Irish twins

We had dinner last night with friends of ours and their two daughters. We actually found out about the second one in a funny way. My husband emailed them to say we were pregnant with twins, with the phrase “I see your baby, and I raise you one.” Well, we get a message on our machine later that night: “Hey guys, it’s Sam, Debbie, Zelda and Amy [not their real names], give us a call, haven’t talked to you in a while.” And we turned to each other and said “Who the hell is Amy?” Zelda was, after all, just shy of 15 months old at the time. Well, we don’t talk to them all that often. Zelda turned one at Thanksgiving, Amy was born in late January. We never even knew Debbie was pregnant.

So, they were in town visiting Sam’s parents, so we went over for dinner to meet the new addition and otherwise enjoy each other’s company. Had a nice time, and the girls were great if maybe a little overtired/overstimulated. But as Sam said he was “introducing us to life with two,” hubby and I had the same thought. It’s possible that “real” twins might just be a teeny bit easier than Irish twins. (Yes, I know that “Irish twins” are technically within 12 months of each other, but I tend to use the phrase for siblings within about a year of each other. Because I can.)

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, trying to find people who “might have it harder than we will.” But hear me out.

With twins, yes, it’s at least in some ways twice the work of one baby. But at least they’re in the same place develomentally. They have roughly the same kinds of needs. And with that, you have at least a little bit of economy of scale. Some things you really only need to do once for both babies, even if it means bringing larger quantities of things when you leave the house. You’re also really only in one general developmental mindset at a time. Not as much switching gears between “this one can’t lift her head, but that one wants to run.”

With two kids so close in age, it would seem to me, you have all of the extra work without the benefit of one being older. A fourteen-month-old can be pretty needy, not just emotionally, but in terms of making sure she isn’t getting into to much trouble. You have an infant to take care of, and all of the helplessness that entails. But the “older” child isn’t really that much older. Not quite old enough to play by themselves for more than 60 seconds at a time, not quite old enough to follow directions or understand consequences. The two kids have different enough needs, developmentally, that you really have to carefully think through each one, instead of just doing more of one thing. Not to mention the shock to the parents of going from one child to two! At least I’ll never know what it’s like to not have two…

Of course, this is all just speculation from someone who’s never done it. But my brother and I were 17 months apart, and my mom said it was pretty rough being pregnant and having a difficult infant while also having a very young toddler to take care of. This twins thing will be crazy and exhausting and hard, but there’s always something that seems like it would be even harder.

Just imagine triplets…