Rush to the Middle: Two of a kind

As many of you know, given that most of you are related to me, I have two sons. On the surface, you'd be hard pressed to find two more different children. J is thin and more or less average height (perhaps he will be tall and lanky in the future?) with blonde hair and blue eyes (he's our recessive recessive). J likes to sing and dance and draw people and animals and lately mermaids and buildings. J likes to obey the rules. He likes to make people pleased with him. He gets anxious when people are not pleased, and he can be a bit risk averse and a lot unhappy with change. J takes a while to warm up to people and sometimes needs help navigating social situations, but he is a very enthusiastic friend when he makes up his mind to be. J looks like his dad as a child but acts like me as a child (minus the art) so he is very verbal and emotional and authoritative.

E, on the other hand, is very tall and sturdy (I think he will always be both) with brown hair and very brown eyes (so dark we couldn't tell his eyes were any color at all for months). E likes to run and ride bikes and fight with swords and boogie to his own beat (but not to sing very much) and draw robots and monsters and explosions and what he used to call "Big E's," hilarious self portraits with HUGE heads. E does not feel constrained by rules or guilt or what people think of him. He is afraid of being alone and often refuses to tell people what he wants and will shut down when pressed to speak. He can be very, very stubborn in the face of correction but extremely empathetic when others are struggling. E is everyone's friend instantly and will play with anyone who moves. E looks more like me as a child than anyone else in our family but acts like the husband as a child, complete with incredibly funny facial expressions that crack everyone up.

Early on, I dressed them in similar clothes in different sizes, but, pretty quickly, they got to be the same size, so now I just buy two of everything and they wear their clothes interchangeably, more often than not matching, because it's easier for me to keep track of them that way. Because of this, people are always asking me if they are twins. Now, if strangers ask me, I can forgive that--they could easily be very fraternal twins if you had nothing else but their outfits to go on. But people who know us and know them relatively well also ask me if they are twins periodically and I have to wonder how anyone who has been around us can ask that. They look like they came from completely different gene pools; they act about as differently as two boys can. Really?

In not so short, they are very different people. And yet....J lost his first two teeth this year, finally, after two years of feeling behind the curve. E also lost his first two teeth this year as well, in Pre-K. J learned to ride his bike just recently...and E learned how last week, in about 8 minutes. They are both extremely affectionate, still unconsciously holding my hands when we walk, wanting to sit on my lap, under my arm, practically in my skin if I will let them, writing notes or drawing pictures for me almost every day at school or at home. Some days they are so very much the same developmentally it is uncanny. Most of the time, that's fine, but occasionally it's hard on E when people expect him to be a 7 year old like his brother and he is not and hard on J when E gets along with J's friends better than he does. Sometimes their similarities are hard on all of us when they want the same things, the same people, the same treatment and the world doesn't want them to be quite that similar. Right now, however different or the same they are, they both love to spend almost all their time together, which I appreciate and encourage, and they see themselves as very much the same, which helps to strengthen their brother bond, and what more can I ask for them, really??