Three at Two

The cheerfullest birthday girl on the block

Today, my littlest little turns two years old.

I could tell you how time has flown, how much she's grown, but I don't want to focus for one second on the past. Right now, it's all about now.

On Saturday, we had her birthday party. It was planned and essentially thrown by DD and SI. One day, about two months ago, we had this conversation:

Me: "I should figure out what kind of party to throw RH!"
DD: "I know! It should be a Care Bears party!"
Me: "You guys had a Care Bears party. This is RH's party. It should have to do with what she likes. What does RH like?"
SI: "Green!"
Me: "Yup. What else?"
SI: "Green! It should be a green party!"
Me: "That's it? Green? How do you throw a green party?"
DD: "With green food and a green cake and green decorations!"
SI: "Green ICE CREAM cake!"
Me: "...that sounds like a pretty good party, actually."
DD: "Me and SI will throw the party, Mommy. You just make sure RH's diaper isn't stinky."

I could handle that.

And plan the party they did. I tried to tell them that people would rather eat apples and grapes than broccoli, but they proved me wrong.

I taught them to make bunting, and they made enough to decorate a full half the yard. And I tended to my job- sending invitations, and making sure all the food was to SI and DD's specifications.

Honeydew, grapes, apples, mini cucumbers, celery, broccoli, guacamole, green tortilla chips, green juice
And green flowers. I was told that was important.
Plus more of SI and DD's bunting!

Of course, no matter how clean her butt, RH was a bit of a pill. I'd just come home from five days away- and she was punishing me for it.

The first day back was a dream, she lay back in her chair and just stared at me, occasionally whispering, "Kiss!" or "Hug!" Mostly just looking at me like I was an angel who had descended from heaven to rescue her from the torments of going to the aquarium daily to see jellyfish with my parents.

She spent the next four days attached to me at the hip, screaming for no reason and demanding amounts of my attention she hasn't commanded since she weaned. She spent a lot of her party crying, as despite DD and SI's planning, I was still essentially on hostess duty.

But like I said, I want to focus on now.

I want to remember what she's like right now.

I want to remember the way she says, "I yike a hair! I yike a face! I yike a pwetty dwess!" every morning when I change her diaper, regardless of what I'm wearing or how I look. I want to remember the way she flails her legs while she's running, but keeps her head steady.

I want to remember how fearless she is. How she crawls under bushes or through the mud without blinking an eye. How she tries every new food. How she jumps into the water without hesitating, much to my terror, or how she leaps off chairs, or stairs, now that she's finally mastered the art of getting both feet off the ground at once.



I want to remember how she puckers her lips into a full on fish face whenever she wants to give a kiss, and how sweet and soft her little kisses are. I want to remember how despite being a monster truck, rolling over everything in her path, she is still gentle with animals, other children, and her toys. Most of the time.

I want to remember how she participates in conversations without having a clue what's happening. How she shouts, "Me too!" about anything and everything, and will not be distracted from being included. How she insists on what she wants, when she wants it, and I find myself acquiescing because I have no real reason not to in the face of her determination.

I want to remember how until two weeks ago, whenever she said, "I lub you!" she followed it immediately by saying, "Good night!"

I want to remember the way she sings, "Shoo fly, don't bother me," or the alphabet song, or "Ring Around the Rosie," with better pitch and timing than her older sisters, even if half the words are incoherent.

I want to remember how sassy she is. How much attitude she's got. How sure of herself, and determined to do whatever her sisters do, and to be part of any joke the adults are enjoying. I want to remember the way she laughs a sound like clinking china and announces, "I laughing!" as though it weren't impossible to notice.

I want to remember the unbearable softness of her skin, and the way her hair smells, and the way that her curls flatten against the top of her head when she's filthy. I want to remember how tidy she is, and how she refuses to eat with her hands if they might get messy. I want to remember being perplexed by how she could get scrambled eggs in her nose, and at the same time how she can finish a bowl of ice cream without spilling a drop.

I want to remember how she asks for something indirectly, like, "Mommy, ponies?" And you try to fill in the blanks, "You want to watch ponies?" And she acts like it was your idea. "Okay!"

I want to remember the way she counts. "One, two, fee, four, five, six, seben, eight, nine, tan, eleben, twelf, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, eighteen, twenny fee!"

I want to remember how if you sing, "Na na na na na," she yells, "Batman!"

I want to remember how serious she often is, focusing on on a task until it is complete to her satisfaction. I want to remember how she seems to study the world with fierceness and determination, cataloging causes and effects and storing them away. I want to remember how much she cares.

I want to remember how unfathomably cheerful she can be.

I want to remember how she sings the theme song to "My Little Ponies," how she dances happily, distracting herself from all else in the world for ages, spinning in circles and hopping, gesturing wildly. I want to remember how she sings, "Tomorrow." I want to remember that she'll go around the room, approaching everybody one at a time, saying, "I gonna eat choo!" until they say, "Oh no! Please don't eat me!" and moves on to the next person.

