From the Twin-Daddy:

With respectful apologies to William Shakespeare we present this short bit of theatre dedicated to mothers.

The play begins in a home with two screaming children.

One Mad Baby

Another Mad Baby

Our hero is the frazzled and sleep-deprived Mary, a mother.

The hero of our play, a mother

GERTRUDE: Where is the mother?

BETTY: She has stopped to check in on the twins.

GWEN: Of messy diapers, cries,
and tricks they have full three score thousand.

EMILY: It’s two to one; besides,
they never sleep
and she is awake with them the long night.

Two-to-One

SALLY: May God help her! It is fearful odds.
God be with them, twin-parents all.
It’s quite possible these kids will be the death of her.

GWEN: Oh that she now had here
but one of those relatives that do no work today!

MARY RETURNS COVERED IN BABY VOMIT

MARY: Who is she that wishes so? Gwen?
No, my friend: If I am to lose my sleep,
I am troubled little by the night’s loss,
and if I maintain watch over these two lads,
the greater my share of love and memories.
God’s will! I tell you I wish for nothing more.
By Jove, I do not covet money,
Nor do I mind feeding them from my own body;
I think not of fancy garments to wear;
Such things are far beyond my own desires:
But if it be a sin to love my children,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, in faith, my friends, I wish not for sleep.
God’s peace! I would not lose a single moment
that one night of sleep more might take from me.
These two are the best love I have.

The Best Love

I do not wish for one nap more!
Rather proclaim it, Gwen, to all my friends,
That she who cannot bear tough times,
Let her depart, with our blessing
and I’ll put a bus ticket into her purse:
We would not cry in that woman’s company
That fears her fellowship to cry with us.
This day is called the Mother’s day.
She that rocked her children and raised them
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse herself as she is called “mother.”
She that had children, when they age,
will yearly on the day be visited by them,
And they will say, “Today is Mother’s Day”
And she will open her babybook and show her photos
And say “These children I still love on my mother’s day.”
Old age might forget and perhaps everyone shall be forgotten,
But she will remember her children with their antics
What feats they did: then shall their names,
Familiar in her mouth as cherished words
my sons, my daughters, my babies,
Be in her glowing heart freshly remember’d.
So many things shall the good mom teach her children,
And a mother’s day shall never go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of mothers;
For she today that loses sleep with me
Shall be my sister; be she covered in vomit, babyfood, or poo,
This work makes her great:
And relatives where-so-ever they are who are now in bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their lives cheap whiles any mother speaks
That saw their baby’s smile on mother’s day.

Baby Smiles

Good night, sweet princes, and may flights of angels guide thee to thy rests.