Linus has to go see the ENT doctor today so they can check the ear tubes he had placed in July. He also has an increasingly goopy-sounding cough, so later we're taking him to the regular pediatrician even though he seems otherwise fine.
At the breakfast table I asked Linus, with an "isn't this so exciting?" tone, if he wouldn't like to go to the doctor today? He nodded and chirped happily, "Yeah!" And then I looked over at Ambrose, who was scowling at me, and asked him if he wanted to go too.
His response was fierce. "No! I no wan' go doco, Mama." (I ought to get a picture of his scowl because it is hilarious, with full-on furrowed brow and dark eyes. All the funnier because he is generally a blithe child.)
So that worked out well: the doctor-liking twin gets two appointments in one day, while the doctor-hating twin has none. One of life's little coincidences, and it pleases me, because so often the coincidence is something like that they both happened to play with the same virus-covered toy at Atrium nursery two days ago so they are now both throwing up on the same night. All night.
(We have given up on Atrium nursery. It is not worth the pain.)
At Ambrose's and Linus's two-year well-child checkup I obtained from our pediatrician a referral to early intervention to have them assessed for their speech delay. That they had a delay was not in question; whether it was acute enough to need treatment was; I hoped the assessment would straighten that out for us. But in the end we never had them assessed because the EI people wanted to see if their tonsil/adenoid surgery would result in a sudden improvement in speech skills and it did, so the speech pathologist and I decided that we shouldn't waste her time assessing them.
(I was a little disappointed, because I was curious about the assessment process and the results. But of course I was more happy that our guys had made such progress.)
The early talking stage, although it can be frustrating, is one of my favorites because the cuteness quotient is just so high. For instance, my "doco"-hater climbed onto my lap a few minutes later and leaned his head against my chest. "I yike oo, Mama." Then he showed me his dimple and gave me an unsolicited kiss.
There are upsides and downsides to having twins, but one of my favorite upsides is when they egg each other on doing good things. "I yuv oo Mama!" one will say, and then the other yells "I yuv oo too!" and then it's a chorus of loud but adorable "I yuv Mama too!" The days when they both wailed inconsolably on my lap while I held them and rocked and cried right along with them are starting to fade.
A lot of people complain about age two, and they have a point. Two-year-olds can walk and talk and feed themselves and they look so sweet that you think they should be reasonable people. And then, surprise, they are in fact practically feral and definitely unfit for polite society and the dissonance can be frustrating. So I get why other parents dislike age two.
But I love it. Yes, it's often loud and messy at our house, but when things get outrageous we can sit down and amuse ourselves peacefully reading through a pile of books, which didn't work with two babies. Two-year-olds are (mostly) amenable to the games their older siblings invent. They do feed themselves, and I no longer have to carry them everywhere. They can follow instructions, and even do so at a rate that encourages me to keep trying. (~27%)
And honestly, who wouldn't want to have these guys fighting over which "yuvs" one more?
(Ambrose, Linus)
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