I want to remember that her favorite movie is "Wreck It Ralph," and I love that sometimes she tells me, "Mommy, I a bad guy!" with an angelic grin and dimples for miles.

I want to remember how her smile lights up like sun when she's happy, even if she's covered head to toe in green frosting and ice cream. Even if five minutes earlier she was sobbing her eyes out.

I want to remember how she curls up on my lap, how she pulls me to the floor to sit on me for no reason. How she calls out, "I lub you, Mommy!" from the back seat of the car, for no reason. How she wants to help me brush my hair, and my teeth, and god help me, how she wants to tear off toilet paper for me in the bathroom.

I want to remember the way her little hand feels in mine.

But I know I'm going to forget.

I look at her big sisters, not that much bigger, and no matter how I wrack my brain it feels as though their nearly-two-ness is already gone. I can't remember them. I've forgotten my own children.

Of course, I know if the two year old version of DD or SI ran up to me, I would know them. But it's not the same.

It wasn't intentional. I was just so busy, and so tired. When DD and SI had their second birthday party, I was already pregnant with RH. When they were two years old I was finishing my degree and running through the day with M gone from before dawn until late an night.

I can watch a video and go, "Oh, yeah, that's how it was." But it's still just not the same.

I didn't have the energy to really hold onto all the moments with my twins. And knowing that, running through milestones and chubby legs and baby curls a second time... it makes it so much harder to know how soon it's gone. And so much sweeter to see it happening.

I truly am enjoying things more this time around.

I don't ever want to forget this little girl.

Happy Birthday, my littlest favorite person.

Let's not get to the next one too fast.

Six Down, Twenty To Go

I am allergic to metal.

I used to couch that in parenthetical exceptions, but about ten months ago I had to stop. When M and I got married, we were very careful in our ring selection. We went to the trouble of making sure not only that we got rhodium plated rings, but that we returned to the store every six months without fail to have them re-plated.

Sadly, no amount of re-plating could stop the inevitable. After five years of wearing my wedding band, never taking it off save for MRIs or those weird days we'd take to visit the 'burbs and replate the sucker, the hives began coming.

Skin allergies suck. First comes the vague itching. Then comes the blotchy redness. Then comes the open, festering, pussy wounds on your skin. Not pleasant, I know.

So after five years of marriage, I took off my wedding ring.

I hated it. I hated not wearing it. For the first few months if I went to an occasional wedding or special event, I'd put it back on. But even that became unbearable.

And so, M and I planned to replace it with something I could wear. Lucky us, we live in a city filled with brilliant artists and craftsmen, and we located a local shop, less than a mile from our first home together and only two miles from the site of our wedding. In the converted warehouse, a small group of brilliant odd-balls make beautiful rings from reclaimed wood.

For our sixth anniversary, we got new wedding rings. They're made from old xylophone tiles, and mine has a band of crushed lapis lazuli, which makes it resemble my old wedding and engagement rings, stacked together.

Created by Simply Wood Rings

We didn't have a dedication ceremony, or officially renew our vows, or anything like that. But it seemed odd to just pick up a new wedding ring, put it on, and say, "That's that!" So when we picked up the rings, we took a moment to commit ourselves all over again to our marriage.

M smiled his awkward, off kilter smile, and slid the ring onto my finger. "I love you more today than every day before. I can't imagine loving you more, but I know tomorrow I will, and I want to do that for the rest of our lives."

I'd rehearsed in my head exactly what I would say, knowing that one of the few times M never jokes is when he's telling me how much he loves me. So I cleared my throat, grinned at him, and slid the ring onto his finger.

"Six down, twenty to go."

He laughed and we kissed, and the lady behind the counter smiled and said we were adorable, but didn't ask for an explanation about that vow.

When M and I were engaged, we only really got to enjoy the experience for about sixteen hours. The rest of our engagement was totally eclipsed by M's health.

As our wedding date neared, M and I were driving home one afternoon when he said something that I will never forget.

"I have a new goal. I want to spend more of my life married to you than not. I want to live long enough that more of my life was as your husband than before."

He was 25 and a half years old.

For our anniversary, we put on our new rings, and flew to Santa Barbara for a friend's wedding. We extended our trip a few days, so we could spend our anniversary languidly driving up Highway 1, admiring the views of the mountains and the ocean, eating at surfer dives and buying strawberries at the side of the road. I hardly took any pictures. I was too busy feeling overwhelmed by joy, and love.

While we lounged around, without agenda or worry in beautiful Santa Barbara, life was very much as it was for us on our two week honeymoon in New Zealand. We took long walks. We ate local food. I bought some clothes. I made California Benedicts for breakfast.

At the wedding, we danced until our legs gave out, and the next day we came home to our three beautiful children.

