Home

It’s good to be home.   

We had an amazing time in Hawaii, and it was a trip I will remember forever.  It involved conversations that actually began and then ended in an organized and sequential method, instead of the start-stop-start-stop system of communication we've adopted since twins entered our crazy lives nearly two years ago. It involved dinner for two, with no special request for a table that would accommodate two high chairs.  We were free to focus on us. It was absolutely wonderful, and I loved every second of it.  Over the course of a week in the most beautiful place I have ever been, I began to grasp how truly blessed I am to be head-over-heels for the same guy I fell in love with over a decade ago.  In fact, I think I'm even more crazy about him now than I was back then.

As we got home and took care of restocking the fridge and tackling piles of laundry, I realized how many things I missed while I was in “paradise” for a week with my guy.  It dawned on me how much I love it here.  I’m not going to go on and on about the beautiful Texas weather, because I just cannot even fake it.  The humidity hit me like a slap in the face as soon as I stepped off that airplane.  I cannot tell you that I inhaled that hot, sticky Texas air without another thought of the absolute paradise I left eight hours prior.  That would not be true.  But it really has nothing to do with where I live my life.  It has everything to do with who I live my life with.  It has to do with family.  This family began ten years ago when I married a guy I couldn’t imagine living without.  Eight years later, two tiny heart beats on an ultrasound screen delivered more joy than we could have ever fathomed.  But family started with the two of us. 

I think we’ve both had that rug-being-pulled-out-from-under-us feeling from time to time over the past two years.  For eight years, we had our routine, and that routine involved just us.  Don’t get me wrong, we waited years and years, longing for children.  In some ways, I think it made our transition to parenthood even tougher than normal, and I know without a doubt that taking home two bundles of joy made it feel like we had just jumped off the side of a ship without life jackets.  But over the past two years, a new routine has emerged.  And it is beautiful.

Oddly enough, I realized today that I really don’t mind having an audience while using the “potty.”  (OK, that might be a little too much information, but if you’re a mom, you know what I’m talking about!) And I actually enjoy the noisy background music of my life these days, which includes but is not limited to the following: streams of incomprehensible babble, all-too-familiar strings of “no”, laughter with spurts of uncontrollable giggling, and the occasional temper tantrum…. or two. It just took a week of peace and quiet, listening to nothing but the sound of the ocean rolling in to realize that I kinda like the sometimes-chaotic-clatter that fills this house. 

 I also decided I really don’t mind peanut butter crackers for lunch.  (Especially when it involves watching my goofy little girl smear it all over her face in pure delight!) Nor do I mind our regular Tuesday pizza night, even though a week ago I was sitting outside with an ocean view sipping a mai-tai and eating fresh seafood.  I'll be honest. I think I get just as excited as the kids when Daddy walks in with that big white box of Palio's pepperoni pizza every Tuesday night after work.  That box means so much more than dinner.  It represents our routine, which some days I know I take for granted.  But those are the moments that truly make my heart smile, over and over again.  The regular, everyday moments.  The usual stuff.  

 I may have enjoyed every blissful moment on a tropical island many, many miles away, but it could never compare to this place…. Home.