So how's life, you are wondering?
I would say we've found a bit of a rhythm. Tidy is an amazing stay at home dad. I am tolerating being a working mom and doing my best to kick some serious butt at work during the day so I can come home and focus on these two joys of my life. Here's a recent picture of them over the holidays...
The cutest, right??
M&M is my sweet baby girl. She is so inquisitive and bright and cheerful and patient. Sometimes she has a little scared, easily startled streak, especially when she is tired. It's the saddest thing when she gets upset and her little bottom lip curls down and you can see the beginning of her cry. I just want to hold her and tell her it will be ok and she's fine. 99% of the time, however, her face just lights up the room.
Bean is my amazing baby boy. He's been a bit fussy for a few months. I think we finally have figured out that he did indeed have an ear infection (even though the doctors wouldn't believe me for a while) and have got him on some meds. Evenings were very challenging with him as we would lay him down and he would just hold his head in pain. Tylenol didn't help much nor did Advil. We just had to hold him and cuddle him. There have been some long nights but I definitely feel like we are turning a corner. I will say that he does let us know when he's tired or in pain and needs to just go take a nap. This I love about it. M&M had her 'tell' as well... which is a little far off stare. Adorable.
When Bean is happy though, which is the majority of the day, he is such a sweet and cuddly and almost innocent looking baby boy. His eyes melt my heart when he looks at me and hold his arms towards me to pick him up.
They both melt my heart.. especially when I come home from work and they hear my voice and turn to me and smile. Knowing that they will be getting milk for it's source instead of a bottle, since they have never really taken well to the bottle, might be the reason they simile, but I choose to believe that it is also that they are just happy to seem me. Being away from them during the day breaks my heart, but luckily work is so busy that my days go fast and I can rush home to cuddle, feed and do bed time with them.
Life is moving on as we know it... We are getting out to do family adventures on the weekends, we are learning how to get some more decent sleep, we are able to keep the house in somewhat of an order and even start to cook most of our meals again.
So of course when life gets into a groove, I want to go and mess with it :-) I start to think about what our next steps are. I should listen to myself sometimes and just enjoy these moments, which I truly do. Really. My favorite times of the week are Saturday and Sunday mornings when we sit and have coffee in the nursery with them and play in our pajamas. We FaceTime with their aunts and grandparents and simply just revel in the fact that we have two beautiful children, who we waited ever so long for.
But soon, we will have to make harder decisions. Does Tidy go back to work in the fall when his sabbatical is over? If you recall, his school district was gracious and gave him a year leave to stay at home with them. He can go back in the fall and retain his tenure and pretty much have his dream job of teaching 8th grade history. It's a hard call though because we'd have to adjust to life with getting the kids ready in the mornings to go to day care and we would not really be saving any $$ from his salary. What he makes would go to child care, and possibly more. In my mind, it's a no brainer. Just stay home until the kids go to school. But that's because I would give my hand and foot to do the same. But what makes sense to me in my head doesn't necessarily make sense to him. And I don't want either of us to regret the decisions we make. We will, of course, make a big pro and con list and we will talk it over. Whichever way we decide to go, we will be fine, I'm sure. But it's hard knowing this decision is looming over us and neither way we decide will be perfect.
On top of that, and luckily this is a decision we don't have to make right now, we have some really nice frozen embryos sitting at our clinic. And I really do want to have more kids. (I think). Again, another big pro and con list is in my head. I'm nostalgic for my pregnancy and also for the infant stage of having babies. M&M fell asleep in my arms the other night as I nursed her and it reminded me of the days where I would just hold them and feed them and they would sleep there for hours. I cried, knowing that I may never experience that again. I'm every grateful to HAVE experienced it, I know. Really and truly, I do know this.
It's just another option that we are lucky to have and I have not been able to put the thought of having another baby out of my head. For now, I've decided to wait unit after their first birthday before we revisit. Tidy, I think, would be happy being done.
Finally, Tidy and I are doing well. We don't, of course, get as much time for each other as we would like. But we are finally having some peace at night to sit next to each other and fall asleep. It's bliss :-)
For now I will leave you with one more picture of our babies from over the holidays. They had a blast with our relatives and were just so joyful to be experiencing all these new faces and holiday fun. I honestly love trying to look at life through their eyes. It makes all of the worries and future decisions go away... I could stare at them forever...
