Sometimes the thought comforts me. Mostly in the middle of a tantrum, or when I have to lie in their bed for 45 minutes (starving because I decided not to eat dinner with them and wait for Ryan because I thought they'd go to bed easily and early) to get them to go to sleep. Or when they freak out about brushing their teeth, or I have a night where they wake me up 4 times between midnight and 7am.
But the rest of the time, it makes me ache. Because along with all those trials, some of my favorite things will pass. The feeling of a plump, bouncy little cheek smooshed up against mine. Getting 15 kisses, on the mouth, when I ask for one. Waking up in the morning (even after the 4 times) and having two little bodies wiggling around and snuggling with me.
It drives me crazy when I am trying to unload the dishwasher, or cook a meal, or just get a little computer time, and they won't leave me alone. A hundred requests for this and that. All I want is a break!
But someday that break is going to come, and when it does, that will be it. There's no other baby waiting in the wings for me to snuggle--they're a one-shot-deal. And in a few years, they're going to be young women, with their own lives, their own interests, and no smooshy cheeks for me. How am I supposed to reconcile with that?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
EDD
Three years ago today was technically my EDD (Estimated Due Date). In some ways, it's silly to even consider it as a date at all--who gives birth on their due date, especially with twins? But it's yet another milestone and one I can never forget. My girls were 11 weeks old on their EDD. Instead of newborn pictures on that day, I have this sweet scene.
That's obviously Katie on the left with the nasal cannula.
I seem to have a lot of pregnant friends right now. Not so many in "real" life, but a lot of good friends I know online, many of whom I have met in person, too. One announced her pregnancy today, via Facebook status, and I am thrilled for her. She has had an incredibly hard road following the birth of her first child, and there was a big question whether she'd even be able to have another. Her news put a huge smile on my face.
And then it got me crying. Such is life. I think I've written here before that I don't really want to have any more children. My family is absolutely complete with my two incredible daughters. I feel like we are completely in balance and have no real desire to throw that off.
But I still feel a little sad thinking about never being pregnant again. And somehow seeing so many people have second children brings that out more than those having their first. I really really loved being pregnant. I was sick for most of the first 15 weeks, and exhausted, but I really relished all those strange feelings. Part of that was probably because once we found out it was twins, I knew it was a one-shot deal. So I enjoyed my growing belly, the OB appointments, the ultrasounds, the planning--all of it. It was entirely novel and special and then it was cut short.
If you're only going to be pregnant once, you should at least manage a full 9 months.
That's obviously Katie on the left with the nasal cannula.
I seem to have a lot of pregnant friends right now. Not so many in "real" life, but a lot of good friends I know online, many of whom I have met in person, too. One announced her pregnancy today, via Facebook status, and I am thrilled for her. She has had an incredibly hard road following the birth of her first child, and there was a big question whether she'd even be able to have another. Her news put a huge smile on my face.
And then it got me crying. Such is life. I think I've written here before that I don't really want to have any more children. My family is absolutely complete with my two incredible daughters. I feel like we are completely in balance and have no real desire to throw that off.
But I still feel a little sad thinking about never being pregnant again. And somehow seeing so many people have second children brings that out more than those having their first. I really really loved being pregnant. I was sick for most of the first 15 weeks, and exhausted, but I really relished all those strange feelings. Part of that was probably because once we found out it was twins, I knew it was a one-shot deal. So I enjoyed my growing belly, the OB appointments, the ultrasounds, the planning--all of it. It was entirely novel and special and then it was cut short.
If you're only going to be pregnant once, you should at least manage a full 9 months.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Vacation and recovery
You have to love it when someone says she's going to post more often, then takes another month-long hiatus. It probably wasn't so bright to say that 3 days before leaving for a 10-day Florida/Disney vacation extravaganza. We had a great time, though!
