It Starts

Everyone says "Twins, how do you do it?" I say: After the third month it was easy. They hold their own bottles, put food in their own mouths and just play together. It is a lot of fun.

That was before yesterday. Amelia* was listening to her echo as she yelled into an empty pitcher. A short while later, I heard the same sound, followed by sloshing. I followed her the sound to the bathroom where she had finally discovered the toilet. I knew this was coming. So I wash her hands and take off her wet shirt.

I was trying to put away dishes from the dishwasher. Anastasia figured out that she could open the cabinet any time she wanted. Both of them decided to pull out the contents of it.

While I am still trying to clean the kitchen and decide what to make for a dinner, I hear a tinkling sound that I expect is a spoon on a glass bowl. I didn't worry about it because it sounded like she was on the floor by the dining room table, but I couldn't think of why the bowl would be there. Still I continued to work.

The sound of breaking glass sent me running. Anastasia had pushed my ice cream bowl from the night before off of the couch and onto the concrete. How she got up on the couch, I don't know. I put her down and grabbed the broom and dustpan.

Before I can get that done, I hear Amelia screaming in the kitchen. Trash is scattered on the floor and she has her finger stuck in the partially intact raw-edge lid of a tin can. I take it out. No blood. I clean up the trash and put in a new bag as quickly as I can so I can get back to the broken glass before they do, and make sure they don't undo the trash again before I can finish the glass.

Once the glass is cleaned, I sit on the couch, TV on with both babies in my lap and wait for Mike to get home.

*The names given here may not reflect the actual perpetrator, but a close approximation.