Raising Twins in a "Full Contact" Home

While I know that this topic may be controversial, and there are some out there who know will cring at the thought, we have chosen to raise our children and dogs with minimal separation. Simply put: we let our whole family interact as much as possible.

Before we had children, we were bombarded with horror stories about jealous dogs who would bite or scratch a new baby. We were told "you can never fully trust a dog"..."the dogs will just have to learn their place"..."the dogs are not as important as your children"... blah blah blah.

We were also repeatedly told "When you have children, you will understand what real love is". 

I know that some of these people meant well, but that advice turned out to be total BS. We already knew that we could trust our dogs, they don't bite the kids, the dogs still maintain the same place they did before, we still love them just as much, and our understanding of true love has not changed. So there!

All of our children have learned to live together in one happy home. Yes, there is some toy confusion but no one has contracted any diseases yet. Murphy absolutely loves the girls while Lillian tries to mostly ignore them. Both of the girls think the dogs are fascinating. Iliamna laughs when she sees the dogs and Denali opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue when Murphy kisses her, its pretty funny to watch.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject. In the meantime, enjoy a few new videos!

 Involving The Dogs in Playtime

Encouraging Healthy Interactions

Fun Playtime

What can we cay? Our life is 24/7 babies right now. Every day they get more interactive and funny.

Twinkies: Now with more interactive play!

Just had to share this little video. Having struggled four months now with two girls who spend most of their time sleeping, eating, pooping and screaming (definitely not in that order!), it is fun to see them reaching even the smallest milestones. Being about two months developmentaly (having been born two months premature), they are just starting to interact with their world. In the last week or so this has included smiles, coos and even a few laughs. Of course they still do plenty of the other stuff (they are having a full-scale meltdown as I write this) but it is nice to see them happy for a change.

First Contact

Most of you know that we at the Deem household are big animal lovers (duh!) but you may not know that we are a full-contact pet home. Our labs, Murphy and Lilian, have full access to the twins and this has made for a very smooth transition as we integrate our dog children with the human ones. Many people had warned us that the dogs would likely feel very jealous when the babies came home, and that they may lash out at them from being deprived of our attention. Well, we are proud to say that we had no problems on the jealousy front, and both Lily and Murphy have accepted the twins as part of the pack. Murphy is very interested in the twins and checks on them often with a nose poke or kiss on the face (yes, we said FACE!). Lilian is more indifferent but she has started sleeping by their portable crib so we think she is getting used to the idea. We really feel that keeping the dogs as included as possible has helped keep them from feeling left out or unloved. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they are good natured dogs to begin with :)

We took this video on the day the day that Denali came home from the hospital. We wanted the dogs to "find" the baby, that way they would hopefully be the ones to adopt them into the pack. Did it work out as planned? Well, take a look at the hilarity that ensued when the dogs made first contact!

Team Deem Playtime!

The twinkies are finally enjoying some playtime. Up till now they mostly just eat, poop, sleep and scream. It is fun having them awake and actually showin interest in the oustide world. Enjoy.