then Elementary. They’ve been separate. And I think that’s been good they’ve had I feel like every year they’ve kind of flip flop between different personalities of teachers. And each one seems to have been a good fit at the time for them. So and that’s kind of well, I think it’s helped both of them kind of meet different people and form relationships. I think they have enough time where they see each other outside of school and doing things at school that they don’t feel like they’re missing anything. And I don’t and I haven’t had a year where they’ve been together, I guess really to compare. So we’re pretty fortunate that they’re kind of compliant little kids and then don’t question rocking the boat too much and say things like why are we in the same class? But yeah, that’s worked out. That’s worked out well for them.

Joe 19:03
That’s good. Yeah, we’ve had our our twin girls in the same class before in separate classes. And like you mentioned, there’s pros and cons to both of those. Do they do any activities outside of school?

Tyler 19:14
Yeah, if you ask them they would say play video games is their is their favorite, but we do. Tucker’s going to try fencing this year, he’s really interested in that. Sally would like to do soccer. So they do a lot of sports. baseball, soccer. piano is probably our biggest one. So the boys too. We’ve had a lady that we’ve worked with a few years. So that’s the that’s probably the biggest thing in the room is we’ve got a little piano in there that they do. So that’s been a good one. But other than that most mostly kind of sports related activities. I’m glad to see the boys doing fencing. I do a lot of pottery, so they’ve they both kind of gotten into that with me. Tucker loves to draw. He’s very artistic. He’s happy to kind of sit around and draw Ever both of boys really love games too. So board games. We just finished playing one tonight, we’ve got a huge wall of board games. And for whatever reason, we kind of got them into games early. And they both, you know, we Saturday, we played a huge game of Risk. So they can really get into things like that.

Joe 20:21
How do you juggle three boys with different interests, different activities, making sure everybody gets where they need to be. Because it’s not always the same spot the same time.

Tyler 20:31
I think we’ve kind of learned we’ve had some years where that was not so easy. And I And again, we we’ve been fairly, I’d say fairly conservative with COVID stuff, trying to be careful, especially to teachers and try not to miss have too many days out sick or whatever. So we these last two years have been pretty boys haven’t done a lot. Getting back into piano has been the biggest thing. And then we did baseball and Everts back into basketball. So we’re slowly getting back into stuff. So the last few years, they really haven’t done a lot outside of baseball. But before that, they were doing baseball, and they were doing soccer and we we’d put the boys on different teams. Again, I think thinking like that to classroom thing. And we’ve done different activities. And boy that really that really bid us you know, going we’ve got a practice on Tuesday and a practice on Wednesday and practice on Thursday, we’ve got this game now. And then we got this game or 11. That was a that was a tough one. So what we what we really decided to do after that was say, Hey, we’re gonna do like one thing a season or one thing a year, we try to keep the boys on the same team if we can. And then if we don’t do something like that we try to look for things are more limited. It’s like these fencing lessons that Tucker is going to take, and then soccer or Sully wants to do soccer, soccer will be longer, but the fencing lessons will be shorter. But we try Yeah, we’re trying to we try to be more strategic and thoughtful one from the financial point of view of not spending too much money all over the place. But also Yeah, really looking carefully at Do we have enough time to be running all these different places. So I, I don’t know what the right answer is there and where you all have found. But like I said, we had a year or two there where I think we were making some, you know, we’re pulling ourselves to bin. So we’ve been a bit more thoughtful about looking at each season saying what do we want to do? And is that possible without everybody being worn out.

Joe 22:32
And it’s smart to try to look at it kind of holistically across all your kids, different scheduling options to see how you can encourage them in one particular direction. And we’ve had the same problem that we have for kids and they have different interests just like your boys. And you’re like, Okay, let’s just pick one thing right now. So when you look back at at your journey so far, what how have you been able to maintain and strengthen your relationship with your wife, kind of with ups and downs of raising young family?

