Interview with Jane Seymour
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How do you handle squabbles and disputes between your twins? I joke with them now. When they fight one another, I call it "twinning" because when they were babies they used to just curl into one another which i call twinning. Now our joke in the family is when they are literally wrestling almost to the death, that I call that a different form of twinning. But you know, they’re boys, they like to wrestle. Everybody I know that has twin boys tells me that happens. With twins the good news is you don’t have to bring a friend in, they always have one other. The bad news is, they will fight. The good news is they learn how to share because they’ve never known anything but sharing. The bad news is that when they’re around other kids, who are singletons, they’re much more used to having to grab for something because they’re used to having to share it. Twins bite. Every mother of twins I’ve ever met has told me that they send the child to preschool and suddenly the other parents are looking at them and saying, “Your child bit my child!” Twins, before they are able to really talk, tend to use their teeth. I thought of coming up with a T-shirt saying “Mother of Twins. Forgive me. Beware: Twins Bite!” How do you encourage your twins as individuals? The other thing about twins is that they are completely different. Mine you know, are fraternal, but even mothers of twins always tell me how different the twins are, psychologically and emotionally and in every possible way. My two, it always makes me laugh because they’re both blond. But one has naturally curly hair, one has dead straight hair. One has always been, well most of his life, weighed at least twenty-five pounds, substantially more than the other one, and at least two or three inches taller, and you know he’s quite stocky whereas the other one is very skinny and smaller. People say “Oh are they identical?” and I’m kind of going “Uhhh, where did we get that idea...” But you know that’s hysterical. It’s like when people have twins that are a boy and a girl and people say, “Oh are they identical?” and you go, “I don’t think so. One physiologically is completely different from the other.” Nowadays so many people have twins because of modern medicine and fertility clinics. The school that my kids are in, they have a set of quads, either quads or quintuplets in their class. And then at least four or five sets of twins. It was really funny when they first went to preschool and then kindergarten, on their first day they would somehow or other manage to find other twins. They independently without necessarily realizing they were twins, one would have found one and was playing with him and the other would have found the other one and was playing with him. It was really interesting. The twins have often found other twins, especially when they were younger, that they really got along with. As they’ve gotten older, they both do the same things, same sports, same music, same everything but one of them is clearly the natural athlete. That would be Kris. And John is a good athlete and he tries hard … he’s normal. Johnny is an extraordinary musician and very creative also in terms of drawing. So he’s the very creative one. Now his brother also plays four instruments and is perfectly capable of being a very good drummer and a pretty good guitarist, can certainly play the piano and can certainly draw and paint. But John is the one that not only has the gift but the passion. Morning, noon, and night there is a guitar somewhere around his neck and there is music being created. And morning, noon, and night, Kris is looking for something to either hit catch or throw. We’ve given them both everything and really, kind of watched to see who was enjoying what more. We insist they both do music and we insist they both do sport. But obviously one is much better at certain sports than the other. So Kris went to a special tennis camp for two weeks. He probably will do fall ball and football this season, whereas John is now picking up martial arts and boxing. He’s more gymnastically inclined. Are they ever jealous of each other's abilities or accomplishments? I don’t think [they are jealous] because I think John was very patient when he would have to sit on the bench and Kris got to be the first drawn on everything... John, it’s interesting, it’s like "The Little Engine That Could.” He tries and tries and tries and actually got to be really pretty good. Kris who is naturally really good, doesn’t try. And Johnny now has his own band. And although Kris is a very good musician and could easily play in this band, Johnny now basically says, “No, you can’t be in my band. You don’t practice enough,” which is true. So Kris acknowledges that maybe he’s not as passionate about the music. But when they do play together, when they play music together, it is unbelievable because they literally can read one another’s mind. I mean, John can start improvising and Kris will immediately come up with a beat that works, without having to even know what they’re doing. And vice versa. They play four instruments each. That’s really cool to see. There’s sort of a natural communication that’s unspoken. And in the same way when they play sports. Johnny’s smaller but he has never been afraid to catch Kris’ eighty-mile an hour pitch, where there are a lot of kids his size and age who would run a mile rather than have to catch it. By Pamela Prindle Fierro, About.com |
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