When I discovered I was pregnant with twins I did what most people do: Freaked the heck out and then got busy researching anything and everything I could about twins. In all that research I learned creepy, cool, and bizarre twin stuff.
THE CREEPY:
While driving home a week ago my boys and I began sharing freaky dreams (one of my disturbing ones ended up in Chicken Soup’s Dreams and Premonitions). Twin B related a goosebump inducing dream. Twin A, promptly whipped around in the car with a “No way.” He had a dream eerily similar – like disturbingly similar. Twin A then added, “but that was a while ago.” Twin B responded that so was his. We were all silent as we processed this.
This reminded me of two creepy incidences I read about a couple sets of twins (I know there are more, but these ones just stood out):
In the category of Severely Disturbing we have June and Jennifer Gibbons, AKA The Silent Twins. I linked to DeAnna Janes’ article about these two at The Lineup. The Gist: They decided that one of them had to die for the other to lead a normal life.
In the category of Simultaneous Random Act of Madness, we have Ursula and Sabina Eriksson. The link takes you to Bizarrepedia’s story of these two (along with video of the incident). The Gist: They both ran into traffic.
In the category of Twins Should Never Drive Separately, we have Lorraine and Levinia Christmas: Twins Crash Into Each Other. The link takes you to The Hearald (Herald Scotland). The Gist: They crashed into each other. And they aren’t the only twins to do so. This tells me the boys sharing a vehicle is a good thing.
THE COOL:
No link for this one. Idioglassia is the term used to describe Twin Talk. Basically, twins make up their own language and anyone on the outside is S.O.L (Snot Out of Luck) at figuring out what they want. My boys had their own language going so I am now bilingual in English and TwinTalk (I wonder if I can put that on a resume?).
I was lucky enough to witness a “name the object” event. The object was the blankie. A little history of the blanket: They each had the exact same blanket. Yet for whatever reason they would fight over whose was whose.The only way I could end the battle was to take both blankets put them behind my back and then hand one to each boy. I guess in their mind they each thought they were getting the one blanket they were fighting over.
Anyway, I walked into the living room as the boys were sitting face to face. One had the blanket, looked at it, handed to his brother and said, “NaNa.” The other took the blanket, looked at it, and asked, “NaNa?” To which the other replied definitively, “NaNa.” From that moment forth the blankies became NaNas. I’m glad I witnessed this episode because the boys lost a blankie shortly after that and cried for the NaNa.
Just a few other vocabulary words:
- Uh-Oh: Which didn’t mean an accident, it meant Skeleton. Which I guess the bones outside of the body could definitely be an uh-oh.
- Gooey-ooey-oo: Which was a spider
- Ghunkin: Spiderman (I still don’t know why he wasn’t named Gooey-ooey-oo man).
- IckAdickAdoo: I do not know what this was. They ran by me one day, stopped, pointed behind me, yelled “Oh no! An ick-a-dick-a-doo!” and took off running.
When the boys started preschool I translated five pages of words for the teacher.
THE BIZARRE:
When you have twins you meet everyone who failed biology. I once met a woman who insisted that boys can’t be identical. But she proceeded to tell me how her sister’s, neighbor’s, nephew’s, co-worker’s, best-friend’s, lawn boy’s, sister had identical girl/boy twins. Really?
Now, while I believe this lady was misinformed, I have to admit that in all my research I did discover a bizarre event in which boy/girl twins can be identical.
This is a link to a two-minute video by National Geographic which explains this interesting tidbit.
Do you have any twins stories to share?