A baby zebra can pick out its parents from a herd of zebras by sight. At a distance of 200 meters, proud penguin parents can detect their own baby's call from a chorus of seemingly identical baby penguin squawks. Parents of identical twins, babies that share the same DNA and are in every outward sense an exact image of each other, can at a glance tell their children apart. How can these impossible feats happen? It is through the Wonder of Nature.
In our case, the Wonder of Nature is best explained as follows: Babies are incredibly clumsy. From the beginning of life, when a single swipe of a fingernail can leave a tiny mark on a cheek, through toddlerhood, where spills and falls are as plentiful as stale Goldfish crackers on the floor of my minivan, babies are constantly engaged in some sort of self-inflicted body modification. And, while this might elicit sighs and sympathy from most parents, for the parents of identical twins, it is a godsend.
So all this goes to say that, unless Lila also decides to run head-first into the china cabinet, Victoria is going to be easily recognizable for a least a week or so.
Thus is the Wonder of Nature.
This is so true! My 8 month-old boys aren't even identical, but they look so much alike that my husband resorts to using these physical traits to tell them apart- I keep telling them that scratches and bruises are temporary, but, as you say, there is always some kind of mark he can use.
Posted by: TwinMommy-2boys | September 25, 2006 at 03:19 PM
Cool! That means at our playdate this week, I won't have to ask you which baby is which!
Posted by: JHC | September 25, 2006 at 09:20 PM