Double Time

The book I was reading (All Adults Here by Emma Straub) before I fell asleep last night has among its characters a couple struggling with two over-active five-year-old boys – twins. While our twin granddaughters are pretty sedate in comparison, it brought home the twin phenomenon and the challenges it can bring.

          There are no twins on my side of the family, but my father-in-law was an identical twin, a fact that, before both kids, had me asking my obstetrician to check for a second heartbeat. (FYI, I was highly unlikely to have twins, since identical twins are random, and fraternal ones run in families, as they do in my DIL’s)

          So, as I was falling asleep, my mind drifted to the neighborhood where we raised our kids and its wacky prevalence of multiple births. The Reardons in back of us had twins, as did the Trimbles on the corner, and on the other street flanking ours, the Scibellis had twin girls. Our own street, though was the standout, since the Moriaritys had triplets, and across the street from them were the Brietungs, a family of eight. Amazingly, in that scrum of kids they had not only one set of identical twins, but another set of fraternal ones. I’m glad I was done birthin’ babies at that point.

          Nothing like a good Catholic neighborhood, although we kept expecting to be ridden out of town since we were neither Irish or Catholic.