Questions, questions...

You know how, when you're pregnant, you have to answer the same questions a million times?

"When are you due?"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Is this your first?"

Etc, etc, etc...

Then, you pop the kid out and are attacked by a whole new series of repeated questions...

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"What's his/her name?"

"How old is he/she?"

"Is he/she smiling/rolling/crawling/walking yet?"

And so on and so forth.

You mothers know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? Well, when we had Ethan, we had to deal with yet another bunch of questions.

"Where did the red hair come from?"

"Do you have red hair in your family?"

Sigh...

Then, of course, Nicholas comes along a little less than a year later. At first, it wasn't so bad, question-wise (other than the redheaded stuff), because people could tell by their sizes that the boys were obviously not the same age. Then, our little Nick-Nick hit a major growth spurt, and caught up to his older brother. The boys are now almost the same height and weight. I think Nicky is two inches shorter and two or three pounds lighter.

Now, everywhere we go, we get stopped by people asking, "Are they twins?" This happens at least twice a day. Minimum. Yes, I know it's my fault for getting knocked up twice in two years, so don't even say anything. It's not my fault that both boys have flaming red hair and are both into the 80th and 90th percentiles for height and weight, which causes them to look the same. They wear the same size in clothing, and Nicholas is only one shoe size behind his brother.

Are they twins? Noooo, but they sure look like they are! Someone once told me (in an extremely rude way), "Well, maybe if you didn't dress them just alike..." Well, that would probably help, but I can't help it if every relative we have decides to buy them matching outfits when they go shopping! I'm not going to turn down free clothing, because I have to dress three kids over here, and it gets expensive! Yes, they do occasionally wear the same shirt. Get over it. It's cute, okay? Plus, they like to fight if they don't have things that are the same. This means we have to buy two of everything, including toys. All those annoying, noise-making toys that parents hate? Yeah...we have doubles. Think about that. Enough to make you pull out your own teeth, isn't it?

Sometimes, being the wonderful parent I am, deeply concerned about nutrition and health in my children, I will take the kids to McDonald's. Shut up. Anyway, if the boys don't get the exact same toy in their Happy Meals, we have World War III over here. I have seriously considered murdering some employees over this.

I honestly think that having twins would have been easier, now that I can look back. No, I'm not crazy...hear me out. The boys act like twins and look like twins, but they're developmentally a year apart. This makes things a little complicated. One example: Ethan's potty-trained, Nicky isn't yet. When they were younger, Ethan would want Nicky to do things he couldn't yet do, and Nicky would get frustrated (or injured). Then Ethan would be angry with him. Now that they're older, it's not as much of an issue. I really think that it would have been a lot less stressful to have had twins, because they would've been on the same page, developmentally. 

Are they twins? Nope! But they should be, I guess. Quit asking!!

There's always the chance that we will have twins. My grandfather was a twin, so we have them in the family. Also, the more children you have, the more likely you are to have twins. Age is also a factor, as older women tend to have more multiples. We shall see, I suppose. Don't think it's possible? Well, we do have two redheads, you know... :)