The girls have apparently looked at a calendar and noticed that it was July and the start of the blessed Halfway-to-Four mark.

For one thing, they are sleeping. Okay, we won’t count this morning when Saige woke screaming at 4:30am from some kind of nightmare (which is why my awake ass is here, instead of in bed). The amazing thing is that this is not happening every night anymore. As many of you know, the timeline has kind of been like this: age zero to two: teething and more or less 24/7 screaming, sleep nonexistent. Two to three: no teething, but lots of nightmares, usually Saige. Darcy fills in on her nights off. Three to now: less nightmares, a little bed-wetting, mommy can sometimes go almost an entire week without having to get up in the middle of the night. And I am sorry for making this the here’s-how-much-sleep-I’m-not-getting-this-week blog for so long; I’m writing this because I’m happy that trend might be ending, or at least I pray that it is. Things got so much better at three, surely they will be even better at four.

(Also, I’m a little disturbed that the number one search term to get here is “fucking sleep.” Other variations include “sleep fucking” and “fucking in the sleep.” Now there’s an idea).

I’m also seeing less fighting, which is, of course, immensely helpful to my blood pressure. This may be somewhat related to the fact that they’ve decided sleeping is an okay thing. Whatever the case, discussion and deliberation seems to be taking place more often instead of instant KABOOM!—explosion, screaming and tears.

Logic and patience too, have dropped their bags on our doorstep, and they are extremely welcome guests. We no longer have situations where a promised trip to the bookstore produces a dual meltdown if, say, we get there and discover (to our horror) that the bookstore is actually closed. Shaking the door handle, explaining that the store is closed, apologizing and suggesting alternate plans—these finally seem to register now. This is not to say they don’t demonstrate a bit of preschooler displeasure, but I have not seen any more of the nuclear-level meltdowns this kind of situation usually produced in the past.

Their language development seems to have shifted out of neutral, too. They now freely ask and understand open-ended questions, and enjoy more complex stories during book time. We were formerly in a place where they weren’t really behind enough to qualify for early intervention-type stuff, yet always seemed to be a little bit behind their singleton peers. I recently read several articles on twin language development that confirmed what I already knew: twins each only get half of parental attention and the biggest reinforcer of language tends to be each other. That’s the cute “twin language” stuff you hear about…and it is cute, but paradoxically the more twin language you have going on the less real language you have. This is why so many twins end up in early intervention programs—they’re not “slow,” they’re simply victims of the fact that they’re twins.

Also, we are starting to have more scenarios like this:

“Mama, who are those babies?” Darcy points to a framed picture of them I have by my bed. It is an old picture of when they were about six months old.

“That’s you.”

“That’s not you.” (Meaning: that’s not me. We still have a wee bit of trouble with pronouns).

“Yes it is! That’s you and your sister.”

“No it’s not. That’s not you. I’ll show you you, Mama.” And she gets off the bed and walks out of the room. She comes back with a giant foam letter from upstairs. It is the letter U.

“THIS is YOU, mama.”

And the other evening when Bruce was reading them a story from the library about a bully, this same twin piped up and said “she should eat him.” When Bruce asked for clarification, she said well, we ate ta-bully last week (tabouli).

I suppose the good thing about the language delay was that it bought Bruce and I just a little more time to talk about things in front of them without question or comment. Those days are now over. Now every other sentence is punctuated with a “what are you talking about?” And now U had better answer.