Things to fight over!

As any parent knows, kids fight about everything and anything. Who goes first, who gets the first slice of cake, who gets the first story, who gets out of the bath before the other. My twins seem to have made a career out of it though, and they started almost as soon as they could talk.

They fought over who would be first to be fastened into their car seats, and who would be first to be taken out, who would get their milk cup filled before the other, who got a dish of food put onto the table before the other. They sit in the car arguing over the fact that one of them is looking out of the other's window! Really? And the DVD screens, they have one each but..... "Jamie's looking at my TV!" It's the same movie, does it really matter?

I can recall similar fights with my brother and sister, although as a kid we didn't have in-car entertainment, we had crayons and coloring books, no such thing as MP3 players, we had to listen to the radio station our parents selected - if the car had a radio! Now our children seem to have every convenience at their fingertips, but the old fights remain. "I am not sitting in the middle on the sofa!" or "I want a seat by a lamp, why don't I have a seat by a lamp?"And "Oliver's cup has more juice than mine!"

It was (and still is) totally and completely maddening. I have ignored so much of it, tried - often in vain - to ensure they each receive drinks at exactly the same time but now I think they have reached new highs............or would that be lows?I cannot believe what they are fighting over now!

BUBBLES!

Yes, bubbles! They fight over who has the most bubbles in the bath! They demand I share them out (I refuse) and argue if a bubble 'fort wall' should inadvertently and innocently float over to the 'wrong' side of the bath! I can't get my head around it. Why fight over bubbles? What importance do they have?

Does it really matter? Well, obviously in the world of my twins it does. I can't wait for this all to stop, and I just really, really hope it DOES stop and soon, because I have no idea how much longer I can deal with this type of sibling rivalry!!

Bubbles.............!

Another year has come and gone!

I have a post it note on my computer that says "The days are long, but the years are short", and each day when I read it I realize how true it is. Already it is 2009 and my twins will be 4 in two weeks. Four! Where did those years go? It seems just minutes since they were babies and we brought them home from the hospital at a little over 4lbs each. The day was snowy and cold and we were so nervous driving all the way from Denver with such a precious cargo in the car. Oliver had some problems with breathing at our high altitude and needed oxygen at home for the first month, and when I look back at the photos of him with the nasal cannula he looks so small and frail. And now he can sit on his twin and keep him pinned to the floor!


Sometimes the days with twins, on your own at home, especially when the weather is bad and too cold to get out, are the longest of any I have ever known. The boys pick up on my mood, they take advantage of me, they fight and squabble and scream and hit each other, and just when I am in despair, they run over and hug me before running off to play nicely together. I was going through my files last week - in a futile effort to get more organized - and came across the cards with their footprints on, and they are SO tiny, it seems unbelievable to me that they could ever have been so tiny.

And now they are growing out of all their clothes, they seem to get bigger every day and ask me to measure them weekly so we can check their progress! They chatter to me constantly, to each other and to themselves while they play, they make up elaborate games, with convoluted plots and can keep that going for hours. They love to pretend to be other people, their friends from school, their teachers or our neighbors! They climb up the back of the sofa using their toy snakes as the ropes and sail around the floor on the sofa cushions. I am amazed at their imaginations and the stories they can create, I love Jamie's cheeky smile when he's trying to convince me that he really, really needs another cookie and I love that Oliver can correct me when I am wrong and delight in saying "You were wrong Mummy and I was right" It gives him such joy!

While life with the twins is incredibly tiring, very hard (at times), lonely sometimes and often demanding, I am so proud of my sons and it's wonderful to watch them grow and develop and become their own person!