Timehop has been showing me pictures and posts from past years, and sometimes I get a pang of panicky regret that I'm not recording these days the way I recorded many of the ones when Blaise and especially Camilla were little. Maybe I'll remember just the same, maybe not, but either way, I want those words.
I've been thinking lately that we're moving into a stage as a family that feels substantively different from the baby phase: it's no longer that the days are long but the years are short, it's that the years are short and the days are even shorter. Mathematically correct always, of course, but the fact that it now feels that way is a shift. I remember so much clock-watching back when I had multiple-nap takers, so many feedings in a day, diapers diapers diapers. And now, when we go on outings, I feel more like a crossing guard (or a sheepdog) than a pack mule: I still have to herd the children across the street, but they make the journey on their own legs.
With Camilla and Blaise both in school this year, Ambrose and Linus and I spend our days together and I'm continually surprised when my phone beeps to remind me to do school pickup, because where has the day gone? Having twins has finally paid off, thusly: I am pretty sure a single three-year-old would have required much more amusement from me these months than my pair has. I mean, I've always said that it seems like having twins is excellent for the twins themselves, but now that the days of hourly nursing session and a zillion wake-ups per night have faded, it turns out it's excellent for me too.
(We will not talk about potty training. We will not talk about potty training. We will not talk about potty training because I have promised myself, for the sake of my sanity, never to think about it unless I'm actively dealing with it, which has worked well for sanity-preservation if not for the completion of the main task itself, and talking about it would de facto constitute thinking about it while not dealing with it, so we will not talk about it.)
(Faaaaaaaaah.)
Linus and Ambrose, although they'll be four in less than a month, are still very much aged three in terms of emotional volatility, as measured by number of meltdowns on the floor per day. But if they are as loud as ever they are at least learning to use words to express frustration that was previously entirely unfocused, so... progress.
It's still common for me to disappear into the bedroom when Bryan comes home from work, twitching because I. just. need. ten. minutes. with. no. one. screaming. at. me. I wouldn't call caring for three-year-old twins (plus a six-year-old and an eight-year-old when they're not in school) easy. But it is, lately, more fun than work. I'll take it.
You have a beautiful way of highlighting the divine in the everyday. I love your writing!
Posted by: Steph | Monday, April 13, 2015 at 10:04 PM