Equal but different

I think this is going to be the challenge pretty much the rest of my life.  Making sure things for the girls are always equal, but different.

Ok, so yes, I have a lot of pictures of my girls in matching jammies.  I get matching outfits for a couple of reasons -

1)  It looks adorable in pictures.  Makes everyone go awwwwwww.
2)  I'm a very visual person.  If outfits clash or there's too much going on in pictures, I have trouble focusing. Matching outfits means everything is coordinated so I can focus on my girls faces.
3)  When I find something I think is cute, I have an excuse to buy 2 of it so if one is in the laundry, I have another one.
4)  They don't care yet.
5)  There are only so many jammie styles on the store shelves.
6)  I don't want pictures where one girl is wearing something cute and the other one is in something schlubby.  That's just asking for claims of favoritism in the future.

I'm kind of afraid that Charlotte will keep growing a little faster than Tina, dooming Tina to a life of hand-me-downs that started out as Charlottes.  Oh well, I've got years to worry about that.

So far, the equal but different thing has presented two specific challenges - their baby books and their outfits for their first Christmas pictures.

I originally bought 2 very different dresses for their Christmas pictures because I thought they would go together.  But when the one with the ruffly skirt got here, it didn't look nearly as dressy and put together as the trapeze dress looked.  Also, it was a little too small and really difficult to get on either of the girls because there was no elastic where the skirt started, it was a firm circle that hardly fit over the shoulders or the butt, depending on which way I was trying to pull the damned thing on.  They were just too different and I disliked one.  I didn't want one of the girls looking at these first pictures a few years from now and getting upset because she was stuck in the ugly dress.

So I got the same dress, but in the other color option available.  It was a good choice.  Equal, but different.

The baby books were one hell of a challenge.  It seemed like every brand had a boy choice and a girl choice and that was it.  Any different covers meant something else substantially different about the book like the size, or the kinds of pages inside.  That just doesn't work.  And everything else I found was just blank scrapbooks that would expect me to create baby books out of thin air.  I'm willing to do my part here, but at least give me some questions and other prompting so I have a clue as to what to write in a baby book!

So finally, with the girls over 6 months old, I finally bought their baby books.  I was running an errand that happened to be next to a Hallmark store.  I went in looking for ornaments that would allow me to put pictures of the girls in them (we'll have a tree next year) and I was able to find 2 styles of girl baby books that weren't so gag me cute, and being made by the same company, they had the same pages inside.  Yay!!!

Ok, so I do like one better than the other, but I'll never reveal which one.

In reality, this blog was meant to take the place of baby books.  But then I thought about how I was interested in sentimental things when I was in grade school and gee, I don't think the things I've written in the blog will be appropriate for an 8 year old.  K and I will fill these out, bit by bit, as we have time.  I'll write the "about Daddy" stuff and he'll write the "about Mommy" stuff.

Here's the real reason we're procrastinating - our handwriting su-u-ucks!  Both of us.  We print scribble like first graders.  But we do think it's important that there be samples of our handwriting somewhere in the universe and this seems to be an appropriate place for it.  I just don't want the books to be ugly because of my horrible hands.  I type so much faster than my hands will let me write that when I'm writing, I often skip letters or entire words because my hands don't keep up.  I have to scratch things out and rewrite them all the time.  I don't want their memory books filled with ugliness and I just know that my handwriting ruin the darned things.

Page 1 asks for reactions to finding out about the pregnancy and various thoughts and activities during the pregnancy.  Crap.  My first reaction when I saw both of them on that first ultrasound - "They're back!"  Yeah.  Not sure I can write that thought down because it kind of forces one to ask questions that lead to ugly stories.  Activities during the pregnancy - Getting to know the triage team at the ER!  Probably not what Hallmark had a mind.

It might take a while to actually get working on these things.