Happy Birthday to my Babies!

I've been a mother of three children for FOUR YEARS now and I actually survived!  I can't believe it!  We've done a lot this weekend, so I'm trying to get back into my thoughtful mode as I write this so that I can say something profound or touching or something like that on the day of their birth!  First, let's look back and remember how they started, shall we?

M, the Old Man Baby weighed in at 5 lbs 2 ounces and looked like a tree frog...A, the Scowler Baby, was 6 lbs 5 ounces and had a bruise on her forehead that led to a 3 day hospitalization for jaundice because she was facing the wrong way when she came into the world...which is appropriate because she has always wanted to do things her own way, dammit!  I really wish I had pictures of her in the incubator with her cute purple foam sun goggles while she was being treated...but I was too delirious and exhausted to think of things like that back then...

Old Man Winter...he was too teeny tiny to eat...he kept falling asleep because it took too much energy out of him...

Awwww....this is how they slept for a long time...no matter how far you put M away from his sister, he'd wiggle and scoot until he was cuddling with her...this was before L "shared" a bunch of blankets and stuffed animals with them and almost suffocated them...oh, and these were preemie outfits that were humungous on them!!!!

We should have named him Skeletor...but this was when he was a month old and had fattened up a bit...imagine how scary he looked head-on as a newborn!

She looks different without eyebrows, no?

Proof that they were already plotting against me...

Now I feel all warm and wistful for the babies they were...I wish I remembered more about them as tiny little people.  It seems so long ago since I could cradle them both on my chest.  To tell you the truth, it was a very hectic and exhausting time of my life...and I wish I had had the ability to slow down and relish it a little more (or at least time enough to write shit down that I was going to forget...their baby books are woefully empty and now I'm just going to have to make stuff up to fill it out because I have no idea when they did  a lot of things).  All of this...childhood...motherhood...these periods of our lives that feel like they will kill us by slowly suffocating us under a blanket of other people's  needs...that really goes by so quickly!  And now here I am, four years later...watching these kids ride their bikes, learn to read, etc, etc and I wonder if the next four years will fly by at warp speed, too.
So here are a few thoughts (before I forget them) about my babies (and I will call them babies probably until they start having babies themselves in about 25 or 30 years): 1. Having litters of small babies is physically easier than having one gigantic baby.  L was a gigantic baby...I felt like I had been run over five times by a semi-truck and had a hard time walking for a couple weeks.  With the twins, I was up and at it feeling awesome a couple hours later.  Of course, the downside to having two babies is that you then have two babies and it's a LOT more work. Forever. 2.  People say stupid stuff because of babies.  This is definitely worse when you have twins.  Nobody has any problem asking if you took fertility medications five seconds after you meet them (before they even know your name, in fact).  Try not to judge them too harshly even when you want to punch them in the face.  3.  No matter how scared you are that you can't handle it or that you won't make it another day with all these children without screaming, crying, and packing your stuff for your escape to Mexico, you will make it.  And you will love it more than anything else in your life.
A long time ago, I didn't think I wanted kids at all.  And then I had 3 in 2 1/2 years.  When I found out we were having twins, I said something that wasn't printable in any family magazine in this country (in my defense, F was in Iraq and L stopped sitting down to rest or nap and started getting up at 4:30 am...for the day)....Four years later, I am constantly bowled over by a feeling of gratefulness for my crazy, hectic, energetic, LOUD family.
My daughter is strong-minded, determined, manipulative...ahem, forward-thinking, clever, and highly observant.  She is very kind to others (and even kind to her brothers when it suits her purposes for world domination) and extremely loving.  She appreciates it when I slow down and stop trying to clean the house to hug her and dance with her.  She notices beauty in unexpected places in the world.  A friend of mine, in observing her at school said she is a social savant (she also said she was like a little shopkeeper, doing her work and keeping tabs on everyone and everything at all times)...She is a child who pushes me to be a better person every day...to be kinder than I want to be, to find more patience than I think I have...you cannot force her to go along with your plans, but she will come with you if you are nice about it.  She knows her own mind now (she came out of the womb her own way, remember?) and I hope she always knows it and respects her own strength...she is a force in this world and I am happy to watch her grow into her power (plus, she appreciates fashion, so I know the uniforms will be cute in the country she takes over...also, they'll be kind to cats...)
Little Mikey-Mike...I smile to see him today, remembering how small and sleepy he was when he was born.  When they put him on my chest I remembered thinking he looked exactly like L, only like a half his size.  He was a quiet baby, too weak to nurse, I had to strip him down and put cold cloths on him to keep him awake long enough to eat.  For a while there, he looked like a fuzzy-headed and bewildered chicken!  (Also, his skin folded in big wrinkles like it was a suit two sizes too big...much like a tree frog I saw in one of L's animal encyclopedias)  It took him a month to realize that if he screamed bloody murder like his twin sister, he would be fed first!!!!!  Now look at him!  He's like a Labrador puppy.  Ninety percent of the time, his pants are on backwards and his shoes are on the wrong feet, but he's determined to do things "my own self!"  He is kind-ish...sometimes he is rough, but he doesn't mean to hurt people, he's just enthusiastic.  As my friend said, you never saw a kid more determined and focused on his school work...she said he could dig to China with a spoon if he set his mind to it.  He is joyful, joyful!  The world is full of beauty and fascination...and he appreciates it all.  I said it before and I'll say it again:  Nothing is as carefree and happy as a 3 year old who skips everywhere he goes.
I guess I should end by saying this:  I am lucky, lucky, lucky.  I hope I can stop more to appreciate this life, the vitality they give me by needing me and believing that my kisses are magically healing.  To the twins, what I hope for you is a lifetime of happiness and joy, of work you find stimulating and rewarding, of people who add love and light to your path...may you always be surrounded by the love I have found by choosing to be your mother...everything that is beautiful and true is in you and your brother...I love you now and forever.....

