Thursday, March 17, 2011

How far we've come...

Occasionally it's fun to look back on your life and marvel at all you've been through. I know, I'm not that old, but still I feel as though I have lived a very full life already (in good ways and bad). Although at this point I have to look back pretty hard to find a time when I wasn't what I am now, a wife and a mom. Those two things aren't all I am, of course, but they are the two that define me the most these days.

Matthew and I were struck last night by the fact that we've been been married for almost six years now. Six. SIX! Now, to my parents, in-laws and grandparents that's not very much! (They have been married 29, 40 and 50 years!) But it's a lot for a 26 and 29 year old. The thing that makes this even more amazing is how much of that time we have been a family, not just a married couple. Elijah came along just eleven months after our wedding date. It's always been the three of us. In those first three and a half years we moved no less than four times, one of them a 900 mile move. Matthew has switched jobs and schools. We've been through the stress of applying to Phd and Master's programs and being rejected, and then, finally accepted here at Yale. But we stuck together through it all, and I'm positive that all these things just made us stronger as a family.

So, we've been married for almost six years, been a family for nearly five. We've only been a family four for less than ten months now. Another thing Matthew said last night was how it seemed like she's always been a part of our family too. It's weird, because in the beginning I was a little unsure of how she would fit in with the rest of us. I guess it's just one of those silly things you worry about when you're pregnant, like will I love my second baby as much as I loved the first. And then when they're born you realize how it's impossible not to love the second as much as the first. She has definitely completed our family in so many different ways. Not just because she's a girl and we already had a boy, because we would have been just as happy had she been a boy! The thing that still amazes me the most about her is just how much she loves her brother. Their favorite thing to do is play in the bathtub together. Last night I took a book in there with me so I could read and keep an eye on them. I noticed at some point while they were laughing, playing and splashing they were holding hands. They are just too cute together. I hope they are always that way together, though I'm sure they will have their moments when they're older. I hope she always looks up to him and thinks he's the funniest and coolest person on the planet and I hope he always looks out for her and tries to protect her.

Okay, I'm rambling. But I guess I'm feeling sentimental this morning, but I'm allowed, right?

3 comments:

  1. Seriously, that almost made me cry because from very early on I could tell that Jake and Jadyn would be closer than close and at 4 and 6, they still hold hands OFTEN and play together nicely most of the time. It is so sweet.

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  2. I love watching the sibling relationship develop. It is the sweetest thing to witness, it really is!

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  3. I am really seeing this sibling love in action now that Katie is talking. She wants to tell Michael good night and give him hugs and gets upset if she can't. I love watching them together!!

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