Today is a big day in our house.
One one hand, today marks our ten-year anniversary. I hear the old fashioned way to celebrate is a gift in tin or aluminum. The ‘modern’ list mentions diamond jewelry. We went the pizza-for-dinner, watch-a-movie-with-the-kids route instead (Rio was the movie, in case you were wondering). And Eric bought me flowers. Let’s just say he knows me pretty well by now, so he bought me flowers I can plant outside and not feel guilty about forgetting to water them.
And we did spend some time looking at pictures from that crazy day. The kids enjoyed seeing us. Alex wanted to know why we looked so different (I told him it’s because I haven’t slept for 5 years. ;-)) Mostly I’m just thankful we could look at the pictures because for some reason we could not find them on the computer (we did finally find the cds and got them uploaded where we can back them up regularly…whew!)
Of course, I can do all the “can’t believe it’s been 10 years” and “wow, we’ve been through so much” and that would be true. But I’ll just say this: in the last decade, we’ve done a lot of fun stuff and some hard stuff (like the first six months of parenting twins). But in the last year, we stepped it up a notch, stepped out, together, to try for something more than we had before. It’s been harder than I could have imagined. But it is ours. And I cannot imagine doing this life with anyone other than Eric Hogue. He grounds me. He puts up with my crazy ups-n-downs. He never, ever complains. And I’m so very grateful for these years. I hope to have many, many more. But for tonight, I’m just so glad I have all the memories we’ve made and I have his hand to hold.
On a different note…on the other hand, to complete the parallel structure from above… today is also the day that Timmy turns 17 months old! What a crazy, funny, wonderful little guy he is, too.
He’s in that stage of frustration. He knows what he wants. But pointing and grunting isn’t working anymore. He jabbers, thinking he’s saying something real, repeating the same syllables with the same inflections, over and over. But…it means nothing. I’m really hoping we see a huge leap forward in his verbal skills soon.
Of course, there are some words that he can do. He does “down” a lot. Also “done.” And “fishy” is pretty clear these days. He does call me by name, though it’s always “da mama.” Eric was “Da-doh” for a while, but now it’s slipping into “ba-ba,” which is odd because Timmy has a clear word for my dad which is “pa-pa.” And they’re clearly not the same word. So I’m not sure what the connection is. But it makes sense to Tim. Sometimes he seems to have an actual name for Erin, and sometimes Alex. But Megan’s got nothing yet.
He LOVES books. Loves them. He will sit and flip through the books, pointing out the pictures and hearing the words over and over. He just discovered a Rainbow Fish color book that he reads constantly. And he loves to make elephant sounds. Occasionally we can get a cow sound, but it comes out “boo” and he does no other animals sounds at all.
The boy never walks. He runs. Always. You put him down, he puts one foot out in front and then he runs until he falls down or gets where he meant to go. He climbs everything. Falls off of things regularly. He eats markers. Eats.them. And he still loves to put on play hats whenever he gets the chance. He plays chase and very desperately wants to be big enough to do the stuff Alex can do. In a couple of years, we will have quite a duo of boy-ness to enjoy.
Timmy loves to be outside. He loves to swing (but prefers the big kids’ swings). He’s already figured out how to let himself out the door (not good for me) and get back in (better for me), but he would stay outside all day if he could. He likes to ‘drive’ things, turning steering wheels and messing with levers or knobs. We’re working to break his addiction to electronics (he likes that he can touch the pictures and something happens), but he’s better than he used to be.
Really, at 17 months, he’s just a sweet and fabulous little man. I’m so glad he still likes to snuggle, especially at bedtime. And he’s still my jolly soul. He’s got a laugh that will melt your heart. But he’s definitely growing up. I’m just so glad to be along for his ride. So very, very glad.
So yes, today is a big day in our house. 10 years and 17 months. Can’t wait to see where we go from here!