For several years now, "back to school" has has a different meaning for our family. It means we stay home.

In the mornings, 8-year-old Carter works on math and reading and computers. The two little boys, 4-year-olds Bennett and Avery, play or color or look at books. In the afternoons, the little boys have quiet time, and Carter and I do science. Then later, we all practice the piano. Carter knows the most notes, but Avery loves it best. Sometimes he bends his head and kisses the keys.

People ask me, "How do you manage?"

Tom and I have a patchwork life, and it seems as if we're constantly juggling: kids, jobs, deadlines, homeschool. I don't see my friends as much as I'd like; I don't often have a tidy house; our laundry finds was of multiplying overnight. And I don't know how long we'll be able to teach our children at home--some day, they may not want to be here.

There are other things I've given up, too. I'll never know what it feels like to take a child to the first day of kindergarten, or to make cupcakes for a class party. The schools post lists of supplies for each grade, items like crayons and rulers and white glue. I'll never fill a cart for my little student, or tuck an apple for the teacher in a lunch sack.

My memories are different: the light in Carter's eyes when all of a sudden, letters arranged themselves into patterns he understood, and he could read. His pride when he "got" multiplication. Avery's first sign (fish) and Bennett's first painting (of a slide). My gift to them is my time; their gift to me is theirs.

People say, "Kids need to be around other kids."

I agree. My kids have each other, most days, and once a week there is a home school P.E. class in town. They also have play dates and go to swim parties and birthday parties and summer bar-b-ques. When their friends return to school in the fall, it's harder to match up schedules. I remind their mothers, "Any in service-day, and half-day, any vacation, give us a call!"

People tell me, "I could never do it."

I understand. I never thought I'd be doing it, either. I was a public school student, and I had crushes on all my teachers, especially Ms. Watanabe, who wrote her name across the blackboard each morning in a delicate cursive that I copied. I can't write a grocery list without thinking of her, and I'd wanted that for my children: the happy memories, the love of school.

But life goes the way it goes, pulling you along like the current of a river. One decision leads to the next--we'd wanted another baby, we got 2 instead. We spent weeks in the NICU and while there, we were told repeatedly that the babies' health was at-risk for the first 2 years, especially for RSV. The nurses would look at Carter peeking at us from the other side of the NICU glass and ask, "Daycare?" No. An approving nod, then, "Kindergarten in the fall?" Maybe, maybe not.

This is how it began. Kindergarten isn't required by law in our state, so we thought we'd try it at home. My premature delivery and Avery's diagnosis, then the summer in the NICU had taken a toll. It felt as if the fabric of our lives had been ripped, and I wanted a chance to mend it before sending Carter off to school.

And too, I wanted the chance to figure out what Down syndrome meant to our family, before we let others tell us. I wanted to give Carter time to get to know his brothers, to get his feelings straight in his heart. I wanted him to feel his own strength, for the battles I knew would someday come. And Bennett is Avery's twin. It's even more important for him to be confident in himself; to believe in the rightness of who he is, and in his love for his brother. Their twin-ship needed time to grow.

Armed with a few homeschooling friends, the phone number of the local home school group, and books by Charlotte Mason and John Holt and Maria Montessori and Rudolph Steiner, we began. I found websites and blogs like The Lilting House, Mommy Life, and SouleMama. I enrolled in an online class in early childhood education. All the while, we spent our days coloring, cutting, pasting. Learning letters and looking at picture books, taking long walks in the woods and naps in the afternoons.

For 1st Grade, we had to make a formal decision. We registered ourselves as a home school and I filed the paperwork with the Superintendent of Schools: Hilltop House, 3 students. My hand trembled as I signed my name--I would be responsible for my children's education. I felt a strange mix of excitement and fear, doubt and hope. It reminded me of giving birth: you don't know what's on the other side of the experience, you only know it will be different.

Like any family, we have our fusses and fights (just now Bennett tugged on my arm and complained, "Avery touched me.") But there's a pot of turkey vegetable soup simmering on the stove for lunch, and Carter is curled up on the couch reading about a pioneer girl traveling across the wide and lonesome prairie, and the little boys are playing with Legos. On mornings like this, when the children wake and we fall into our routine, and I see them healthy, and growing, and learning together, I feel rich. These days are golden, and I collect them like coins.

Cosmo, a black-and-white cat of undetermined age, came to Tom and me before we had our children, 8-year-old Carter and the 4-year-old twins. He was an old cat when we adopted him from the vet, and nearly 10 years later he sleeps mostly, on the ottoman in the sun.

Carter keeps track of him. "Mom, Cosmo is under my bed now." "Mom, Cosmo is on the chair." Every once in a while, Cosmo would venture outside onto the porch, settling himself beneath the wild green arc of the tomato plant, and I'd hear, "Mom, I think Cosmo is pretending he's in the jungle."

Sometimes I wondered how it would happen that Cosmo would go--in his sleep I hoped, maybe in the middle of the night--but the thought never stayed with me for very long. It trailed away like a wispy cloud, or the smoke from the forest fires: one morning the wind blows in from the Pacific, and the sky is temporarily cleared, and the heat and ash of the summer are gone, except for the lingering memory of it, now what was I thinking about?

Until I find Cosmo sleeping on the bare wood floor in a spot he's never been before, his body so still that I know he's not sleeping--he's gone. Even as I bend down to pick him up, my eyes fill with tears. He's a silly old cat, a long-haired shedder, a howler-at-the-moon. And yet, I already miss him.

He fits into my arms just like a baby, and I feel how thin he's become, how light. In life, he never would have tolerated me carrying him like this: he was a prideful cat. But I don't know how else to hold him.

Tom is home, freshly back from 16 days on the fire lines. His hair still smells like smoke, even with a shampoo. I bring Cosmo to him, unsure of what to do. Tom will bury him on the hilltop beneath the pine tree, but what do we tell the kids?

Briefly, I consider making up a story, something easy, like saying Cosmo's gone away to live at another house. Or, he's taking a long vacation. Or even, he's disappeared into thin air! With each of these, I can foresee more questions, requiring more fabrications. So I say it softly, almost a whisper, as if quieting it could make it hurt less, "Cosmo died."

Carter's eyes redden immediately, then he hugs me around my waist and buries his head in my shirt, something he hasn't done in a long while. He asks to see Cosmo one last time, and I send him off to Tom and the tree on the hill.

Bennett walks through the house saying, "Cosmo's dead! Cosmo's dead!" and then everything is dead, the stuffed monkey and Elmo and Thomas the Tank Engine. This talk will pass if I let it run its course, so I distract the two little boys by offering bribes of Popsicles on the porch.

With Carter, it's more difficult. Later, at bedtime, he returns to it. "Why did Cosmo die, Mom?

