Twin Teenagers!

We recently celebrated the twins’ 13^th birthdays. We experienced the usual throes of nostalgia, accompanied by a few nights of looking through old pictures. But honestly, the twins are so big now (both in height and personality) that it is hard to think of them as anything but teenagers. I made the usual poster board of birthday pictures, with the twins looking babyish in Hong Kong, chubby and long haired in early Germany days but now they were looking like the teenagers they officially are.

Birthday parties went off well, despite us not having contact info for a single seventh grade family in our town. Adam invited some boys over after school for pizza and games. He insisted on a cooler with bags of ice…and Gatorade. As a special request, he listed Mountain Dew and we happily complied. The boys played and talked all afternoon and Adam was thrilled. In the end, we took the boys to a minor league baseball game. Adam was again thrilled, chasing down foul balls while the other boys sat more sedately. Hot dogs and fireworks and his name on the scoreboard. We really worried that no one would show up but they did and we will forever love those boys for it.

Royce had a more traditional party, inviting a number of girls over for crafts. Again, we have not seen the girls and were mildly surprised when cars pulled up and dropped girls off. These new girls all gave Royce adorable thoughtful gifts, a purple monster stuffed animal, a goldendoodle dog puzzle, a Hamilton book. We realized with a start that these girls knew Royce and she knew them.

For both parties, we had some neighbor kids in the mix. Honestly, if no additional kids came, the neighbor kids would have been enough for both Adam and Royce. They are thrilled with the constant play mates. Royce said she loves having kids that live close and speak English! Two things that never happened in Germany. For the special teenage moment, and because we are caving to the constant requests, we gave Adam and Royce phones for their birthdays. They immediately set up a neighborhood group chat with the neighbors. One girl sent them both pictures she had taken of our dog. And the pictures they took on her phone of a robin’s nest and hatching eggs. It all seemed very child-like and again nostalgic but with a tech twist. I hope it stays this way a good while longer.