Doot and Bing turned three years old today! THREE. YEARS. OLD! But alas, we’ve all been stricken with whatever stomach virus has been going around lately, and had to cancel birthday plans, the most devastating of which was the rescheduling of the birthday cake that Alex had promised to make. But the boys are being real troopers about it. Maybe because they’re too wiped out to put up all that much fuss.
We will, of course, reschedule the party. Can’t turn three without a party–that just wouldn’t be right. There will be no need to reschedule Mommy’s tears, because those are happening anyway.
Someone please explain to me exactly how I’m supposed to function with this kind of awesome under foot every day?
So much is new it’s hard to keep track of it all. They are now 2 years and closing in on 9 months old. They started preschool half days in September and have had runny noses pretty much constantly ever since they started, but it doesn’t seem to slow them down much.
They now say things like, “This is my family!” and “See you next later everybody!” and “It’s okay, Mom,” (usually when I am flailing because we are late for school or I am out of coffee or someone has dumped their milk and Cheerios all over the kitchen floor for the third time this morning). They go to school and if one of them is feeling shy, you can be fairly confident his brother will take him by the hand and say, “Come on, let’s play.” And it’s hard not to get all teary eyed when you see it because that’s what you want with twins, that they have each other’s backs.
All that said, they are not even remotely interested in using a toilet for its intended purpose. I’m back and forth over whether to encourage them more or to let them take it at their own pace. It’d be real nice to be done with diapers, not gonna lie, but there’s also part of me that thinks they grow up fast enough. Why pressure them to move even faster? So for now we’re just letting them be, and waving big boy under pants around every so often saying, aren’t these cool? To mild interest, at best.
This child development stuff happens so subtly, feels like it’s hidden in the context of all this working and going to school and running around and not sleeping enough so that you hardly seem to notice most of the time. Then one day you look over and two superheroes are clamoring for the prime spot in the photo op. And that’s when you see it, right? That’s that epic expanse of life experience crammed into the few years we call childhood, right there, blinking its big ole’ candied eyes at you, all those memories you keep with you your whole life and pull out when you need to feel safe and loved and hopeful about the world being a magical, good place after all. It’s right here, in the kitchen in its new superhero costume waving and smiling and saying, Hey! Isn’t this awesome?
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say today, other than something along the lines of, “Jesus Befuckity, that was the shittiest put-down for bed that I can recall in ages.” And the reason for that is Easter, but in being fair to Easter, it’s not really Easter’s fault. It’s the fault of me wanting to be accommodating and sacrificing the boys’ 2-hour nap so we could go to Easter dinner at 1pm (which is when their nap normally starts). They fell asleep in the car, of course, on the way there and on the way home at 6pm. And then they screamed, and screamed, and screamed when it was time for bed at 8pm.
Felt just like it was April 2009 all over again, except not really because back then the screaming was on and off around the clock. Now it’s just on occasion but it still sucks, sometimes worse because you know that they are getting to the point where maybe they will remember that you just had to walk out of the room while they were screaming and close the door behind you. As much as it killed me to do that and listen to them from down the hall with my hands half over your ears, sure enough within five minutes they were sound asleep. But I still feel terrible.
Of course, that final move of leaving them to their shrieking happened after going back into the nursery to console them six different times, six different ways, over the course of an hour and 45 minutes, and every damned time I went in it got worse. Let that be a lesson to me.
I would say that the shrieking and the guilt weren’t worth it, except I kind of think they were, because it was Easter and our family got together and we had some good moments.
And I’m all about the good moments.
Hope all your holidays were less shriek-ful than ours, but every bit as happy.
I’m waiting for your Second Birthday slideshow to export and thinking, wow, could it really be two whole years, already? Really? No… really?
I won’t ever forget this night in 2009. Right about now, Dad and I were trying to get a little rest before waiting for you guys to arrive. We were really excited since we knew you were on your way. Okay, terrified too, but mostly excited.
The day you were born I was so sleep deprived and on so many different meds I felt a lot like I was on Mars. So I don’t remember a whole lot about it except that you were so wonderful and you smelled so good and you were so beautiful and so tiny and so perfect. And so very, very mine.
