Today's Perfect Post Goes To Sarah

...Goes to Sarah, who has compiled an invaluable list for any person who associates with twins and their families--whether close relative or relative stranger passing on the street. The Stubers agree, especially with that part about heaping compliments on us. We like that a lot.THE DO's AND THE DON'Ts

A Tale of Two Cribs

The pre-National Guard playroom.
There were two brothers who shared together. There were two brothers who fought together.During dad’s week home with the tots, there was some furniture rearranging, which needed to happen. The Stubers lived prior to that week wondering when Child Services would show up due to the children standing in the upstairs window every morning. The double bed that had served as baby staging area, second changing station, sometimes parent nap place, trampoline, and medicine administration point of service had changed. It had become the morning path to the window because it was shoved up against the wall. Once to the window, little feet fit nicely on the sill and hands hold on just right to the locks, and it is just wide enough to accommodate two toddlers greeting the day from the second story. It had to be moved.A happy coincidence of having to rearrange the room to move the bed, is that the toddler’s cribs wound up right next to each other. Mom and dad had dreams of peeking in on their children sleeping quietly in the night holding hands across cribs. (Naïve perhaps, but you actually read people saying this happens in the Twin magazine.) They can play together before falling asleep! They can comfort each other in the night through the slats! In the morning they can chatter quietly as the day breaks!Or, you can deal with reality.Sunday afternoon nap:Trip to the room one: Mom comes in to calm everyone down. She finds that Nicholas has taken every single clean diaper that his little arm can reach off of the changing table and passed them out amongst himself and his brother. They are now each sitting in a pile of diapers, tearing them apart. The changing table is moved away from the crib and shoved in the corner.Trip to the room two: Mom comes in to shut up the escalating screams for GAGGEEEE! (read: “gah-gee”, which has somehow evolved from “uker,” which is the toddler version of “yucker,” which is the father’s version of “pacifier.”) Child one has given his pacifier to his brother and brother will not return it. Another pacifier is given to the toddler who no longer has one.Trip to the room three: A repeat of trip to the room two, only the children have reversed roles. The toddler who previously had no pacifier is now holding three and the other is screaming at the top of his lungs.The final solution? Haul the children out of their cribs and start moving furniture. It doesn’t even matter where at this point as long as the cribs are not together and none is touching the changing table. This is trickier than it sounds with a full size bed in the room. The changing station is moved into the closet. The bookshelf is pinned against the door. A crib with wheels is flung to the far corner. The bed, holding toddlers who have been instructed not to move an inch, is wheeled around and around in search of a place to land. The bookshelf is moved into the closet. The changing table is moved back to the room. The cribs are separated by the bed. This is reconsidered. The changing table is shoved back in the closet, the bookshelf drug back to its original spot. A crib is nearly shoved into the closet. Children have escaped the bed, and a screaming infant was brought in at some point and is now sleeping in one of the cribs while the toddlers begin pushing their toys around mimicking their mother. Where is the other infant? We have no idea at this point.And in the end, the puzzle fit together and no child is touching another or the changing table. The bed has stayed and the bookshelf has been banished to the closet. This means that the diaper wipes had to leave their home atop the bookshelf and live down on the changing table. The children must have been eyeing them all night because the first thing Benjamin did Monday morning was march straight to the changing table and pull out the wipes in an effort to begin distributing them.As night closes on National Guard weekend, we are thankful that it darkens the mess so we can ignore it.And so life marches on in a continual struggle to beat the toddlers at their own game.

That Crazy Red Hoe

Some toys come in threes. A wonderful idea thought mom and dad. A rake, a shovel and a hoe packaged as one. Surely enough to keep two boys happy during yard work time. A green shovel used mainly for transporting sand from the sandbox to a nice little pile on the patio in front of the back door. A blue rake for coming in and re-dispersing yard waste that dad has used his big rake to make a pile with. And a red hoe. We’d not seen that red hoe in a long time. She’d been chased off by mom and dad. This was a respectable yard, they said, and there would be no fighting by their boys over a red hoe.But then something happened. We discovered that the green shovel had a weak point. The green shovel became a pan and a long weapon with a handle—two new toys made from one. Mom didn’t like the idea of that, so the green toys disappeared. We were left with a blue rake. That didn’t really matter so much because raking doesn’t really happen that often in a treeless suburbia. It doesn’t happen until a cold front comes through and gives us a bit of cool weather that is.Dad got a chance to clean out the flower beds the other night as we played and mom discussed the “pit” with a man who said he can send people to clean it up bi-weekly. She was happily telling dad about the cleaning women coming and laughing about admitting house cleaning defeat when we discovered that there was only one blue rake to re-disperse the pile dad had made from the flower beds. And the fight was on.“What about the red hoe?” she asked him.“Really?”“It has been awhile, maybe she isn’t as charming any more. Enough to stop the brawl over the r-a-k-e?” She was unsure why she was spelling a thing that was already being fought over, but it seemed motherly and she was tired.“We could try…,” he said hesitantly.She was here for a brief moment. Nicholas was first to warmly welcome her back. For five seconds Benjamin continued raking as Nicholas was reunited. But the red flashed in front of Ben’s eyes and the chase was on after he quickly reclaimed her.
We will miss you red hoe.

Brothers

There for the times your feet don't quite reach the pedals yet.

Brothers

There for the times your feet don't quite reach the pedals yet.

October's New Pajamas

We got new pajamas from Aunt Cynthia, and mom let us wear them for the first time Saturday night. They were so comfy. And mom told us about her most comfy nights too:On laundry days in the summer, mom would hang the sheets to dry outside. Butterflies would visit the floral patterns, and the blue hues of my brother’s sheets seemed to draw the sky down to touch the yard at our feet. Three rows of blowing cotton created a maze, billowing with cool from the moisture and wind.I think mom had a recipe somewhere that told her just how long to let those sheets soak in the summer air. It seemed that I could play and stay near those sheets hanging on the line all day. I couldn’t reach the wooden pins that held the bed clothes firm, but mom would hand them down, and I could just manage getting them to the opening of the mustard yellow hanging bag. I would return the pins to their home, waiting for the next weekend and my next opportunity to help.Some time later while it was not yet night, bedtime would approach. How wonderful to turn out the light and not have to leap through the darkness, toes touching the floor for the briefest of moments as the hairy arms and hands from under the bed barely missed grasping their targets. Instead, on laundry nights in the summer fresh pajamas met fresh sheets while light still cast shadows around the room. Somehow the spider shadow from the wrought iron bed frame didn’t seem so unfriendly. She was more of a Charlotte keeping watch to gather only the most precious of dreams.Dad would come in as I was melting in, surrounded by the scent of outside that had been magically captured within those sheets. We would say prayers together. A fluid breeze was pulled in the window by the attic fan whirring just outside my room. And sleep came sweetly on laundry nights in the summer.

Are You Man Enough?

Mom and dad say I'm not. They threw out the bib this morning.