A morning with my daughter...

I had a blessed morning with my daughter!

For those of you that follow my blog, you may have read my post about the swimming class dilemma. (“Enough is enough”, in case you want to go back and look). The summary, for those of you budgeting your time, is the following.

1-      We took our twins to swim class. (ok, water comfort class)

2-      My son enjoyed it. My daughter hated it. Really hated it.

3-      I handled it spectacularly badly and vented my frustrations in a heartfelt blog. Should we quit or should we persist?

After I calmed down (and yes, that was quite necessary) I realized that there was one central idea that could not be ignored. I love my daughter desperately and her learning this skill right now is not essential. We’re not giving up forever, but for now… it wasn’t worth it. I decided that enough was, in fact, enough.

And then the silver lining dawned on me, like the clouds parting. I think I actually heard that music that goes with the visual. You know…the crescendo of harmonics. My son could go to swim class with daddy and I could take a morning, once a week, with my daughter. Yes!!!!!! My husband asked why I couldn’t take our son and I may do that in a few weeks.  But the kids are much less daring with me. They cling more often and they are more likely to play helpless. With him, they are more independent.

As twins, they are almost never apart. They do everything together. It’s fantastic that that they have the wonderful twin bond, a multitude of shared experiences. It also means that they don’t have so many separate experiences though. Even beyond that, my relationship (to a certain extent) is with THEM, not each of them.  We’re the three musketeers, the three stooges; the three blind mice… take your pick. I do my best to give to give them each their own attention when I can, but it’s not always as possible as I would desire.

Which is why I loved this idea so much and so instantly.

Almost two weeks ago, we initiated the experiment. My husband took my son to the door and I waited in the family room. All was going well. Excellent. Then my daughter tried to go for the door too. Uh oh… When we held her back, both kids freaked. He didn’t want to go without her and she didn’t want him to leave her. Hmmm…  With a certain amount of adult intervention, the separation was complete. Complete with wailing that is.

They both got over it quickly, though, and a good morning was had by all. We went shopping and then to a playground that is almost always off limits, for sheer logistics. It’s enormous, and there’s no way I can safely watch two toddlers. She was in HEAVEN.

My husband and I wondered what would happen the 2^nd week and our dreams were heard. No fuss. No crying. No objecting. He went with daddy happily and she stayed with mommy. Then, she realized. She inquired as to where her brother was, and I told her that he was playing with daddy. She nodded, and then started to think. Yes, I could see the wheels turning. All of a sudden, she looked straight at me and said. “Play with mommy?” I smiled and confirmed that Yes, she was going to play with mommy. Slight pause and then a HUGE smiled crept over her face. Her feet started to do a little dance and she giggled.

All was right in the world.

We went to the flea market, browsed the vendors, looked at cool shiny stuff and shared an ice cream. She listened like a champ, followed me without having to hold hands and spent most of her time with saucer sized eyes, taking in all the visual stimulation. It was amazing. No tantrums, no discipline needed and no fuss. We just hung out and played. Is that what it’s like to have one kid?

What a wonderful morning.

Maybe one of these weeks I’ll take my son swimming and my husband can take my daughter.  It would be nice to have that kind of quality time alone with him too.

Frequently the horrible storm really does produce a beautiful rainbow.