When my firstborn was still small, I took a personality test as part of Leadership Springfield (Class 25, Holla!) Anyway, the results didn’t surprise me. Logical, rational, organized, determined. All perfect words to explain my oddities. But the secondary questions related to how my personality changes with stress were profound. And powerful. You see, I don’t flip into other areas of strength when I’m stressed. I go extreme. I get more logical, more rational, more organized, more determined. Any fragment of emotional side I have disappears, and I become like a machine, quite literally.
I am arguably one of the most stoic and unemotional women I know.
But as the years of parenting tick by, the small seed of sensitivity springs up slowly. I don’t know how to explain it really. I don’t cry at much, but I do feel. Deeply. I don’t react emotionally (minus a flash temper here or there…sorry Ben), but I do care a great deal for others.
It’s one of those paradoxical realities of myself that creeps up occasionally when I’m too tired, hormonal or even sometimes…perhaps…on the day my twins turn 3 (and I’m also tired and hormonal…bad combo!)
No waterworks for this momma, not yet at least. I woke up before the sun to hug my energizer bunny babies who are not babies any longer. Not even toddlers, really. These charming, precious guys have officially made it to three years today.
There have been some really great parts about having twins. And some less than fabulous ones too. My top 5 twin discoveries upon reaching year three in no particular order:
- Colors matter. Styles too. Despite my best attempts at cultivating individuality, I find myself purchasing the exact same item for both twins. It has happened to nearly everything we’ve received or bought for them since they were old enough to comprehend it was their “own.” Toys. Cups. Shirts. Shoes. Blankets. If I choose different colors, they inevitably want the same. If I decide to do a slightly different style, they will fight over one for days and leave the other collecting dust. Or they become very specific about what they want when asking for something simple, like ice water: “Orange straw, blue lid, green cup, please Mommy!?” Can’t just use what is clean. Opinionated little buggers. Never fails. Take last night, for instance, when I decided to give Toby the Thomas the Train birthday gift bag and Gabe the John Deere Tractor birthday gift bag. Seems harmless, eh? They were just gift bags. Leftover from birthdays past, actually. Toby likes trains better, and Gabe is fixated on tractors. So I went with it. Big fat fail, which I realized when Gabe opened up the present in front of the family crowd of onlookers and thought that since the bag was a tractor that meant he was getting an actual tractor from that tissue paper stuffed package. Not so much. Thanks, no thanks, practical mommy for a new comforter and some superhero guys. Pretty cool presents. Just not so much what the bag promised. And it wasn’t the same as Toby’s. Ouch. (Thank you Grandma Vicki for the WIN with the monster trucks to dry up those tears).
- Bedtime takes forever. A shared bedroom equals nightly discussions (between the two of them after the door is closed!). Sometimes we hear them talk about their day, other times they sing songs made up in gibberish (but with the melody of popular tunes) until they laugh so hard they cough incessantly. They need water. And a blanket. And to potty (except for not really because they STILL haven't mastered the potty training thing yet, UGHHHHHHH). Then they are scared of trucks out their window and tree shadows. Or even better they act like they are asleep and then tiptoe out of their room and peek around the corner to see who is waiting to shuffle them back to bed. They keep each other awake well past their bedtime, and we can’t change it or stop it. A wise mom of twins once told me her children need that time when the rest of the world fades away and they can just be together and unwind. I suppose we are stuck with it.
- I waste less food. Period. Toby wants some more corn, and Gabe is eying his brother's fries. Cool. Switch. Gabe doesn’t love his plums but really wants some more avocado? Sure thing. I use nearly every single scrap of food for meals around this house. It’s really pretty amazing if you think about it. No waste. Extra yogurt? Someone wants it. A few bites of bacon on a plate? Sure enough, a hungry boy will chomp it up. Yes, they start out with equal portions of whatever we are having, but I’m certainly not going to tell them no if their brother isn’t chowing down. It’s a dog eat dog world out there, kids. Eat up or you loose it! I’m kind of kidding….kind of….I’m realizing at this very moment that cultivating this behavior is likely to lead to the ever popular “eat off your friend’s plate” mentality. Ooops. Sorry future friends…and wives.
- “You have your hands full.” This is my least favorite compliment. Yes, my children are likely running in opposite directions or crying or making a mess of food or crafts or hitting each other or God knows what else. And yes, I do, in fact have my hands full. But to me it means that you aren’t noticing their clean and (sometimes) unwrinkled clothes, you aren’t noticing that I gave them a bath this week (several times probably), and you aren’t noticing that they say “please” and “thank you” like polite little fellows. No. This statement most definitely means that you see the well defined lines at my brow and a hint of crazy in my eyes. My life is nuts. And I appreciate the observation. It is a true statement. Maybe just not one that makes me feel I am rockin' it in that moment. We are all alive. We are dressed and fed and healthy. And we made it in one piece (to wherever it is that you encounter us). That’s a win in my book.
- Kids make other kids laugh. I’ve figured out that having twins is kind of like when singleton children have a BFF over to play or cousins drop in. Sounds in the house go up a few decibels. The toys get scattered, and there’s usually a spill or two of juice and some crackers mashed into the floor. There may be fights. And tears. But always laughing. That is a perfect way to describe having two children of the exact same age (and genes, in my case). Toby and Gabe are best buds. They enjoy nothing more than playing together, pretending together, hurting each other (much to my dismay) and just loving life together. Which is really, really awesome. But also….kinda tiring! It is a nonstop party. Sleepovers every night. And fits of giggles they cannot contain. I was trying to separate the crew and do time-outs this weekend after some peaceful playtime turned violent, and they were laughing so hard and so loud they could not even hear me. And then, there’s my favorite: the belly laugh shrieking giggles in public. My sister and I commiserate about avoiding contact with people in public that we don’t know after surviving a life with our social butterfly mother who shared our life story with every cashier, teller and casual passerby. In later years we cringed and walked away (man, we were mean). Well, mommy dearest, you got your payback. Because now when I take my boys with me they are doing one of two things: making each other cry or making each other laugh. Consider #4 above, you can see why I prefer the laughing. I don’t know where they got it (okay, okay, I do…it’s me), but my kids have the loudest and gut-busting giggles of hardly any child I know. And when they are together it just gets better (or worse, if you are their mom and we are in a quiet store). So this is my life now: Pushing the double shopping cart (nifty little creation) and smiling apologetically at EVERY SINGLE PERSON I pass because the twins are laughing so hysterically that strangers stop and stare. After an especially long wait in the line at Walmart last week, I had the entire front end of the store tracking me as I walked out. Yes. They did. And several stopped me to ask questions (Oh, April, you know how I loved that…). But there was something else pretty phenomenal about that trip to Walmart. I was tired and irritated, wishing the kids could be calm and I could just get out of the house once without making a spectacle of ourselves in public. As I apologized to the teenage cashier, she broke into a grin, looked me right in the eye and said, “Who can be unhappy after hearing that laughter? That is the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
We had a crazy jam packed weekend of birthday fun to celebrate the wonder and amazement these two little cuties bring to our lives. I settled them down tonight after closing out their festivities with a bubble bath and some Llama-Llama reading. They fought over my lap and made silly faces at each other each time I turned a page. And then the giggles started.
I dialed back the stern mommy tone that so naturally escapes from me, closed my eyes and embraced the laughter exploding from my sweet children, swallowed the lump lingering in my throat and squeezed those baby lotion-smelling boys extra tight as they squealed with glee and begged for another book (and drink and blanket and potty pit stop).
We made it to three. Thank you, Jesus.
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