Yay! Winter Is Here!

Some tigers got to work in the back yard...

We love snow days!

Look, Mom!  The water froze in our bucket!

 Winter has finally come to coastal Virginia!  Yay!  Last night while we were watching a movie called "Dolphin's Tale," the wind started picking up and the rain came pelting down.  Then, as the sun went down, the rain turned to SNOW!  And get this, it also thundered and lightning-ed with the snow storm for a little while...I don't think I've ever been in a snow/lighting storm before!  Not that it was a snow storm...we only got a little dusting, but it was enough to make the kids absolutely thrilled! (M's first words this morning were: "Mom! Snow!  We have to go play in it!" as he was perched on the back of his bed, peering out the window when I walked in his room).
As I write this, Anna is sitting beside me making Valentine's Day cards for her classmates and the boys are still out there, doing what they can with the little snow we have and some trucks and shovels.  Before I forget to write this down, I have to say that watching that dolphin movie last night was a big hit here.  It's about Winter, a dolphin in Florida who was caught in a crab trap as a baby and had to have her tail amputated...eventually, she learns to swim without it and then gets a prosthetic tail.  At one point in the movie, the boy who befriends Winter starts cutting summer school classes to be with her and his mother finds out.  He is trying to explain why he wants to spend so much time with the dolphin and his mother gets very stern and says, "You are going to school tomorrow!  Period!!!"  L, cuddled up on my shoulder smiled and said cheerfully, "Hey!  She sounds just like YOU, Mommy!"  Which made me laugh so hard because it's true!
At bedtime, Luke said, "Winter was very brave when she had to get that plastic tail!"  So I said, "You were very brave this week, too, Luke. Do you know when you were brave?"  He said, "At MRI!  I was as brave as a knight, as brave as Winter the dolphin!"  The kids were so excited about that dolphin movie that they eventually all got into trouble with Dad for making too many dolphin noises instead of going to bed.
Well, the boys are straggling in here, so I'd better clean them up and help them take off their layers of clothing...

What do you do when there isn't enough snow for a snowman?  Make a Snow Dolphin of course!  Then you celebrate National Snow Dolphin Day!

Hey, These MRI clothes are my favorite color!

Yesterday was our MRI day!  Everything went very well for us, L was super brave, like a knight.  He said he was very nervous about the MRI, but that being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared, it just means you still do what you have to do even though you are scared.  I guess that pep talk from Daddy really helped him manage his fears...

Super handsome and brave 6 year old, no?  We stayed with him until he went to the MRI room and didn't have to see him put out with the gas or the breathing tube he had to have in order to make sure he was still breathing when he was under.  He asked for strawberry "sleepy air" and had about a million questions for all the nurses and doctors.  He also figured out immediately how to lower and lift the hospital bed.  He slept for about 3 hours...and woke up with a sore throat and some dizziness.

I must say that while I wasn't looking forward to this necessary procedure, our experience there really put things into perspective for me.  Since L had to be sedated by an anesthesiologist, we had to go to the Day Surgery part of the Children's Hospital.  There were babies having surgery, folks, and there is nothing like a teeny baby in diapers being wheeled away by some surgeons to put into perspective how lucky we are with the health our children have enjoyed.  On my hardest day, there is always someone, somewhere facing terrifying situations with their children...on my hardest day, there is always reason to be thankful for all that we have....like blue scrubs for L!!!  Which happens to be his favorite color!  And a caring teacher who saved him an orca whale toy out of her daughter's Happy Meal!  There is so much love in our lives...and we are grateful for it.

I'll let you know what the results are when we get them in a few weeks.  They take thousands of pictures and have to go over the measurements and confer with our cardiologist, so we'll know whether L needs medication to help his heart out or not when they do all that...L is happy and healthy and the procedure wasn't too hard on him...at about 4 pm, I had to force him to put down his sword and promise me he'd stop trying to joust with his brother on a day when he'd been sedated!  Boys!