New Year's.... Kickin' it Baby Style

I couldn't have asked for a better New Year's celebration. Did we go out and live it up? Did we have an intimate evening with friends? Did we just stay up together to ring in the New Year? No, no and no. Once again, we were way too exhausted to treat this night like any other. D.R. had come off of 36+ hours with absolutely no sleep and I was in my perpetual state of sleepiness. :)

So, how did we celebrate? We went back to the hospital where the boys were born to visit some dear friends of ours who welcomed a new baby girl into their life this week. As we were driving back to the hospital, all the memories came flooding back. The last few days of pregnancy, the physical discomfort, the anticipation... (I was convinved these babies were never coming out!), the drawn-out labor, pitocin drip, post-partum hemorrhaging, feeling my non-contracting uterus being hand-pumped for a long 15 minutes (sounds pleasant, right?)... and, then, that fantastic moment when I heard Dexter cry. Unbelievable. Followed by an equally stunning moment when little Jaxon made his presence known. All of those doubts, fears, anticipations completely wiped away in one moment. Then I look in the back seat of our mini-van to see these two sets of eyes looking at me and I wonder how we've made it this far. The chubby little faces smiling at me hardly resemble the pink little newborns we brought home from the hospital. Somehow five months of sleep deprivation, night feedings, daily triumphs and milestones have flown by in the blink of an eye, which leaves me looking at these two little munchkins wondering where they came from and how I could never imagine my life without them.

A few minutes later, we arrived at the hospital to see this tiny little 7 1/2 pound baby girl and our boys look SO big! Since New Year's Eve tends to be a day of retrospection, I feel this was a great way for us to ring in 2006. We were led down the hallways of our memory, through the most monumental days/weeks/months of 2005.

When we arrived home, around 7:00, we began our bedtime routine with all four heads hitting the pillows about an hour later. A part of me was regretting the fact that this would be the first New Year's Eve in years that I wouldn't be awake to whisper Happy New Year to a loved one...

As if on cue, a few hour later, I was awoken by two hungry little boys. I sleepily trudged to their room and carried them downstairs to the couch. As I began feeding them, I switched on the television to hear, "Four, three, two, one..." Here it was, 11:59, and I was holding the two most precious little boys in the world. How perfect is that?