Identical and Fraternal

According to our referral paperwork, Bereket and Sira are identical and Tsega, who “doesn’t look like his two brothers. . . appears to be the fraternal triplet”. It is clear that Tsega is indeed fraternal. He is different from his brothers in looks, size (he’s the big one although they were all the same size at birth and referral), personality, temperament, development, you name it.

Bereket and Sira look and act alike. Moments after I took this picture below Bereket (right) and Sira (left) started sucking their thumbs at the same time and neither of them typically suck thumbs.

People ask us about the alleged identicalness of the two brothers and we have wondered too. We don't have DNA tests to prove it, so are they truly identical? Some days no problem, other days when I don't dress them myself I have to look for Sira's ear piercing to distinguish the two. Jerry's terrible, he never seems to recognize who's who. Oh, but I see differences, people tell us, this one is smaller, that one has rounder features, I don't think they are identical. . . and me, I can always tell them apart in pictures. Sira has more heart-shaped facial features, Bereket's are rounder, Sira was the tiny one when we got home and yet now he's out-chubbing Bereket by a hair. But if you reduce the features and compare individually, it is striking. The eyes, lashes, brows, noses, bald heads, figures. . . I even noticed just recently they share the same funky toenail on the same toe.

If you look hard at the sleeping baby on the left, you can see Sira's little ear piercing on the top part of the exposed ear near his head. I don't know the story behind it but it comes in handy when in doubt!

But lately I have become convinced just as I was starting to doubt it. About two weeks ago Bereket cut his first tooth. Sira's first came through about 2 days later. Bereket and Sira do all the same pre-crawling movements such as rolling both ways, getting on knees and hands, rocking back and forth, crawling backwards, and getting on hands and feet with legs extended; they began doing these movements at nearly identical times with Bereket always slightly in the lead. Last Saturday we watched in pride as Bereket backed up from all fours into a sitting position all by himself for the first time. Guess who mimicked this same movement the very next day? Sira, his identical brother!

Last night Bereket took his first official crawl forward (only a few inches but it was great form) and reached up with both hands and held onto the bottom slat of the kitchen table for several minutes as he tried to pull up. He is close to total mobility which means Sira is too.

Now if only my big boy Tsega would follow but that's for another post.