I could tell him it's because Cosmo was old, but that's not really what Carter is asking me. He wants to know about the Big Questions: why we're here, how long do we have, why do things have to change?

When I was Carter's age, my mom took me to meet my great-grandmother, who was in a far-away nursing home. In her lifetime, she'd seen the invention of the light bulb and the telephone, automobiles, airplanes and a man on the moon, my mom had explained. Just imagine it!

I remember feeling shy and nervous. I remember how soft my great-grandmother's skin was, when I kissed her cheek. I remember her hair, like a white cloud above her head. My mom told me much later that she'd asked great-gram what the secret of life was. "Adjust to change," she'd answered.

I don't think this will help Carter, now. Instead, I say, "Cosmo had been going downhill for a long time. I think he was ready."

"Going downhill?" Carter repeats, confused.

"It's an expression. It's what people say when they mean life has been getting harder."

"It should be going uphill, shouldn't it?" Carter says. "Going uphill is worse. And Heaven is uphill. Cosmo's been going uphill, hasn't he?"

I used to think that in order to be a good mother, I needed to have all the answers. That I should always know what to say, and I should be able to say it perfectly. Of course I realized within the first few hours of new motherhood that this is impossible.

"Yes. You're right. It should be going uphill. Cosmo was going uphill for a long time."

Uphill and downhill, clouds and smoke, life and death. I think about the way fire reduces a mighty Ponderosa pine to nothing more than smoke and cinder; I think about forests in the first season after a fire, how green and lush the re-growth, all because of the ash. Nothing is ever lost.

I try again, and this time I tell Carter what's in my heart. "I don't know why Cosmo died. I wish he didn't. I really miss him."

My 4-year-old son Bennett is covered in Band-Aids. He finds a tiny red dot on his arm, which prompts him to say, "Owie, mommy, owie! Need a sticker!" There's another mysterious malady on his knee. One on his tummy, one on his ear. I didn't know you could put a bandage on an ear, but Bennett finds a way to manage it.

He calls them stickers, but they are Curious George Band-Aids, because we are suckers for marketing at my house, particularly anything with monkeys on it. And I think I know why Bennett has developed this sudden case of hypochondria: some of it's my fault, some of it isn't.

My husband Tom fights wildland fires in the summers. He goes out on an engine with 2 other firefighters and he tells me they drive around, mostly, running water to other men and women closer to the fire.

When they aren't doing that, they dig trenches, or cut the lower limbs off the giant Douglas firs, or they patrol the black, already-burned landscape looking for "hot spots." To hear him tell it, it's another hum-drum day at the office.

I know he explains his work this way for my benefit. I've seen pictures of him and the fire truck with a wall of fire behind it. I've seen the hose when it comes back from a fire, burnt and cracked. I've smelled his clothes, smoky and black, soot trapped in the pitch of pine trees.

He makes it seem as if there is nothing to worry about, so that I won't worry. But I do. I watch the fire updates every night on the local news. I can't help myself; it's the only way I have of finding out what's going on. As fire footage plays across the screen, I look for trucks I recognize, or faces I know, and the kids watch with me.

This is why I'm partly responsible for Bennett's rash of Band-Aids: he knows his Daddy is gone, he knows fire is dangerous, and me watching the news every night does nothing to lessen his anxiety. The only thing he can do is count his owies, keep track, and mark them with monkey stickers. It's his way of keeping himself intact.

I don't blame him. I remember when the twins were born early, and we were making daily trips to the NICU, our oldest boy Carter, who was then 4-years-old, began wearing his bicycle helmet everywhere. I told Tom I thought it was the most honest reaction to the summer's chain of events that I'd seen. I feel that way now, too: we are a bit broken, with Daddy gone. Maybe we should all wrap ourselves in Ace bandages.

Three communities near us have been ordered to evacuate. The faces of some of the homeowners appear on the local news. One woman is my age, and her voice quivers when she says she's sure it will all turn out okay. Behind her is her car, overstuffed with pictures in frames, a quilt, a cat meowing unhappily. I wonder how you choose. How do you decide what to take, knowing you might not have a home to come back to?

This is why it's partly not my fault: it's the worst fire season in 20 years. All around us, there's fire. Pieces of ash fall from the sky and I think of Henny-Penny from the fairy tale, who runs around shouting the warning, "The sky's a-falling, the sky's a-falling!"

Even if Tom were home, we'd still spend our days indoors with the windows shut against the hot, smoky air and the half-burnt blades of grass floating down onto the picnic table. I'd still keep the sprinkler shooting a tsk-tsk-tsk of water across the grass, our yard the only green oasis in a sea of dried-up brown. I'd still have a full tank of gas in the car and my purse by the door, just in case. I'd still stay up too late watching the sky, and the orange glow across the lake.

A mama deer and her twin fawns have taken up residence in the bushes below our house. They join the robins and the chickadees, hummingbirds too, and a skinny Garter snake, all drawn to our little patch of green. Tom tells me our house is the best place to be. He says that it's safe, and because he knows more about it than I do, I believe him.

I see the fires on the news, great flames leaping into the sky. I step outside and feel the wind, hot like a blow-dryer. I smell the burnt air. And I remember the faces of the evacuees. I don't know how I could explain it to Bennett, so that he'd understand. So I do what I can: I buy boxes of Band-Aids, and wait for the earth to spin us away to the cool, clearing air of Fall.

When my 8-year-old son Carter grows up, he's wanted to be: a firefighter, an inventor, a vulcanologist, a paleontologist, and most recently, a chef. His current specialty is lemonade.

Every morning we make lemonade by the pitcher-full, in search of the perfect mixture. We try fresh lemons versus bottled juice; a little more sugar, or a little less. Sometimes we throw in a handful of frozen huckleberries, sometimes raspberries. When he's finished, we serve it over ice in tall glasses with bendable straws. This year, at our house, will be remembered as the summer of the lemon.

Today's recipe is made with half fresh-squeezed and half bottled juice. Carter is serious as he strains the seeds through the mesh sieve. I stand alongside him, not really working, but there to help if he needs me.

His fair hair falls into his eyes--he needs a haircut. He's long and lean. But other than those things, I can still see in him the thoughtful toddler that he once was, and the sweet, chubby baby who we used to call Butterbean. All of the Carters are there, and even as I look at the boy in front of me, I can also catch a glimpse of the man he'll someday be. I picture him in the kitchen, teaching his own children how to make lemonade. Provided we finish creating this recipe, first.

From the hall, 4-year-old Avery calls, "Mama? Mama? Mama?" Avery's at the stage where "mama" means many things, depending upon how he says it. "Mama" can mean "More?" It can mean, "Help?" Or it can simply mean, "Where are you?" This "mama" is a needs-to-know-what-I'm-doing one. He finds me and begins twirling beneath my skirt, spinning in and out of it's hem.

