Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A Race to the Gum Line

The boys' shirts are dripping wet. They are shoving wooden puzzle pieces in their mouths like they haven't eaten in weeks. They are waking up in the middle of the night. They are biting my shoulders, knees and even my cheeks.
They are teething again.
With the appearance of their first teeth at eight months old came the answer to one of the questions about identical twins that had nagged me. Identical twins, I learned, do not cut teeth at the same time. Well, not really. They kind do, but really they don't. Sort of.
Here's what I mean:
Jonathan got his first tooth ten days before Matthew, but they both got the same two teeth within the same amount of time. Now it's a race for the next set of teeth. Both have started drooling and biting again. Both are waking once during the night, though it seems Jonathan is having a harder time falling back to sleep than Matthew. Both are chewing on their bottle nipples.
I am guessing Jonathan will be first, since his teeth emerged before Matthew's during the last round. But I can't be sure. These guys like to mess with me. They pull me in by differentiating--developing their own ways of doing things, their own gestures, their own preferences. Then, just when I start bragging about how well I can tell my identical twins apart, they pull a switch on me. One starts behaving like the other.
Jonathan will probably cut his teeth first. Or maybe Matthew will surprise me. The important thing is that they both reach the finish line. And fast. For my sake as much as theirs.

1 comment:

Lexi said...

Laycee is teething again too. It is gross because she goes through two bibs a day! Logan though, well he will get there eventually lol.