I’ll love you until pigs freeze over.

Each morning, I peek in your room to ensure you’re considering thinking about what it might take to will yourself out of bed. You’re usually already awake, perusing Reddit or snuggling your cat, which is never surprising because your Dad and I hit the kid lottery for sleep. An image of the morning after you began sleeping through the night, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3ish months old, forever etched into my memory – opening my eyes to sunlight, an unusual sight for a new mom of twins, turning to your father, and seeing his disheveled concern, nervously clutching the baby monitor, white knuckled, held up to his ear, carefully listening for signs of life. From that day on, hardly demonstrating FOMO or any interest in burning the midnight oil, you usher yourself to bed without much fanfare.

In stark contrast, your arrival into the world sent shockwaves that reverberate, still.

You and your twin sister landed a bit head of schedule, and while the gruesome details remain unimportant, you entered this world teaching me my first of many lessons in motherhood; sometimes immeasurable beauty lies just on the other side of pain and fear. You blossomed into a roly-poly mop of blonde curls, icy blue eyes, and so… much…energy. All of it, honestly. Case in point, you never walked. You commando crawled, then came the more traditional crawl, then, upon witnessing your cousin run down the hallway, you steadied yourself up on your feet, threw all of your 18 month old caution to the wind, and took off in a blur of Garanimals and giggles.

Another lesson learned that day; when in doubt, always take the next, small step. Or five. Quickly, and in the direction of those you love.

We never expected preschool to prove as challenging as it did for you, and that early experience still regretfully plagues my Momma-heart all these years later. Never did we imagine how overwhelming the input of a classroom of rowdy three year olds would be on your sensory system until we got THE call. The fear and anxiety proved too much and, in an act of desperation to control your environment, you took a swing at your teacher. The sobbing bellow coming from you, behind a locked bathroom door, nearly wrecked me then and the mere thought still activates an instinctual response to GO TO YOU. To rescue that little boy and hold him, as tightly as I can, until your howls and weeping stop and you fall asleep in an exhausted heap, in my arms. That day was both the worst and the start of a new, exciting adventure with teachers and professionals who more than understood you as a diagnosis, but adored you like one of their own. A different tree, but family nonetheless.

To them, I am forever grateful because they gave me you. The real you.

I often tell people it’s easy to love your kids, because it is. But, do you like them? Would you choose to spend time with your children if they belonged to someone else? Maybe most parents would, but that’s always stood as my yardstick for my success in parenting. Sure, part of the job is to prepare you for entry into society as a law abiding, productive adult. I’d argue that’s the smallest part of parenting. Say please, thank you, hold doors, pick up your trash, pay your bills, and your taxes, and keep your hands to yourself. I think we’ve pretty much got that part down.

Recently, I made some monumental changes in my professional life that allow me to focus on shoring up my physical, emotional, and mental health. A pleasant side-effect of such a shift permits me to spend more quality time with you and your sister. I relish the insights born from chats on our car rides to and from school, the steady stream of astonishment over acuity and wisdom you demonstrate far beyond your years. To wit, someone asked you if you even knew what a fax machine was, the comment dripped with sarcasm and certainty that you did not. Your response? “Yeah. It’s like a copy machine. But it copies…(pointing your finger in a far off direction) over there.” If the IOC included sarcasm as an Olympic sport, you’d live atop the medal podium, most decorated in gold.

How proud I was to see you put someone in his place.

Mostly, because that’s so unlike you. You defer. To your sister, to the group, to the family, hell…you often defer to the cat and dog so as not to upset their apple carts. You love so deeply, with an empathetic heart and a clever, kind soul. The mere thought of someone taking offense to your jokes causes a disturbance in your force. Suggesting you disappointed anyone sends you reeling for days. While I acknowledge winning at this parenting thing and raising a conscientious, kind, self-aware, tolerant feminist, I admittedly get low marks for not yet teaching you the value of self care and the need to sometimes disappoint the people you love the most when it means prioritizing yourself. I promise to work on that, post haste.

The other morning, we cracked the fuck up over some Reddit thread you found that mixed idioms and metaphors and created new ones, like “you opened this can of worms, now lie in it” and my personal favorite, “we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” After thinking about it, these “malaphors” resemble a verbal Picasso masterpiece. Sure, the overarching idea of the subject is understood, but Sir Pablo’s journey to achieving that portrait meandered and twisted through some pretty interesting turns. Your childhood and path to being an adult resembles something similar. Seriously, raising you took a whole village held together with popsicle sticks and duct tape and glue and prayers, and burned to the ground a few times from an errant lightning strike, but we rebuilt and are still on track to arrive at our beautiful, priceless destination.

Some days, I catch myself wondering how my kids will describe their childhoods to their therapists.

