They really must be twins...

Often when I am out with the kids, T and J are assumed by most to be twins.  They are the same height, have the same hair and eye color, and generally look quite a bit alike.  The two of them have developed all sorts of responses to this question/comment (many people don't ask, but simply assume).

Just today, the mom teaching their coop class was introducing them to another mom who was visiting, and said, "And this is T and this is J; good luck keeping them straight!"  And their poor swimming instructor...they have matching swimsuits and both have hot pink goggles.  One can often hear her trying out both names for one girl just to see which gets their attention.

I don't try to encourage this 'twin-like' behavior.  But I don't discourage it either.  I hope they are the best of friends and love each other's company dearly all the years of their lives, but they are two individuals who are really not much alike, underneath, at all. So I do my best to allow them to be however 'twinish' (or not) they desire on any given day.

However, on Monday this idea of occasionally being twins became a bit over the top.  Not to mention dangerous and expensive.

See, there was this post about 13 months ago: Our first trip to the ER.  For the sake of demonstrating just how absurd this is: T and J are almost exactly 13 months apart.

Well, we repeated that incident once again on Monday.  Only this time with J.  Yup, she has four staples in the center back of her head.

She was sitting on a small, low wooden stool using a side table to do her handwriting (she is known for finding odd locations and configurations in which to do most tasks) when she lost her balance and fell back.  It would have been a small bump on the carpet except that a chair had been pushed back and she came back on a corner of the chair leg.  I was in the kitchen (around a corner) making bread when she hollered. 

I will never get over the amount of blood that comes with head injuries.  Dripping all over the floor, down all of her hair, etc. She even had managed to cover a bit of her face with some.  Oh, the amount of ideas one's head suddenly has at a moment like this is rather staggering.  Anyhow, it was a mess, but once I washed her up a bit I saw that it was just like T's and knew we were in for the same treatment.  I also knew I could wait twenty minutes for Ryan to come home and watch the rest of the little ones.

On to the ER J and I went.  The nurse even remembered our family from when we all had come in for T to have her staples taken out.  I suppose there aren't too many groups of six people (only one of those persons being an adult) piling into an ER room with school books and pencils to have staples removed... 

Fortunately for J, the Dr decided to use a topical numbing gel.  T had no anesthetic with hers, but she is a much tougher cookie.  Four staples and a special teddy bear later we were on our way home.

I still can't decide on one thing: Is it simply sad or a blessing from above that we finished paying off our last ER bill (for T's broken finger) this month, just in time to begin another payment plan....

Oh, and did I ever tell you?  T named her bear, which the ER gave her last year, "Staples".  Seriously.

J's bear's name? "Fancy Jane"....don't ask; I don't know...but its things like that which go to show that they really aren't twins.