Tonight I sat with Elliott in the crook of my right arm.
A big colorful book about the rainforest set before us.
As I read the words in a steady cadence,
he started breathing fast.
Looking down at him, I saw that he was studying all the images with a huge smile on his face.
He was excited.
Then,
still making those audible little breathes,
he began to glance over at me with this smile.
This smile like,
Are you getting all this?
Before swiftly turning back to the book.
So as not to miss anything.

The best.

The boys are asleep for the night, or rather, the next three hours.
A superstition warns me not to say this,
but I have to:
It's getting easier.
The days go by fast.
We laugh.
We dance.
We eat.
We sleep.
On the twelfth of every month I pay all my bills online.
There's the occasional doctor's appointment.
But for every other day,
We laugh.
We dance.
We eat.
We sleep.
I'm experiencing the wonder I missed out on when they first arrived.
I bite my lip when I look at them.
They are just so desirable.

The journey to this moment, well, maybe I'll sit down and really write about that one day.
For now, it means such a great deal to me, that we're here.
I know better than to let anything take this from me.

Elliott and Reese,

You're just about seven months old.
From a gestational stand-point, more like four months.
This past week, Jesse has been driving to West Hollywood every day for work.
It's been the three of us from morning to night.

I'm sweetly surprised to find that managing you on my own is somehow easier than sharing the responsibility.
When there's no one around to take over, I have to be focused.
The result of which is that we've really been enjoying eachother.

I make faces at you while you lay on the floor,
and in response you smile wide, push your chin into your chest, and arch your back.

Your whole body contorts with glee.
It is the most awesome spectacle I've ever laid eyes on.
I want to curse, like, happy curses.
But you're just babies, so instead I say things like,
You are the babiest baby in the whole world!
and,
Will you marry me?

I'm not sure I'm going to be the kind of mom who remembers the exact day you rolled from your back to your belly,
but I'll never forget the moment I realized
we were having fun.


I love you completely.

Momma

Most of the time, I'm a little too tunnel visioned to think something cohesive. My brain isn't able to transition outside of priorities. In the free moments; I feel my abdomen tense rhythmically.
Like I'm on the mark.
But, it's so important to find a little place in the day, perhaps from 05:40 to 05:45, in which I'm doing something non-reactive. Like, writing this is affirming that I'm not a complete stranger to myself.
I still don't have the opportunity to really expand on anything, or to edit it so that I am the perfect version of myself, but I recently heard somewhere that no one's perfect.
Also, I'll add, that no one is special.
I feel more like one of many; by the day.
It's both painful, and good. And I mean both of those plain words in all their intensity.
It's really painful to be so humbled, to be so little.
It's really good to be purposeful every single day, to be a family.

I feel like I have a soul for the first time in my life.

I never went to visit my Nanny before she died.
I had every opportunity, and I just didn't, because I didn't feel like it.
And today, I started feeling really bad about that.

I have all these people I surrounded myself with for many years.
And now, many of them look at me as though I turned into a different species when I made babies.
And in the beginning that kind of hurt, until I realized that I was never really there for them either.

Being so locked into this experience, is pretty much the antithesis of my previous life.
I find that I'm not only struggling with being a new parent of twins. I'm also struggling with my identity, my new future, and how to maintain some thoughtfulness and quality in the process.

I went to the store to pick up some formula yesterday.
The clerk was this young, hipster guy, and he looked right through me.
I remember he said, "Have a nice day."
I actually looked over my shoulder to see who he was talking to, and realized that was supposed to be for me.

It's been about thirty minutes now.
This felt good.
Hmm... I miss my boys.
Maybe I'll go upstairs and start stomping around outside their door.

A. B. and 3.

a. If you have two babies instead of one.
And they're both crying.
Never imagine how much easier things would have been if say, you could have them both but maybe three years apart from eachother.
Don't think about that.
It will get you every time.

b. (This entry was replaced by a crying baby.)

and 3. Alright, alright. I'm coming Reese.

baby brains

Reese and Elliott.
Reese and Elliott.
Go together like a horse and chariott!
This I tell you Jes-se.
You can't have a Reese without an Elli!

Dear Elli and R-Jo,

These are currently my top five favorite things about you:

1. Sometimes when I put both of you down in the crib; I'll start hearing a baby grunting and squeeking. This will go on for a couple minutes, until there's silence again.
When I come in to check on the two of you, I'll find that the baby on the right has worked his way to the baby on the left. So that one baby's head is snuggled into the other's shoulder.

2. Most mornings I like to take you on walks. You usually fall into a coma as soon as we get moving.
Every once in a while I'll peek in on you and find that you haven't been asleep at all. Instead, you're quietly watching the world go by. Often times your little mouth is pursed as though you'd like a kiss. So I give you one.

3. Reese, I love your smile, because it spreads over your whole face quite suddenly, like a surprise party.
Elliott, I love your smile, because it has such humor in it, you're going to be a very funny person one day.

4. I make prarie women of you during bath time. You are most beautiful with a wash cloth bonnett on your head and suds on your belly.

and 5. When you sleep, you gain about twenty pounds. I like to lay back on the couch and feel the weight of you on my chest. It's like we're both slowly sinking into the center of the earth.