Twinspeak: "The Boss"

I haven't posted about Twinspeak lately, but it is still going strong between K & O. (click here for another time I posted about Twinspeak). For those of you who are parents of twins, you know all about "Twinspeak" I'm sure, but for those of you not intimately familiar with twins, remember-- the twins (at least ours) know and often use the 'correct' word(s) when not in earshot of each other, but when in the presence of each other they consistently (and in our case, always, without any exceptions ever) use the 'twinspeak' word(s) in place of the 'correct' word(s). Some of my current favorite K-&-O-Twinspeak terms are:

• Syrian Bars = Cereal Bars


• Making Smoothies = either truly making yogurt smoothies in the blender or fiddling around with the humidifiers in their rooms


• Nanny Juice = Soda


• Bonk and/or Donk = the verb to slam with one's body


• Vacation Trees = Palm Trees


• Macaroni (when used just as the single word, not in conjunction with "and cheese") = the adjective anything good


• Bunny Macaroni = the adjective anything super good


• Stinky Macaroni = the adjective anything not good or in place of the word "yucky"

The funniest Twinspeak thing of late, however, is this~~~

A couple of weeks ago the four of us were eating lunch at home on a weekend. Owen started acting up at the table. Kyle said (in a very sing-song-y, bossy tone), "Owen, remember your table manners!" Immediately I said (firmly, to Kyle), "Kyle, that is not your job," and then (firmly, to Owen), "Owen, eat your lunch and stop acting up." Kyle said, "Why that not my job?" I said, "Because you are not the Mommy, you are the Brother." Owen, acting sassy, said, "I like it when Kyle says that to me." And Kyle jumped right in, "See, he likes it when I say that to him!?!" (this is another regular theme in our house-- often when we try to scold one of them for bothering the other, the 'other' will jump in claiming that they "like it" when their brother does whatever it is that we're trying to scold him for). "O.k., listen, both of you," I said "that's enough. Kyle, you are not the boss. Owen, you are not the boss. I am the boss." They both looked at me like I was crazy. So I tried to be more clear, "In this house, I am the boss!" Very upset, Kyle retorted right away, "No! MORFAR IS THE BOSS!" I didn't quite know how to react. Braydon was just sitting there watching this whole scene unfold. I said, "O.k., at MorFar's house, he is the boss, but at our house I am the boss." Owen was clearly unsettled by this. "No!" he said, "You are not the boss, MorFar is the boss." Kyle was deeply disturbed, to say the least. "No!!!" he yelled, "No! No! No! MorFar is the boss!" I had no idea where this was coming from or where it was leading, but I wanted to cut it off right there. I leaned down to his level and looked him in the eyes like I meant business, "No, Kyle, I am the boss of this house." Since that day either K or O or both have brought up the whole "Boss" topic at least once a day. It always revolves around "MorFar is the boss." Often while driving in the car I'll hear the two of them in the backseat discussing it: "Mommy is not the boss, MorFar is the real boss." "Yes! That's right, MorFar is the boss!" Or, I'll overhear them playing together in the playroom: "The boss is MorFar, MorFar is the boss!" "Yes! That's exactly right! MorFar is the boss!" These sorts of exchanges will go on, back-and-forth, back-and-forth over and over between the two of them. Anytime the word "boss" comes up, they say "MorFar" and in the past few days I've noticed them both starting to replace the word "boss" with the word "MorFar" (as in, "We are pilots! We are the MorFar of this airplane!" or "We are pretending we are teachers! We are the MorFar of this school!!!") I have been at an utter loss as to what this is all about... wavering between ignoring it and thinking it is just nothing, to frantically fretting that it is some sort of weird twisted three-year-old boy form of patriarchal-female-disempowerment. 'Why my father?' I've thought over and over in my own mind. 'Yes, I know they worship him, but The Boss?' And 'If they insist on it being a man instead of being me, then why not Braydon, why my father?????' I've fluctuated between just brushing it off and spending lots of time trying to untangle the whole mess in my own mind. And I've kept reminding the two of them that indeed, at our house, "Mommy is the boss." Until... yesterday...

When I got home from work a package was sitting in the garage. It was addressed to Kyle and Owen. And it was from MorFar! As soon as I got in the door the boys ripped it open in two seconds flat. Inside were two stuffed Fenway Park 'Green Monsters' wearing Boston Red Sox shirts and baseball hats. The boys were thrilled beyond belief, of course. They carrried them around for the rest of the night. They pretended they were "hitting the ball." And the "Red Soxes" (as they quickly came to call them) even had to eat dinner with us at the table. At one point K & O came right up to me, in the kitchen, as I was making dinner. "See," Kyle said, pointing to the "B" on the hat of his, "see, Mommy, it is a 'B' for Bosssssston Red Sox. See!?!?!" Halfway ignoring it, I said, "Uh huh." Owen tugged at my arm, "Look, Mommy, see, from MorFar, the Bosssssssssssssston Red Sox. See, Mommy??!!" I turned to look down at the two of them. Both of them standing there, holding their "Red Soxes" looking up at me with serious determined faces. "Yes," I said, "I see." Kyle smiled smugly and said, "See, Mommy, Bosssston Red Sox! See! MorFar is the Bossssssss!" And then they both took off running, very satisfied, with their "Red Soxes," to the playroom.