Mrs. G is a great teacher, and a warm and lovely person. I once ran into her at the grocery store and we chatted for an hour. I’ve met her granddaughter, a sweet, well-behaved little girl. In the classroom, Mrs. G is loving but firm, supportive but demanding. Still, my head began to pound as I tried to think through the repercussions of this placement.

Our daughter J, you see, is already in Mrs. G’s class. At the recommendation of J’s kindergarten teacher, and following much agonizing soul-searching, we decided to allow her to skip 75% of kindergarten and 25% of 1st grade to join Mrs. G’s class midstream. M stayed in kindergarten for a further 9 weeks, which brings us to today.

Having M skip to 1st grade mid-year is a no-brainer. The academic work is no challenge for her, and her wonderful kindergarten teacher took the time to make sure that M is emotionally ready. M even spent some time in the 1st grade classroom before the holidays to confirm that she wouldn’t be overwhelmed. My husband and I have already talked through the consequences of J being a year younger than her peers, and having one fewer year in school. The same concerns apply to M. Weighing everything, we decided to let J move on up when her teacher recommended it, and we’re simply doing the same with M. That headache has, for the most part, dulled.

The source of today’s headache is that M and J will be in the same classroom. A lot of thought went into our choosing to exercise our right to have our daughters placed in different classrooms when they entered school. In a nutshell, we thought that the girls needed to establish themselves as individuals, both in their own perception and in that of their peers. Texas state law gives us the right to demand that our daughters be separated, but I recognize that the school has already gone to lengths to accomodate the girls’ learning styles, prior education and emotional maturity.

I may be worn out by the emotional drain of trying to make the right decisions for our daughters in uncharted territory. I certainly don’t have any desire to fight the school. My husband and I spoke briefly this evening, and agreed that the basic goals of splitting the girls into separate classes had been accomplished. They have separate friends. They know that they are liked as individuals, and not just as a set. They have learned to rely on friends for companionship, and to do so without Sissy to fall back on. J and M understand that they don’t have to do everything together.

There’s an entirely new set of concerns now. Mrs. G’s class is J’s territory. Will M be treated as her own person by the other kids, or will she simply be seen as J’s twin, the target of all the attention and assumptions about twins we were trying to avoid?

The girls are a little hesitant about the change. M doesn’t want to leave her kindergarten teacher, whom she loves dearly. J isn’t quite ready to share her spot as class cutie. She was a little miffed at her classmates’ excitement when M visited last month. She told me that she felt that the girls who told M she was cute were “M’s 1st grade girls.” They usually tell J that she is cute; she’s the class clown. She didn’t say that it had upset her, but I could read between the lines. Mrs. G told me that she had sat M next to another child during the school day, but recess and lunch are a different matter.

Mrs. G is someone we trust to teach our children, so it’s time for a leap of faith. We can always request the school to place M and J in different classrooms next year.

What do you think? Should I be asking the school to accomodate M and J’s placement in separate classrooms for the rest of the school year?

Sadia and her husband parent their 5-year-old daughters in El Paso, TX as full-time volunteers. They each have income-generating careers on the side, she in IT and he in the military.

But now, let’s talk about sports!

My boys played tee ball last spring, and their coaches learned which boy wore which pair of shoes so they could call them by name. Yes, their coaches were that awesome, because both sets of shoes are mostly grey and black, and just have tiny bits that are green or red.

They played flag football this summer, and that was trickier. For one thing, black cleats were pretty standard. For another, it’s not like tee ball where the kids are mostly coached one by one, or assigned a spot. The boys had big numbers on the backs of their jerseys, but from the front it was anyone’s guess.

To help the coaches (and everyone), I took to putting an X in surgical tape on one boy’s shirt. I felt so weird about this — first because I was afraid he wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t mind. But I still felt like I was branding him in some odd way. I also felt like maybe I was making a bigger deal out of this than it needed to be.

It turned out to be a good thing. Their coaches were great about remembering which boy got the X (the one who has an X in his name, which made it easier) and my boys benefited from being called by name. And I have to admit, I relied on that X to keep track of who was where from the sidelines. It saved me from a lot of, “YAY! GREAT JOB– (who was that?) – GREAT JOB, um, SON!”

