Dear Liam and Jack,

Here are two lists of 25 things that happened to come to mind about each of you, during one hour on one day in February, when you were six. I almost didn’t write this because I was afraid you would compete over the lists but sometimes it feels like you’ll be grown before I even manage to catch my breathe and I want to keep these lists like snapshots so I can always remember the way it felt to think about you during one hour on one day in February when you were six.

Love,
Mama

Liam

You couldn’t breathe when you were born and the doctors took you before I could see you and passed you through a little window into the neonatal intensive care unit so they could resuscitate you. I began deliriously struggling to get off of the operating table and the anesthesiologist shot me up with a drug that me pass out. I didn’t get to meet you for twenty four hours. When I did, you were still struggling to breathe. I will never get over this.

You have loved music since the first day you heard it. When you are happy, you sing.

You have always slept sideways across the bed. In utero, you were sideways and Jack was pointing head down.

Your first word was “Jack.” You began calling him “Jackie” soon afterwards.

When you were two, a donkey sucked your hand into his mouth while you were trying to feed it an apple. I don’t remember how we got it out.

Your favorite color is “golden,” not yellow, but shiny metallic golden.

You wear a midnight blue poncho with gold moon and star buttons every single night over your pajamas to bed.

The last toy you chose was a model of a bacteria cell.

Your named your hamsters Tiny and Kookookutie. You named a newborn black llama Sir Coconut Whitey.

You were going to be named Laila, until I realized with shock, terror and joy that you were one of two boys.

Your favorite book is The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

You have the uncanny ability to hear your father use the “f” word from all the way across the house while you are watching a movie. He’s still working on giving that word up.

You adore your four year old neighbor, Oliver.

You call duct tape “goose tape.”

You are working on your “s” and “l” sounds in speech therapy.

You go to a Waldorf kindergarten and you have a crystal collection.

You like to organize things in containers and you are extremely observant.

After Jack spent a week in the hospital, you were tortured by terrifying nightmares. I am overwhelmed by your compassion, intuition, and empathy.

Still, when you are playing, you make loud explosion sounds and say to the bad guy, “I will kill your life!” You also say that to Jack sometimes.

You asked for a fondue pot for Valentine’s Day this year.

You are happiest in the bath, a pool, or the ocean. You love swimming and boogy-boarding.

You and Jack were one, and then the egg split. This means you share the same DNA, and most people can’t tell you apart, but you look a little more like your dad.

You want to grow a garden this summer. .

Your favorite outfit is a pair of cream colored corduroys with a yellow Addidas mock turtleneck shirt that has three white stripes down each sleeve.

You have made my life faster, brighter and deeper in a way I couldn’t have fathomed before you arrived. You are loved beyond measure. “Even more than the earth and the universe and everything in it?” you will ask. Yes, even more than that.

Jack

You weighed two pounds and fourteen ounces when you were born because your umbilical cord had been blocked by a cyst, but you had high apt-gar scores, a feisty cry, and a lot of attitude. I will never get over this.

When you were a baby, your height and weight didn’t even make the charts but your head circumference was in the 94th percentile.

You suffered from severe reflux and were in pain for much of your first year of life.

When you were two, you swallowed a jagged half of a plastic spoon. We were at the zoo in San Francisco and you were so surprised when a seagull swooped down and stole my corn dog that you bit down hard on the spoonful of yogurt you were eating and then swallowed the broken piece. Your dad and I raked through your diapers for days afterwards until your dad found it on day four. It was sharp as a dagger but you were fine.

Your first word was ball.

Your favorite color is green.

Your favorite story is The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.

Shortly after your fifth birthday you were taken by ambulance from Taos to Albuquerque where you spent a week at UNM Children’s Hospital being treated for a virus that compromised your your gallbladder, your spleen and your liver. We slept together in a hospital bed for seven days. I was overcome by your courage and strength.

You have yet to sleep in your own bed entirely through the night.

If it were up to you, you would subsist entirely on chocolate milk and sushi. You also still really like three of the only foods I was able to tolerate while pregnant: watermelon juice, apple jolly ranchers and mint chocolate chip ice-cream.

You and Liam are inseparable, and you compete with each other over everything.

You have natural rhythm, and I love to watch you dance.

You are working on your “th” sound in speech therapy.

When you were recently given $20 to spend from Superbowl pool willings, you tried to buy the least expensive toy you could find so you would get “the most dollars back.”

Your favorite store is Wal-Mart.

You ask me questions about your future driver’s ed class at least three times a week.

You love skiing fast.

You slept with a little blue bird until last summer. I’ve paid hotel housekeepers to mail it back to us when we’ve left it behind.

You like to play cheetah cubs and husky puppies. You say, “I’m a husky puppy. Will you be my owner?”

You count and add just about everything, and yesterday you asked me to teach you how to read.

You appear shy at first but you have excellent comic timing.

At bed time, you often tell me that you want to live with us when you’re a grown-up and ask me how old I’ll be when I die.

Yesterday you asked me, “Who will die first, me or Liam?”

The last thing you always say before you fall asleep at night is, “I’m just going to pretend close my eyes.”

You have made my life faster, brighter, and deeper in a way I couldn’t have fathomed before you arrived. You are loved beyond measure. “Even more than the earth and the universe and everything in it?” you will ask. Yes, even more than that.