Today, I reached my limit of arguing. I picked up the boys from school and got to listen to the insanely sweet story about how one boy lost his mittens, so they split a pair on the playground. “Mommy, we shared because we didn’t want a brother to be cold! Aren’t we nice?” We literally went from that sweetness to insanity and it went something like this:

Mom, he told me I looked like a moo cow!
Mom, he tripped me.
Mommy, he said he’s not my friend anymore.
Mom, he told me I can’t open my eyes because he doesn’t want to look at them.
Mom, he’s looking at me.
Mommy, now he’s looking at me again.
Mommy! He punched me in the face.
Mom, he slapped me.
Mommy! He tripped my feet.

They fought over who got out of the car first, who walked through the door first, and who got to stand underneath the alarm panel while I was turning it off. They made it a race as to who could get underdressed first (we still change clothing every day after preschool, because, germs). They were competing so hard about the undressing that they both got their heads stuck in their hoodies and their legs stuck in their pants. They were a mini heap of semi-nakedness in front of the washer and dryer until I freed them from their clothing confines. Still, I gave them another chance, with the warning that they would be losing iPad time if they kept up this behavior. At this point, they both needed to use the bathroom at the same time. I told one to go upstairs and one to go downstairs and that became a fight. The literally tried to sit on each other’s laps to poop, shoving the other off the toilet in the process. iPad time was lost; they went to the bathroom in relative peace. I sent them to their room to get changed as I switched the laundry and heard loud booms and screaming. I ran up the stairs to find them pulling hair, rolling each other off their beds, tossing books, etc. because they were having some sort of new clothing competition. Jackson was red in the face screaming “You are bad for forever!” This fighting went on for a while and I was done. I know they are still young and I understand the whole boys will be boys concept. I also understand that they have an innate competitive nature and it’s not always a walk in the park, being a twin. I get this. But today was overkill.

I decided to bring out an old friend. Does anyone remember the Get-Along shirt ? I made it a while a back while the boys were much smaller and were having a bad bout of fighting. They disliked it the few times I used it, but overall, weren’t as bothered by it as I had hoped. It didn’t change much in the long run. This time, they were much bigger. Having two of them inside the shirt at the same time was more of a challenge, and more of a punishment. They were not happy. At all. They stood there in that shirt, as I folded a basket of laundry and had the audacity to argue with each other and call each other names. After that, I started giving them jobs. They had to go put their laundry away, grab a tissue, throw dryer sheets in the garbage, etc. I told them that the only way to do this was through teamwork and cooperation and that they’d be wearing the shirt until they learned to be nice to each other and work together. They tried to run off to do their jobs and ended up looking like a Road Runner cartoon. They went down in every which way. They cried that they couldn’t get back up and that I had to do it for them. Mean mom over here simply told them to work together and figure it out. They rolled around on their backs for a bit before realizing that if one started to get up and helped the other, they’d make much more progress. After about ten minutes in the shirt, they were good to go. They said their apologies and played so nicely together for the remainder of the afternoon, with the threat of “the shirt” clearly looming over their heads. At one point, they were cleaning up their books and started arguing and I heard Jospeh say “Shh! Remember the shirt? Let’s be nice brothers.” It may have worked for today, but I’m not going to hold my breath on ideas of a calm tomorrow.

And just for good measure, here’s a picture of all three of my little loves in one of their finer moments where they love each other so much that they can’t sleep apart.