What's most important...

 

I admit it.  I'm totally totally out of the loop.  I'm out of the everything loop.  It's after 2:30 and I should be crawling into bed thanking the Lord for a somewhat "early" night.  My little Clara is a total night owl.  It's not unusual for me to be crawling into bed at 5am (fin-a-lly) and Ava waking up at 7am to start her day.  Still... I can't complain too much because heck, she just gets cuter every day ...I know I'm biased, but she's just SO so so cute and I honestly don't really mind staying up with her at night... much. 

Sure.  I get nothing done and I'm a zombie in the morning as I lift Miss Ava out of her crib.  BUT I get the sweetest "mommy!?!" from her every morning and best hug in the world.  I say our morning offering with her while my sleepy eyes try to see straight and my tired fingers fumble to change her diaper.  Meanwhile Clara snoozes away in my spot in my bed (lucky) ...she does start out in the bassinet, but ends up with me to nurse some time in the mid-morning... Ava blows her a kiss as I carry her past my room and whispers, "Baby! Shhhhh!"  I slowly carry her downstairs, trying to seel the stairs through arms laden with blankets and bunnies and plop her on the couch where she waits for me to bring her morning bottle of milk and my coffee.  Then my zombie state that's too tired to function yet and a sleeping sister lends itself to some serious cuddle time with my big girl.  I can tell she loves it too.  She scoots over and slumps into my side sucking away on her milk and I on my coffee as we pull the blankets up and we watch Baby Einstein till I'm lucid.  It wouldn't be this way if I weren't such a "non-morning person".  I'd be trying to do something "productive" and if Clara wasn't sleeping I'd have two babies to juggle while still not being a morning person, but this way seems to be working out.  Ava and I get some serious special time in the morning and Clara and I get our special one on one time when Ava ...and Daddy ...and the rest of the world ...go to bed.

Don't get me wrong!  I like sleep as much as the next person... actually, I truly believe I love sleep more than the average person, but I have to make the best of it.  And you know what?  I know... I just KNOW... it's not going to last.  Soon enough it's going to turn around and she won't be so little anymore and she'll be sleeping through the night.  I honestly think when I wake her up some days that she's really bigger than when I put her down to nap.  I've even weighed her to check.  (She's over 15.5lbs at only 3months old) They're both growing so fast.  Ava turned 20 months a couple of days ago and is starting to talk up a storm.  She's such a big helper and is becoming such a "big girl".  I thank God that I get to spend my days with them.  I know it's not always possible for everyone, but boy do I feel like the luckiest woman in the world. 

The girls and I at the zoo on mother's day.  We were looking at the seals.

 

Sure.  I get frustrated that I truly do not recognize my body anymore and it looks like a bomb went off in the house and when I fold laundry I have to do it with a 3mo old in my lap most times and a 19 20mo old "re-folding" everything in her very *special* way... (picture someone pulling everything out of the laundry bin as soon as you put every item neatly into it... you all know how it is).  I try to file papers ...and turn around to see that same toddler has flung all of the file folders out of the filing box and is now sitting in the box pretending it's a boat or a car of some sort.  *sigh... DeeeP breath!* But that's ok!  I hate filing anyway! ...and how soon will it be before she's outgrown that box?

All the time I think of how much I love getting to spend my days with them.  Sure, I feel like I accomplish nothing, but really, as long as I get to be with them and love them and they know how loved they are and our home is a happy one... aren't we accomplishing something?

 

I only wish I got to spend more time with Shaun and he didn't have to work SO so hard all the time.  You want to know one of my greatest fears?  Honestly?  The one that I think of as I crawl into bed and watch him sleeping after he's literally spent every ounce of energy he has during the day to provide for all of us and I see the toll his backbreaking work takes on him physically?  My greatest fear is that after waiting all this time for him... it will go by too fast.  Or something will happen to one of us.  It's that terrible fear that comes when you love someone so deeply and have waited so long to find them and just feel so vulnerable in that state.  I am so afraid of it going by too fast.  Sometimes it just makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it.  I look at my babies and think the same thing. 

Yet... so many never experience what we have.  Not even for a very little while.  So the sleepless nights and messy house and errands that take 10 times longer?  God help me if I complain about them, because they are my gift.  They are my reason to be joyful.  They are my constant reminders of what a gift I have been given with this life of mine.  And I would take them a million times over before I would take a clean, empty house and a full night's sleep with no Shaun by my side and no Clara at my breast and no Ava sleeping just beyond the wall at my head.

Tonight I found this video.  Perhaps you've seen it.  I just cried and cried and thought of all that I had in the world to be thankful for and God... my God it's a lot. 

This is his story...
Zack's Final Goodbye... click here.

...and now I've lost another hour and a half that I won't remember when looking back, but I've gained a heck of a lot of gratitude and I have so much to be thankful for that it just hurts in my chest to think about it.  I'm going to check in on my girls and watch little Clara sound asleep and move Ava back to the head of her crib and smooth the curls away from her face and she'll probably blow me a kiss in her sleep like she often does and after that I'll crawl into bed and kiss my husband's face and hold him for a minute before he tells me he loves me, gives me a kiss and pulls his tired body out of bed to get ready to go to work and make this beautiful life possible for us.  God am I thankful.

That winning smile!

 

It's the kiss at the end