That Twin Thing

We try hard not to think of Josie and Piper as a matching set.  We don't insist on dressing them the same, I won't force them into the same activities, and I didn't give them matching names for a reason.  They aren't identical and they are pretty different little girls.  Josie is silly and goofy, breaks out in song and dance on a whim.  Piper is intense and focused, a little quieter with a very tender side.  When I pick them up at preschool, or at the Y, they aren't always playing together.  They are often interested in completely different things.  Yet it's hard to deny their "twinness".  

One example: Josh goes in their room each night to check on them before we head to bed, and this is how he finds them most of the time:

Night after night, they end up in the same position in their crib. And, we noticed a few months ago that, despite the fact that their language was picking up, they still won't say each other's names.  I tried prompting them, pointing at Piper and asking Josie "who's that?"  For some reason, her answer was "dada".  So I asked Josie the same thing about Piper and she said "dada".  Huh?  We tried it over and over and they always came back with "dada" as the answer.  I am certain it wasn't their limited language ability because they say much more complicated words just fine.  I suspect that "dada" was the very first sound they made and they immediately associated it with each other - they did, after all, know each other before we even knew them.

So we started talking about them as "sissy", which they picked up on right away.  They talk about sissy - each other and themselves - interchangeably.  I'll ask Josie "where's sissy?" and most of the time she points to Piper, but sometimes she points to herself.  Last night in the bath, I asked them where Piper was and they both pointed at each other.  I can only guess that they have been so "together" for the two short years of their lives that they still think of themselves as interchangeable.