Our Twins Turn 17: From Caterpillars to Butterflies

Hi, friends. Today our twins turn 17, and I should really let them write this post, because I'm not part of their daily lives all that much anymore. Our house has turned into Grand Central Station. Sometimes everyone's home, sometimes nobody is, sometimes no one knows where anyone else is. Everybody is moving through their own life on their own.

Yesterday our oldest daughter loaded up a moving van and took all her stuff to her new home. Everything is changing, and something new happens every day. When I started StadtLandMama, she was 6 and the boys were just 4. And now? Big people. Eye to eye. Conversations about everything under the sun.

I have a feeling the teen years are over, at least the part they're famous for. The caterpillars went into their cocoons (and barricaded themselves in their rooms), and suddenly the most beautiful butterflies are fluttering through our house. The doors are open again, and we get to be part of their world and see it through their eyes, and that's such a gift.

I asked the two of them separately what turning 17 means to them. The twin who's two minutes older said, "It means a lot to me, because then I'm the biggest of the little ones, the oldest non-18-year-old, the oldest kid in the world." The thoughts these kids have! And next year he's not a kid anymore…

His brother saw it completely differently: "17 is one of those ages where you can't really do anything." At 16 you're allowed to do new things. At 18, too. That's what he meant. But hey, they're about to get their licenses for supervised driving (in Germany, 17-year-olds can drive as long as a designated adult rides along). They'll take the test soon, and the last driving lessons are already on the calendar. Paying for two driver's licenses at the same time, and then it's accompanied driving.

Who gets to drive Mom's car today? That's going to be fun 😉 With twins, everything happens at the same time. But there's also so much closeness. I've mentioned it often, but I have to say it again in every look back like this: from about age 5 to about 14, they fought every single day, called each other names, and wouldn't even let the other one have butter on his bread. And today? It's like a miracle.

Often they're like best friends, and sometimes even more, like when they climb out of their little 28-mph microcar (the kind you can drive at 16 in Germany) with their blond curls, or when one of them drives to his test without his brother and the other texts him: Bro, I'm getting so nervous right now, are you nervous? So it's no rumor that twins sometimes feel what the other one is feeling, even when they're far apart. It used to be unthinkable that they'd shower each other with praise after a soccer game, but just this weekend one of them came to me and said his brother had been the MVP of the game.

While cleaning up this week, I came across photos from the volunteer fire department's festival, with the two of them sitting there in those huge helmets. Hidden behind one photo was a notice warning that one of them was at risk of not moving up to the next grade, and behind that, the same notice for the other. Sometimes those two really kept us in suspense, and then again they surprised us so often, too.

Happy birthday, twins!

Boys, there's no one else like you. You've had the same solid group of friends for years, and yet you also have friends outside of it, and each of you is your own person. You're each other's world, and nobody is closer to you than you are to each other. If I don't stop now, I'm going to start blubbering from pride and wistfulness and memories and being completely overwhelmed, so I'll just say HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and thank you for letting us come along for your very last year as "kids," up close and totally fascinated.