My husband insists I’ve been blogging for the last three years or so, anyway, on a message board (or two) for moms of twins.  But during the course of the last eight months or so,  there’s been an exodus from our old board to a brand spanking new one, and somehow the everyday conversation has evolved to be much more about us moms, rather than our kids.  And that’s okay, but I’ve found that I’ve stopped making notes about too much of what my two are doing–and there’s far too much for me to remember than I can trust my forty-nine-year-old brain to retain for the long haul.  So here I am…  And here they are.

My guys, Leo and Luka

 

Leo’s the angelic-looking curly-headed fellow on the left, and Luka’s the sweet-faced, bright-eyed one on the right.  Leo has been variously diagnosed with mild hypotonia (low muscle tone), auditory processing problems, sensory integration disorder and a profound speech delay (in one case, his speech therapist felt he was apraxic, but that’s a story for another day).   He’s also got severe food and environmental allergies, and testing suggests the irritation they caused to his brain and central nervous system is the source of most of his issues and the resulting developmental delay.  And while so many people–educators, therapists and other moms alike–are in a big hurry to plop him “on the spectrum,” which is apparently where any three-year-old who doesn’t speak yet belongs (um, no…), I won’t let him be pigeonholed.  He’s smart as a whip, and is many other things, too, but autistic isn’t one of them…

Luka, his twin, is equally smart and at the same time, a completely different personality.  He’s far more of a helper than any three-year-old ought to be, and has always seemed to consider himself just another one of the adults around the house, while Leo is–to him, at least–the baby.  In all fairness, Leo was the second-born, but Luka still only has thirty-two minutes on him…  Anyway, Luka has an impressive command of language, and also a flair for music and comedy; he’s a born performer.  He’s also a no-nonsense kind of kid, and has no problem telling me to get over myself when I need to, with a “Mama, you make me nuts,” said with a dismissive giggle as he wandered off to make me yet another present.  Did I mention he’s a sweet little boy, too?

As for the name of this blog, I’m periodically reminded of encountering this guy downtown one afternoon when my husband and I were at the Mind, Body and Spirit expo.  We were strolling the boys around–and at little more than a year old, there was no indication at all that Leo had any developmental issues.  But Kramer was there doing astrological readings, and having had some dealings with him in the past, I stopped to say hello.  He asked the boys’ birthdays, and after commenting, “So, twins had twins–interesting,” (since my husband and I were born all of eight minutes apart on the same day) he warned us that at some point, we’d be told that one or both of the boys had developmental problems.  Sort of a surprising thing to hear, clear out of the blue like that, but there you go…

Kramer elaborated that because of some particular configuration of the outer planets in the boys’ astrological charts, their perception of things was different than ours, or “90 degrees off…”  As he put it, if one of the boys was slow to speak, it was because he didn’t need to communicate that way, that he was operating on a different level.  And his follow-up warning to us was, “Whatever you do, don’t let them medicate them.”  And I haven’t, not because Kramer said so, but because it’s not what Leo needs.

He was right about that; Leo does operate on a different level.  Of course, on Leo’s level, three-year-olds do annoying amusing things like accidentally pulling chandeliers down from ceilings (though he seemed contrite about that one).  But he does seem to have that sort of little-bit-sideways, skewed perspective on things (and frequently peeks at life out of the corners of his eyes like that) , and since I’ve got to try to stay at least a couple steps ahead of the boys, I guess that’s how my thinking works these days, too.