Attention Getters

When you are a mom of multiples you quickly realize you're going to get a lot of attention. I learned it, early on, when I was just pregnant and the kiddos hadn't even discovered America. Nothing raises people's interest faster than a gigantic pregnant belly, and then later the gigantic double strollers with two identical, adorable babies peeking out of the strollers. That was then...

...But, even today, at almost 4 years old, Paige and Taylor are still quite the attention getters!

Now, there's two ways you can go with it... you can feel like a freak show or like everyone's watching you and your kids. You can avert your eyes from people and hope people don't notice you and your identical duo kids alongside of you (hah! good luck with that). You can let people's comments and idiotic questions bother you (and trust me, there will be many many stupid questions). You can feel burdened by the curiosity and the fact that it still somehow takes twice as long to do everything or go anywhere because everyone and their mother wants to stop and chat about your twins.

Or you can just enjoy it. Take it as a compliment, see it as people generally being kind, and love that they see your children as adorable and wonderful. I have definitely learned to be more friendly with strangers, and sometimes even find myself enjoying getting a chance to just talk to strangers when I'm out and about, even if it's all about the twins.

You will be asked all kinds of questions...

These days, the questions I get from strangers are:

Who's the happy one? Who's the good one? Which one's the bossy one? (Now, just stop and think about that for a moment...would you go up to a woman with two different aged children and ask, who's the happy one? who's the good one? who's the bossy one? No. You wouldn't. So, I usually will just say, 'oh, they're both good, they're both happy' etc.)

You will also get all kinds of comments...

Typical comments: Wow! You sure have your hands full! God bless you!! They must keep you busy! Bet you're tired! and the ones I've love.... You're so blessed. You must have so much fun. You are so lucky!

Every now and then though, someone says something that bugs the heck out of me...In general I let 99% of things roll off my back. But there have been a few.

For example, the lady who had her single child in the shopping store the other day, who looked at me walking by with my girls, pointed and yelled "OH MY GOD!! Thank god it's not me!" I just smiled back, but what I felt like yelling back to her was: "Yeah, thank God it's not you!"

I have years to look forward to the continued fascination with twins from onlookers and strangers so I should just get used to it. I should just tack on 5-10 extra minutes into every errand I run to allow for chatting and to answer people's questions about the girls. I know that they are going to grow up to be amazing women, and it's actually more fun than it is a bother to have others be in awe of and curious about our children. We're blessed, even though we could do without all the attention getting SOME days...