Before I forget

You know, I started this blog about a year ago. Peer pressure. It seemed like everyone I knew in the online world was blogging, and if I didn't have my own, I just wouldn't fit in. See in the world of infertility, everyone needs to get things out, to keep track, and to get the support of her sisters around her.

In Mommy world? I feel like I've joined a whole different group. I mean, if I think about the other mommies I run into at Walmart, or the teenage mothers that go to all the summer festivals? Yeah, I'm going to say that it's a much more select group of mommies who blog.

When I was going through my IVF cycle, I felt obligated to share the details, to put my fears down in words, to keep track of the numbers, the data. Throughout my pregnancy, if nothing else, I wanted to document the progress of the belly. I know that the hits I get on my blog are mainly girls from my local, my Mom, and people who click the link on any of the other boards I frequent. I used to feel like I was writing this blog for all of you. But lately I've been having these panicky thoughts, and I've decided I need to start blogging for me.

Before I forget.

I used to think I had a great memory. I could remember the characters in books I had read, everything I learned in class, stories and stories and stories I had been told. I used to be a kick ass speller. I don't know when it started to get bad, but I know that I don't remember much of anything anymore. People will say things like "Oh, you remember in high school how we used to. . ." and I honestly don't. I had a really scary moment a few years ago when I sat down at the computer to request my transcripts and couldn't remember the name of my college. That passed, but my spelling has been sucky ever since then. It's like early onset Alzheimer's or something. I really don't remember things about my own past. It's sad really, and I'm not sure why it is so hard for me.

What does this have to do with this blog? It occurred to me that I had to start writing things down for myself. Because these are things I do not want to forget. This is the good stuff, this is the beginning of two precious lives that I created, and carried, and hoped for and love. Things happen around here everyday, things I know aren't always very important, but things I don't want to forget. These are the stories I want to remember. The details that I can imagine myself all to easily forgetting.

So my promise to myself is to start writing more for me. For them. For something to look back on when my babies are older, and when they grow up, and when I am trying to think back about how we all survived this time. I feel like if I do this, I'll be more responsible with my memories. Because I can't forget this part.

I haven't actually counted them, but I would guess I've taken close to 3000 pictures in the three months they have been on this earth. I'm very good at documenting with pictures. The video camera? Well we suck at remembering to use it. I'd like to do that more, because why else do we have it if not to record the little things that our babies can do?

Each month we have been doing our monthly photo shoots of the babies in their month-by-month onesies. When they turned three months we were on Anna Maria Island with my parents. We knew that we would be in Florida when it happened, so we packed up the stickers, the onesies, the lamb and the bear, and headed out to the beach early (well as early as we could manage to get out the door) to do their pictures. It takes us approximately two hours every time we want to leave the house. It amazed us how mainly things had to go into that car in order for us to take the babies with us to Florida. The drive was hellish. I really should save all of this for another entry :-)

Back to the things I've been thinking about. New baby smell. Mine mostly seem to smell like spit up. When I used to babysit, I always said that I could take anything you could throw my way in a diaper, but I couldn't stand spit-up and drool. I always assumed that when the kids were your own, it wouldn't matter. I was wrong. I still hate spit up and drool. Today, I was giving Maggie kisses, and just as I leaned in she let a little bit of spit up drool out of her mouth. Turns out it tastes just as awful as it smells.

They say that if you line up a bunch of new babies in a room, a mother can pick out her child blindfolded based on their smell. Is that really true? I've been doing a lot of baby sniffing lately trying to decide if I could do it. I just don't get a smell, but maybe other babies would smell funny to me? And then I try to figure out if they smell the same? Or do I have to find both of them separately?

Maggie and Ben both vocalize quite a bit. It's mainly this a-goo sound that Andy and I like to imitate. Ben discovered his voice first. And it's a loud one. He Gah's, and Ah's, and makes these very loud irritated noises. He also is now blowing raspberries, and making these gurgling, cooing sounds that we really need to catch on video.

Maggie has a tremendously loud cry when she is mad, but she is a very quiet talker and cooer. It's quite adorable, and so quiet you could almost miss it. She burps like a truck driver. She also is an excellent binkie sucker. She smiles a lot now, but it's harder to get her to do it. Ben is easier to amuse. She giggles when I kiss her belly, but hasn't giggled at anyone else that I know of.

Right now, we are all sitting upstairs on the bed. I am pumping for Maggie, she has been sitting on the bed with me for a couple of hours putting away laundry, napping, and having a bottle. Ben is with us now too, after a trip to the grocery store with Daddy. Andy is downstairs making dinner, and this is a perfectly normal, lazy day in our perfectly normal, lazy life.

And these are moments I don't want to forget.