Friday, April 27, 2012

The Screaming

The screaming is starting to get to me. Well, not just the screaming, the crying too, and the whining I guess. But I’ll be honest, the sound all kind of blurs together at some point. At least once a week Roger and I look at each other during the pre-dinnertime chaos and one of us (usually me) wonders aloud whether other toddlers scream as much as ours do. Because they scream quite a lot, I think. Not that I have much to compare it to. Maybe this is a completely normal amount of screaming for two 20 month olds to produce. How would I know?

I mentioned the screaming to a group of moms the other day, and while they were dutifully sympathetic, I sensed that they weren’t quite there with me, confirming my fear that this is not a normal amount of screaming. Or maybe it's the fact that even when they're not screaming, the echoes of their screams in my head just make it seem like it's worse than it really is.

But then I started thinking, it would obviously make sense for mine to collectively scream twice as much as your average toddler. But really, the average toddler doesn’t constantly have another toddler taking her stuffed animal or swatting at his arm or mashing his fingers with her foot. But mine do. So now, the extra screaming starts to make sense, right?

“Double Trouble” is true for most things related to twins, but when it comes to the noise level, well, I’m pretty sure it’s quadrupled.