Every minute...

As I loaded my two children into a grocery cart (the size of small bus) at Kroger today, I received a call from a good friend of mine. This friend has newborn, twin girls. We usually talk a few times per week and I've been continually amazed by the ease and calmness that she has portrayed in parenting twins thus far. However, today I noticed a few rare words come out of her mouth. She mentioned several times about the exhaustion and frustration that she was experiencing and used words like "trying to keep my sanity." It immediately took me back to that time; a time when I didn't even feel like a human because I was so tired. I remember going through the motions everyday and truly just trying to survive. I wished away the hours and days, waiting for things to get easier; waiting to get sleep. I can remember going to the grocery store, just like today, but with tiny baby twins and people looking at me and saying "you are so lucky" or "how much fun!" and while I knew in my head that I was lucky, I just wanted to scream at them, "you see how lucky it is when you're up at midnight, 3 am, 6 am, trying to feed two hungry babies!" and "you see how fun it is when you're trying to decide which of your screaming babies to pick up first!"

But, as I talked with this friend today, I was surprised that I also felt feelings of jealousy. As I looked at my "big kids," who drink milk out of a sippy and who I rarely get to hold and snuggle because they are so busy, I realized that I missed those moments of having two, tiny, sweet newborn babies. It's so hard for me to believe that it was almost a year ago that I was living the crazy life of parenting newborn twins...where has that time gone?! You see, as parents of twins (and I'm sure any parent for that matter), it's hard to enjoy every moment. When you are holding one newborn, your constantly thinking about how you are NOT holding the other sweet baby who is laying in the pack n play alone. You find yourself trying so hard to get them on a strict schedule, so that you all will survive, that you don't enjoy the small moments of time when one child is awake the other is asleep. It's so hard to feed two babies at once, that it's impossible to enjoy the bonding time that you get when feeding your child. So, as I talked to my friend today, I thought to myself how nice it would be to be in her shoes again, but know what I know now...to "enjoy every minute" because it goes too fast...

So today I made myself enjoy every minute of my "almost one year olds." I grinned as I watched my sweet little girl pick every pea out of her dinner and gracefully toss it onto the floor (can you guess which one of my perfect children this was?). I giggled when I heard the laughter AND screaming as Sadie tackled Macy to the floor to give her a hug. I stopped and talked to the people that I normally avoid on my errands, as they asked me the seemingly ridiculous questions about my beautiful twin girls. I beamed with pride as I watched Macy walk all the way from her bedroom to the bathroom tub for bath time and locked the image of her tiny, naked body toddling out of the room into my memory. And I smiled as I put a screaming child to bed tonight, knowing that I'd made her day so much fun, that it was just awful to have to go to bed and not continue playing....

And so with that, I leave you with pictures of my big kids and hope that you too, will enjoy every minute...