For any of you considering putting your twins on a leash: a cautionary tale.
This happened over a year ago, but the memory is still appallingly fresh. One morning, I decided to take Grant and Anne to get new shoes. Specifically, cheap shoes for playing in the mud.
With thrift in mind, we headed to Payless Shoes. Friends of mine in the mothers of multiples group swear by Payless. There are rumors that the same shoes sold under the wildly expensive Stride-Rite brand are available under different names at this bargain basement store. Confession time: until that morning, I’d never set foot in a Payless. It’s not like my closet is stocked with Manolos or Louboutins, but I do prefer to shop at higher-end stores like Marshalls and Stein-Mart.
For this outing, I decided not to use the stroller, because I’d found what seemed like a fabulous alternative: the Kinder Kord.
The Kinder Kord was invented by Joan Lunden (red flag, anyone?) as an alternative to traditional and humiliating child leashes to keep her (nanny) attached to her two sets of twins in public. The Kinder Kord consists of an adult wristband and retractable cord, and childrens’ wristbands and cords – think retractable dog leashes on bracelets. It can be configured so that the adult’s wrist is connected to one child, or so that both children are tethered to the adult as well as to each other – think walking two dogs on a split leash in a “Y” formation.
I thought the Kinder Kords would be perfect for quick trips in and out of stores. No longer hampered by the gigantic stroller, I’d hook the twins up to the Kords and we’d zoom up and down aisles and all would be fantastic and efficient. In short, I was completely delusional.
Initially, everything looked like my vision. Grant and Anne were excited to be out, and they trotted on their leashes like, well, dogs. We seemed to be in Normal Land until a Payless employee turned up in a t-shirt that might as well have said, “Welcome to Hell.” This guy, whom we’ll just call “Mr. Toothy” so as to protect his identity, was a nightmare mishmash of British teeth, evil Dracula laugh, an emaciated body, and a knack for disappearing whenever help might be required. He measured the twins’ feet and then retreated, appearing only sporadically to chortle ominously and perhaps take cell phone pictures to document my parenting foibles and the epic failure of the Kords.
The moment I began trying to shove Grant’s feet into various hideous shoes (no Stride-Rite copies in sight, FYI), I noticed a sudden lack of pressure on my wrist leash. Anne had simply un-velcroed her wrist tether and was happily browsing the infant shoes about ten feet away.
Joan, do you see the flaw in your brilliant invention yet? What good does it do to have a freaking leash on your child if the child can just pull the velcro and remove it?!?!?!?
Not five minutes later, the situation was reversed. While pulling shoes on and off Anne, Grant ripped away his velcro and un-tethered himself. Fortunately, I managed to catch the back of his shirt before he could go anywhere. But this child is nothing if not stubborn. He waited until I was busy helping Anne try the world’s ugliest pair of Dora the Explorer sneakers and broke free again.
“Grant?” I called, certain he would appear around the end of the aisle. “Grant? Grant, come here right now!”
No Grant. I felt panic rising in my chest. “Grant!” I picked up Anne under one arm like a football, leaving the diaper bag and both kids’ left shoes in the middle of the floor and ran up and down the back of the store, frantically looking down the aisles. “Grant!” I was beyond sweaty and beginning to have trouble breathing. “Grant! Come here to Mommy NOW!” Other shoppers ignored me completely.
Then I saw him at the front of the store, blithely following a couple out the door towards busy South Boulevard. “STOP THAT CHILD!!!!” I screamed. The man was actually holding the door open for him. What planet are these people from?!?!? “STOP HIM! DO NOT LET HIM LEAVE! GRANT!!!!” Once again, none of the other shoppers even looked up. By then I was sprinting, Anne still tucked under one arm like a pigskin. Then out of nowhere, Mr. Toothy appeared, laughing, natch. I mean, what’s funnier than a woman about to lose her child to mid-day traffic?
Mr. Toothy blocked Grant’s exit and I grabbed him, half hugging him and half wanting to spank the living daylights out of him. (And by “him,” I mean Grant, of course. While I’m sure Mr. Toothy would have been up for it, any such public display would have pissed off my husband and either gotten Mr. Toothy fired or launched him to viral Internet stardom.) Besides, there were still shoes to buy and only God knows where DSS employees lurk during lunch.
