Friday, January 9, 2009

"A double pleasure is waitin' for you...."

Sing with me now--

"A double pleasure is waitin' for you,
A double pleasure with Doublemint Gum
A double great feelin'
Makin' you realize
Doublemint's the one for you...."

My identical twin sister Becki and I loved those old Doublemint commercials, and we dreamed of being the Doublemint twins.  When we grew up, we realized we were both about six inches too short and two cup sizes too small to ever be asked to jaunt around in bathing suits on TV.  But it was a great dream!

Twins are asked certain questions over and over, and so I'm presenting to you....

The Beth and Becki "Twinship" FAQ

Q.  So are you two close?
A.  We are close in that we talk often, trust each other, and like to hang out.  We aren't close in the way some twins are--we do not live next door to each other with adjoining back yards or anything.  In fact, we live halfway across the country from each other.  We were extremely competitive growing up, and it was very healthy for us to go to different colleges, in different cities, where we could develop individually into adults.  Honestly, I find it sad when twins are so close they can't be apart--we both really value our individuality.

Q.  Are you a lot alike, or really different?
A.  We have similar talents though there are areas in which we each have more natural gifting, and we've pursued different interests.  Our personalities have always been different, with Becki more extroverted and me more introverted.  And many people are shocked to find out that our religious beliefs are very different--Becki does not believe in God, while I am a Christian.

Q.  Do you have a psychic connection?  (Insert The Twilight Zone music here.)
A.  No.  We used to call each other and find out we'd both had hiccups that day.  Oooh...weird.  But I think that was more tied to us both getting hiccups easily than to a psychic connection between our diaphragms.

Q.  So, do you share each other's pain?  If I hit you, would she feel it?
A.  No, but if you hit me, you might end up feeling some pain.  (Anyone who knows me well is chuckling because I'm not exactly physically intimidating....)

Q.  Do you have a "twin language"?
A.  We sort of used to.  When we were very young, we could understand each other's toddler babbling when our parents couldn't tell what we were saying.  But we outgrew that.  Also--I asked Becki to review this post, and she reminded me about something else--"hmm hmm language."  We used to talk to each other with our mouths closed--forming the words and vocalizing through our noses, but never opening our lips.  When we could get through it without dissolving in giggles, we'd then try to interpret each other.  In Becki's words, "Although that wasn't 'real' twinspeak, we definitely could understand one another's hmm-hmm language better than anyone else could understand us.  I wonder if [our husbands] would be able to understand as well now, joining our little hmm-hmm club...."

Q.  Did you ever switch classes?
A.  Yes, for most of one day, our freshman year of high school.  Three or four of my teachers caught her (possibly because she talked more than me.)  None of her teachers caught me.  One of her teachers gave her a referral for "ditching" the next day and let her sit there, horrified, for several minutes before he told her it was fake.  He was still telling that story eight years later when I visited his classroom.

Q.  Did you ever fool your boyfriends?
A.  No, and if a guy had ever been so unobservant that he was unable to tell us apart, I don't think that relationship would have lasted long.

Q.  So, do you look alike?
A.  Well, you can check out the photo of her in yesterday's post and form your own opinion.  In "real life" we go through phases of looking more and less alike.  These days we look pretty similar, with similar weights and hair lengths.  Opinions of friends run the gamut from "You look exactly alike!" to "Well, you look like sisters, but not twins."  When people get to know us both well, they generally have no trouble telling us apart.  As small children we looked very, very similar, and I still can't tell us apart in baby and toddler photos.  But Becki has had some run-ins between her nose and various stationary objects (she's broken it a few times), so that has given us different profiles.  There are so many other environmental factors, starting in the womb, that create differences between identical twins.

Q.  Do you like being twins?
A.  Yes.  It's fun being odd, but odd in a good way.

I think that covers many of the frequently asked questions.  Feel free to ask more in the comments section, and I'll leave my answers as comments.

And, no, we don't have matching mint-green bathing suits...though we do both like to chew gum.

*********

12.  Baby monitor
13.  Cell phone charger

18 comments:

Heather said...

Cool! I use to enjoy those commercials...double-mint, double-mint, double-mint gum.

I was always fascinated with twins when I was younger. It was just my brother and I growing up and he was 10 years older than me. Even the thought of a sister/brother closer in age was fascinating to me. Yes...it doesn't take much to fascinate me ;o).

I have a cousin that grew up with my grandmother (I in VT - she in Georgia) and we looked very much alike...enough to have been sisters.

I've noticed that there are people in the world of no relation at all, who look enough alike to be siblings...and even sometimes twins. Isn't that even odder?

Thanks for sharing this post...it was fun to read (and yes, I do believe that you two look quite alike, still, I may have even thought that she was you; as we all look differently on different days).

Blessings to you today.
♥ Heather

Rachel Cotterill said...

I hadn't realised you & Becki were twins (having not seen a photo of her to compare) but I did notice your daughter and hers look very similar, at least in some photos :)

Call Me Cate said...

