I’m not saying I don’t follow my own rules. I absolutely do. Although I’m not as strict about the 5 minute rule as I used to be. I like to write until it feels done. Or I at least end on a coherent thought. That usually takes me 5 to 7 minutes.
But for this entry, I let my fingers fly. It felt different writing. Maybe it’s because I’ve been participating in the Week in My Life project with @adventuroo all week. I took a lot of photographs and basically wrote daily narratives. It was a bit of chore and I think I needed this brain dump to just write.
***
I’m not talking about HAVING twins. Lord knows the blogosphere is full of stories of twins. My sister-in-law has twins. It was hard enough for me to be a mom of ONE baby. I can’t imagine doing it with TWO, at the same time!
But I was watching a video last night. While my little sickie was resting on the couch, I tried to find a show we could both watch (meaning something that kid-friendly and not another cartoon because some days I feel if I watch one more cartoon I am going to go insane).
So I found the corniest show on TV that I can’t understand why it’s on TV. Except for the fact that it DOES make me laugh. It’s America’s Funniest Home Videos. And one video was twin babies sitting up (guess they were 7 or 8 months) and making noises at each other and then trying to bite each other. It was cute and strange. I had recently talked to Evan about how babies use their mouths to sense the world around them.
But what I started to think about was what it must be like to grow up as a twin. You never really learn or discover anything on your own. From what I see, you rarely wear your very own outfit. How hard is it for twins to really develop a sense of independence?
And here’s the weirdest part. Have you ever met someone and known them for a while and THEN found out they have a twin? Like, an identical twin? That’s like meeting your husband and then finding out there’s another one of them in the world.
19 comments
It would be cool to have a twin so that there is someone there sharing experiences alongside you. I have known twins- identical and non-identical and they always seem to be the best of friends for each other.
My sisters are twins, just not identical. As children everyone thought they were…though to me they looked similar but if you looked close enough you could tell they were not one in the same. But my mom dressed them the same for a long time. If you met them now…they are as different as night and day!
I would have liked to date a twin, just to be able to see if I could tell the difference…you know if they ever decided to pull THAT trick on me. Hee…
I have fraternal twins, and it’s true that they sense the world with their mouth. They particularly love poisonous, dangerous things, and shoulders, which is *awesome* when the one with teeth starts chomping down. o.O
I try not to dress the girls alike, because besides not looking alike, they are two different babies. Developing at their own rates, each of them excelling in the opposite direction. Sometimes though, I’ll get lazy, and I’ll buy two of the same outfit because it’s just *that* cute, instead of searching out something else. People buy twins a lot of duplicate things, too, mostly, I think, because they think it’s what you want. Plus, it’s fun to get to the check out and have people ask if it’s for twins. It’s inevitable. So, we wear what we have, some stages we have less duplicates than another stage though.
They key is to focus on what each baby is focusing on and helping her to develop that skill. Thus, enhancing her independence and individuality.
I hope.
I dated a guy who was a twin. He and his brother was so in tune, I could talk to either one and feel like I was talking to the other. They shared everything and every thought. That got kind of weird after a while. We had to just be friends. 🙂
Being a twin has pros and cons, I imagine since I am not one. However, my brothers are fraternal but still struggled with find their own identity. And now I have boy girl twins. But at three they don’t really know they are twins. So we’ll see how that goes… 🙂
I’m a twin and know that despite our best attempts to be different we are so alike. As a child it was awesome always having someone to play with, but that awesomeness turned into a burden when/if I was annoyed with her. We’re very close, closer than I am to my husband. Where was I going…lol! I guess I typed all this to say that being a twin or meeting a twin is great.
Yikes. I have never wanted twins. Ever. And whoa. Try not to think about twins, even though I have had some good friends who are twins. I am shaking these thoughts out of my head, like I shake my head to get water out of my ears.
There. Think I did it. Phew….
When I was in college I met a friend and later found out she was a twin- identical. It took a while to be able to distinguish between the 2, but now I find they dont even look a like!
And, one of me is enough. I am pretty sure that is what my mom keeps saying to me anyways….lol
My sister has twin boys (4m) … I watch her on skype and wonder how she does it with a 3 yr old too! I’ve never wanted twins – I can’t imagine! I did think it would be cool to have an identical twin to go to school for me when I was younger! Seeing twins grow up with the most incredible bond is fascinating. I’d hate to have someone who looked just like me though!
