New Year!

Today was my second day back to work after a long and glorious Christmas break.  And returning to work hasn't been as hard as I feared.  I was a little torn about returning to work (as though I had any choice in the matter!).  On one hand, duh, I didn’t want to go back because I like being at home wearing sweatpants and eating insane amounts of food and chillaxin’ with the babies and Matt.  On the other hand, I can only take so much sweatpants-wearing, food-inhaling, baby time before I go a little bonkers myself.  Add to that the fact that I really like work this year, probably more than I ever have, and it’s all good.  The early mornings can rot in hell, but the rest of it is peachy.  Plus, let’s be honest: the sooner I return to work the sooner summer will get here.

So what’s new with our little family?  A lot and nothing at the same time.  Matt and I are starting to see a tiny glimmer of a light at the end of the baby tunnel, and we’re patting ourselves on the backs for executing our two-babies-in-two-years plan*.  Over break we moved Matilda out of our room and into Charlie’s room (Hallelujah!), and it took me about three seconds to start referring to the room as “their room.”  In case you were wondering, sharing a bedroom with a baby for eight months is less than desirable.  She’s now 8 months old and he’s 1¾, and they can actually play together sometimes, and they genuinely love one another.  They steal food off of each other’s high chairs, snatch toys from each other, pull hair, hug, kiss, and jabber at each other all the time.  And even though ol’ Tildy woke us all up at 4:47 this morning, it’s worth it for the move if only because I get to hear them chatting away with one another after they’ve gone to bed at night.  (See, also: sleeping in my bed by myself, being able to enter my own bedroom after 6:30 p.m.)  I’m still holding out for a twin language!

Charlie continues to be wild and amazing and sweet.  He’s still the cutest boy you’ve ever seen in your whole life.  His latest thing is couch fort, wherein he throws all of the cushions off the couch and proceeds to jump and jabber away.  You’ve probably seen a good bit of couch fort if you follow me on Instagram, mostly because I can’t get over the giant grin that stays on his face the entire time he’s playing.

Matilda is amazing, too. And she’s so different from Charlie!  She’s so social!  Sunday we took the babies to brunch and she flirted with every single person in the restaurant.  I have to note this, too, so that I can go back and read it on a hard day when I’m covered in banana mush and have Greek yogurt caked in my hair.  Three different people came up to us as they were leaving the restaurant to mention how well-behaved our kids were.   It basically had me on cloud 9 for the rest of the week.  And let’s be honest, Matilda’s batting her eyelashes (thanks for those, Pop!) and smiling and waving and dancing were pretty damned charming.  I also have a theory that she’ll walk earlier than Charlie did because she’s so much more thoughtful and meticulous about how she does stuff (whereas Charlie pretty much takes after his mother and runs before he walks** most of the time).

What else? Well, we made this taco soup from Dinner: A Love Story and I’m freaking out about how good it is.  And we started watching the season 4 premiere of Downton Abbey and I’m wondering if I might have to be done with that show because it’s just too ridiculous (and WTF, Mary!  Don’t be such a gash wagon!).  And I swear I’m going to start ellipting again soon and I will not repeat yesterday’s delicious terror of scarfing down two Publix cheese danishes within a 5-minute period.  And my baby sister is applying to college!  (Which means that everyone in the world is terribly, terribly old.)  And I am not pregnant, nor will I ever be pregnant again.  I’m not sure when the novelty of not being pregnant will wear off, but it still hasn’t, and with every morning that I wake up on my stomach or with every time I bend down to put on a shoe without feeling stabbing pain, I relish the fact that my uterus is empty.

And now I shall try to erase the image of my vacant uterus from your mind by providing pictures of former occupants.

*This probably means that I’m a giant asshole (really is that a surprise anyway?) , but every time that someone who had a baby around the time that Charlie was born announces that they’re pregnant again, I am incredibly, obnoxiously smug about how I never have to do that again.  No pregnancy, childbirth, newborn nursing hell, newborn hell in general, or learning how to juggle two kiddies (which is, for anyone who was wondering, hella hard).  I’m so happy for the people announcing the pregnancies, but I’m way more happy for myself.

**both literally and metaphorically