Omelette Babies

Now that both our twins have been confirmed girls, there’s the question of whether they’re fraternal or identical.

We’ve come to realize that a lot of people don’t understand the differences.  So i’ll try to help.

Here’s a quick tip – fraternal sounds a lot like Fratelli.  Like, the criminal brothers from the Goonies.  One’s short and wears a toupee, and the other is tall and likes to stick fat kids’ hands in blenders.  So if someone is telling you they’re having fraternal twins, picture them.

How do fraternal twins work?

Instead of releasing one egg at a time like she’s supposed to, Mommy shoots out two (or more) eggs like fastballs out of a pitching machine.  So when daddy releases his vagina-bound scuba divers into the waters, both eggs gets their comeuppance and thus two babies are made.  These babies each have their own placenta and sac.  That’s like two people in two separate rooms right next to each other, both glued to their own TVs.  But small and cramped, so like those Japanese hotel pod things.

Omelette babies (as i like to think of them, since you’ve got two eggs and some extra stuff thrown in)  can either be the same or different sex.  And as movies have told us, you could possibly give birth to both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito.  If so, don’t forget about the Safe Haven laws.

If you need someone to blame for these kinds of twins, it’s the mom’s fault.

Identical twins are the creepy kind.  The kind that pop up in hotel hallways and want you to play with them… forever. 

So here, mama releases just the one egg like she’s supposed to.  And just one little champ from your delivery of testicle tea gets involved.  Then you’ve got one baby.  At first.  Then, i think in most cases, lightning strikes the cooterus directly.  What follows is a dividing of the egg into two exact halves.  A replica.  A Xerox.  A ticket to Creepsville.

Depending on a number of things, such as how long it took for the  babyball to split, the genes supplied by the dad, and which long distance carrier you have, the babies could be in a single shared sac, or could have their own.  If they’re in the same sac, they could either share a placenta, or each have one.  There are some boring medical terms to describe all the possible configurations.  

Identical twins will always be the same sex.  And they’ll be…identical.  Don’t bother naming them, because you likely won’t be able to tell them apart until they’re old enough to kick out of the house.  It is advisable to push them into showbusiness.  If Mary-Kate & Ashley or Zack & Cody have taught us anything, it’s that identical twins equals cha-ching.

You do have one major concern when it comes to identicals – the evil twin syndrome.  It is not only possible, it is extremely likely, that you’ll wind up with an ‘evil Spock.’   If you see premature signs of a goatee, or an unusual ringing of hands and maniacal laughing, quickly identify and quarantine the evil twin.  Follow the Simpsons’ advice and lock it in the attic and feed it a bucket of fish heads once a week.

Identical twins are caused by the father.  So blame him endlessly until he falls into a deep depression!

That’s our lesson for the day!   Do you think you can spot twins in the wild and tell which kind they are?  Shout Omelette or Evil Spock at them and see how they respond.