Tyler 23:02
I think that first year, and it’s funny, because for me, I think it was a blur. Leah is amazing at her ability to raise the boys and work through and we have, I feel like we have complementary, we’re on the same page in terms of what we’d like the boys to be in. And it’s funny, we both kind of say often don’t really care what career boys get into as long as they’re kind is our is our biggest thing. And so that that’s kind of really guided a lot of our decisions with raising boys is just making sure that they they have empathy for other people that they’re thoughtful, they’re considerate, yeah, that they’re kind and they’re helpful. So Leah has been amazing at shaping that and in thinking through and working, as I say, so going back to that, that first year was really a blur for me and, and it wasn’t until a few years later. I didn’t even know how just kind of on autopilot or checked out, you know, doing the things that needed to get done. But not being as present to the relationship or to myself or to the boys as could be, you know, gotta make the it’s scary looking back at pictures and looking at you know, eight bottles and I all the diapers and all the things that you just have to get through the day. And so anyway, that yeah, the first year, you know, we’ve talked about leaves, like you really, really gone. You know, she was like I had really worked some deep concerns about our relationship getting through that first year. And looking at it, I realized that it was different. I think I had expectations that that it’d be the same as his experience with Everett was which was I feel like was slow and was very intentional. And we were able to kind of tag team things and get through the hard parts together. And there’s just so much undivided attention to Everett and so in the twins game that really got split between three ways and I think for me that was tough to to match reality. With expectations and I think a big part of me kind of just checked out and not checked out of doing the daily duties but just checked out a really being present, you know, doing the hugs and doing the carrying and doing the notes and doing the things that that really make family life and flight with my wife special. So that is slowly crept back in. But I think the the most important thing that I continue to learn is just that it was nice because there was a time in life where those things could be spontaneous, and you just went on a whim. And I think the The important thing now realizing that, you know, as you get three kids or for kids that intentionality is, is even more important than spontaneity, or just going off how you feel. It’s it’s making the choice to be intentionally caring, and intentionally thoughtful, and then figuring out what those actions are. And, and then just doing those, regardless of if you’re feeling spontaneously that way, or not just making the time we’ve been fortunate, and other boys are older that my, my brother and sister in law will take the kids almost once a month, so they’re going to take them the Saturday. And that gives us a weekend a month where we can do something even if we’re just staying home. Or you know, we can go to a show or we can go to dinner, but we just had to be really intentional with each other. And as the boys have gotten older, I remember a friend of mine, it kind of told me when I you know, we’re in that first season there when the boys were one, two, and three, and I just thought Man, this is this is so much work all the time. And, and he just said, you know, it is a, this is a season and he’s like you guys are coming out of it, you’re going to get to just a really sweet spot. And I think that’s where we’re at right now. You know, we’re busy, we’ve got some activities and things going on. But for the most part, it’s family time, and the boys love cuddling up and reading a book or playing board games, or doing doing stuff together. And I realize, you know, he equally told us, you know, we’re going to be moving into middle school soon, and, and the boys are going to want to be with their peer group more, they want to do different things. And that sweet spot is going to change. So you know, just as awareness of like, you get a season in each of these. And the days are long, but the years are short. And so just being really intentional with the time you have and not always weighing it by just how you feel. But going back to what I what I want this to be like What goals do we have, and so let’s let’s make the decisions to to do intentional things. And when the spontaneous stuff pops up, you know, living in that moment. I think that’s that’s been good for us. But I won’t lie those first that first year or two, I was not, I was not the world’s best husband. I just kind of, you know, getting by doing what doing what it took for life to work.

Joe 27:47
And that’s, that’s totally normal, natural, because you’re so weighed down with just the day to day logistics of caring for such young children that unless you are very intentional about everything, relationship with your partner relationship with your kids. Friendships work, you know, everything, this stuff just starts to kind of fall by the wayside when you’re just trying to survive day to day.

Tyler 28:10
Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s good to hear like, that’s normal. And I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t encourage any new dads or moms to be rockstars, I would say, you know, just figure out what, what you can do and do it the best you can and, you know, give yourself some grace, give yourself some grace. But also, if you you know, if you want things to be better, they can be it just take some times, and sometimes you just have to kind of ride through the waves of what life is like at that moment. You know, the good thing is the kids boy, they just they keep on growing and changing so long as you keep feeding them and talk with us. I’ve been working with them, you know, fell, I’ll get older and that’ll be gotta be good.

Joe 28:46
That’s right. It’s always a new adventure as a parent, because the kids keep evolving. And the challenges change as they get older. For sure. Speaking of challenges with with parenting, what’s where something is working right now, with parenting your boys?

