You were my rainbow babies after a long season of sadness and loss. We had all but given up hope, whispered a last wish to all the Old Gods and the New. The universe has a way of doing its thing and in the end - after nearly 40 hours of wicked bad Boston labor - multiple teams of OBs, nurses, midwives, ultrasound techs, pediatricians, and anesthesiologists welcomed you into the world. There were so many people in the room we considered selling tickets and offering popcorn and foam fingers. Stuck like the shape of Yin and Yang and unwilling to budge, a metaphor for your relationship to come - opposite and yet two halves of a whole.

This is the first year that people no longer stop us in the grocery store to say things like “Oh bless your heart.” Now they kind of whistle the Good the Bad and the Ugly under their breath while I try to pry you apart from each other. Your cryptophasia has become nonverbal and you make all kinds of silent mutual agreements, causing constant confusion for the rest of us. As parents, you are an experiment in nature versus nurture and it’s deeply validating that, at best, we are your bumpers on a bowling alley. Although we handle things in the exact same way at the exact same time, with one of you we feel like we’ve nailed it....and with the other we add another dollar to your future therapy fund. We’re leaning into the hope of breaking even and focusing on how to make you feel like you are the good person we see in you both. We think that it’s what matters most.

Never on the good green earth did we imagine a love could be as big as this. Thank you for choosing each other and for choosing us.

Happy 7th.