I’m sitting here in a quiet kitchen. That doesn’t happen very often. However, on this unseasonably warm fall day, I have found a moment of quiet amidst the constant chaos. I am relishing in it, knowing that is absolutely fleeting. I’m ignoring my dishes, my laundry, my grad school paper that now has to be rewritten (don’t ask), and I am celebrating my six year old twins.
Yes.
Six.
We have had our girls in our family for six years now. Six years past means diapers and cribs are very faint memories. Six years means preschool and daycare are things of the past. Six years means kindergarten and friends and independence. Teeth lost. Bikes ridden. Songs sung. Piano played. Stories read. Barbies and dollies and Legos and Play Dough…all these things have been shared, and so much more.
Twins, I read the post I wrote to you when you were one every single birthday (you too can read it here). I read it every year to remind me about how even though I was scared the beginning, having you two was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It made your dad and I work harder. Stand taller. Make decisions and stick to them, even when it felt hard and uncharted. I read it to hear the confidence back in my voice. I read it to remember you as sweet little ones now that you’re almost too big to sit in my lap.
In the past six years, you have given me unwavering confidence to walk this life on this earth. When you were born, we were coming out of a really hard season. I’ll tell you about that some day, but your dad and I had to walk through loss of a life well-lived and deserved to live longer and a career that we thought was our defining moment. We felt lost, and when you were coming, we knew we would have to be found. We weren’t going to find it in our careers. We weren’t going to find it even in our identity as that perfect farm family. We were going to be this huge family that had to struggle and scrape, but dang it girls…the struggle is worth it at the end. You have given me the confidence to attempt things I thought were long gone. You are still attempting to get me to lighten up a little on my perfectionism (I’m fighting that one). You have given your dad the understanding that each child comes with a new way of looking at life. Each day is a blessing, and health and happiness are the keys to keeping it that way.
The addition of you to our family helped us realize that our life will never be perfect, but our life will be perfectly ours.
So today, as we celebrate with a trip to the “fancy” orchard, dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, presents and pumpkins with friends, I have to sit back and just soak it all in. In six more years, you’ll be 12 and thinking your dad and I are NOT as cool as we are now. Six more, you’ll be 18 and thinking about college and boys. In two more blinks, you’ll be out of this house, and I will wonder how I figured everything out, but it all was figured out in the end.
Girls, you truly rewrote my story. You continue to weave your story into mine, and you will forever be the biggest plot twist given to me.
Mary Kathleen and Caroline Suzanne, you are both a gift to your dad and me. I love you more than you will ever know.
Love,
Mom