A Little of This, A Little of That

• I must confess that we have returned to a bad habit — letting the babies sleep with us. Kate usually joins me in our bedroom around midnight, and Mark moves up to the guest room with Carson around that time too. The truth is I kinda like sleeping with Kate. She sleeps a lot like I do — she likes to cuddle at first and then she will roll away from me and sleep on her stomach. I make a pillow wall to prevent her from crawling or rolling off the bed. When she sleeps with me, it automatically adds at least 2 additional hours of sleep for both of us. I know it’s a bad habit, but at midnight it seems like the easiest option.
• Carson, on the other hand, doesn’t like to cuddle or sleep with me. He is 100% a daddy’s boy at night. Unfortunately for Mark, Carson is not a peaceful sleeper. He will toss, turn, change positions, grunt, talk in his sleep, etc. The exact opposite of Kate.
• The music table that the twins received from my friend Donna at Christmas has been the source of many fights lately. Every week or two, I have been introducing the twins to one of their numerous Christmas gift (seriously, Santa was good to them). I brought out the music table a little over a week ago. It was when Kate was so sick and I was spending so much of the day just holding her, and I wanted to give Carson something new to play with. Well, it was love at first sight for him. He absolutely loves the music table. Now that Kate is back to normal, she has also discovered the music table, and it’s become a territory war now. Carson thinks it’s HIS toy, and has been down right mean to Kate in his efforts to defend HIS toy. There are been pushing, hair pulling, hitting, rolling into her to knock her legs out from under her, etc. It’s been brutal!
• Carson’s aggression has extended beyond just the music table too. He follows Kate everywhere! Literally. If she goes to the window, he is right on her tail. He pushes, hits and tries to knock her down at the window. Then she gets sick of that and will crawl to the basket of books. Once again, he is right behind her to steal the book she pulls out. I don’t know what to do about it. Most of the time she just lets him have whatever he is trying to steal, but then she will reach her limit. Yesterday afternoon, I refereed a full blow slap fest. She was sick of him messing with her, and they literally fought over a wrapper they found under the end table. It looked like two cats trapped in a paper bag. Both were crying, but both also continued to fight.
• I break up the fights, but I am not so sure I am handling them correctly. It may be a draw back to being an only child. I didn’t have a sibling to fight with. I spend so much of my days now saying things like, ‘Be gentle, Carson,’ ‘Be nice, Carson,’ ‘You’re okay, Kate.’ Carson will act like a bully, but as soon as Kate fights back he immediately starts to cry even if she hasn’t really hurt him. It takes a lot to push Kate to the point of fighting back, so when she does I’m thinking in my head, ‘Well, you asked for it, buddy.’ I would love some advice from other twin moms on how I should handle this.
• I finally found some curtains for our dining room that I like. I have searched everywhere for months, and I ended up finding them at Target of all places!
• I am feeling the strong urge to paint again. My eye is on our master bedroom and bath.