My Life in Nanny Land : Siblings

Ah, siblings. One of life's most complicated relationships!! "I love you" can turn into "you are the WORST person in my life!" in a heartbeat. It's so great to see those (rare) moments when they are playing together completely peacefully, treating each other with complete respect and fairness and kindness. Yes, they are rare! Treasure those moments!
Oh, to teach kids to treat their siblings the way they want to be treated .... it's not always easy. And they know how to push each other's buttons, that's for sure. They can tend to treat their siblings in a way that they'd never treat a friend. (Egad! Really?)
And there is sharing laughter and inside jokes, memories, and toys (sharing toys??!! yes ...) and learning to treat others with respect and work out differences.
Twins add another aspect to the whole "sibling" issue, as they will both be going through the same phases at the same time, and like to play with the same toys, being the same age. And at the age they are, things can be pretty touchy when it comes to "that's mine!!"
Usually, the kiddos' interactions are a mixture of getting along and ... well, not getting along. A little bit of both comes with the territory.

You just know when you hear wailing, that one of the kids will coming running to you with the report that "he hit me!" or some such thing.
Which I follow with "why? What happened?"
-- "I don't know! I didn't do ANYTHING!!" (which is rarely true)

Although "I don't know" seems to be a perfectly valid reason for "why did you kick your sister?" :P

I love the pictures I managed to get of the boys, or the girls, while they were getting along great together and I managed to say, "hey, come sit together for a minute and I'll take your picture!" They are some of the best photos. (I always bring my camera, but it's not easy to get kids to take a break from playing to get their picture taken.)