Scott Simon

Terry Teachout once worked as a bank teller in Kansas City, and I think he used to enjoy dropping that fact into conversation with theater folks. It was a way to say, "I am a theater critic. But really, I'm the audience."

"I still think Jell-O salads are vegetables," Terry told me once as, in fact, we ate veggie burgers before a play.

Alfredo Antonio Trujillo and his twin sister, Aylin Yolanda, were born just a few minutes apart, on different days, in different months, in different years.

Alfred Antonio was born at 11:45 pm, Dec. 31, 2021, at the Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, Calif. Fifteen minutes later, Aylin Yolanda was delivered just after the stroke of midnight, last Saturday morning, Jan. 1, 2022.

Their mother, Fatima Madrigal, told KABC in Los Angeles she feels doubly blessed.

"Everything is possible," she said. "And every child is a blessing."

SCOTT SIMON: We all start work on this show when it's still dark, and this Christmas morning I looked into the sky. I saw a trail, and heard a clatter of hooves, and a string of ho-ho-ho's. That sleigh in the sky should be approaching the west coast now. So I figured, why not try this number I have?

<SOUND OF PHONE DIGITS PRESSED>

I saw a picture this week that arrested my attention.

It's a drawing in old, dark ink of woman with curly hair, in a loose gown with a baby balanced in her lap. He is also curly-haired, and the ringlets make his little head look almost like an aura of the sun. The child stands on two plump, tiny legs, and the mother tucks him against her right arm, steadying his bottom with her left hand.

The curly-haired woman smiles. Not as if she doesn't have a care in the world, but as if all she really cares about in this world is the child in her arms.