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a twin & how much independence you’d really have. Although I do have to say that the twins I have known have been quite independent of each other & very much their own person.
Growing up I always thought it would be great to have twins. Now I have one and I’m very glad I don’t have twins. My boy is demanding enough! LOL. I have to admit that once in College there was a guy I was trying to avoid and I would tell him I was my twin (which is not true of course) – thought it was funny at the time. Maybe not so much now.
My sister and I are identical twins and we freak people out constantly when they greet one of us and realize its the other. We have also had our fair share of people thinking we we were mad at them for not knowing who they were and not speaking.
Wow – this makes me think of my two friends very differently now! One had 5 children in 3 years – a singleton honeymoon surprise, a planned pregnancy – twins, and a surprise while preventing – twins again. The other friend had a singleton then QUINTUPLETS (one baby didn’t survive), and then a surprise singleton baby – all in 4 years.
I’m an identical twin and there are some amazing and some not so amazing things about it. As a shy child, I always had a built in friend. In theory that’s great but I didn’t have to overcome my shyness, I had a safety net. It’s also incredibly hard to carve out your own identity and sort out who you are. When everyone in your class, school, town, etc. knows you as half of a pair and constantly asks, “which one are you?”, you get a little frustrated.
As adults, we are very different and oddly similar. (I know that makes no sense but it’s true.) We seem to get along better with just a little distance. We spent 17 years sharing a room, so being able to enjoy our space has been great for us.
I’m a fraternal twin. My experience with my sister is the same in many of the ways people have mentioned – we were very close growing up, we had our own kind of “language,” could sense – even miles apart – when something was going on with the other. BUT, we had a huge challenge in that we are very, very different, and by virtue of being twins and being the same age, grade, etc, I think everyone *expected* that we be more alike. But really, we are night and day. In appearance, in interests, personalities, you name it. It made several social situations very awkward growing up, and there was certainly a rift when I left for college and she stayed at home. Now that we’re grown, we’re not nearly as close, and sometimes I wonder if it isn’t some extreme reaction to trying to be shoved together so often as children.
LOL that totally happened to me at The Girl’s dance recital. Another mum & I were waiting with the girls in the corner when a third mum walked in. And we went boogie-eyed. We thought it was the mum of another girl in our class – and she had chopped off all her hair!! The mum saw us staring boogie-eyed and said “Nope, you’re okay. I’m the Auntie. She’s coming, and her hair is still there!!” They were identical twins, of course, and fortunately they were so used to people doing that they knew exactly what the issue was without us saying a word. So then the mum we knew came in and we were like “We saw….” and she said “Yep, I know. That’s my sister. Yes, I’m a twin.” I think it took us half an hour to get over it, just because we weren’t expecting it!!
I did know twins, at my old job. Became pretty good friends with one. They were similar in some ways, but dissimilar in others. I think they both grew tremendously as people once they separated (they live about three hours from each other now).
Ok, 1)I’m a Gemini, so I feel the twin within. 2)I’m married to an identical twin. 3) He is also a Gemini. 4)We, as in my husband and his twin, all live under the same roof. 5)I’ll just stop there 🙂
I can tell you that one of my biggest fears as a mom to identical twins is that they will struggle with identity and have a hard time succeeding on their own. Of course I want them to be close and always be there for each other. But I don’t want one of them to give up her dream of going to Harvard because she doesn’t want to leave her sister, who is staying here to go to UT (hypothetically speaking, since they’re only 3). Or I fear that one of them will have such attachment issues that she literally can’t function without the other as they try to carry on their adult lives.
My girls DO have their own things to a point, like outfits (I dress them similar, but not identical), and they know whose is whose. But they do share SO MUCH, and as I lamented in one of my WIML posts, they are ALWAYS TOGETHER, unless hubs or I take one of them on a quick errand — on which the other then usually wants to go too. They are best friends and worst enemies, and it changes minute to minute.
A very interesting book to read, whether or not you’re a twin or twin mom, is One and the Same: my Life as an Identical Twin and Everyone’s Struggle to be Singular, by Abigail Pogrebin. She dives into some heavy issues from her own experiences and interview with other sets of twins. Definitely worth a read.