Deo Volente: Salem

Friday, July 22, 2016

Six

Six is... when some real scary things start to happen to your body, it's around then that your teeth start coming a-loose in your mouth.... At first you think it's kind of funny, but the tooth keeps getting looser and looser and one day, in the middle of pushing the tooth back and forth and squinching your eyes shut, you pull it clean out.... You tell some adult about what's happening but all they do is say it's normal. You can't be too sure, though, 'cause it shakes you up a whole lot more than grown folks think it does when perfectly good parts of your body commence to loosening up and falling off of you.

Unless you're as stupid as a lamppost you've got to wonder what's coming off next, your arm? Your leg? Your neck? Every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts aren't stuck on as good as they used to be.

~Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

Salem, who is (surprise!) Six. And here is proof.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

I do believe I may have waxed, eloquently or otherwise, about Two being a better age than One.

I should know better.

I guess, like birth pains, the pain of having twin two-year olds is easily forgotten.

I just don't know how.

February 2nd was Groundhog Day. I guess. In our house, that little fact is totally eclipsed by a certain second set of twins having a birthday.

We grilled. We baked. We partied. I fought my usual losing battle with my camera, trying to take indoor pictures at night. We congratulated ourselves for moving them over into the big boys' and big girls' rooms (and out of cribs) successfully before their second birthday.

And a few days later, I was calling my mother trying to sell them off.

It all started when Jonathan flushed a stink bug down the toilet. The next thing I knew, Gideon and Salem were finding flies and other insect carcasses under baseboard heaters and heavy furniture and wedged in window casings. Their subsequent multitudinous flushings necessitated my leaving the kitchen to fix the toilet.

I should have remembered this chain of events from when Abraham and Miriam were 2. Fix one mess, return to place of origin to discover new mess.

When I returned to the kitchen, I found Gideon and Salem had peeled the labels off the tomato cans. Gideon had his cup stuck in the automatic water dispenser on the front of the fridge (so water was constantly running in a so-fun fountain onto the unfinished wood floor), and Salem had the top off the vinegar bottle.

My mother wouldn't take them.

In all honesty (and all of this has been honest), these two bring us constant laughter. Exasperated laughter, sometimes, but still.

Gideon has this shock of curly hair that I just love. It's funny, this wee bit of his Grandpa Allison that shows up in this house. He has expressive eyebrows and an uncanny sense of rhythm. Like King Saul, he's soothed by music. We're keeping our eyes out for some bongos for this one.

And Salem. Oh, Salem. I've never met a more condescending two-year old. She has the expressions and mannerisms of a forty-year old. Even Miriam wasn't this patronizing. And she loves to sing. She sings to The Head and the Heart, and Gideon dances and beats on the couch.

I am remembering all the other things that happen when you have (or when we have, at least) twin 2-yr. olds. The crayons and markers get thrown out or locked up (by the parents!). Any cups with drinks still in them are hastily poured down the owners' throats before they get discovered by those who have newly learned the joy of moving a chair to get things that are higher than they can normally reach. Toothbrushes are hidden. Silverware is regularly counted, and when it goes missing, floor vents are checked.

Nothing is safe.

Cue the "Jaws" music. And cue The Head and the Heart. I am lost in my mind, and I have no hope of recovery.