Twins Rule!They are truly amazing!

by Stephanie
(Beckley, WV, USA)

I know that every parent finds their child(ren) amazing, but twins are so fascinating to observe. Every day is an adventure. I am a single mother of four year old identical twin boys, and it is the delight of my life to watch them grow. I also discovered skills I never knew I had, like feeding two babies at once! From trading binkies to trading toys...to fighting over toys, they share a bond that I myself cannot fully understand. I've witnessed them exchanging long stares followed by ends of a conversation, I've had to ask them what some of their "twinspeak" words meant; "What is a "chuer-chuer?" my response is a rolling of eyes and "A laser gun, Mommy! Duh!". They do exchange tasks and behaviors. People ask questions about them all the time (as I'm sure other parents of multiples know all too well), and a common question is "Which one is the talker?" or "This must be the quiet one". When they get my response of "Neither, they are both talkative, but switch off about being shy occasionally", I get blank stares. A lot of people really don't understand how it is that they can be so similar in certain attitudes, but have such unique personalities.

They will be starting preschool this year, and even one of the educators told me that they would be put in separate classes so that "they would develop their own personality"...I really thought that the school system would understand that twins already have individual personalities! I do understand that they would want to split them up because of the teacher and students mixing up identical faces, or possibly their closeness being a hinderance in class ie-fighting, twinspeak, etc. With my children particularly, they have always had a lot of cousins and my friends children to play with, so socially they play well and interact well with others, but I have heard other parents of twins say that their pair will not play with anyone but each other. Every experience is different. Sometimes it does get very hard. There were times when the boys were going through their "terrible three's" that I actually longed for the hazy, sleepless, feeding every two hours, pack of diapers a day, exhausting time of their infancy. However, there are mostly great times. They were very happy twin babies, hardly ever cried, always have a playmate, learn compassion early, their imaginations are very entertaining, and I am blessed to witness their relationship and to be their mother. (I hope this makes sense, I've been interrupted about 15 times while trying to type :)