Hello all! Sorry it’s been so long. Life keeps happening at warp speed. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s happening with us before I start going on about my little dudes.

We moved across the country. Like, just picked up and moved. My husband got fired the first week of July and we moved before Aug. My post-doc was ending and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after that and I have been itching to get closer to family. My mama could not BE more thrilled. After we moved I played stay-at-home-mom for 4 months. I’m not very good at that, as it turns out. Hats off to all you SAHM’s because it’s hard as hard can be. I was simultaneously overwhelmed and bored to death. I made A LOT of apple pies.

Sooooo…I got a job! It happened to come along at just the right time. It’s with a non-profit that I’ve worked with for years and years and, while it’s not research, it’s in my field, I’m very good at it, it’s important work, it pays reasonably well and it has amazing benefits! Of course, I have an hour and half commute each way but you can’t have it all right? Now, on to my boys…

They are spectacular. First of all, they’re huge. They’re 99% and 97% for height and weight – they both wear 2T at 18 months and are about the size of the average 3 year old. Z started walking at 9 months and lazy Ro was content to sit on his fat bottom and watch the action until 10.5 months. Now, at almost 19 months they’re climbing, running, wrestling, and laughing. They both use sign language and they both are talking, mostly about poop. Z has always been fastidious about his diaper, so now when he soils it he comes to me, holds up his shirt and says “Poop, mama. Poop.” And if I don’t immediately spring to my feet he’ll go and get a diaper, lay it in my lap and then lean in close and look in my eyes and say “MAMA. POOP.” R is constantly chatting about ducks and dinosaurs and singing Old MacDonald (“e, i, e, i , mooooooo”). They have fights over who gets to sit in my lap – they both push each other and say “No! MY MAMA!”. My heart melts. Ro has a megawatt smile and knows how to use it, and Z is a sweet and gentle soul.

I have days where I cry that they’re not “mine”, but truthfully they couldn’t be more mine. I have days where the pain and process it took to get to where we are overwhelms me with both fear and gratitude-we were so close to giving up. I have days where I wish with all of my heart that I never have to tell them how they were conceived. But I have more days, many many many more days where I’m proud of their origins. I’m proud of the struggle. I’m proud that one day they will have definitive concrete proof of how much we wanted them and how much they were loved, before they were even conceived. I FOUGHT for them. And I’m proud of who they are. I wouldn’t trade them for bio babies EVER. THEY are my babies. And I am their mama.

I love Ro with all of my heart, but Z is mine. He was Baby B, snuggled up under my ribcage, right beside my heart. His hair is exactly the color of mine. His personality is me to a T. Last week, when my mom and aunt were visiting I heard them laughing downstairs while I was folding clothes. Turns out Z had taken the ribbon on my moms blouse and was using it to tickle his ear, which was what I used to do, in exactly that same way. I know about epigenetics, and I believe all of that stuff (mostly) but it is a balm to me to see him be like me in so many ways. I can’t look at them and try and find my nose, or my fingernails, or my toes, but I still see myself in them, and in Z in particular.

Don’t get me wrong, I love R. He’s a troublemaker, and a performer and a silly silly monkey! R loves everyone. He’ll go to everyone with a smile and hug. Everyone adores him. He has a modeling contract and has been relatively successful (less so now that I can’t take him to auditions obviously). People stop us in public to comment on what a beautiful child he is. Z is quiet. He hangs back until he’s sure of what’s going on. And then, when he’s comfortable, he’s a beam of sunshine. He took apart the coffee table when he was 11 months old. He has taken apart the baby gate once or twice and now when he starts to do I tell him “No Z-bone”, and he’ll get a big grin and then pretend to do it. I’ll start to stand up and he’ll laugh and say “No, Z-bone. Mama say no”. But he’ll stop, and then he’ll get a book and come crawl in my lap. He has his baby doll that he loves (below), and his kitty that he sleeps with. Ro has a blankie that goes everywhere with him, and he’s obsessed with shoes or “sues” and must put on all pairs within in sight. Which means his shoes, my shoes and then daddy’s shoes. All at once.

So I have the engineer and the actor, the thinker and the lover. My little boys. I have it all.