TWINS TUESDAYS: Little Skills

I let the twins play with scissors for the first time this week. They each received a pair of scissors for Christmas, and since I was going to have an extended coupon-clipping session on Sunday morning, I broke open the scissors' packaging and let them go to town.

This whole experience came with a few rules. They had to sit at the kitchen table with me, and the scissors were not allowed to leave the table. (Of course, they tried, several times but I caught them.) I showed them how to hold them, and I showed them how to cut. I showed them how to hold a piece of paper in one hand and the scissors in the other.

Since I was clipping coupons, I have them all the pages that I already cut or wasn't going to use. They felt like they were helping me, at first. Bunny Twin was way more into the whole cutting thing than Buddy Twin. He basically gave up after a while and started ripping the paper and talking and chatting and putting the pieces into a plastic bag where I was throwing all the little trash. Bunny Twin, however, was really concentrating on cutting, and cutting, and using those scissors. She was very serious about it. She is much more of a "doer" -- she is the one who likes to watch me cook and wants to stir my coffee in the morning and wants to sample all the vegetables when I am making the salad and wants to fold laundry and load the dryer. Forget the toys, she wants the real deal. Scissors were the real deal to her.

I remember when Big Girl was a little girl, and going to preschool, and how I fretted over her scissor skills. I really never let her use them, and realized that maybe I should have! So late last year, while perusing the crayon aisle at Target, I saw those scissors and the "preschool" label on them and snatched them right up. The twins were going to get their scissor skills early, my mind told me.

Of course, as they were cutting away on Sunday, I kept barking out rules as their little eyes lit up at the sight of these scissors in their hand. "No hair! No one uses scissors on hair in this house! There are special scissors for hair and only Grammy has them!" (My mother cuts their hair because she does a good job and, well, it's free!) "And only scissors at the table! And only on paper! Only paper Mommy gives you! Do you understand??"

Yikes. My anxiety was scaring myself.

But they did OK, and when we were done, I put those scissors on top of the fridge with the sacred crayons. Of course, Bunny Twin did not forget about them and asked later on the in the day to use them again. I guess I'm going to have to allow so "scissor time" into the daily schedule. And make sure they are put away safely, because they were pretty intriguing to at least one of the 3-year olds!