Terrible twos

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good,
She was very, very good
But when she was bad she was horrid.

-Longfellow

My dad used to quote that poem a lot when I was a kid.  It must have been written about a two-year old.  One minute so sweet and grown-up and then the next …Holy mother of crap, what is wrong with my children?   This past few weeks, we’ve spent WAY too much time on the devil-spawn challenging end of the spectrum. 

Sounds like they're pretty good at dayhome and they’re mostly angels for Greg but with me, it’s mayhem.  It’s like they save up all their frustration and stress during the day and then let it all out for Mama. 

The top 5 issues:

1)   Random physical attacks:  Charles can’t resist mauling Becca (tickling, wrestling, pushing etc).  Sometimes it’s in anger but mostly it’s playful like running up behind her and tackling her to the ground.  When I intervene, C protests innocently, “I was just wrestling” or  “I was just playing London Bridge.”  Becca gets her shots in too but I worry more about Charles; he weighs like 25% more and it’s hard for B to defend herself.  Good thing she’s a fast runner.   She’ll come tearing towards me with her arms up “MAMA!!  Protect me from the Charles!! ”

2)  Fighting over toys:  This is nothing new but lately it’s reached epic proportions.  There is no reasoning with them.  Screaming, hitting, throwing – at one point, Charles picked up his airplane riding toy OVER HIS HEAD and flung it across the room.  Scary stuff.  Even reading books was off the menu because they’d fight over the pictures.  “That’s Becca’s tree.”  “No, it’s Charles’ tree”  “NO, BECCA’S!!!”  “NO CHARLES’!!!”   <Ear-splitting high-pitched scream>

3)  Fighting over me: You’d think they’d be used to sharing me…but no.  

4)  Fighting over everything else:  Dishes, chairs, blankets, car seats, shoes, clothes.  You name it, my kids will argue about it.  And it doesn’t matter if we have two identical items, they’ll still fight over them.  I’d been warned about that but I didn’t truly appreciate how frustrating it would be.  I mean c’mon!  They are EXACTLY the same. 

Greg did come up with a pretty good system last month, to label the identical toys or dishes with a B or a C.  They can recognize “their letter” and that has prevented many disputes.   Although I did catch Becca chasing Emma with a marker the other day. “But I just wanted to put a B on her” … presumably so she could lay a proprietary claim.

5)  Do-overs: I understand this is fairly normal with toddlers but I still find it bizarre and sometimes laughable.   One of the worst recent incidents was when I foolishly removed B’s diaper in the bathroom instead of on the change table.  She had a complete melt-down, insisting that I should dig the dirty diaper out of the trash, put it back on her and the re-change her “properly”.  Full blown temper tantrum when I said no. Laying in a teary heap in front of the garbage wailing "Do-over! Do-Over!"

In a word, life has been chaos.  And at times I’ve been frankly ashamed at my lack of patience.  I used to be so patient.  I mean, my God, I waited for 5 years to have these kids, shouldn't I be more grateful?  Why does this stuff get under my skin so much?

But then last week, it was like a switch went off.  The twins played together for a full hour with no intervention.  No screaming. No mauling. No fighting.  It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen - brought tears to my eyes.   They played an elaborate series of games.  First a version of house where they pretended to be Mommy and Daddy taking their “cars” to buy groceries, then took turns putting each other to bed.   Then they built a house…which was really just a random pile of crap but cute nonetheless.  Then they built a ‘waterslide’ out of blankets on the stairs and slid down it.  Then they packed pretend lunches in their backpacks and went on a pretend trip to the playground.  

Their 'house' (AKA pile of random crap).  A comment on my housekeeping skillz?  Probably.

It was amazing.  They were completely different kids.   I was too dumbfounded to think of grabbing the camera to take a video.   I’ve heard about this phenomena.  That’s supposed to be one the benefits of twins, that they entertain each other and you get all this free time, yada yada yada.  To date it’s been something of a myth.   I mean, sure they played together but it required my constant supervision and mediation to avoid WWIII.

Since that night I’ve seen more and more glimpses these strange, new well-behaved children.  Not all the time but it gives me hope that we’ve made it over the hump and we will soon leave the terrible twos behind us.  

And when we do, I'll miss this exciting stage of their development, watching them blossom into independence, learning to navigate this bumpy road we call life.  Ha ha... just kidding.  I won't miss it one bit.

Cheers,

Sandra 

Quote of the day

I found the twins standing out on our back deck with C clutching a plastic T-ball bat. 

Me:  Hey, you guys aren’t allowed outside without Mama or Dada.  It’s too dangerous.

Charles:  But Mama, I will protect Becca from da Coyotes.  I will hit dem in da head with dis bat.

Um yeah, easy there De Niro.