Identity Crisis

This is very much one of those good news, bad news posts.

Firstly, the good news. Finally, I am being referred to by my correct title. My sons and heirs have finally made the connection that I am Dada. They even pointed to a photo of me yesterday and said Dada. I’m ridiculously pleased and proud! What makes it even better was that Hannah was having a carbon copy of the conversation I had with Fat Chops a while ago trying to explain what her name is. That one also ended up with the child looking confused and pointing to his own chest saying “Mama”. Not only was she frustrated with the lack of progress but I might have made her mood a little worse by rolling on the ground laughing.

Now, the not so great news. The boys are having a bit of an identity crisis. Well, I think they are, it’s entirely possible they just don’t care about their moniker. The crux of the issue is that Monkey Boy has been calling his brother by name for a number of weeks now. When we prompt Fat Chops to say Monkey Boys name, we are met with a quizzical expression and deafening silence. Not even as much as a “nahneh”. Last night we made progress of sorts.

Hannah’s mother came up for dinner and was doing what all grandmothers are duty bound to do – spoiling them and feeding them biscuits. She handed Fat Chops two biscuits and told him to give one to Monkey Boy. Then he threw us a curveball by toddling off calling “Fat Chops” or a badly mangled version of it. Just to confuse us further Monkey Boy responded by saying “ta ta Fat Chops”. This will make for some interesting conversations. I can only guess that they have in some way equated the words to the meaning brother or baby or something along those lines. [It’s a fun game trying to second guess their thought process but it is about as useful as trying to train cows to eat grass with a knife and fork].

I know that it’s not really that big a deal but I think I have a legitimate reason for complaint here. That reason is – it’s bloody hard enough to tell them apart as it is!!!

If anyone asks if I can tell them apart, I will always say yes. Mostly, that’s true. I would say that I get it right at least 95% of the time but the converse is that I get it wrong one attempt in twenty. In my defense, they are very similar looking and because we like to make things difficult for ourselves, we normally dress them the same. I normally get the name wrongs in situations where I am under a little duress, say if one of the boys are in the process of waving a glass around in one hand [obviously a completely hypothetical situation that would never happen under my watch so there is no need whatsoever to call social services!!]. Who can be blamed for calling out the first name that comes to mind?

So, if they are both calling each other Fat Chops, I can see my percentage dropping a couple of points. I might be lucky to clear 90%. I only hope that I get it right when it is important.

My sister-in-law [DQ] has twin girls [Skittles & Cahoots *see footnote] who aren’t genetically identical but I can only tell them apart by a freckle on Skittles cheek. She tells a funny story about one day where Skittles committed some misdemeanor [I can’t remember what it was, there are frequent infractions and it’s hard to keep track]. DQ found out from their big sister which of them was guilty and proceeded to read the riot act. She read chapter and verse, loudly and at length, barely pausing for breath. Eventually she stopped to allow the blood to subside from her face. The admonished child looked up and said “I’m not Skittles, I’m Cahoots” and turned on her heel. In the end Skittles got off scot free because DQ couldn’t muster the rage to go through it all again. Another scary glimpse into my future. I can only hope that my pair don’t develop the habit of answering to both their name and their siblings.



*Skittles was so named because of something that happened a while ago while she was on a sleepover in our house. Hannah went to the shop and got sweets as a treat for her and her sister who was staying with a different uncle. We picked them up from my mother-in-laws house and Cahoots left without bringing her sweets with her. We watched some TV that night with Skittles and she ate her sweets while we sat on the couch. The next afternoon, Cahoots came in, saw her sister with the other bag of sweets and started a row. Hannah took Skittles aside and asked her if she was eating Cahoots’s sweets. Skittles protested her innocence replying deadpan “these are my sweets, I ate Cahoots sweets last night”.

Cahoots is rarely the ring leader and mostly gets into trouble when she is in cahoots with Skittles or someone else.