Three Year Old Thoughts

I want to get back into blogging.  I love reading back over stuff I blogged and remember things I honestly would have forgotten otherwise!  Today I got an email from a friend of mine who I had over the other night to talk "twins" as she is also expecting boy/girl twins.  We discussed nursing twins, the difficulties I experienced, expectations vs. realities, ideas for getting as much sleep as possible, products needed/not needed etc.  Then she left, and I thought to myself: "Did I say ANYTHING positive about having twins?!"
Praise the Lord she left feeling good about our conversation, she wrote me an email saying the evening had helped her prepare and feel a bit more confident, for which I was so thankful because I was really worried I needed to call and apologize.
I wrote her a reply, and upon rereading the email before I sent it I felt like I needed to post this because it was one of those moments where I had really said what I meant.  Had summed it up well, and the thoughts I'd been having might be expressed well as a little 3-year summary.  So here is what I wrote:

  Ok, I am so happy you sent this because you left and I was like "Did I say ANYTHING positive about having twins?!"  It's just weird because I'm on "the other side" now, in a lot of respects.  The first year is hard, the second year is a different kind of hard, and the third year, yet another kind. But with each passing month/year you just get better at it, and life becomes "normal," and so looking back I'm like- "yeah, I was kind of a crazy person for awhile there!" 

But seriously, I am SO. THANKFUL. that God gave us twins and that he gave them to us first.  I look at things a lot in how they have changed me or made me a better person and I think having these two has just taught me so much about who I am, and what kind of mom I really am vs. who I thought I would be etc.  So much of that has just been incredibly influenced by there being "two of them," as I often say.  I love that they taught me to chill out, to not be a helicopter mom, to realize that parenting does not always mean doing things the way you want, the way people tell you to, the way you thought you would.  I love that I've learned to be flexible. I have a feeling I would have been this way anyway, but having twins made it OK to just let the little things go, it gave me permission to be the mom I am and not that mom people think I should be.

It's brief, and perhaps a bit disjointed, but it's so true.  I feel like I'm a this stage in life where a bunch of my friends that had the first round of kiddos with me are now having their second round and suddenly joining me in The World Of Two Children.  We reminisce about the differences between 1 and 2 (um, yeah, I have no clue), being a first time mom and a second time mom, (again, no clue really!), and how laid back we've gotten.  But then I realize that I've lived in this weird limbo state of 1.5 kids.  Like yes, I have two, but I've only approached, lived through, and told the tale of each stage one time.  I haven't learned things and gotten to apply them to kid #2.  I've just done it, whatever I chose to do, to both kids, and prayed for the best. 

I love (some of) ever minute of it, I like to be different(sorta different, there are a lot of twins out there these days!), I like that there is no rule book, that every once in awhile I get to say- there are two of them and I'm playing the twin card!  But I also love that we are there, we are enjoying, we are seeing the benefits, we are breathing again.  I am tired and have days that I just want to run away, but more than ever before, I feel like the mom of two kids who is figuring it out.  I say I "feel like I'm there," but I know I haven't arrived.  Boy do I know to NEVER SAY THAT.  As soon as you think you've got it figured out, things change, and honestly, I'm sitting on my couch right now with a glass of wine watching HGTV.  The frustrations of the day are behind me, but those frustrations, (not the kids) they will rear their ugly heads tomorrow and I'll be back to feeling helpless and a little like a crazy person.  So all in all, 3 years old is looking great.  It's looking so different from 2 and I am so excited...