They Pity the Fool

One weird thing that I’ve noticed since we had the twins is that people around the neighborhood suddenly know who we are. We are “the couple with the twins”. Or since our neighborhood seems to be sprouting twins everywhere like weeds, we are now “the interracial couple with the twins”, or maybe “the interracial couple with the twins where one of them has disproportionately large cheeks”. The twins are sorta like an unusual tattoo or birthmark or a mohawk or something, an easily distinguishable characteristic of ours that makes us easy to remember later.

Yes. Apparently I’m comparing my daughters, the loves of my life, to a hairstyle worn by 1980’s icon, Mr. T. Sorry, girls. Go with me on this.

Anyway, I sometimes find it a little unnerving that people know who I am when I have no clue who the heck they are. We take the girls to the park and I get all these looks of recognition from people, and I think – Uh oh, should I know these people? Have I met them and forgotten their names? Or are they just staring because they're watching the most breathtakingly beautiful babies in the world? (Does that make up for the Mr. T comparison, girls?)

I’m pretty bad with names and faces on adults, so I’m pretty much hopeless matching baby faces and names. When I see a baby in the park that I’ve met before, I usually don’t remember their name, but sometimes I'll remember some factoid about them, like – there’s that genius baby who learned to walk when he was like 8 months old, or there’s that baby that Riley has a baby-crush on, or there’s that baby who got body-slammed by that other baby in the park. These labels are helpful because later I can ask Kathy “who is that baby that got body-slammed again?" and she can tell me “it’s Mr. Peepers”, and I can go, oh yeah, of course, I knew that.

So as a public service for people who know Leah and Riley but have trouble connecting the name to the baby, here are some helpful labels:

Leah:
"The baby whose cheeks are way too big for her face."
"The baby who claps all the time."
"The baby who grunts really loud for five minutes when she poops."

Riley:
"The baby who splashes around like a maniac when she is exposed to water."
"The baby who bounces. Constantly."
"The baby who looks calm and benign but will bite or knock over other babies if they dare threaten her toys."

Mr. Peepers:
"The fictional name I made for a certain baby I know because I'm not sure if his parents read this blog and/or would be okay with me using their son as an example."

Mr. T:
"The coolest guy ever."

Um, I could go on here, but I'd better put this blog post out of its misery.