The Things People Say

My local multiples club has been doing a little exercise on our email group asking club members to introduce themselves and tell other members the craziest thing they have been asked while out and about with their multiples.  You would not believe some of the things people have been asked. It got me to thinking about my own twin experiences out in public.


When I had my girls there were many, many things I anticipated but was in no way prepared for - the utter exhaustion due to lack of sleep, the helplessness you feel when two newborns are screaming, how you carry two babies up and down stairs, how in the world you manage to feed and burp two babies at once...but, ahem, I digress.  However, there is one thing that I never, ever anticipated - the attention we would receive when we were out in public.  It is almost comical at times.  I have decided that I can never be famous.  All the attention and being stopped for autographs would send me over the edge.

This is how we rolled out of the hospital and how we got around those first few months...the tandem stroller.  Can you see why we attracted so much attention?

I try my best to be kind and gracious - I really do!  I have a real soft spot for the older people who stop me especially.  I understand that most everyone loves a baby and two babies is just, well, more cuteness than most people can handle!  But, oftentimes, I am in a hurry.  I just want to run in to WalMart, grab my box of Tide, check out and get home so I can do one of my 5,243 loads of laundry.  These are the times that I am stopped 10 times (always by the WalMart greeter, always) before I can even make it to the detergent aisle.  Then the questions begin.

"Oh!  Are they twins?"
"Two boys or boy and girl?" (This would be on a day that both girls are dressed identically in a pink ruffly outfit)
"Who is older?"
"Did you know you were having twins?" (I think the only people surprised by twins these days are the ones that appear on TLC's "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant")
"How much did they weigh when they were born?"
"How long were you able to carry them?"
"Do you get any sleep?"

On and on the questions go.  I have often joked that I am going to start carrying a business card with a FAQ section.  It would include all the girls' birth stats and a few bits of trivia about each girl.  I have been blown away by the personal nature of the questions...from breastfeeding ("How does that work?") to the method by which the girls were delivered.  I've been asked it all...and by men, no less!

Perhaps the strangest encounter I had was with a woman in the Hobby Lobby parking lot. "Excuse me," she called after me.  "I would like to take your picture with my phone to send to my daughter-in-law," she said.  Ummmm...I hesitated and she continued, "She can't seem to get herself together and take ONE baby anywhere.  I want to show her your picture out with TWO babies."  She laughed.  I graciously declined on this one.  There wasn't any way in the world I was getting in the middle of THAT one!

One of the more comical and yet sad encounters was with a little girl at WalMart who asked me if the girls had the "same Daddy".  I kind of giggled and replied that they indeed did have the same Daddy.  She launched into a story about her and her many siblings and how they all had different Daddies.  At this point her embarrassed mother intervened and steered her down another aisle.

The infamous double stroller that attracts so much attention.

I shouldn't complain, because as I often say to people when I am out, I get by on the kindness of strangers.  I can't count the number of times people have run to my aid when I couldn't steer my double stroller and hold the door open at the same time.  Or there was the time when we were having a huge wind storm.  I was putting one girl in her car seat and the other was in the stroller.  A huge gust of wind began to blow the stroller across the parking lot with Harper in it.  A kind lady literally ran across the parking lot to catch the runaway stroller for me.  Orlando Airport's security checkpoint nearly shut down as all the TSA agents scurried to help Aaron and I make it through with two 3 month-old babies.  They informed us that the ticket counter had called ahead to inform them that "twins were coming".  You can't beat that VIP treatment.  I depend on strangers to find lost paci's, chase me down with a lost shoe or most recently interrupt my concentrated shopping with, "Ma'am, one of your children is climbing out of the stroller."  Or maybe, "Ma'am one of your twins is biting the other one."  Insert screaming by Harper as Lily tries to look innocent.  Oh, the kindness of strangers.

I am always kind of touched when I get a little wink and nod from an older lady who tells me that "she has been there" and her twins are in their 40's or 50's now.  She assures me that she survived and I will too!  I also love it when I am stopped by someone who is a twin and they tell me what it was like growing up as one of a set.  An older lady came up to Aaron and I once and told us that she was a twin.  She said that she and her sister were 85 years old and had never lived more than 5 miles apart their entire lives.  She ended by saying, "Well, my sister's mind is gone now and she doesn't remember me, but she lives with with me and I take care of her."  With that she left.  Aaron and I stood looking at each other with tears in our eyes right there in the toilet paper aisle.

For all the annoyances, it is kind of fun.  Plus, I know it's only a short stage of life. Pretty soon there won't be double strollers or lost pacifiers.  I'll be that older lady winking at the young mom saying, "I've been where you are.  I survived and you will too."