1. Do twins run in your family? On my moms side of the family many generations back there are 3 sets of twins.

On my husbands side..his mother carried twins but sadly lost them before giving birth. Of course the studys say that Identical twins are not hereditary. 2. How did you feel when you knew you were expecting twins? We didnt find out I was having twins till I was 4 months pregnant! I was excited to find out what were carrying on this visit.a boy or a girl. To our surprise the tech began the exam and kept asking.Is this your first ultra sound? Yes I said! Are you sure she repeated? To which I said YES! Why is there something wrong? The tech says no.its just that you have two in there!! My husband says two what? I was in Shock and kept saying NO NO..Really?????? It wasnt untill I saw the words Baby A and Baby B on the ultra sound that I realized it wasnt just a freaky dream!! The tech asked if we wanted to know what we were having? Of course we said yes! So she proceeded to tell us we are having Two Girls! My husband says can you check to see if there is perhaps a boy in there hiding? hahaha . We were in shock, scared, worried. We were excited too but it was overtaken at first by the sense of being overwhelmed with what needed to be done, what needed to bought and the fact that I was 4 months along already I had a sense of needing to get things done FAST before getting too big, to tired to do anything. 3. What was the birth like? I had a planned c-section due to complications to my previous pregnancy with my singleton son. I arranged for a planned c-section before we even knew that I was having twins. Once we found out I was having twins he told me most likely I will deliver early since many twins come early. To that I told him..not these twins! They will be in my tummy as long as possible. We scheduled for a c-section at 39 weeks! Guess what? I delivered them at 39 weeks via c-section! I was awake at first but started having trouble breathing(I started to panic) so they put me to sleep.so I woke up to meet the most beautiful twin girls I have every seen! Malena weighed 5 lbs 13oz and Sofia weighed 6 lbs 12oz. Both were 20 inches. 4. How far apart where the births? They are 3 minutes apart. 5. How did you choose their names? Was it a theme? Do they rhyme? Malena Marie is named after her grandmother in Mexico(Malena) and her grandma here in the states(Marie). Sofia Rose is named after Sophia Loren(Sofia) and her Great grandma(Rose). They are named after very strong women!

6. Can you tell them apart? How? When they were first bornNO! We kept the hospital bracelet on their wrist till I was comfortable with who was who. Once the bracelet was off I painted Sofias toenail pink so if all else failed we could whip off a sock and know who was who. 7. Do you ever get them mixed up? For the most part I could tell the difference but there would be moments of a brief period that I wouldnt be sure who was who.I remember one time I was trying to feed one the girls and she just wouldnt eat and I was so frustrated..till I realized that I was actually feeding the baby that had just eaten. I changed their diapers and got them mixed up. I remember one time daddy was calling for one of the girls by the wrong name and he was getting irritated cause she was ignoring himI realized that he had the name wrong and said I bet if you call her by her right name she will know that your talking to her. And one weekend they both decided to trick their teenage cousin. They convinced her that Malena was Sofia, Sofia was Malena. I realized my neice kept calling them by the wrong name so I corrected her and she was arguing with me that I was wrongthen we hear my girls just giggling(they were about 5yrs old). Of course the older they got the more I could tell whos who. Malenas face is shaped like an A and Sofias face is shaped like an O. 8. Do they have different personalities? Yes and No. There are parts of their personality that is very similar like the outgoing part, strong, conversational, loves to be involved at things at school. Then there is one that thrives on getting homework perfectly right while the other is content to just get it done(not carrying if its done right). One can be a perfectionist while the other tends to be willing to give up on things if its to hard. One has pretty good self confidence as to how she looks while the other doesnt think she is as pretty or smart as her twin sister. 9. Do you dress them the same? When they were infants and till they were about 5 years old I dressed them the same or coordination colors in the same outfit. At 5 yrs old they decided to start choosing what they wanted to wear and often times it was different and I let them. Now they are 9 years old and there are days they choose to wear the same outfit(cause its fun!) and often they wear something different though they have very similar likes in clothing so often times I buy the same outfit if I think there is going to be an argument over one outfit 10. Do they have any other siblings? If so how do they and the twins get on? Yesthey have a brother. He was 3 years old when they were born. He is a great brother loves his sisters very much! He was my big helper when they were born. He would run to get diapers for me and throw away the yucky

