If only I could freeze these moments

For the past year, I've kept a document saved on my computer with little notes about Anna and Margaret - funny little things they'd do, milestones they hit and when they hit them, little mannerisms and expressions that were unique to each girl, and just little things they did that made me laugh. I've never done anything with those notes - and their baby books remain sadly incomplete - but I some day (hopefully soon) plan to put those notes in writing and document the unique things about each of them that have made me smile over the past year. I think it's important to do - not only because I won't remember these things years from now, and probably won't have time to do much with those notes - but also as a reminder that even though they're identical twins, they're two unique people with oftentimes completely different behavior. It's so easy with twins to just lump them together so closely that they're almost one child. They've always been "the girls" to me - they've never spent more than an hour apart from each other, and they're entire lives have been choreographed in synchrony, eating together, sleeping at the same time, dressing almost exactly alike, same pediatrician appointment times, etc. I have to imagine that as they get older, that will be hard for them, and we'll have to make an extra effort to treat them as individuals with different needs, wants, and desires. They certainly have already shown us that they have very different personalities!

Even though I haven't put those notes together about the girls' unique traits, there are some things that Anna and Margaret have been doing over the past few weeks that I wanted to share. Lately, when Anna wants to get our attention (and that seems to be often...she's a little bit of the attention hog), she does this funny little thing. She cocks her head to the side and gets as close to your face as possible, and then flashes this huge grin. It's so completely adorable and makes me laugh every time. She's done that to me numerous times while I've been holding her in one arm while surfing the web - it's like she's saying, "hey! Look at me! You're not paying attention!!" The other night, Joey was playing with the girls in their bedroom, and he was laying on his stomach on the floor. He was playing "peekaboo" and had put his head down on the floor (or maybe he was just playing "Daddy needs a nap"). Anna came over to him, took her little fingers and put them under his chin, pulled his head up off the ground, and gave the head cocked/big smile look. I love it.

Margaret has this completely funny way of showing excitement, which she displays daily as her Daddy carrys her down the stairs in the morning. She swings her hands around wildly in this Kung Fu chopping motion, almost like she's intending to clap but the excitement is so great that she misses her hands and just keeps going. While she's swinging her hands around, she sucks air in through her mouth and makes this funny gasping/squealing sound. It's so Margaret - always showing such pure joy and excitement for life.

I was telling my friend the other day that I finally feel like I've gotten the hang of maintaining this blog, and though I'm not a very good or entertaining writer, I'm still glad I'm doing this. And she pointed out that some day, I'll love looking back and reading about what the girls were doing at a certain point in time. I hope that I'll look back and read about these little funny things they did and laugh - because I know these moments don't last very long. Have a great week! Countdown to the Twinskis' First Birthday: 7 days!