4028 and counting

Pictures that is. Approximately. From the day the babies were born until now. Does that seem crazy? Or not enough? When I decided to count them today (with the help of Photoshop, I'm not nuts), the song from Rent popped into my head, you know "Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes. . ." and it has been running on a loop in my head. Seasons of Love.

This has been my Season of Love. The time we've had so far with Ben and Maggie. Call it good timing or bad, Andy was laid off two weeks before the babies were born. Other than a two week stint with a company that I'm not even sure was legitimate, we have both been home hanging out with these babies everyday. I've thought a lot about me at 34 weeks pregnant and freaking out about the future, and us running out of money, and how at one point I was going crazy wishing I was home alone with them so I wasn't always being watched. . .and then I've thought about what an amazing gift it was for both of us to be home for the first three and a half months of our children's lives. There aren't a lot of daddies who get that kind of time to bond with their babies. This week, he went back to work, and things are slowly getting back to "normal" around here.

I go back to school in three weeks, and it is causing a lot of anxiety in my life. There wasn't much hope, even prior to Andy's layoff of me getting to take extra time off to stay home with the babies, but that was sure the nail in the coffin. We can't live without my salary and we need the insurance that goes along with it. I know that most people don't get the kind of time off I get as a teacher, but the Mom is me aches everytime I think about leaving them to go deal with other people's children. I never wanted to be a working Mom. I remember having a conversation about that with Andy very early on in our trying to have kids and he laughed. It just wasn't going to be an option for us for me to stay home, and he thought I was kidding, I think. Now that the reality is here, now that I'm faced with the reality of their two little faces being away from me for so long every day. . .I don't even want to think about it.

But until that day, we have summer. Summer will always be our season, the season when I will be home with my kids, when I can be a stay at home Mom. When we'll travel, and go to the zoo, and sleep in together. This will be my season. I know that logically, we will get through Fall, we will enjoy the winter, these babies will grow, and be loved, and will be cared for by us, or by their grandparents. But I know that once school starts, I will be counting the days until Summer.

I wanted to share some of our summer photos, and Shutterfly has conveniently decided not to let me move them around, so sorry for the random order!

We took the babies to Anna Maria Island Florida for a week, and had a blast. The babies loved the ocean, and we enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa there to help us with them and to take care of us.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Maggie. It was taken at Tommy Bahamas restaurant. Andy and Maggie on the beach. This photo actually goes with the last photo. I was trying to just get that last cute picture of their feet with the towel, but this is what was going on in the chair. Ben, freaking out, melting down and trying to eat his sister.

Little feet in the sand. We were trying to get a picture of their footprints in the sand, but Maggie didn't weigh enough to make a dent, and she kept marching her feet up and down.

Ben looking handsome in his swim trunks.

Sunset at the beach with my parents. At some point, if I get better at Photoshop, I'll take the damn cloth diaper out of my hand in what is otherwise a wonderful picture.

What a bathing beauty!

Their three month birthday fell during our vacation, so we packed up the stickers, the lamb and the bear, and brought them along to the beach this morning. We had a lot of fun with this one!

The 4th of July we dressed the babies up in their patriotic finest and headed off to a festival in Kent. They got a lot of attention in their double stroller, looking all cute.

Of course, the babies ran off and joined the Whig party. . .cloth diapers make good hats.

Random picture of the dog that we took in the nursery the day we moved the glider up into the nursery. Andy was playing around with the camera, and this is one of my favorite pictures ever of Miss Lily.

Just for fun.

They like hanging out in the laundry baskets. It's funny, and awfully cute. We hit the pool for the first time in June. That is Maggie under the green hat. She just was incognito. I realized that I never posted their two month photos either. These are from June. And then thank you, Shutterfly, back to our vacation in Florida!