In our family, we give our kids a choice: for your birthday you either get a party or a gift.
Because the Hergenrader kids have always chosen the party, I’ve never actually given any of our kids a birthday present.
This year, though, I want to give the twins a gift.
I want to give Sam and Elisabeth more—more one-on-one time with each of them. Because, right now, it’s not enough.
I’m sure other moms with twins feel this way. It’s challenging because the twins are so together, so alike, so needing the same thing at the same time. Spending time with one means excluding the other. Looking at one twin and saying, “I want to focus on only you,” means saying to the other twin, “I don’t want to be with you right now.”
It’s a problem unique to twins, for sure. Having lots of kids at different ages and stages works itself out a little easier. When the eight-year-old is in a needy stage, you pacify the two-year-old with Doc McStuffins, who is thrilled for the extra TV time and doesn’t care about eight-year-old issues.
When they two-year-old needs extra time because he’s potty-training and LOVES for you to sit on the bathroom floor for fourteen hours a day, the eight-year-old finds something else to do because bathroom-floor-sitting isn’t her thing.
Twins, though? Same age, same interests, same stages. Anything you do with one twin is intriguing to the other. Rather than fighting this, it’s usually easier to give up on the personal time, and take them both on the ice-cream date or to the grocery store. Or, what almost always happens, it’s easier to just take all the kids.
Then, at the end of the day, it occurs to me it’s been another day of Sam and Elisabeth being part of the group.
It’s been that way too long.
I’ve never told anyone this, but when Sam and Elisabeth were babies, I worried they wouldn’t learn their names. I was always saying to them, “Hold on!” “Just a second!” “You’re next!” and “Not your turn yet.”
I can distinctly remember our daily routine to get two-year-old Catie to school included fifteen steps. It was everything from nursing each twin, to dressing each twin, to dressing Catie, to strapping all three into their car seats.
Throughout the fifteen-step routine, I would say, over and over and over again to the twins, “Just a second.” “Don’t cry. It’s not your turn yet.”
Then, in the quiet moments, when they would nap, I would think about our crazy lives. I would wonder when they would learn their names, since I never said them.
I would also wonder when life would slow down enough for me to just focus on one twin at a time. Even though that happens in small moments now, it’s not enough. I still need more alone time with Sam and Elisabeth.
Finally now, in their sixth year, I will try to do that. More movies with only Sam. More dinners with just Elisabeth. It’ll be hard, that’s for sure. Because, like I said, if there’s a movie Sam’s dying to see, Elisabeth surely is also. And, if it’s been a tough week in Kindergarten trying to master sight words, and Elisabeth needs a dinner out, you can bet Sam does too.
But I’ll have to get over the fear of leaving one twin behind and hurting feelings. I’ll have to look harder for babysitters. I’ll have to sacrifice some date nights with my husband to have date nights with one twin.
This year, I hope to give this one present, of my presence, to the twins.
Like the very best presents, I’m guessing this one will be just as fun for me to give as it is for them to receive.
