I have a picture of your poop face.

This thought runs through my head at least once a week if not a day. It’s my ace in the hole, pun intended, for when they really try my patience. I fantasize about showing it to their first date, the first time they’re awful to me in front of their friends, or the first time I get called to the principal’s office. The day I found my phone in the toilet I thought about making it the cover of your graduation program.

The baby days are gone. The hoping desperately for pregnancy, the anxious wait over a plastic stick filled with urine for the news, the mysteries and fears of growing a human, the maddening vigils over little breaths and maladies, and the countless hours of agonizing over what is meaningless minutiae to outsiders of your world. Then there were two.

All the while in amazement that they could be in existence since pregnancy was a shock not just to me but my doctors. The fear they instilled in me…even now I remember grasping my abdomen in the shower, crying, singing, hoping against hope that this time everything would be ok. Then it was. Not without obstacles or effort but you, my babies, you are here. You are here and you are ageing me faster than the sun or political events combined.

For all of the aggravations, I still (even today as I took this photo) am in awe of you both. That my body could create two beings so wonderful, maddening, strange, obstinate, kind, and magical. But if ever you cross me… I have a certain photo. I know social media will be far different ten years from now but a poop face photo is timeless.