What I love about having 2 kids

When we discovered and started sharing with people that we were having a second baby people warned us.  People kept sharing with us how hard it was, how you didn't have as much time with your first child and for the most part kept giving us doomsday predictions of how life as a family of 4 would be.

I recall that only one person offered us lovely predictions of what was to come.

Now, 6 months in, the positive effects of this family of four we have created are starting to be felt!  Sure, it got harder. A LOT harder. Not just doubly harder as one would predict. It got like 10 times harder.  Having time for adult conversations, doing laundry, eating meals, preparing meals- everything got much harder.  Let's not even go into the trials of toddlerhood and babyhood under the same roof; after all,  at Miriam's 2 month doctors appointment the doctor asked, "so what do you want to talk about at this visit?"

"My toddler!" I replied.

But now we are approaching something different and I am guessing it's only going to get better.  You see, the  things that I complained about above have not gotten much easier.  But we have gotten used to it.  There is a new routine of doing laundry a new level of mess we can handle and as long as we don't fight it and let ourselves be molded and shaped by it then we are okay.

 If I recognize that I want to be changed by the experience of being a parent and I ask myself,  "how can I be  reflective, open, and transformed by this...," then somehow the dishes and laundry become less important.  People seeing our mess, Maggie (the dog) eating a diaper now and then, the bathroom rug being damp ALL the  time- these things are not that important. So even though I would change them if I had total control over my life. I don't have that control...and really I don't want it.

And then there is this other wonderful thing happening. Miriam and Junia are falling in love.  They look at each other with such mystery and wonder. Junia cannot keep her hands off of Miriam and Miriam cannot keep her eyes off of Junia.  I didn't know that watching your kids love one another would be so beautiful.  It is amazing.  My words don't begin to sum up the richness of watching my children love one another!   And, the crazy thing is it doesn't make Miriam's attachment to myself or Sean any weaker.  There is quite simply an abundance of awe in her. Awe for the people around her and a shocking amount of love that she will  give!

Seeing your children love one another is cool.
Despite the fights we have in our  future or the tears from hair pulling or whatever- creating a family is an amazing gift.