Letters to the Babies: 18 Months

Grayson and Audrey,

First of all, your mama is a big fat slacker. Sorry your "monthly letters" skipped from seven months to 18 months. Whoops. It's been a busy year, ok?

Second, eighteen months. What? I know I did not just type that. Eighteen month olds are like, toddlers. They are big. They are not babies. Surely that is not you.

Except somehow, it is.

As I am typing this, you two are literally chasing each other back and forth across the living room, giggling and sqealing and passing toys back and forth. This is the scene that I dreamed of when I first saw those two flickering heartbeats on the ultrasound screen. Then you two had to go and come 16 weeks early and this is exactly the scene that I was too scared to picture. I was so terrified that I would lose one or both of you in those early days I could barely picture the next 30 minutes, much less 18 months from then.

But somehow, here we are.

People used to warn me about these days. "You just wait, Jessica," they would say. "One day those two will be running circles around you and you won't even be able to keep up!" And it would make me so sad to hear this, because back then we were just pushing for you to breathe on your own, and normal things like walking and running seemed so far off in our questionable future that I couldn't picture it ever happening. They were right though, you know. I chase after you two all day until I'm dizzy, and then fall into bed utterly exhausted and so full to the brim with love that I could burst. I love you two so very very much and I hope that I never ever stop marvelling at you, my miracle babies (even when you're 17 and screaming that you hate me).

All the way up to the moon, and all the way back again,
Your Mama