Jungletwins

Junglemom is back and ready to respond to all those excellent comments, but first a little story.

My husband’s first childhood memories are of metal scrapers being placed in his chubby toddler hands so he could help scrape all the lead paint off the wall.  He reckons this lasted at least a few years. That is before they moved to the next house and had to scrape all the lead paint off those walls. One of his next memories is of a city employee coming to his family’s house and telling them they had to stop growing/eating veggies in the back yard because the lead content of the soil was astronomical.

Sometimes Jungledad will sigh and bring up these stories when he forgets to pick up milk at the grocery store, or leaves the water running, or starts to get stumped while doing some redunkulously hard math simulation. He’ll pause and get a far away look in his eye and say, “If I hadn’t inhaled all that lead paint, who knows what might have been…”

Obviously, Jungledad came out fine. I bring this up as an example of how we can put our kids at risk without meaning to, can damage them without thinking about it. I’m speaking more in terms of emotional damage/ destruction (my mental destruction stories aren’t as funny as lead paint (what is!) so I didn’t include them.

Eventually, or rather hopefully, this will all tie into to my last post, where I think I did over-react to my brother’s comment. There were contributing factors. Aside from the divorce shiz and being stuck with crappy labels shiz I wrote about in the previous post, there was something else weighing heavily on my mind. Still weighing heavily on my mind. Its not even my family’s damage, its someone else’s. Neighbors. Family friends. They had two daughters, not twins, but fairly close in age. While the girls were quite young their parents decided, based on what criteria I have no idea, that the elder daughter was a shining star, a genius and a scholar, while their younger daughter was “not college material.” They banged on about the older daughter to anyone who’d listen, they spoke of the younger daughter only when asked. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of it now. They gave their younger daughter no encouragement whatsoever. They dismissed her from such an early age. And why? I can still hear her mother’s voice grating in my head, “____? Oh, she’s not college material.” Ironically, her mother never went to college, so I don’t know where she acquired her collegial eagle-eye.

I wish I could tell you that the younger daughter moved out and got a scholarship and soared to academic heights, leaving her sister in the dust. She didn’t. She barely graduated high school. Last I heard she was working at McDonalds. She probably works there still. Her sister went to grad school. She was no genius, just a regular person, who went on to a good but not elite school. I hadn’t really thought about that family at all until recently. What brought them back to me is the comment made by my brother, and also recent comments made by my Mom. Not so much what she said, but what she didn’t say. She’s been going on about Mumu a lot. She thinks Mumu is very clever, advanced, etc. She doesn’t use those adjectives when describing Lulu. There’s a reason for that. Mumu is a cuddler and a homebody. She loves to be held, to interact, its what she loves most. She’s cautious, often pensive and rather sensitive. Lulu is a force of nature. She also loves all of the above, but only in small doses. She eats 3 times as much as her sister but is substantially smaller. This is because she never stops moving, not for a minute. She goes goes goes. She is absolutely fearless. Mumu current favorite activity is sitting on a lap singing Baby Beluga. Lulu’s favorite is a new game we like to call “bush pilot.” Its not airplane, its much more hardcore. Jungledad zooms around the house with her throwing down all kinds of dope moves: dive bombs, loop de loops, inversions, at very fast speeds. It is mesmerizing (and terrifying) to watch. We tried a few seconds of it with Mumu and went ape, so we won’t be trying it again with her for a while.

Anyway, so Mum’s been holding Mumu much more, and is impressed with Mumu’s vocabulary, interacting, etc. She seems to think Lulu isn’t there yet, but she’s wrong. Lulu has as many words and devastatingly cute gestures and smiles, she just does them while moving at top speed. If my Mom (or anyone else) doesn’t realize this, its okay. I’m okay with it now. I’ve been getting good advice Advice that made me realize it’s not my mother’s place to interpret the girls behavior with complete accuracy; to give equal credit and attention. Its my place. They’re my children. 

Ultimately, my  commentators are right. I should recognize the girls differences and praise them for their individuality. I should accept that other people will recognize their differences and comment on them, and while I may not like those comments, they are out of my control. Therefore, I should focus on my own behavior towards the girls, which I can control, and which will ultimately, I hope, matter most.

So thank you to the smart, funny, kind Mommies who read my blog, specifically:

kd- for speaking out first, with the wisdom of experience as to how parents can make siblings who are very different both feel good about themselves. 

Goddess in Progress – who is always smart, sensitive and true. She has her shiz together. She’s the twin Mommy I aspire to be.

Kellie- I think she’s new to the blog, and I hope she sticks around. The “favorite Aunt” comment rings very true for me.

Luckygirl- I love her blog, she always shows loads of heart

LauraC- I have a lot to learn from this lady, she knows where its at.

And Nance. She also is the youngest of 5, and like me, had her twins pre-maturely and still vividly remembers the NICU. That kind of makes her my blog soul sister. I loved the “As the youngest of five I learned we carry a bag to catch all the shit that rolls down hill” line- too funny!

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