I’m not that disillusioned to believe growing up in MY house won’t result in the need to pay a well-educated stranger while they sit comfortably in a well appointed office, recounting stories of raucous dinners or “that time my Mom… <insert some inappropriate off-the-cuff commentary here>”. I’ll help pay, since it’s partially my fault they’ll be there.

My son even reminds me of this inevitable fact several times a week. “I’ll file that under ‘What I’ll Tell My Therapist'” he’ll snort at the dinner table after some episode of getting poked with a fork or me pretending to steal his food.

It’s all in good jest, lest anyone think we aren’t a loving family and I never poke hard enough to make a mark or draw blood. What kind of mother do you think I am?

Yesterday, I invited the kiddos to accompany me on a run to the grocery store, which, coincidentally, sits in close proximity to a Starbucks. In the age of COVID, a trip to the overpriced coffee giant stands as one of a select few motivations to propel my ultra-introverts out of the house. A fire, I’m guessing might supersede a Mocha Frappuccino, but I can happily neither confirm or deny. They raced to the car, under the promise of refreshing caffeinated beverages, and we drove to the plaza.

I think back 12 short years, to their toddler and preschool days, and how I dreaded leaving my house with kids in tow. One kid ran away from wherever I stood, the other was non-responsive except when I shouted her name. My full time job consisted of organizing playdates and speech therapy appointments and psychologist visits, and searching for pants that didn’t dig into my son’s sensitive skin or discovering a new hair detangler that allowed me to brush my daughter’s hair without a violent, screaming fit of rage. I desperately wish the term neurodivergent entered the lexicon back then. If 2008 me saw the acceptance and understanding my neuro-atypicals receive at school and in the wild, she’d sob with surprise and awe.

They still struggle, but in ways that resemble more of typical teenagers. Zits and clothes and messy rooms and homework and Reddit upvotes and Dischord live streams fill our days.

Smack in the middle of spring break, nature blessed us here in New England with a 70 degree day, so we made a beeline for our favorite sushi spot in town, ate at a table outside, exchanged memes, and laughed our way through lunch. I sat there, looking at my kiddos-turning-young-adults-I-really-really-adore and the journey of just how far we’ve come wasn’t lost on me.

Two. More. Years.

Two more years, then they’re done with high school. Two more years and my boy embarks on an adventure to some far off land that most couldn’t find on a map to immerse himself in a world of building and creating and exploring and discovery. Two more years and my girl sets off on her own journey, yet unknown, to likely weave her music in some form, or write, or maybe follow her brother, who knows. Maybe she’ll find love. Maybe he’ll finally take his comedy on the road. Two more years and my intrepid partners in crime leave the nest.

I’m not ready.

I read somewhere that babies don’t learn to walk by running a marathon. They get up, give it a go, fall down a lot, get back up, try again, and keep going until mastering the drunk-looking stumble, then teetering into a regular gait, then they run. What a perfect encapsulation of my kids, still mastering the shuffle and gaining their stride, one step at a time. In 15 years, so many steps, so many accomplishments, so many trips and falls, so many restarts, and peeks into their sprints.

But not too fast, kids. Let’s take those next two years in stride.

You are spectacular.

I don’t tell you often enough, and I’m so sorry for that, but I do. I really, really do.  Trying to harness and reign in the sheer vastness of what you are that, to put it mildly, and overly simple, makes me a better person for knowing you, for having been loved by you, overwhelms me to the point of paralysis.  

Almost.  

Because you need cluing into this universal secret that everyone in your orbit already knows, and existing one single second more without you helping author and spin your own epic would do the world such a disservice.

I know.  Right now you’re thinking “this is crazy. I’m not special or remarkable,” and, you’re right.  Special and remarkable pale in comparison to the blinding light of love and laughter that stands as your beacon, drawing in the friends and loved ones you collect like lost ships at sea who finally, after listing and heeling and drifting aimlessly, find your calm shores, a welcome port in life’s storm to rest and love and be loved.  By you.

You’ve been told you’re “too much”, but has anyone ever described the sea as too vast?  Too immense?  Too strong?  Too deep or too powerful?  Never, because there exist no such limits of capacity. No one questions the ferocity of a mother grizzly, the pull of the tide by the moon, the random and total destruction of a hurricane, or the medicinal, calming salve of a tiny baby’s coo.  I count you among these irrefutable forces. Be. As you are. All of you.  

Doubt plagues your beautiful soul, but I challenge you here, today, to acknowledge you as the source of your infinite power.  The keeper and realization of your dreams, the translator of potential into reverence.  The dreamer and lover and doer.  Manifest what is meant for you and lean in.  Listen.  Go be curious. Be wrong. Fail spectacularly. Choose courage, choose bravery, and most of all, choose to soar above the criticism and skepticism rampant in the world and rise above the noise to be everything you’ve ever imagined, and all that I already know you are. 

Love,

Me