Only 23 days left!

Okay - maybe it's just me, but I truly believe that Ty is still living in denial and doesn't believe that his sisters are here to stay. They are 2 1/2 years old and he STILL doesn't know their names! Don't get me wrong, he obviously realizes that he has three sisters named Dayne, Tara, and Dru, but to save his life he couldn't tell you who's who. Nor does he care to try. Now I realize that the girls DO look a lot alike (hence the term "identical") and most grown ups have a hard time telling them apart, but it IS possible. Cam has been keeping them straight for us from the day they came home from the hospital. He has an uncanny ability to tell them apart from across a crowded room in the dark. We don't know how, but he does.

About a year ago Ty was in a timeout for doing something to Tara. When his timeout was over I told him that he needed to go apologize to her. He walked into the room where all three girls were playing, and with a scowl on his face looked at each one and said "sorry, sorry, sorry". A blanket apology, knowing that one of the apologies would land on Tara. I told him that day that I thought it was time he try to learn his sister's names. His response was "When I'm four, I'll learn their names". That seemed logical to him, and he was turning four just a few weeks from then, so I didn't push him. He turned four 338 days ago. He'll be five in 23 days. He is no closer to knowing his sisters now than he was then.

Another example: A few months ago Ty brought me a project that he'd been working on, and proudly showed me the paper that he'd written the names of "everyone in our family". I was very impressed that he was writing names and sounding out words (see previous T-I-T post), so I read it out loud. He wrote "DAD", "MOM", "CAM", "TY", and "FLE" (he told me to sound it out - it spells "family"!) He said "That's everyone in our family!"
"Everyone?" I asked?
"Yep!"
"Are you sure you're not forgetting anyone, Ty?"
With a look of astonishment that he'd actually forgotten this, he said "Fast Eddie! Can you help me write Fast Eddie?" For those of you who don't know, Fast Eddie is his hamster.
Cam jumps in saying "Ty, you forgot the girls!"
"There's not room for them. Mommy, can you help me write Fast Eddie?"
If that's not denial, I don't know what is.

Over the past couple months I've been pretty persistent with trying to get him to take the time to take some good hard looks at the girls to notice the differences and sort out their names. He still only calls them "Baby" and "Other Baby", or if they're wearing different colors we might be lucky if he calls them "Purple Girl", "Pink Girl", or "Yellow Girl".

I'm at a loss as to what to do. Do I keep persisting, and explain that the girls would be so happy to hear him use their names every now and again, or do I look on the bright side knowing that because of his labels the girls will learn their colors faster?