We had our party. It was cold and wet, but the rain held off. Bobby bought plastic sheeting to stick to the carpet traffic areas and a fire pit for the backyard. Godparents Leroy and Mary drove nine hours, the boys' grandparents, Aunt Marci, Uncle Jay and Aunt Wendy and cousins Ariel and Ahna drove five hours to be here, and we had a noisy, busy weekend, topped off by the actual party to which we invited friends and neighbors for cake, ice cream, smoked meat sandwiches and potato salad. It felt like it accomplished what it was supposed to. A period at the end of the insanely long run-on sentence that was our last year. In the whole course of treatment it was only a comma, but it closed the book on the stress and uncertainty that was 2015. Alex, who was a tiny newborn last April, toddled around shrieking with excitement and begging for food, much like his Golden Retriever role model Andy. Kids played on the swing set and in the sand box, in spite of the chill. Later that night, the wind died down and the remaining partiers sat around the fire and relaxed. We did a lot of contrasting the happy chaos to the chaos of a year ago. Aside from being the year Alex joined our family, 2015 did us no great favors. It set us back by a lot, financially and psychologically, and we're glad to see it in our rear view.
It's a new day. Maybe I'm feeling particularly upbeat today because the sun is finally shining after having been hidden for over a week, but it is hard to feel too down when it is finally spring, everything is green, and two little boys are energetically, systematically destroying the place.
I read some meme on Facebook the other day, I think it was some marketing thing for somebody's home based network marketing business, that said "In five years, if you were exactly where you are now, would you be happy?" The insinuation being to get out and change, work hard, succeed! But I couldn't help but think, YES. If we are where we are now, we should be so lucky. We have a home. Filled with a family. Nobody is deathly sick, paralyzed, or dead. Aside from the mother B lost to cancer when he was seven years old, we have all of our parents, all of our siblings, all of our kids. We are not in mourning. The one thing that is certain in life is loss. It is coming. Which one of us will go next is impossible to tell, but it isn't morbid, it is just stating a fact to say we will not always all be together.
Alex has been almost an afterthought this last year, jostled and juggled around, thrown on my back in the carrier and forgotten about, expected to eat and sleep and poop his pants no matter where he was. He has been unceremoniously dragged along everywhere we have gone, and the only times he gave us any huge problems was the occasions in which he could not breathe due to croup. Like that one time he had to be admitted. Pretty uncool of him.
Now he is a one year old with a shocking collection of emotions, which he pulls out willy-nilly with no thought as to context. He is constantly sloppily expressing himself, big tears, loud wailing, theatrically collapsing and dissolving into heartbroken sobs one moment, nearly choking on hysterical giggles the next. Big slobbery kisses are his jam. Hugs and snuggles, then arching away, stiff as a board, nearly impossible to hold onto as something else catches his attention. Daniel does not yet realize he is the object of a one year old's hero worship, but he does notice Alex imitating him sometimes and hams it up for him. Today, I noticed both of them sitting side by side (pantsless) on the back patio, wildly jerking their arms back and forth, shrieking and giggling as Daniel yelled, "Whoa boat! Down tweam!" His class must have sung "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" this morning in preschool.
It is all so sweet, so happy, so bright I can hardly look at it. Sure, there are temper tantrums. Food all over the floor. Broken furniture. Sand in the bedsheets. Laundry that apparently reproduces while my back is turned and some serious funk hanging around the diaper pail. But there are also little soprano voices calling "Mommy!" For the smallest of reasons. Slippery little bodies in the bathtub. Chubby thighs. Tan little faces thatched with tousled blonde hair. Big blue eyes that watch my every move. Filthy, sticky little hands wrapped in my hair. It is all so fleeting. Suddenly Alex is getting big and fun, no longer a helpless baby but a real person with a real personality. Suddenly I'm looking forward to having kids who can legitimately hang. Ride bikes, go on hikes, swim, all the stuff that big kids do. It is suddenly very clear to me that I do not want more kids. I want to use both of my exactly two hands to hold exactly one of each of their hands and show them wonderful things. Like the baby turtle, no bigger than a quarter, that we found on the bike path beside a pond last week. We carried it to the edge of the water and watched it ease into the water and moss, and I got to see Daniel's absorbed, delighted grin as it crawled across the palm of his hand.
These moments. These moments right now. How can I preserve them? How will I ever have enough of them if I need to return in the future to the last time I was happy? It is terrifying being so effortlessly happy. When will it change? Who of us will life happen to next? How can I do and live and feel it all so I have no regrets? How can I remember how beautiful this time is in the moments when both of them are screaming, I'm trying to cook dinner, the dog is barking, I have a headache, and I forget myself and yell, ironically, for quiet? When I use a harsh tone and Daniel's happy face falls, when I grab his arm a little too roughly when he is being aggressive with Andy or Alex and he looks up at me shocked, when I yell at him for being three years old and challenging, will these times be what I remember? I hope not. I hope I can remember that now is the time to create happy memories and not stain them by taking them for granted, for not letting the small annoying things overtake the big happy things.
These are the best of times.
Hard times, come again no more.
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