Single White Female

I'm in fear for Lila's life. It was funny at first. In fact, everybody laughed. The twins laughed. I laughed. Other people who heard it laughed.

But only Victoria's laughing now.

Let me backtrack. It is well known that toddlers think that adults are idiots. I ask my little girls what sound a cow makes at least 20 times a day. They always happily answer, but you can kind of see in their eyes a look that says, "You, sir, are a moron." At least that's the look they give me with 99% of the animal sounds I ask them to make. It is only when I ask for a dog sound that the look changes. Then I get total silence and a dammit-the-big-man-is-trickier-than-we-thought look of vacancy and embarrassment. My girls are incapable of making a dog sound.

It's probably my fault. I could never decide if dogs say woof-woof, arf-arf, bow-wow, ruff-ruff, or, my favorite, the Japanese wan-wan. So as a result of being given too many choices, the twins are paralyzed like apoplectic deer in headlights when asked this most common of questions.

But none of this is why I think Lila is in danger. I'm getting to that. Be patient.

Animal sounds are not the only idiotic questions we parents pepper our children with. Far from it. And the latest question in the LookyDaddy household is, "What is your name?"

I place my hand on Lila's head. "What's your name?"

"Lila!"

I place my hand on Victoria's head. "And what's your name?"

"Lila!"

Both twins scamper off, giggling.

It used to be funny. Now only Victoria laughs. "I Lila! Tee hee hee!" And Lila and I look at each other nervously. Lila's not old enough to understand the intracacies of persona mimicry or identity theft, but she does know that there's only one Lila, and she's worried that soon it might not be her.

I live in constant fear that one day, after nap, I'll go in to the twins' room and there will be just one baby.

"Where's Lila?"

"Lila? I Lila! Tee hee hee."

But for now, Victoria is showing no signs of appropriating anything other than the name. Still, I'm keeping my eyes on her. And maybe I'll install a nanny-cam in the nursery. Just in case.

Comments

[Kate]

Are you sure you didn't accidentally name them wrong? Maybe Lila is Victoria and Victoria is Lila!

[Diane]

The next development in this twin trickery is the old bait and switch-eroo: You'll hear a loud thump from the other room where the girls are playing, then a loud "OW!", which will cause you to run and find out what happened. Then the fun begins:
"Are you OK, Victoria?"
[slight sniffle] "Yes, Daddy."
"Where's your sister?"
[blinking innocently} "I don't know..."

(FYI, I was inspired to write yet another haiku because of the impersonation story--help me, I need an intervention!)

[scatteredmom]

I once worked at a school where there was a set of twins who loved to pretend they were each other, and I didn't figure it out for months.

They had a great time while I was doing noon hour supervision...and here I just thought the kid seemed to be everywhere. Duh!