Twinsanity

I thought my little angels were upstairs sleeping peacefully. And then I heard stirring through the monitor.

Destroy: RAWR
Search: Noooo. No rawr, Destroy. We need to sleep now, k?
Destroy: rawr.
Search: MOMMMEEEEEE!
Destroy: Argh!!! He bite me!!!

But when they’re not otherwise dogpiling one another in dangerous situations, they’re actually quite fond of one another.

I’ve always heard twins have a special connection. It’s one of the reasons I advocated so vocally having the terrible twosome crib together as soon as they figured out the basic regulate ones own body temperature thing.

In fact, one of Search’s most inconsistent days in the NICU was the day after Destroy came home. His doctors ordered a slew of tests and prepared me for a delayed homecoming. But his nurses just laughed. “He misses his brother.”

And so, we have entered the brotherly love phase in force.

When together, they do their best to kill one another. (Or at least make it look realistic enough to drive their parents crazy.)

But they can’t stand to be apart.

At our last gymnastics outing, Destroy scampered away from the mat. He was not playing. “No, I have to go be in trouble outside. All done at nastics. Search is at home.”

When Destroy refused to cooperate, I employed the tried and true parental tactic of, “Ok, you stay here, we’re leaving.”

Search absolutely flipped his lid. “NOOO!!! DESTROY NEED COME TOO!!!”

Search got sick the day after his birthday. He went to sit pathetically in the school office, woefully clutching a bucket until someone came to retrieve him. Destroy was beside himself. When I picked Destroy up from school, he demanded I show him the office to prove Search wasn’t being left behind after having been in the place where Destroy often spends in preschool detention.

Not to long ago, I arrived to pick my little hurricanes and heard Search sobbing. “Why is he crying?” asked one of the attending adults. “I thought Destroy was the twin that got sent to time-out.”

They may be little pistols at home, but when Mom and Dad aren’t around to suck up to, Search and Destroy have one another’s back – in the way only 3-year-old boys can express.

I’ve recently noticed how easily they take to new situations. They have no fear. (Well, in context, Search is apparently afraid of the air conditioning.) Perhaps this is a result of their beginnings filled with strangers poking and prodding at them from prior to day 1. Perhaps this is because they already have a partner in crime.

This has occasionally made me pause. I believe this is something all mothers of multiples grapple with.

They are individuals. Two very different people. (And boy oh boy do they have different personalities.) But they’re also a team. I guess I’d always assumed such a connection applied more to identical twins then fraternal (what with the sharing of the exact same genes and all).

They don’t have the famed “twin language.” (Unless the “Mungo” declarations are really secret code.) Yet, I think it’s easy to forget that these are a duo who have spent their entire lives together – side by side.

Disclaimer: They won’t admit to being twins. One evening, wearing matching pjs, GrammaJ inquired, “Are you twins?”

“No,” scoffed the boys. “That’s my brother.”

It makes me think that maybe there really is something to that guardian angel theory.

It happened at Christmas.

Destroy: I see my sister. Right there!
Me: <laughing> You mean your brother?
Destroy: No. My sister. Right. There.

I of course immediately panicked that Baby C was back for a visit. Did the boys have a sister? Was their guardian angel another brother, dressed in a tutu, with a propensity for pranks that matched their own?

And then my thoughts return to reality.

The muppets were engaged in age appropriate imaginary play.

Search: Here you go D. I got this for you.
Destroy: Thanks Ser – we need something else.
Search: Sounds like we need a Mouseketool. How will we get that?
Destroy: Oh tooodles!

Brothers. Twins. Co-conspirators.