You spend the first year of its life waiting for it to talk and walk, and the next 17 years telling it to be quiet and sit down. For twenty years or so, it will take every second of free time that you have and every dime that you earn. And just when you start to be able to really communicate with it, it'll move out. You'll still get tapped for college and clothes and cars, but you won't get to look at what you're paying for. I'll take two.
Twins alter both the quantity and quality of silence.
In the first case, you'll have less of it. In the second case, when they can visit a friend's house for the night, or a cousin's for the weekend, you'll find that silence never sounds right again. Neither Shirley nor I would have tried to do it alone. We would give each other the gift, occasionally, of being able to sleep for seven or eight hours. The first time you can do that after the babies arrive, you think you're in heaven.