eighteen months later....

today is a pretty awesome day. it's the 18th month in which everything in my life changed: eighteen short months ago Trixie and Dixie made their grand entrance into this city and my world.

to say that it has been a harrowing adventure is putting it mildly. over the last year and a half i have experienced:

* tiny size 1 diapers with giant poops

* LOCHIA

* a daycare provider who was out of her complete and total mind

* the sorrow of immunization shots and ear piercings

* three hour crying jags. in stereo.

* the evolution of Caesar hair styles, to DC fades, to full blown little girl curls

* rolling, crawling, standing, walking, running

* baby teeth and morning breath

* diaper rashes from hell

* happy shouts of "hiiiiii!" in the morning and when picking up from daycare in the evening

* arm waving jam sessions in the backseat listening to Janet Jackson sing about Control

* the evolution of pretending to use the remote control like a phone to holding a thumb and index up to the ear to mimic a bluetooth

* the never ending joys (for her!) of reading Brown Bear over and over and over and over and over and over and over and....

* hugs and kisses out of the blue, complete with mmmmmWAH sound effects.

while experiencing all these great things, i have also experienced the lows of self-doubt, fear, anxiety, depression, frustration, and immobility. i have been fortunate to have a good core set of friends who i can call and can prop me up and talk me through the disaster, whether real or imagined.

when i look back at how much my life has changed, i gotta admit there are a few things i miss. like being able to get up and go when i feel like it, happy hour, waking up an hour before i have to be at work and still making it to work on time, buying myself a party shirt and going out over the weekend, not being exhausted all the time, not doing laundry CONSTANTLY, not having to cook dinner, going to the movies more than once every 13 months, okay did i say a FEW things i miss?

but taking the sum total of all those things, i wouldn't trade them for anything with the joy and amazement i feel when i'm spending time with my kids.

*but Boca! what about those moments when you are bitter and angry and exhausted from the pressure of 2 toddlers running all over your house like langoliers?*

yes, dammit, even then. underneath it all.

i'm glad i accepted this mission, raising these two little girls to be strong, intelligent, funny, fearless women. i hope this works out for us all, because it's way too late to try to take them back to the hospital for a refund.

and speaking of money spent, did you know that you can easily keep track of the cost of supporting a child over her lifetime by simply converting her baby book into a spending ledger?

i learned that from Married, with Children.