ones and he would feed the both of them at the same time for mommy when mommy needed a break!! He is very protective of them! They get along for the most part! Of course they can fight too! At the moment Ramzie(big brother) gets along really good with Malena. Ramzie and Sofia argue a lot! Of course last year it was Ramzie and Malena that argued a lot so I guess they are taking turns.. 11. Has anything spooky happened like them doing exactly the same thing at the same time or reacting to the other ones pain? Hmm well not really though I can think of two things that happened that I thought was odd: One day my mother came over and the girls were in and out of the kitchen with us and she was getting the girls water. The water was in a blue cup and then a red cup. My mom handed Malena red cup and then she was going to give Sofia the blue cup but Malena spoke up and said no Sofia wants the yellow cup. Girls were not talking to each other at the time and we did not hear Sofia say which cup she wanted.We asked Sofia what cup she wanted and she says the yellow one. We asked Malena how did you know sissy would want the yellow one? Did she tell you? Malena says, no she didnt tell meI just knew. Another situation. I was at the the store. I had a hold of the girls hand- one of each side of me. All of a sudden out of the blue they start to sing the ABCs(they didnt discuss hey lets sing this song now) which is odd enough but what made it even more odd was that they sang wrong letters at the same time(this was before kinder) like ABCEDEFG JKLMNOP RSTVXYZ When of the girls cry the other will freak out and beg me or daddy to fix it! They can not stand to hear eacother cry its almost like it hurts their hearts.. 12. When they are older will you try and keep them together or encourage them to be individual? When kinder started for them I wanted them to be together but the school didnt want them together. I talked to the principal a few times and she wasnt going to let me cause she felt that them being separate would help them develop their identity. Which I totally disagree with! Just because my girls are twins doesnt mean they have a problem with their identity. People always seem to think keep them separate but I say part of their identitiy is fact they are identical twins!!!! Yes separate if you see a problem developing but just because they are twins does not mean they automatically have issues with their identity. I went to the school district! I talked to someone about how as a parent I should have the say where my girls will be together or not! I know my twins better than anyone and I wanted to try them together!! A few weeks later I got a phone call from the teacher they would have for kinder!! Of course after 3 days I realized that it wasnt going to work cause they were fighting A LOT at home. At school they were great but at home OMG they were mean to each other!. So I separated them! Now that they are in 4th grade they have the same teacher this year!!! Things are going great with them! How do I encourage

them to be an individual? I dont do anything special..I follow their lead. If they want to do something different than each other.fine! If they want to do the same thing as their sister.fine! I dressed them the same for a long time but when they were ready to dress a little different they let me know that was what they wanted so I listened! The truth is kids individual sides shine through eventually.what we need to do as parents to twins is just follow their lead. If its important to them they will let you know. My girls have always slept together. Even at 9 years old they still sleep together in a queen size bed. We have room for each of them to have their how bedroom but in their words Momwe are not ready for that. Which is fine with me I think they are good with their individual identity as well loving the fact that they are Identical Twins!! They are strong enough to show their own feelings, ideas as well as knowing its okay to be like sissy. 13. How do you spread you love and attention evenly? I take any moment I can to spend one on one time with each of my kids including their singleton brother. Sometimes I only take one of the kids to a movie and the next time I take the other but honestly they like being together. I have had dates planned with one of the girls and the one I am gonna go the movies with says Mama can we take sissy? so we take her! Of course there are times one of the girls have said Mama can just you and I go to the movie? So that what I do. Gotta play each situation by ear. Kids need things at different times for different reason so as a parent you gotta be willing to be flexable to many it work out. 14. Do your twins get on? Yes and No They are each others best friend and yet they can really argue and fight like they hate each other! Of course as fast as the argument starts it is quickly over. One minute they are yelling, screaming, hands on the hip at each other and the next they are hugging each other and telling each other I Love you sissy!