2,912 Never looked so good

First, I have the best friends a girl could ask for.  Where normally three is a very hard number, someone always feeling left out, frozen underwear at a sleep over and everyone always on the lookout for a fourth; we form the perfect trifecta.  I miss them a lot now that we are spread all over the country.

We balance each other very well.  One of them is amazing.  She leads every club, organization, event you can think of, MOPS, cubscouts, homeschool clubs, AWANA, freezer cooking clubs, and church groups.  And if her community doesn’t have what she’s looking for, she jumps in and starts a new one.  And she’s awesome at everything.  She ran our social calendar.  Every day was an adventure leading us to new places.  Every day.  I found that my life seriously lacks without her to tell me what I want to do. Seriously, she’s like the energizer bunny.   She’s who you want to grow up to be.  Quite frequently I think to myself, What Would Tanya Do? Not because she replaces Jesus, but because I’m pretty sure that if Jesus had a ranking system, she’d be near the top.

The other one is hilarious.  She’s adventurous and willing to make a fool of herself any time and anywhere.  She’s also more than happy to drag you into the foolery, no matter how begrudging you are about it. She’s the glue that keeps us together.  She calls and texts, she relays information, she sends care packages and funny cards.  She organizes and plans trips. And maybe most importantly,  she makes amazing drinks and the best cake ever.  Which is perfect when you’re having a bad day, she breaks  out the strawberry margaritas and whips up a peanut butter chocolate cake and then proceeds to tell you how much worse it could be.

Me:  I’m a terrible parent

Renee:  How many cigarette burns do your kids have?

Me:  Um, none.

Her:  See, you’re amazing!  How many kid’s parents put out their cigarettes all over their kids.  You’re amazing.

Me:  I guess when we set the bar that low, I’m not that bad.   

It’s always nice to balance the friend who makes you want to be amazing, with the friend who encourages you to take life a little less seriously.  I’m not quite sure what I offer to our little threesome, but I’m really, really glad to be part of it because they are pretty awesome.

I miss them a lot, I miss them most at parties, on AWANA nights, during cubscout meetings, at every game night, and on my birthday.

Last week was my birthday.

My dear sweet husband turned 25 a few years ago and then decided to hold.  Though we aren’t particularly old, there is no way either of us is ever going to pass for 25 ever again.  I on the other hand have decided to go for ridiculous when it comes to my age.  When the kids ask how old I am I’ll come back with 2,912.  or maybe 57.  They know I’m somewhere between 25 and 3,000,012.  Really, it’s all relative right?  Pretty much anything after your 21st birthday is a slow crawl to death. Not to be morbid or anything.  This year, I decided to turn 2,912.  A nice reasonable number.  Born around the time of Elijah the prophet.  Totally reasonable.

After being up twice with the dog who is still mastering sleeping through the night, 6am came way too early.  I also felt all 2,912 of my years and wished my kids were early risers and still loved walking the dog.  I walked outside to this:

It was completely awesome.  It made 6 am amazing!  I have decided that everyone should wake up to being flamingoed.  It’s kind of hard to top this.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do to them.  It may involve finding some teenager on Craigslist and paying them to spork their entire lawn…

It also turns out that 2,912 was kind of a bum birthday year.  It involved chauffeuring around town, t-ball practice, a baseball game, a doctor’s appointment, and a surly teen.  And as I drove all around town, hurrying from one place to another, wishing I had a doppelganger, I remembered how very much I’m loved and how lucky I am to have amazing friends.

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My babies aren’t babies anymore

Today my heart grieves.  It sits in my chest like huge blubbering lump of an organ, kinda like my ovaries.  In two days, my twins will turn 5.  They will no longer be babies.  They won’t be anywhere near babyhood.  Every day they say, “Please, don’t call us babies.  We’re big boys”.

Logically, I know it’s ridiculous, to be so upset about a fifth birthday.  I’m expecting these kids to live to be 100.  They’ll see things I can’t even dream of.  They’ll crest a new century.  They will probably get to go to the moon on vacation.  It’ll be amazing lives these kids lead. If we round this birthday up or down compared to 100 years, they are closer to babies than wrinkly old men.

But lately, every time I see an older person I think about how they were once small helpless babies.  Once, they were precocious toddlers who delighted their parents with their views of the world. Once they were little.  They were new.

And when I see a baby, a little piece of my heart shatters knowing that I will never again have a baby.  Never again grow little hands and feet in my womb and feeling little legs and arms stretch within the safe confines on my body.  Never again, will I rock a sleeping infant in the dark of night.  Never again, will I nurse my baby, wear them on my hip, stand over their sleeping shapes in the dark and listen for the sweet sound of their breath.

I think of all of the lasts that happen every day.  The things that I didn’t even know where the lasts.  The things that I didn’t even know I would one day miss.  Things like onesies under feety pajamas, rocking little ones to sleep, and playing this little piggy on small toddler toes.

There should be mother books for things like this.  This way we could keep an exact record of it.  We could cherish all those things we rush through every day to get to the next thing.  The last time I nursed you.  The last time I needed to hold your hand while you walked.  The last time you feel asleep on my chest.  The last time I played the Tooth Fairy.  The last time you called for me in the middle of the night to kiss your head and tuck you in.  Sometimes they are small things we can’t wait to get past.  The last diaper change.  The last time I had to tie your shoes.  The last time I brushed your teeth.  The last time you cried for your pacifier.  The last time they wore those small tiny training pants on their little tiny hineys.

This is just the beginning of the lasts.  There isn’t anyone behind these little two to rock and hold and baby.  This is the beginning of the end of this phase of my life.

It just breaks my heart.  It breaks it into a million pieces.

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