When your look-alike multiples are in uniforms, what strategies do you use to help other people tell them apart?
Jen is a work-from-home mom of 7-year-old twin boys, and two girls ages 5 and 9. She also blogs at Minivan MacGyver, where she freaks out about every single thing that happens at school.

“They’re healthier for being twins,” said my husband, as if stating a basic truth.

I had no idea what he was talking about. If we’d had a singleton, there would have been far less chance chance of the health challenges that come with prematurity. I asked him to elucidate.

“Well, they’re happy. They make each other happy, and happiness has more to do with health than most people give it credit for.”

I had no argument with that statement. As someone with chronic depression, I know full well how our minds can affect our physical health.

He wasn’t done, though.

“We can’t keep up with them and the rest of our lives. If we didn’t have to worry about the house, and cooking, and errands, we could keep up with their energy, but we do have the house to clean and life to manage. They can keep up with each other, though. They don’t have to slow down just because we have to slow down. Because they have each other, they can just keep going.”

J and M are perfectly matched in energy and creativity. They keep up with each other in so may ways that my husband and I don’t. J listens to the seemingly endless flood of details that pour out of M. M can run, jump and climb for as long as J wants to, especially now that they each have a lofted bed in their room. There’s no temptation to plunk them in front of the television when I can invite them to create a new imaginary world in their room.

I know that for many twins, maybe most, the adage that they’ll always have someone to play with is far from true. With ours, though, it is right on the money. My husband is right–M and J are healthier for having one another, in body and mind.

In what surprising ways have your multiples impacted each other?

Our family’s experience with prematurity was a lot less scary than it could have been, although it felt devastating at the time. Neither of our girls needed help breathing, but they weighed under 7lb (3.2 kg) put together. Their Apgar scores were excellent, but they didn’t have the body fat they needed to maintain their own body temperatures ex-utero. They were released from the hospital over a month before their due date.

Looking at our vibrant, sassy, smart and downright hilarious five-year-olds, no one who isn’t in the know about twin birth statistics would guess that their birth held any unusual struggle. They’re short for their age, but so am I. My 5 ft 0 in (1.5 m) genes appear to have beaten out those of the girls’ 6 ft 7 in (2.0 m) great uncle. M and J have had only two lasting effects from being born before they were quite ready: a susceptibility to lung infections, and teeth missing enamel.

The lung infection issue came as no surprise. Our pediatrician and the NICU staff had warned us that lung complications were common in babies who began to breath when their lungs were still forming. Our insurance covered Synagis, the vaccine against RSV, a virus that gives you and me the sniffles, but can be fatal to a premature infant. I made the monthly trek to the one local clinic that dispensed the vaccines for the entire seven months of our girls’ first cold season. Their second winter, our insurance company deemed them out of danger. Sure enough, first J and then M came down with RSV. It was another three years before we were able to celebrate the retirement of the nebulizer that J used to ease the laboured breathing that kicked up without warning year-round.

The tooth issue, on the other hand, came as a huge surprise.

I thought we were doing everything right in the dental care department. We started using infant finger toothbrushes to massage the babies’ gums well before they had teeth. We added toothpaste when their first teeth broke through, and brushed morning and night, without fail. We brushed their teeth for them until they turned five, and gave them toothbrushes that they could practice with. Before M and J turned two, we introduced flossing, the the form of one-time-use kids’ flossers. To this day they consider going to bed without flossing unthinkable. Our pediatrician praised the girls for their dental hygiene. Even though I knew full-well that dentists recommended a first visit be scheduled at the sight of the first tooth, I put it off until the girls were three.

At their first visit, the dentist discovered cavities in both girls’ mouths. It turned out that both J and M suffered from enamel hypoplasia, or a lack of enamel on a number of their teeth. As luck, or more likely genes, would have it, our monozygotic daughters had hyplasia on the same teeth. Their cavities were were also coordinated. Identical twins, with identical tooth issues, I suppose.

We left the dentists’ office with fillings, prescription fluoride toothpaste, and another reminder that however far away their premature birth feels, it keeps popping back up. At our next visit to the pediatrician, I told him the sad tale of the girls’ teeth, and he promised to pass along to the next preemie parents he saw the recommendation to get to a dentist soon. And now, I pass that recommendation to you.

