My Twins, My Life

Runner-up in the "Dear Baby" Essay Contest

By Simone Meier

To Sloane and Rachel, My Twins, My Life,

My life since I met you and since I have loved you has changed considerably. I don't stay up late and watch old films anymore and I don't go out every weekend with Daddy to eat and play the night away. My life has certainly changed to something almost unrecognizable. I keep telling myself I need to write letters and correspond with old friends. I need to get out my paints and paint the pretty autumn sky. I should promise that I will write short stories about people with lives in big cities, but how can I be me while all I want is ya'll? I wake up to feed you tiny babies; I sleep when you are asleep; I live for coos and smiles, laughs and calling Mamama. I am on the constant lookout for developmental milestones. I comfort you both when you cry for no apparent reason. I worry that you aren't eating enough. I worry about you having too much gas. I comfort you both when you cry with reason. I medicate you when you are sick around the clock. I change diapers that are usually full of a substance that I cannot believe came out of my tiny sweet babies. I love you both so dearly, so much so that ya'll are now what my entire world is about.

For instance, I have snuck into the living room, here at 1 in the morning, to try to write some sort of letter as a memory for later and also check all of my e-mails while ya'll sleep peacefully on the big bed with Daddy. If either of you should wake suddenly, I will have to stop what I am doing and go tend to you, and I can almost guarantee that I will not get back to this writing effort for quite sometime. My thoughts are constantly preoccupied with everything baby. Every thought has to do with you. Are they well? Do they need to have their tiny boogers sucked out of their tiny heads again? Have they spit up in their sleep? Am I paying them enough attention? Are they developing all right?

Want to see more?

• Preparing for Twins: A Dad of Multiples Shares His Advice on the Early Days of Fatherhood
• The Lost Art of Letter Writing: How to Get Your Child
  to Pick up a Pen
• Growing up Together: A Story of Twinship
• Talk about it!