Teasing

Just like fighting, the amount of teasing that's going on in our house these days is equally insane. It started off with Gavin doing the majority of the teasing, but Vivi has quickly caught up and now rivals her brother in the which-Rosier-twin-can-tease-more competition. "Nanny nanny boo boo" is an extremely common phrase around here. It's become so popular (and annoying), that we've subsequently banned it.

I know what you're thinking: what do two almost-four-year-olds (Yikes! Did I really just write that?) tease one another about? You guessed it: EV-ERY-THING.

The most common topic, however, is when one of them follows directions and the other does not. This causes one to subsequently be rewarded, while the other one is, well, not. The rewarded twin will usually continue to talk about said reward to the unrewarded twin until the cows come home, or until the rewarded twin gets yelled at by one of us about teasing his/her sibling.

For instance, the other day Vivian and Gavin were giving Wes a hard time at nap (surprise, surprise). Wes told them that if they didn't yell and scream (stay tuned for the post about their new out-of-control sleeping habits), then they would get a lollipop. Gavin went to sleep without screaming. Vivian cried and screamed and thrashed and wailed and flopped about for close to 45 mins and then passed out from exhaustion. When they woke up, Gav got a lollipop and Vivi didn't. Well, as you can imagine, Vivi was not very happy about this turn of events. But what made it worse was that Gavin kept waving his lollipop in her face and telling Wes and I (so that Vivian could clearly hear him, of course) about how he didn't cry and Vivi did cry, "Mommy, Vivi cried and I didn't. That's why I have a lollipop and she doesn't. Nanny nanny boo-boo!"

We tell them that it's not nice to tease and that they are not allowed to do it, but they just can't seem to help themselves. They're in a constant competition about who is more well-behaved, better at completing tasks, funnier, taller, and older. And when one of them thinks that he or she has a leg-up on the other one, the teasing is used to let the lesser of the two twins know about it. And it will continue until a parent intervenes. Again, I hope this phase doesn't last too much longer.