Identical

I've been wanting to blog for a very long time, but it's hard to get to it, you know? Simon's better than I am at typing with two hands while holding a crying baby. Babies are less likely to stop crying if you're typing anyway, that's what I've found.

People always want to know how we tell the babies apart. I met a twin mum before the x men were born, who glanced down at her 3 month old identical twin boys (they looked like adorable little frogs - but then, most babies do) and said "I don't think they look that alike, really". They were the graven image of one another.

I assumed that I would be similar, that there would be countless subtle signs, invisible to all but me, the Mother, to distinguish them. There were, initially: a burn mark from the suction that brought Felix into the world; replaced by a small bump on the side of his head. We began to panic when the bump started to subside: how would we ever tell them apart? I waited for the maternal intuition, the innate certainty of who-was-who that would come from spending 24 hours a day unseparated from the little creatures. It didn't come.

Now we dress them differently, according to a rough code: Felix in colours, Max in white and cream. I have no idea whether I'm able to tell them apart on sight or not, since I never need to.

Other people are terribly interested in the individual nature of the boys: who is bigger, who is bolder, who is sweeter? But their looks - and their characters - are ever-changing. Nothing is fixed, nothing is certain. I have a subtle sense of who my boys are, but I can't define it, certainly not one in opposition to the other.