We are clinking our champagne glasses when my husband says to Nicolas and Louise (in a complicit tone): “Welcome to real life!” I don’t know how to interpret this. What does my husband mean? What exactly is real life? We discuss their new status as young forty-something parents, diapers, bottles. Holding his champagne glass, my husband talks about the period when our son wasn’t yet sleeping through the night and was crying for hours on end, keeping us awake and feeling powerless. He reassures Nicolas, reminding him that children grow up, that the lack of sleep, the tears, the screams don’t
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