To separate or not to separate?

One of the "age old questions" for twin parents is whether to separate your twins or not - in bedrooms, for preschool, for kindergarten, etc. It's something we've been thinking about regarding preschool for this fall. (We're registered for a church-based preschool for MWF 8:30-12:30 starting in mid-September!) For preschool, we're leaning toward keeping them together. We'll see how it goes during preschool, and then decide later what to do about kinder.

Typically, I see lots of reasons TO separate - mostly the fighting over toys, trouble sharing, hiding toys from each other, both wanting mommy's lap at the same time, etc. Today, I got a glimpse of a reason not to separate.

We had a big morning taking the trolley to "Old Town," having lunch, running around, seeing lots of cool things, playing with friends, etc. We got home a little before 3:00. Too late for nap, but mommy needed a break! So, I told the kids we were all going to have some "quiet time," separately - Veronica in mommy and daddy's room, Jackson in J and V's room and mommy in the rest of the house. "Quiet time" is much quieter if they are in separate rooms!

In the process of putting them in their separate "cells" they both broke down! Veronica was crying saying she didn't want to take a "break" (our version of a "time-out.") And Jackson had a random fit when leaving Veronica in mommy and daddy's room. They were having nothing to do with it! You'd have thought I was about to murder them! :-)

So I asked them if they would rather have quiet time together. And they started to calm down and said yes. So I put them in their bedroom together and they are proceeding to play quietly together, while mommy gets some uninterrupted computer time with a beverage and some dark chocolate covered almonds! :-)

As much as they "fight" they really do enjoy being together. :-)

Riding the "donkey" in Old Town