Twins the Easy Way

When I go out, I often get asked if Josie and Katie are twins. My typical response is "yeah, the easy way, they are about a year apart." By the "easy way" I mean that I only had to carry one baby at a time, but sometimes I wonder if my (not quite) Irish Twins are actually twins the hard way.

Like many families with twins, we pretty well have two of everything. At Christmas we bought the girls identical toys, they have matching car seats, we have two booster seats at the table, I can't tell you how often they are dressed alike, and for a while we even had two cribs in their bedroom.

Now, not being the parent of twins, I don't know if there is a dominant twin and a passive twin, in our case there is. Josie (being older) takes Katie's toys and in turn Katie screams until either Dan or I get it back or she gets distracted. Whatever Josie does, Katie wants to do whether she is able to keep up or not.  At times this can be really sweet. They can play together for hours, and I love listening to their conversations and giggles while I fold laundry, feed Elizabeth, or simply take a moment to put my feet up.

Other times the competition is really frustrating, particularly when we only have one of a certain toy. If Katie has it, Josie wants it and vice versa. Today was one of those particularly frustrating kinds of days. We headed across town to eat lunch with my family, and from the moment we loaded the girls in the car until they crossed the threshold of my mother's house we heard the following:

 "Mine!"
"No! Give it to me!"
"No!"
"I want it!"
"AHHHHHHHH!"
"No!"
"I don't want you to have it!"
"I NEED it!"
"No!"

The way home went pretty well the same way, as Katie's birthday is next week and my mom wanted to give her a present since we won't be having a party and she'll be visiting my sister. Remember the Fisher Price rotary phone, it's not exactly a spiffy toy, but it sparked a fight similar to the one above for the entire car ride home, because there was only one of them.

There were tears, and slaps, and all kinds of crazy in both the front and the back seat. In the midst of all the crazy today was one of those days where I was able to step back and think "my reaction is not helping...Dan's reaction is not helping." And then I just started to laugh. This interaction between my children is hilarious, if only I had a video camera. It would be a YouTube sensation...perhaps another day. Today, I will simply laugh, and maybe tomorrow I'll buy another rotary phone. Or better yet, I won't and perhaps they will learn how to share...or better yet, I'll make money on YouTube.