M and J are five years old. In all those years, neither of them has ever asked for time away from her sister. From time to time, they have chosen to pursue different activities with one parent or the other, but my husband and I have had to work hard to pry them away from one another. We didn’t give them the option of being in the same kindergarten class (a discussion for another day), and they made it abundantly clear that being split up was not their preference.

M is a talker, and always has been. She narrates the world around her, and has ever since she mastered the sign for “more” and the word “uh-oh”. I’m as extroverted as anyone I know, but even I tire of the constant avalanche of words and ideas. J doesn’t. J listens, and listens, and listens, and if she absolutely must make herself heard, she does. Don’t get me wrong. J is a huge talker too. She’s just better able to pick and choose between her thoughts to identify what she wants to share.

This afternoon, M told we that she was feeling strange. She couldn’t describe exactly how, but I suspected that she was coming down with the ugly cough that’s been plaguing J and my husband. Since he reported that a nap had helped him significantly earlier, I suggested that we have a mommy-daughter read-and-snuggle session. J picked up Enid Blyton’s Melody and the Enchanted Harp and M grabbed Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go. I grabbed the P.D. James novel I’d been snacking on, since I knew that any other of my current reads would have me reaching for a notebook and pen.

We curled up under our covers and settled down to reading. M elected to read out loud. She has a tendency to skip over unfamiliar multi-syllable words, so I haven’t done much with her to encourage silent reading. On practically every page, she had an editorial comment, on witty rhymes, silly words, or interesting ideas. She wished we could have towed our old neighbourhood to our current location so she wouldn’t have to miss our neighbouts. Were Hakken-Craks real? Having years of practice as mother of the terribly talkative twins under my belt, I am adept at carrying on a conversation with one or both of them while reading (or cooking or cleaning).

Halfway through the Dr. Seuss, J had had enough. “May you please read in your head?” she asked her sister. When M ignored her, she repeated her request, adding, “It’s annoying.” M read silently for a couple of pages before picking up her chatter again. J elected to let her be.

Perhaps I should have scolded J for calling her sister annoying. All I could think, though, was that this was a milestone. For the first time, one sister had expressed annoyance with the other. It wasn’t enough for J to want alone time, but I feel like we’re on the path there. It’s bittersweet. I’ve loved this extraordinary acceptance our daughters have of one other, knowing full well that the closer they are, the harder it’s going to be for them as they develop their distinctive interests and lives.

How old were your kids the first time they got on each other’s nerves? Did you/do you think it’s healthy?

It has not helped people tell them apart, except that once a person asks, “Are you G or P?” he or she can keep track more easily for the rest of the day.

All last school year they had different haircuts, but still very few of their classmates and teachers could remember who was who.

This year they have a wonderful teacher I trust. I know he cares about them as individuals, and is working hard to learn to tell them apart. They have the same haircut now, and it obscures the two easiest “tells” — their different hairlines, and a fading scar on one boy’s forehead.

As I said last year in one of my many *upset* posts [that got me crying again reading it now],

…my little boys …are actual peoplewho deserve to be recognized and called by name and valued as individuals. How can you love or even like a person if you don’t recognize him, or can’t differentiate him from another?

So I’m trying to help their teacher (and them) out, by color-coding them. G in green or grey, and P in blue.

Problem is, they don’t always want to wear their assigned colors. They understand why we’re doing this, but sometimes P wants to wear the grey shirt. Or they both want to wear blue shirts. I’m only comfortable pushing this up to a point.

What are your thoughts on this? My boys are 7. How hard should I push them to wear color-coded clothes to school? I feel like I am crossing some sort of civil rights line in the sand when I tell P he has to save his grey shirt for the weekend and wear the blue one like I asked.
Jen is a work-from-home mom of 7-year-old twin boys, and two girls ages 4.5 and 9. She also blogs at Minivan MacGyver, where she teaches readers how to survive various life crises with materials commonly found in a 5-door family vehicle with seating for 7.