I guess growing up is about you guys gradually becoming less mine and more your own and I’ve decided that’s okay, which is good I think since I have no choice. Every day you learn something new, like how to draw a circle or what yellow is and how it’s different from scratchy or tiny, or that you like puffed rice more than Kix, or how to operate the remote control helicopter. Well, not quite, but impressively close for boys your age. And each new little thing like this stacks up on all those other little things you know and remember and pretty soon, you’re saying things like, “miss Mommy,” when I come home from work and haven’t played with you all day or doing things like sneaking the masking tape out of the junk drawer when I’m around the corner and proudly pronouncing it, “Circle.”
All these little feats of magic add up to one incredible, continuous transformation over time, from being that spark in my heart to that zygote in the petri dish to that fetus in my belly, to those helpless little newborns Dad and I held in our arms, so shakily but so proudly that day two years ago, and now in only two years all the way to this–my big, beautiful boys.
Some tell me I can call you my babies forever, and I probably will. In my heart, I’ll always hang onto the tiny, helpless memory of what you came from, the one that will forever need me, will always be mine. But know too that at the same time, I’ll hold the deepest, most profound gratitude in my heart as I watch you become the boys and in time, the men you were born to be.
That’s right, and I won’t go into all the reasons why, but let’s just say that when I was a kid, Christmas was the time of year that reminded me most of all the things in the world I wanted that weren’t mine, and I’m not talking barbies and ponies and bikes, because I had those things in spades. I’m talking about those things you feel like you’ve lost when you’re a kid and your family falls apart in several different ways at once and you have no idea of what the future holds.
But now I think I know what the future holds.
No, wait. I meant this.
And a little of this:
What I mean to say is, I think the future holds hope for us all.
Why no matter what the hell else fucks up in my life, I am the luckiest woman on the planet.
Aaannnddd shit. Hope that didn’t break my layout.
So, you all know I’ve been gone awhile, deep in the middle of my obsessive writing of a Twilight Fan Fiction. I can almost type that without grimacing, almost, not quite. I cannot say it in person without grimacing, only because for those who aren’t in the know, it just sounds so, what? You’re doing what? Writing what? Twilight? Don’t you know that book sucks ass? Well, yes. Yes, I do and I don’t know that. I’m not going to talk about Twilight here. Not. Going. To. Talk. About Twilight.
Hey! It’s my eight year anniversary with Alex! (aka Mr. Myg!). And you know what? He’s really hot, right? He’s even cuter in person. He’s so going to give me shit for posting a picture of him and calling him cute on the internet. Not that much shit.
That was a shot of him just this morning, after he’d had only 4 and a half hours of sleep, he was hanging out with the myglets, Doot (on the right) and Bing (on the left) and I snapped this photo and thought, hot damn. You know, 18 months after the boys were born I’m still a good 20lbs overweight, I just lost my job this week, our finances are really, oh GOD when I think about it, I get palpitations, no shit, they are so bad right now. Like, should we pay the mortgage or buy groceries, kind of bad.
So I’m writing this right from the center of my panic attack. Sometimes I think I could let all of the fear just eat me alive, you know? Like, what in the fucking fuck are we going to do now?
But then I look at that picture there, and I think, Christ. I’m lucky. I swear to you, I am lucky. Because money? It comes and goes. It doesn’t matter. Okay, that’s bullshit. But it doesn’t matter that much, is what I’m telling you.
Alex and the boys matter. We are all here. We are all okay.
The real reason I’m posting this today is because she, my late step-sister and the “you” of “hey you” in my last blog post, would fucking hate that last post, would hate that it’s been at the top of my blog for over two weeks. She wasn’t dark and dreary like me. She was sunlight and hope and perseverance and a whole host of other sparkly and wonderful things that I miss like hell and will forever miss like hell. So I’m writing something, maybe a little less inspired since there was a painful dearth of sugar consumption today, given the day. Not nearly enough black jelly beans or peanut butter chocolate eggs.
I think the big news here is that my boys wore ties! They looked like little prep school applicants or mini bankers, but holy risen son of of a Christian God were they cute.
They still don’t walk. They are 14 and a half months old, and I’m just beginning to think, huh, does it matter yet? When will it start to matter? It’s not like I want to rip my hair out chasing two toddling boys in different directions, but it’s got to happen at some point. And the whole not walking business does make Easter egg hunting a bit more of a chore, though they scored pretty well anyway.
Sometimes I’m amazed at the tenacity of time. Humbled by it, even.
