Contemplating Life with Twins

(I promise the meaning of this title will be evident soon).

Last weekend, our friends stayed with us for the weekend.  Keith and Maggie moved to Ohio three years ago, and I can emphatically say that we all miss them a lot.  They have a son, Colin, who is a couple months younger than Charlotte, so both families were excited to see them play together. I think Maggie said something like "I had these grand visions of the two of playing so well together."

Instead, what happened was this:

You can see that these two could be boy-girl twins - same color hair, same color eyes

Whatever toy the one had, the other one wanted. A lot of crying and whining ensued.  And it wasn't just because these were Charlotte's toys.  The same thing happened when we went over to our other friends' house. Maybe it's just that the two are about the same age.

Here's Charlotte trying to stake claim to what's "mine, miiiinnee":

I mean really, she walked all over the place with the walker she hasn't touched in months and the little popcorn ball thingy, all because Colin was interested in them.

We actually had a really fun weekend, despite the sibling fighting.  At one point, we had seven children aged three and under in our house. Talk about chaos!  Let me amend that. We had one three year old, and Charlotte was the next oldest at 16 months.  Okay, now that's chaos!

And Charlotte and Colin actually played well together in the bathtub and during meals. I think Maggie took some cute pictures of the two of them in the big tub. During meals, they were seated next to each other and would give each other high fives. 

It was really interesting to see the difference in personality between the two. I don't know what can be chalked up to gender differences or just personality differences.  For example, Colin is crazy fast.  He's still a newish walker, but that boy can move.  Anytime he saw Tandy, he took off.  He's also much more adventurous.  At the playground, he would climb up anything and didn't mind going face first down the slide. Charlotte is much more cautious, although I think she tried some things she normally wouldn't have because of the peer pressure.

It was a great weekend, if exhausting.  I don't know parents of multiples do it! I only wish Keith, Maggie and Colin lived closer by.  Next time, maybe the little twinsies will play together better.