End of an Era

The twins are now 15 months old, and they're now in this interesting stage where it's no longer inherently obvious to all outside observers that they're, in fact, twins. In the first few months of their lives, when we had two newborns in the stroller, we might as well have had a neon sign on our stroller reading "See Twins Here!" or "Look at these crrr-azy twins!" or "Twins: Don't forget to ask if they're identical or if twins run in our family!" Every time we took them out in the stroller for a walk, we would get stopped every couple blocks by somebody wanting to look at the twins and then tell us something like how we must be exhausted. Because when somebody's exhausted, everyone knows that it always helps if you inform them that they must be exhausted.

Over the ensuing months, the Twin Reactions calmed down a bit but stayed in effect, with all the parents pointing out our daughters to their child and saying "look honey, twins!" Or the women stopping us to tell us that their aunt or their next-door neighbor or their mailman was a twin or has twins or wishes they had a twin, and boy oh boy, our hands must be full! You get used to it, though. You actually start taking it for granted, to the point where if you go out and nobody notices your twins, you get a little offended. Hey! Isn't anybody going to compliment me on my twins? You there! Ask me an intrusive twin question, stat!

But now that they're over a year old, we don't really get stopped on the street at all anymore, and we don't get the same looks of awe and admiration that we used to. The more common reaction now is a few moments of confusion, as in - "hmmm, those two girls look kinda like sisters but jeez, they look really close in age, so I guess they can't be sisters, but wait, they both seem to belong to that guy there, so, huh, maybe the big-cheeked girl is a tiny 2-year old and the pigtailed-girl is a gi-normous 9-month old? Or maybe it's some sort of weird Brady Bunch-y thing?"

And then, if they're daring, people will hesitantly ask us, with a puzzled look on their face, "uh, how far are they apart?" And they will react with relief when we tell them that THEY'RE 15 months old, and yes, THEY'RE twins. Ah yes, they think, that would explain it.

When twin parents get together or post messages on twin parent e-mail lists, they like to complain to each other about constantly being stopped on the street or about being asked intrusive and/or stupid twin questions (like "Are they Siamese?", or, after they're told that one twin's a boy and one's a girl, "Are they identical?"). But the truth is, I never minded the questions all that much, and now I find myself sort of missing the looks of awe and/or wonder and/or horror that we used to get just for having twins. Now, we just look like regular ol' parents! Oh dear, how very boring and mundane!

Guess it's about time to mount that neon "See Twins Here" sign on the stroller.