As a person who holds two degrees in psychology, I have watched with interest how the twins develop over time. It amazes me that they have gone from a virtual Tabula Rasa to full-fledged toddlerhood. In fact, if we were to believe Erick Erickson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial development, they are right now developing their concept of Free Will and it’s been fun watching it bloom.

Of course, when I say “fun” I mean HEAD SPLITTING, CHEST TIGHTENING, HELL.

Instantly, it seems, my well-behaved, adorable little twins who would listen to just about anything I said, have suddenly realized they have… choices.

And I’ll be damned if those choices seem to always be something other than what I would have chose.

In a one hour time-frame from when I got home tonight until I finally wrestled them into bed, I had to put up with the following:

Swee’Pea:
-Threw her whole plate of food on the floor because she didn’t want it.
-After putting food back on plate and putting it in front of her, she ate it. But only with ketchup.
-Refused to open her mouth while attempting to brush her teeth.
-Closed bathroom door and tried to keep me from coming in. Luckily I outweigh her by about 150 pounds.
-Decided she didn’t want to stand on her pink stool to brush her teeth and picked it up and threw it into the hall.

TheMonk:
-Refused to say “thank you” to his sister when she shared her french fries with him. Had fries taken away until he reluctantly said “tanku” as fast as humanly possible.
-Pushed Swee’Pea and refused to say he was sorry. I had to use the “I’ll count to three…” tool.
-Kept turning light in bathroom off and on while I was attempting to shove a tooth brush in his sister’s closed mouth.
-Ventured into the “off limits” laundry room and closed the door while I was distracted by his sister.
-Refused to stand on his own bathroom stool. Pissed off Swee’Pea by standing on hers.
-Started to cry when I told him he couldn’t wear his Lightning McQueen pajama top to daycare tomorrow for the second time in two days.

And I’m sure there’s more that I have subconsciously blocked from my memory. It’s days like these that I want to call up the OBGYN that delivered the twins and ask him what his return policy is. I’m pretty sure my insurance covers the extended warranty.

*My Beautiful Wife normally tag teams with me and we tackle them one-on-one but tonight she was suffering from the same cold the twins passed onto us this past weekend. Since I have many night time functions now with my new job, I definitely owed her one (and probably many more).