Bullies

We may have a bully problem on our hands, I'm afraid. Worst part is. ... I think we're the bullies. The girls play date yesterday ended with Genevieve smacking the other little girl in the face in order to get the keys she had been playing with. After that (once she stopped crying) what was supposed to be our new friend wanted nothing to do with the keys, most likely out of fear that Genevieve would strike again should she even think about trying to play with them. I swear this is not something we're teaching the girls to do. I don't want people to think we've got a baby Fight Club going on over here, trying to create little Tyler Durden's. ... that would be Brad Pitt's character from Fight Club. And besides, even if we did, first rule of Fight Club? "We don't talk about Fight Club!" I think the problem is a result of there being two of them. They're used to competing with each other for things they want; pushing, smacking and pulling on one another. It's like toddlers who are used to rough housing with other kids their age who then try and put a newborn in a choke hold. ... they don't really know any different. Add to that the girls are monster babies, dwarfing other kids their age and you've got Johnny from Cobra Kai in a onsie. ... please tell me that Karate Kid reference wasn't lost on you too. That was a great pull. Anyway, the "fighting" continued come bed time. Girls had a rough time napping during the day and we didn't get them down to bed soon enough so we hit that "too tired" stage. If you're not a parent, make sure you make a mental note that such a thing exists. If you can find a way to avoid reaching the too tired zone, you will be a much happier parent. It's worse with twins because they just work each other up even more. One screams, the other screams louder, the other has to match and raise and then so on until the decibel level is in the range only dogs can hear. Anyway, it ended with Gina on the porch trying to escape the shrieks and me watching TV trying to drown them out, both of us silent because our frustration at this point caused anything that came out of our mouths to seem very reminiscent of an attack on the other. Gina wanted to save them, I wanted to let the cry it out and go to sleep on their own. Instead we argued about it and the girls passed out some time during this. In fact, they passed out hard! We went in about 15 minutes after the last sob to make sure they were in good positions and tucked in comfortably and Genevieve was asleep in a sitting position, her head leaning forward against the railing of her crib. It almost looked like she had fallen asleep while standing and just kind of collapsed into that position. But, it worked. They didn't peep until the sun started peaking over the horizon. A very, very good sleep. Wax on, wax off Daniel-son.