Nicholas and Matthew, who, if I'd had my way, would have been Forest and River. Tim wouldn't let me call them that, for which they are probably eternally grateful.
When Emma was a baby I wanted to call her Paloma, but my mother advised against it, telling me that she would be nicknamed "Polony" at school, and I took her advice, for once.
The little boys decided it was time to be born on Emma's 13th birthday, but as they had only spent 33 weeks in the broiler, drugs were administered to stop the contractions and keep them there. However, the nearest city hospital which could cope with all this was 120km away, and I was not allowed to go home until they were born, which took another long, lonely month!
Eventually Nicholas kicked open his sac and amniotic fluid gushed out, so an emergency C-section was done, as they were both breach babies, spooning together. I was able to call Tim before I was rushed into surgery, but as it was about 11.45 at night, he had to organise for Stephen to come and stay with the sleeping daughters, and then drive all the way down to Port Elizabeth. After about 85km of hurtling down the empty freeway on an adrenaline high, he started feeling rather odd, so stopped the car to stretch his legs and found his mind stretching too, as he could have sworn he saw the stars wheeling in the firmament!
There were two little boys already born when he arrived, and he was allowed in to see them in their incubators. It was hospital policy to put every premature baby in an incubator for the first day, even if they were fine, which the boys were, weighing in at 3.2kg (Mattie the fattie), and 2.8kg (Nick the little pickle). So Tim sits down and puts one hand on each little back, bonding with his sons. He comes to see me again, as I was not doing so well after the surgery, and then rushes back to the babies, taking up the same position. After a few minutes a nurse comes over and says, "Sir, that is not your baby, another baby girl came in after you left, there is your other little boy." (So there is an 18 year old girl somewhere wondering where her real father is, the one she bonded with straight after birth).
The first night we brought them home, Tim was so avidly handing me babies every time they cried, that eventually, in my milk-sodden stupour, I asked desperately, pathetically, "How many are there?" It felt as though I was breast-feeding an entire orphanage of babies!
And so they grew and grew into these two utterly different people, but with that shared connection, an alliance which will never be broken. As Emma said, "They've known one another 9 months longer than anyone else has known them".
When they were 8 and a half years old we brought them over to America, where we thought they would have a better future. I really expected people to love us immediately, but have found my best friends to be fellow South Africans, in fact. The boys have borne the brunt of anti-foreigner feelings here and there, but if you can survive such experiences it keeps your spirit intact and makes you a stronger person. They both still think of themselves as South African.
Our Nicholas has eyes like the sky, is a sensitive boy, full of art and music and poetry and singing and passion. His outbursts get him into trouble sometimes (I wonder where he gets that attribute from). Also brimming with charm and carrying a twinkle in his eye like his great-gramp.
Our Matthew has eyes like grey clouds, is also a sweet sensitive boy, brilliant at ceramics, and in possession of a wonderful scientific mind and powers of recall, slow to anger and quick to understand, a lot like his father. He is also charming with a wicked sense of humour and has reduced me to tears of laughter many times.
So thanks to my laatlammetjies for eighteen years of learning about more love than I knew I had, loving two more babies (at the same time), and finding that I was "as strong as a russian bull" (according to the little boys) because I could carry them both at the same time when necessary.
These boys have taught me about boys (how weird they are :-)), which has informed my tolerance as a teacher. They make me laugh, they make my life happy, I look forward to seeing them every day.
I said to Tim the other day, "What are we going to do when the boys have gone off to college? I am going to be so sad." And he replied, "Won't I be enough?" And I didn't answer him.
First the girls and then the little boys had to endure questions from their friends about their strange birthday cakes - weird birds and odd-looking dragons, fashioned together with bits of cake which had fallen apart when taken out of the pans, pieces cut up and stuck together creatively with green and purple icing, with smarties for decorations.
I should not be a baker, the name of the recipe I used tonight is Infallible Chocolate Cake!
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