At the extremely old age of 15, Chase and Chloe have proclaimed themselves old & crusty. They might even be getting wrinkles. (Imagine how this feels to their Mother - who is clearly a couple of decades older than the crusty twins.) Having celebrated with a bunch of friends and family last night, today was much more casual day of birthday-ness. I dug through some old pictures of them to put on facebook, though, and remembered some things about the smaller versions of the twins. Before they were old and crusty.
I had forgotten about the soft pink babydoll that Chloe toted around with her but there she was in several pictures. In almost all pictures, Chloe is in dark colored clothes. That child was the dirtiest kid ever. They would go out and do the exact same activity & she would come in 10x dirtier than Chase. Pastel pink and other girlie colors only lasted one outing on Chloe. Plus she looks better in darker colors, my little brown eyed girl. Her front tooth was a lovely shade of grey - due to the fact that she hit it on something hard on several different occasions. I may have gotten a 'bonus' girl when the twin thing happened, but no girlie girl stuff for Chloe. She took gymnastics but got so angry that they wouldn't let her on the big kid equipment, that didn't quite work out. Dragging her out onto the soccer field may have been the best thing that I ever did for her. She needed to expend her energy & work out her extra sensitivity to sensory input by working her muscles. In opposition to gender stereotyping, Chloe did all of the moving stuff first. As soon as she figured out how to roll over, she'd roll where she wanted to go. She sat up, crawled and walked before Chase.
Chase did all of the verbal stuff before Chloe. I forget that he translated for her for awhile. He was easily upset when Chloe was upset, from the very beginning. Unfortunately for Chase, Chloe was often upset in the early part of their lives. Though he could say other words, he called her Abba for a long time. None of us could ever figure out where that came from. We called him chubby but having met some actual chubby babies, Chase was just chubby in comparison to his wirey sister. Chase always had the grin of a 'trouble maker'. One look at that face & you knew (and know) something's happening in that head of his - he's clearly hatching a plan. He always had a better plan, better idea, better way. Always. This has not changed. One of the pictures that I got out today was of Chase smiling up at Marin. Marin was his buddy when his Mom had to deal with his sister and the adoration was clear in that picture. Marin started the monkey collection, too. Digging out pictures of Chase alone is difficult. There's some of Chase with Tanner or Kaleb, lots and lots of Chase with Chloe and tons of Chase with Matt.
I found some pictures of long ago when Chase & Chloe still were able to play on the same soccer team. There was a picture of Chase throwing the ball in. I really should stop taking those, I think I have 5000 of them. And a picture of Chase, Chloe & I walking off of a soccer field when they were probably 6. I don't think I realized that it would be a staple in our lives, soccer. Chloe still runs off her extra energy & angst, Chase still has a better way to do everything, most pictures of them also still include Matt Baker. Life is a weird balance of change and continuity.
Old & crusty? Probably not. Wrinkles? I doubt it. 15 years of twin adventures? Yes. 15 years of figuring out how best to handle different situations - school, sports, homework, friends, parties- as a Mother of multiples? Yep. I'm grateful for both of them & the lessons that being their Mom has taught me. Never underestimate how one pregnancy can change the course of how you had planned life to be. Most of all, I'm grateful that while they get annoyed at each other and sometimes snipe at each other like teenagers do, they still are friends, still have overlapping friend groups, still hang out, still shared a birthday party and still depend on each other more than they'll admit.
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