It wasn't quite a second honeymoon. It wasn't quite a vow renewal. It was us, together, as we always are.

When I was young, I was certain I'd never marry. I didn't have boyfriends- though I sometimes referred to my beaus that way for my parents' sake. I thought the whole idea of monogamy and sexual fidelity was hogwash. I thought that committing yourself to feel the same way about the same person for the rest of your life was insane. I thought true love was something they fed you in fairy tales to keep you eager, but the reality was you do what you do to be happy, that being happy is what's most important in life, and that marriage didn't have anything to do with that.

Then I met M. And I fell in love. The idea of agreeing to be "boyfriend and girlfriend" didn't bother me. The idea of complacency and simplicity in terms and arrangements seemed soothing, and easy.

And with M, it is.

I've been married to the love of my life for more than six years, and in many ways they have just flown by.

But I read occasional blog posts about how marriage is work, how marriage is supposed to be work, how marriage isn't based on love. I hear my friends' tales of domestic discord and frustrations, of divorce and disillusionment, and I listen.

I sympathize.

But I do not understand. I do not understand why anyone would put themselves through it, deny themselves more opportunities for love and joy by staying in a relationship that brings them neither. I understand that for some people, marriage is work. But it's not for us. It never has been for us.

I know, in many ways, we are a unique couple. For most people, anniversaries and birthdays don't come with a looming counter. "Six down, twenty to go," is not a thought that accompanies these happy occasions. Each time M has a birthday, we don't just celebrate his birth, we celebrate his survival. Each time we have an anniversary, we're not just celebrating our marriage, we're celebrating the perseverance of life itself.

It's not that our lives have been easy. Far from it. Cancer is hard. Unemployment is hard. Newborn twins are hard. Going to college with two toddlers and pregnant with baby number three is hard. Hell, twin toddlers while pregnant is hard enough by itself. Three under three is hard.

Life is hard. And parenting is hard.

First day as parents

And we didn't have much experience with marriage before kids. On our first anniversary we were already 16weeks pregnant with our twins. And that was hard. But our marriage has always been easy.

I don't know that I'd recommend doing things our way, but I do know that I have long since stopped giving marriage advice. Relationship advice, sure, but marriage? Never.

Are we perversely blessed in our perspective? I don't think so. I honestly don't think that the love we consistently share, that constantly grows, that effortlessly brings us immeasurable joy and laughter and happiness is based on a fear of death. That only sharpens it around the edges a little.

I know that our love has never faltered. That the only real strain our marriage has ever suffered was depression, which was less a strain to our marriage than one of us battling a disease. And neither of us have ever faulted the other for their illnesses.

The last six years have gone past so quickly I still think of us as newlyweds. When I think of our relationship, it's in the giddy, excited, heart pounding terms of never wanting to stop touching his skin, or melting into his arms while he kisses me, or laughing as we run like teenagers down the hall to the bedroom. When I think of my love for M, it still comes with a hint of fear that one day he'll realize I'm not good enough for him, that I'm lazy and fat and unshowered and he deserves so much more than me- and rather than feeling depressed by such thoughts I feel inspired to impress him, to show him how competent I can be, how beautiful I can be, how brilliant I can be, until I surprise myself by becoming better than I ever knew I could.

He surprises me and inspires me. He makes me want to be more than I am. He makes me want not just to drop that extra twenty or thirty pounds, but to embrace myself and my body as I am, and love myself as much as he loves me.

He makes me feel like maybe I do deserve somebody so wonderful.

And that has never faltered. That has always been effortless. That has always been simply M- simply the way of the world- simply us.

The Captain Hammer Yin to my Ani Yang

Since getting married, we have grown together. I know more of his flaws and his faults, but my love only grows.

When people tell me that marriage is work, I nod. But secretly I wonder if maybe they're not doing it... wrong.

When people tell me that marriage is hard, I shrug. But secretly I wonder if maybe M and I are just... soul mates. Perfectly matched. Bound by the bonds of "True Love" in the Princess Bride sense of the words.

Maybe we're not. At six years married, with three children, I still feel like a newbie. I still feel like a newlywed. I still feel young and invigorated by our marriage.

I hope to still feel that way when we've been married for sixty years.

And I still believe what I thought before was true- marriage isn't the best idea we as a human race have ever concocted. Forever is a long time to work on something hard. And maybe, for some people, that's the point. Maybe, for some people, the hard work is what gives it meaning.

For me, the meaning is the constant joy and love. The effortless happiness we bring each other. The sharing of burdens until they're lessened almost to nothing, and the sharing of joy until it's multiplied to infinity.

We've been married longer than I've lived in any home. We've been married longer than many of my friendships have lasted. We've been married longer than I had any right to hope on our wedding day. I don't know how I'll feel then, but now I believe another twenty years won't be nearly long enough.

Six down.

Forever to go.