Twins share birthday, but not personality

Gege arrived first, plump and squalling. I held him for a moment, then had to give birth to his brother.

The sturdy, stone-faced obstetrician told me, “You’re not pushing. Push!” I wanted to punch her, but I was too exhausted from laboring. Twenty-six minutes later, Didi emerged, all skinny limbs and baggy skin. Gege outweighed Didi, first by a few ounces in utero and now — at 4½ years old — by several pounds and a couple of inches. Their pseudonyms in the column reflect their birth order: Gege is older brother in Mandarin Chinese, and didi is little brother. (Pronounced “Guh-guh” and “Dee-dee”).

They traded off developmental milestones: Didi smiling, crawling and cruising; Gege laughing, rolling over and standing. Didi had an intense, goal-oriented focus. As an infant, if he spotted the television remote, he’d lunge out of our arms and army-crawl toward it, his left elbow dragging his body across the living room. Gege, with his penetrating gaze, studied people around him. Quick to laugh, but sensitive, apt to cry if his brother started crying.

A couple months ago, I was reading bedtime stories. When I tried to leave, the twins wanted one more — they always want one more. Sometimes I invent tales that star the twins racing on their scooters to the ice cream parlor or riding a whale under a shower of jellybeans. That night, I recounted their birth.

“Did I come out of a little door?” Gege asked.

“Sort of,” I said. I was relieved they weren’t asking how they’d gotten in, which had been the subject of another bedtime conversation that began with their question, “Do Wookiees lay eggs?”

I cuddled Didi. “You didn’t want to leave.”

He pouted. “I don’t want to be second. I want to be first!”

I explained that they couldn’t go back inside, and had no chance to take the race again — not that their birth order had been a race.

His eyes watered and his lips quivered. I followed his gaze over my shoulder. He was staring at the height chart adorned with two frolicking monkeys. Every few months, we marked it with their first initial and the date. I suspected what was bothering him — Gege’s line of initials towered over his.

“Gege’s G’s are bigger than my D’s,” he said. “I want my own birthday. So I can get bigger than Gege.”

I explained that they were twins, and would always have the same birthday. And that some people were bigger than others.

“You’re fast,” I said, trying to comfort him. If I’d said, “Faster than Gege,” I would have risked stirring up another competition. “You go so fast on your scooter.”

“I got Sophie first,” Gege crowed. He was referring to Sophie La Giraffe, the squeaky teether that has survived the purges of most of their baby toys. He was taunting Didi; because Gege had been born first, he must have played with Sophie first.

Sibling rivalry starts early — in their case, in the womb — with brothers and sisters tussling for time and attention from their parents, and later on in sports, school and other activities.

Didi might still have a chance; he’s built like my father in-law, who is more than 6 feet tall. For now, he remains on the lower end of the growth chart. I suggested that we put the chart away, taking it out only on their birthday, but Didi refused. He didn’t want to be coddled. He spent time with Gege most hours of most days, and hiding the chart wouldn’t make him forget that Gege was bigger.

Still, he tried to compete on his own terms. A few days later, I heard the sound of the faucet running in the bathroom. Didi ran into their bedroom with a washcloth that he scrubbed against the chart, thinking if he erased Gege’s marks, he could outstrip him.

Recently, we stood them against the chart again. Didi scowled and complained. The next morning, we discovered he’d drawn a few crooked initials on the chart, trying to surpass his brother.

At the baby shower, the chart seemed like a gift for the twins, a future memento. “How were we ever that small?” they would marvel.

Now I’m realizing my husband and I take more pride and interest in the chart than the twins ever will. Without the chart, we would know they’d grown. Didn’t our arms and backs ache if we carried them for more than a few minutes? Weren’t their pajama pants getting too short as their legs grew?

Yet each notch on the chart is proof that we got through the day with our children intact, and under our care, those days turned into weeks, into months, and into years.

Vanessa Hua’s column appears Fridays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com