Twins

When my wife and I were younger, and with only one baby girl, I did a very stupid thing. I said something like, “We should have twins. That would be so cool.”

I am a little bit superstitious. I believe in black superstition. It’s like black magic, it’s bad. With black superstition you get all the bad luck you curse yourself with even when it might sound good when you wish for it.

Say you wish you had a million dollars. One day you’re walking down the street humming your favorite show tune and you get run over by an armored car carrying a million dollars in quarters. That’s black superstition. That’s what I believe in.

So when I cursed myself with twins I should have seen the darkness coming.

You think with twins it’s two for the price of one. But in the delivery room there are three times more doctors, nurses, machines, diesel engine mechanics, and various assistants.

Of course, with your second baby you think you’re all set with one crib, one highchair, one swing, one bouncy seat, and all the other new baby stuff you think you will never have to buy again. But when your wife roles snake eyes you get to double down on all that baby crap.

And then there’s the stroller. Now you need a new stroller that holds two little financial sink holes. Do you get a side-by-side stroller that’s so wide you can’t go down any isles in a store without knocking junk off the shelves? Or do you get an inline stroller that’s longer than a VW Jetta and corners like a garbage truck? Folding those things up is no fun either. We almost left a clunky stroller at Disneyland once because we couldn’t Rubik’s Cube it down to a manageable size.

My wife and I will both testify under oath that we cannot remember the first six months of the twins’ lives. I was working and going to school full time and my better half was managing the apartments we lived in, being a mother to our red headed two year old, and trying to stay awake long enough to take care of the twins.

They never ate at the same time, slept at the same time, or needed a new diaper at the same time. It was a total blur.

A family was in the news constantly back then for having septuplets. Yea, seven babies at once. Her husband must have said something like, “I hope we can have all our kids quickly so we can still be young when they’re all out of the house and we retire.” Talk about black superstition.

Strangers would often comment to us, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t have seven?” Of course, they got free diapers, a van, a house, two sets of laundry machines, volunteer helpers, and envelopes full of money in the mail every day. But I’m not bitter.

Our twins look the same. They are probably identical but an expensive DNA test just hasn’t been necessary yet. They look so similar that I would often mix them up when they where little. My wife could always tell them apart but I had trouble all the time. I still have trouble if they style their hair the same. When they were younger we got their ears pierced and used different color earrings. I wanted to get them each a different tattoo but someone around here is a total kill joy.

Twins come with a new math. One child equals enough trouble for two parents. Twins equals enough trouble for six parents. I remember one in a high chair throwing food off her tray to her sister on the floor below. I remember one standing on the other so they could grab something interesting that was supposed to be just out of their reach. Smart little devils.

When they were just toddlers I came home from work one morning around 8 am to see my wife stomping through our apartment complex in a bathrobe with bare feet and dripping wet hair. She had a night gowned twin in each hand reading them the riot act while herding them back to the apartment. It was a cold morning and steam was literally rising off her head.

Apparently she had stepped out of a two minute shower to find the front door wide open and the oldest sister, then three and a half, peering out the door toward the direction the two domestic terrorists had fled in. I could tell by the look on my wife’s face that she was ready to snap. Yea, I just kept on driving right back out the parking lot. I could eat breakfast later.

Now the girls are 13, both of them. They are a true joy and the best of friends. Together, with their oldest sister, they are getting very good at making chocolate chip-oatmeal-peanut butter cookies for their Dad. They are so going in the will. The twins and their big sister team up with their Mom to outnumber us boys 4 to 3. It’s not really fair, but they are all so darn cute we just put up with it.

You know, if I had a twin I’d get into a lot more trouble than my twins do. I would trade places with him at school, play tricks on friends, and rob banks with his name on my shirt. I wish I had a twin. Bring it on Black superstition!