It’s Two Coochies to the Wall...

...all day long with that boundless energy which can only be captured, exponentially magnified and fired directly at your central nervous system by parenting twin toddlers (or multiple toddlers of any kind). Mood no longer has anything to do with it. In fact, when they’re sick or miserable or pouting, they’re easier to care for. On the other paw, when they’re bouncing off the goddamn walls and more chipper than my chainsaw it seems like my energies are sapped even faster. I equate it with working room service at ______ hotel for someone like Anna Nicole Smith. If the light isn’t too bright in the bathroom for the fourth time that evening then the salmon wasn’t cooked just right or the napkins don’t match or she doesn’t want the napkins to match. In between housework and computerwork and bookwork I run little errands for my children all over the house, at their beck and call while constantly and gently demanding use of the word please, the phrases “thank you” and “you’re welcome” and the signs for all.

Their vocabulary and articulatory skills progress in amazing leaps and bounds, stop dead for a few days and then explode again, roman candles reflected in the mudpuddles and pools of apple juice beneath the kitchen table. I come to consider each day a dance of different activities, best choreographed by exhausted parents moments before each step must be made. This is the part where we collectively sigh and think to ourselves how we all feel that way sometimes but thank goodness we have a few things going for us, some semblance of a plan and a basic grasp on the art of the long view. Right?

The number of times a day I am brought to the brink of tears by some beautiful twist of Lyli’s little pink tongue or by some gracious act (often a rarity) by Scarleht on behalf of her temporarily beloved twin sister steadily increases with each passing week. Back and forth their mercurial moods rage on a pendulum anything but pacified. And I sit, seaside, watching their tides roll in. And it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever born and birthed witness to.