Transitions are always hard for me. I never even thought about how hard it would be to see my kids struggling through transitions.
Twin 1 is totally talking now. He's also ready for potty training, although his mom has not given it the appropriate approach or time as of yet. He's also holding on to that passifier as if he was still teething, and talking through it. It's his security blanket, and I respect that.
There have been several times that I have had the twins alone by myself on the weekends while dad is out golfing. So cliche. I actually like it, I get special time with them while not having to worry about the end of his fuse on patience. He can remind me of my dad when I was little and his outbursts seem to have more affect on me then they do on the kids. I try to not make it known as it is, but when it happens I can feel myself huddling in the top corner of the room, looking down and feeling scared myself. Anyway, he's only human. And if he comes back from an afternoon on the golf course happy and loving us, while we had a nice day full of love to ourselves, it's best case scenario in my opinion.
Anyway, Twin 1's newly-found independence of speech has brought a lot of transition with it. It seems that he knows. As much as he wants to fully express himself, the tighter he clings on to that pacifier to maintain a visible connection to his baby self. Some days he wakes up telling me he's a baby, some days he wants to be a big boy superhero. I let him decide on his own.
Much more talking in the house has brought a transition of its own for me, mom. All of the yelling after 8pm and the exhaustion seems to take hold and my only response is "SHHHHHH enough". All of his requests sound bratty and I'm constantly asking him to ask the nice way, aka adding please at the end. It's terrible. I want to embrace this new thing going on in his life as he does and here I am telling him he's not being nice, or too loud. I feel so bad when I look back on it, am I doing the right thing?
The friends that came over this weekend that threw them in the air just a few months ago when they were much tinier, that were intent to watch them crawling on the ground, have noticed this transition, too. They're not babies to be goo goo'd over any more, and how are they supposed to know? Twin 1 is transitioning in that he realized yesterday that he's not going to be the center of attention any more. The people are there to watch football and eat food, not toss the cute baby around.
And, just as I saw him realizing things are changing, he collapsed to the ground in tears, in a new transition feeling. *embarrassment*; raw, emotional, defeating embarassment. And I can't help but scoop him up and make him feel okay about being silly, without condemming the silliness of it all. I want to be supportive, yet not enabling.
As I dreamt in my sleep of scenarios that ended with me myself being mortified, and laid awake the rest of the night willing myself to feel that feeling in his shoes, at that moment, I realize that I am so deeply affected by the newest transition. Viewing hardcore emotions through my own baby's eyes. It's literally heartbreaking, and yet it's the only the first one he will feel and therefore I in turn will feel. I must make a pact to be there to LISTEN.. first and foremost. And here is my pact to my children; to make them feel, not only feel but KNOW, that I am there when they WANT me.