Bennett, Avery's twin, is behind me, tugging at my shirt. "What about a joke?" he asks, mimicking Carter, who likes to read the jokes from the summer's many empty Popsicle sticks. All my boys are growing up. It took becoming a mother for me to realize that time can pass so quickly, and so slowly, at once.

"How did the man cross the road?" Bennett asks, then answers, "to go fishing!"

"Oh, that's a good one," I say, absently. It's early in the day, but it's already so hot. I think of the hours stretching out ahead of us. The blue plastic wading pool has sprung a leak; the neon green floaty-donut loses air faster than I can re-inflate it. We could play with the sprinklers maybe, or I could set up the Slip N' Slide.

"What about a joke?" Bennett repeats. "I say knock-knock, you say who's there?"

"Who's there?" I say. I'm beginning to feel a headache coming on.

I turn back to the lemonade. The fan in the kitchen is blowing warm air, mostly. I try to catch a breeze. Avery is twirling beneath my legs. "Mama-mama-mama," he says.

Bennett is speaking, too. "It's me, Bennett!"

Sugar spills, tipped from the 5-lb bag, all across the counter, then down onto the floor, where it builds a little pyramid. I can feel my temper rising like the heat. Three little boys, all tugging at me. I want to do just one thing, one task at a time. I've never been good at the split-attention of motherhood. I want it to be quiet--I want everything still. Let me be, quiet, just a moment!

And it is. Quiet.

Three sets of eyes looking at me. All 3 boys are waiting for me to make it better, or make it worse. It's up to me. I feel the weight of it, just as I feel the weight of Avery, who has plunked down, sitting on my foot. He's pinned me to the moment--a hairsbreadth, a heartbeat--that passes slowly and quickly both.

I hear the fan. I feel the warm air. I see the pitcher of half-made lemonade. I won't miss my uncertainty. I won't miss my lack of patience. I won't miss the hot day, or the long, empty hours. I will miss these little boys, who are mine for such a short while.

"What about a joke?" I say, trying to find a way back to them, to their joyfulness, to a day that is just beginning.

"How do you make lemonade?" I ask.

Three faces turn toward me, wide-open, hopeful, full of trust, waiting for my answer. I don't want to let them down.

"With lemons!" I say.

"That's a good one, Mom!" Carter says. Bennett copies, "Good one!" Avery chimes in too, "Mama!"

And just like that, I am forgiven.

The day resumes itself, the morning still full of possibility and the sun rising in the sky like a lemony yellow ball.

There's a trend afoot amongst affluent suburban families. Parents who are trying to interest their kids in philanthropy and/or lesson the extent to which their homes are crammed with toys, are holding gift-free birthday parties. The idea is to have parents take the money they would've spent on presents and instead donate to a charity of the child's choosing.

Seems like a cute idea, right? Kids don't even play with half the presents they get, and, more than likely, they had too much stuff to begin with.

Not so fast, says Judith Martin, the writer behind the Miss Manners column. In an interview with the New York Times she speculated: "Do you really want the birthday child to grow up hating philanthropy because it' done him out of his birthday presents?"

Martin also believes children learn from graciously accepting gifts they don't like.

I actually can see both sides. Part of me thinks that a child who couldn't enjoy a birthday without receiving lots of presents is probably spoiled. That said, are young children -- such as the 4-year-old profiled in the Times piece -- really old enough to understand the concept of philanthropy in the first place?

Right from the beginning, I felt like a celebrity.

People would see me waddling toward them and clear a path. Strangers would stare at my belly and say, "Oh my, that's going to be a big baby!" I'd smile and hold up my fingers in a peace sign and say, "Two. It's 2 babies."

What I thought of as the "twin people" emerged, people who seemed to be in love with the idea of twins. A man with a graying beard broke into a big smile and said, "Double blessings!" My sister admitted to me that she had 2 cribs, 2 layettes, 2 of everything in her attic waiting for the day she and her husband began their family. She was hoping for twins. And from my own grandmother: "I finally have my twins. It's the last thing I wanted in life."

My infamy grew when Avery was diagnosed. I became the mother of twins, one with Down syndrome. Statistically speaking, we were one in a million.

A NICU nurse told me, "Be happy there are 2. This one (she pointed to Bennett) will lead the way. This one (she pointed to Avery) will follow." At the time, the thought overwhelmed me. My babies were so tiny. They were wired to so many machines. That we would ever have any other life outside the hospital seemed to require more imagination than I could manage.

But soon enough, we were home. Our kitchen became command central with lists taped to the fridge: telephone numbers for the NICU and the neonatologist, the pediatrician and the pediatric surgeon, our local hospital and our family practice doctor, the lactation consultant and the early intervention specialist. The home health care company that provided the pulse-ox monitor and the flexible tubing and wires and tanks of oxygen that went with it.

And schedules: feeding times for baby A (Avery) and baby B (Bennett). A schedule for pumping. A calendar with big black Xes through the days. All this, and we still hadn't reached the babies' full-term due date, mostly forgotten in all the chaos, except for the big red star on the day in the calendar. Watching it approach made me feel melancholy for all the dreams and plans we'd left behind at the automatic revolving door of the hospital.

At first it was difficult to be grateful for 2. Two preemies. Two sets of health concerns. Two different schedules of doctor appointments. Two feeding schedules. Two meant that I never had enough arms for 3 children. Two meant I was constantly short. Two was too much.

We began early intervention services with Avery--he had a family resource specialist, and a physical therapist, and a speech therapist. I'd leave Bennett at home and would take just Avery to these appointments. He was a happy baby, a contented soul, easy compared to his twin brother, who seemed like a grouchy old man in a baby's body. Bennett was disappointed with everything, always fussing, as if saying, You woke me up for THIS? Avery took it easy on me, made my life with 2 a little less impossible.

Bennett grew full and long and lean. Avery grew also, but more slowly. I remember the doctor's appointment when Bennett, who had always been the smaller, more sickly baby, outweighed Avery. We'd been told to expect this. One of the more common characteristics of Down syndrome is a slower metabolism, and a smaller stature. I knew it would happen, but even as it was happening, I wasn't really prepared. I'd seen the karyotype, the map of squiggly lines that showed Avery's extra chromosome on paper, in black and white. And yet, it hadn't fully occurred to me, until the weigh-in when Bennett jumped ahead, that Avery's path would be different.

The extra chromosome manifests itself in other ways, little, surprising things, such as: all of my boys have the same color hair, which is like mine, only Avery's isn't curly. His skin is softer. He has the same, distinctive big toe as his brothers and his father, but his feet are much smaller, and flat. His eyes are blue like the rest of us, but he has little white flecks in the irises that sparkle in the sunlight.

