Reality

If you're under the impression, from this blog and Twitter/Facebook, that my children are practically perfect in every way...

That impression is entirely correct.

I had a LOT of people, before we ever had kids and after we found out we were having twins, want to give me the "inside scoop" on parenthood and fill me in on their view of the reality of it.

"They keep you up all night," they said. "You won't get a decent night's sleep till they go to college."

"You'll never have a minute to yourself," they said. "They always want something."

"I wouldn't want to do baby boot camp again - those first few weeks were the most miserable of my life."

Honestly, though, because of all the warnings I got before, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely there will come some point of exhaustion or frustration where I'll say, "Ah, I understand what those people were talking about."

But the truth is, while there have been moments of frustration (if you won't sleep without the pacifier, will you stop spitting it out?) and some tears*, the last 11 weeks have been SO. MUCH. FUN.

I do know that we've been extremely fortunate to have very easygoing, flexible babies - we haven't had any big sleep problems or colic. I know a lot of the doom-and-gloom-sayers who gave me the awful predictions did have a lot of difficulty.

But I think it's worth putting out there - it's not all boot camp and sleepless nights. It's delight in the emergence of brand new personalities:

It's not being able to take your eyes off them as they sleep

and sleep

and sleep:

And then those fun days when they start to be awake more and more:

It's the precious details that you want to remember forever:

It's goofy hair and graceful hands:

It's too-big pajamas:

And great big eyes:

There's so much to be ridiculously grateful for and to enjoy, and I hope that I never, ever lose sight of that.

*Y'all, breastfeeding may be natural, but it's MOST DEFINITELY not easy. This one was the opposite of the message I heard beforehand - it's not painless, and it really sucks for a while, until it doesn't any more. But if you stick it out, eventually you'll get to the not-sucking-any-more stage. Except for the literal kind of sucking. Because that's kind of what it's all about.