We’ve had a crazy week with our three Littles. For the first time in my life as a parent (15 years now), I am learning about genetic similarity. It’s weird. The Blitz has finally reduced his whole-house destruction to the kids’ room; he bombs the room with all the toys in the toy box at least once per day. This is what Tinker did when she first got here. He is now almost the age The Captain was when the kids got here, and he is The Captain reincarnated.

Heavens to Betsy. He has tantrums, oh my he has tantrums! Anything that is not his way is the end of the world. The difference between The Captain’s former tantrums and The Blitz’s, though, do matter; The Blitz’s tantrums last moments; The Captains would go on for 30 minutes. We are making progress; I can sometimes avert the tantrum by picking him up and saying, “It’s going to be okay. Take a deep breath!” I think it is extremely tough being two. I think that’s why we are designed to not remember those days!

Tinker and The Captain are “tied” in the race to talk these days. They are both making marked progress and are both behind their age level. I am not sure what is going to be the magic elixir that makes it all work together in their brains, but I do know that I hardly ever meet a 6 year old that cannot talk, so I try not to be overly concerned about it. The Blitz has passed them up in his ability to communicate so I am hoping that now the bar has been raised, it will speed their progress.

The Captain has further to go (per his age) than Tinker so I concentrate more energy on him. He has “homework” from speech therapy this week so we are working on that. We are also working on using a whole sentence with “being” verbs: this toy is broken; the girl was crying; I am hungry.

So in case you think I am complaining, let me make it clear– I’m not! The nice thing about having siblings is their similar temperaments and medical issues. It really helps to look at a younger child and say, “Oh, we’ve been here before” instead of “What on earth is going on here?” and starting from scratch. Yay!