My Team

 photo by Homespun Creative

It's been 7 months since I had Charlie, which means I've been a Mom of two for 7 months, the queen of this castle of three guys for 7 months, figuring out this new stage of our life for 7 months. It's a change, to go from three to four overnight. It happens fast, you know, this whole life thing. And before I knew it I was right here at this half past a year mark not even realizing it. Even though I kept telling myself things like "memorize every baby wrinkle on that baby's back!" and "tuck away those coos and the gurgles and the squeals the best you can!" somehow Charlie's baby-ness is slipping away quickly and he's on the verge of sitting and crawling and being more of a mover and shaker than a tiny little thing just tucked up in my arms. So I've come to the conclusion that no matter what you do, it will always feel the same. With Henry I took photo after photo trying to document every moment. With Charlie I relaxed more and tried to take it in more, but it's all the same standing here, looking back.

But this team we've assembled, oh, it's a good one. The Mom and the Dad and the big brother and the little brother. We're solid. We've got this. We wake up in the morning and the sun is shining through our windows and we hand off sandwiches and button up shirts and it's all hey! I love you! Have a great day! Smiles and hugs and See You Laters. In my wildest daydreams I couldn't have conjured up this reality. A bouncing baby in his highchair, a bed-headed three year old with peanut butter smeared across his cheeks, and that bearded love of mine laughing as he almost trips over that dang semi-truck toy, again, on his way out the door.

So you have to take a moment to just look around and feel it. We're in our bubble just bouncing along, this team of four, and I feel like this love is the reason for everything. The bad days, the good days, the really really terrible days, here we are bouncing along and I have faith that even when we're down, we're coming up again.

The point of this whole thing being, I like this. I love this! It's a whole bunch of thankfulness and I don't deserve this and happiness all rolled into one, and as my littlest baby sleeps and another one is off at school I just want to stop right here and exhale all this goodness onto the page to keep forever.