At age 4, Avery retains his toddler Buddha belly, while Bennett 's body has stretched out, not a toddler shape anymore but that of a boy. One thing has remained the same--Bennett needs to know were Avery is at all times. "Where's A.E.?" he asks, whenever Avery is out of sight. They sleep together, as they always have. Sometimes Bennett climbs into bed with Avery and I find them like this, a tangle of arms and legs that I don't dare separate, for fear of disturbing the peace.

Now, when I mention the boys are twins, people look at me as if I've lost my mind. "Twins? You mean the big one, and the little one?" Yes. The big one and the little one. Twins. It's gotten to the point that I avoid bringing it up, so that I don't have to explain.

When we first saw the twins on the ultrasound screen, from that initial moment, Tom and I had hoped they would be different. We'd wanted them to have their own personalities, and they do. As unique as night and day. Oil and water. Salt and sugar. And yet, what we'd wished for now makes me sad--it means that this special twin bond of theirs is mostly a secret, mostly invisible.

But I can see it. It's in the way Bennett leads and Avery follows, just as the NICU nurse predicted. Bennett walked first, then held Avery's hand while Avery learned. Bennett talked first, then taught Avery to make sounds too. Bennett runs and skips and jumps; Avery tries to do these things because his brother can. They are a part of each other, just as all of my children are a part of me. And I can see now that 2 is not too many--it's just enough.

"Cut it off," I said to the face in the mirror, a face I barely recognized, my own. Blotchy and puffy from post-pregnancy hormones. Heavy, leaden eyes from lack of sleep.

"Okay, but are you sure?" came the voice of the woman behind me, her eyebrows over-tweezed in perfectly plucked arches, making her look perpetually startled. There was a tattoo on her right hand just below her wrist. The tattoo seemed important, like some kind of sign. What it said was unclear.

"Cut it all off," I repeated. My hair hung in a ponytail down my back, a light brown rope. I wanted it gone. The ponytail would go to Locks of Love, an organization that makes hairpieces for children with long-term hair loss. But that wasn't why I was doing it. I wanted a new face to match my new life, only I didn't know who that face was.

The ponytail dropped to the floor. The woman spun me around and tilted the chair back, pouring out shampoo that smelled like rosemary and mint and began washing the old me away. I could see now that the tattoo on her wrist was of the initials E.W., its once-black ink faded to the dull blue of a bruise.

She toweled dry my hair and my head felt light. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine who E.W. was. A boyfriend, or a child, or the woman herself. Maybe I needed initials on my wrist to remind me who I was.

Cut, cut, cut. Snip, snip. Clippers shaving the back of my neck. The warm air from the blow dryer. More rosemary, more mint. Hairspray. When she was done, she held out a mirror in a black plastic frame and said, "You can look." She turned the seat slowly, so I could get the view from all sides.

I looked exactly as I did before: blotchy and puffy and tired. Only with short hair.

I left the salon feeling like more of a failure than I had when I entered. One of the things people tell you, when you are a new mother, is to take care of yourself. Make time for your own needs. See your friends. Eat out, once in a while. Get a new haircut. What I was learning was that none of these things were as easy to do as they sounded.

Several years later, my friend Emily, who spent time working and studying in India, told me that there, a woman cuts her hair as a sign of grief. I thought about how sad I had been feeling in the salon; how much I had been missing my old, pre-baby life and how badly I wanted to be able to go back to it, if only for a short time. Maybe my haircut was a way of me trying to let go of that life, a way of saying goodbye.

Another friend, Mary, told me that hair holds psychic energy. If this is true, then ten years of my life were captured in that long ponytail. My wedding to Tom in a morning ceremony on the shores of Flathead Lake. Moving into our first home, which was an unfinished log cabin five miles south of the Canadian border. Another move, 700 miles east across the state to a landscape of wide-open grasslands. And the birth of our first child, a son. So many changes; so much living. Maybe it was, finally, too much weight to carry.

The thing no one tells you about short hair is that it's a lot of work. My hair is thick and curly, and for any short style to look like it should, I needed to keep it trimmed. Which meant that I got a fresh cut every four weeks. It became my way of marking my days as a newborn mom.

During this season of short-hair, I learned to understand my baby's cues--the cry that meant he was scared, or the cry that meant he was hungry. The cry that meant, "Change my diaper!" and the one that meant, "I'm lonely!" We made it through a bought of sleeplessness and constant nursing at six-weeks. The coos and giggles came, too, and the first smile. All the milestones, all the moments. They arrived when they should, as they were supposed to, and this made me feel like a good mom. My baby grew, and my confidence in myself as a mom grew, too.

Soon enough, my sadness over losing my old self seemed like a long-ago thing, a silly thing. The writer C. S. Lewis describes the experience of passing through grief like stepping into a cold room: at first, all you feel is the cold. Slowly, as your body adjusts, you become less aware of it. The room warms around you, until you realize you are no longer cold, only you can't say exactly when it happened. It was that way for me, too.

The loss that I felt, that I wanted to mark, of my old life was filled up by new life. The soft, downy hair on the top of my son's head, which I couldn't resist kissing. The sweet rosebud of his lips. Chubby baby toes. The way his head fit perfectly beneath my chin, his ear on my heart. Rocking with him in the glider brought me the most peaceful, complete moments I had ever known.

* * *

It's been eight years since the haircut. In that time, we've moved again, back to the lake where Tom and I were married. There have been two more babies. More milestones; some familiar, some new. All the while, my hair has been growing.

It's long again. Another light brown rope down my back. A woman in the grocery store stopped me and said, "You have such lovely hair! And how brave of you, keeping it long at your age!" I was stunned, then I thought, She's right. I'm getting too old for long hair. I should cut it and start fresh.

But this time of my life has been full of my children's' growing-up: first steps and first words. Birthday parties and holidays and summer vacations. And with each passing year, as they grow into themselves, I let go of my kids a little more. If it's true that hair holds memory, I'm not ready to cut it off just yet.

And there's more: sometimes I find myself thinking about the woman I was before I had kids. The woman who moved through life without a purse-full of matchbox cars and crayons, without an internal list of child-friendly restaurants. The woman who knew what it was like to have uninterrupted conversations and who could fill a lazy afternoon reading a book. I'm going to need her, again. Like Rapunzel, my long hair is a rope back to her.

I don't know what to do about my hair. For now, it's a way of remembering--not only what has happened, but who I was as it happened. It's a way of remembering me.

It was quite some time after the birth of my first son Carter that I finally let myself off the hook for what I felt had been a mess: a long, unproductive labor, a cocktail of drugs, and an epidural resulting in a forceps delivery that left my newborn looking like a bruised plum. All this, from a birth plan that originally included nothing more than Lamaze breathing and a focus object.

