Meanwhile, here in the arctic tundra...

It is unbelievably cold here right now.

I know that you've had all the lovely snow... but we just got an arctic blast! The boys have been stuck indoors all week and, likely, will be stuck indoors all weekend. Hopefully the cabin fever won't be too bad.

I think it's one of the nicest things about having the two that, even on a week where no one wanted to venture out to have a playdate, they still had each other to play with.

Since the beginning it has been interesting to watch them relate to each other. When they were first born, they only seemed to notice each other when they were lying down in their crib. If you held them up in front of one another, their eyes slid off of each other like mercury.

Gradually, they seemed more aware of one another, mostly still in the crib with the cuddling and reaching out to pat one another... then the inevitable binky-stealing that led to their separation.

These days, they are playing together, stealing each others toys and - as you can see from the video - loving on each other in a rough-and-tumble sort of way. When they are sitting in their high chairs for meals they watch each other with more and more interest each day. Thomas, in particular, seems to find Max more entertaining at mealtimes than any other time. He will watch Max and just start cracking up.

Sometimes it gets a bit out of hand and I have to separate them. They aren't able to understand that biting isn't a great way to express affection (though it does seem to make them happy) or hair pulling... or that eyes are sort of a delicate place to stick your fingers... But none of it is done maliciously (that I can tell) and a split second after I have pulled them apart, they are usually all over each other again.

Despite the fact that they are identical, they are developing at different rates. Max was standing in his crib for a full two weeks before Thomas discovered that particular skill. Max grew his upper teeth earlier than Thomas. Thomas started crawling weeks before Max and was comfortable sitting up weeks before Max.

I wonder, as they get older, how much of this individual rate of development will translate into sibling rivalry. Hopefully, only in a good way...

In the meantime, it is so fun to watch them watching each other.

Last weekend we took them for brunch and started a game of peek-a-boo at the table. We were draping a napkin over one of their heads and saying (to the un-draped one) 'Where's your brother? Where is he? I don't see him' Then we would pull the napkin off with a flourish and say 'there he is!' this led to crazy hysterical baby laughter and, eventually, they realized that they could pull the napkins off themselves.

It was, without a doubt, one of the funniest afternoons I have ever spent.