Tyler 28:59
So one of the things that’s worked really well is our, our boys. And I think all kids thrive off of a schedule and routine. So when we got into the pandemic, one of the things that really worked for us was, you know, they’re there, or you’re home all the time. So I feel like there were more dishes, there’s more laundry, there’s more this Saturday thing, and we had to also figure out, my wife was teaching online, I was teaching online, you’re trying to figure all that stuff out. And so it really forced us to think through routines and schedule a lot better than we had before. And the boys are getting older, you’re able to manage some of that, that better. So one of the things that did for us is open your eyes to, you know, we can teach the boys how to do some of this stuff and make it more fun. And if anything, I think going back to earlier, letting them cook with us letting us letting them clean more. Doing the household chores in a fun way together, I think would have been even better and we did it pretty young, but I think we could have even done it at a younger age. So one of the things that worked out really well that we’ve kind of continued is we’ve got a little weekly chart It has, it has not only chores, but learning activities. So when the boys get home, they got their things that they do. Part of that is, you know, scheduled as reading time playing time doing these different things and that they can helps us because it goes back to eliminates any kind of arguing of I get to do this first or you know, we just go back to go back to the schedule. So it’s a really simple, real simple chart where, you know, they’ve got different tasks to do and we just rotate. So, Monday Everett’s first on this thing, Tuesday, Tucker’s First Wednesday, Sully and it just keeps keeps spiraling that way, and they just kind of work through when they get home, I do 20 minutes of reading, I do 20 minutes of kind of the chore work I do 20 minutes of playing outside. And so creating that cleaning routine for them is has helped us a lot. Just because by the time we get home, or we check in with them, they’re kind of on, they know what to do and makes life go a lot, a lot smoother. So that’s, that’s been something that’s been going, going really well for us lately. The other thing I think that’s been really exciting is the boys are, they’re all getting old enough now where they can sit down and read longer books, you know, chapter books. So it’s kind of nice to be able to sit down, either walk in and you see one of them reading, or we can all just kind of grab a book and be reading or doing something like that. So that’s, that’s been nice. And it also frees up, you know, Leah can go do something she wants to do, or I can go do something I want to do. And you don’t feel like the other person stuck watching the kids, they’re all pretty getting to be pretty self independent and enjoy playing on their own. And that’s been great.

Joe 31:36
That’s fantastic. I know when when the kids are young, you have kind of routine, like, you know, bath time and bedtime routines. But even as they get older, like you mentioned, those routines are still so valuable to keep them engaged and have a good happy home, as it were.

Tyler 31:51
and maybe would have figured this out. But I really think the pandemic forced us to try to make them more independence, like he talked about, you know, bad time when they’re little is now turned into shower time. But for the most part other than running into just the water because it’s a little hotter, a little cold, you know, they’re able to get into the shower themselves now and get themselves going and get out. You know, they’re able to get their laundry pulled over and washer started. So all that stuff just just frees you up to be more present and intentional with them. So I think that was a great kind of the great push, we needed to make them a bit more independent and helpful around the house

Joe 32:28
for sure. And what you’re describing is that light at the end of the tunnel that we’re looking for when the kids are really young, like eventually they’re going to be able to do their own laundry, take their own showers, it’s going to be great. So Tyler, as we wrap up today, if listeners want to reach out and get in touch what’s the best way to reach out

Tyler 32:44
on Twitter: ? Just @teachjanderson some My first name is John, I go by Tyler. But teach J Anderson. I’m on Twitter. That’s probably the easiest way to

Joe 32:56
well, Tyler, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. We really appreciate it.

Tyler 32:59
Absolutely.

Joe 33:00
Hope you enjoy that chat with Tyler about his adventures as a father of twins plus one. If you missed any details during the podcast, you can check out the show notes at DadsGuideToTwins.com. Once again today’s show is brought to you by TwinTShirtcompany.com where you can find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for dads of twins moms of twins and the twins themselves. Check out all of those designs at TwinTShirtcompany.com. If you’d like to share your story, like Tyler did today on the podcast, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter @twindadjoe. I’m also on facebook.com/dadsguidetotwins. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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