Learned a few things about our kids. Lilly's petrified of fireworks and pretty much any dark ride, especially if it includes loud noises. That kid is really sensitive to noise. Even Mickey's "Philharmagic" 3D movie scared the crap out of her, as did "Winnie The Pooh's adventures," and pretty much every other indoor ride. Let's not even talk about "Pirates of the Caribbean." She did love "It's a Small World" enough that we rode it twice and if you ask, that's her favorite thing at Disney.
We also learned that both of them love shrimp. That took some of the sting out of paying something like 13 bucks apiece at a buffet meal. They probably almost ate enough shrimp each to break even.
All the conventional Disney wisdom says that the kids will be more intimidated by the animal characters, because they don't have a human face to look at, but we found the opposite. They were totally at ease with Tigger and Pooh, but got tongue-tied around their Princess idols. Well, not so tongue-tied that Lilly didn't ask Princess Ariel if she poops in the water. Yes, she did. She had asked about that a few days prior, so I said she could ask Ariel when she meets her. And then I reminded her about it that day, not thinking she'd have the temerity to do so. Apparently, I misjudged my daughter. Ariel was entirely flustered and I let her off the hook by suggesting that they have special mermaid toilets for that.
Prior to Disney we spent several days in Fort Lauderdale and Miami visiting with Ryan's father and his sister's family. It was a blast to see the girls playing with their cousin Conner again, and they all had such a great time together. We're talking about getting together somewhere down South the first week in August, maybe renting a house on the beach somewhere within a reasonable drive of Atlanta, where my mother-in-law lives. We'll see what we manage.
I took 600 pictures in Florida. It's really hard to just pick a representative few. But here they are, anyway.
Kate in white, Lilly in pink (not to be confused with Piglet in pink)
Kate on Daddy's lap, Lilly on mine, on the Jungle Cruise
Kate's dressed as Sleeping Beauty (in pink), Lilly as Cinderella (blue). Belle's dressed as Belle.
With Cinderella.
Lilly on the beach.
Kate on the beach.
Learned a few things about our kids. Lilly's petrified of fireworks and pretty much any dark ride, especially if it includes loud noises. That kid is really sensitive to noise. Even Mickey's "Philharmagic" 3D movie scared the crap out of her, as did "Winnie The Pooh's adventures," and pretty much every other indoor ride. Let's not even talk about "Pirates of the Caribbean." She did love "It's a Small World" enough that we rode it twice and if you ask, that's her favorite thing at Disney.
We also learned that both of them love shrimp. That took some of the sting out of paying something like 13 bucks apiece at a buffet meal. They probably almost ate enough shrimp each to break even.
All the conventional Disney wisdom says that the kids will be more intimidated by the animal characters, because they don't have a human face to look at, but we found the opposite. They were totally at ease with Tigger and Pooh, but got tongue-tied around their Princess idols. Well, not so tongue-tied that Lilly didn't ask Princess Ariel if she poops in the water. Yes, she did. She had asked about that a few days prior, so I said she could ask Ariel when she meets her. And then I reminded her about it that day, not thinking she'd have the temerity to do so. Apparently, I misjudged my daughter. Ariel was entirely flustered and I let her off the hook by suggesting that they have special mermaid toilets for that.
Prior to Disney we spent several days in Fort Lauderdale and Miami visiting with Ryan's father and his sister's family. It was a blast to see the girls playing with their cousin Conner again, and they all had such a great time together. We're talking about getting together somewhere down South the first week in August, maybe renting a house on the beach somewhere within a reasonable drive of Atlanta, where my mother-in-law lives. We'll see what we manage.
I took 600 pictures in Florida. It's really hard to just pick a representative few. But here they are, anyway.
Kate in white, Lilly in pink (not to be confused with Piglet in pink)
Kate on Daddy's lap, Lilly on mine, on the Jungle Cruise
Kate's dressed as Sleeping Beauty (in pink), Lilly as Cinderella (blue). Belle's dressed as Belle.
With Cinderella.
Lilly on the beach.
Kate on the beach.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Random things I'm loving right now
I hope you're not expecting an explanation (excuse?) for my absence the past couple of months. There isn't one. I was just busy and distracted and feeling a little lazy about writing, I suppose. That's all. I thought I'd come back today and jot down a few things.
