Sam and Elisabeth are back in the same class this year. This means they’re spending every minute of every day together. They are bonded together like super glue.
With one glance across the dinner table, they can dissolve each other into giggles. They cry when the other gets in trouble. Like an old married couple, they bicker. Elisabeth doesn’t like the way Sam chews, and Sam doesn’t like the way Elisabeth gripes at him.
Maybe they’re too connected?
I don’t know. I do know that watching them enjoy each other so much feels like a fantastic miracle. Their deeply intertwined relationship today totally makes up for their first year, when they mostly just cried.
So, for now, we’re encouraging their outrageous twinniness. Let them eat cake off each other’s plates. Let them read books with their legs intertwined. Let them slip into their own world and play together for hours and hours (and then some more hours).
However, much to the twins’ chagrin, we’re not okay with one part of their best friend-ness. They really want to move into the same room. Thanks to the awkward configuration of our house, our kids need to share bedrooms. Right now, we have the girls bunking in one and the boys in the other.
Sam and Elisabeth sense this is a twin rule we’re not budging on, and they are insisting they NEED to sleep in the same room.
We’ve tried to explain they need a few hours every day when they’re not up in each other’s business. But they insist they miss each other at night
We’ve pointed out the need for boy privacy and girl privacy. But they don’t get this yet.
We’ve reminded them it’s important to bond with their other siblings. But they want more bonding with each other.
They promise, “We will NEVER, EVER FIGHT, if you’ll just let us share a room.”
They probably won’t fight. But we’re sticking to our guns on the roommate thing.
So, for now, these twins will remain very twinny. They will run around the house dressed as Luke and Leia, fighting with lightsabers. They will borrow each other’s t-shirts. They will laugh hysterically at knock-knock jokes no one else gets. They will do their homework elbow-to-elbow, racing through the pages of their First Grade packets. They will reminisce about their time in utero as their wombmate time and they will beg for another shot at it.
But this is the balance of twins: encouraging their independence while still recognizing their important role in a twosome. We’ll try to do that in all the ways.
But not in the same room.
Much to the twins’ chagrin.
