The Picture

Snap. There it is stored on a camera not even downloaded yet and I can see myself, as a fifty year old lady, looking at it in a scrapbook reminiscing.
August 26, 2008 the day Ashley holds her second son. My childhood friend and confidant has another child not two months after I had Tori. Her first child is only 6 months younger than Bella. These kids will know each other very well and play for years to come.
To me, Ashley is the friend who never betrayed me or my trust. The girl I fought over boys with and shared the most embarrassing moments with. The girl that grew into a woman with me and knows me so well because she was there when I was learning who I was. These are our good ole days. The weddings are over, the pregnancies successful and, now, the children are born. Those childhood dreams are now life and they come with deep responsibility and we are not afraid because we have each other. This provides me with great comfort. I now have company in the land of those with two small children. I have someone to understand my frets before I even utter them.
Joshua Wayne is beautiful and healthy. He stands as the last child that any of my friends may ever have. Some friends are struggling with their husbands or reproductive luck and that picture may be the end of an era. The pregnant era. One that will be missed for all it's events both bad and good. The phenomena of not remembering the bad happens with that as well as childbirth. These thoughts bring tears to my eyes. I am afraid that we are changed. Changed by our kids. We no longer live for us. They are the world and we get up in the morning for them. We work until our fingers bleed for them and we will not have ourselves back for the next 18 years. Though tears fall, they fall on a smile and with great pride.
We did this.
And, girlfriend, we did it well.
Congratulations to Ashley and Artie. Enjoy your gorgeous new baby.

Today

Today I actually have some time to myself and all I can do is think of things I need to do for other people. I just want to take a nap and blog. When I don't have time to think I come up with great ideas for posts and write them in my head. They are whitty and interesting and when I sit down to the computer I feel guilty for thinking too long before typing. No, I can't remember the post ideas from yesterday or even earlier this morning. So here are some random things roaming through my head today.
Men should have to pump breast milk from their breasts too.
Little babies are so beautiful that there can never be enough pictures taken of them.
Do other mothers start speaking gibberish instead of actual words because too much is going through their mind?
Well, you get the idea.

short and sweet

My girls are growing like weeds. Bella starts school (pre-preschool) on the 2nd. I am going back to work around the same time.
Things are getting a little easier and that feels good.

Shhhh!

I hate to write this because I don't want to jinx myself but the baby is sleeping 5 hours at a time at night and sometimes through the night. Yay! It's pretty cool except some of my milk is drying up because I cannot force myself out of bed to pump for fear I will wake her plus it's too tempting to stay in bed.
She is getting so big and more beautiful every day. It really is amazing to experience having a baby. The pregnancy and delivery and now the home time is just sweet and has been pretty perfect, there have been only minor happenings to complain about.
I do plan on returning to work. I don't have a date in my mind but I know it will be soon and the time will fly no matter how long I'm allowed to stay home with the little darlings. I just wish that I could have more time every day. More for myself, more for Bella, less for the breast pump and more to fit work in there too. I hate thinking of only seeing them a couple hours a day every day again. It was hard letting Bella go when I went back to work after her birth. It was extremely emotional. Now that there are two to think about while I work I just don't know how I will concentrate and let go.