In the late 2000s I kept a personal mom blog called Nest Bliss. I reviewed books, wrote about the house and the girls, and was even in the Wall Street Journal. These posts are from then: light, young, a mom in her late twenties. I have edited them to stand on their own.
I was glancing through my phone and I have been snapping photos of my girls like crazy the past two weeks. It's funny because sometimes dumping my iPhone photos can be so spiritual for me. The way I feel about my girls these days is almost surreal.
We had so many first moments - first time swinging from the monkey bars without help, first time blowing a bubble, ha the first time Lilly LET Ava read to her (Ava can read!), the first time seeing baking soda and colored vinegar react.
Also, I remembered what happens when I let Ava turn on the hose for 'just a second to fill up her watering can real quick'.
I had excellent times playing and exploring the world. I am reminded every second how easy it is to make children utterly, blissfully happy and I think that's why I've always liked them so much.
This week, Ava told me that 'when she used to be a grown up she was a doctor' - a very classically creepy thing for Ava to say. She's crazy happy so I've just decided it's fine that she talks like a tiny psychic half the time.
That Lilly is just growing up. She (clearly) hates the sandbox, but I still toss her feet in anyway.
She has finally started to grace me with words, when she feels the inclination and she clearly is understanding most of what I am saying to her now. Sometimes, Lilly just clear as day bursts out with some word like she has just always said it, she may or may not repeat it after that as she is basically immune to praise from me and chooses when she will do almost everything.
Watching her grow into a mini person is just amazing, comparing her now at 16 months to where Ava is at 3 and a half and thinking about what will happen to her over the course of the next two years is mind boggling.
I always think the biggest difference in having more children is that you don't know the latter children yet the way you know your first child. I will have always had two more years of knowing Ava in and out and it's in someways like Lilly and I am just beginning.
Such a strange power to be able to choose when and how to add these little humans to your family, to the world. The awesomeness of being alive.