What is fascinating about twins is that you get to raise them the same way and they still are so different. In other words I have friends, who do not have multiples, who I often hear say things such as “with A I was so strict and now she is wild” or “I bundled A up all the time and now he is always cold but B, I never covered her {as an infant} and she is never cold” or “I made all A’s food and she is such a healthy eater while B got McDonalds and processed foods and won’t touch a vegetable.”
As a mother of multiples I am raising my girls the same way under the same circumstances in the same environment. Kids are who they are, inherently. Of course we guide them in the ways we eat, laugh, fight, love and show them right from wrong.
What I’m talking about is no matter what you did with one will not always impact the other in the same or opposite way as you might have thought.
I over bundled my girls, born in cold December, every day all day long. H sweats if the sun is out while L shivers at the sight of ice.
I fed them the exact same foods for every meal and slowly they gravitated towards certain things. H can crush some bread and snubs most sweets while L will crush anything you put in front of her. H is rather picky while L will try anything and everything.
They have always had the same sleeping pattern and while they get the same amount of sleep at night H always needs a nap. I wish they both did but at least one is still napping.
These are just the way they are wired and no matter what I do I can’t change that. I can’t make L stop loving all things princess in the same way I can’t make H stop loving orange.
Now this does strike me funny. As I have mentioned before L is neat and clean, never spills or gets dirty, her hair is never out of place even when she wakes up. H, on the other hand, drools, spills, drips, gets paint she never even touched in her hair, eyes, and shirt, takes 40 minutes to put one book away and her hair looks tangled even when it’s not. However, when they lay out their school clothes it looks like this:
H’s outfit, neat and clean all laid out
What is this mess L
On the other hand they are so similar in ways I don’t think they would have been if they weren’t twins. I don’t think they would be as brave because they wouldn’t have a partner to encourage them. They certainly wouldn’t be so clever having only one mind to figure out how to get over the baby gate or reach the door lock.
As a parent we do the best we can and hope our kids know we did it as fairly and as lovingly as possible. So stop beating yourself up! I can assure you your kids would have turned out just as differently even if the situations for raising them were the same.
PS I need a title for this post!