In a few days, my princesses will be 2 years old. I’m all sorts of nostalgic and overwhelmed. Where did the time go? Where did my babies go? And who are these very opinionated young women living in my house rent-free?
As their birthday looms closer, I’ve been reflecting on the good, the bad and the ugly parts of my second year as a twin mom; or rather the highlights, the lowlights and the WT??? Permit me to share
The Highlights
My Project 52: To take a photo of the girls every week of their second year and put a photobook together. Looking through those photos brings so many poignant memories like the first visit to the park when they were terrified of going up the slide, the second visit to the park where my confident daredevils insisted on going on the big kid slides (and messing with mommy’s blood pressure). I"m missing photos from 4 out of the 52 weeks so I feel quite good about this.
Follow up: For this third year, I plan on doing a project 52 but this time it’ll be 52 experiences. I hope to introduce the girls to a new experience each week. I got the idea from the "52 brand new experiences" blog authored by Danielle. It would be great to add some words to next years photobook
Shopping our closets: I started reaping the dividends of buying the girls clothes a year or two ahead on clearance and off season. Whenever their wardrobe was starting to look old, I just indulged in some retail therapy via the totes full of new clothes.
Follow up: I’ve restricted myself to not buying more than 2 years ahead so after Friday (their 2nd birthday); I’ll be shopping size 4T clothes to my heart’s content. The 3T tote is already a decent collection of summer and winter basics
Teaching the girls their numbers and new words and saying "Amen" after bedtime prayers and saying "please" and "thank you" and "all done"
The Lowlights
Discipline: I haven’t fared well with having an effective discipline tactic yet. In fact, my failure fills my ears almost everyday… you see, a few months back Spice wouldn’t stop cry-whining. She went on and on and on and finally I got on my hunches, looked her in the face and said STOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! It didn’t make an impression on her but it did on Sugar. The next day, I was listening to the girls waking up in the morning. Spice started crying for me and her milk and from across the room I heard Sugar yell STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! I was instantly mortified and ashamed. Of all the things she should pick up from me so fast, it had to be that. She’s been doing it ever since – yelling STOP if there’s something going on that she doesn’t like. I do appreciate having a daughter who knows to yell “STOP”; it’s a good skill to have in my opinion. I just wished she had learnt it from my good example not my bad.
Follow up: Read the 1-2-3 magic book that I’ve had for over a month now and be more intentional with discipline issues
Separating twins in school: I asked the daycare to do this when the girls moved to toddler groups in August. Well, a month into it, I noticed that the baby who was previously lagging behind in verbal skills had caught up and was thriving. The other baby seemed to have regressed and also become moody. I didn’t know whether to attribute that to
· a reaction to not spending the day with her twin sister
· our focusing attention on helping her sister communicate better and in the process neglecting(?) her
· her not liking or connecting with her new caregivers/teachers
· just happened to be going through a “wonder week?”
I didn’t have the answers and I don’t think I ever will. Regardless, I requested the daycare to put them back in the same class and we’ve already seen improvements. I still think separate classes are a positive to helping twins develop their individuality but I do not think I will try this again until they are in kindergarten
The WT..? Moments
Stranger mouth diarrhea: This moment was in the running to top this list until last week when I had another moment. Random stranger walks up to me and said “when I was a little girl I wanted to be black so I could have my hair in rows like that”. Said while pointing to the girls’ braided hair. I didn’t know how to break it to her that braided hair was not exclusive to any race (Bo Derek in 10 anyone?)
Tantrums, a month long battle with toddler diarrhea, several crib escapes… all in a year’s work!
