Mother's Day with three

Eli and Eva at church, picture by Monica

I'm not sure yet that this mother's day deserves to be recorded. It's been hit-and-miss. The babies woke early and I got up with them. I didn't hear the monitor last night and slept deeply. I was able to talk to my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousin, all via skype. It was fun to show the kids to them and to get their take on things, and to hear a little about what parenting was like for them. My cousin Amy had babysat twins, so it was good to get her take on things.

We talked to Emily' s parents and made it to church. I made pancakes for breakfast. Emily enjoyed the service. Sam loves the church library and was (mostly) content to read about dinosaurs. A friend took some photos (posted above).

We found a new grocery store near the church. This probably doesn't seem like a major victory, but for us it was a nice surprise. It cuts out an extra trip on Sunday.

I got Sam to nap at 3:30, which was late. In retrospect, we maybe should have just kept him up. The twins, however, were fairly terrible. Finally, I took them for a walk, but even then they didn't really sleep. I feel like so much of our thought now is concentrated on sleep: the one who shouldn't nap is napping, why won't they nap, why are they getting up so early, I want to sleep but I'm not at all tired... As I write this, the twins had gone down smoothly, but Sam stayed up forever twiddling with a toy motorcycle he has. Emily's in bed convincing him to sleep, and I'm awake enough that I've given up on sleep for now and will try in another hour. Welcome to our reality...

The funny thing is that I'm 99% certain I will have no memory of any of this. Whenever I talk to parents from this stage, they haven't the vaguest memory of how it worked: "One of our kids liked to sleep in the car, but I'm not sure which one," "I think they used to get up in the middle of the night--I can't remember," "They used a pacifier, wait, maybe that was my cousin..." "I think we tried to sleep train them" "I don't remember when they weaned." Just about any question we ask--about food, naps, sicknesses--it's all just gone. I remember reading that our brains can't really remember pain--if we could we'd relive it. I think maybe this stage of parenting is kind of like that. I know it's happening, we're tired, there's a lot of fun mixed in, and yet I'll remember almost none of it. I probably won't remember that Sam used to swap between beds, complain about the noise of the air conditioner, ask for juice, or pat our hair. And I won't remember that the twins went to bed between six and seven, snacked at ten, and then could mostly sleep through. I won't remember when Eva started turning over at night (last night), when we noticed Eli's first tooth (today, on the bottom to the right), or that Eli was the messy eater the first week we started solids. I may not even remember their cries or their laughter. Eli has this series of loud "hugh!" and Eva's is a kind of screech. In both cases their laughs and cries are similar, cheerful and smiling when they are happy, angry and insistent when they're upset. It's crazy.

Mother's Day wishes to all of you out there. Thank you for putting in the hours, the time, the struggle. Thank you for your surrogacy of those who cross your paths. Thank you for the care and the love. Remember the fun times. You can forget the sleepless nights.