In kindergarten, P was assigned to an intervention reading group. G was in a higher-level group, but he didn’t read for me at home, and P did. After I asked the teacher several times whether their files may have been confused, she wrote me after winter break and said P had accelerated quickly and had been placed in a higher group than G, and he was moved up again several weeks later. Because I believed she had confused them, giving intervention services to a child who didn’t need them rather than the child who did, and because I felt I wasn’t getting straight answers from their teacher, I worried about their progress for the entire year.

From the moment we found out we were having twins, everything was scary. The statistics are terrifying. The books said I’d lost 20 valuable weeks that I could have spent packing on body fat to sustain the babies in late pregnancy, when I wouldn’t be able to eat as much. I’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions since 16 or 17 weeks – my doctor didn’t feel that was a good sign. From week 20, when I found out, to week 37 when I delivered my twins, every day and every contraction and nearly every moment was tinged with worry.

I think it’s that way for most of us. I am very lucky, in that I got to stop worrying about my boys’ physical health quickly after they were born.

Now I worry about whether people are able to see them and treat them as individuals, and how the boys feel about being individuals. I worry about how painful it will be when they eventually separate. I worry that their speech problems prevent them from volunteering in class, and that they may eventually get picked on because of them. I worry about P being bored, and G being left behind, because a teacher made a mistake and wouldn’t own up to it.

In our district the kids are given standardized tests so teachers and parents can track a child’s growth throughout the school year and from year to year, to make sure a kid is progressing. Last week I went to the school and requested their scores. The principal came out and sat beside me and handed me a post-it note on which she’d jotted their scores. Tears welled up in my eyes.

They both made great strides last year. They’re both above average. They are normal and doing fine, and oh, it is wonderful to have plain old normal kids who are doing fine!

I cried because I am so grateful that I can stop worrying about their academic progress. I also cried because the scores confirmed that my boys were placed in the wrong reading groups last year. Their math scores were identical, but their reading scores were drastically different. My little boy who struggles with reading spent months in a group that was way over his head, and his self-confidence shows it.

Jen is a work-from-home mom of 7-year-old twin boys, and two girls ages 4.5 and 9. She also blogs at Minivan MacGyver, where she alternates between waxing nostalgic over her children’s toddler years, and despairing over the amount of work still required for their upkeep.

I recently heard of a friend’s twin pregnancy and I was flooded with memories of my own twin pregnancy.  14 months ago I was 75 pounds heavier, full of water, sore back, sore rib, and very obviously pregnant with twins.  The twin pregnancy wasn’t always this obvious.  I spent the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy blissfully unaware.  In hind sight I believe that being unaware had it’s benefits.

I had an early ultrasound at 6 weeks that confirmed one healthy baby.  Looking back there were clues that I was carrying two babies but all the symptoms could easily be explained.  I was exhausted……..but I had a 1, 3, and 4 year old and was still nursing.  I was extremely sick………but I never felt well during pregnancies and also had little ones to be chasing after.  I gained 25 lbs in first trimester and looked bigger than previous pregnancies………but I was pregnant for the 4th time and used food as a way to settle my constantly upset stomach.

At 20 weeks I showed up for my mid-point ultrasound excited but a little nervous.  I was hoping for a healthy baby.  I can still remember the surreal feelings of looking at the ultrasound monitor with two babies and hearing the gasp of the ultrasound tech.  My poor husband was left in the waiting room for over an hour wondering what was taking me so long, frantically trying to keep the younger three entertained by one bag of fruit snacks.  When they finally allowed him in the room he was speechless.  TWINS!  The thought had never even crossed our minds.  Even my Dr. was shocked and kept wondering if she had missed any clues.  I found it ironic that at my 18 week appointment I measured 18 weeks, however at my 22 week appointment, I was measuring 30.  Whatever clues my body hadn’t given away up until that point, it made sure to catch up quickly!  By 24 weeks I was the same size that I had been at the end of my previous pregnancy.

Here I am at 12 weeks and then 38 weeks.

