Ice cream for dinner

The alternative title was Mean Things Adults say about Twins. You let me know if I picked the right one.

For those of you new to my little piece of the world, I'm the mom of three children - a three year old "singleton" girl and 6 year old identical twin boys. I don't like to make a big deal about their twin-ness. I cannot deny the bond they have - or that they are these identical red-head, blue eyed, pale skin boys - but it is my job to make sure they see themselves as individuals first.

Which is a large reason why they were in separate classes for kindergarten this year. Interestingly, they still have some mutual friends but for the most part I hear about different kids from each of them.

Yet, for some reason every birthday invitation this year included both guy. Until last week when a pink princess invitation showed up for one guy. And if he didn't have a disappointed twin brother we would've let him be all happy about the invitation all week. Unfortunately he had to dampen his happiness to not exacerbate his brother's misery. And if it had been the other way around, we would've been asking the same thing of the other brother.

Then I had to think of something fun for the left-out brother that wasn't too outrageous. I couldn't set a precedent that there would be an ostentatious compensation for being on the outs.

He came with me to drop off his brother at the birthday party. Then I took him to the local ice cream parlor for a chocolate frappe before dinner. I told him he didn't even have to eat dinner if he wasn't hungry. "You mean this can be my dinner?" he asked incredulously. Maybe this was outrageous. Outrageous enough.

He asked me about my day at work. When I told him I was learning the intricacies of some affordable housing laws he commented that he'll have to explain to a friend that when he builds houses as a grown-up they'll have to be "affordable".

We went back to retrieve party boy. In the car he said that the birthday girl's mom asked where his brother was. She then said she should have written "and siblings" on the invitation.

"But she said that now she didn't have to worry about who I was because he wasn't there!" he added.

So this woman told my six-year-old kid that her life was easier because his identical brother wasn't there. And he (of course) reported that back to all of us.

Hours later, I still don't know what to say in response.

I felt kicked in the gut by that comment. I hope it went over left-out-boy's head. Or that the ice cream softened the blow.