This morning we went to get flu shots (the grown-ups, the kids had already gotten theirs at their pediatrician's office), and when I got home, I breezed through what has become a pretty familiar routine, but one that I was nervous about a couple months ago.
I parked in our driveway (our driveway and garage were built weirdly, to the point that our van doesn't have enough room to turn and maneuver into the garage. It has to live outside, poor thing.), opened both automatic side doors, unbuckled Sam, carried him into the garage, snapped him into the waiting stroller. Then I went around to the other side of the van, unbuckled Abbie, grabbed my diaper bag and my purse, pulled my key out of the purse, got my drink from Panera out of the cupholder, shut all the van doors, locked the van, hauled all of that (including Abbie) into the garage, and closed the garage door behind me. I carried her into the playroom, dropping bags and such where they needed to go on my way, and set her down in the nice, secure, child-proof room. Then I went back out and fetched Sam from the garage where he was (thankfully, patiently) waiting in the stroller.
Why the elaborately choreographed kid schlepping? Well, I don't want to leave anybody outside and out of my sight line. We don't use pumpkin seats anymore. And my kids aren't walking yet.
It's one of those things about having twins that I would never have thought of before I had mine... how to get everyone safely into the van when they can't walk yet. For parents with kids of different ages, if one child has to be carried, usually the others can at least walk to the vehicle with their parents under their own power. :-) I was thinking about this sort of unexpected little challenge in twin parenting the other day, and I reached out to some of my twin parent friends to see if they could help me come up with a few more examples, and I think we came up with a fun and eye-opening list. Some of them haven't come up with my kids yet, so I had my eyes opened a bit, too :-)
