Bittersweet Bygones

Jane, whose bloggy button giveaway I won a week or so ago (really, I did - I've won two bloggity giveaways now), threw down this topic for this weeks Makes Me Smile Monday:

*Memory*

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This picture recently surfaced from one of the many (oh, so many) Rubbermaid boxes of photos located in key, strategic, and easily forgettable places in my house.

This is early June 2003; Prince Tatertot is only a week old and Princess Pinky (who at that time would have demanded the title Princess Blue) is twenty-one months old.

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Oh, a picture really is worth a thousand words. I can think of a few here as I gaze at this one:

Puffy,

Tired,

MaryKay-ed (whew, that eyeliner - seriously!),

Proud,

Happy.

There are a few twinges, too. Twinges of loss, of, "where did the years go?" Twinges of stupid anger, useless, frustrating, "what if's," - what if I'd been able to stand still while my two, and then three, children were so young instead of moving twice in two-and-a-half years? What if I'd been able to focus more on mommying and less on twice creating the facade of a sparkling home, ones that would sell quickly so we could finally move onward with our lives?

Memory is a deceptive beast; I look at this picture and remember being happy to hold them both so tightly in my arms.

But if I give myself permission to dig deeper, I remember how overwhelmed I was, how tired, how I cried in the shower when the exhaustion of pulling myself up by the bootstraps simply won out over my willed optimism.

I wasn't post-partum, just a mom of two babies who each needed all of me. Every day, I divided myself in two as best I could and tried to survive until Knute walked in the door.

One day he was late and didn't call; when he walked in past his usual time I told him,

You are my CALVARY!

And he understood immediately.

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Those days of double-strollering to the park are gone for me. Princess Pinky is almost done first grade, Prince Tatertot is readying for kindergarten, and Sir Screamsalot is so freakishly smart and fast on their heels that I've deemed him our little Briefcase Boy.

I drive by the park on my way to Prince Tatertot's preschool, racing against the clock to make the pick up time for both him and Princess Pinky's school (both 3:15 pm; I've learned to bend time), and I see mommies and tots a-swarming the swings and slides.

I miss it.

I miss being the star they both circled through their days. I miss the simplicity of snack time, and diaper changes, and footie pjs on chilly nights. I miss holding them both on my lap at the same time as we all giggled at the Wiggles.

But that memory, oh deceptive fiend, you! There is much underneath the sunshiney days that I remember, too.

Double meltdowns.

Pinching, scratching and pushing.

Naptimes gone fearfully and tearfully awry.

Clinginess by both at the same time, turning me into a two-legged possum mama.

Never-ceasing, ever-screaming need for all of me, all of the time

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It is good that we can only go forward in this life, good that our eyes seek the horizon of new hopes and ideas and dreams.

Life is now, not then, distilled into a million images captured by a lens.

Life is now, and life is good.

WM