Saturday, May 22, 2010


Our boys will be home in a matter of days.
We've been learning to nurse this past week.
They're doing so well. They're behaving like...babies.
I knew this time would come; that one day they wouldn't be preemies anymore.
But when I look down at Reese, and his eyes are wide open, and he's sucking so vigorously that I wonder if I'll have enough milk...
I just can't believe that we're here.
That future place we've been imagining exists, and we have arrived.
After today's mid-day feeding in the N.I.C.U., Jesse and I drove home for lunch. As we busied ourselves' in the kitchen, I turned to him and asked if he realized this could be the last weekend; before we pick up where we left off.
And maybe on Tuesday we can start that life we'd been anticipating.

I ask him if we can try to forget this ever happened.
Or at least downplay it so well that it becomes tiny in our recollection.
So that one day as soon as five years from now,
we can say,
"That wasn't so bad."
Jesse says, "I bet we could forget, and it will make it a lot easier that Reese and Elliott will have no memory of this."
I can always count on that guy.

Monday, May 10, 2010

It's Mother's Day.
I feel more like a momma than a mother.
Really, more like myself than either.
In honor of me having babies, Jesse rode his bike all through Fullerton, collecting flowers before the sun came up.
I briefly woke when he left.
I can imagine him riding his little brown Huffy circa 1975.
Loading the front basket with the roses that were the prettiest.
The roses that were reachable.
The roses that smelled the best.
When I woke later my bed was empty.
I could hear some light strumming of a guitar downstairs
along with soft voices reciting the morning world news.
I checked my phone.
8a.m.
Time for me to pump.
Milk.
Jesse must have heard me getting out of bed.
He ran up stairs with his presents in tow.
"Happy Mother's Day!"
He set the vases on our nightstand.

I told him that he would get paid thousands of dollars to arrange flowers, if the right person discovered him. But that he would have to move to Manhattan, and wear a bow tie, and he couldn't laugh so loud anymore.
He got suspicious that I was teasing him, but I wasn't.
They were so dimensional.
They flowed from left to right like a great sentence, or like they were being pulled to the right by a tear in the space-time continuum.

Later we walked to Nick's diner for breakfast.
As we passed houses on the street, I noted the familiar roses and wondered if they were the sisters and brothers of the adoptions I had back in my room.

At Nick's we refilled our coffee three times.
We talked about the future.
About us and our boys and how unbelievably great the rest of our lives will be, no matter what.

Afterward we visited Reese and Elliott in the hospital. I discovered they had left Mother's Day cards in their cribs for me. We sat with them for three hours. Jesse's parents came to visit.
It felt almost like home.

In the evening we made pizza and drank soda.
Better than Christmas.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Reese and Elliott,

You're still in the hospital.
It's been seven weeks.

If you ever get a hold of this blog.
And you're reading this on some sort of hologram.
Or a hologram is reading this to you.
I want you to know, that this person you have a bunch of memories about...
Whoever it is that you know me to be...
I'm at the beginning of all that right now.
That as I write this, you are completely perfect.
Though I understand that doesn't last for long.
And I guess I am completely perfect too.
And that wont last long either.

But we're all perfect now.
I love you Elliott.
I love you Reese.

Yours,

Momma