Last night I had a dream my teeth fell out. Somehow I had fake teeth I would put on in the morning like you would put on a necklace or earrings or something. I wasn’t necessarily older in my dream, i was my same age, just more decrepit.
I laughed to myself when I woke up this morning and sat down to write. “Kinda of a fitting image (as creepy as it is to see yourself with holes where teeth should be). 2011 has aged me. I am an older, perhaps wiser (but not taking bets on that) woman in 2012.
Well I spose I am a little older now that it is 2012. My birthday is the 3rd. 32 this year. While out on our date for my birthday dinner, Jon stopped to figure out how old I was this year (yes, we have to count now….we don’t know how old we are anymore, also a sign of aging). His quote to me about the year ahead: “I don’t even remember being 32.” So we spent a portion of our dinner conversstion trying to figure out what happened the year he was 32, and let me just say it wasn’t a dud of a year—we remodeled our house that year, he finished his master’s degree, his daughter was born… Ya know, just a few blips on the timeline (I write this very sarcastically).
But isn’t that weird? Some years we can’t remember. It’s just a blur. Actually my sage old soul is beginning to realize that all years blur together and move far more quickly than they used to. I have two babies that aren’t babies anymore, they are becomming real “kids” far too quickly. And while I still have two babies I know enough to know that they also won’t be babies for very long. Sad. And happy to. Kids grow up. And it’s a good thing they do because I don’t want to be changing three sets of diapers and getting up in the middle of the night to pump forever.
I think time starts to move fast when kids come into the picture because they are a visual representation of something so abstract. When we look at our children, or other people’s children, they are bigger than the last time we saw them and it’s shocking. My tiny premature twin infants that started out as four and five pounds are now almost 12 and almost 13 pounds. They’ve tripled in size in four months. I guess almost a gallon of milk a day will do that to you. But they are getting so big already! Alice and Sam too! In Young Life we talk about how Jesus was the visual representation of God (from a verse in Colossians 1:15 in the Bible). So God in a body, God with skin, God in a bod. Jesus is so profound because he was the image of something so abstract. Mind boggling. Well similarly, it dawns on me that kids are the image of something also profound and abstract. Kids are time in a body, time with skin, time in a bod. Or time in a bottle, or something (I think my metaphor is beginning to unravel…). My point: Kids make us realize life is whirring by, and that we are getting old.
Jon and I didn’t quite make it to the new years ball drop, at least I didn’t. I think he zoned out and watched TV to bring in the new year. I on the other hand went to bed at 5 til midnight. For the record, we did go out on New Years Eve, we didn’t sit at home all night like we often do. We were in Sisters still, we had a great dinner with old friends, my mom watched the Bigs so Jon and I could play some games with friends late (what an indulgence—being at a friends house after 10pm and playing an uninterrupted games! Literally been about 5 years since either of those things have happened. Slight exaggeration maybe, but close). I digress. Five til midnight, I am ready to go to bed after a fun night and because I gotta get up in a few hours to feed twinsies. I look at Jon on my way up to bed and high-five him. He knows exactly why. “Hi five, we made it through 2011.”
Not to beat a des horse, I know I have reflected in my blog writings about all of the elements of 2011, but probably never again will we have a year with two babies, a new job, a move, a house sale and a house purchase. Oh, and $300K and three months in hospital dealings. Dear God please, I don’t know if I can do any of that again.
But somehow made it. Seriously was the Lord just making each next step easy. Well maybenot easy, but clear. When it’s strung all together it sounds insane, and it has been. 2011 was insane, a zoo. And when I thought about it as a whole going into all of this, I felt completely overwhelmed. But step by step, day by day, we’ve known what to do. That was one of my dad’s favorite coin phrases: “You’ll know what to do.” And he’s right. When time slows, in the right moment, you do figure out how to step forward. We all learned that when we grieved losing my dad too. But you make it. I don’t know.
Usually I can close my rambly thoughts, by seeing as my children are beginning to cry and bang in their various rooms throughout the house, my day has officially begun and I probably should get off my butt and get in the game. Its going to be a big week. We are flying our entire family to Florida on Saturday and it’s going to take me all week to get prepared. Yes, you read that right. Somehow it seemed like a good idea to take our family to Disneyworld. Why you ask? Why are we taking a four-year-old, a two-year-old and two infants across the country on an airplane? No, it’s not because Jon and I want a divorce. I promise, there is a good answer to this, but the real answer is to have more fodder for this blog. I will keep y’all posted. Gotta go attend to the zoo.
