2 YEARS & 3 MONTHS - 23 Oct. 2012

So far I've always said that the first 6 months are by far the most difficult with twins. Babies are generally boring (in my opinion! I know there are people who adore babies, I don't belong to that category of people!), having 2 x boring doesn't make it any more interesting. Having two helpless lives to feed, change, dress and undress countless time per day drains any parent, trying to get any sleep with 2 babies is a feat in itself - and I know we were lucky, Liva and Laia were super synchronized, it was still hard - and getting basically no response in return for anything you do eventually becomes quite demotivating. At least that is how I remember the first six months... I know there was the first smile, the first babble, the first eye contact, the first finger-grabbing and many more firsts during that time, it just wasn't all that earth shaking.... After six months it starts getting fun, there's real communication in some form, you start to really understand why they cry and most times know exactly what to do to make them happy again. They can sit on their own and maybe even drag themselves along the floor like a zombie. They are (again, this is just my opinion!) finally starting to show a little bit of human nature.
But all that being said, I'm starting to think that the first six months is not the hardest time! NOW is!! My parents' neighbors have 3 sets of twins - yes, 6 children with 3 pregnancies!! Imagine that! And they have 5-year old twin grandsons. They know a bit about twins, in other words... The lady recently asked my mom how old Liva and Laia are now, when my mom answered "two years" the neighbor just breathed out deeply and told my mom to warn us that the next year would be the most difficult of them all. I decided to ignore that comment, Liva and Laia are little angels and NOTHING can beat those first six months. Boy, was I wrong!! If you have ever heard of the terrible twos you have an idea of waht I'm talking about. If you have ever experienced them, you might even think you know what I'm talking about. Imagine it double! Imagine going out and ALWAYS having at least one child misbehaving. It seems that when Liva behaves Laia doesn't, and when Laia behaves Liva doesn't. I don't know if it's something they have agreed upon between each other, but there are not many seconds of the day where both of them are well behaved. This whole myth about twins being each other's best friends - don't believe it, it's a trap so parents will have twins! Liva and Laia fight all the time! They bully each other - hit, kick, bite, pull each other's hair, poke each other, etc. - they tease each other - takes the sister's toy and runs away with it or hides it somewhere, pretends to want to share toys or food then quickly takes it away again and says "No, mine!" - and they disagree about everything - if one likes the food the other doesn't, if one wants to play outside the other wants to be inside, if one wants to watch Barney the other wants to watch Teletubbies. They argue - "My mom!" "NO, MY mom!", "My cat!" "NO, MY cat!", "Big car!" "NO, small car!", "Red house!", "NO, pink house!". ALL DAY LONG!! Albert and I are seriously going mad! Which is why it's lovely that we can drop them off at daycare in the morning or at my parent's house for a few hours at the weekend. This weekend where we actually had a full 24 child-free hours was priceless. Getting up Sunday morning and just sitting in the couch talking over a cup of coffee, it seemed too good to be true!
Of course we LOVE Liva and Laia. More than words can say! With all our hearts, souls, minds and bodies! Our world would end should anything bad happen to either of them! We haven't regretted for a single second having twins, especially not our two twins, and we are convinced they are the most amazing children in the whole world and that having any other child or children would be at least a hundred times more difficult! But that doesn't mean we don't get tired at times! And it doesn't mean we don't enjoy our breaks! And it doesn't mean we don't find it very, very difficult at times. Coping with the terrible twos x two is exhausting, and though we wouldn't change it for anything in the world, it feels good to admit it!!

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