breathing.

it's been on my mind a lot lately how much my life has changed in the last few months.

we have no more babies.

we have had 2-3 babies (18 mo. and younger to me is a baby) in this house for a long time....ok, it was only three years, but it felt a lot longer.

I look back on these past few years with deepest bits of bitter~sweetness.

And time did not fly for me.

Everyone willed that to happen, everyone told me not to will it to happen but either way, it has crawled.

Seems backwards, doesn't it?

I hear women talk about looking back, even as close as I am now, and longing for their kids to be babies just once more.

And even though it makes me feel a little guilty, like maybe there is something wrong with me, I don't feel that.

THAT was hard.

I thought maybe I'd get 'to the other side' and then kick myself for thinking it was hard when it wasn't.

Nope.

it's just as insane now, in retrospect, as it seemed to me then.

I do wish it had been different, for all our sakes, that I would have had more time to treasure each one of their infancy's, rock them longer, pour into each of them longer, etc....

but to the 'wishing it back point'?

maybe one day, but not right now.

I shudder even still when I think about the long nights on the couch with the twins, the many hours Samantha screamed in my arms as a newborn, the loneliness that was scaring my heart right after Lydia was born and how there were no breaks in between those things.

Depressing. I know.

Trust me....I know.

I do remember the happy moments....the funny moments....the lovely moments....the feeling of being so blessed moments.

Actually, my memory over these past few years is more vivid than I'd heard it was supposed to be. With the good and the bad.

I think it has been bottled in my mind and heart for a very specific reason.

God has a plan.

He has to.

It couldn't have been that wild to NOT have a plan.

Not sure what the grand scale of that plan is right now, not really worried that I'll have to 'look' for it, but what I do know is that we just popped out of some pressurized tunnel.

Life is different, finally, now.

Now, even though I look back and my skin crawls with the memories of how hard that all was, I would choose this.

did I just say that!????

YES, I DID!!!

I would choose to have my girls this close, this many, and in this order.

It's not a surprise to me that I feel this way....God knows and I know He knows...and knew....but it still makes me chuckle that I feel this way.

Yes, life is different now.....

I almost feel like we were on a leash and after years of pulling hard to get off the leash, it's finally been cut.

Maybe that sounds terrible.

I don't know.

I just know I really really like where we are.

I love being their mommy.

I love hangin' with them, teaching them, cuddling with them, singing with them.

And it's like I can finally put more focus on those things than THAT (ya know, surviving)

So, moving on from THAT. Goodbye THAT.

(anyone remember/know who that is in the picture up there???)