my kids are amazing

It's been a long year, or so, and suddenly I'm looking at these 2 little humans and wondering who actually trusted me enough to grow 2 new people? You know what it doesn't matter because it's great. I realized the other day that I am truly joyful in my life right now. There were moments last spring and early summer that I was filled with joy, and these last few months have been a mixed bag - some days so wonderful and light and some days as dark as they come. The past 2 weeks though something has shifted across the board and everyone is doing better.

Skye is more and more like a little 2 year old demon, rather than a demon in a 2 year old body! He continues to show such empathy towards his brother. Forrest fell off the bottom stair today and Skye wanted to hold him and make him feel better. Of course he's too little to hold him, but I squatted down next to him and he kissed the back of Forrest's head and then rubbed it. It was sweet enough to bring a tear to my eye.

Last night was a hard one for Skye. He was struggling to go to sleep and when I finally came up, around 9:00, he was still up bouncing around. I got him some water and told him to go to sleep. About 45 minutes later he started to cry and grouse, I was annoyed at:
a) him making all that racket when he needed to go to sleep &
b) why wasn't Chris coming upstairs to get him, since I was trying to catch up on some zzzzz's.
So I came out of our room, calmly but not too happy, said "what do you want?" and then took a look at Skye. He was bug eyed, blood around his mouth and all over his hands. My first thought was - "what the hell did you do to yourself". Then I realized that he had a bloody nose, and it was streaming out of his poor little nose. I brought him downstairs, we stripped off the bloody pj's, and sat him down on the couch to deal with the blood. Chris had to restrain him while I pinched his nose - it just wasn't stopping on his own. Poor thing just freaked out. As soon as we were done (about 2 minutes) he turned to me, wrapped his arms around my neck and held on for all he was worth - little legs all scrunched up like a frog. I rocked him and shushed him, and let him know he was okay, and after about 10 minutes he fell asleep in my arms. He woke up when we put him in his new pj's, but then pointed to the stairs and said "mama" (b/c he can't say cama). We put him down, and of course a few hours later he got another bloody nose and so we put him in bed with us. Damn space heater is the blame. Forrest slept blithely though all this - and of course popped up at 5am! Luckily went back down after a few moments and slept until 6:30.

Funny how my life revolves around the sleep, or lack of sleep I get. It's such an integral part of the equation. Chris was commenting last night that he didn't know how I did it. I looked at him and said "do what", seriously I had no idea. And he answered how I was able to do all the things I do during the day, take care of the kids, and never get more than 7 hours of sleep and night (and pre-baby I was a 9 hour a night girl). My response was, do I have a choice? Seriously, it's just what mom's do, and in a nutshell there was one of the answers of the different between a mom & dad. There is NO way I will ever let Chris get as sleep deprived as we were those first few weeks we had Forrest. I love the man, but he becomes a liability when he doesn't sleep. Ask him sometime about forgetting to put Forrest back in a diaper after changing him b/c he was so tired. It's just interesting to me that he wonders how I do it, and my thought was "what else would I do?"

I turn 40 on Friday, and realized that at this stage I have lived less than half my life. It reminded me that there is so much more time, and so many things that I can still do. Right now my job is to raise these two humans into the best people they can be, after that my focus can go back on me (to an extent). But I am content with my life right now, I look forward to returning to work when the time presents itself, but right now what better job does anyone have than growing a few sons? I am truly blessed.