Growing Pains

Wow.  I'm not sure that anyone could have prepared me for the organizational nightmare that comes from managing all the "stuff" that comes with twins!  I am fully aware that when you have one child, it becomes difficult to manage storing all of the things that were theirs when they were a baby as they grow older.  Times that by two.  Yikes.  

With each new quarter it seems, it's been time to put clothes away...put swings and bouncers away....put all of the things that the girls have outgrown and no longer need.  And with each time I put it away, I find myself piling more and more "stuff" up downstairs...completely afraid to get rid of a thing. But upstairs, in their room, I have found that there are still things that I can't even seem to move downstairs.  Are they really going to revert backwards and suddenly fit into those cute little white hats once again that they wore last summer?  Probably not...but there they both sit.  Taking up much coveted space in their limited drawer space in their room.

I am running out of space in their room.  I am running out of space in the room that they need now.  Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but now.  So enough holding on to the things that don't fit and aren't needed anymore....we need free'd up space for all the new things that fit and are needed NOW.  So, today I pulled all of the blankets and sentimental things out of their closet and put them in the hall so that I can go through everything while the girls are asleep in their room.  This is the only possible way I can do this.  It is impossible to organize their room when they're awake and pulling everything down off the shelf, out of the drawers, and messing up my piles!  So, to the hall everything goes. 

Tonight, I opened a box.  The box had 2 gorgeous hand knit sweaters that the girls never wore.  I felt my heart literally break into a million pieces.  The sweaters are too small for my girls now...and winter has passed.  The sweaters were made for them as newborn sized, but my girls were preemies when their first winter was here, so the sweaters were much too big.  This past winter they were probably too small...but I'll never know because I neglected to pull them out their second winter of life.  Oh the thought, the idea, the sight of those beautiful sweaters going into a box never to be worn by my girls broke my heart into a million pieces.  Can't we turn back the clock?  Can't my girls get small again just for one day maybe so they can wear them and I can capture it on picture?  

Is it really about the sweaters or is it more about the aching heart this mother feels when it hits her that her babies are no longer babies...that with each and every passing day they grow bigger and stronger and those sweet precious moments of having tiny babies in your arms is forever gone and instead etched deeply into memory?  I want to hold on to the sweaters.  I want to hold on to the hand knitted booties they wore once or twice but oh how cute they were on their tiny feet.  I want to  hold  on to the blankets that they were wrapped up in tightly their first time going to church on that cold January day.

And then I look over and see the new toy Savannah pulled out of the pile in the hall.  The one that was sitting in their closet waiting for the "age appropriate" time to finally hit before setting it down for the girls to play with.  Early tonight she dug through all of the "stuff" that was piled up in the hall and found that toy - the coolest wooden animal puzzle that makes animal sounds each time you place the animal in the right spot on the puzzle (thank you Mimi and Papaw!!).  It said "Age 2" so I had put it in a pile for later.  Savannah could not get her eyes off of that puzzle nor could she keep her hands off of the puzzle pieces.  I had pulled it out into the living room floor where she could stretch out better and play with it.  She was intrigued.  Madeline came into the room and was equally intrigued when Savannah introduced her to their new toy.  Their eyes were completely captivated by this toy, this toy that, had I been obsessed with not letting the girls grow, would have stayed in the closet because I wasn't ready to move on to the "bigger" things.  I even pulled out my Blackberry to take a picture and neither of my girls fought for the phone as they usually do!  They just looked at the Blackberry and went right back to playing with their toy.

  

After my heart broke over the sweaters, I look over and see this new toy my two girls played with just earlier tonight that was a sweet reminder to this mommy of their growing up and moving on to new and exciting things in this thing called life.

This is what it's about.  Letting go of the things of yesterday and watching with eager anticipation for the exciting new discoveries that my precious girls will make today and tomorrow.  Their Nana is making the girls each a blanket.  They haven't seen it yet.  As I pack away the sentimental things of yesterday, I eagerly await the sentimental things they will be receiving tomorrow...knowing that with each new things they get, there will be even more special memories and moments that will carry us all on for a lifetime to come.  There are more sentimental things to come....much, much more.  

Oh the roller coaster ride of motherhood.....the growing pains.....the emotional roller coaster ride and growing pains of motherhood.  I am thankful to God each and every day for the honor of taking this ride with Madeline and Savannah, and sitting right next to me, Chris.