Coming out of the Woodwork

Now that I have twins, I run into twins wherever I go. I'm a twin magnet. Twins seem to seek me out. Are you getting the picture yet? 

While pregnant, I encounter two twins (not related to each other) in one day without even leaving my house. Check that; I took out the garbage. My neighbor, whom we've lived next to for 5 years asks me if I'm having a boy or a girl. Twin girls, I tell him. His wife comes out on the porch and announces that she is a twin. Later that day, my housekeeper and I are chatting and guess what? She's a twin.

Standing in line for food on a BC ferry coming home from my mother-in-law's house, the woman standing in line behind us tells us she is a twin.

Ok, not a huge coincidence... Until that same scenario plays itself out dozens of times over the past 2 1/2 years.

Checkers at the store tell me they are a twin so often that I begin to wonder about the statistical chances of randomly choosing the line with the twin checker - out of say, five checkers, how many times do I choose the one that is a twin?

While calling the cable company, my girls are performing their usual loud mommy-is-on-the-phone antics. I warn the customer service representative that he may be subject to the piercing squeals of two two year olds. "Twins?" he asks. Then tells me he knows how it is - he has (grown) twins.

Still with me?

I'm sitting poolside in Cabo San Lucas, watching the activity around me. There are two girls chatting happily, but it doesn't occur to me that they may be related until I walk past them. It's their eyes - a piercing silver green. I literally stop in my tracks to ask if they are sisters. Yes. But they don't reveal to me that they are in fact, identical twins until I mention that I have twin daughters.

Part of me loves these encounters. Another part of me is secretly disappointed that my girls aren't as unique as I would like to think. Regardless, they do tend to attract attention in public places.

Out to lunch with my husband and daughters, there are only two other customers in the small teriyaki grill, two women seated at a table adjacent to us. We are used to being looked at - that delayed stare while people figure out if my girls are possibly twins, but I notice that both women are looking at them with delight and ask me their age - not if they are twins; they have already deduced this. They tell me they are (identical) twins as well, and I'm intrigued to see the similar outlines of their forms, yet shockingly different superficial features: one has short blond hair with chunky red glasses and the other has long brown hair with wire rimmed glasses. But there is no denying they are identical twins. I can see the synchronicity of their mannerisms. They interact with the harmony of an old married couple.

What's endearing in children can be peculiar in adults.

In an odd irony, they lecture me about encouraging individuality between my twosome, a property that was apparently void in their upbringing. Many parents of twins bask in the intimacy between their offspring, but neglect to realize that humans weren't meant to exist in duplicate, and won't truly flourish in life unless they are provided with the tools to become a whole person, instead of half of a pair.