Could you pick your kid out of line up?

I don't know about you but my kids sound extremely alike on the phone. I cannot tell them apart. In my defense, they are both boys and roughly the same age (1 year apart). Many a times I have been talking to one and ask to speak to them and they will be like "ahh, this is ______". Oops - sorry - that's embarrassing.

This morning I called home to make sure they were up, showering and to remind Brendon to take back this one sheet for the DC trip that was supposed to be turned in last Friday. I was pretty sure I was talking to Brendon but not wanting to embarass myself by inadvertently telling Dallas to take the DC sheet back when he isn't going to DC himself for another year, I was desperately listening for some clue that I had the right child.

I tried to get him to talk in full sentence answers rather than just one word responses so I had more to go on. That didn't work.

I tried to get him to say if Dallas was showering so then I would know for sure this was Brendon so I asked, "which one of you is showering now?". DUH! I'm pretty sure the stupidity of that wasn't lost on even a 1/2 asleep teenager. How could he be talking to me if he was the one in the shower? Very true but still didn't give me an indication of which one I was talking too.

I was starting to panic...how am I going to tell Brendon or get the message to Brendon about that sheet that HAD to go back today without it being painfully obviously I don't know my kids very well?

Out of desperation, I asked, "did you find something to wear?", hoping that he would actually say what he was going to wear and that would be my indicator. Brendon, being so picky about jeans, hardly has any to wear so 9 times out of 10 wears those nylon running pants. He has them in several colors so if I got, "yeah, my red (or blue or black) pants and...", then I would know I was talking to Brendon. But all I got was, "yeah". Com'on - help a girl out here!

Finally, since I obviously was not clever enough to play Vulcan mind games with my son, I gave up and simply said, "oh yeah, there is a sheet on the table to needs to go back for the DC trip" . I figured that was safe and if I truly was talking to Brendon he would know he needed to get that and if I was talking to Dallas he would understand by the words "DC trip" that it's important and he will tell his brother.

Either way, I'm sure when I get home tonight I'll see the sheet still sitting on the table.