I often tell people that, these days, I find it hard to believe Matthew and Jonathan are identical. I know we have the DNA tests to prove it, but I look at them and I see so very many differences that I wonder how anyone could mix them up at all.
Then comes a day like today.
The boys were playing with trains and cars. Matthew had been racing with Lightning McQueen in a toy garage for at least half an hour while Jonathan had been more interested in the trains. The boys decided they needed tracks of both kinds, so we dumped a few bins and started to build.
One twin focused on creating a large and winding train track while the other worked on city streets.
Then they picked up vehicles and started to play.
In less than a minute, a full-fledged brawl had broken out.
Jonathan kept trying to take Lightning from Matthew, who had been building the city. I tried offering him one of the five other Lightning McQueens they own (Yes, they are obsessed!), but he refused, insisting that particular car was his and fighting to get it back.
So I disciplined Jonathan with a time out.
Or so I thought.
Jonathan's wail as he sat in that chair was one of absolute despair.
That was odd.
Jonathan usually rages with anger in the time-out chair.
I looked more closely and saw the tiny red spider vein by the right eye.
It was Matthew.
No wonder he had expressed such despair: it really was his car.
The other twin should have been in the time-out chair.
I pulled Matthew up into my arms, held him tight and apologized over and over and over again.
I carried him to where Jonathan was playing and offered him another Lightning car in exchange. Jonathan readily agreed and the two brothers played together on the city streets that Jonathan, not Matthew, had built.
It seems Matthew has forgiven me.
I hope he has more of that forgiveness within him and that Jonathan has a wealth of it too because I am beginning to realize that I will need it. I will need lots of it and so will the many other people in their lives. And I promise that I will never doubt their zygosity again.
They are, indeed, identical twins.
2 comments:
Hi, I just found your blog after being told I am most likely having identical twin boys . (I am 24 weeks along & they only see one placenta.) I am really enjoying your blog! Your boys are adorable! It really has made me more excited about the possibility of having identicals. My husband and I were both nervous about having twins.. and especially identical twins because of the "how do we tell them apart" worries.
hello i started reading ur blogs and i get what u saying on the toys that they fight over.I have twin girls and its so weird how they fight over the same toy even if they have them alike,and i too had mistaken my daughters for time out,we feel bad when we realize it n all we can do is apoligize but i guess that what a lot of parents with identical twins will go through.
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