Any sane person would have left at this point, but given the amount of effort it took to get the kids out of the house and into a store, I was not about to leave until we had shoes. So I re-hooked Grant to the Kord and picked out a pair of shoes for Anne. We then had three pairs, and it was a buy one get one half-off sale, so naturally we had to look at the women’s shoes before we left.
Anne, ever the fashionista, took one look at the pseudo-leather pumps and sat down, refusing to move. She was tethered to Grant, though, and Grant seemed really interested in a pair of stilettos about 10 feet away. I heard shrieking and turned to see Grant motoring down the aisle, pulling Anne along by the wrist. As in, on her back, red-faced, yelling and kicking her feet while her brother dragged her along the carpet by the arm tethered to the Kord.
In a shining moment of Good Mothering, I responded to this crisis by picking Anne up and setting her on her feet, telling her to stand so she wouldn’t get pulled along. I tried on a couple pairs of shoes, attempting to ignore the simultaneous tantrums behind me. When I turned around, both kids were on their backs on the floor, shrieking and kicking and pounding their fists. And they would not get up. Absolutely would not get up. In order for me to move, I would have to drag them behind me like a sled. This seemed a less than stellar plan for their shoulders, so I tried to coax them onto their feet. No go. Each time, they would immediately flop back down onto their backs and resume their tantrums.
I wanted to flop down and cry with them, but was sweating so much that tears were a physical impossibility. So I looked at my two year olds having a fit on the Payless floor and laughed like a hyena. The kids stopped screaming, and muttered to each other in twin-speak. It sounded suspiciously like, “Wow, it’s working! She’s about to have a complete break from reality!”
And that was it. We had to leave. But on the next aisle, with no warning, Anne literally blew up. She threw herself to the floor, back arched, screaming, snot pouring out of her nose, tears running off her face. It was the mother of all tantrums.
Then I felt something sting my arm. I looked down and saw the inner whirligig of the Kinder Kord. That’s right, sports fans, little Anne threw a big enough tantrum that the Kinder Kord snapped open and the steel spring flew out. And my response? “Effing Joan Lunden! How many nannies do you take when you go shopping!” By this point, we’d pretty much cleared the store, but the few intrepid souls left started to edge cautiously away from us, eyes downcast.
After her explosion and my outburst, Anne was done. She threw a rag doll tantrum. (For the uninitiated, this involves sitting down and going completely limp.) Incidentally, a fireman’s carry is harder than it looks, even with a small toddler.
You’ll get no ringing endorsement of the Kinder Kord from me. But I’m not going to slam child leashes as a category. Watching my child run away from me and almost get pancaked on one of the city’s busiest streets made me realize that in some cases, leashes are a good thing.
Just don’t buy them from Joan Effing Lunden.
OH. MY. GOD. I feel bad for laughing as I read this but seriously I've had experiences like that with my kiddos (2 sets of twins but I'm definitely NO Joan Lunden) in Payless Shoes. Maybe it's the store that makes kids crazy? It certainly can't be us since we've both had experiences like this at that store.
Glad to hear you survived! My goodness, I hope you had some wine chilling in the fridge upon your return home!
Don't feel bad for laughing, Helene. It's laugh or cry, right? I choose laugh.
And yes, I'm sure there was some sort of adult beverage involved when we got home. I'm not sure you can raise a set of twins (much less TWO!) without the assistance of Jim Beam and friends.
I personally fault Dante for not letting us know the special hell that can be a 2/3 year old tantrum. Henry has even added hitting himself. I find myself speaking loudly to explain myself, “I know you are upset, but Mommy simply will not let you eat food you find on the floor at Target” so that passersby will know that I really am a (moderately) responsible parent. Seriously, if I had twins, I'm pretty sure I'd be an alcoholic. Or dead.
EJ, there are definitely days where “alcoholic” is starting to look pretty good.
Thanks so much for the visit and comment love! You would have thought someone would have mentioned this huge design flaw before manufacturing it! We used a leash just recently for a trip to Disney.
We just got one of the Kords and one daughter likes it and one daughter likes to take them off. I think it's time for safety pins. XD