Twins

I remember with clarity the day we found out Kara was pregnant with twins. We were sitting there in the ultrasound room when the doctor came in to confirm what the technician thought she saw and said, “Congratulations! You’re having two!” My first reaction included a skipped heart beat (not the good kind) and an incredulous, “Are you serious?”

The trials associated with having twins are dynamic. It’s this competition where you constantly work to outsmart your own children. And they usually win, and then you have to invest in more tools and more time and more purchases to install more locks, gates, barriers, etc. You have to tell yourself to relax when you see the rug being melted from the hair dryer, the dirty diapers being smeared into the carpet, the toys already disassembled, the pages torn out of the textbooks, or one of the other endless list of ways they have managed and continue to manage to destroy things.

Once in a while we get a break, usually from grandparents watching them. Sometimes it’s planned out. Usually it includes us going to bed relatively early and sleeping in pretty late. We have unconsciously learned to use those occasions as a chance to catch up on lost sleep.

So it strikes me as odd that at those times we do get some time without the boys, our conversation is all about them. We talk about the funny things they have said or done, and even fall asleep laughing about their antics. It’s hard to not mimic their behaviors, like leaving to go to the store and fake-arguing about who gets to “sit by Costco!” on the way, or suggesting, “my feet broken! Daddy/Mommy carry me!” when we’re tired of walking. We get sentimental just hours after they’ve left.

It’s true: we miss them when they’re gone. It feels weird going to bed without reading their chosen four books to them—and for that matter, not dedicating an hour to bed time. I sort of miss having one of them (but not both of them) climb into bed with us after “it’s no more dark outside” but before the alarm goes off. I miss hearing those random 6AM whispers to me like, “Daddy make Owen waffles and ice cream please.” Or the excited announcement, “Daddy! Dad! Dad! Daddy! Daddy! Dad! Nick! NICK! I built a boat!” and his boat, made of those large Lego blocks, is indistinguishable (to me) from his tower, his truck, his “dinner I cooked,” his computer, or his doggy.

They come back home tonight. Getting them to go to bed will probably be a fight. And I’m confident I’ll wake up tomorrow morning sometime between 5AM and 7AM with an urgent, “Wake up! We go Lowe’s, do project!”

It will be fun to have them back home.