A Simple Discovery

Although I’ve been a part of my nephew’s life from day one, I’m certain he met me for the first time tonight. Tonight, Wil discovered that his mom and I are twins.  He is seven months old and until today, I think he thought Emily and I were one in the same.  I was sitting in front of Wil’s saucer talking to him.  Emily walked in the room and leaned over next to me and said, “Hi Wil.”  Typically, Wil would flash a bright smile in instant recognition of his mom, but this time he looked frightened and confused with sheer panic in his eyes. His eyes focused on Emily, then me, back to her, then me.  Emily noticed right away that he wasn’t himself and said, “What’s wrong with him?”  I replied, “He was perfectly fine a second ago.”  Again, his eyes frantically moved back and forth focusing intently on each of our faces.  I told her I thought he was realizing there were two of us and then he burst into tears.  He sobbed.  Emily picked him up to console him and you could see his little wheels turning.  “Do I have double vision?  Do I have two moms or maybe two Aunt Megans? Which one is my mom? Where is my dad?”

We talked to him and reintroduced ourselves as though it was our first meeting.  Then, we did what any other good mom and aunt would do...we put him back in the saucer, got out the video camera and hoped to catch a similar reaction on tape…and we did.  You can see he is still processing the possibility that life as he knew it wasn’t so. When I brought the video home to show my husband, he responded, “Hmmm, Wil’s reaction is similar to the one I had when I found out there were two of you.”