Round 2

It's taken a whole lot longer than I thought to get around to writing my second post. There are a couple of reasons for this, the boys are consistently amusing but haven't done anything that falls into the "must share" category. I've been pretty busy in work and to be frank, looking after twin boys is time consuming and after a long day when I am faced with the option of writing a blog or relaxing on the couch with a glass of wine, the vino wins out more often than not.

One of the things that fascinates me about twins is that some people expect them to be best friends all the time, this is far from the case. Kids are generally territorial and if you put two kids in a room for an hour, sooner or later they will want to play with the same toy or attention from the same person so being limited in their range of expression and vocabulary, they will resort to screaming, hitting, hair pulling and my boys favourite, biting. Twins generally spend most of their waking hours together so the incidents of violence are more frequent than with a single child.

I don't enjoy or condone them fighting so please don't misunderstand what I say next. I find the fighting fascinating. Generally, the interaction between Fat Chops and Monkey Boy is interesting [at least for me as a parent] but when it gets to those intense levels it's a study in infant psychology in my eyes. Sometimes it is provoked by jealousy, sometimes it's a plea for attention but my favourite is when it is seemingly provoked by boredom and a need for entertainment.

Fat Chops is usually the instigator. I've watched him take toys off his brother just to initiate a reaction [it's not that I don't intervene, I just think they need to work some things out themselves!]. Monkey Boy will tolerate with so much but one of the funniest things I've seen is when FC has taken a toy off him for the twelfth time and we get the following scenario

MB thinks "that fecker has done it again"

Delay

MB "I've had enough of this"

Delay

MB "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"

All of this can be read on his face in the couple of seconds between the theft and Monkey Boy launching himself bodily at his brother with his teeth bared [before you call social services, I stopped him before any blood was spilled]

I must admit that you can't watch them every minute and Monkey Boy was seen sporting a lovely crescent shaped bruise on his right arm last weekend but normally we make sure that it is a good clean fight and they stick to the Queensbury rules. We also are very lucky that they have great godparents who took them for a sleepover last weekend which had the dual benefits of allowing them a little space from each other and allowing Mammy and Daddy to enjoy a rare lie in.

Round 3 should come around a little quicker, it's theraputic to type these things out!!