The street where I live...

The street where I live...

Sunday 22 January 2012

Two

I need to go out today.  I need to walk around town and hand out invitations for the girls' third birthday party. I really need to get this done.  But here's what's happening in my house right now that is keeping me from doing what I need to do:

The girls are butt naked, in the bedroom,  and fully involved in a game they're making up as they go along.

When we were expecting our twins the advice we heard over and over was: "It's harder at first with two, but then it actually gets easier as they grow because they will play together."

I have no experience with having only one child, so I can only guess which parts are easier with two and which are much, much, much effing harder.

Last summer I worked as a performer and as front-of-house staff at the theatre in the heritage site that we live near (it is a huge part of the life of this community, this site, and I will write more about it but I still haven't quite decided how much or little personal information I want to reveal here...for now I'll just call it the Site.)  One afternoon a man came to the box office to buy tickets to one of the shows and he had his twin girls with him,  plus his other kids.  I said: "I have twin girls, too!" He asked: 'Do you have any other kids, besides the twins?" "Nope." he looked right at me with an expression of absolute knowing and said: "Don't ever let anyone tell you twins is twice the work. Because it's not.  It's EIGHT times the work!"

So now I have hard evidence that twins are harder.

But right now, as I sit typing, I can tell you that RIGHT NOW, it's easier.

And it's kind of magical.

My girls do not know what it is to NOT have someone to play with.  And their games are a joy to watch, and to hear.  They invent all kinds of crazy situations for their toys, and for each other.  They have a whole world that is just theirs.  J. and I are pulled into the games when they need a supporting character, but mostly we only sort of understand what's going on.

Right now each of their toys is being transported from the toy room to the bedroom, at which point the toy immediately dissolves into tears and cries: "What's happening to me!?" And then the toy is comforted with kisses and "it's okay"s.  Every so often the game stops and girls just start to laugh hysterically at a joke only they get, and when they're done laughing the game picks right back up again.  This is the big pay off, I think.  This is the reward that comes after the months of trying to feed two infants, of trying to get two babies into the car, of trying to shop and go to playgroup with two instead of one. The pay off is right now, when they are big enough to play together, when instead of doing what I NEED to do I am sitting here, typing, and refusing to interrupt the crying toy laughing game.

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