1.1.16 So off we'd go

I raised 4 younger brothers, changing diapers at 5. But I had no idea how, if you persisted in having two terribly close together, you couldn't leave them alone. Until they were both over three. Or at least, with my very spicy itchy genes, that was true for us.

     She was 18 months older than he, practiced being pregnant and asking questions and inserting herself into every single thing prior to his birth. After he arrived, she did the predictable- demanded to be toilet trained. She bit him for his first year of life, despite all my interventions. I had to learn how to understand that she was not being 'mean' , she just had a whole lot of feelings about a new sibling. She just needed a whole lot of physical limits to keep her from easy access. She stopped when he turned one. And then? He bit her for a whole year. I mean, the two of them. Teeth marks! Biting down HARD! Geeze. Drove me nuts. 

     And really, with the two of them, you had to keep your eye on them every second. Once, at 1 1/2 and 3, they took off all their clothes in the kitchen while I was putting in laundry, opened the door, and ran out into the back yard. I came back into the room, and they were gone, outside running around, with the two dogs out with them, too. The very conservative neighbors next door peeking around their curtains, watching with disapproval. After that, I bought those crocheted doorknob covers, and that was that. 
     After an elaborate cooked lunch, being the obsessive that I am, I'd pack them into their down jackets and boots and hats and put them one at a time into the car, into car seats in the back. They'd be like these huge pillows, so puffy it was hard to find the kid in all the puff. I’d lock them in, because they were escape artists, hand them juice-water bottles, and set out. I'd round the corner, and stop at the convenience store, completely happy exhausted parent. I'd back into the store while looking at them, buy a Charleston Chew, slip it into my jacket, and go on out to begin driving them all over the earth, in the vain hope that they would fall asleep, and I’d have a break.
     So off we would go, polluting the air, driving here and there and there and there and there and there and there (their older brother was like this too), until their eyes began to close little by little, with me hoping so hard that this would work. 
     In the meantime, I'd be surreptitiously pulling the candy bar out of my jacket, pausing when the crinkling noise caught the notice of my daughter, who would open her eyes WIDE to see what that was. So I’d wait, hand frozen on the candy, til she got bored and began falling asleep again. Slowly every so painfully slowly I'd get that wrapper off, and then make sure she couldn't see me, when I bent my head down to have a bit. Then chew absolutely silently.
     Sometimes she'd notice the smell. Other times she'd nod off, and he'd nod off , and my heart would give a little jump of joy, and I'd hightail it on back home.
     Once konked, I could carefully lug one absolutely beautiful kid up the stairs, oof!, and gently take off coat and boots and hat, and put them on the mattress on the floor, where we all slept, of course. 
     Then I'd go get the other heavy beautiful child and bring them up oh so carefully, lay them down, take off coat and boots and hat, and cover the two of them up. By then, they'd stir just enough to roll into each other, and throw their arms around the other.
     I'd put up the gate, tiptoe downstairs, and sit in the living room, glancing at the clock and when I'd have to go pick up the older kid from school, munch my crap candy, fall over, and sleep.