Joshua (left) with Reuben, taken on 26 April 2009.
I can hardly believe that it’s been nearly 7 months since Reuben and Joshua were born. (It will be 7 calendar months a week tomorrow.) On the whole, it’s been a really amazing journey so far.
I’ve often thought that I should be writing this down, if not on my blog then in a private journal, but I’ve just been too tired. And those few occasions where I have had the space I’ve either not had the inspiration or have had too many other priorities clamouring for attention — the little things of everyday life that I took for granted with my oceans of available time.
The hardest thing
Before Reuben and Joshua were born when I spoke with parents about caring for babies they all said the same thing: that the hardest thing would be the lack of sleep.
But it’s not. The hardest thing that I found was the crying.
And the babies’ crying came a close second!
Seriously though, it took me a good 3-4 months to get used to their crying. To not take it personally, and to really begin to listen to what it was; listening to the nuances of their cries, which cries mean “I’m tired” or “I’m hungry” or simply “I’m winding down towards sleep now”.
Until then, and the lack of sleep really didn’t help, I found myself getting more and more wound up and angry at myself for feeling annoyed that they wouldn’t sleep when really that’s what I most wanted to do. That was the hardest bit really.
Thankfully, things are a lot easier now. I’m much calmer and am getting more sleep; I’m probably getting about 5 hours a night which is all I really need, to be honest. Reuben and Joshua are also sleeping longer now from around 19:00 – 23:00 when we wake them for a night/dream feed. Then they sleep through to anywhere between 04:30 and 07:00.
The best thing
The best thing though is simply Reuben and Joshua. They are adorable! We could not hope for two more wonderfully content and lovely babies.
It’s funny, I don’t think of them as babies — I just think of them as a very young Reuben and Joshua. And we don’t call them “the twins” either. They are always “Reuben and Joshua” (and always in that order, it’s a chronological thing!).
I love spending time with them.
Someone gave us a page-a-day calendar that has all these baby-related quotations on them. Yesterday’s said
Children spell ‘love’: t-i-m-e.
And I thought, well that’s not strictly true, is it? Apostrophes have quite complex grammatical rules that most children probably don’t fully grasp. And that sentence doesn’t take into account non-English speaking children. A child in France, for example, wouldn’t spell ‘love’ like that. Or in Germany.
Recent developments
There have been so many changes over the last few months, but last week Reuben and Joshua both began to sit up, which has transformed them from these flailing babies lying on the floor — and beginning to roll over onto their fronts and back again — to beginning to really look like little boys. It’s been a delight to watch.
This morning they took their first breakfasts sitting in their new Ikea high chairs.
It’ll be exciting to see what tomorrow brings. I promise I’ll start to blog more … but for now, I’ve got a sermon to finish for Sunday!