I've spent the past several years on a few different message boards, all of which grew out of the wedding forums on theknot.com. I've gotten a lot out of those boards. Some aggravation for sure, but so much more in terms of friendship and knowledge. I've met a pretty good number of the women on my boards, in places as far apart as NYC, Kansas City, Ann Arbor, and Raleigh. Probably other places, if I really sit and think about it. We talked each other through getting married, getting pregnant, having babies, raising kids, and in some cases, ending those marriages. There are things I've told the ladies on the boards that I would never ever blog about, and probably wouldn't tell a lot of my real-life friends. When my babies were born so early, a large group (25 or so) of them get together and sent me a huge box, which contained the only "baby shower" I'll ever have. In return, I shared with them the horrifyingly embarrassing photos of my one-week postpartum miserably exhausted self opening the gifts. I think I got the better end of that deal.
Anyway, the boards lived on MSN Groups, and this past October MSN announced that they were shutting down the boards. There were various archiving schemes, and some of the boards did get archived on other sites. And we migrated to other hosting sites going forward, so it's not like we're not all still able to communicate. But not everything got archived. I went through all my posts on one of the baby-related boards and copied every post I started for the past 3.5 years - since I found out I was pregnant. I have a word doc hundreds of pages long. But I couldn't copy every reply I made in every post, and I know countless little bits of information have been lost. There were milestones and stories about the girls that I probably only posted there, and now I will never read them again. It makes me sad if I think about it too hard, and I am trying not to.
So, I'm trying to keep up this blog going forward. I wish so much I had blogged during my pregnancy and first years with the girls. I wish I had done a handwritten journal, written in the form of letters to my babies. I bought one - the day I found out it was twins, I bought a beautiful journal at Barnes & Noble. But not too long after that, I had a scare and thought I might lose one or both babies, and I couldn't bear to start writing to babies that may or may not ever exist. And then they were OK but I started thinking how can I write one journal for 2 people - who will get to keep it when I die? Will they argue over it? (Yes, really, pregnant women are crazy.) And then it was so late into my pregnancy that it seemed silly to start writing now - if you can't start at the beginning, why bother? I can think of a million reasons now. Not everything has to be perfect to be worthwhile. So, from here on in, I'll try and record more of this life here.
To that end, here are just a few of my favorite things right now about Lilly and Kate.
Lilly:
They are exhausting. They don't stop talking from wakeup to bedtime, some days. They don't sleep through the night. They rarely nap more than one hour, and many days not at all lately. They take 30 minutes to get from the livingroom and down the steps into their carseats because they have to examine 20 things and ask me 20 questions on the way. They never seem to eat when I think they are hungry, and then when I think they're not, they ask for snacks all day long. They bite each other. They hit each other. They scream at me. They ignore at least 75 percent of what I say to them.
None of that really matters when I sit down and have a moment to think about the wonders that live inside them. When it's quiet, and they're not climbing on me, I can ponder what an incredible gift these little girls are, and how lucky I am to be their mother. They take everything I ever imagined about having a daughter and magnify it x 1000.
I've spent the past several years on a few different message boards, all of which grew out of the wedding forums on theknot.com. I've gotten a lot out of those boards. Some aggravation for sure, but so much more in terms of friendship and knowledge. I've met a pretty good number of the women on my boards, in places as far apart as NYC, Kansas City, Ann Arbor, and Raleigh. Probably other places, if I really sit and think about it. We talked each other through getting married, getting pregnant, having babies, raising kids, and in some cases, ending those marriages. There are things I've told the ladies on the boards that I would never ever blog about, and probably wouldn't tell a lot of my real-life friends. When my babies were born so early, a large group (25 or so) of them get together and sent me a huge box, which contained the only "baby shower" I'll ever have. In return, I shared with them the horrifyingly embarrassing photos of my one-week postpartum miserably exhausted self opening the gifts. I think I got the better end of that deal.