When pregnant the second time with the twins, I told my husband Tom that I wanted to try to manage the delivery better, maybe even have it at home. I had the name of a midwife, and I'd already spoken with a doula, a young woman who offered her services free of charge just so she could gain experience working with twins.

"You're not serious, are you?" Tom asked. He'd been through it the first time, holding my hand every step of the way, and perhaps had a more coherent memory of the whole thing than I did, which mostly consists of me thinking there was something burning in the oven and asking over and over, "Tommy, did you take the pizza out?"

Carter was born under the fluorescent lights of a hospital delivery room, healthy and whole. I was safe. He was sound. But something was missing. I was used to being in control of my life and my body. Yet when it came down to it, I felt I fell apart. Giving birth is seen as the ultimate women's work, and I had stumbled. I wanted a chance to do it again--right.

My friend Sonja is a recent transplant to our small Montana town, from Seattle. I attended the home birth of her fourth child and admired the way she seemed to know her body. I envied her ability to predict with confidence what would happen. The bedroom was lit by a single lamp in the corner, there were clean flowered sheets waiting on the dresser. Her baby was born into a circle of love, and she and her husband and their newborn watched the sun rise from their family bed, nibbling slices of green apple and sipping herbal tea.

What I didn't realize then was that when we give birth we are being delivered ourselves, being granted immunity from the way we think things should be. I have come to think of pregnancy as 9 months of lessons in the loss of control. Our bodies grow large and round and slippery beyond excess; our emotions overwhelm us and we laugh and cry and hiccup at all the wrong moments. But this loss is a gift--it's a softening, an opening--that helps prepare us for life with children. It takes us down a notch or two to where our ideas of the way things should be balance out with the way things are.

My second birth found me bumping along in the back of an ambulance 7 weeks before my due date, pumped full of drugs meant to stall my contractions. The emergency medical technician riding alongside me was young, strong, beautiful. I could tell she'd thought about the day she might have kids and it wouldn't be the way I was doing it. I forgave her for it, because I was once that way, too.

The babies came via emergency C-section by my team, doctors and nurses and an anesthesiologist who were strangers to me. But they were all there to help, giving up a sunny summer Sunday to deliver me and my babies. My second birth experience was even farther away from my birth plan than my first, but miraculously, it was fine. This time, I knew my priorities: my babies were alive. I was safe. Tom and Carter were nearby. I finally let go of the guilt. Instead, I was proud. My circle of love had expanded in ways I couldn't even have imagined, and it was time to move on, and begin my next task: the joyful work of getting to know my newborn family.

My first son Carter was born on the sage-covered flats of eastern Montana in a blizzard. Six months later we moved across a mountain range to a home my husband Tom and I hoped would be a good place to raise kids. The only problem: we didn't know any other families.

My first attempt at finding friends was a group advertised in the local paper, which perhaps gave it a more organized appearance that it deserved, although I didn't know it at the time. The description was clear: "Mothers of young children meet for play, Tuesdays 10 a.m., First Presbyterian Church." I liked the simplicity of the ad, which made the group seem like a no-fuss proposition.

But when Carter and I arrived at the church promptly at ten, no one was there. We waited in the car, and after a while, a red truck pulled in. Then another car, and another. Slowly, moms, toddlers and infants in baby carriers made their way through the big double doors, which had been unlocked all along, only I hadn't checked. I watched from my seat in our car, studying the women and children who might become our new friends, like a spy in my own life.

Everyone looked beleaguered to me, as if they'd rather be someplace else. Still, I got out of my car and unlatched my own baby carrier and walked into the building. That day I met a woman who introduced me to another woman, who taught piano. Eight years later, the piano teacher is one of my dearest friends.

And though the years of mommy's groups are far behind us now, and the women and kids have mostly scattered to different schools and summer camps and new activities and some have even moved away, we still keep track of each other, in a loose kind of way. And I expect we always will, because of the bond we shared as newborn mothers.

We laugh about those days now. We used to park the babies in a circle, sleeping in their carriers, like pioneers rounding up the wagons. Then, mostly, we'd talk. About things like how hard it was to manage our new lives, or how it hurt to breastfeed. About how long the days seemed, when you were nursing a newborn, and then how fast they disappeared, too. How all of a sudden, a month was gone, and you had nothing to show for it.

But we did indeed have something to show for it: our growing babies, revealed in the photos, of Halloween parties and winter sledding and birthdays. And our families changed, too: pregnancies and second babies, divorces and remarriages, third babies and in my son Avery's case, Down syndrome.

Being Avery's mom made me feel like a newborn mother all over again. The fact of his apnea/bradycardia monitor, or the time we walked in the NICU to find the babies' IV lines attached to their heads; who could I talk to about these things? If we lived in a bigger town, or near a city, perhaps I'd find mothers with similar experiences, in person. But we didn't, and so I did what many others have done--I went online, and found a sort of virtual mommy's group comprised of women who were raising children like mine.

These are my friends I've never met, but they feel as real to me as that first mommy's group. With these women, I talk about SureSteps and ENT surgeries. I talk about skin lotion, and haircuts. And often, we laugh, which is sometimes still surprising to me: that happiness stops at our front doors to pay a visit just as often as it stops anywhere else.

There are advantages to a virtual mommy's group: you don't have to pack up the kids and head out in bad weather; no one has to clean their house or make cookies or buy juice boxes; you can find solace and support at 3 am, if you need it. But there is something missing, too: being able to hold another woman's newborn in your arms; being able to hear the voices of your friends; being able to get and give a hug.

Sometimes both worlds join together, at meet-ups or play dates or conferences. And when the real-life opportunities are slim, we have writing. Blogs, and forums, and email, and books. Gifts--Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Have Enriched Their Lives is one such book, a collection of writing by 63 mothers of children with Down syndrome, with a foreword by parenting expert Martha Sears, whose seventh child is a son with Down syndrome.

It was inspired by moms Kathryn Lynard Soper and Robin Roach, who collected stories over the Internet. All the writing and photographs were donated; the book's proceeds go toward Down syndrome education and outreach. It's a virtual mommy's group with a good-works component, but what strikes me the most about it is this: the women sharing their stories remind me of my early days as a new mother to Carter, when it was so important for me to have a place to speak, and to know I was being heard.

I knew all the numbers. 91, the percentage of healthy couples who will get pregnant after two years. 28, the length of the average cycle. 4, the number of days of possible ovulation. 3, the number of our family, a mommy and a daddy and a little boy named Carter. 2, Carter's age. And 1: one fertilized egg was all it took.

My life had become all about the numbers.

