The Lessons:
1) If you give two kids identical toys they will still not be happy. Inevitably one or the other will decide that the toy the other has is better (even though it is identical) or one kid will decide she needs both toys.
2) No matter how brilliant you think your solution to a problem is, your kids can ruin it.
The Story:
One of my girls' favorite toys is a set of $5 Bruin Stacking Cups. They love to stack them up and knock them down. I even used them to teach my oldest girl her colors in about 30 minutes one day while playing with her. I finally got tired of the fight that ensued whenever Lily tried to play with them. Her sister would want to play too, but Lily wasn't having none of that. And to be honest, Mickey got in the way of Lily's more structured use of the cups when she knocked them over, threw them, chewed on them, etc. So when I caught sight of Mickey actually stacking the cups I decided to buy a second set so they could each have their own. I envisioned two sisters happily playing side by side, and figured my sanity was well worth $5.
Yeah, that worked for all of 2 minutes. And then Mickey gets frustrated trying to stack her cups and spies her sister's nice, neat, tall stack and knocks them over. Que screaming fit of enraged 2 year old who wanted to knock it over herself. So I seperate them and sort their cups back into two sets. All is well for another 2 minutes. Then Lily decides she needs ALL the cups because she is convinced that she should be able to stack both sets of cups into one large tower (it doesn't work, but you can't convince her of that). So que crying fit of enraged 1 year old who wants her cups back.
So instead of my vision of happily playing sisters and a few minutes of peace and quiet, I spent the time refereeing squabbles. Different squables from when we only had 1 stack of cups, but not quite the peace I had hoped for.
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