my babies are two!

I can’t believe how quickly time has passed! It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that my babies were tiny babies. I have vague mem­o­ries from their first year, just like I was warned. It amazes me. I remem­ber being over­whelmed and exhausted (wait, I’m still over­whelmed and exhausted) and think­ing that it would never get bet­ter but it has. I keep get­ting asked if it is eas­ier but in truth, it is just dif­fer­ent. I don’t think par­ent­ing ever gets eas­ier, ask me when they are 30!  I have to say that I mostly love this age (minus the tantrums please) the best so far. I now have kids that gig­gle and play. Hav­ing them come to me want­ing a “squeezy hug” or a kiss is so much bet­ter than infants that want to nurse all.day.long.

For days now I’ve been remem­ber­ing snip­pets of the day the babies were born.

• stand­ing in the shower watch­ing my belly con­tract, telling the babies that it was OK for them to come after months of telling them they had to stay put.
• Sit­ting down­stairs on the couch after the con­trac­tions had stopped, too excited to sleep know­ing that my induc­tion was going to start in the morning.
• chas­ing my hus­band around want­ing him to hurry up. I was wor­ried that we would be late for the induc­tion. I know now that it’s not like they could have started with­out me.
• those first few con­trac­tions after the oxy­tocin was started.
• cav­ing and get­ting the epidural just so they would leave me alone. I still think that I could have done it with­out it.
• the chirp­ing of the epidural being pushed
• see­ing the anethe­si­ol­o­gist do an abrupt about face when he walked in to check my epidural and he saw that I was push­ing. I think it’s funny that he was embar­rassed. It must have been an auto­matic reac­tion to want to give me privacy.
• I pushed for 2 hours but it didn’t seem like that long
• yelling at my hus­band because he wanted to take pic­tures. I didn’t care about pic­tures, I just wanted him by my side
• my doula rub­bing my legs between contractions
• the intern sit­ting on the edge of my bed mur­mur­ing encour­ag­ing words. He seemed quite excited and happy to be there.
• feel­ing my daugh­ter crown and think­ing “I can’t!” It was going to be “I can’t do this” but it imme­di­ately turned into “I can’t stop!”
• check­ing and see­ing that it was indeed a girl.
• real­iz­ing with dis­be­lief that I had to push *ANOTHER* baby out.
• feel­ing amazed at how easy it was push­ing out my son.
• look­ing up and feel­ing aston­ished at how many peo­ple were in that lit­tle room.

The list goes on and on. As time goes by I worry that the mem­o­ries are van­ish­ing. I want to keep ask­ing my hus­band to retell the story from his point of view. For months after they were born I’d keep ask­ing him ques­tions about the order things happened.

Yes­ter­day I kept look­ing at the clock and replay­ing that day in my head. Last night when their birth min­utes were draw­ing near I felt such a mix of emo­tions. The six min­utes between their births was long and short at the same time. At the time, it felt like just moments passed before my son was born.

I feel a touch sad that they aren’t tiny babies any more but I also feel happy and proud at how much they have grown. I miss those days where they slept and I sniffed their sweet downy heads but I love to see them just as they are now. I watch in amaze­ment as my son builds a tower out of blocks. He care­fully con­sid­ers where to place the next block to ensure that it doesn’t top­ple. I watch as my daugh­ter sorts her toys by colour. I gig­gle when I see them dance along with the Wig­gles. So yes, now is by far my most favourite time. Remind me I said that when the next tantrum rolls around.

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