So here's the deal. Our twins came kicking and crying into the world (and in my son's case urinating) on Nov. 7, 2005 at the Queen. I have a dim memory of the recovery room, the kids tucked into a portable, clear and rolling bassinet, and my oh so aching body. 

This was before the Queen's maternity ward was remodeled, yet I was reminded by the staff every day that the new ward was “going to be great!” I still don't understand of what use that information was to me since the weekend my kids were born was apparently the same unusually popular weekend for other babies to be born and they had us stacked into the rooms two by two like some crazy version of Noah's ark. I was supposed to have a room to myself because I was having twins, but instead found myself in a room with my twins and another new mother with a poor boy who couldn't stop crying all night. Needless to say I was happy to go home at the end of the week.

Napa Unified says that children who are or will be 5 by Dec. 1 may start kindergarten that year, but some studies (and many of my colleagues with grown children) say that it's better to hold kids back until the following year. 

It seems we get an equal amount of anecdotal evidence for both sides. 

Many parents say the best thing they ever did was hold back their children because, they say, the children were taller and more confident. On the other side, some parents have said they regretted holding their kids back because the kids were not academically challenged and frequently bored.

Okay, so every child is unique and perhaps where going early to kindergarten is appropriate for one child, another better adapts socially when held back and isn't intimidated by larger kids.

Still, that doesn't tell us definitively what we should do with our kids.

If you've read my posts, you know our kids are inquisitive, creative, and precocious, but how are those traits pertinent to the kindergarten question? How can we think about this objectively when as parents we think our kids are extraordinarily beautiful and smart? Well, they are. ;D 

Is their word usage clever or lacking? They have an understanding of the globe, America, Napa, and can recite their names, address and telephone number, but they still say, “lelow” for “yellow” and talk about the grape crusher statue as a real man crushing grapes 24/7 up on that hill. Now that's hard labor.

To complicate matters, our boy and girl have diametrically opposed personalities and physical statures.  They have only known preschool as an activity they go to together. Should they be separated at some point? Or will they need each other to brave the new world of K-12? You can tell they're siblings, but they don't even come close to being identical. Even their skin, eye and hair color is different.

So tomorrow begins a new year of preschool for the twins, but will it be the last? Come this Nov. 7 the kids will turn 4 and before the kindergarten question goes into to full swing, we'll stop and enjoy the moment with  pizzas, piñatas and partying. 

Meanwhile, what do you think?