When Words Carry Power

It seems as though we are starting to have to have more and more talks with Hunter about how our choice of words can affect people in many different ways.  We have been working hard on the “hitting people hurts them and makes them sad” thing for what feels like forever, but now with this new-found language and no social awareness, Hunter is now saying his thoughts out loud and sometimes what he’s saying can hurt others.  I posted not too long ago about him starting to comment on other people’s appearances, specifically if they are a plus sized body type.  It sounds as though, for now, our talks have worked and he hasn’t made any mention of other people’s size, but he has pointed to my jiggly stomach recently and giggled and said “mommy’s big tummy!”  I very quickly turned it around to make it so my “extra” tummy wasn’t something to be laughed at but something to be appreciated because I grew him in there.  So now when he sees my bare stomach he will talk about how he was in there.  I don’t know if he fully understands the concept that he was once inside of me, but we are close enough at the moment.

But now his words are going on to be ones of saying something he doesn’t necessarily mean but not knowing that it isn’t a joke to say them.  Last night he had a bath and was getting ready for bed and he wanted his dad to read books and put him to bed.  So Eddie went upstairs and got all settled into the comfy chair in the room, picked up Hunter’s current favourite book and called him over for cuddles and story time.  Like many toddlers do, Hunter suddenly decided he did NOT want daddy to put him to bed, he wanted mommy.  And because he wanted mommy, daddy was to get out of his room RIGHT NOW.  Cue the horrendous meltdown and screaming before Hunter screamed the words “I no LIKE daddy” with his little fists at his side and tears streaming down his red face.  I almost saw Eddie’s heart crumble out of his body as he sat there holding the book he wanted so badly to read to his son.  Hunter repeated the line a few times before throwing himself on the ground in a tearful fit.

In  the last week or so, Eddie has really been struggling with the death of his own dad and has also had a busy schedule of events in the evening so he hasn’t gotten to spend as much one on one time with Hunter.  These bedtime moments really mean a lot to him.  So having the most important person in his entire life screaming at him like that just crushed him.  Really crushed him.  He got up and left the room in silence.  He went downstairs and I stayed with Hunter and gave him a very, very firm lecture on how his words can affect people and how he is never ever to say that he doesn’t like his daddy.  Eventually he calmed down and said sorry to me, but that wasn’t good enough.  I brought him downstairs to Eddie, who was sitting fighting back tears on the couch, and I sat him down and asked what he wanted to say to daddy.  He then apologized twice to Eddie, told him he loves him and gave him a long hug.  I took Hunter back upstairs and we read his favourite book, ironically titled “Just Daddy and Me” (or something along those lines) and then had another serious talk about how we use our words while we cuddled and rocked.  I find that the moment right before bed, when all is quiet and everyone is starting to relax, is the best time to talk to him about learning curve things or to get him to open up to me about anything he wants to bring up.  He went to bed saying that he understood what I was telling him and he promised to try not to do it again.

Most people would say that Eddie is a grown up and Hunter is just a kid so he really should get his emotions in check and not let words that truly had no truth behind them affect him.  But my husband, as strong and stubborn as he is, can also be incredibly emotional.  For most of Hunter’s 3.5 years on this earth he has been 100% a mama’s boy and for a very long time he literally wanted nothing to do with his daddy.  It is only within the last 4 months or so that Hunter has started to make a shift to prefer his daddy over me on occasion.  So that’s 3 years of sitting on the sidelines waiting for his kid to finally accept him as number 1 every now and then.  That’s a long time to be continuously rejected by your own flesh and blood that you love so much.  He has mentioned on numerous occasions how tough it is on his heart to have Hunter not want anything to do with him.  So…yeah…of course anyone who has been the runner up for 3 years is going to be upset to some extent when they hear their child say that to them even though rationally he knows that the words carry no true meaning.  Couple that with his major struggles he’s had this week with missing his own dad terribly, it’s just a hot bed for emotions to bubble over in an unexpected way.

This whole moment that lasted maybe 3-5 minutes really opened up a whole new area of parenting to embark on.  My grown up brain suddenly has to think of a way to explain hurt feelings to a 3 year old.  He doesn’t know what feelings are yet, so that needs to be broken down before even being able to explain anything further.  I tried to use how when a friend at daycare pushes or hits him and how it hurts him and makes him sad.  He understood that.  So I followed that by talking about how sometimes words can hurt people and make them really sad too.  I don’t even know if I’m doing this right, but I am really trying.  It is a little intimidating to think of ALL the many things that I’m going to have to explain to Hunter as he grows up.  Things that are common sense to me but he has no clue about.  We haven’t even scratched the surface.

But…for now…he’s back to loving his daddy and that is the ultimate goal of an unintentionally bad situation.

Twins!

When people find out that I’m one half of a set of twins, the first question they ask is “What is it like being a twin?” My answer is always “I don’t know any different, so….I really can’t tell you!”  After 32 years of being on the planet with someone who I also shared 9 months in the womb with, I’ve never had a taste of what it feels like to NOT have someone who looks like me around all the time.  I wish I could provide people with a better answer, but that’s as good as it’s going to get I think.

