Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Two.
Sunday, April 15, 2007

Two years ago, at this hour, Mrs. Feiler Faster and I were introducing our parents to their newest grandchildren, Eden Elenor and Tybee Rose, born 32 minutes apart on Friday, April 15th. Shabbat babies. Identical twins. No one is ever quite prepared for twins. They don't run in families, that turns out to be a myth. They don't come around that often. One percent of humans are twins; one third of those are identical. That means one-sixth of one percent of humans are identical twin girls.

One thing we heard often from parents of twins: "The first year is hell, but after two or three years twins turn out to be an advantage." When we hit one year, people told us. "Maybe it's two years." For us, after the first six months, which were impossibly difficult for a number of reasons not related to having two first babies, we could feel the work-fun ratio begin shifting every few months until, before long, the challenges had become so routine to us that we would forget we had two. Until we went to visit someone. Or someone came to us (and mind you, that was far less frequent than we had expected!)

Either way, reaching two felt like a milestone today. They are hyper-verbal, and becoming increasingly adept at expressing themselves, narrating the world around them, and depositing joy into every encounter through words, the sheer abundance of new words, unexpected words, and fantastical connections of words. "Tybee's fire truck," Eden said on Tybee Island last week. "What about Eden?" So today, in honor of their love of language, where letters are their friends, we decorated their home with inflatable letters. We stayed up for four hours last night, along with their maternal grandparents, blowing up these colorful letters and festooning them from the ceiling. It was what I always imagined it must feel like to stay up late on Christmas stringing popcorn or creating some magical surprise for your children. Of course by this morning three of the festoons had fallen and we had to recreate them. But by the time we brought them downstairs, uncovered their eyes to show them their Alphabet Birthday surprise, they understood instantly that this was a special day. "All the letters came to visit," Eden said. Our day was made. The alphabet cupcakes in early afternoon were just icing -- though in this case icing on their cheeks, not the cake. E for Eden. T for Tybee. V for a very special day.

Happy Birthday, girlies. Mommy and Daddy love you.

Labels: Twins

Posted by B Feiler at 10:05 PM
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