Anyway, the boards lived on MSN Groups, and this past October MSN announced that they were shutting down the boards. There were various archiving schemes, and some of the boards did get archived on other sites. And we migrated to other hosting sites going forward, so it's not like we're not all still able to communicate. But not everything got archived. I went through all my posts on one of the baby-related boards and copied every post I started for the past 3.5 years - since I found out I was pregnant. I have a word doc hundreds of pages long. But I couldn't copy every reply I made in every post, and I know countless little bits of information have been lost. There were milestones and stories about the girls that I probably only posted there, and now I will never read them again. It makes me sad if I think about it too hard, and I am trying not to.
So, I'm trying to keep up this blog going forward. I wish so much I had blogged during my pregnancy and first years with the girls. I wish I had done a handwritten journal, written in the form of letters to my babies. I bought one - the day I found out it was twins, I bought a beautiful journal at Barnes & Noble. But not too long after that, I had a scare and thought I might lose one or both babies, and I couldn't bear to start writing to babies that may or may not ever exist. And then they were OK but I started thinking how can I write one journal for 2 people - who will get to keep it when I die? Will they argue over it? (Yes, really, pregnant women are crazy.) And then it was so late into my pregnancy that it seemed silly to start writing now - if you can't start at the beginning, why bother? I can think of a million reasons now. Not everything has to be perfect to be worthwhile. So, from here on in, I'll try and record more of this life here.
To that end, here are just a few of my favorite things right now about Lilly and Kate.
Lilly:
- Says "Yes ma'am" and I have no idea where she picked that up.
- If you ask her if she wants something, she replies with a jaunty "Sure!" just like her mama
- Loves to ue the word "certainly" as in "I certainly like Cinderella."
- Told me tonight that she liked the bourbon chicken I made for dinner because "It's nice and saucy."
- Tells me "I like to sleep without you mom (she calls me "Mom" lately). And with you. But I like to sleep without you" and then proceeds to climb into my bed every. single. night. sometime in the wee hours.
- Turned to me while eating eggs I had cooked in heart-shaped bread "frames" on Valentine's Day and said "Thank you for making this for me, Mom."
- Has trouble saying "Fl" or "Fr" and "Thr" at the beginning of words, so she plays with her "shrineds," likes pretty "slowers," and loves to "sly" her fairies "shrough" the air. She's also very excited to go to "Slorida" on vacation at the end of this week. I love to try and get her to say any of these words, because she sounds so stinking cute when she says them. I'll be sad when she starts saying them correctly. Last summer she said "corn" with 2 syllables, so it sounded like "Cah-rin" and I miss it every time I hear her say "corn" now.
- Loves to tell me what her sister likes. If Lilly is eating something, it's "Mommy, Lilly loves macaroni and cheese!" Or "Lilly likes her Cinderella doll." It's hard to describe, but when she says it, she's so thrilled to make this report that it gives me the giggles.
- Comes into our bed every night, usually a few hours prior to Lilly. I'm always frustrated at the interruption (she often times it 2 minutes before the end of a TV show we're watching on Tivo) but then when she lays down and I snuggle in close and put my cheek against her cheek...I melt.
- Thinks (and well tell you) that anything on TV that isn't one of their familiar Noggin or Disney Channel shows is "inaccrocriate." Apparently she told Grandma this about a commercial the other day and made her turn it off.
They are exhausting. They don't stop talking from wakeup to bedtime, some days. They don't sleep through the night. They rarely nap more than one hour, and many days not at all lately. They take 30 minutes to get from the livingroom and down the steps into their carseats because they have to examine 20 things and ask me 20 questions on the way. They never seem to eat when I think they are hungry, and then when I think they're not, they ask for snacks all day long. They bite each other. They hit each other. They scream at me. They ignore at least 75 percent of what I say to them.
None of that really matters when I sit down and have a moment to think about the wonders that live inside them. When it's quiet, and they're not climbing on me, I can ponder what an incredible gift these little girls are, and how lucky I am to be their mother. They take everything I ever imagined about having a daughter and magnify it x 1000.
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