O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I will never understand the boys' relationship.  How could I?  I will never be a twin anymore than either of them will ever know life as a singleton.  Not to mention I will never be a boy any more than they will ever be a girl (well, most likely...).  But they are certainly fun to watch, if challenging at times. 

For lack of comparison, watching them is like watching any set of brothers, except they are shrunken down to 21-month-old size.

They have always been jealous of each other.  Back when they were only four or five months old (or less, it's hard to remember since that was a LONG time and a lot of brain cells ago), they were already getting upset when I held the other.  At that point it was just, "But that's MY mom."  It didn't take long, however, for them to get jealous of each other.  The two redefine FAIR.  By golly, everything has to be fair from the number of beans on each plate to the time spent hugging them.

And, of course, since life isn't completely fair, they spent lots of time beating each other up.  On more than one occasion, Leon has come to us, tears streaming down his face, bite marks in his arm.  And sadly our first question is usually, "And what did you do to make Michael bite you?"  Almost every time it turns out that Leon has stolen whatever Michael was playing with, and Michael defended himself by fighting dirty since he is not as fierce as his freakishly strong, big little brother.

There is also the unintentional comedy.  Tonight before their baths, Michael was wandering around the bathroom in his diaper while I was getting Leon undressed.  Poor Leon was laying their innocently on his back when Michael got an urge to practice his words for body parts.  He walked right up to Leon, announced, "Eyes!" and proceeded to jab his brother in both eyes.  I suppose I should've calmly told Michael that yes, those are eyes, but perhaps we shouldn't gouge other people's, but I was really concentrating on not laughing hysterically.  It was such classic Stooges.

In the end, though, they have each other's backs.  Whenever Leon wants juice, he goes to the cabinet, takes out two cups, and brings them to me.  Once they are filled, he gives one to Michael, whether Michael wants it or not.  And Michael looks out for Leon too.  The other day while they were coloring, I told Michael he was doing a good job.  Rather than beaming at the praise, he immediately started pointing to Leon's page and saying "Leon!  Leon!"  He wanted to make sure I recognized Leon's hard work too.  If that's not love, at least from a toddler boy, I don't know what is.