Are You There Eiley? It's Me, Arya

It's been 8 months since A&E were born. It amazes me how much they have grown in that time. You can see them with regular size pacifiers as newborns and now as 8 month olds. Honestly, I don't know who is in the picture with the yellow pacifier. I do know that Arya is the one in the pink hat. I took that in the hospital. I was standing 3 days after my csection, nursing Eiley, trying to get Arya to stop screaming. I was switching the kids back and forth between me and their cribs as I couldn't comfortably hold both. I had told Cork to go get some dinner and do some things around the house. They went nuts as soon as he left. I called him a few hours later and nicely asked him to come back soon. I'm surprised the nurses didn't come in with the noise the kids were making, but I managed, just like we have every day since that day. I figure if MoMs (Moms of Multiples) with higher order multiples can do it, I can do it with just two.

I'm now rewarded by watching their development every day. I love seeing them interact. That's something that singleton moms do not get to experience. It's very different to watch siblings of the same age interact. I'm not saying it's not incredibly cute to watch siblings of different ages together, but there's something very unique about the things multiples do.

I've talked to other MoMs and rarely hear one say that she loved the newborn stage. Looking back we love that we experienced it, but at the time it wasn't exactly enjoyable. I used to hallucinate from exhaustion after sleeping in 10 to 20 minute increments all night long. I used to cry late at night, after I'd been in bed for hours, just wishing they would go to sleep so I could get a few hours of sleep. I used to look at the clock at 7:00 am, tally up my sleep and realize I may have slept 2 or 3 hours all night on a good night. I don't know how I would have made it through without all the help I was given. I'm glad I experienced all that I went through, but I'm also glad that we're far beyond that stage. Nothing else I've experienced as a parent since then has challenged me in the same way. I knew it was going to be hard and rewarding and so far I've been right on both accounts, but I underestimated both.