Carla made a comment on my previous post about twins, that her identical twin boys were in their own sacs with their own placentas.  My very basic understand of the mechanics of multiple births is that there are a number of different variations on the theme (and in a future post, I might talk a little bit more about the things I’ve learned about the genetics of twins).  In our case, though, we were relying on our doctor’s opinion that they were fraternal twins, and I really think that our experiences with them are in line with that opinion  — I know that a lot of people, relatives included, have trouble telling them apart, but honestly:  they really are NOT identical.

I’ve been trying to find pictures that demonstrate the fact that their faces are slightly different shapes, but I’m not coming up with any.

If you can get close enough to them, there are two dead giveaways:

Joe has a mole above his mouth (Joe = “O” sound, Mole = “O” sound…).

And Will has 2 loops of hair on the top of his, (Will is spelled with 2 “L”s = 2 loops…)

Their eyes are the same color, but personally (and I know this sounds goofy) but I think they have a different sparkle to them that tells me who they are.  Mom?  Can you confirm?

When they were newborns, Joe’s skintone was much redder than Will’s — they both developed jaundice, but Will was “yellower” to start, so that gave us a clue as to which baby we had in our arms.  (These are 1-day-old-pictures, Will, on the left, also has some birthmarks on his eyelids.  They have faded a bit as he has gotten older).

We were adamant about picture taking:  Will was ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS on the left.  Always.  (Well, in all of the posed shots, anyway.  I guess I can’t guarantee anything about candids…)

If we weren’t positive which kid we had, we could always check at diaper time:  Will has a red birthmark on his backside.  No photos of that one.  Well, I *HAVE* photos of that, but I won’t moon you.

When we dressed them, we tried to be consistent about a couple of things:  if a kid was in green, it was Joe (Mean Joe Green…)  If someone was in Blue, it was likely to be Will (4 letters in the word blue and in his name…).  If someone was in Red, it was likely to be Joe (the number of letters…).  We had a lot of same but different outfits — same style, but different colorway, that sort of thing.  Or if they had matching outfits, maybe they had on different colors of socks. Sometimes were just obnoxious, though, and dressed them identically.

(will’s on the left…)

OK, I’ve spent way too long looking at old photographs, and it is way past my bedtime, so this is going to have to be it for now:

First off, I got them in the wrong order for this picture, but I can tell (for sure…) that Joe is on the left.  And not just because he’s wearing green shorts.  I don’t know if you can see it or not, but Will’s face is ju-u-u-u-ust a little wider.  And — if you look at their foreheads, and their hairlines — Will has more of a widow’s peak, where Joe’s hairline is more straight across.  And like I said, there is something about the sparkle in their eyes…

(That is chocolate chip cookie remnant on their faces.  Plus some snot or drool, too, I think…)

TTFN-

Suzanne