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My preemie twins are now teenagers! Macy and Mallory turned 13 on Saturday, complete with a slumber party of a dozen screaming, whiny girls sleeping over. Hard to believe it’s been that long since they were teeny tiny babies in the NICU. They are still tiny for their age, but for girls that’s not a bad thing. They are still developmentally delayed, and it tears me up to go to their IEP meetings and being told that they will probably never measure up academically to their peers. It doesn’t help that their little sister (age eight) teases them that she is smarter than they are. I have to remind myself that they are miracles for actually living through all the trauma and turmoil they did and that they don’t have more disabilities.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
[...] My just-turned-teen daughter is infatuated with Rocket Dog sneakers. For some reason, though, everytime I hear her say “Rocket Dog”, the song “Rocky Top, Tennessee” starts playing in my head. Crazy, I tell ya. [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Kim, I have had lots of twins during my teaching career, and I myself am an identical twin. My brother and I are Max and Max. (It’s funny how twins are.) For some reason, I never gave it much thought until recently, that we are identical twins with the same first name. My sister has given birth to three sets of twins, none identical. I also have identical twin cousins.
So I guess I know a little about twins. I know you will keep treasuring your twin daughters because we twins really are a different breed–all the more so when the parents do not try to make us the same person. I think that is the challenge for all parents of twins. For some parents this is very easy and for others very difficult. You know, some parents think it’s so cute to dress us up alike and everyone says, “Oh! Look at them! They’re so cute!”
This can make it hard for twins to see themselves as individuals, because we grow up with everyone gawking at “us” and describing our similarities and differences as if we are two halves of a whole. I don’t know how it is for fraternal twins, but we identical twins have a special need to see ourselves as individuals as early as possible. Or maybe that’s one way we’re like everybody else. But I have long felt that twins who cannot recognize themselves as individuals have a self-identity disability. And that’s my point–twins can have their own kind of disability even when they’re knocking down straight A’s in school. Some of my teenage students have suffered from it without realizing it. I’m all for you and your kids. If they don’t think they are oddities, and if they see themselves as loved and competent individuals, they’ll flourish. Tell ‘em I think they’re smart, and send them my love!