Finding out about twins opened up a whole new world of worry.  Would I be able to carry full term?  Would there be health concerns for my babies?  For me?  How would I managed with 5 kids under 5?  The next few months passed in a blur with regular Dr.’s appointments and ultrasounds.  The Dr.’s suspected that I was pregnant with fraternal boys so I never gave much thought to conditions that are specific to identical pregnancies.  After the birth of the boys we discovered that I did have one placenta and that the boys had developed late stage twin to twin transfusion.  Baby A was 6 lbs 8 oz. and pale and sickly looking.  Baby B was 8 lbs 2 oz and bright red and swollen.  Again, by being unaware, I had been spared the worry of wondering about their outcomes.

Whether or not I went through my pregnancy with worry or peace, the reality is that my twin pregnancy holds a special place in my heart.  I got to experience two active, moving babies causing my stomach to appear unlike anything I had ever experienced prior.  I got to watch my stomach grow to proportions I hope it never grows to again.  Being pregnant with twins is special…. kind of like they are!

What was your experience of being pregnant with twins like?  Were you blissfully unaware or perhaps too realistically aware ?

One of the books I read in those quiet last months before my girls were born was One and the Same, by Abigail Pogrebin. A fun peek into the lives of adult twins, it gave me, for the first time, an opportunity to think about the way I intended to parent twins. But it was the author’s own reflections on her adult relationship with her identical twin sister that caused me great anxiety. While I’d always thought growing up with a built-in best friend would be something to embrace and cherish, I never considered that identity-defining choices and other adult decisions would take on new weight. Not only would the outside world judge, but they would have an identical person’s decisions and choices to use as a frame of reference. What pressure! I suddenly was thrilled I wasn’t a twin myself. When I chose my jobs, my boyfriends, my husband, my (terrible) apartments, they were my decisions alone. My family and friends were never able to say, “Well yes, she ended up with a pretty decent guy, but goodness, isn’t her sister’s husband just fabulous!”

Twin parents talk a lot about identity. We try to spend time alone with one twin, or to dress them differently and assign them their own toys, cups, shoes, etc. Identical twins in particular pose a serious challenge to parents concerned about establishing that identity. As I become more aware of the kind of mother I really am I have realized that I am quite guilty of two things I thought I would never do – regularly comparing my girls and treating them as a single unit.

For instance, my girls have always been terrible sleepers. We are one and a half years into this party and I still can’t reliably get them to nap in their cribs. Nights are a crapshoot: Bug slept through the night three out of the last four nights, but Bean has been up each night before 2am, demanding a bottle and our bed. A week prior the situation was reversed. I don’t know if our experience is typical, but it’s as if they play a secret game of rock-paper-scissors at bath time to determine who will sleep through the night. In this case, I treat them as a unit. I can’t  remember from day to day who has been sleeping well and who has not. People inquire, and I mumble, “I don’t know.”  I just know that, inevitably, we’ll be up in the wee hours of the night. How many times in the last 18 months have they both slept through the night? Four times. Yet they can and do sleep through the night individually. They are my single unit of terrible sleepers and they are, in all likelihood, playing me and my husband for chumps.

When I take my girls in for their well-child visits, I report to our pediatric office as a master of one unit. They eat the same amounts of the same things, they have the same diaper rash, they sleep the same amount of hours, and they say the exact same adorable words. They even call each other the same name, unable or unwilling to pronounce Bug’s name. They hit developmental milestones at the same time, too: they took their first steps within 30 seconds of each other. My doctor is always prodding me to discuss each girl individually, but honestly, I enjoy the economy of scale here. I only have to commit the consistency and frequency of one girl’s poop to memory because they are usually the same.

So while I destroy any semblance of identity by treating them as a unit, I also compare them subconsciously when I probably should not. Bug’s crabbiness seems especially pronounced when I compare her to Bean, quietly munching on crackers and reading a book in the corner. Bug’s ease with which she falls asleep in the stroller during some much-needed quiet time outdoors suddenly seems that much more amazing after ten minutes of Bean’s cries of complaint.

