Gabriel and Isaac are my two new grandsons. They were born—or I guess it would be more accurate to say they were delivered—two months prematurely at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University Medical Center a couple of weeks ago, and at the moment that's where they still live—in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

But we all hope that won't be for long and that they will soon be on their way home with Mom and Dad.

The reason I rush to the computer every morning is that their dad, who is in the computer industry, has set up the twins' own web page.

It's a very complete page. On it are current pictures and a day-to-day status report on how they're doing. So far Gabriel and Isaac are doing pretty well, although they still have a way to go before they get out of the hospital.

The Gabriel and Isaac Show is for my son and daughter-in-law's many friends and relatives who are keeping an anxious vigil until the babies get out of the hospital. Because they are so tiny and still perched precariously on the edge of life, their visitors are mostly limited to Mom, Dad, the grandparents and a few close friends. But there are a lot of other folks out there who want to know how they are doing, and so the Gabriel and Isaac page.

"The boys," as we are getting to call them, were born prematurely because of a problem not infrequently seen in twins. Gabriel didn't have enough room in the womb and wasn't keeping pace with his brother in growth. So the safest thing seemed to be to deliver them by Caesarian section.

This is no simple task with twins. There have to be two teams of most every nurse and physician specialty. Each team attends a different twin. It's a speedy way to give birth, however. They were delivered within minutes of one another and carried down the hall from the surgery to the NICU.

Now that they're both "outside," Gabriel is making up for lost time. Even though he's small, he's a feisty little guy.

It's one of the wonders of modern medicine that babies so small—Gabriel weighed less than two pounds when he was born, Isaac less than four—have a fighting chance at life. But the team of doctors and nurses at Lucile Packard has done wonders, not only for our twins, but for many other babies who have arrived too soon, too small or with other birth problems.

It's a wonderful sight to see these tiny bits of humanity and the skill with which they are handled, and to see the results on the wall at the entrance to the nursery. It is covered with pictures of babies that made it and are now glowing examples of healthy childhood.

Obviously, the arrival of Gabriel and Isaac is a high for their parents. The boys are their first. It's also an emotional experience for us and for their other grandparents. For us, it is even more wonderful because in one birth we've been presented with our first two (and probably last) grandsons. We already have four granddaughters, one of whom just turned 21.

It's also in some ways a bittersweet event because that great leveler Time tells us it's unlikely that we'll see Gabriel and Isaac turn 21. If that does happen we'd be something like 100 years old.

Still, we have to revel in the knowledge that there are boy babies in our family at last and that even though they have had a perilous beginning to life, they are on their way.

Time also tells us the wonder of change, that nothing in life is static and change is the only common denominator of living. We know the boys are going to go from nursing to solid food, that they are going to learn to stand and to talk, to run and laugh and cry, to learn to read and write.

We've already begun to spin fantasies about what they are likely to become when they grow up, even though we really don't have a clue. Grandparents are supposed to do that, even if they may not be around to see it happen.

I don't know what their mother and father have in mind, but I have hopes one of them may turn out to be a writer, a better writer than I've been. I think their other grandparents might settle for a doctor and a lawyer.

Judging from past experience, they probably will be none of these things we expect. They'll just be themselves.

But the greatest joy is going to see some of this process happen, to see them grow and thrive after a beginning that I can only describe as something of a miracle.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Willow Glen Resident. He can be reached at feodorh@juno.com.