Stories of Brilliance and Mayhem

D was showing off his awesome new Lego Star Wars Spaceship to a friend, and the friend asked if he built it all himself. Distracted by the spaceship, he said, “No… the… the one in the red sweatshirt helped me.” He was referring to his other mom, whom the boys call Maddy, (Daddy with an ‘M,’ who, like me, has been with him since birth,) and we laughed because he didn’t use her name. He clarified by saying her name, “LORI!” which made us laugh harder. L then said, as if we were all confused, “The girl in the red sweatshirt is Lori!” More laughter. Maddy says, “girl?” and L responds, “Don’t worry, Maddy, you’re a boy, too.”

I just love watching their brains work. I love watching how they piece together information, what sticks, and what doesn’t. I love being surprised by their brilliance. Something said that sounds rather stupid from an adult is magical and wise coming from a child. It’s just the awesome way they pull details out, like how, out of the blue D said, “Mama? Are the stars babies waiting to be born?” Or it’s like this conversation that happened first thing one morning:
“Mama, is air nothing?”
“Oh no,” I said, “Breathe in! Feel how it gets cold inside your nose? That’s air, taking wetness! Hold your breath. That’s air, pushing to get out.”“So…” he said, “Is air God?”
“Yes and No,” I said. I said that God is a Force in everything, if you choose to see it that way. He whispered,
“Like Star Wars!”

So I spent some indulgent time looking through my notes, inspired in part by the the time I spent reflecting on bedtimes in my last post. It was like browsing a photo album, looking for those wild moments of brilliance and mayhem. They inspired me, and made me fall in love all over again.

On a hectic day when the boys were four-years-old, I was getting L out of his car seat, and our eyes met. I realized I’d been so busy all day, I hadn’t really connected with him. I said something about how nice it is to look into each other’s eyes, that sometimes when we get so busy doing stuff, we forget. A minute later, he said, “if we die, we can’t look into each other’s eyes.”

When they were three, L found a small plastic Buddha that sits on a pencil. He called it Moona, and said it was his job to take care of Moona because Moona lost his Mama. He then said, “it’s my job to take care of the little people.” I don’t have an explanation for this. He was not familiar with Disney’s penchant for killing off parents.

So often, their brilliance is just the fresh perspective of a kid experiencing life. During one of their first soccer practices, the coach addressed a group of three that included four-year-old D,
“Are you ready?!”
Nobody answered. So, she used names.
“Are you ready,___?”
At their turn, the other two kids calmly said yes. At D’s turn, he responded by throwing his hands in the air and his head back, and screaming a long, high-pitched YEEEEESSSSS!, and then falling backwards to the ground, at which point the rest of the group took off in pursuit of the ball leaving D sprawled on the grass, oblivious.

When they were three, it was bath time one afternoon. L whipped out of his clothes & I ran the bath- But the water wouldn’t get hot! I explained that the pilot on the heater must be out. He kept trying the water, even after I put his shirt back on. He looked anguished. “Mama! I’m freaking out!!” he wailed. I went downstairs to try to light the pilot, and D watched every move, “You fixin’ the spaceship, Mama?”

I love how the mayhem of what they don’t know highlights their brilliance. Just around when the twins turned three, D found a couple goldfish crackers on the ground being pecked at by pigeons at Dolores Park. I was too far away to stop him from picking them up, and I hollered, “DONT EAT THAT!” He took off at a run, treasures in hand, and I gave chase. He had plenty of time to pop the dirty crackers into his mouth, but he didn’t. The point of his mad dash was to reach his brother, with whom he shared his bounty. They ate the goldfish with “Oh-Boy!” grins. I was so awed by D’s first instinct to share his prize that I couldn’t even freak out in time to prevent the pigeon-pecked, sticky-toddler discard from being eaten.

This picture was taken after L cut his finger. I was holding his hand up to stop the bleeding. (He was totally over it by then.) D saw L with his arm held high, and of course that meant he needed deodorant!

D had another moment of brilliance when they were two. They were in diapers, still in their bucket car seats. Maddy and I took the boys to the lake, and she went for a run while I played with the kids. We then traded. Ten minutes later as I was running, my phone rang. Maddy was in a panic. The boys were locked inside the car with the keys. L was buckled in his carseat, getting upset, and D was crawling around in the backseat. She had to borrow a stranger’s phone to call me. She had called AAA, but they said to call 911. I could do nothing. I didn’t even have a key. I raced back, imaging all sorts of trauma. Would the police break the window? Were the boys panicking; were they scared? By the time I got to them, the car was open. When L had started to wail, D had grown concerned. He saw Maddy gesturing to him from outside the window, and was able to crawl into the front seat where the keys were. Amazingly, Maddy had shown him that morning how to push a button on the car key to unlock  the door. He found the keys, and remembered how to push the button. Rockstar!

Earlier in their second year, I gave the boys buttered raisin toast, and they ran upstairs. After a few seconds, I followed them, and found that they had crawled into my bed. They looked so cute all snuggled under the covers! But then I found the toast in the bed, crumbled and spread over pillows and all, butter soaked in.

At one-year-old, life is mayhem. The twins still toddled around like drunks. They were barely able to navigate, yet constantly surprised me with new agility and what they could get into. I was cooking pancakes for breakfast, and the boys surreptitiously stole the carton of eggs. (They can reach the counter?! What?) By the time I noticed, every egg was broken. Several eggs were cracked on the floor, and the carton was perched on the edge of a low shelf with a few eggs leaking through the spongy cardboard, dripping down the front of the shelf. With egg dripping through his fingers, D was trying to store a couple more mushed eggs in a tupperware. So I was cleaning up egg while trying to keep the pancakes from burning, when a too-happy noise alerted me that the boys had left the kitchen. (They left my side? What?) With a spatula in one hand, and a dripping sponge in the other, I raced to the living room to find that the boys had opened the sliding screen of the fireplace (new skill!), and were flinging ash around with pieces of wood kindling. There was ash across the carpet, on the couch, chair and coffee table, and both boys were covered in it, especially D, who had the benefit of raw egg acting as glue. I raced to close the fireplace, while the boys raced to the dog’s water dish (a new PR for speed,) where they dumped the water and splashed with huge, wicked, happy grins.

Watching them emerge goes younger of course. There was the morning that five-month-old D pressed his open mouth against my cheek, and I recognized the intent as kisses! He was returning my kisses! A day or two before this, L was fussing, and I finally picked him up in front of my face, and asked, “What is it?” He looked into my eyes, and pointedly babbled back, very much trying to tell me something. He was telling me it was time for his reflux medicine, a medicine that made a very huge difference in this baby’s life. It was exactly time, and I had almost forgotten. His eye contact was so clear and connected, I often called him my beacon. Isn’t it amazing how their personalities are so established from the get go, and just become more so?

I appreciate being able to share the journey of watching my kids become. I’m rather thankful, too, that the brilliant mayhem of my kids has not included the level of destruction other parents have shared on Facebook with a sort of appalled pride. So far, so good!