Today you’ve officially ended your first turn around the sun. Good for you! That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Every time I think of you two being “one” and your time on this rock measured in the length of years, I just choke up. I know deep down that the next twelve years will sneak by me as fast as the last twelve months did and all I’ll be able to say is, well, heck. That was fast, wasn’t it?
I wonder sometimes how it all looks from your perspective, this being born thing, this growing up business. For months you were tucked safely away inside me, then one day, BLAM! You were thrust into the blaring light of day amidst screaming and crying and adoration and elation. And then swept up in this constant rhythm of doing, first breathing, eating, pooing, sleeping, crying then cooing, smiling, laughing, rolling over, holding your bottle, sitting up, and then babbling, crawling, eating finger foods, standing, using a cup, climbing, talking. It’s all happened so fast, it seems to me. But probably not to you. Nor will the next 12 years. They’ll feel like a lifetime to you and you will do so much in those years. And it will be a breath, a blink, to me.
Guys, I really don’t even know what I’m trying to say here. All I know is that last night, nearly all day yesterday, I cried at the thought of this day. I know, I know, you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with your mother, and I don’t have a simple answer for that. Everyone tells me it’s normal for mothers to cry when their babies have a birthday. I guess it’s just part of being a mom.
I want you to know that the tears don’t mean anything bad, though. Nothing is wrong. Everything, in fact, is just as it ought to be. You’re here. We all survived the first year of your twindom, and I’m sorry but there were days during those first months of your life when I just didn’t know how we were going to make it. But we did, and here you are – growing, doing, becoming the people you were born to be, right in front of my very eyes. At least, when I can get the tears out of them I can see that. And that is as it should be. I wouldn’t, couldn’t ask for anything else.
Except maybe this.
As you continue to grow and explore this crazy rock on which we dwell, never forget that no matter what you do or who you become, I love you. You won’t always be my babies. In fact, you’re almost not that now. But you will always be the center of my everything, my hope for humanity projected forward into time.
Do you know how many drafts of unfinished blog posts I have sitting in my wordpress dash? Three hundred fourty eleven. Truth be told, I don’t even know, but it’s a lot. I’ve had a lot to say, but as yet have been unable to say it. Therefore, a bullets post.
Dude, you have no idea how busy I’ve been, what with the show, the holidays, a crazy amount of work to finish by year’s end and all that parenting stuff. You probably do know, but you may not know what an added layer of insanity the show was. I’m talking about being up every night until 1am or so practicing my guitar through headphones so I could possibly not suck after not playing for so long. The sleep deprivation reminded me of how much I need sleep to not just be an asshole to everyone. Up until 1am is not so bad until you remember your kids are up at 7am every day, NO MATTER WHAT, unless it’s today and they’re up at 6 for no god damned reason. And I know – we are lucky that our kids sleep like this. The question is, are we stupid for playing a show when we have no time to play our guitars?
Stupid or not, here we come.
I don’t know what that means in terms of us playing future shows. Don’t read into it.
…
Do you see that picture above? Those monsters are my sons, Doot and Bing. They will be a year old on the 22nd of this month. I cringe when I think of it. They are SO BIG (\0/).
Every day I whisper quietly into their soft hair, “Can you stay my baby just a little while longer? Please?” I try not to say it audibly most of the time because I don’t want them to grow up with a complex. I don’t *really* want a 35 year old Doot and/or Bing living with me or off me. Okay, that’s a lie. I secretly dream of having my kids live with me forever and that at least one of them will get some girl pregnant in high school so I can marvel at a grandbaby while I can still walk without a cane. I’m actually not even sure if I’m kidding about that.
That’s fucked up.
Doot has 8 teeth. Bing has 2 and a half.
They eat EVERYTHING. They are great eaters. Messy as shit though.
This post is so ”eh” right now I’m going blind.
Fuck it, I’m posting it anyway.
It was nice to see you again. Thanks for reading.
Oh, and a little PS bullet, that has nothing to do with this post.
To my friend, Ms. Snarkier Than You over at Twitarded, OH MY GOD. I’m incredulously doped up on Twilight (the book). I made Alex (Mr. Wisermom) go out and buy me New Moon last night (which I haven’t seen yet, even though some innocent yet asshatish youngster told me the ending yesterday when she saw I was reading Twilight. Doh!) because I was getting too close to the end and, ugh, how can I be sagaless? As soon as I post this, I’m closing my office door and busting out New Moon. I need some “me” time.
Because it really does go that fast.
