twins and the bear upstairs

Julianna asked me if she could be twins with Lydia when she gets bigger.

I never know how to answer questions like that. With a dose of cold hard reality? ("Well honey, twins are twins when they are babies... either you are born with a twin or you aren't. So sorry, but you can never be Lydia's twin.") It seems so harsh. So un-imaginative. So 'real world'.

I want my children to be children. I want them to have imaginations that run wild, I want them to create and explore, I want them to dream of growing up and becoming twins with their little sister.

So I how did I respond to her question? I did what all parents do when they don't know how to answer a question. I stalled for time.... "Ask Lydia what she thinks, does she want to be your twin? I think you better check with her first." Not surprisingly, Lydia was all for it :)

And then I told her. She would never be Lydia's twin. She knew the answer anyways - her cousins are twins, there are twins in her class, and twin babies in our neighborhood. She knows what a twin is, and she knew she would never be Lydia's twin.

But I am so glad she wants to be twins with her sister. And that they are content to just be best sister friends. But a small part of me wishes they didn't know the truth, and that they were dreaming of future glorious twin-days.

Which partially explains the 'bear upstairs'.

Apartment living is noisy. And the girls love to ask "What's that?" when they hear a strange noise. I got tired of the boring, normal answers [Well, honey, sounds like someone is pounding on the wall.... sounds like someone slammed their front door... sounds like someone dropped something in the stairs.]

So I created the bear upstairs. Now we blame almost all the noises on him. When a big bumping and thumping noise interrupts our lunch I love to hear Lydia say "He's dancing, the bear upstairs is dancing again." (Lydia is really into rhyming words, so the bear upstairs is a big hit with her - she loves to make up words that rhyme and come tell me: "Mommy, Mommy, listen to this: hand buh-land, it rhymes!")

The bear upstairs knocks, he sneezes, he takes a bath. One night Matt told the girls he invited the bear upstairs to dinner and the girls just laughed and laughed. (He never showed up.)

So here we are. Twin-less. With a bear living upstairs. And hopefully nurturing wild imaginations, abundant creativity, and lots of fun memories!