Power of Two

This picture would be even more adorable if it didn't scream Cut My Nails! And you would be appalled at how often I bathe these babies. What can I say? Two babies=hard to clean.

The babies are discovering each other. Hands, feet, hair. Stealing each other's toys.

They seem endlessly amused by each other. Lucy screeches and chortles and "caws" (picture a baby dinosaur and that's Lucy) through most of her meals, you just cannot feed that girl fast enough. Harry, the strong, silent type peers over at her carrying on as if to say "what IS that racket over there?" They meet each other's eyes. They smile.

What would it be like to grow up with another baby? A mirror image (sort of, but not really--most days I think these two hardly look like siblings let alone twins) of you? For me there is the constant, nagging guilt of not being able to be everything to everyone. Almost every day it feels like a baby has to cry for longer than he or she should need to but at the same time, imagine the gift of a little roommate, a fast friend, someone who knows you from literally, your very earliest days. Someone who has your back or your hand, at all times.

When I was a little girl I went through a "twin period." I drew twin girls--ballet dancers and ice skaters and just plain old little girls, over and over and over. A sometimes lonely child who was an "only" for many years, the idea of a twin seemed the ideal. You would never be alone, never be lonely and there would always be someone to play with (funny, this is the same reminder I was given by several friends who grew up in large families when I was freaking out about adding twins to our already bustling household).

The twins I drew were always girls and always identical. I would draw circle, circle, eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes, nose, nose, mouth, mouth. And so on. Until everything came out even.

Little did I know what was in store.