"I don't want to see you until you've been through 12 cycles. I mean 12 cycles that you're actively trying to conceive," my OB/GYN had said. And when the 12 cycles came and went, we started considering the "I" word.

Infertility.

It made me feel as if I were somehow damaged, and that my body was defective. And the fact that I was just now learning this information caused me to doubt myself in a hundred new ways. It was like seeing an awful picture of yourself and wondering, Is that what I really look like? Or hearing a recording of your voice and thinking, That doesn't sound like me, does it?

I'd tell myself I was fine, everything was fine, until one afternoon I found myself in the kitchen making chicken soup for a new mother, stirring the pot in front of me, watching the pieces of chicken and the discs of carrots swirl around and around, when I began crying. I couldn't help myself. I realized I wanted to be the one whose life was too full; I wanted to be the one who didn't even have time to boil water. I wanted that feeling of the world becoming too vivid. I wanted to know that intense, all-consuming newborn love one more time. I wanted a baby.

It was a wanting that paled everything else in comparison. I saw babies everywhere, and I knew that was what I needed. If I had another child, another baby, everything would be better and I became caught in a biological riptide that carried me away from my previously happy life. It went on like this for a year, until one snowy October day, my desire broke in half. I turned my heart away from the baby I wanted but who would not come to me. I gave up.

Sometime later that same night, life took root inside me. Not just one baby, but two. Cells multiplying and dividing in a frenzy of growth and activity, our lives changing forever, all while I slept curled into my pillow, my back against my husband Tom, both of us oblivious to what was happening, as the snow continued to swirl into the dawn.

There were more numbers: 33, the weeks' gestation when my water broke and the babies were born by emergency C-section; 5, the number of weeks they spent in the NICU; 3, the number of chromosomes Avery has at the 21st pair. Numbers came again to me: ages adjusted for prematurity for both babies; growth charts and developmental milestones adjusted for Down syndrome, for Avery.

As before, I measured and counted, making notes on the calendar. Where were we? Some months it seemed we were ahead--on growth, or weights, or abilities. Other months, we were behind. By the fifth month, Avery's twin Bennett, who was born nearly a pound lighter, had moved ahead in all ways. The achievement was, for me, both bitter and sweet. And I began to wonder what good it did to compare the babies to each other, or to anyone else, for that matter. If living by the numbers caused me to lose sight of the joy in my life, maybe it was time to let go of them.

In my mind, the realization felt as if I'd crumpled up a great, unwieldy developmental chart, tossing it in the trash, and then tore up the calendar, with it's pages full of all my scribbled numbers. But in reality, I merely closed the book on babies with Down syndrome and tucked it away on the bookshelf, and I bought myself a new calendar, one with photographs of sock monkey dolls demonstrating yoga poses.

And we began again, from scratch. Zero expectations, zero preconceptions. I looked at my children in relationship to no one other than themselves, each as unique as a snowflake, as individual as a fingerprint. Perhaps for the first time, I could see them clearly, and it has made all the difference.

I am the mom who can see my firstborn, now nearly 9, for the computer whiz that he is. I can see my youngest son Bennett at 4-years-old, and marvel at his daring and his fearlessness. And I can see my middle son Avery, also 4. He is my gentle boy, playful and careful at once. All three of my children, revealing themselves to me as exactly who they are meant to be.

I don't know what it's like to lose a child.

I know what it feels like to be surprised by a child, touched by a child, hugged by a child. Kissed, tugged, loved. I know about the laughter, the light, the sunshine. I know about the good times.

I know what it's like to be shaped by a child, too, to be stretched and challenged. I know about frustration and being humbled. I know about reaching my wits' end and finding another, new end, one I didn't know was there, a reserve of patience within me. Because of my children, I know about strength.

I know what it feels like to be saddened, too. I remember the NICU, with its hospital smells and beeping machines and the pumps always pumping. I remember the danger of hope; hope could break you in two, snapped like a match. But it was hope that woke you up each morning. Hope was the reason you climbed out of bed and got dressed, put two socks on your feet and put your arms through the sleeves of a jacket on your way to the hospital, back for another day.

I remember everything as if it happened yesterday, though it was four years ago already. The hum of the HVAC, the too-sweet antiseptic smell that clung to my hair, my clothes. The feeling of something bad moving through the isolettes, of trouble coming to find me. Our doctor had gentle blond curls and quiet blue eyes and the top of her nose was sunburned from the bluegrass festival. She reached out to me and touched me on the sleeve when she said the words, "Down syndrome."

I felt the world spinning away from me, felt the light lifting out of me, felt it all calmly, slowly, and then I was overcome with the urge to flee. To get up and bolt, leaving behind the stale smells, the antiseptic, the artificial light where everything was alive, but nothing was living.

And suddenly I envied our doctor and her sunburn, which was evidence of her day away listening to the silky notes of an acoustic guitar. She could leave. Even as I felt the muscles in my legs twitch, I knew I'd never go. My babies were here, and for as long as they were, I would be, too. This was my life.

At the time, it felt like the worst thing that could have happened. The prematurity, the isolettes, the IVs and the blood draws and the "issues" and Avery's diagnosis, all of it felt like more than I could hold. It was too big a mess for me to wrap my arms around. The diagnosis, in particular, felt raw. It was as if a child I had known and loved had been taken away from me, and the loss seemed real and tangible. I know now that it only felt that way; and for me, the feeling lifted. With sweet, tender grace my son has revealed himself to be exactly the child I need.

I don't know what it feels like to lose a child. But I know this: when we become parents, it feels as if a part of you, maybe the very best part, the part you want to hold the most closely and protect the most fiercely, is born into the world with two tiny feet that will soon enough walk away from you, out into the wideness of life. It's amazing, and exhilarating, and at the same time, terrifying.

And though I spend a lot of my time as a mother pretending that there is nothing to be afraid of, that everything will be okay, sometimes it isn't. To be around children and families with increased risks for health issues, or medical complications, means that sometimes we say goodbye to our children long before we are ready.

This week, Sweet / Salty Kate said goodbye to her son Liam. Through her writing, Kate has touched many readers, including ParentDishers Roger, J.D, Kristin and Jennifer. And me, too. Kate has reminded me that a mother's love is transcendent. It knows that living is equal parts bravery and bravado. That a life, however short, is beautiful. That minutes can feel like lifetimes. And that the love we share will never leave us. We are not alone.

I come from a family of storytellers and fishermen and fishermen who tell stories about fish. I was taught to fish as a little girl, and I learned well enough that I was allowed to tag along with Dad and Grandpa. And though I was happy to be included, I didn't like fishing as much as it seemed I should--what I cared for instead was the day, and the time spent on the water in the quiet, steady company of the men in my life. I went to hear their stories.

