We’ve talked about Sam and Elisabeth’s wedding around here before. But, more than the nuptials we celebrate constantly at our house, a marriage is a good analogy for what it means to be a twin.
To be a twin is to be one half of a celebrity marriage.
Seriously. It’s the only way I can describe it. When someone says, “What’s it like to have twins?” I would love to answer, “Kind of like living with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.”
I mean with less diamonds and Oscars and red carpets.
Actually, we have more red carpets around here than you’d guess for a family in the suburbs.
Here was last Tuesday’s red carpet…
which took place on our Kura-bed-stained driveway, among our hula hoops and lots of random Sanford and Son furniture, drug out from the garage.
Notice the stylish rain boots on Ben.
I mean Sam.
More on that celebrity-marriage analogy…
As a twin, you’re sort of famous just for being a twin. Friends at school feel like they know you, even though they really don’t. I’m sure Angelina and Brad (are they married yet?) get that all the time. I’m also sure Angelina and Brad’s driveway looks much more like our jet setter neighbors, who are home about twice a month.
See? They have the clean driveway to prove it.
At our driveway red-carpet events, Nate serves as chauffeur. Power Wheels Jeep is probably exactly the transportation Nicole and Keith prefer. And like Nicole and Keith, Sam and Elisabeth trust each other, rely on each other, are loyal to each other, make each other laugh, and fight just like an old married couple.
You’d better not ever say anything mean about their twin. Both of them will stand up for each other in playground politics and in family “discussions.” Well, unless they are the one who says something mean about their twin.
Criticizing each other seems to be totally fair.
Some red carpet events require transportatio more festive than just a PowerWheels Jeep. That’s where Catie steps in with her Wagon Contraption of Death–I mean, chariot. Like Victoria and David Beckham, this couple appreciates the posh-er parts of life (yes, pun intended.). They also appreciate each other’s success–unless that success undermines their own. Just like a real celebrity couple, the fiercest fights brew when their better half’s career or life seems to be going better. Ever since Elisabeth scooted across the living room before Sam, the twins have eyed each other’s milestones to make sure they’re staying even.
Probably the most bittersweet analogy of Sam and Elisabeth as celebrity spouses is that will (inevitably) one day break up. Someday (like most celebrities, unfortunately), these two will find someone else and partner up with them.
But for now, they’ll continue to enjoy the limelight of their celebrity status, their mutual support, and all the fun of their siblings chauffeuring them around.
