Birthdaze

Justin, Kevin, and Andrew turned seven today, but I mark the time in "parent years." I figure one parent raising one child for one year equals one parent year, so a couple raising three kids over seven years has logged 42 parent years. That seems a better measure of the energy expenditure over the last seven years and could help explain why silvering temples have so quickly extended to cover far more geography than any customary definition of temple.

I asked the boys what they remembered of this special occasion seven years ago, and their answer roughly translates to "not much." Of course, I suspect that would be close to an accurate answer for Kathy as well. She admittedly had a lot going on that day; she can be forgiven for being less exacting in her recollection than I.

We have replayed the day together many times, no doubt rewriting the events, misrecalling many critical details (were there eighteen people in the delivery room or more?), overemphasizing others, and for damn sure forgetting the amount of fear that was stirred into the emotional cocktail of suddenly becoming the parents of three premature babies in intensive care.

But our collective memory—altered and repeated over the years, and now including the boys' reactions as they look at their infant photos and repeat parts of the experience they've heard about and ask questions about details they've only recently become curious about—is a valuable trust and the family mythology that evolves is fascinating, evolutionary, and invaluable.

One detail that Kathy and I agree upon, and that the boys have begun to understand (yet one day will re-examine with philosophical urgency), is their naming. We had three pairs of first and middle names selected (luckily we knew their gender early so we hadn't had to agree upon twelve names), but we still had the task of matching the names with the babies. You can only look at the Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C labels on their isolettes for so long before you are eager to give them the gift of their own identity.

But it was at least three hours after their birth before Kathy could be wheeled into the NICU on her gurney to get her first look at her babies. It's an emotional moment to become the first time mother of one baby, more so of a tiny preemie you can't even hold, lying in an isolette with all manner of tubes and leads attached to him; who can say how it feels to experience that for the first time in triplicate while drugged, exhausted, and recovering from surgery? It was not an ideal moment for naming them.

The nurses had kindly snapped three Polaroid shots of the boys, so later I was able to bring those back to Kathy in her hospital room while able to freely return to the NICU myself as often as I liked. When the naming topic first came up that day I told Kathy I thought I knew which boy was Kevin (I did not tell her that it was in part because he looked most Irish to me and hence the name Kevin Patrick seemed a good fit; ironic now because he is such a little John clone that he's never described as favoring her side of the family). Kathy agreed, held up one Polaroid, and said she thought this baby was Kevin. We had made the same choice.

It took longer to name the other two. I returned to the NICU and made my selections, but expected that this time Kathy would suggest the opposite. But when she had more time to think about it and to see them again she made the exact selection I had. We concluded that the boys were named properly and were meant to grow up with the names we'd given them.

I've asked them whether they want to swap names and the answer is always a resounding NO from all three. So we'll consider it unanimous.

Seven years ago our boys were born; but it has been worth every moment of forty-two parent years.

Happy Birthday, Boys!