Fishing isn't always about catching fish, I learned. As my Grandpa would say, "It's not called catching, it's called fishing." But it was a great excuse to spend a day outdoors, away from the otherwise comforting routines of home. There is a right was to do things, when fishing--a way to choose a pole, a way to tie a line, a way to cast. Don't check the line too soon; rely instead on your own ability to feel what's happening. Sometimes it's best to try one more time; in other instances, it's wise to move on--and you need to know when to do each. Being good at something, fishing or any other endeavor, is its own reward.

I practiced all these things, lessons in faith and patience and attention to detail, and when I grew tired of concentrating, I listened to the sound of the water lapping against the shore, or I'd look down through the water to the mossy rocks on the bottom, all the colors of the earth: rust, gray, brown and occasionally white, shocking as a loose tooth. And on these quiet days, I assimilated a belief in story--the family credo that any situation could be improved with a wise, witty retelling of the facts.

One story always beings the same: it's a cold, gray morning. There's an icy mountain stream; there's a huge boulder in the middle of the water; there's a little girl perched atop. holding a fishing rod with a Day-Glo salmon egg floating from it. The girl is told not to move with the words, "Be still."

The other details of the story vary, depending upon who's telling it. The forest was silent; the water roared mightily; the cool mist lifting off the water was silver. I am the girl on the boulder, calling out in an uncertain voice, "Dad?"

Then again, louder, "Dad!"

Dad, assuming I'd tangled my line, makes his way back toward me, where he sees what I already know: my line is moving in a great arc. My small hands are holding on against the quick flash of the fish as it turns and rolls, fighting it's way downstream. Dad slides his arms around me, puts his hand over mine, and helps me reel. This is my first fish, and in the story, it's always the biggest, best catch of the day.

I'm the mother of small boys now, without much time for fishing, but a few years ago, before the twins were born, my husband Tom and I found ourselves on a boat in the Everglades surrounded my murky, brackish water the color of Darjeeling tea. We were with Tom's parents and our oldest son, Carter, whose grip was tight, his face solemn as he held the red and black children's rod, newly purchased for him by his Grandpa.

"The fish won't come, I don't think they like me," Carter says to me.

"Of course they like you," I answer. "They're just taking naps now, that's all."

"No, I'm bad at this, Mommy."

"That's not true. The fish aren't hungry," I say. And then, "We just have to use our patience. Look at the water. See how the sun sparkles there?" And, "If you were a fish, where would you live?" And finally, a phrase from memory, "Sweetie, it's not called catching, it's called fishing."

We rest a while quietly, my son's head on my knees, the water lapping against the side of the boat in a steady rhythm, interrupted only by a flurry of activity on Tom's line. I steer our son into his father's arms. Carter reels and reels, handling the rod stiffly, seriously. Soon there is a flash of silver near the water's surface.

Grandpa gets the net, Grandma the camera. We take a picture of the day, a color photograph capturing the moment our first son caught his first fish. I hope he will remember it. I hope he will learn what we can teach him, and carry it forward--the line that ties us all together, a clear mono-filament, hard to notice unless you look right at it, but ever so strong.

I have a terrible singing voice. When a situation called for a song, like birthdays or New Year's Eve, I'd pretend to sing and just mouth the words, or I'd shrug it off, telling people, "I can't hold a tune," which was a bit misleading, since it implied that I at least knew a few tunes. I didn't.

When my oldest son Carter was a baby, I sang the same two songs to him over and over: "I'm an Old Cowhand," and "Edelweiss." Desperate, I even made up my own lullaby with the lyrics, "Lullaby, and goodnight, go to sleep now it's bedtime. Bedtime, bedtime. Bedtime, bedtime. Go to sle-ep, it's bedtime!"

Thankfully, Carter didn't know what a rotten singer I was.

I'd always intended to learn a real lullaby; it was on my list of things a parent should know. But in all the excitement of my second pregnancy, with twins, these plans were forgotten. And later, the NICU wasn't a place that made me feel like trying, especially with others listening in. I wished I was the kind of woman who could sing beautiful songs to her tiny babies. I wished I were a lot of things in the NICU. I wished I were stronger and more forceful. Smarter, and braver, and tougher. Cooler, calmer. Better. But I wasn't.

Instead, I held my babies. I whispered to them, telling stories about the great, wide world and all the things they had never seen. I made promises of better days and of good things to come, like warm sunshine, or the smell of the air after a rainstorm. The sound of birdsong, or the ripple of notes in their older brother's laughter.

Eventually, we all got home. The babies grew, as as they did, Tom and I began to learn who our children are. Bennett is brave and bold and fearless. Avery is soft and kind and gentle. Avery has Down syndrome. And Avery loves to sing.

When I tried to encourage Avery to speak, he wasn't particularly interested. If I tried to get him to say the vowels, he'd turn away from me. But if I sang the sounds, he'd give me his immediate attention. So I learned the "Itsy Bitsy Spider " song, and "Where is Thumbkin?" We sang them together and practiced the finger plays, too.

Soon enough, the finger movements lead to learning a few simple gestures in sign language. Sign language taught Avery that he could ask for things, and that he'd get them. And as his desire to communicate began to grow, I found myself singing often, to encourage him. Without realizing it, our house had become a house of song.

This musical awakening was unexpected, to be sure. I'd wanted to be able to sing, but it was something I'd forgotten, like wanting to go to Paris, or wanting to take a helicopter ride over the mountains, or wanting to learn how to knit. Now, we "Twinkle, Twinkle" and we "Row, Row, Row." We sing "Happy Birthday" to the dog, the cats, the stuffed monkey and the giraffe. We watch Julie Andrews on DVD and when the moment is right, I unabashedly belt out, "The hills are alive with the sound of music!"

We've gotten a piano. All the kids take lessons, and I'm learning along with them. Sometimes, I plink the middle C and sing "Do-re-mi!". And there are stacks of disks around the CD player: Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner and Raffi. Silly Songs and folk dances and classical. Stomp!

I still sing "Edelweiss," the song I've known the longest. My mother used to sing it to me when I was little; it's the only one I remember. My eyes water each time I get to the part, "Bless each morning you greet me," and my wavering notes have nothing to do with an ability to add vibrato.

It's because I remember singing "Edelweiss" when I was a new mom to Carter. Avery makes me feel that way again, like a newborn mother. And I am. I'm a mom who sees special meaning in the lyrics that speak of blessing and gratitude. My second son has given me a second chance, and it feels good to be finally singing the songs of my heart.

My middle son Avery has been seeing a physical therapist since he was 6-months-old. Her name is Wendy, and like the Wendy of Peter Pan fame, our Wendy is kind, and wise, and supportive, and has shoulder-length brown hair. She's like Avery's second mother, or at the very least, a favorite aunt.

