Just a Day in the Life of Four-Year Old Twins

The twins returned to normal life together today after having guests here for a week.  A normal day for A and E is one in which they flow pretty naturally from one activity to another taking turns leading in an pretty unstructured way.  For the last several days A has been whinier than I have ever seen her and E has been more rough in his play than usual, and I really think it's because they were missing each other and the time they normally share without distractions.

 

They were busy all day long.  A quick study of the living room (which was clean at 7 a.m. this morning) will tell you what they did together today in the living room alone.

• Carseats from the basement were used for an imaginary roadtrip. 
• The white board is a common place to find them together.  After lunch I heard A talking about "stylish" skirts and "fashionable" outfits to E.  Whose daughter is that girl?
•  Books under the table.  They are cute little reading buddies.
• Cushions from the downstairs couches were hauled up without my help to build a fort by the table.
• Rainboots were needed for a quick slog through the muddy gutter.
• And drawing in an activity book pulled from my church bag behind A was the activity at of the hour.

I witnessed a few other really cute things today in other areas of the house.

• First thing this morning they disappeared into their room for a half hour.  They came down in costumes, A as a dancer and E as a police officer.
• At ten in the kitchen they served themselves grape tomatoes while I sent a few E-mails, and they giggled as they called them "tornadoes."
• At eleven in the basement they launched all our marbles, one by one, at the card table lying on its side.
•  At noon they caught bugs and flushed them down the toilet in the basement bathroom while I worked on a project.  This ended when they couldn't find bugs and couldn't get themselves to pick up the spider on the wall.  

Reflecting upon the day I realize I didn't hear whining all day.  No too-rough wrestling either.  In fact, there wasn't a conflict between them until 4:30 when E decided to go out to play instead of doing the thing the A had chosen to do inside.

It's tempting as a mom to think that I should solve problematic behavior (whining and inappropriate play) through my own attention and time.  Having twins has been a great opportunity for me to see that sometimes kids can be out of balance because they are short on time with another family member, a brother or sister in this case.  I feel the importance of being more aware of these imbalances and being more intentional in how I structure our time at home.  Wouldn't it be interesting if our needs in our family could all be met by each other somehow?