I apologize in advance

For nearly five years, whenever anyone has asked how to tell my boys apart, I have given them this cheat:

We typically dress Thing 1 in blue, because his name has 4 letters and blue has 4 letters.
We typically dress Thing 2 in red, because his name has 3 letters and red has 3 letters.

Sometimes we slightly deviated from this (not all boys' clothes come in a choice or red or blue), like Thing 1 would wear green.  Thing 2 would wear orange...  But for the most part, we tried to stick to this color coding when we knew we were going to be around people who couldn't tell them apart (my parents, my friends, etc).

But as of May 29th (Superman's first day of summer break), the days of Thing 1 and Thing 2 dressing in coordinating outfits is over.

He is the one who "dresses" them in the morning, and he has begun letting them pick out their own clothes.  Which means Thing 1 typically comes out in a pair of athletic shorts and some kind of sports tee or jersey, a ball cap, and tennis shoes with no socks.  And Thing 2 usually comes out in some really bright shorts with some kind of train, animal, or music shirt, and his crocs.

But WARNING: Don't try to memorize that!  Because that is not a consistent as my red and blue.

Yep, it's just time for all y'all to finally learn how to tell them apart on your own.  They have different personalities, different interests, they talk differently...just put in a little effort when you are around them, and I'm sure you'll be able to tell them apart in no time, and wonder why you ever depended on the color coded clothing crutch.

P.S. They actually dressed themselves in this pic...sometimes it just works out that way. :)