The funny part about being a twin is that there is this bond there.  It may, or may not be something that other siblings might have with each other.  I really don’t know.  But I do know that if I haven’t heard from my sister by 9 a.m…you better believe I’m sending her a message asking if she’s alive.  If I get one of my migraines in the morning, she’s the first person I message to let her know I won’t be in touch for a bit until the migraine passes.  If something disgusting happens then she’s the first person I tell.  And believe me, we giggle way too much over immature things like farts and burps.  I swear we are 10 years old sometimes.  If we haven’t heard from each other in quite a few hours then at least one of us will be messaging the other with a “helloooo?”  There are days where I will try to see how long I can go without sending her a message, and often it will only last minimum one hour before I have something dumb I want to say to her.  We have full text conversations about nothing at all.  It might all be emojis….or worse…a series of the most unflattering selfies.

People will ask if we can hear what the other person is thinking.  Well….no….this is impossible.  BUT, quite often we will be able to have a brief conversation with just one look.  When we are in the dragon boat and the coach or someone says something, I can look back to my sister and when she catches my glance we know exactly what the other is thinking.  Sometimes it weirds me out when we are driving somewhere and I’ll be thinking about something totally off topic, and she will bring it up.  My sister mentioned that back in late November, early December, she had been feeling weird.  In an “off” kind of way she couldn’t describe.  This happened to be right around the time I found out I was pregnant.  I don’t necessarily believe that one twin can feel the other’s pain or emotions, but when she mentioned this it kind of got me wondering.  I know that when she goes away on her many fun trips with her boyfriend, when she goes it feels like a part of me is missing.  I actually get sad when she tells me that she’s going on a trip.  Not because I wish I was going too, but because it means a big period of time where I won’t hear from her.  Don’t get me wrong, I can function completely fine without her around.  But it’s just so different knowing that I can’t just write to her random messages about stupid things.

My sister and I laugh about our relationship.  When we lived together we could literally be screaming at one another, and one of us stomping off and slamming a bedroom door.  Then 15 minutes, after cooling down, the one of us will go and knock on the other’s door and say “so are we still thinking of going to the movie?”  And suddenly the air is cleared and it’s as though the argument never happened.  This is the only relationship I have ever had where this is possible.  Even though Eddie and I are incredibly good at moving forward after arguing, we aren’t as good at it as my sister and I are.  Our longest standing friends have had to develop so much patience with us and learn to just let us nitpick and bicker with one another for a few minutes, and never to interrupt.  They now know that often this is the way we get things figured out, and them interrupting trying to make things better just doesn’t work.  My parents know to not get involved in our arguments because they are well aware that within a few hours all will be forgotten and we are moving forward.

Eddie likes to joke that when he started a relationship with me, he had no choice but to start a friendship relationship with Megan.  He said one twin comes with the other.  He will hear about things Megan does, even if it doesn’t affect or involve me in the least.  If Megan tells me she’s down, he knows about it.  If we are ever mad at each other…he knows about that too.  The poor guy had to take essentially take on two of us when I came on the scene.  I’m lucky because, besides a few little head butts, he and my sister get along pretty well.  They may not always agree with one another, and both are incredibly stubborn at the best of times, but they have a good relationship.  And for a twin, that is important.  He always says that it’s so unusual that we are twins, because, despite looking the same as each other, our personalities are quite different.  Last night he actually said to someone that Megan is more like him in some ways.  I had to agree with him.  I’ve joked many times that the reason I can handle his stubbornness or blunt tendencies is because I’ve had years of experience from my sister.  And I’m not saying that these personality traits are bad things at all.  It’s just who they are!

Despite having a built in best friend and a “bag of spare parts”, when people tell me that they would LOVE to have baby twins, I always laugh and say “you don’t want that.”  Because…you really don’t.  Raising a kid is hard.  But imagine raising two, going through the exact same things/bad stages at the exact same time?  Having to figure out not just one personality, but two personalities at the exact same time.  My parents did an amazing job with the two of us, and now can sit back and laugh at how ridiculous it was raising us.

If anyone ever was to ask me if, given the chance, I would start life again without a twin sister, part of me would say yes, and part of me would say no.  I would love to try to see what life is like as someone who didn’t have to share everything, not hiding behind my less-shy sister, just being me….Andrea.  Not “the twins” or “M & A” or “the girls”.  Not having people staring at us whenever we go places together.  Just getting a chance to feel what it feels like to be an individual.  But at the same time, it’s been 32 years of having my twin sister around, and the idea of not having her around scares the shit out of me.

And there is my random Friday post full of thoughts that have gone through my head today.  All triggered from a text my sister sent me saying what her afternoon work schedule is like.  Because…you know…that’s totally a normal thing to do right?  It’s not like we had any plans for anything.  It’s just that we feel the need to tell one another why we might be out of touch for a bit.