Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Sharing is for suckers!

Of all the challenges that you face with twins, I'm starting to think we may have run in to the most challenging of all. We've conquered double breast feeding (well, Gina did, I mostly just sat on the sidelines watching that one), we've conquered sleeping patterns, we've learned to walk, we've even learned to balance the budget and not go completely broke raising these two. What we haven't figured out yet, is how to share, and I get the feeling the girls are in no rush to master that one any time soon. Genevieve's our biggest problem. She seems to always want what Arianna has, even if Arianna has the same exact thing as she does. Because Genevieve's got the size advantage, she also has little problem taking what she wants from her sister. Arianna's personality is also perfectly suited to Genevieve's in that she moves on quickly. Her sister rips something from her hand? No problem. She quickly finds something else to play with - which her sister will naturally rip from her hands as well. Our boiling point, though, is this toy car we have. They only make this thing as a one seater and we only have space in our living room for one car, so it's a recipe for confrontation. If Genevieve sees Arianna in the car, she storms over, and tries to drag her out of the vehicle like a carjacker. If that doesn't work, she pushes her sister in further and crams herself into the car next to her so that Arianna starts to pop out of the passenger side window. Then everybody screams and starts crying and we've got to figure out how to extract two babies jammed inside a tiny car who want to remain in the vehicle but just have their sister removed. ... it's a delicate situation. Most of the time I end up taking the car away and putting it in our room, on top of the bed where they can't get to it and then no body's happy (especially Daddy, who's ready to melt the stupid thing and be done with it). The thing is I know Genevieve gets it when I tell her she has to wait her turn. I'll see her storm off toward her sister and I tell her "you need to wait" and she'll look at me with this inner turmoil expression of "I know, but I can't stand it dad!" She'll stand by the car, rocking her hips slightly and slowly inching closer and closer. She'll glance at me to see what I'm going to say and then slowly lower her hands toward the door. "Genevieve," I'll say, and she'll stand back up slowly, leaning her butt toward the car even more - keeping eye contact, mind you, like somehow I'm locked in her tractor beam and don't notice what's taking place below her neck. Finally, after a back and forth negotiation she can't take the waiting any more and will pounce. I know she's a sweet girl 99% of the time and I know that conflicts with the "mine" stage that we're in right now. ... I'm just ready for her to be in that stage where I can explain why she needs to share and she can understand that and then her sweet side will take over. In this stage of life I sometimes feel like I'm just talking to a brick wall. A very cute brick wall. One that understands what I'm saying, it just doesn't care.

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