I knew when I had twins that they would do twin things. you hear about it all the time, what sort of telepathic link or strange associated actions they have. You hear about the mythological associations with twins, the historical significance... people make a big deal out of twins.
And then you start to see, well, twin behavior. And it kind of freaks you out.
Today I was working on some homework, and I heard a strange sort of sound coming from behind me. Dead silence, with a rhythmic thumping.
I turned around and there were SI and DD, sitting next to a big cardboard box. And what were they doing? Sitting shoulder to shoulder, leaning forward together, and thumping the box with their inside hands in perfect unison. Why? I don't know. How did they communicate to each other that they were going to do this? I don't know. The creepiest part- the looks of total concentration on their faces. Whatever they were doing and why... it's a mystery to me, but it must have been important.
I don't generally find my children disconcerting. But there was something extremely unnerving about that kind of behavior. You hear about it a lot more in identical twins, and I'd been hearing for a long time now that twins tend to make up their own language, but this wasn't either of those. This was dyzygotic twins (that's fraternal, not identical) doing something they should have had no business doing, and in a completely unspoken way.
What the hell was going on?
My father has given me a book on this subject, "Indivisible by Two." It's about real-life twins who's lives make up the same sort of stuff as these stories.
Twins are all over in mythology. The ancient Aztecs thought that twins were back luck, and frequently killed one at birth. The belief was that twins would eventually kill their parents. However, their mythology is also filled with stories of hero twins. So if they're not evil, they're very very very good... with super powers!
There are twins in Greek and Roman mythology as well. Artemis and Apollo,Castor and Pollux, Remus and Romulus... There are twins in Judeo-Christian stories as well. Jacob and Esau, for example.
People have always been fascinated with twins. I never completely understood it until know, but I have to say I finally get it. Twins can be just plain creepy. I had thought that being a twin wouldn't be terribly different from having a sister nearly your age. I grew up with a sister less than a year and a half in either direction. We were very, very close. And how different could it really be? People have two babies in 11 months all the time... even if I think they're crazy. I didn't think about twindom as being a truly unique relationship. But It is. Unique, and completely other to the experience of being a singleton.
But twin babies... they do some creepy things.
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