So is she C. Becki? Or is that being too nosy? Also, and this is probably more a comment for Becki, but I've seen her comment here long before I started following her blog and it just occurred to me in the last couple of days that it's BeckiWithAnI. As opposed to BeckiWithAni. I thought Ani was her daughter. I'm going to go ahead and blame that on the migraines I've had all week because I think that buys me a free pass on this one.

Bobbi said...

Fun post! I have to say, you don't look alike to me at all. At least, not identical. But... I've known you both since 6th grade! :)

beckiwithani said...

Nope, I'm not C. Becki. The C. in front of Beth's name is a story that should be told in a blog entry some day...

Good Twin FAQ, Beth!

Anna said...

That's so cool! Being an only child, I was always fascinated by twins, always thought I might have a long lost twin somewhere....don't ask.
anyway, here's a question:
Did your parents dress you exactly alike as babies/kids, and do you resent them for it?

beckiwithani said...

Anna - yes, they dressed us alike. But only till we were, I believe, 2 or 3. They realized that it was causing our brother (3 years older) to get less attention than us, so they started dressing us differently. I have to admit, I think I would've resented it if they'd done it till we were much older (like grade-school age).

One nice thing they did to encourage our individuality is, when we got to the age where we had more different social circles, they let us have separate birthday parties. And even before that, we had separate birthday cakes starting at a pretty young age. We each got to pick what we wanted. I appreciate that so much now, that when I meet parents of twins I encourage them to find ways like this to celebrate the kids' birthdays separately.

C. Beth said...

Heather--Yes, some non-related people do look a lot alike...like Sarah Palin & Tina Fey!! :)

Rachel--It's interesting; Chickie & Molly have started looking alike but their baby pics are very different!

Call Me Cate--As Becki said, there's a story behind C. Beth--for another day! :) Funny on your misreading of beckiwithani--but honestly an easy mistake to make!

rainylakechick--That doesn't surprise me! I think most people who have been friends with us for so long see lots of differences. That's a good thing.

Becki--Thanks for answering that--didn't want to answer for you for privacy purposes. :)

Anna--We were dressed alike the first few years or so--but we have an older brother, and we were getting so much attention from strangers (which meant he didn't get much attention) that my mom started dressing us differently so we wouldn't stand out as twins so much. I think that was a great thing, not just for the sake of our brother, but also for us developing individually.

C. Beth said...

Cross-posted with Becki--fully agree with her whole comment.

Tony Escarzaga said...

So as the father of twins, is there anything you would recommend besides the different birthday cakes and celebrations to make twinhood easier for my daughters to develop individualism and not resent each other? (I've got time... they are 2.)

Unknown said...

So, do you want me to tell the C. Beth part on my blog? Or do you want to tell it?

Cathy said...

Did you notice CAKE WRECKS blog title today: "How to make your twins hate you". FUNNY!!!

It was nice to see that your thoughts on the things we did to help you develop individually. --Mom

TesoriTrovati said...

What a fun post Beth! (Or should I say Cate?) Obviously I can tell you apart and I love that you are each individuals. My husband's family has two sets of fraternal twins born about 2 months apart. Now all four of them are freshmen in college. I enjoyed reading your post and hearing from Miss Becki too!
Enjoy the day!
Erin

C. Beth said...

Tony E.--On the birthday topic again (since sharing a birthday is a big deal to a kid), separate gifts are generally better than shared gifts (when they're old enough to care.) Sometimes it's okay to get both kids the same thing but only if they genuinely have the same interests. And I'd also say, strive for as little comparison as possible. Even if Twin A is more polite and Twin B handles bathtime better...try to find ways to encourage B's politeness and A's bathtime behavior without saying, "See how well your sister is doing?" Overall my parents were very good (imperfect, of course) at these things.

Dad--Go for it! I'll link to it when you do.

Mom--Wow, that's pretty cool! I'm sure Jen from Cake Wrecks based her topic on my post. (Ha.)

Erin--Oh, Cate, good guess! That's not it. Some people who were reading this blog before I switched to "blog names" might remember. (My name is Beth, but at that point I had my first and middle names as my Blogger profile name.) I'll let my dad reveal the not-so-secret first name when he tells the story!

Michelle Brunner said...

What a fun post! I always wanted a twin. I am the oldest with two younger brothers and a sister was always wanted! I love to read all of the comments between your family on here! So cool that you guys are all online and blogging!

Mike said...

What an adorable post about twinship! Being a twin, I can imagine, is definitely a worthwhile experience! I've always wondered about twins - there are currently 3 pairs in my school. From what I see, you two look really similar! Especially what I noticed were the eyebrows and chin; I think it's the eyes that set you two apart :)

Mike
http://365Sonnets.blogspot.com
http://SomeTurbidNight.blogspot.com
http://VoglioTempo.blogspot.com

C. Beth said...

Michelle--It really is fun to stay in touch with family through blogs!

Mike--Interesting; I don't think most people notice any difference in our eyes. Becki does have a brown speck in one though, which I don't have.

Janell said...

I remember the day you switched places at school. Good times. :) Yesterday when I skimmed through the post about the art projects, I stopped when I got to the picture of Becki modeling the necklace and thought, "Wow, that picture of Beth really looks more like Becki to me!" Um, yeah, probably because it WAS Becki...