The Look Of Hope

Chapter 58: Calm Before The Storm

At the beginning of November, The Browns received an interesting invitation in the mail. Mary almost threw it away, almost. But she held on to it. The RSVP cutoff isn't until three days from now. There's still some time to decide.

Today she and the twins are going for a stroll around the town. The twins are almost eight months old. Her happy babies have turned into crybabies, seemingly overnight. 

Anytime she tries to leave the room, even to potty, they cry. They cannot stand to be separated, from her or Bobby or each other (especially each other). One night their parents tried having them sleep in separate cribs. It did not work out as planned. The twins cried for practically two hours until Mary had enough of hearing it. She put Rebecca back into the crib with her brother and all was well. They went right to sleep. 

Dr. Li says this is normal. They are experiencing separation anxiety, where they tend to cry more. They just can't seem to control their emotions. Plus now, they're crawling everywhere. Rebecca started to crawl first, then Rhett followed. Both she and Bobby have realized, that Rebecca is more advanced than her brother. But although he's a little slower to hit milestones, he's not that far behind. He's very intelligent. Once he sees his sister doing something, he'll quickly catch on. 

One thing Rebecca does, that bothers her mother, is hitting. One day she snatched Rhett's rattle and hit him with it. He began crying. Mary, who had been putting a load of laundry on, heard the cry and left the laundry unattended. When he spotted his mother, he crawled to her. That's when she noticed the red mark on the side of his head. She kissed it, as he laid his head on her shoulder. 

Looking at Rebecca, she saw her brother's rattle in her hands. Putting two and two together, she went to her daughter and took the rattle back. Of course, Rebecca started crying. Well, her mother stared into her eyes and held her hands. She told her "No. No hitting. Hitting hurts." Becky didn't get the message, cause she still hits (her brother, her sisters, her father...). Such a bad habit. 

Unlike his sister, Rhett has taken to waving bye-bye and drooling a lot. It's a huge indicator of him cutting a tooth, which is partly why he cries so much. There's nothing worse than a fussy, irritable baby cutting a tooth. Frozen chew rings are his favorite thing.

Now that Rebecca is more mobile her chubby little legs aren't quite so chubby. She's grown taller too, but only a few inches. And she's not as bald on top. Her brown hair is filling in nicely. Bobby says she looks just like Mary, but she disagrees. She thinks she looks more like his younger sister Sarah. She's seen baby pictures of him and his sisters. Sarah has greenish-colored eyes (not really green, but not really hazel either) and wavy brown hair. Her cheeks are a little slimmer than Bobby's, but not much. Rebecca looks like this. 

Her brother still looks like his father. Almost the spitting image. The face shape, the eyebrows, the nose, the heart-shaped mouth and lips, and the blue eyes to match. So far he also has his father's calm personality, unless he's irritable (like now when cutting a tooth). If Grace is Mary's mini-me, then Rhett is Bobby's. 

After strapping the twins into their car seats, Mary drove to the downtown area. She parked at Mr. Fred's grocery store. Then she pulled out the double stroller and put her twins in. Locking the SUV doors, she began strolling them down the sidewalk. Anytime they passed an older lady, Mary would have to stop the stroller and let them admire her twins. "Oh! What cute babies you have!" 

On and on it went. For their part, the twins ate it up. They didn't cry or fuss or hit each other. Although there was one time when Rhett gave a lady, with a crazy hat, the side-eye. She pinched his cute little cheek.