Mistaken Identify

When my twins were little I used to feel quite superior at being able to tell them apart when others had so much trouble. I mean after all I AM their mother and of course I would know my own children, or so I thought until one fateful day that humbled me back to reality.

The girls were about 18 months old when one of them pulled the button of her dress and decided to shove it up her nose. They were strapped into their car seats at the time and I didn’t notice until I heard some sniffing sounds coming from the back seat. I stopped the car and upon investigation I noticed a button missing on one daughter’s dress and immediately looked up her nose. There it was, just barely visible but definitely in there. Being a young mother I wasn’t sure what kind of damage this could do to my baby. Could it get sucked up right into her brain? I remained calm as I drove straight to the emergency room of the nearest hospital. I got the girls out of the car and ushered them into the waiting room like little ducks. We were met with what had by then become the customary greeting. “Oh, look, twins, how DO you tell them apart?”

Still concerned about the possibility of my child having a button permanently floating around in her head I quickly responded, “Why, I’m their mother, of course I can tell them apart”.

Sensing my distress they ushered us immediately into an exam room. I put the baby on the exam table and had her sister sit on a nearby footstool. The doctor immediately began examining my daughter looking up her nose with a flashlight and tweezers. She was a perfect angel. She never resisted or flinched a muscle. After spending a considerable time looking for the object of my concern the doctor finally said, “There is no button in this baby’s nose”.

I immediately responded “OH YES THERE IS, I SAW IT.”

About that time I heard my other child sniffling from her little perch at the foot of the table. I looked down to see her rocking back and forth pointing to her own nose while saying, “I dot a but tin in my nose”.

I immediately switched babies and in the midst of all the laughter the doctor swiftly removed the foreign object. They were laughing so hard they didn’t even charge me for the service.

That was just the first serving of all the words I would have to eat in my life time.