Twin Thoughts

I’m currently reading a mystery novel about a family whose 3-year-old twin girls are kidnapped. One twin is returned by the kidnappers, but they keep the other one, and the mother of the twins eventually figures out that the twins are communicating with each other via what they call “twin speak,” which, in this book is a combination of spoken word and telepathic messages. Unfortunatley, everyone else in the book thinks she’s crazy, so she’s got to work this out on her own…that’s all I know…I’m only about half way through the book.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know this, I have twin daughters. They are 26 years old. They live several states away from me, so I don’t get to see them very often. One daughter – I’ll call her “Mommy Twin” – has two children; a 3-year-old girl (baby girl) and a 5-month-old boy (baby boy). Her sister, “Career Twin,” has no children; she’s married to her job. They all shared an apartment for a number of years until Career Twin’s job transferred her to a city about two hours away.

I called Mommy Twin the other night to find that Career Twin was visiting for a few days. Mommy Twin said she was cooking sloppy joe’s for Career Twin because Career Twin never cooks, so she wanted to make her something she hasn’t had in awhile. I said, that’s funny, Career Twin asked me for my Stromboli recipe last week, so I emailed it to her.

“Oh, my gosh”, Mommy Twin said, “I’ve been thinking about that, too! (stromboli) We’ve been doing that a lot lately (thinking the same thing).”

Mommy Twin went on to tell me that on a recent shopping trip she had picked out a cute shirt for Baby Girl, but Baby Girl would have nothing to do with it, so Mommy Twin put it back and let Baby Girl pick out something else. Mommy Twin also tried on a pair of shoes for herself, but in the end decided to hold off on purchasing them until she had more free cash.

So, Career Twin shows up for the weekend, and what does she present to Baby Girl? The shirt Mommy Twin had put back because Baby Girl had refused it!

Not only that, but Career Twin showed up wearing the same shoes Mommy Twin had tried on but decided not to buy! Remember, my girls now live two hours apart. And they had not spoken about their shopping adventures prior to Career Twin’s visit. These events occurred completely separately, with no discussion between them.

This is funny because, while Career Twin’s move was a good experience for her and gave both her and Mommy Twin some much needed space, Career Twin has spent almost every day off since her move visiting with Mommy Twin and the kids. She’s even started looking for a job back in the same town.

So clearly they’re plugged in to one another a little more than usual right now, but that leads me to ponder the idea that twins can someone communicate…telepathically? I do believe in that sort of thing, but I wonder…is it more common in twins than in other types of siblings? What about between mother and child? (I had some very distinct “knowings” around my Mommy Twin’s first pregnancy that I’ll reveal in another posting.)

And what about friends and acquaintances? I had an experience similar to the one I just described about 20 years ago with a co-worker. (Also another post.)

Some would say this kind of stuff is creepy…or even evil. I say it’s way cool! What do you think?