I worry about this in the long term. We certainly notice very different personalities between the two girls, and different responses to certain things, like bugs and new kids and our oscillating fan. If I was just raising one girl and the other wasn’t in the picture, I’d probably attribute each of these responses to new stimuli to some funny toddler idiosyncrasy. But instead of saying to myself, “Oh, weird, Bug doesn’t like that fan very much,” I think, “Oh, weird, Bug doesn’t like that fan very much, but Bean doesn’t seem to care.” Suddenly Bug’s aversion to the fan is cast in a whole new light: is she more scared than she should be? Why does she need to hold my hand while she walks past it, while Bean saunters by paying it no mind? OMG, is  Bug going to suffer irrational and debilitating fears of things with moving blades when she gets older?!?

I don’t actually worry about this all the time. We are, after all, raising two healthy happy girls who love to explore and appear to like each other most of the time. But I don’t think they care much about their identities at 18 months. What about at 18 years? Will I be able to objectively respond to one girl’s failing grades when I know that her sister has done much better? Will I inadvertently use one as an example when asking why the other one doesn’t measure up? I think I’m going to be a good enough parent to recognize that making such comparisons is more harmful than helpful. I think I’ll be able to help each girl tap into her own strengths and become a strong woman in her own right. But man, it is going to be hard for them. They are always going to be “the twins,” discussed as a unit when convenient and discussed as two competing individuals when interesting. They are going to have to dig deeper and work harder than most to establish their identities and ensure that their friendship remains strong and resilient. I’m here to help them. How do you all do it?

Our family just arrived home from our second trip to the Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, OH. Last summer we attended a wedding in Philadelphia with our 9-month-old twins. We packed the car for a road trip from Chicago but had to divide our drive into a few days. Looking for a half-way point we saw Twinsburg, OH on the map and thought, “Hey, we should stay there, it’s a town named Twinsburg.” A quick Google search revealed Twins Days Festival, a record-setting gathering of twins from around the world which just happened to be the weekend we were driving through Ohio. We had to go. How could we pass it up?

We enjoyed our first Twins Days experience so much, we decided before we even left Ohio we would try to go back every year. It is an experience unlike anything I have seen. The sense of community and camaraderie among twins from all over really is amazing. Among the many activities, our favorite has been the Double Take Parade, which encourages any and all twins to join in the themed parade. This year’s theme was Circus, a truly fitting theme for a gathering of twins. My boys were dressed as Human Cannonballs, with their wagon outfitted as a cannon. There are also lots of research studies for twin participation, and mingling with twins young and old. The youngest set there was 8 weeks, the oldest was 96 years old! There are lots of contests, carnival rides, food, and fun. Friday night is a Wiener Roast for twins and their families, Saturday night there are fireworks and Sunday morning is a pancake breakfast. For older twins there is a golf tournament, a 5K and lots more.

So much I have read and heard since we were expecting twins focuses on the challenges: the high-risk pregnancy, the bleary-eyed, soul-crushing sleep deprivation, the expense, every-rough-patch-times-two. Dress them alike. Don’t dress them alike. Separate them in school. Keep them together. Everything I read seems to threaten all the ways I am destined to mess my kids up. Plus, as much as strangers are fascinated with and willing to offer up comments about twins, they are almost always negative. “You’ve got your hands full!” or “Double Trouble!” or “Better you than me!”

It is easy to lose sight of how wonderful it can be raising twins. We have twice the giggles, twice the hugs. My boys are growing up spending every day with a best friend. I get to watch my two tiny infants as they grow into little boys. My boys are 21 months old, racing from milestone to milestone, growing noticeably each day. I wonder every single day how they can possibly be cuter than they were yesterday and how did I get so lucky to be here for the ride. The truth is that while my boys are fraternal and are very different, they were born a pair. Twins Days is such a unique celebration of twinship, I want my boys to grow up appreciating how truly special it is to be a twin. In Twinsburg for that one weekend a year, they can be among people who know what it’s like to go through life with a doppelganger, with a relationship unlike any other. They can be part of the community and celebrate being twins.

My boys are often subject to lots of attention when we are out and about, and sometimes I feel like they are a spectacle. (I imagine it is nothing compared to identical twins or even triplets or quads!) I want them to feel proud that there are two of them, and love that they came into this world as a set. Twins Days Weekend is always the first weekend in August in Twinsburg, OH. For more photos and information about our trip, you can check out our rundown of our weekend as well as photos form this year and last. You can read more about the adventures of our family at goteamwood.com