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Email a Friendi haven’t noticed any spidey senses in my own kids, but I think it is both super neat and absolutely adorable that Camilla knows everytime which brother is which!
its true sister love! <3
Special Sense
how do kids know stuff?
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:00 AM
Our identical twins look very much alike.
They can’t fool their sister, though. Even when my husband and I have to take a second look to make sure we have the right twin, Camilla never hesitates. I’m not sure how she knows, but she identifies her baby brothers correctly every time.
I’ve noticed this talent of hers for a while, but I was still impressed last weekend. We picked up our copy of the new parish directory, the pictures for which were taken last summer, and when I saw it I was glad I’d listed our names from left to right for the caption under the photo. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known which 3-month-old baby was which.
Curious, I asked Camilla if she could tell. She tilted her head and deliberated for a moment, then pointed confidently. “That’s Ambrose. That’s Linus.” She was right!
For fun, I pulled up a bunch of digital photos to test her. In some of them, it’s hard enough to tell the twins apart that I labeled the photos when I uploaded them. There are several in which I, the babies’ mother, would not know the difference without the tag. But Camilla got every single one correct.
Crazy sibling talent, huh?
When I was in college I had a fellow student who was the oldest of a bunch of children. His mom never found out the sex of each baby before the birth, but he swore he’d guessed correctly every time. He had a special sense for it, he told me.
I wasn’t sure I believed him (with half-a-dozen or more babies, the odds would be low) but now that I’ve seen my own daughter’s sibling-sense, I’m convinced he was telling the truth. Camilla can’t even tell me how she knows the difference between her brothers in pictures. “Ambrose just looks like Ambrose and Linus looks like Linus,” she says. But no one else sees what she sees. There is something special there.
Now I’m thinking: stuff like this has to have happened with other people’s children. What about yours? Have you ever witnessed “child-sense”? I know there have to be some good stories out there!
Comments
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Posted by Holly on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 10:42 AM (EDT):
We have two boys and are expecting a baby in the late fall. From the very beginning, my eldest son (4yo) has said that this baby was a girl “because God wouldn’t send us too many boys.” We told him many, many times that God wouldn’t send us “too many” boys but that 3 boys may not qualify for too many. He never wavered in thinking this baby was a girl. The day of the ultrasound, he woke up and said “today is the day that I will be right!” Sure enough, we are having a girl!
I know that he had a 50/50 chance, but he was just so sure of himself from the very beginning and seeing as he changes his mind on everything else multiple times a day, we all just think it’s neat that he was so consistent and so right. 
Those are precious babies and that is awesome that Camilla knows which is which! That will surely come in handy in the future when her little brothers are old enough to try to trick the teacher/coach/etc. 
Posted by Claire on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 11:35 AM (EDT):
My husband and I have both noticed that sometimes we’ll be thinking something, and my son will bring up the same thing very soon thereafter (sometimes immediately). I’ve heard of this happening between mothers and kids who have very strong bonds, but I’ve never heard of it happening between fathers and kids. My husband was my son’s primary caregiver when he was 3 months old until he was 18 months old, so I wonder if that helped to form the deep bond that is usually exclusive to mothers and their kids.
Posted by Kathleen on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 1:14 PM (EDT):
Our identical twin sons are just a few months older than Ambrose & Linus (my guys were born in February 2011). They were my first pregnancy, so I don’t have experience with the sibling sense, but I can definitely relate re: not being able to tell them apart in some of their early baby pics. At the time I could, but now that a year has passed, I can’t tell them apart in their itty bitty baby pics.
Interestingly enough, my mom is an identical twin. I cannot tell her and her twin apart in pics of them from BEFORE I was born. But in every single pic of them SINCE I was born - even when I was a baby - I can tell them apart. It’s like once I was born and came to know my mom, I always knew who was my mom and who was my aunt.
Posted by Kathy P on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 2:52 PM (EDT):
My son was a late talker, mostly grunted and pointed. But my dd, who was 2 years older, understood everything he “said” or could tell what he wanted when he cried. After trying to understand his grunts, I would turn to my daughter for help and she would matter-of-factly tell me “he wants his blankie” or “he wants a drink.” Then I would do so and find out she was right (unless he was just listening to her and decided what she had suggested sounded good!). I can’t tell you how many car rides this intuition helped with when they were both in the backseat in carseats and I was in front and my daughter would just get my son what he wanted!
Now they are 20 and 18 and still enjoy communicating with each other, although more by FaceTime and Facebook now!
Posted by Sparki777 on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 3:09 PM (EDT):
Same here. My daughters are 18 months apart, and for the longest time, my youngest would spout off in random syllables (not words, but with inflection like she was using words). We’d be mystified at what she was saying, she’d be frustrated that we didn’t understand, and we’d all turn to her older sister who always knew *exactly* what she meant. They are 8 and almost 10 now, and I recently asked the elder sister how she knew and she just shrugged.
Posted by Beth on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 3:37 PM (EDT):
When I was 3 1/2 years old, my mom was pregnant with my second sibbling and I leaned over in church and told her, “God told me we’re having a sister! We should name her Sarah!” 9 months later, I had a brother, Andrew.
I may have had many sibbling skills, but certainly the ability to discern (guess?!) the sex of my future sibblings was not my gift.
Or, maybe, even then, I just heard what I wanted to hear
Posted by Arwen Mosher on Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 10:56 PM (EDT):
I love this story, Beth, because there’s a similar one in our family. When I was 4 and my sister was 2, our mom was pregnant with baby #3. Her whole pregnancy, we referred to “him” as “our brother Brandon” - until our sister Miriel was born! (We did eventually get Brandon; he’s kid #4.) One of our mom’s friends teased us during the pregnancy that maybe it wasn’t a boy, but we were 100% positive. And 100% wrong!
Posted by Heidi on Thursday, Jun 21, 2012 1:37 AM (EDT):
Not quite the same, but my brothers and I had a conversation a few years back about being sick when we were children and I found out that two of them always had the exact same nightmare as I did whenever we were ill as children. None of us can explain or describe the dream (something about smooth/rough rolling ball/jagged sharp things???) but we all had it. It used to freak me out horribly - them too! Siblings really are connected aren’t they?
Posted by Michele on Saturday, Jun 23, 2012 11:15 PM (EDT):
I also think, with telling twins apart, that some are just astute at picking up nuances in a face or expression. We had three sets of identical twins in our high school, and I could always tell them apart, every time. They just looked like themselves. I couldn’t describe what it was.
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