the real gray's anatomy

i know babies get lots of attention. from lots of people. but as a mother of twins, let me tell you about the attention twins get you. i won't say that my babies are the most beautiful babies ever in the history of babies (even if i think that is true, i won't say it). people are fascinated by two babies coexisting together. anywhere. in the stroller, in high chairs, in the womb, etc. so i get a lot of attention. um, i mean the babies get a lot of attention. i'm like a personal assistant to little mini celebrities. and here i am using my 15 minutes of fame. they don't talk to their public. i am their voice. they do try to take their own calls but i handle most of those too. so most everyone in the universe has some connection to twins somewhere. and most everyone in the universe tells me about said twin connection. "i am a twin" oh cool. tell me about it. how's that working out for you? my sister's college roommate was a twin. oh cool. keep moving. my neighbor's aunt helen knew some twins who lived three towns over from her. charming. the *quick* stories are mostly fine. people are nice. they care. they're interested. some people do come up with some ridiculous one liners that annoy me. if i hear "double trouble" one more freaking time i'm going to give someone an example of what "trouble" really could mean for them. i guess it's fine when the babies are like three months old and the people might as well be saying "two nightmares" because they don't care. but what kind of an impact can this have on kids who are 3 or 4 or 8 or 15 and hear it over and over and over? you psychies can tell me all about that, i'm sure. i'm just saying. it could have an impact. the "double trouble" is actually nicer than what some people say like, for example "better you than me." um, you couldn't be more right. better for you, better for me, better for my children, better for your children, if you have any, and better for society as a whole, i think. so i also get lots of questions. some inappropriate like, "so, like was it IVF?" well no, it wasn't. and if you knew that people who had IVF likely had to move Heaven and earth to get a baby, you might not flippantly ask that question to a complete stranger, dumbass. ok, i've never called someone a dumbass to their face but that made me sound like a badass, didn't it? lots of people ask how old, boy or girl (consequently i do not mind whatsoever if people get gender-confusion when looking at my children...i am not a girl in pink/boy in blue at all times type of person which, this throws people off. they want their pink and blue. anyway, the whole androgenous thing is very hip. it's calvin klein's fortune), identical or fraternal, etc. i get the how old, i get the boy or girl, i even get the identical or fraternal. i do not, however, get the idenical or fraternal FOLLOWED by boy or girl. i personally believe, and i don't think i am alone here, that once your first question of boy or girl is answered, there should be no further question of identical or fraternal. this is obvious, right? i hope it's obvious because my politeness ends when i get this. i just can't enable the stupidity. it's like talking to kendra from the girls next door. when these questions first started i was polite and just said "fraternal." then my politeness started to waver and i would be more explanatory, "well one's a BOY and one's a GIRL so they're FRATERNAL." this would sometime evoke a chuckle once they realized the obviousness of this statement but there are still some head scratchers after this. by now i can't take it anymore. thank you for taking an interest in my kids but if you ask me that idiotic follow-up question these days, this is what you get. "well since one's a boy and has a penis and one's a girl and has a vagina, they're fraternal, not identical." get it? ONE penis. ONE vagina. NOT identical. i base the volume of my response on the level of annoyment (just made that up) i am feeling at that moment.