One.
A few days ago, I arrived quite early to pick the girls up from preschool and witnessed one of those moments I can’t stop chuckling about. All the kids had been outside for recess (which for L & M translates into a family reunion hug-fest). Suddenly, the teacher yelled ‘Duck tails and bubbles!’ and all the kids scrambled into a line and whipped out these poses. Apparently, the hands behind the back=duck tails and the mouths=bubbles keeps them busy enough that there is no shoving or talking. What a brilliant move, teachers! So comical to see twenty kids doing it, but you know the next time I am transporting large quantities of children I will be so ready.
Two.
Then today after setting another round of PB & J in front of the twins, they reminded me we forgot to say the lunch prayer. I was feeling guilty while I folded my arms and waited for them to say the prayer then all of a sudden two little voices start singing (to the tune of where is thumkin nonetheless):
Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus
For this food, for this food
And our many blessings, and our many blessings
We love you, we love you
Did I mention they were also holding hands around the table? It was all I could do to keep my composure long enough for them to finish the song. It looks we are reaping the benefits of sending our kids to a Bible-based Preschool!
Three.
The other moment worthy of note happened during Madelyn’s show and tell. We were scrambling the night before to try to figure out what to bring and she finally settled on a family picture. She selected the one we had done at Christmas of the three girls and off she went. The next day I asked how show and tell went and Madelyn hesitantly said,
“Good…but we didn’t know which one was me.”
Oh Madelyn, I’m so sorry I said, kind of wondering if I should be laughing or crying. Apparently, the picture had Madelyn’s entire class in a debate over which one was in fact Madelyn and–ultimately settled on London. I tell you this mother of twins thing gets me every time. I thought it was so obvious!
Note to self: when your fraternal twins look so identical they can’t tell themselves apart in pictures, a label would not be a bad idea!
*This post may only be interesting to grandmas, and perhaps L & M circa age 16 looking through the hard copy of the blog, nevertheless it is my duty as family historian to record all Barlow vignettes.
From the Sidelines
Yesterday we watched a mid-game three-player collision from the sidelines. As is a reflexive action for every parent, 3/6 of us breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t my kid, however what happened next was unprecedented in my book.
An un-injured Madelyn, having witnessed said collision, completely stopped, turned around, and headed toward one of the injured players–her opponent. She proceeded to help him up, dust him off, offering one last, ‘there you go’ before they both jumped back into the game.
Later one of the player’s mom made her way across the field to tell us how impressed she was with our daughter helping her son, who is also a twin, recover speedily. Chuckling, we concluded, there is just something about twins, collectively, that watch out for each other. Maybe the twin intuition, or twintuition (sorry y’all, I know we thought twitches was over) as I call it. But whatever the case, when we asked Madelyn about it later, she said- “I was just worried.”
Maybe it’s that simple.
There is a piece of yesterday’s game that I hope makes its way into Madde’s sense of self, something completely unrelated to the ending score. It is something that cannot be coached from the sidelines and sometimes not even exemplified from the sidelines. It is character.
A collision of players that brought my collision of thoughts.