The terrible twos.

The twins are two years old today, and they are definitely trying on their "terrible two" clothes.

So many people say to me "oh don't label your kids!" and I think, why not? I'm not always telling THEM that, but my twins are definitely entering this stage of I cant tell you what's wrong, and I can't articulate my authority so I am just going to YELL!

What fun. It's often very loud around here now.  And a lot of things are being thrown across the room, which we don't condone but the twins haven't figured that out yet, rather we haven't figured out how to teach them that!

It's really very different having two children "terrible two'ing" at the same time. I vaguely remember with Paige having a lot of control really and being able to walk away from it. The only person she had to fight with was me, and since I rarely engaged with it, she never got anywhere! Now with the twins, they not only have each other to fight with, they have a big and rather full on sister to fight with too.

I am not sure, since I have nothing to compare it to, but I imagine that the second (but not multiple) child going through this stage would be rather a different ball game than the first (only) child going through it, given that that child would have an older sibling to fight with and that older sibling does not know how to handle this extremely emotional younger sibling.

Now the twins are trying to establish whos boss, both in the house and with each other, its a noisey power fight. And at times an amusing one.

Annabelles new favourite toy is a shape sorter, so of course Kaisey wants to play with it whenever she does, the rather amusing part is that whenever Annabelle has it, and Kaisey turn makes towards her, she drops it and then screams her head off as if Kaisey had wrenched it out of her hand!! I told her shes being a little weak-willed. I'm sure she understood me!

Another fairly common word in the house just now is "no!" which is said often, by everyone, adults and children, sometimes quite loudly, and at times for no reason at all that I can fathom.

Now how to deal with these bossy little beings that are currently over riding my living room with toys, noise and drama? I'm not entirely sure...

When Paige was this age, my main tactics were, give choices, say yes as often as possible, be strong on the non-negotiable, and I have to say she was a fairly easy two year old comparatively now that I am dealing with these two. She was very articulate for her age.

The twins are most un-articulate, they have about 10-15 words each (at two years old Paige had a vocab of about 75-100 words if I remember correctly, she was also starting to speak in short sentences) their reasoning powers are fairly low, and I can't give them choices, because they do not understand. I can hold out two pairs of pants and say which one? and they grin at me, Paige at the same age would choose.

One of the questions I often get asked is "is one of them more difficult than the other?" Some days, yes, but most of the time, they are just different children, and I can't really tell you who is more "difficult".

Kaisey is quite vicious with her frustration, she will immediately lash out physically, and when you tell her off she has a fantastic sad face to turn on. She will bite, kick, smack, push, I have even seen her punch; where she got THAT I have no idea. But its fairly irritating to say the least. I guess the easiest way to deal with this would be to whisk her into her room, tell her off on the way and then leave her there. I almost never do this, though, I don't know if thats laziness or what, but at the moment my approach is to give her a strong telling off, then comfort the child she has hurt (usually Annabelle). I'm actually quite pleased to see she has backbone, as I worried about this when they first started kindy at 10 months old, and she was a very sweet and quiet little girl that didn't seem to want to say boo to a goose, so, seeing her sticking up for herself, though her methods are unacceptable, I enjoy knowing she is not a pushover. She is still a very sweet and loving little girl, she just has some spunk too.

Annabelle is a bit of a mixed bag really. Shes very cheeky and funny, and she loves parroting what we say. Whether she understands it or not. Her latest word though, seems to be WWWAAAAHHHH at the top of her lungs, and it doesn't seem to be because shes not getting her way, or because she is unhappy about anything, it seems to be just that she enjoys making noise. She is very intelligent, and I see her constantly trying to figure things out. Its like watching the little cogs in her brain going whirrrr. She is also currently the non-dominant twin, that seems to go back and forth, but to watch Kaisey get her way without even touching her says a lot. She does also have spine though but she is a lot less physical with it, using her voice more often than not. Although she will fight back if Kaisey starts beating her up.

When it comes to their battles I most often leave them to fight it out, I figure its a fair fight, they are the same age, height and weight, even if Kaiseys not walking yet, she can certainly hold her own. If I see things getting very physical I will tell them off and perhaps move one or both away, but usually they will come up with a solution, usually being "I win, you lose".

I have read various articles that say letting your kids fight their own battles with their siblings is quite good for them, as long as they aren't actually hurting each other. It allows them to learn negotiation skills and similar that are an important part of existence. Apparently. Doesn't make it any less annoying to listen too.

As to the rest of it, I guess all I can do is soldier on, and hope we all make it through with our hair intact. And I love nap-time!

xx The Ramblings of Another Mother