Where's the Baby?!*

This morning, the boys woke up with great difficulty. But before they'd even had time to call out, "MILK?!" (in that voice that makes you wonder how they could think, morning after morning, that you were going to forget?) Leo sat up straight and asked, "We see baby? School closed? We see baby?" and then, "Baby! Out! Laurence! Stomach! We see baby?"

See, yesterday we'd gone on a long winter walk in the afternoon (actually, we didn't get so very far - it just took a long time to get as far as we did, thanks to all of the sticks that needed picking up and waving and tossing into the river; and to the tens of school boys out on the art museum's square with their skateboards; and to the covered bridge that needed to be mounted... that kind of thing). When we got to the top of the covered bridge, the gulls all flew frantically away, but they stuck close to their perch, tooling around in the sky, swooping low over the terrace... Suddenly, Tomi pointed and cried out, "BIG GUW! LOOK!" It took me a few seconds to realise what he was talking about: the big gull was actually a big stork, gliding between us and the next bridge. It was astoundingly beautiful. In the weird three-year-old-twins-with-their-mom conversation that followed, I happened to bring up the legend of the stork bringing babies, & told them that they'd be seeing the baby the stork had brought the very next day, when we went to see Laurence & Guillaume. Afterwards, Tomi kept looking around, then looking at me in a concerned kind of way and asking, "Baby? Where?"

It's not so very often that the boys've shown a real understanding of concepts of time, so that was kind of a big deal. But it was an even bigger deal to hear an understanding of the concept of the baby's arrival. I'm still a bit shocked, to be honest.

A note to all who are interested in children's early years, and perhaps especially to those who are in the midst of them with multiples:
In the last couple of weeks, the boys have been making leaps and bounds out of toddler-hood and into little-boy-hood. It's been astounding and great fun to watch and to participate in - though it's also brought with it the trials and tribulations that this age is notorious for... x 2 (or more. People like to joke about twins being everything x 2, but to be honest - & whether it's the good stuff or the not-so-good stuff - it's more like x 3-5). We have SO much fun with them, and they are both SO unbelievably sweet and kind and delightful. But the three-dom of this two-some may nevertheless have me buying stock in Neurofen.

* This little baby game features in the film Ice Age. And we've seen this film several million times since it was procured...