My other two sons pushed themselves through the developmental stages with very little coaxing from me. My main job was to prevent them from hurting themselves, and then cheer at all they'd accomplished. With Avery, it was different. He taught himself to sit, then stopped, perfectly content with this skill level. I wanted him to do more, but I didn't know where to begin. How do you teach a child to want?

Wendy knew what to do, and she showed me. She'd touch the muscles in Avery's legs, cuing them to act, helping him learn to crawl. Later, when crawling was the norm, it was pulling-to-stand. And more recently, it's been movement--putting one foot in front of the other--walking.

In the spring and summer, we usually do physical therapy at the park, on the blue and red playground equipment. The park is next to the lake, and sometimes we'd walk over to the water's edge and Avery would practice standing and throwing rocks into the water, delighted by the splash. Other times, we'd work in the playground sand, which made Avery's muscles strong. Once, we got caught in a terrific spring thunderstorm, and we rushed to the picnic pavilion to wait out the rain. So many memories, tiny steps, and with each one, Wendy was there.

When I wondered if Avery would ever crawl, Wendy patted my hand gently and gave me the answer I needed--yes. When I felt hopeless, and asked, Will he ever stand? She'd pat my hand gently, yes. Will he ever walk? Again, sure and certain, yes. In her, I placed my faith. In return, she gave me hope.

At the park, Avery walks up the steps, across the flexible bridge, down the slide. He walks over to the steps again, up, hand-over-hand down the ramp, to the other, bigger slide. Happy. Proud. Today feels like being with a friend at a play date, rather than therapy. There's very little work for either Wendy or me to do. Instead, I notice the sunshine, watch the seagulls. Smell the water on the air. The lilacs are blooming, the grass has recently been cut. Before long, it's already time to go.

"I don't know how to tell you this," Wendy begins. "So I'll just say it--Avery doesn't need me now. We can still get together socially, but he doesn't need PT. He needs time to practice what he already knows, which he can do on his own."

I stare at her, stunned. As a new mom to Avery, all I wanted was to be finished with therapies--to reach the point where all the early intervention was over. Now that I've gotten my wish, I regret it. I can't imagine a Thursday morning without her.

I consider pointing out all the things we still have left to do--hopping, skipping, running. I think about pleading our case: Look at me! I'm a klutz! I can't teach Avery by myself! And then I remember Avery's monitor. As a newborn, Avery had Apnea of Prematurity, which meant that he sometimes stopped breathing, and then his heartbeat would stop, too. Avery came home from the NICU attached to a little black box that kept track of his breathing and his heartbeat. It looked like a classic black Coach purse, except that once in a while it would get tangled and send off a single, shrill, piercing alarm.

Over time, I got used to it--I even came to rely on it. In fact, I remember being of the opinion that the monitor was so useful that I wished Avery's twin brother Bennett could have one, too. When our doc told us we didn't need it anymore, I panicked. How would we ever manage without a monitor? I even tried to convince him to let us keep it just a bit longer.

I feel that way again now. How will I ever know what to do?

But, I trust Wendy. If she says it's right, I know it's time. And I trust the work we've done these many months. Avery is strong, and ready. And most of all, I trust Avery. I may not know what lies ahead, but I know that together, we'll find our way.

During my second pregnancy, when the ultrasound revealed twins, both boys, I was happy. My first son Carter had taught me the charms of little boys--the bear hugs and the dog piles and the heart-on-the-sleeve approach to life. To raise a boy is to learn all the names of construction equipment, to know the difference between a Triceratops and a T-Rex, to learn how to say the burp alphabet.

I took for granted that my sons would grow to be strong like their father, and saw my task as teaching them how to be soft, too. My job would be to instruct them on how to bake a good loaf of bread, kneading the dough with a gentle touch so that it's sure to rise. Show them how to pick a ripe raspberry by cupping it in the palm of your hand, so that it doesn't get crushed. Give them all the ways I know of saying "I'm sorry" and "I love you" and making sure those words are said easily, and often.

With these goals in mind, when my boys were old enough, I bought them baby dolls, which they fed and held for a while, until the sun came out and they abandoned the babies for the diggers and backhoes in the dirt. There was a doll house, which they referred to as the fire station. And the plastic tea set, which I banished to the bath tub after a tea-party of spitting.

My two youngest take baths together in a tiny amount of water, because I'm overly-cautious. In the tub, they play with the plastic tea set. The pot is green with a blue lid. Avery is in charge of the pot, and fills each of the two red cups with bath water. Bennett takes a cup and calls it his coffee, pretending to drink. He pours it out, and takes the second cup, and again pretends to drink.

Watching the boys in the tub, I see the way Bennett's body has stretched itself from a chubby, pot-bellied toddler to the thin, muscular small-boy that he is. Avery, though Bennett's twin, has a different shape. His body is pear-like: thin legs and arms, a shallow chest, and a big, round belly. Both boys are healthy and growing well. I marvel at their differences, caused by a single, extra chromosome in every cell of Avery's body.

Down syndrome occurs once in every 733 births. During normal cell development, an original cell begins to grow by dividing and duplicating itself. Sometimes, for reasons that are not yet known, the original cell does not divide evenly. When the extra genetic material is located at the 21st chromosome, it's called Trisomy-21, which is also known as Down syndrome, after an English physician who first described the condition.

Avery's eyes have white sparkles in the irises called Brushfield spots. His skin is softer than Bennett's. His eyebrows are like mine. His nose, like my Grandma's. He has a crooked little pinky, and a wide space between his big toe and the rest. Some of these things are traits shared by children with Down syndrome; some of them are unique to Avery.

When we were still in the hospital, and we'd just received the news that Avery's karyotype confirmed a diagnosis of Down syndrome, I felt many things, all at once--fear, and sadness, and regret. Confusion, because I wasn't sure what Down syndrome was, or what it would mean to us. What I held on to was this: I remember thinking about Avery's big toe. All three of my boys share a similar toe, each a miniature replica of their father's. Avery's toe was proof that who he was, despite the new medical information we'd learned about him, had not changed. He was part of the family, my middle son, two minutes older than his twin. All three of them--my boys.

I sometimes catch a fleeting glimpse of a little girl running through my mind; my ghost daughter, the girl of my heart. With her, I would have had a proper tea party. With her, I would have become a ballerina. She would have taught me how to twirl, how to leap. The daughter of my heart would have written teenaged-girl love poems. Together, we would have learned how to knit.

But I'm the mother of sons, and when I miss the girl-child I've never had, I remember this: life is long. I'll raise my sons to be strong, and also soft. I'll teach them how to hold a baby, and I'll be patient. If I'm lucky, there will be one more child in my life--a granddaughter.